Toggl Time Remaining Userscript
Userscripts are snippets of JavaScript that extend the functionality of a website or change its appearance. What makes them really neat is that you don’t need the permission or help of the website owner in order to run them.
I use Toggl to track the amount of time I devote to different projects. I’m committed to a fixed amount of time each week for one of my projects, but Toggl doesn’t do a great job of letting me know how much time I have left to work. Sure, it will show me how much time I’ve worked altogether this week, but that doesn’t let me know that I need to put in another hour for one specific project. I could use reporting, but it is a bit slow.
So I wrote a userscript. It uses the Toggl API to find out how much time I’ve logged in a specific workspace, then subtracts that from how many hours I should have worked at that point in the week. For example, on Monday I may need to work 4 hours. By the end of Tuesday I should be at 8 hours, and so forth. The final number is unobtrusively added to the top nav of Toggl. It is updated automatically every 10 minutes or whenever I click on it.
The script needs to be configured for your individual use (workspace ID, API key, etc..). Instructions are in the script but I don’t know how to make a script easily configured without requiring you to modify it on your own. Sorry.
I could also make the script easier to customize by moving variables to the top and what not. Sorry, I didn’t do this. It works for me and thats good enough for now. I’m sharing it in the hopes that someone gets some use out of it.
Anyways, I hope this script is helpful for you! I’ve been using it for a few weeks and it has made life a bit easier. Click here to download.
Read MoreFake Music Generator
I had an awesome idea the other day: create my own computer generated music by using Markov chains and MIDI files. “I’m a genius! Nobody has ever thought of this before,” I said to myself. I registered FakeMusicGenerator.com and planned on looking into it later. Well turns out everybody has thought of this before. Oh well. I already had the domain so I went for it.
I ended up taking the lazy route and used some existing free code I found to generate music. I then converted to MP3 using a fancy SoundFont (I never knew that sounds had fonts but I guess it makes sense) so they would sound better than a MIDI.
I took it a step further and added fake track names, album titles, and artist names. I even added computer generated art for the album cover. I think it is shaping up pretty well.
Anyways, if you are bored and need some free instrumental music (maybe for a YouTube video or something), then feel free to check out the Fake Music Generator.
Read MoreBorrowing Kindle books for free
Everyone with a Kindle is probably aware of the ability to borrow a book for free every month if you have a Prime membership, but there are other ways to borrow books, too.
Borrow from your local library. Many local libraries now offer the ability to borrow Kindle books for free. Sadly, the company that manages most of these programs (OverDrive) doesn’t provide all libraries with the same selection. For example, my local library only has a few hundreds ebooks (maybe 300 total) and many aren’t in Kindle format. They do have some popular books though, like the Twilight series, so it is worth checking with your library before purchasing an ebook or trying to borrow it from somewhere else.
Borrow from BookLending.com. Many publishers allow you to lend your own ebooks at least once to anyone you want. BookLending.com helps you find people that want to borrow the books you have, and helps you find people that are willing to lend the books you want. I haven’t been using it long but I’ve already saved a few dollars by borrowing a book I’ve been wanting to read instead of buying it.
The big trick to BookLending.com is to take advantage of the free ebook offers that are frequently offered on Amazon.com. I have literally hundreds of dollars of Kindle books that I didn’t have to pay for. Many of these are books that I’m not particularly interested in, but I “bought” because: 1) they were free, 2) they were highly rated, and 3) once they are no longer free I can lend them on BookLending.com. If you don’t know where to find free Kindle books, check out Pixel of Ink.
Do you know any other ways to get free Kindle books? Please let me know! I’m a book addict.
Read MoreUndeleting images from an SD card
Last weekend my family went on a short vacation. We took some fun photos, and when we got home I moved them from my SD card to our external HD. And then I accidentally deleted a few of the photos from the HD. Yikes!
Luckily, there are tools to undelete files from an SD card. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t free or just plain suck.
After much searching and several failed attempts at recovering the images, I finally found TestDisk. It has an old fashioned interface (DOS) and took a few hours to run on my 32GB SD card, but it recovered all my images that I accidentally deleted, and many more that I intentionally deleted over the past year or so.
And best of all, it was free!
Read More$10 off $10 at Pier 1 = $60 in free stuff!
Pier 1 Imports is having a promotion on Facebook that gives you a $10 off $10 coupon, good 1 per person per store.
We have been trying to stretch our allowances as much as possible, so this was a great opportunity to get some shopping in without having to spend any money. We have three Pier 1 locations nearby, so we printed 6 coupons and headed out. We ended up getting $60 in stuff without even paying sales tax. $0 out of pocket.
The goodies:
- A basket
- An udderly cool cow mug
- A kitchen timer
- 4 large ramekins
- 8 small ramekins
- 5 flower bowls
- 4 tea light holders
Yay for free stuff!
Read MoreZend Studio now free for Zend Certified Engineers
Just got the very good news that Zen Studio ($299) is now free for Zend Certified Engineers. Neat! I’ve been wanting to try it out for a while, but wasn’t willing to spend $299 for it.
Zend Studio is built on Eclipse (which is free for everybody), so it has a very small learning curve for those already familiar with Eclipse. My initial impression is that it is just an easier to use version of Eclipse, with more robust PHP tools than the free Eclipse PDT gives you.
I ran into a few quirks while using it that took a moment to figure out:
- By default, Zend Studio assumes you are using PHP 5.1/5.2. With the massive speed improvements and new functionality added in 5.3, I don’t know of anyone that chooses to use 5.1/5.2. Seems like a weird default option to set, and it caused my code to show a whole pile of errors that didn’t really exist.
- By default, Zend Studio uses PHP 5.2.14 to debug. Again, a really weird default.
Anyways, I’ll be playing around with it on my next website-of-the-month. Any tips from those already using it would be greatly appreciated!
Read More