Comments on: Easy, Powerful Time Tracking with OfficeTime

By: helper

helper — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:58:32 +0000

Share Dvd tools with Mac users!
Here is the reason why I want to share with Mac users:
1) Cost/Performance: Everybody wants to gain more with less money.
2) Speed: Nobody wants to waste too much time waiting.
3) Profile: Of course we want our software can convert all kinds of video formats.
4) Personal Demands: For example, someone just wants to convert part of the DVD video, or others want the special output video format like PSP compliant forms and etc.
5) Easy to use: we want to make things easy.
DVD Creator for Mac

By: Dan Gebhardt

Dan Gebhardt — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:13:36 +0000

@Jeffrey McPheeters - Thanks for sharing your thoughts about LiveTimer. We will definitely consider your request to allow multiple timers to run simultaneously. Honestly, I didn't know there was much demand for this feature, but we've now had several requests for it, so we may implement it as an option. It would also be possible for us, or anyone for that matter, to develop a thin client that syncs with LiveTimer using our API. As I mentioned in my comment above, Fluid works well to integrate LiveTimer with your Mac desktop. However, it of course will not work offline, which I'm guessing is the reason for your request. We're very actively working to improve LiveTimer. Any comments and suggestions are welcomed, and very much appreciated, at support AT livetimer DOT com. Thanks!

By: Jeffrey McPheeters

Jeffrey McPheeters — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:47:26 +0000

I’ve been using Office Time for a couple of years with great success. I was able to keep my records synced between my desktop and when I’m using a laptop by using DropBox and a symlink to keep the data synced between them when I move from one to the other. Now that I have an iPhone, I’ve been looking for something with a ‘push’ type ability. Live Timer looks nice, but it 1) needs a thin client, like Evernote uses, and 2) it needs the ability to have more than one timer running concurrently.

It’s very common for me to be tracking some tasks that work in the background or on other computers that don’t require my direct attention, while also recording time spent coding, etc. So I need the ability to keep more than one timer going at a time. Office Time does this quite well.

If Office Time could come up with an iPhone client to record in the field and then download the data later; OR if Live Timer had the ability to do multiple timers using a thin client type of app locally, that would then sync to the ‘cloud’, THAT could be a killer tool.

By: Daniel McCullum

Daniel McCullum — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:45:45 +0000

Sorry, but this app is just plain fugly… One of the main reasons that the Mac is a better platform than Windows is the generally standard and beautiful UI. This app is trying to reinvent the UI concept, and fails miserably.

By: Dan Gebhardt

Dan Gebhardt — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Hi Bill,

I’d like to address some of your concerns about TSheets and Intervals, which are often raised about Software as a Service (SaaS) in general. When we built the time tracking service LiveTimer, we realized that people would have these concerns and tried to meet them head on.

First of all, I understand what you’re saying about the potential risk to housing your data offsite. That’s why LiveTimer users can download complete backups of their account’s data and can even restore their accounts from those backups. Furthermore, we use 256-bit SSL to secure all communication between browsers and our servers.

Also, don’t forget about the potential advantages to using SaaS. There’s no need to set up and maintain a server yourself, which may not be an issue for a freelancer using OfficeTime, but it can become an issue for a team of any size that wants to share data. Furthermore, SaaS allows you to access the same data from multiple devices without the need for synchronization. For instance, LiveTimer works with any modern browser as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. Since your site focuses on Mac applications, you may also be interested to see how LiveTimer has been optimized to run with Fluid to provide desktop-integrated time tracking on the Mac.

Last but not least, I think that comparing the costs of SaaS vs. installed software can be an apples to oranges comparison. The advantages I mentioned above make costs hard to compare. Also, installed software is rarely a one time cost when you consider upgrades, licensing terms regarding multiple installations or users, etc. (Please note, I’m not saying anything about OfficeTime’s license in particular, but speaking generally). Anyway, with all that said, we’ve tried to keep LiveTimer’s pricing very reasonable at only $5 per user per month.

Sorry for the length of my reply, but I felt I should provide some counterpoints to your post about the expense and security of SaaS. Thanks for hearing me out!

Dan Gebhardt
Co-Founder
LiveTimer.com

By: Bill Weakley

Bill Weakley — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:54:53 +0000

The problem, as I see it, with both TSheets and Intervals, is that both require an annual subscription, while OfficeTime is a one-time expense. After a year, you will have paid much more for those two than you would for OfficeTime. Also, you have to house your client/payment data off-site. This gets into the realm of whether those two sites are PCI-compliant (authorized to house such data), which can be a big headache. I prefer to keep my data on my computer and encrypted, personally.

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:29:37 +0000

Also check out Intervals, a more comprehensive web-based time tracking tool that works beautifully on the Mac.

By: Chad Crowell

Chad Crowell — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:15:18 +0000

A simpler version of this, for free is Time Tracker.

By: Adam Thorsen

Adam Thorsen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:31:58 +0000

this has been a favorite of mine for a while. Very easy to make professional looking invoices.

By: Time Tracking

Time Tracking — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:58:33 +0000

TSheets is another great time tracking package that will work on both Mac and PC. TSheets is easy to use, and has a mac widget and an iPhone app.

By: Peter Craddock

Peter Craddock — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:22:15 +0000

I was actually trying to find a time tracking app for my father a few months back, and stumbled upon OfficeTime. The main plus regarding OfficeTime is that iCal integration, which (believe me) very few other time tracking apps offer.
And it’s really easy to use.

My father took to OfficeTime right away. Easy to learn, simple to use. And it’s powerful.

The others I found with iCal integration didn’t even come close.