Without an extremely good (read: loud) alarm clock ruining the party, it’s all too tempting to stay in bed just a little bit longer.

So if you don’t have a decent alarm clock, you know you’re in big trouble. A lot of people use their cellphone’s alarm, but that’s often just a mediocre solution.

We’ve scoured the internet looking for free alternative alarm clocks; great applications for your PC, Mac, Windows Mobile, iPhone and even Android that’ll make waking up a delight. Or at least a little bit easier.

(Windows) College Alarm Clock

Strangely enough, free alarm clocks for Windows are the hardest to find. An incredible application, but sadly costing $12, is the Citrus Alarm Clock.

When looking for a free Windows alarm clock, our biggest sacrifice is going to be the eye-candy. College Alarm Clock – these days unsupported by its developer, but still available for download – doesn’t look like much, but it comes packed with a truckload of functionality.

As the name implies, this alarm clock can especially come in handy for college students. It allows you to set different alarms for each day, and to skip a day, if need be or if the need is just high. You can use your own music to awaken, play a CD, or go with the old fashioned Beep.

College Alarm Clock isn’t a big comfort on the eye, but it does everything a decent alarm clock needs to do, and more.

(Mac) Alarm Clock 2

Alarm Clock 2 was developed by Robbie Hanson. This alarm clock looks like a typical Mac app; a slick design and incredibly simple interface. Don’t be fooled, it has a few surprises under the hood.

The application wakes your computer out of sleep mode, so you won’t have to keep your computer running. You can set up as many alarms (and timers and stopwatches) as you want, creating a different alarm for each day of the week, if you need it. Play an irritating array of sounds, or pick soothing music right out of your iTunes library.

(Web) Sleep.FM

Don’t like the preceding two applications? Maybe you’ll like this one better. Being an online web-app, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Mac, PC or Penguin.

You can set two personal alarms. Due to the limited interface, these can’t be recurring or date-dependent. More originally, you can choose to wake up with a weather broadcast, or a voicing of the current time or date. Prefer to wake up to a female voice? Check the top-right page corner.

Tina has also previously profiled some more online alarm clock apps.

(iPhone) Alarm Clock Free

There are hardly any free alarm clocks available for the iPhone. True, most of them don’t even pass the one Dollar mark, but we still prefer free.

Alarm Clock Free, as you might’ve guessed from the name, is one of those scarce free alarms. Nevertheless, you’ll never need another one. This alarm clock supports all basic functionality, and does so in style. Set multiple alarms, wake up to a sound or to your own music, and better yet, be sure to use that big Snooze button!

(Windows Mobile & Android) Klaxon

For Windows Mobile, I’ve long been a fan of G-Alarm. It’s an ex-freeware alarm clock that forces math puzzles on you before you’re able to snooze. The app has now turned payware, costing around €5.

Klaxon is a Windows Mobile – and recently Android – alternative that (aside from the math puzzles) is very similar in style and quality.

It’s a slick, dark app that allows you to set multiple day-dependant alarms with your own music. One of the more original features of the alarm clock is that you can snooze by turning your phone upside down, or turn the alarm off completely by giving it a wild shake.

Download Klaxon here for Windows Mobile, and here for Android.

Do you ever use your computer or mobile to wake up? Tell us what (free) applications or websites you use in the comments section below!

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Looking through the Android Market, I have come to the conclusion that there is a lot of crap in there (busty bikini girls washing your Android screen with soap and water, while grinning insanely at you?) but there are also a lot of gems.   Finding those gems can be really difficult, unless you know exactly what you are looking for.  I have found things simply by thinking to myself “what would be useful to me?   What do I need on a phone?”.   Busty bikini girls are definately not on that list but the following items are.

So let’s start once again at looking at some of the things you should consider installing on your Droid.

PicSay

I have an excellent camera on my phone but nevertheless, some photos just don’t come out the way I want them to.   In the absence of an official Photoshop app for the Android, PicSay is a suitable alternative in the meantime.

As well as being able to alter the photo in terms of contrast, brightness and many more (see the screenshot to the left for examples), you can also add fun special effects such as word balloons, titles, graphics, color correction and highlighting.  Just increase or decrease the desired special effect by running your finger over the bar at the bottom of the screen and see the photo being updated in real time.

PicSay then saves the altered photos in its own folder on your phone so if you ever need the original photo for whatever reason then it’s still there.

