5 ms·

For Windows, there is also TimseSnapper [1], not open source, but the developer is sometimes here on HackerNews [1] https://timesnapper.com/ https://timesnappe

For Windows, there is also TimseSnapper [1], not open source, but the developer is sometimes here on HackerNews [1] https://timesnapper.com/ https://timesnapper.com/

LeonB 3y ago
Cheers, yeh, I am here a bit.
- wartijn_ 3y ago
  That’s fast :) Do you get notified when someone mentions your product, or are you _that_ active?
  - LeonB 3y ago
    Neither, lol. Just happened across the comment within five minutes of it being posted. I think it was one of the first times I visited HN today.
    - agons 3y ago
      > one of the first times I don't think you can say it's "neither"! :)
    - pests 2y ago
      The first first time, or the second first time, maybe the third?
      - LeonB 2y ago
        Probably the first first time — but I don’t want to make a claim that’s untrue so I weakened the claim and broke the logic on the process, yeh.
- doodlebugging 3y ago
  Thanks for TimeSnapper Pro. I started using it in 2010 I think after cross-testing the field of options available. I especially like that I was able to purchase a permanent license as opposed to being locked in to a SaaS model where my time data ended up in someone else's control. Everything right on my machine where if it is lost I get all the blame so I never have to stand up from my desk and shake my fist at the cloud. Excellent product for a consultant like myself to have on hand to document everything happening on their machine. The ability to change the screenshot interval and add notes along the timeline are real power tools for someone involved in multiple projects every day. You can secure your time record snapshots with a password. Playback at multiple speeds so you can jog your memory by browsing the timeline to the exact time when you flipped to something else. Classify by project, client, etc. Really a great bit of software. I once found one of my invoiced time periods being challenged during a regular audit of one of my client's operations. I frequently billed long hours since I worked long hours on 24-hour call (remote oil and gas data processing and support of international operations). The auditor called and requested anything I had that could support a particular time period where I billed "excessive" hours (>20 consecutive). I told them I would get them everything that I had and asked whether they were interested in any other dates or time periods or work for specific projects. They narrowed it to one single invoice entry so that made it simple for me. Thanks to TimeSnapper I was able to produce a GIF movie of the screenshots (I always used a 1 minute snap interval to allow fine-grained operations review) during the requested interval that documented everything happening on screen and I provided a PDF of the notes dumped from that interval documenting phone calls taken, etc. I also sent copies of my handwritten notes I always maintain as primary memory-jogging tool. In the return note to the auditor I asked if they were interested in any other dates or time periods and offered to send an archive on their request. The auditor called me up and we talked for a while and they thanked me for the detailed records and told me they wouldn't need anything else. It really helps that my wife is a CPA/Auditor/Fraud Examiner. Tools like TimeSnapper Pro helped me in my business to maintain excellent records about day-to-day operations that made it simple for me to invoice clients for all the time that I spent on their behalf. Thanks /u/LeonB
