You asked. We answered. And we took movies.

Freckle’s got a timer now. We’re still ironing out a few little JavaScript bugs, but it’s almost ready for prime time action.

And, in the mean time, it’s available in your Freckle account. You should check it out to familiarize yourself with its ways.

But enough ado.

Launching the Timer

Here’s how you launch the timer:

1. Log into your account
2. Click the Settings & Tools tab at the top right
3. Click the Timer tab
4. Click the blue timer button

You can even drag it to your browser’s bookmark bar, so you can access it with a key command (like cmd+1 in Safari) or with a quick click, any time.

Instructions for that are on the tab there, as you can see.

Using the Timer

Like the rest of Freckle, you have choices in how you use the timer.

Mouse lovers: never fear, you can use the mouse to do everything. Except type your description, of course.

Power users: You can use the keyboard to do everything from selecting projects to time, to pausing, and of course, time entry.

If you’re a power user who tries to never touch a mouse, you’ll find hints for the keyboard-based controls at the bottom of the timer window.

Saved by the Server

You can close the timer when it’s running, because your time is actually being saved on the server.

That also means you can switch from one computer to another, and keep your time with you. Just as long as you’re logged in.

Billing Increments & Recovering from Oopses

Just like the Quick Entry Box, the timer has built-in support for your configured minimum billing increment. (Defaulting to the consultant’s standard of 15 minutes.)

And, just in case you forget about the timer when it’s running, or start it after you began your work, the time is totally adjustable before you log it.

Still a few minor quirks…

We’re aware of a couple minor bugs in the timer interaction.

If you encounter one of these little bugs, simply reload. Don’t worry, your time will NOT be lost.

Download PDF (260k)

This is just version 1, and we have some other pocketable ideas.

But wait, there’s more! (coming soon)

You want more printable freebies (and maybe the occasional unmissable deal on our wonderful web apps)?

You can subscribe to our RSS feed or, if you’re not into that sorta thing, sign up for our loooow-traffic email notifications list, and I promise you won’t. miss. a thing.

(And of course we have a digital mobile version in the works, too, but y’know, that takes a lot longer in Illustrator.)

You’re so quiet. Whatcha thinkin’?

This is not a one-off for us. We’d like to evolve & improve the state of printable time tracking tools (damn, that’s a lot of t’s!).

So please, don’t leave that poor little comment box all by its lonesome self.

For example, those cases where you might be asking yourself: What days do I do the most work? What days the least? Hey, I worked on 3 projects on Tuesday and felt totally exhausted, but on Thursday I worked only on the Acme Widget Corp project and felt fine… even though I worked the same hours!

When you figure that stuff out, it’s a golden moment, all dramatic shafts of light breaking through the storm clouds and creepy disembodied choral music. Which is awesome.

If we can help you to create that golden moment, we’re prepared to slug it out with tough technical and design problems to do it.

But don’t blame us for the creepy disembodied choral music. We don’t know who they are, either.

Feeling Punchy

So, I am very proud to unveil our new Punch Card. You’ll find it on the Pulse page in your account.

And it will look something like this:

(Don’t mind the November date range. I haven’t been spending much time keeping our sample data current.)

Use the Punch Card to get a feel for your rhythms, and your team’s.

Mouseover a shiny blob to see what the time went to, project-wise.

We underline each project name with the corresponding color in the pie chart.

(This example has only one project used that day, but it was close to the hint text, there at the bottom.)

Click a shiny blob to go to a report for that day, so you can see all the details.

Woo!

Feed Me, Seymour!

Question: How can a body ever maintain a pulse without feeding? Answer: It can’t. Duh.

You might have spied the new orange jellybean button up there on the top right of that Pulse screenshot. If so, well-spotted.

That would be the new Pulse feed:

Subscribe for a list of all your & your teammates’ frecklings, delivered hot & fresh over your new Atom feed.

So, what do you think?

We’re hard at work on other goodies, of course, but we do so like the opportunity to stop and smell the feedback.

Talk to me, baby.