A great app and one that is definately needed if you use your phone camera a lot.

WikiMobile

OK, you could go to the mobile Wikipedia website but that is just a stripped down bare-bones version of the regular Wikipedia site.  WikiMobile on the other hand is another version of Wikipedia which has some extra features I like when I am looking for some obscure fact while out on the road.

Searching for a topic is as simple as inputting it into the search box.   Entries are laid out on the screen nice and compactly, and are easy to read.

If you don’t know what you are looking for, try clicking “Random Article” to see….yes, you guessed it….a random article!   Clicking it just now took me to the page for “naked imperialism” while clicking it again took me to the page about koala bears.   You can also click the popular button to…do you need me to spell it all out?   Nah, I guessed not.  You can work out all by yourself what the “popular” button does.

With “My Bookmarks“, you can easily save WikiMobile entries to a bookmarks section for later reading.   Just go to the entry you want to save, tap your menu and choose “add bookmark“.  Now article research is made much easier and those visits to the doctor’s waiting room need not be boring ever again.   Who needs to read a woman’s magazine when you can read about how to build a fractional rig on a boat?

Barcode Scanner

This one is limited in its usefulness but I included Barcode Scanner because I still like it and I love the looks I get in shops when I walk up to products and zap the bar code with my phone!

Starting the app, you will get the red laser-like line across the middle of your screen.   Just place the barcode completely within your screen with the red line through the middle.   Hold it steady for 30 seconds or so and the barcode scanner will then give you the option to open a product search or a web search.   Both options lead to Google so I recommend going with the web search.

The app is most successful with books as it takes you to the book on Google Books.   I particularly like this part as I am often in bookshops, trying to figure out whether to buy a particular book or not.  Now I can just get my phone out, scan the barcode and then quickly scan the relevant book reviews on Google Books.   No more buying total stinkers.

Nightwatch

Nightwatch turns your Android phone into a glowing alarm clock.   You will need to either lay the phone down on its side (the screen turns as you turn the phone) or you will need to buy/make a stand for it to sit on.   But either way, this allows you to see the time in the dark and set your alarms effectively.

The clock is very customisable :

• Choose from either an analog clock or a digital clock.
• Choose how you want the date to be shown.
• Choose 24 hour clock or am/pm.
• Choose how bright you want the screen.
• Choose how loud you want the volumes to be.
• Choose what colours you want the screen to be.

Process Monitor

This one is perhaps one of the most important ones of all and I don’t understand why Android doesn’t include this as a default function.   Process Monitor is basically an app to mimic Windows’s Task Manager.   You can see a list of all running apps with the ability to either kill the application (shut it down) or open it.  To choose, just press down on the desired app and wait for the pop-up menu to show.

One of the things you have to bear in mind about an Android phone is that the battery is not that great.   If you use the internet and apps on it quite a lot, the battery will drain in less than a day.   So you should always be looking for ways to decrease the pressure on the battery such as disabling needless taskbar notifications and killing unneeded apps.   Since Android doesn’t have a similar default app, Process Monitor is definately needed.   As well as showing all the currently running apps, PM also shows you the level of your battery and the amount of currently available memory.

So that concludes my ten recommended apps for the Google Android phone.   In the next few articles, I will be looking at the games you should be installing on your Droid as well as the best websites to view on a mobile phone.  While you are waiting for all that, let us know what you think about these 5 apps and whether you know of any better ones.   I am always open to suggestions about how to improve and refine my phone!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 10 Free Android Apps For Your New Android Mobile (Part 1) (17)
• The Best Alternative Alarm Clocks (Windows/Mac/Mobile) (12)
• MakeUseOf Your iPhone: Wikipanion (Wikipedia App) (5)
• How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (82)
• How To Install Google Android On A Windows Mobile Phone (22)

I was looking at Google Analytics reports and have noticed a lot of people searching around for a simple cross-platform, free Online alarm clock that they could use to wake themselves up. This would be something that is not installed but runs through a web browser giving it the cross platform ability. When looking for a free Online Alarm Clock, I needed a few features.

First and foremost, obviously, is the ability to wake me up. It should allow me to choose a tone and pop up a website so I can check the weather before I get dressed. It looks like I found the program I was looking for on the first try.

