My micro-ISV Way

Eternity remembers which of the Activities/Favorites/Recents you used before exiting the app and will show it automatically when you open it again. Just to save you some seconds when you’re in a rush It does not apply to Logs, Reports and Settings screen however. I assume that what you want to do quickly after opening the app is to start or stop a timer. If you want to analyze logs or reports, you probably have some extra seconds for it

When editing activity, you can now assign a color. It will be used on all activities list and on pie charts. It should make it easier for you to highlight some of your activities on the lists and find them. Colors are now also consistently shown on pie charts. Whether an acivity has a color assigned explicitely by you, or not, it will not change when you navigate pie charts (shift or change presented interval). That was a main complain related to charts so now it’s gone too

If you like your log entries to be nice and round now Eternity can make them so for you automatically As long as a timer goes, it will be exact to a second. Once it’s stopped, seconds will be rounded.

Start time for in progress timer is not rounded on start so you don’t jump with “Gee, I’m 44s behind!” when starting something at 08:30:44

This will be a welcomed addition for heavy noters, I hope There had been some troubles in 1.6 related to device orientation handling and disappearing keyboard but they were solved by 1.6.1 bugfix update.

Initially I wanted to include calendar-like logs presentation in this update. It would be pinch-zoomable, touch-adjustable and absolutely fantastic in any way you can imagine It worked beautifully! But only on an iPhone Simulator, on my MacBook  :-(. On real devices there were graphical glitches and artifacts which would not be acceptable in a final product. I invested quite a lot of time implementing it but was forced to put it on a back burner just to push this update out the door. But I will get back to it!

That’s all folks . Big THANK YOU to all users who provided feedback and helped in testing! Enjoy .

Eternity 1.7 is available on App Store with the following new features:

• Log entry tagging
• Log entry continue with note & tags
• Report filters (full version only)
• WiFi data backup (full version only)
• Support for iOS 4, retina display and other minor improvements

Log entry tagging

Log entry tagging adds another level of flexibility to time tracking and reporting. In addition to defining any activities hierarchy you like, you can now also tag your log entries across hierarchies. Tags are not only notes on steroids for repeatable texts but also work with report filters (new in 1.7) for advanced and flexible reports.

So now you have activities hierarchy for general structure, tags for cross-hierarchy classification and reports with filers to make it all work together.

Tags are accessible in two ways. You can add and assign tags to any individual log entry from a timer screen or log entry edit screen…

…or you can go to “More tab”->Tags to add, rename or delete any tag. If you try to delete a tag that is assigned to an entry, you’ll get a warning.

To add a new tag, just tap on the search bar, start typing and you’ll get search results based on the “Starts with”, “Contains” or “Ends with” criteria. If you find the desired tag, use it. If you don’t, add it.

Searching works this way for selecting/unselecting, deleting and renaming as well. Just start typing and work with the search results.

Log entry continue with note & tags

Since now you can have notes and tags assigned to your entries, you can reuse them to continue your activities without re-entering the same data. If the last entry on the timer screen had a note or tags assigned you can tap “Continue” to run a new timer with this info assigned or “Start” to run a fresh one without note and tags. You can also do that from any log entry on Logs tab.

Report filters

Filters are menat to add more flexibility to report generation. They can also let you learn about your daily habits and patterns.

You can define your report filters on Reports->top-right-icon->Filters. You can give a filter a descriptive name like “Weekend work”, “Workday evenings” or “Projects – design”. There are 4 filtering criteria to choose from: activities, tags, weekdays and hour ranges. You can enable/disable each individual criteria or make it inclusive or exclusive any time. Once you apply a filter, it’s shown as the first row in the report. Tap on the filter row to select another one or tap (>) to modify the filtering criteria.

Defining criteria should be really straightforward.

Example 1 “Weekend work”: activities – include “work”; weekdays – include Saturday and Sunday.

Example 2 “Weekday evenings”: weekdays – exclude  Saturday and Sunday; hours – include 6:00 pm – 00:00 am.

Example 3 “Projects – design”: tags – include any tag: design

You can modify this of course. Like excluding sleep activity in Example 2.

WiFi backup

Eternity database is backed up every time your backup your device in iTunes. You can restore from itunes backup and Eternity data will be restored as well. But restoring the whole device is not always convenient. For example when you want to restore your device to a clean, fresh OS installation or just move Eternity data from one device to another. WiFi backup and restore can help you in such situation. You’ll need your device connected to a local WiFi network and a PC or Mac with a web browser.

