Working away, hopefully to the tune of Powerhouse....

November 10, 2008 2:44 PM

This is probably stupidly easy.com: I would like to download a timer to my laptop which will go off every five minutes (or whatever increment I choose). I can't seem to get the right search terms to Google it, or even if it exists the way I would l like it to...

I have entered the end-of-the-semester hell that is grading papers. I need to manage my time a bit better as I grade, so I would like a laptop timer which I can set for an increment of time-- say 10 minutes-- and then let it loop so that every 10 minutes it goes off and resets itself. Even better if it can give me a minute break between papers. Does such an animal exist?

posted by oflinkey to Technology (14 answers total)

Something like one of these?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:48 PM on November 10, 2008

What OS are you running? It might have a built-in alarm function, which could be set to go off every 10 minutes. A stopwatch application would probably do the trick as well.
posted by bizwank at 2:49 PM on November 10, 2008

Response by poster: Oh Sorry WinXP.
posted by oflinkey at 2:56 PM on November 10, 2008

I tried finding that kind of software for a long time, and got a lot of spyware, useless bloatware and other crap. Spybot Search and Destroy (which you should run anyways) includes a tea timer.

Otherwise, send me a memail, and I will build you a little Flash app that will do exactly what you want, should take me like 20 minutes. If you have ever seen a youtube video, you have the flash player installed already.
posted by dirty lies at 3:00 PM on November 10, 2008

Best answer: Stick to sourceforge for small apps like this, there should be less spyware and bogus trialware. Here's one example (C#) of such a beast.
posted by benzenedream at 3:13 PM on November 10, 2008

This might sound silly, but why not just record a 10 minute long "song" of nothing except a sound once within... and then open it and play it in a loop whenever you want your reminders?
posted by rokusan at 3:20 PM on November 10, 2008

I don't know of one in particular, but you might try searching in a different way. This kind of application is more commonly used to help prevent RSI. Try googling for "repetitive stress timer", "ergonomic break timer", etc. Here's a few random ones that I found (I'm not promoting these, it's just the first things I opened that random seem like they fit the bill):

http://www.tropsoft.com/ergotimer/manual.htm
http://www.ergoblink.com/
posted by systematic at 3:37 PM on November 10, 2008

I did a search for "XP egg timer" and came up with a few useful hits. The best of the lot was Egg. It's shareware, but it's not all that expensive.
posted by talkingmuffin at 3:49 PM on November 10, 2008

Best answer: I just built the little app. I am ashamed at my dirty code (no input validation, ugly as hell interface), but is is custom made and spyware free. How many people can claim to have that kind of apps :)

I am no fanboy of any system, but on linux (and OSX) this is a 3 line script.

I reiterate: When I tried to get an egg/tea timer for my win-XP machine, I was surprised at how much adware / spyware I got. I did not think simple timers were a profitable niche for the evil guys.
posted by dirty lies at 4:21 PM on November 10, 2008

Meditation Timer.
posted by Jawn at 4:21 PM on November 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I am no fanboy of any system, but on linux (and OSX) this is a 3 line script.

Just like in windows :)

Make a file called loop.bat, then paste this in:
:label
@echo 
sleep 600
goto label

I don't know if the alarm character will post correctly on metafilter; if it doesn't, open up a command prompt (hit Winkey+R, cmd, enter), and run
echo @echo ^G > loop.bat, where ^G is Ctrl + G (or Alt + Numpad 7 with numlock off).
Then open up loop.bat and add the other lines in.
posted by suncoursing at 6:43 PM on November 10, 2008

I have been using TimeLeft for a countdown clock, and it has a Timer in it. Unfortunately I'm not on that computer right now so I can't vouch for whether it is automatically resetting.
posted by cholly at 7:18 PM on November 10, 2008

Atomic Alarm Clock gives you a 60 day fully functional trial. And you can set an alarm to go off every X minutes.

To make it better, you can also set it to only go off between certain times.
posted by theichibun at 9:38 PM on November 10, 2008

Workrave (google it) will do this - as someone mentioned above, RSI prevention programs (of which this is one) will nag you at an interval of your choosing to take a break. You could easily set it to go off every 10 minutes, and you could set the break length at 1 minute.
posted by altolinguistic at 1:38 AM on November 11, 2008