In addition to those meager features I was looking for it also threw this tip at me – forgo the alarm noise and wake yourself up to a youTube video – this is awesome!

Let’s take a look at MetaClock. Let’s navigate on over to their website and see what it is all about.

To set your alarm, first you need to tell MetaClock what time you want to wake up.

Next up you will need to select a tune to play – if you are going to utilize a YouTube video to wake you up you can uncheck the check box next to the “With the tune” drop down box.

Here is where I get to put in my weather website as well as a youTube video. You do NEED to make sure pop-ups are enabled for this web site and if you are having problems with that simply click the “How?” link next to ‘Make sure your browser supports pop-ups’. Then list your urls in the standard www.site.com format one on each line.

You can also choose to show random did you know facts, today in history and a countdown on your browser letting you know how much time is left until your alarm is activated and your websites are popped open.

The count down timer looks like this:

If you are using FireFox you will need to leave this countdown window on top of all your windows. It needs to have focus to launch the alarm music or spawn your pop up windows. So if you are using FireFox make sure you do this or your wake up will be converted into an epic fail…

You can see the YouTube video I choose to wake me up… Just for a good laugh

How do you wake up in the morning? Do you use a standard alarm clock? Do you have a geeky free, online alarm clock or some out of this world method for getting your lazy ass out of bed? If you do we would love to hear about it from you – simply leave a comment in the space provided below and we will be sure to add our witty banter to your comments!

And if you missed that url it is www.MetaClock.com.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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• Best Online Alarm Clocks For Naps At Work (26)
• Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless (51)

Before we get started, you must activate Gmail Gadgets by navigating to Settings then Labs and enabling “Add any gadget by URL.”

Now navigate to Settings > Gadgets to add new gadgets to your Gmail account:

All of the Gadgets listed must be installed by URL. Simply copy the URLs below and paste into your Gmail Gadgets settings box and press “Add.”

1. TwitterGadget makes it easy to view and update your Twitter account without visiting the Twitter homepage.

The URL for the Twitter Gadget is: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

2. Wikipedia Search helps you search Wikipedia directly from Gmail – whether it’s for research or just for fun.

The URL for Wikipedia Search is: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

3. Use FriendFeed? Get the FriendFeed Gmail Gadget, so you can keep track of your friends on this popular Social networking/sharing service.

The URL for the FriendFeed Gadget is: http://friendfeed.com/embed/googlegadget/spec

4. A must-have gadget for those of us who communicate regularly with people around the world is the World Clock gadget. It has locations all around the world and continuously updates the time, so you know when it’s bedtime in Paris and not to expect a speedy response to your emails!

The URL for the World Clock Gadget is: http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml

5. Track the current trends on Digg with the Digg Gadget. Features include selecting stories by sub-section and access to your settings.

The URL for the Digg Gadget is: http://digg.com/goog/ig.xml

6. The Facebook Gadget can be added directly to Gmail by adding this handy gadget. Do a lot of things you’d normally do at Facebook.com directly from your sidebar. The URL for Facebook Gadget is: http://www.brianngo.net/ig/facebook.xml

7. Quickly shorten links with the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget. Whether you are emailing links or sending to friends via Google Chat, shorten long URLs with the Bit.ly URL shortener gadget.

The URL for the Bit.ly URL Shortener Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml

8. MySpace can also be accessed via Google Gadget. Install this gadget and log in to your MySpace account to access friends, notes and more.

The URL for the MySpace Gadget is: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100080069921643878012/myspace.xml

9. Use the Google Calculator to perform simple and complex math problems or convert weights from metric to English or vice versa right from Gmail.

The URL for the Google Calculator Gadget is: http://calebegg.com/calc.xml

10. And just for fun, add the Chuck Norris facts Gadget to Gmail. Get a couple of laughs a day and some funny facts to share with friends.

The URL for the Chuck Norris Facts Gadget is: http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/chucknorris.xml

Which Google gadgets sit on YOUR Gmail sidebar?   Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Use Twitter From Gmail With TwitterGadget (4)
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• The 4 Fabulous Gmail Labs Extensions You Should Try Out (8)
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Other positive points, they are really tiny – most are less than 1 Mb in size. Some even less than 100 kb.

My recent article about a very useful menubar application called Main Menu made me aware that there are many others out there. So, after a little digging, here are few of the many.

