If you work a lot on the computer and spend most of the time of a day clicking on the mouse and typing on the keyboard, it can be interesting and fun to record statistics on how the PC is used, monitoring the time and the use of keyboard, mouse and internet . It therefore becomes interesting to count how many times the same keys have been pressed, how much distance the mouse has traveled and how many clicks have been pressed over time .
Without invasions of privacy, it's also fun to make a comparison with other people and see how much, compared to the average, you are stuck to the computer by typing or moving the mouse.
In this article we see an absolutely safe program that allows you to record the use of the computer, the keys pressed and the clicks made, to view a whole series of statistics of your work or your online activity .
WhatPulse is the best program for this goal, free and available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux .
WhatPulse can be downloaded for free from the official website and is very simple to install without deception and without sponsor programs.
The only thing required is the registration of an account with username and password to create an online profile where to view the statistics.
Immediately after installation, Whatpulse begins to record the use of the computer and, in particular, the mouse clicks, the distance traveled by the mouse and the keys pressed on the keyboard .
Those who, rightly, are worried that it may be a malware keylogger (the type of virus that records keystrokes on the keyboard by sending them outwards to strangers) can assure that WhatPulse is a tested, mature and safe open source program and you just have to do a Google search to verify that no one has ever had problems with this software.
By right clicking on the Whatpulse icon at the bottom right near the clock, you can access the preferences to configure the behavior of this tool.
In the general screen you can choose whether to start Whatpulse automatically when the computer is turned on.
The main option is that of the timer that allows you to receive an alert after a certain period of hours of active use of the computer or after a certain number of clicks or keys pressed on the keyboard.
In the second program options tab, you can exclude the tracking and monitoring of one of the controls: clicks, keys and mouse movement.
You can also specify the unit of measure to calculate the distance by putting meters or kilometers instead of the default value, miles.
The "geek" window allows you to track activities in a particular area of the screen but it is not very simple as a configuration.
After a few weeks or months, it is interesting and fun to see statistics on what has been done on the computer during the period, comparing yourself with other people who published their statistics on the Whatpulse website.
Another tool for recording activity on the computer is a web application called Rescue Time .
RescueTime requires you to register for a free account on the site.
RescueTime works like a spy by recording how long you are on Facebook, for example, how long it takes you to write a report on your computer and how long it takes you to read and respond to emails every day.
RescueTime shows an ambitious application when you go to read the statistics made of efficiency graphs that can be used to measure the productivity of your work or that of others.
Some activities are detected as "distracting", others as "work" and others neutral or undetectable.
All categories can be customized and renamed according to the names so, for example, the use of particular programs could be configured as a job or as a distraction according to your goals.
Wanting to report even simpler tools, we can mention Mousotron, a small program that measures how far the mouse travels over time.
Basically it is a matter of calculating how much distance, in terms of meters and kilometers, the wheel of the computer mouse travels.
The program calculates, over time, how much distance, per centimeter, was traveled by walking the mouse and how many times the right, left and even double clicks were pressed.
KeyCounter, on the other hand, is similar to WhatPulse, calculating precisely how many times you press the keys on the PC keyboard and how the mouse is used over time.
I remember that in other articles I had reported similar programs to monitor and spy on the use of a computer and record every activity.
In another post then some extensions to create graphs and statistics on web browsing with Google Chrome.
