Review: TimeRabbit tracks hours lost down the Facebook rabbit-hole

It's sobering just how much time you can waste, um, I mean, spend on Facebook. TimeRabbit tells you just how bad it is. Install this free utility, and it will track every second (and minute, and hour) you spend on the world's most popular social network.

TimeRabbit ticks every second you're on Facebook.

TimeRabbit requires little interaction on your part: It really is set-it-and-forget-it software. Once you install it, TimeRabbit automatically tracks how much time you spend using Facebook.

And "using" is the key word here: TimeRabbit figures out when you're active on Facebook, as opposed to when you have it open in a browser tab that you're not actually looking at. That's thanks to its code, which monitors your browser's activity to see whether the current URL address includes "facebook.com". If it does, TimeRabbit starts the clock, and the tally grows..

TimeRabbit works with all versions of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and with versions 7,8, and 9 of Internet Explorer. In my tests, TimeRabbit worked seamlessly with all supported browsers, accurately (and sometimes scarily!) tracking the time I spent perusing Facebook.

TimeRabbit tallies your recent time on Facebook.

Unfortunately, TimeRabbit doesn't work with IE 10, which is the latest version of Microsoft's browser. Developer Breakpoint Software Development says lack of support for IE 10 was an oversight, which the company plans to remedy in a future release.

For a more detailed look at your Facebook usage, TimeRabbit offers historical stats, which let you see how much time you spent on Facebook in the past day, week, and month, and lets you compare that to your current usage. The stats are basic, not highly detailed, but they will prove useful in seeing trends over a short period of time.

Breakpoint developed TimeRabbit mainly as an experiment, and it's really a just-for-fun application. But it's eye-opening too, especially for those of us who may spend a lot more time on Facebook than we think. Install it, and you may find out that means you.

Liane Cassavoy is a veteran technology and business journalist. She contributes regularly to PCWorld and has written about business issues and products for Entrepreneur Magazine and other publications. She is the author of two business start-up guides published by Entrepreneur Press.
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How to Undervolt the Galaxy Note II and Add 2 Hours of Battery Life

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How to Undervolt Your Verizon Galaxy S III and Add 2 Hours of Battery Life

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Best Battery Life: Laptops That Last 7+ Hours

What good is a notebook that dies two hours after it’s unplugged from the wall? Not much. We’ve created a list of the clamshells that ran the distance on the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi).  Each machine lasts (at least) to the 7-hour marker, but some systems use larger, sold-separately batteries to stay active up to 20 hours. See for your yourself below.

Consider the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 the poster-laptop for systems with optional batteries. The 12-inch ultraportable ships with a 6-cell battery that lasts a decent 7 hours, but the sold-separately 9-cell option pushes the juice supply beyond the 12-hour mark. If that's not enough productivity time for you, the X230 also works with a sheet-battery that, when paired with the 9-cell, helped the system run an epic 20 hours!

Lenovo ThinkPad X230 Review

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Track Billable Hours (On the Cheap) With TogglDesktop

Tracking time spent and billable hours doesn't have to be difficult, even if you work for multiple clients and not all of your working time is spent in front of a computer. Toggl (free; $5/month plan offers more features)) is a Web-based time tracking system with a downloadable client for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux as well as mobile applications for Android and iOS.

Toggl's Web interface is very simple to get started with.If I had to describe Toggl with a single word, it would be "simple." This is one of the easiest time tracking solutions I've seen to date--even simpler than tracking your time using an Excel sheet. The Web interface features a large text box captioned "What are you working on?" similar to the one used on work log service IDidWork. You can just type in whatever you are doing, and hit Enter to start tracking. A counter appears (accurate down to the second), the Start button transforms into a Stop button, and that's all there is to it.

If you're working with multiple clients and projects, you can also specify a client and a project. You can also tag the task, which is useful for tracking the same type of task across multiple clients and projects (like tracking all design-related tasks, versus coding-related tasks). And if you've already started working on a task some time ago but forgot to start tracking it, you can edit the start time even while the timer is counting, and the duration will update on the fly. You can also add tasks without using the timer, by simply noting their start and end times.