1. aLaunch

1. aLunch is a customizable application launcher accessed from your menubar. I personally prefer Quicksilver as the launcher, but aLunch have one advantage over Quicksilver: users don’t have to remember the app name and just browser through the list instead.

2. Caffeine

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menubar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu. The menu now has a sub-menu for deactivating Caffeine automatically after a number of minutes.

This feature will be very useful if you do a lot of activities on your Mac which require staring at the display for a long time without mouse and keyboard activities, like watching movie or thinking over a design.

3. ClipMenu

ClipMenu stores clipboard histories such as plain text, rich texts format, PDF, PICT, and TIFF image. You can access in the menubar or by using hot key.

I’ve searched for a powerful but free clipboard app which can reside in the menubar. And this is it. The website itself is in Japanese, so if you don’t read Katakana-Hiragana-Kanji, you need to access the English translated page.

4. Eigenclock

Eigenclock is a menubar clock the way you want it. It features a fully customizable menu-bar display format, as well as a nice-looking calendar in a pop-up menu.

Eigenclock is now completely localizable. It determines the proper first day of the week (Monday, Sunday, Saturday) from your locale, and shows the names of the months and days in your current language. Eigenclock is currently a Leopard only application.

5. HimmelBar

HimmelBar is a little faceless application that provides an icon in the menu bar to quickly access your installed applications by scanning standard locations such as local, user, developer and network applications, and also utilities.

6. IPMenulet

IPMenulet shows the current external IP address in the menubar. If you constantly on the move and changing net connection, you will appreciate this little app.

7. iStat Menua

iStat Menus lets you monitor your system right from the menubar. Included are 8 menu extras that let you monitor every aspect of your system, such as: cpu usage, memory usage, disk usage and activity, current and total bandwidth, peak bandwidth, ip addresses, the temperature of your mac, and also fan speeds in your mac.

It is also able to show and control bluetooth status plus monitor the battery level of your Apple wireless keyboard or mouse. As a bonus, it will also display date + time in your menubar, including world clock display.

This very useful app has been discussed several times before. And as the alternative, you can also try MenuMeters.

8. MeNotes

MeNotes lets you manage personal notes and access them quickly in Menubar. Localized in English and French. There’s no web page for this app, just a direct link.

There are surprisingly many times when I need to do quick text and sometimes keep the text for a while. I find this little one quite handy in this department, and I’m sure many of the readers will feel the same.

Menubar Countdown

Menubar Countdown is a simple countdown timer that displays itself on the right side of the Mac OS X menu bar.

To set the timer, click on the display and select the Start → menu item. A dialog will appear that allows you to specify the countdown time in hours, minutes, and seconds. The dialog also allows you to specify which of the following forms of notification you want when the timer gets down to 00:00:00 such as play the system alert sound, display an alert window, make a spoken announcement. You can specify the text to be spoken.

And let us wrap the list with two iTunes menubar applications:

10. uTunes

uTunes is a simple iTunes controller. It was designed to not get in the way and thus installs itself in the menubar (next to your clock) and acts as a remote control for iTunes.

11. I Love Stars

I Love Stars allows users to easily rate the songs currently played from the menubar.

I’m fully aware that there are many-many more menubar application out there and it’s impossible to list each and every one of them out here. So, what’s your favorite menubar application? Share using the comment below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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This little download makes me think about my binary watch from way back when…

Start by browsing on over to:http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/LED-Binary-Clock-Download-15365.html and download the application.

The installer is in German but that doesn’t stop us MakeUseOf users from installing and using this awesome LED Binary Clock! It is not only cool it is also functional.

It includes a alarm so you can remember to go do whatever geeky things you need to do and not get caught up staring blankly at a bunch of blinking LED’s on your screen!

Just hit Installera and it will install. Avbryt is Cancel in case you were wondering! Once you are complete launch it from your start menu or icon and you will see the clock displayed on your desktop like so:

The settings are pretty basic as you can see below buy someone with some time on their hands could seamlessly blend it into their desktop.

And as I said before there is a Alarm setting that can set a audible alert using your own sound files as well as displaying a text message on your screen. You could also use this alarm to shut down your computer. See I knew there were practical uses for this

If you minimize the clock you can get it back by left clicking on the menu icon. The settings can be brought up by right clicking on the menu icon as well.

