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.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
