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Thanks for the links. Qbserve looks awesome! I'm having a problem though, since I'm using a work Mac and a home Mac, I won't be able to sync. As far as I read

Thanks for the links. Qbserve looks awesome! I'm having a problem though, since I'm using a work Mac and a home Mac, I won't be able to sync. As far as I read from the website: > For the same reason, there is no sync. Sorry, multiple Mac owners! We wish we could do that some day, but it's a tricky task because Qbserve doesn't use any server at all. And I wanted to ask, is this feature planned?

danso 9y ago
I use Qbserve, can vouch for it being a very nice tracking system. Can't vouch about its privacy guarantees, but only because I haven't double-checked them. (I use Qbserve only on my work computer on which I don't plan on doing anything I wouldn't my employer to know). It does have some kind of database in which URLs/programs have a crowdsourced taxonomy. For example, I think news.ycombinator.com is by default flagged as "Distracting" activity. For sites/programs that haven't been classified as "Productive" or "Distracting", things are put into a "Neutral/Uncategorized" bucket. And you can go into the details panel and manually classify the content for yourself. When doing the classification, there is a checkbox for "Send to developers to improve Qbserve": https://imgur.com/a/Rei0e https://imgur.com/a/Rei0e I have no reason to assume that that checkbox is obeyed, or that info isn't leaked in other ways -- but just saying I haven't tried to verify it FWIW. There was a front-page Show HN from Qbserve 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077
ivm 9y ago
Yes and no – I doubt that we will have enough resources to build a real sync because it's really hard to implement but only a small number of people will use it. It could be possible by making a "team edition" and recovering costs by selling the app to companies but I really don't like the idea of managers spying on their teams by using Qbserve. But I was contemplating an idea of merging scheduled exports from multiple Macs with a simple web app.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  Maybe make a multi-computer db selector? That way you don't have to merge databases with a sync algo, just give a drop-down to view your other computers dbs in a read only fashion from some dropbox drive or similar.
  - ivm 9y ago
    According to the feedback we've got, the usual goal is to see combined stats from multiple sources. I also have a suspicion that having a DB with multiple connections in a cloud storage wouldn't end well.
    - woolvalley 9y ago
      It depends if those cloud sync folders do atomic swaps of the files once they do a sync update or if they update in place as your reading the file. The key is making the 'other computers' dbs readonly from the perspective of the client view rendering app.

danso 9y ago

I use Qbserve, can vouch for it being a very nice tracking system. Can't vouch about its privacy guarantees, but only because I haven't double-checked them. (I use Qbserve only on my work computer on which I don't plan on doing anything I wouldn't my employer to know). It does have some kind of database in which URLs/programs have a crowdsourced taxonomy. For example, I think news.ycombinator.com is by default flagged as "Distracting" activity. For sites/programs that haven't been classified as "Productive" or "Distracting", things are put into a "Neutral/Uncategorized" bucket. And you can go into the details panel and manually classify the content for yourself. When doing the classification, there is a checkbox for "Send to developers to improve Qbserve": https://imgur.com/a/Rei0e https://imgur.com/a/Rei0e I have no reason to assume that that checkbox is obeyed, or that info isn't leaked in other ways -- but just saying I haven't tried to verify it FWIW. There was a front-page Show HN from Qbserve 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077

ivm 9y ago

Yes and no – I doubt that we will have enough resources to build a real sync because it's really hard to implement but only a small number of people will use it. It could be possible by making a "team edition" and recovering costs by selling the app to companies but I really don't like the idea of managers spying on their teams by using Qbserve. But I was contemplating an idea of merging scheduled exports from multiple Macs with a simple web app.

woolvalley 9y ago
Maybe make a multi-computer db selector? That way you don't have to merge databases with a sync algo, just give a drop-down to view your other computers dbs in a read only fashion from some dropbox drive or similar.
- ivm 9y ago
  According to the feedback we've got, the usual goal is to see combined stats from multiple sources. I also have a suspicion that having a DB with multiple connections in a cloud storage wouldn't end well.
  - woolvalley 9y ago
    It depends if those cloud sync folders do atomic swaps of the files once they do a sync update or if they update in place as your reading the file. The key is making the 'other computers' dbs readonly from the perspective of the client view rendering app.