Go get your geek on and enjoy your weekend! Do you have tips, tricks or would you like to recommend a good free application then put us on! Feel free to email me at karl at makeUseOf dot com

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The Best Alternative Alarm Clocks (Windows/Mac/Mobile) (12)
• Capture.NET: A Swiss Army Knife For Your PC [Windows] (21)
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• A Great Free Online Alarm Clock – MetaClock (5)
• Your Computer, Your World – How to Keep Out the Mindless (51)

Simply said, GKrellM is a single process stack of system monitors that allows you to monitor your system resources easily and quickly. Apart from monitoring your computer’s status it comes with lots of plugins bringing lots of useful featureslike radio tuner, weather lookup, reminder etc.

In case you are wondering why is it called such a wierd name, the word GkrellM is actually make up of three words G-Krell-M. The G stands for GNU (some call it GTK) while the word Krell is an inspiration from the flim “Forbidden Planet” (the native in the show is called Krell). The M stands for Monitor.

When you install GKrellM, it comes with a default set of monitors, including

• Hostname/system name display.
• Clock/calendar.
• SMP CPU monitor that can chart individual CPUs and/or a composite CPU.
• Temperature, fan, and voltage sensor monitors
• Process monitor with a chart for load and forks and a display of number of current processes and users.
• Disk monitor that can chart individual disks or a composite disk.
• Internet monitor (http, ftp, …) that displays current TCP port connections and charts historical port hits for over two days.
• Net interface monitors with charts for all routed net interfaces.
• Memory and swap space usage meters, and a swap page in/out chart.
• File system meters which show capacity/free space.
• A mailbox monitor which can launch a mail reader, a mail fetch/check program, and a sound notify command.
• APM laptop battery meter with a configurable alarm and warning for low battery time left.
• Uptime display.

Configuration

Configuring GkrellM is as easy as scrolling through the options menu and checking the boxes of the options you want.

On your Gkrellm window, right click your mouse and select Configuration (alternatively, press F1 on the keyboard). This will bring up the configuration window.

In the General option, under the Properties tab, this is where you can configure Gkrellm to be on sticky mode (always show on desktop) and/or get it to dock to the panel so that it won’t show up as an active window in the window list.

The configuration window also allows you to change settings for almost every built-in monitors. In the event that you are confused by the settings, you can click on the Info tab to read the related information and documentation.

One thing that I like about GKrellM is that its give you the ability to customize and personalize the settings, yet doesn’t require you to be too technical.

Themes

Being an application based on GTK, GKrellm supports themes and is able to integrate well with all the desktop environment. The default installation comes with 5 different themes, but seriously, they are not the outstanding type that you want to keep on your desktop for long. To download new theme, go to http://www.muhri.net where you can find a great collection of attractive third party themes.

Interested users can also create your own theme by following the documentation here.

Plugins

The best thing about Gkrellm that truly distinguishes itself from its competitors is its large collection of plugins. Just a quick peek at my Synaptic Package Manager shows a page full of GKrellM’s plugins available for installation, and that’s only include those accepted in the repository. There are still plenty of unknown, yet useful third party plugins available at the Gkrellm plugins site. Some of the useful plugins that I have tried and used include gkrellm-reminder (remind you of important stuffs), gkrellm-weather (find out the weather of your area), gkrellm-xmms2 (control your XMMS2 from the desktop), gkrellm-radio (FM radio tuner) and gkrellm-mailwatch (watch your mailboxes in multiple panels).

Cross-platforms compatibility

Gkrellm is available for Linux and Windows. FreeBSD, Mac OSX, NetBSD/OpenBSD and Solaris users may have to compile from source to get it working. Mac users can check out the darwinport for instructions to port GKrellM over to Mac.

Are you a user of GKrellM? We would like to hear your experience with GKrellM in the comment.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Have you ever had to monitor several items simultaneously?

Maybe you needed to time that cake in the oven or when to give your child his/her medicine next? Any which way this web site called E.ggtimer has got you covered. It’s one of a kind online count down timer that you’re likely to find very handy.

Every so often I get a few admin tasks I need to do such as run a few trace routes and monitor a log file at specific intervals. That’s all well and good until 4 other tasks come along and severely distract me. For important events my Outlook calendar will pop up and let me know it is time for my next meeting or some other sort of activity.

But now if I launch an egg timer for each item and keep them open, when it comes time to do something my window will show “Time Expired” and beep. So turn up your speakers, fire up your browser and lets see what’s what.