To backup or restore your data go to More->Bakcup and tap the Backup button.

Tap on Backup and Eternity will prepare a backup file and let you know when it’s ready for download. Open a browser on your PC/Mac, type the address and click the backup link to download the file.

Similarly, when you want to restore from backup, go to More->Backup and tap Restore. Type the address in your browser and follow the instructions to upload the backup file to restore from. Once uploaded, the file will be verified on your device and you’ll be asked for final confirmation.

Don’t close the screen or lock your device during the backup/restore operations.

The backup mechanism uses port 27000 for Eternity<->web browser communication. If you have any problems accessing the backup page in the browser, please make sure you have this port open in your PC/Mac firewall.

Support for iOS 4, retina display and other minor improvements

Eternity 1.7 adds support for iOS 4.0 Fast App Switching and it has updated artwork to look better on your iPhone 4 retina display. There are also some small improvements in log entry editing and report generation.

Enjoy .

Eternity 1.6.1 is available on App Store with the following new features:

• Favorites/Recents
• Activities color coding
• Automatic seconds rounding
• Custom reports
• Per report row log entries listing
• Native email client support for reports exporting and feedback
  
• Logs presentation ordering
• Landscape mode support for notes editing

Favorites/Recents

You can add activities to Favorites when editing them, you can add from the Favorites edit screen. You can also auto-generate your Favorites list from the top 10 most frequently used activities in the last 7 days. Our lifes are usually structured around weekly rhythm so I think it makes sense. If you add manually you’re free to add as many as you like, of course, and reorder to your taste.

Recents list is generated automatically from the 10 recently started timers. I hope it’s a nice addition to the Favorites.

This way you can have deep hierarchies and still have quick access to the ones you choose, use most and used recently. Favorites auto-generation is an easy way to refresh the list when your activity patterns change over time.

Eternity remembers which of the Activities/Favorites/Recents you used before exiting the app and will show it automatically when you open it again. Just to save you some seconds when you’re in a rush It does not apply to Logs, Reports and Settings screen however. I assume that what you want to do quickly after opening the app is to start or stop a timer. If you want to analyze logs or reports, you probably have some extra seconds for it

Activities color coding

When editing activity, you can now assign a color. It will be used on all activities list and on pie charts. It should make it easier for you to highlight some of your activities on the lists and find them. Colors are now also consistently shown on pie charts. Whether an acivity has a color assigned explicitely by you, or not, it will not change when you navigate pie charts (shift or change presented interval). That was a main complain related to charts so now it’s gone too

Automatic seconds rounding

If you like your log entries to be nice and round now Eternity can make them so for you automatically As long as a timer goes, it will be exact to a second. Once it’s stopped, seconds will be rounded.

Example: projectA started: 08:10:23 stopped: 08:15:46 will be rounded to 08:10:00 – 08:15:00 after the timer is stopped. The only exception is when the entry is started and stopped the same minute: projectB 08:20:15 – 08:20:44 will be rounded to 08:20:00 – 08:21:00.
Start time for in progress timer is not rounded on start so you don’t jump with “Gee, I’m 44s behind!” when starting something at 08:30:44

This feature is disabled by default and can be enabled on Settings.

Custom reports

This feature is only available in the paid version. You can access it from Reports>Top-right icon>Custom report. Just select any date range and a report will be generated for it. You can go back and forth using arrow buttons besides the date button and the interval will be shifted by the amount of days in your original cutom report. Change dates by tapping on the date button. Easily go back to the last shown daily/weekly/monthly report by tapping on the button at the top. You can of course see a pie chart for a custom report by turning your iPod/iPhone to landscape position.

Per report row log entries listing

Tapping on a report row, presents a list of all log entries related to given activity hierarchy and time interval. To change hierarchy level you now tap on a (>) button in a given report row.

Native email client support for reports exporting and feedback (iPhone OS >= 3.0)

Eternity now supports native email client interface on devices with iPhone OS >= 3.0. Up to 1.6 update Eternity used my server to format and send emails since 3rd party apps on iPhone OS < 3.0 could not send emails with attachments. This had its drawbacks: if server was down, you could not send report, some email servers have black and white lists for incoming email servers because of spam. Now you can edit email content and send emails using native iPhone email client and email servers you have defined on it. No single point of failure, more power to the users.

