Filed under: Business, Developer, Windows, Linux, Office, Productivity, Open Source
Workrave - avoid Repetitive Strain Injuries
by Jason Clarke Jan 16th 2007
Gina Trapani over at Lifehacker pointed out an open-source application called Workrave today, and it's a good one. For those of us that spend what seems like every waking hour in front of our computers, we're definitely at risk of acquiring a repetitive stress injury. More than once I've found myself wearing a wrist brace when the most strenuous thing I could attribute it to would be typing or mousing, so I know these risks first-hand. Workrave is a little timer application that keeps track of how long you've been working, and prompts you to take micro-breaks , rest breaks, and enforces a daily computer limit. All of these things have been done by other applications, but Workrave also includes recommended exercises that show during rest breaks, complete with illustrations to get you going in the right direction.
Another very cool feature is the fact that users that regularly work on multiple computers can run Workrave on all of those machines, and synchronize them; this means that they get their break warnings no matter where they happen to be computing. Back when I was doing software testing, this would have been a life saver!
While the evidence that breaks are necessary to maintain good health when heavily computing, I'm still not sure how I feel about all these micro-breaks, which just start feeling like micro-interruptions. That being said, I should really give this a try, considering the wrist trouble I've previously had.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