I can think of lots of instances where this will come in handy! Now check out how easy it is to use.

When you first get to the website this is what you will see:

So this works like a command line website. We all love the command line right?

You put your parameters into the URL. So if I need a 10 minute timer to let me know that I shouldn’t be napping because the chairman of the board is going to swing by so I can look at his laptop I would go to my favorite browser and type:

http://e.ggtimer.com/10minutes

That will give you this screen:

Very large text displaying your countdown using a flash design. When the countdown gets closer to completion the status bars will become darker. So you can be looking at the screen from clear across the room and still be able to discern what’s up!

The syntax is very simple. If you type in the URL with /10 it will be 10 seconds. Any number without a designation is taken as seconds. If you want minutes just write /10minutes. You can use Minutes, Hours, Days, Months and Years.

Can you think of some interesting uses for this web app? Maybe you use something similar – but better. Let us know in the comments guys!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Fortunately, online stopwatches are easy to find & to use.

Gently enhance the value of your time by making intelligent use of one of these free stopwatches.

Punch In & Out

It’s easy to lose track of time when you’ve got 1) the internet as a playground, & 2) a nice, cozy couch to rest on while you work.

Instead of losing huge chunks of time during a stay-at-home workday, practice a procedure of punching in & out using a clock.  Whenever you begin working, simply start the clock. (My favorite version is this one, a simple full-screen online stopwatch which I can keep minimized at the bottom of my screen as I work).  When you take a break, even if it’s only a quick restroom break, stop the clock. When you resume your work, start the clock again.

Simple. Punch in & punch out. However, don’t waste time after you’ve punched in. Stay on task.  If you find yourself drifting, punch out and give yourself a little pep talk before punching in again.

Log Your Results

Recently, I wrote about the benefits of using the Firefox extension Zotero. This free application allows you to easily drag & drop online material into a notebook extension. Zotero is great to use when paired with an online stopwatch widget called Chronme.

Chronme not only counts time, but it also logs the date & time of day when you put it to use.  This is a powerful asset when you’re keeping track of your productivity, because a log is automatically retained for every break you take while working.

Periodically, you can drag & drop this data into a Zotero standalone note.

Furthermore, since Chronme is a widget, you can place it into a private blog where you can daily record your own performance.

Analyze the Data

At the end of the day, take a look at the total amount of time you worked, and try to find out when you may have wasted time. Consider practicing this experiment with a friend or two, and try to compare productivity with one another.

Perhaps your friend will be more effective in his work than you are, even if he worked less time. Perhaps not. If so however, try to discover the secret to his success.  Be willing to learn how to improve.

Make the Most of Your Time

Time can be money if you make a habit of putting your time to good use. Free up time in your day by getting the most out of the least amount of time.

Why slave for hours over a project that does not deserve more than 30 minutes of your time? By evaluating your own psychology about time, you will see that procrastination tends to waste away precious minutes, hours or even entire workdays.

Try out the methods suggested here to save yourself time & money, and feel free to suggest your own time-saving tips. We’re all ears.

Photo Credits: James Withers, Lady Amada

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Sounds interesting?  Well that is what was quoted on the developer’s site and instantly caught my attention. After trying it (and ignoring minor quirks in UI and spellings) I must say I have not been disappointed.

I am talking about capture.NET. The tool is aptly called the Swiss army knife of PC tools because it just does so many things. I must confess that after looking at the site and its presentation I was a little wary of malware. However I submitted the file to VirusTotal and the results were 0 positive on 38 engines, so I went ahead and double-clicked to launch.

The tool has a Professional Version and a Free Version. The Professional version requires you to pay $15 for a license. However the Free Version is quite a handful in itself.  The features I am discussing are all available in the free version.  If you need something extra than you may like to have a look at the Professional offering.

Let’s just have a look at some of the features that capture.NET has to offer:

Screen Captures

Capture.NET allows you to take screenshots. Just like some of the commercial applications you can take screenshots by isolating windows, regions or take full screen grabs. The tool offers you a zoomed in view of the screen to help you precisely grab just the area you like.