Logs presentation ordering (earliest/latest first)

Some users like to have their logs presented earliest first, some latest first. The best approach – make it configurable. Now you can change it with tapping on one button and Eternity will remember it. This applies to “Insert/delete” mode also. The “Earliest/Latest first” presents action, not state (so it tells you what will actually happen when you tap, not what the current mode is). It’s always a tricky choice, but just to make it consistent with the “Insert/delete button”, which obviously must be action oriented, I decided for it.

Landscape mode support for notes editing

This will be a welcomed addition for heavy noters, I hope There had been some troubles in 1.6 related to device orientation handling and disappearing keyboard but they were solved by 1.6.1 bugfix update.

What’s not in the update?

Initially I wanted to include calendar-like logs presentation in this update. It would be pinch-zoomable, touch-adjustable and absolutely fantastic in any way you can imagine It worked beautifully! But only on an iPhone Simulator, on my MacBook  . On real devices there were graphical glitches and artifacts which would not be acceptable in a final product. I invested quite a lot of time implementing it but was forced to put it on a back burner just to push this update out the door. But I will get back to it!

That’s all folks . Big THANK YOU to all users who provided feedback and helped in testing! Enjoy .

What is it? SimpleGoals is a free app that can help you to stay on track with your goals/habits like: “Exercise 4 times a week”, “Read 2 books each month” or “Watch TV 3 times a week max”.

How can it help? Some of the users of my Eternity app made an interesting observation that having a record of what they do keeps them focused and motivated. They just don’t want to “screw the record”. That’s not the only reason of course, but it obviously helps many users to trick their mind into overcoming procrastination and keep going. But Eternity is a time tracking app, and, even as simple as it is, tracking time is an overkill for a lot of people who, potentially, could benefit from such “record-keeping” approach.

So SimpleGoals focuses on just that. Define your small goals/habits and enter them on your iPhone/iPod. Then, every day, be honest with yourself and put a checkmark where appropriate. Positive goal – you won today , negative – you lost . Simple! Daily, weekly and monthly counts easily accessible. “It’s a simple list with checkmarks!”. Yes, it is. I had many ideas for “improvements”, but decided to start with the simplest approach that worked for me as the user of such app. And working on it was really two steps forward, one step back for me.

It’s good to have the simple goals and habits written somewhere to keep yourself accountable. Otherwise we tend to “forget” our little goals, zone them out from our conscience. But they are important. Exercising 3 times a week can build your strength and endurance enormously over time. Reading every day can built your knowledge. Avoiding watching TV can save you years of time over your lifetime. Little by little, simple things add up.

That’s why the default view is “today” view. Because today is the most important day. Can you remember what you did yesterday – most probably, the day before yesterday – possibly, 5 days ago – hmmm… That’s a good reason to keep your list up to date. Every day.

That’s why there are blank checkmarks visible. They are crying to go green Will you let them down?

SimpleGoals App Store link if you’d like to give it a try.

That’s it! It’s been a year since Eternity debuted on App Store. For 4.99$. So, to celebrate that, it’s available for 4.99$ again! Until Monday , November 23.

When I first saw it, it was so cute and helpless. It had only 3 tabs, no data export, no settings, no charts… The time. It goes by so fast (gasp) ….

This is business of course – no reason to pretend it’s not. BUT, with a bit of personal touch

Don’t wait for the next sale. Omne trinum perfectum

I’ve just finished reading a great book – “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” by George Orwell. You’ve probably heard about his famous “1984″ and “Animal Farm”, but what a heck is this one? And what is aspidistra?

Read the title of this post again. Noticed the “not”? Well, this book is clearly not about “ways to make money”. But, it’s also not a book about “wrong ways to make money”. Err, so what’s left? Well, it really tells a story of a man who decided not to make money. “What the frig? What’s a big deal about that? It’s easy not to make money. I can do it any time”. I don’t really want to spoil it for you, but here is the intro:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not

money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And

though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,

and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could

remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I

bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to

be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money

suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not

itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her

own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in

iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth

all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. . . . And now

abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these

is money.

I Corinthians xiii (adapted)

Still not curious? OK, you asked for it. You’ve been warned. This will push you over the edge. The aspidistra!!!

This is a story I wrote about a year ago, just in a case I start a blog some day. So now I have a blog and you can have some laugh…

About two hours ago I was on the beach of the Baltic sea to see a sunrise.
Last days have been rather cloudy so I didn’t have much hope. But on the east side of the sea there was a hole in the clouds above the horizon so I kept walking east.

About 4:30 the sunrise started. Heavy clouds over my head, red Sun rising over the horizon, sand and water under my feet. Great. So instead of walking, thinking nothing and enjoying the view I went “hey, why not to take a picture”. I’m not very fond of pictures and stuff, so I don’t have a “normal” camera. But I had my Nokia E50 with me.

