Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Workrave is a tiny little program that packs a great amount of truly helpful functionality into such a small space.
The premise behind Workrave is that it will alert you to get your hands off the keyboard and your eyes off the monitor on a regular basis. Such actions are very helpful for those who use their computers heavily because it can both prevent, and assist with recovery of, RSI as well as other general pains and ailments caused by long periods of computing particularly over the course of many years.
Install Workrave from your distro’s usual package management system. For instance in Ubuntu click the Applications / Add/Remove menu item, then search for Workrave when prompted with the collection of available apps.
When you run Workrave for the first time it will present a tiny, but cryptic, window prompting you for three values. These are the lengths of time that the software should permit you to work uninterrupted until being alerted that you are due for either a microbreak or a rest, and the total amount of time you shall be permitted to use the computer.
A microbreak is a brief pause – measured literally in mere seconds. Its purpose is to ensure you rest your hands and eyes on a regular basis when performing computing work over a sustained period of time.
The software’s author is himself a recovering RSI sufferer and uses a 25 second microbreak every two and a half minutes. This means in the course of every just-under-three minute period he is relieving his body for almost 25% of the period. That’s quite a phenomenal change from how most of us work – typing away furiously and staring at a screen right near our face.
These time periods are entirely customisable. If you use Workrave solely for preventative reasons, and have not suffered RSI – let alone any eye concerns – you may well find that a ten second microbreak once every ten minutes suits you. However you do it, the idea of the microbreak is to keep you healthy.
A rest is pretty much the same thing, but with a smaller frequency and for a longer duration. This isn’t the same as a one-per-day lunch break or anything like that but will do its dandiest to inspire you to get up from the computer and genuinely move about. A reasonable setting here may be a rest of five minutes every hour.
The countdowns tick over on an unobtrusive countdown clock on the system tray. Messages flash up when one of the counters is about to expire and these are almost impossible to ignore. Then, when time’s up you’ll be told to stop for the moment, and to stand up and walk around.
Workrave will also display periodic stretching and moving exercises that will contribute to helping you avoid any damage to your health as a result of long-term computing.
So there you have it, Linux doesn’t just want to serve you but also wants to keep you around and to help you stay well.
David Bass
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