Toggl offers clear, clean reports that can be filtered per employee, project, or tag.Toggl's desktop client is available for everyone, even if you use the free version of the service. At 24MB, it is a large download: That's because it is actually a version of the Chrome browser. Chrome uses multiple processes for stability, and when you run Toggl's desktop client it, indeed, spawns two processes. Killing one of these exposes Chrome's "Aw, Snap!" error page within the client, showing its innards. The only disadvantage to it being an instance of Chrome is that it is a large download with a large memory footprint (23MB in RAM on my system). If you're already using Chrome as a Web browser, worry not: The desktop client doesn't conflict in any way.

In terms of functionality, the desktop client looks like a simple iPhone app, and works well. You can track new tasks, create new projects and clients, and edit past tasks, but when the time comes to generate reports you'll still need the Toggl website.

Toggl's desktop client provides access to all task details.Toggl offers three types of reports: Summary, Detailed, and Weekly. The Summary and Detailed report can be produced for any time span, while the Weekly report can be produced for any single week. Reports show where your time went, and can be filtered by user, project, and tag. Reports can be exported as CSV or PDF files, and are easy to understand. The Summary and Detailed reports include a daily bar graph showing how long you've worked each day, and the Summary report also features a handsome pie chart showing at a glance what projects took up your time. Toggl can also be used in a team scenario (the free plan supports up to five users per team), and reports can show how each member of the team is using their time.

Toggl's free version offers a generous subset of features. The paid version adds support for teams larger than five people, tracking billable vs. non-billable hours, different billing rates for different projects, Quickbooks and Basecamp integration, and more.

I found the free version of Toggl more than enough for my needs, but at $5 per user per month, the paid version is very affordable too.

Note: The Downloads button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Erez Zukerman

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Samsung Galaxy Beam Hands-On: Projector Phone Lights The Wall For 3+ Hours

Imagine being able to project a PowerPoint presentation or an HD movie, directly from your smartphone onto whatever wall or screen is in front you. Fortunately, you don’t have to imagine because Samsung has just released the Galaxy Beam, the first-mass market smartphone with a built-in 15 lumen projector. We had a chance to go hands-on with a Galaxy Beam here at Mobile World Congress and were impressed with how easy it was to project any piece of content onto a nearby wall.

The Galaxy Beam has some reather average, mid-range specs, including a 4-inch screen that runs at 800 x 480, a 1-GHz dual-core CPU, a 5-MP camera with a 1.3-MP front facer, and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. What really makes this device stand out is the project which sits on its top-side. By simply hitting the projector button on the right side of the device, the on-screen content is beamed out whether its a movie, a web page, a photo, or a presentation. Because the Beam uses a dedicated button, the projection feature will work on any app.

In our brief hands-on, we were able to project a movie onto a wall in front of us. However, since the room we were in was not dark, the image was a bit hard to see. However, when we visited a dark projection room that Samsung had set up, the projected images were clear and colorful.

Samsung tells us that the Beam can create an image that’s up to 50-inches wide, larger than most TVs. Better still, reps said that, though the projection battery life is not yet rated, the phone should be able to keep beaming for well over 3 hours, long enough to watch a Lord of the Rings movie or sit through a really epic presentation.  

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More Juice Please: All Lightweight Laptops Should Last 10+ Hours

In the rush to hook know-nothing consumers mindlessly scannning the shelves at retail, looking for shiny objects, too many notebook makers have forgotten the true meaning of “ultraportable” as they manufacturer systems that get little more than half a day’s battery life. Sure, everyone wants a notebook that’s wafer thin, blinged out with brushed metal or soft-touch rubber, and lighter than Kodak’s bank account, but not when that $1,000 system takes a siesta first thing after lunch. There’s only one solution: higher-capacity batteries.

With the noteworthy exception of the HP Folio 13, which lasted a solid 7 hours and 50 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, all of the Ultrabook notebooks we’ve tested have gotten less than 7 hours of battery life, with ASUS’s UX31 lasting just 5-hours and 58 minutes and Acer’s pitiful S3 dying after only 4:23.