So I put it out of my pocket, unlock, click, click, can’t go to the menu, to activate the camera (oh, this sand under the keyboard, it can get anywhere). Some walking, some looking on the sunrise, some clicking. Keys beep, when pressed, so they work, but no menu and therefore no camera. I sit on the beach to reset the phone. No luck. OK, forget the phone, enjoy the view…

But finally the damn phone comes back to my mind again. Clicking, trying to get to the menu through messages, calendar, voice menu, mysterious keys on the sides of the phone, resetting the phone, removing the battery (twice), whatever… No menu, no camera. The damn Sun doesn’t want to wait for my phone to start working and I’m not Copernicus to stop the Sun, move the Earth, stop both of them, or whatever he would do in such situation.

OK, calm down, enjoy. Beautiful sunrise. Red sun looking into the water of the sea, some clouds backlit by it – you get the picture. When the Sun goes pretty high, I guess the sunrise is over (who knows when the sunrise is over?). There are still clouds over me and it starts raining so it’s time to go home. No picture. Pity.

So I turn back and go west. Sunshine, rain – you know the formula: a beautiful rainbow appears on the west, half of it above the sea! And it’s a double rainbow!! Oh, that’s enough!!! Clicking, clicking, maybe this will work, maybe that, maybe this time… No. No menu, no camera.

I gave up. Sunshine in the back, sand, water, rain, rainbow in the front and only few other people on this beach sharing the experience. Very nice moments when I think of them now.

But getting back to the phones usability in panic situations. When I got back home, it turned out the menu worked just fine.
So what happened? I was just hitting the wrong key! I was hitting the “C” key on the right side of the joystick, instead of the “whatever is pictured on it” key on the left side (or east and west as I’ll probably remember them from now on . Well, not to make a complete idiot of myself, I was hitting “C” most of the time. When I was hitting the other one, I pressed it for too long, because it wasn’t responding well, because of the sand under the keyboard, because I have spent the last few days on the beach. And when I pressed that key for too long, the phone did not show the menu, it displayed “Standby” icon, which did “I’m not sure what” and back then I was too afraid to check . This is a classic example of a chain of events leading to a “panic situation“.

Well, I’m not a complete moron (however I’m not so sure of it now ).  And I’m not a complete phone-illiterate, mind you. I’m probably even in the phone geek camp, trying to develop Java apps for phones.

So why was I hitting “C” for “menu” in the first place?
I’m not sure, maybe the “menu” key didn’t respond for the first time because of the sand so I went to “C” and continued to operate in “panic mode“, because I couldn’t stop the Sun from rising .

“Phone geek, heh?” you say. “So get an iPhone, slide to unlock, select the camera, …”. Well, I’m writing this on a MacBook and I have to say I really like it and OS X, and Mr. Jobs and so on. But I tried to synchronize my MacBook with my Nokia via Bluetooth the night before and it didn’t work. Mac advised me to reset the phone but this didn’t help. Deleting phone settings from Mac and pairing both devices again did. Therefore it was probably Mac’s fault, so it’s not all “black or white”.

I’m interested in usability, design and stuff like that and funny situations like described above put me from “panic mode” into “think mode”. I’m sorry, I can’t show you two nice pictures. But I can share this little story.

Update: It turned out I became and iPhone developer shortly after that .

I’m back from vacation (since about a week ). Eternity 1.5.1 is available on App Store with some bugfixes and the much requested activities hierarchy reorganization feature.

Update 1.5.2 has been just submitted to Apple for review with one bugfix: duplicate entries when re-editing a newly added activity. This a nasty bug that’s probably visible to many first time users, since they likely add and modify activities a lot at the beginning. I’m not comfortable with bothering Apple reviewers with a one-bugfix update, but what can I do, more nasty bugs?

Today I’m going on a short vacation. This will be my first vacation as a self-employed employee . My boss had objections, but he agreed eventually when I promised I’ll be checking email regularly .

To celebrate that a bit and let my customers celebrate too I decided to offer Eternity for half the price until I’m back ! If you considered a fresh purchase or an upgrade from Lite version this may be a good reason to go ahead with it now.

BTW. Update 1.5.1 has been just submitted to Apple for review. As a minor update it contains some bugfixes and stability improvements. However I managed to include one much requested feature: moving activities across hierarchies. I hope it will be out around the time I’m back from my trip.

Enjoy !