I am happy to post a new update to TaskBlaze productivity software. Before I get into the updates, I want to first introduce it to readers who may not have heard of it with a short description:
TaskBlaze is a simple stand-alone productivity application which helps you keep accurate track of the time you spend on tasks and exports that time to your Outlook Calendar.
Some of the benefits of using Taskblaze:
It’s simple – There’s only 3 easy things for you to do and you’re off!
It tracks your time precisely and once you end a task it exports the task to your Outlook schedule so you have an exact measurement recorded for time management, billing or general reporting.
TaskBlaze is a stand alone application, so you don’t need a web connection to use it.
TaskBlaze is free! TaskBlaze is "Tell-A-Friend-Ware" use it, but share it with at least two of your friends. Don’t let it be only your productivity secret! Let your friends benefit too.
This version enables the settings to save in the setting screen: transparency, minimize to button and Always on Top. If you make changes to your settings, they will save between launches.
I’ve also fixed a number of bugs and increased stability.
Get your copy here: Download TaskBlaze_B75.zip (202.5K)
Note: TaskBlaze requires the Microsoft .NET Framework to be installed on your computer.
Technorati Tags: productivity, Time Management, gtd, Getting things done, Time tracking, Taskblaze
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{ 12 comments }
Brad, this looks really good.
If I can put it to good use, I’ll be singing testament.
Brad, I’m dying to see this application work, but the UI showing up very strangely on my system. I’ve placed a screenshot of the main screen on my flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsamson/tags/temporary/.
I’ve “repaired” my .NET 2.0 framework installation and rebooted with no luck. Do you have any ideas? (laptop, WinXP Pro SP2, Outlook 2003)
Thanks Brad! I hope to figure out why it’s not displaying correctly on my system soon – it looks quite useful.
Regards,
Brian
Brian,
What I’ve been able to track this back to, but unable to reproduce here on any of my machines is a screen resolution and font display issue.
So far it has only happened on Laptops and LCD screens where the user has a very high resolution set and cutom (large) font settings. For instance going up around 1900 x and above on the resolution and using large fonts and customizing the font size to 120 dpi under your graphics card can cause this.
I am looking into a solution, but you might try tweaking your fonts in the meantime to see if that helps.
Is what I describe above consistent with your setup or is there a difference?
Interesting. The laptop’s (Dell 600m) resolution is indeed being run at 1400×1050, which is the recommended resolution for this LCD panel. The desktop font size is set to Normal. I’ve tried switching the screen size to 1024×768 with no effect on the result (other than a fuzzy screen). I also switched the font size from normal to large with no effect on the result.
I’ll keep playing around with some of the settings, but I’m still at a loss.
AHA! I think I’ve found it. I’ll have to remedy it, but if you want to use it for the time being,
1. right click on your desktop, choose properties.
2. choose the settings tab
3. Choose the advanced button
4. set your font size to 96 dpi
5. reboot
Like I said, I’ll be searching for a solution to this in the meantime
You got it! (Damn, that’s a small font on 1400×1050!) I’m hoping that you’ll be able to find a better solution for a future release, but at least I can start piloting the tool. Thanks again, Brad.
Yes, I bet it is..but you might be able to compensate by going back to settings and instead of choosing the settings tab, choose the appearance tab and then use the dropdown to make fonts “large” or “extra large”
I think I see how to fix it.
Brad, it’s working great so far. One simple functional request … how do you feel about a tooltip that appears when the mouse moves over the “Stop” button that displays the named task that the system is monitoring? It’s a great way to remind one what one is supposed to be working on.
Just a thought.
Hey, that’s a great idea and should be pretty simple to get rolling. Let me see what I can do
Brad, any update on this display issue? I want to introduce TaskBlaze to my team, but the UI of B75 is much worse than that of B50 on my notebook. The program info which should be at the bottom of the window is covering the Categories field.
To make thing more confusing, the font size on my notebook is 96 dpi…
Thank you very much.
Thomas,
I am booked pretty solid right now so don’t expect an update immediately. But I believe another reader found a workaround for the notebook display issue that doesn’t affect your other display prefs…I’ll see if I can find that for you and post it.
Cool tool – another good one to check out is Tudumo, I have been using to organise my time, and am really loving it.