TimeSnapper 3.0 -- an interactive, bubbling cauldron of possibilities

While the googles and microsofts have been touting their clouds and their meshes, we've been enhancifying the cloud capabilities of TimeSnapper. (And by "we" I mean my dilligent colleague Atli, who is the driving force on this one.)

The TimeSnapper 'life analysis system' has finally reached version 3.0.

(Wondering what TimeSnapper is? Overview here)

This was a pretty solid overhaul, with many improvements under the covers (see release notes if you're detail oriented).

On the surface, the most important change is that the "activity cloud" (one of our reports) is now far more interactive.

Previously the 'activity cloud' was just a static word cloud, giving you an instant visual clue about what you've been up to.

Now it is an interactive, bubbling cauldron of possibilities. A self-organising mind map of your life.

Click on a word in the activity cloud to see a more detailed activity cloud, specific to that word.

(In the little screenshots at right, i've clicked on the word fogBugz, to see more detail about what i've been doing there, for example)

But here's what I like: the different ways to view your life are now converging into one seamless experience.

TimeSnapper has three main ways of viewing your life:

There's the day browser, where you watch a movie of your computing life. There's the reports, where you get a high level breakdown (including the activity cloud). And there's the 'activity grid' where you can search with more fine-grained criteria, and explore the results in a hierarchical grid.

Those three places are more integrated together than previously. You can travel through them, zooming in, ping-ponging back and forth. Learning what's really going on in your life.

Now you can view the word cloud report to get quick overview. Zoom into the word you're interested in. Click the 'View activity' link to open the activity grid, and see a listing, line by line of what you've done in relation to that word. Then double-click on any one of those lines to see the screenshots that were taken at the time (in the day browser).

(And if needed, right-click on that image, and extract the text from it, using OCR.)

You probably have to to try it to get it. For example, when Atli and I were reviewing these features, we shared a few screenshots during our discussions. And he immediately asked, "Oh, are you buying a Mazda?" Bingo. Your life in cloud form.

But don't be scared by this kind of power. You can password protect your data. And you can make it record only the apps you want. It's your life, just a better informed one.

My book "Choose Your First Product" is available now.

It gives you 4 easy steps to find and validate a humble product idea.

Learn more.