  - LeonB 2y ago
    Wow! Thanks for sharing this!
- justinlloyd 2y ago
  Have been running TimeSnapper non-stop on my Windows laptop and Windows workstation since... January 1st, 2006 at 11:16AM. That's almost 18 years of desktop capture. Crazy to think about that. I may have been running it prior to that, but that's the first recorded date on my saved captures. 50% resolution. 60% quality. JPEG. The entire screen and any attached monitors. Hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of my daily professional and personal life. Captured once every 10 seconds. The movies I've watched. The games I've played. The thoughts I've had. The code I wrote. All of it captured. Prior to TimeSnapper for Mac I ran my own little script, and a companion one for Linux. Now I have TimeSnapper on my Macbook Pro too. And if you ever create a Linux version (or want someone to create a Linux version), let me know. I'd be happy to beta test. I've lost count of the number of times that TimeSnapper has saved my arse, either with accidentally deleted data, finding an obscure web page, proving I did something on a specific date/time, or that something happened in the way I say it did, or recovering the keys to a small amount of Ethereum and Dogecoin stored in a wallet. Thank you for TimeSnapper. It has been interesting to use it for that length of time. "Four weeks work in 9 minutes" captured by TimeSnapper where I create a video game (or three) in October of 2012 http://www.otakunozoku.com/video/working.flv http://www.otakunozoku.com/video/working.flv Sorry, it's an flv, along with an onion on your belt, it was the fashion back in the day
  - LeonB 2y ago
    Wow, Justin, cheers. It looks like the first version was available ~ mid November 2005 (via https://secretgeek.net/snapper_wins https://secretgeek.net/snapper_wins) and available from the TimeSnapper.com domain from ~ November 28 2005. (https://secretgeek.net/TimeSnapper_ready_at_last https://secretgeek.net/TimeSnapper_ready_at_last) So you got in very early! The professional version was a year or two later. cheers
- alok-g 2y ago
  I just looked at the feature comparison here: https://timesnapper.com/compare https://timesnapper.com/compare Surprised to see that "Maintain aspect ratio" is only there in the pro version. Maintaining the aspect ratio should be a basic feature.
  - LeonB 2y ago
    There are specific situations where the classic version doesn’t display the correct aspect ratio — it might be when zooming a multi monitor display projected onto a single screen dialog that has been resized. We didn’t take the time to debug that on classic, but we did on the professional.
fmos 2y ago
For time tracking with screenshots and advanced tagging based on window titles (and sometimes open documents), there is also ManicTime [1]. I don’t think it has OCR though. [1] https://www.manictime.com/ https://www.manictime.com/
- chrnola 2y ago
  ManicTime was a lifesaver when I was working as a consultant and had to attribute every hour of my week to one of several clients.
- ametrau 2y ago
  > cloud or license The free tier is bought by being a firehose of data for them.
  - jabroni_salad 2y ago
    The opposite, actually. Nothing leaves the computer you install it on, unless you specifically pay for their cloud service or stand up your own server. This is one of the reasons I chose it for myself over using timely or toggl.