Ultrabooks aren’t alone in trading precious minutes of productivity for a smaller chassis. While not officially labeled as “Ultrabooks,” the MacBook Air 13-inch lasts just 6.5 hours while the new Samsung Series 9 endures for only 4:48. In LAPTOP’s tests, the average thin-and-light notebook (14-inches, less than 5 pounds) endures for a little over 6 hours while the average ultraportable (13-inches or less, lighter than 4 pounds) lasts just 6:39.

If those numbers don’t sound bad to you, let me put them in perspective. The LAPTOP Battery test we used to get the above runtimes measures a common, but not very taxing use case, surfing the web at 40 percent brightness and loading up a new page every 30 seconds. If you’re pushing up the brightness level or you want to do something more intense like crunching a video, viewing an HD movie, or playing a game, you can expect less endurance than we encountered. But even if your usage habits allow you to  get a full 5 or 6 hours of life, that’s simply not enough endurance for real all-day use.

The standard battery life for any laptop that weighs less than 5 pounds should be 10 hours or more. Whether you’re working on an international flight, going from meeting to meeting at the office, or sitting on the couch at home with your lightweight notebook,  you need that amount of time to avoid battery panic. Even if you’re not using the notebook for 10 consecutive hours, you ought to be able to use it on and off throughout the day, without even worrying about its charge level. 

As I write this article, I’m sitting on my couch with my 13-inch notebook unplugged. In this location, I have relatively easy access to a wall socket, but I don’t plug in, because being tethered to the wall is still unpleasant as I have to worry about yanking the wire, sitting on the wire or watching my cats knock over the adapter. Though the system gets a full 5 hours of battery life under optimal conditions, I’m down under 50 percent after just a couple of hours of work and must start thinking about either plugging in or lowering the brightness to uncomfortable levels. I shouldn’t have to deal with that distraction.  

When I’m in my office, carrying my notebook from conference room to conference room, I often have to carry my AC adapter with me and sit near an outlet or string my power cord across the room and hope nobody trips on it. Trade shows like CES are the biggest battery challenge of all, as I spend 12 to 14 hours a day running to a series of hotels and conventions centers writing articles and editing videos with no time at all to stop and recharge. I’ll often have to go out of my way or crouch down on a hard floor, just to find an outlet I can sit next to. 

Smartphone companies are starting to get it. After a 2011 year in which manufacturers released a slew of 4G handsets with anemic endurance, Motorola recently showed its competitors the right way to build a device when it released the Droid RAZR Maxx with a high-capacity 3300 mAH battery on-board that allowed it to last through over 8 hours of continuous use. Compare that to phones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, whose 1850 mAH battery only gave it enough juice to last 3 hours and 40 minutes on our test.

Notebook makers need to learn from Motorola’s example and beef up their battery offerings, even if that means charging more money for their products or increasing the chassis size.  The longest-lasting notebook on the market, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X220 lasts a whopping 12 hours and 39 minutes with its extended 9-cell battery. The trade-off for moving up from its default battery is a 1-inch battery bump in the back and an additional .2 pounds of weight, well worth it for nearly 5 additional hours of battery life and the ability to leave your .5 pound AC adapter in the hotel room.

If you get the right kind of battery, you can even pack a lot of juice into a very small space. The RAZR Maxx, for example, is only .07 inches thicker than the original RAZR, yet gets nearly double its battery life. Sure, Motorola is charging $100 more for the thicker battery, but it’s worth it.

With phones, users expect to be able to leave their chargers at home, spend 16 hours using them on and off, and then plug in when they sleep at night. You ought to be able to do the same with a notebook and you could, if notebook makers would stop racing to make their products 0.2-inches thinner, 0.2 pounds lighter, and a few dollars cheaper and focus on what users really need from a lightweight laptop. As consumers, we need to support this effort by purchasing longer-lasting notebooks.