Basic Image Editing

The captured image is then presented to you within an image editor, where you can do some basic editing. The image editing features include the ability to:

• Crop
• Rotate
• Add edge effects like shadows, torn edges, soft edges
• Convert pictures to Ascii (Cool!)
• The basic cut, copy paste, save etc

Post it Notes

Capture.NET provides you the capability to post notes on your screen. Just hit Ctrl + Shift + N and type in your note. You have now got an instant sticky note. You can also manage your sticky notes from the context menu accessed via the tray icon.

A Privacy Eraser

A mini tool that allows you to clean temporary files, the recycle bin, clipboard, cookies, MRU lists, Windows Events Logs and perform some minor tweaks like clearing the pagefile on shutdown.

A Color Picker

A great tool for web designers and programmers.  The color picker allows you to pick any color off the screen. It also provides you with sliders to generate color schemes or if you are really stuck, hit the random button to get a random color suggestion.

A File Format Convertor

This allows you to inter-convert between the various image formats. Just browse to images you wish to convert on your hard disk, select all images that you want to convert and choose the appropriate command. File Format Converter also allows you to convert chm files to html files.

A Tweaker

Tweaker allows you to perform some basic registry tricks on your system. It provides you with detailed information about your system and ready access to the device manger and the Windows System Information utility. Tweaker also has options to restore the settings for a hijacked Internet Explorer.

A Backup Expert

Backup Expert allows you to backup your mail (Outlook) as well as Internet Explorer favorites and feeds. Though honestly I missed Firefox support here.

Alarm Clock, World Time, Timer and Time Synchronization

Apart from the basic alarm clock functionality, the tool also offers count-down/count-up timer and time synchronization with a NTP server. You can also view the different time zones and time differences readily accessible through keyboard shortcuts.

Some Other Utilities

There are plenty of other features offered by capture.NET which I would have to leave for you to explore yourself. Some of them are great for programmers like the customizable Ruler or the Window Spy which gives you important information about windows, buttons, and other UI elements. Indispensable if you are into writing Autohot key scripts, Windows Programming or something similar. Others like the font viewer, calendar and lunar phases are more for your general use.

Definitely give it a try and let us know which ones you liked or if you use any other tools for accomplishing similar tasks.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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But how do you make sure you don’t oversleep during the day, especially when you’re at work? You set an alarm! And since you’re at work, what are you going to use? Your computer, the internet and online alarm clock.

A nap is not the only situation where an online alarm clock comes in handy. Imagine you have half an hour until you need to head out for a meeting, but you need to seriously focus on something and don’t want to be bothered with watching the time.

Let’s look at some practical online alarm clocks you might want to use next time…

KuKu Klok

The Swiss made Kuku Klok offers a very basic and easy to use interface. Set the wake up time and select one of the four preset sounds.

This one’s actually terrific to play a prank on an unsuspecting individual because the electronic wake up sound is soooo horrible, almost like a smoke detector! Save this idea for April 1st or any other great occasion.

Avnoy Alarm Clock

This flash alarm clock isn’t much different from the one described above, although the three available alarm sounds are much nicer (and not suited for pranks). So why did it make it on this list? It’s stylish and it has a Snooze option which the previous tool is lacking.

Naked Alarm Clock

There really isn’t anything naked about this one and the creator admits frankly that they chose the name to make it easy to remember. All its alarm sounds are rather nasty, but hey, they’ll get your attention for sure!

Despite the ugly green color there are some very nice design ideas in this tool. For example the preset values for the minutes (black and white circles) or the 15 to 60 Minutes nap times setter, and the little info box in the bottom right which explains all buttons and functions when you move the mouse over them. All of that is very well done!

Music Alarm Clock

Finally an alarm clock that lets you pick really good alarms! The Music Alarm Clock provides some preset tunes or you can select a streaming radio station. The selection is international and not too bad. Once the alarm goes off it also offers a Snooze button for 5 minutes extra nap time.

Talking Alarm Clock (Windows)

Should you prefer to set your own tunes and should you prefer a desktop tool, I recommend the Talking Alarm Clock. It comes with a lot of options which allow you to perfectly tune your alarms.

Actually, I didn’t get it to talk to me. Apparently there is no matching “text-to-speech” engine available on my computer and I didn’t bother enough to make it work. Playing a custom media file however worked fine.

And yes, you can change the character. Along with the Dschinni there are Robby, Peedy and Merlin at your service.

For more online alarm tools, check out the MUO directory.

What are your secrets to a perfect nap at work?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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