For Windows, there is also TimseSnapper [1], not open source, but the developer is sometimes here on HackerNews [1] https://timesnapper.com/ https://timesnapper.com/

LeonB 3y ago

Cheers, yeh, I am here a bit.

wartijn_ 3y ago
That’s fast :) Do you get notified when someone mentions your product, or are you _that_ active?
- LeonB 3y ago
  Neither, lol. Just happened across the comment within five minutes of it being posted. I think it was one of the first times I visited HN today.
  - agons 3y ago
    > one of the first times I don't think you can say it's "neither"! :)
  - pests 2y ago
    The first first time, or the second first time, maybe the third?
    - LeonB 2y ago
      Probably the first first time — but I don’t want to make a claim that’s untrue so I weakened the claim and broke the logic on the process, yeh.
doodlebugging 3y ago
Thanks for TimeSnapper Pro. I started using it in 2010 I think after cross-testing the field of options available. I especially like that I was able to purchase a permanent license as opposed to being locked in to a SaaS model where my time data ended up in someone else's control. Everything right on my machine where if it is lost I get all the blame so I never have to stand up from my desk and shake my fist at the cloud. Excellent product for a consultant like myself to have on hand to document everything happening on their machine. The ability to change the screenshot interval and add notes along the timeline are real power tools for someone involved in multiple projects every day. You can secure your time record snapshots with a password. Playback at multiple speeds so you can jog your memory by browsing the timeline to the exact time when you flipped to something else. Classify by project, client, etc. Really a great bit of software. I once found one of my invoiced time periods being challenged during a regular audit of one of my client's operations. I frequently billed long hours since I worked long hours on 24-hour call (remote oil and gas data processing and support of international operations). The auditor called and requested anything I had that could support a particular time period where I billed "excessive" hours (>20 consecutive). I told them I would get them everything that I had and asked whether they were interested in any other dates or time periods or work for specific projects. They narrowed it to one single invoice entry so that made it simple for me. Thanks to TimeSnapper I was able to produce a GIF movie of the screenshots (I always used a 1 minute snap interval to allow fine-grained operations review) during the requested interval that documented everything happening on screen and I provided a PDF of the notes dumped from that interval documenting phone calls taken, etc. I also sent copies of my handwritten notes I always maintain as primary memory-jogging tool. In the return note to the auditor I asked if they were interested in any other dates or time periods and offered to send an archive on their request. The auditor called me up and we talked for a while and they thanked me for the detailed records and told me they wouldn't need anything else. It really helps that my wife is a CPA/Auditor/Fraud Examiner. Tools like TimeSnapper Pro helped me in my business to maintain excellent records about day-to-day operations that made it simple for me to invoice clients for all the time that I spent on their behalf. Thanks /u/LeonB
- LeonB 2y ago
  Wow! Thanks for sharing this!
justinlloyd 2y ago
Have been running TimeSnapper non-stop on my Windows laptop and Windows workstation since... January 1st, 2006 at 11:16AM. That's almost 18 years of desktop capture. Crazy to think about that. I may have been running it prior to that, but that's the first recorded date on my saved captures. 50% resolution. 60% quality. JPEG. The entire screen and any attached monitors. Hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of my daily professional and personal life. Captured once every 10 seconds. The movies I've watched. The games I've played. The thoughts I've had. The code I wrote. All of it captured. Prior to TimeSnapper for Mac I ran my own little script, and a companion one for Linux. Now I have TimeSnapper on my Macbook Pro too. And if you ever create a Linux version (or want someone to create a Linux version), let me know. I'd be happy to beta test. I've lost count of the number of times that TimeSnapper has saved my arse, either with accidentally deleted data, finding an obscure web page, proving I did something on a specific date/time, or that something happened in the way I say it did, or recovering the keys to a small amount of Ethereum and Dogecoin stored in a wallet. Thank you for TimeSnapper. It has been interesting to use it for that length of time. "Four weeks work in 9 minutes" captured by TimeSnapper where I create a video game (or three) in October of 2012 http://www.otakunozoku.com/video/working.flv http://www.otakunozoku.com/video/working.flv Sorry, it's an flv, along with an onion on your belt, it was the fashion back in the day
- LeonB 2y ago
  Wow, Justin, cheers. It looks like the first version was available ~ mid November 2005 (via https://secretgeek.net/snapper_wins https://secretgeek.net/snapper_wins) and available from the TimeSnapper.com domain from ~ November 28 2005. (https://secretgeek.net/TimeSnapper_ready_at_last https://secretgeek.net/TimeSnapper_ready_at_last) So you got in very early! The professional version was a year or two later. cheers
alok-g 2y ago
I just looked at the feature comparison here: https://timesnapper.com/compare https://timesnapper.com/compare Surprised to see that "Maintain aspect ratio" is only there in the pro version. Maintaining the aspect ratio should be a basic feature.
- LeonB 2y ago
  There are specific situations where the classic version doesn’t display the correct aspect ratio — it might be when zooming a multi monitor display projected onto a single screen dialog that has been resized. We didn’t take the time to debug that on classic, but we did on the professional.

fmos 2y ago

For time tracking with screenshots and advanced tagging based on window titles (and sometimes open documents), there is also ManicTime [1]. I don’t think it has OCR though. [1] https://www.manictime.com/ https://www.manictime.com/

chrnola 2y ago
ManicTime was a lifesaver when I was working as a consultant and had to attribute every hour of my week to one of several clients.
ametrau 2y ago
> cloud or license The free tier is bought by being a firehose of data for them.
- jabroni_salad 2y ago
  The opposite, actually. Nothing leaves the computer you install it on, unless you specifically pay for their cloud service or stand up your own server. This is one of the reasons I chose it for myself over using timely or toggl.