Fortunately, if you’re in the market for a notebook today, you don’t need to wait for the industry to get its act together. You just need to make the most of the long-lasting choices available today and be willing to purchase a system that’s available with an extended battery or a battery slice. In many cases, your best choice is a business-oriented notebook, but that doesn’t mean consumers should hesitate. For example, the corporate-minded Lenovo Thinkpad T420 with 9-cell battery costs less than $850 but lasts over 10 hours on a charge. The $1,399 Sony VAIO S lasts nearly 11 hours with an attached battery slice.

In the end, every extra penny you spend on a notebook with a high-capacity battery will be worth a dollar saved in therapy costs for low-battery phobia. If only vendors understood this.

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Max out Your Droid Maxx: How to Get 10+ Hours of Battery on 4G

The Droid RAZR Maxx from Motorola is already the longest-lasting 4G smartphone currently on the market by a wide margin, enduring 8 hours and 25 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test (continous surfing over 4G at 40 percent brightness). However, by implementing our top 10 battery saving tips for Android phones, we were able to extend that time to a whopping 10 hours and 8 minutes of speedy 4G LTE goodness.

Follow these steps to Maxx out your Droid RAZR Maxx.

Dim the Display - Our Android battery saving tips call for dimming the display to 30 percent, but we felt that the RAZR Maxx’s screen was still perfectly legible at 0-percent brightness. The lower your screen brightness, the better your battery life will be so try it at 0 percent and see if it looks acceptable to you. 
Turn off Wi-Fi  - If you’re at home or the office, connecting your Maxx to the network via 802.11n will save juice. However, if you’re not near an available router, your Wi-Fi radio can significantly drain your phone’s battery so disabling it is a great way to extend your phone’s battery life. We always disable the Wi-Fi when running our own battery test, however, so this tip didn’t factor into the RAZR Maxx’s new score.Turn off Location Services - The Maxx’s GPS radio gulps battery, routinely pinging satellites to get your current location. Just as bad, location-based services like Foursquare that have auto check-in enabled will ping the Internet with your location, another use of  your power-hungry 4G connection.  Turn off Background Data - Any time your phone checks your email, syncs your calendar, or automatically grabs Facebook updates, it’s calling out to the Internet which means that it’s taxing the 4G radio. To really save power, turn off background data in the Android control panel.Switch from 4G to 3G - The RAZR Maxx’s 3G CDMA radio uses a lot less power than its 4G LTE counterpart so, if you’re willing to trade speed for battery life, you can disable 4G in the Wireless and Networks section of the control panel. We first ran the battery test with 4G enabled, to see how long the phone would last with all of the tips implemented but still using Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Afterwards we ran it again using only 3G — with over an hour of additional endurance.Disable Haptic Feedback - That little motor which causes the phone to vibrate when you touch its keyboard or buttons uses a fair amount of juice. Turn it off  in the Sound section of the control panel.Set a Shorter Screen Timeout - Although we suggest shortening your screen timeout time to just 30 seconds, on the LAPTOP battery test we see how how long the phone will last if the screen never times out. We were impressed that the RAZR Maxx lasted more than 10 hours with the screen on the entire time.Use a Plain Black Background - Smartphones using AMOLED displays consume more power than LCD displays when displaying bright colors, particularly white. Switch the RAZR Maxx to an all-black wallpaper to save power.Shut Down Instant Messaging - Nothing sucks juice like Google Talk and other IM programs which have to maintain an active Internet connection all day long, even if you aren’t talking to anyone.Disable Automatic Updates for Widgets - To keep widgets like Weather and News Feed from constantly searching for the latest data, remove them entirely from the RAZR Maxx’s home screens. 

After implementing all of the battery saving tips (save disabling 4G and setting the screen timeout to 30 seconds), the RAZR Maxx achieved that epic 10 hours and 8 minutes of battery life , which was 4 and a half hours longer than the category average (5:39), and more than 3 hours longer than the second longest-lasting 4G phone, the Samsung Droid Charge (6:42). When we ran the test again using only 3G connectivity, and the Maxx lasted a jaw-dropping 11 hours and 30 minutes — almost 6 hours longer than the average smartphone!

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