Vote for Fanurio at the Epsilon Award

We are very proud to announce that Fanurio has been nominated for the Epsilon Award. The organizers consider it to be “a combination of excellency, craftsmanship and visionary ability [...] characteristics of an outstanding programmer and a piece of true software art”.

If you like Fanurio and you want to support us, please give your vote here:
https://digiumenterprise.com/answer/?sid=239855&chk=TH9WW2JH

Voting is open until October 27th and it won’t take more than 30 seconds to do it.  Fanurio is third on the list. The winner will be announced at the European Software Conference in early November.

Thanks a lot for your support.

Fanurio 1.11.3 Released

Today we’ve released version 1.11.3, a patch for version 1.11. Usually, we don’t release patch versions unless they are very important and this version improves data security.

You can upgrade your copy by clicking Help > Check for Updates in the menu.

Fanurio now checks if it can connect to the database each time it is started. If there is something wrong with the database, Fanurio will alert you and we’ll probably be able to investigate and fix the problem. We’ve also increased the size of the log file and its backup to 2 MB (a total of 4 MB) to make sure all errors are saved. Previously the log file was only 0.5 MB.

If your computer is closed unexpectedly, the database will not delete its lock file and when restarted, it may complain that it cannot connect. This is a common situation when checking the database connection is useful.

The rest of the changes are documented in the release notes.

Since this patch is mainly about data security, I would like to remind you that you can keep automatic backups with Fanurio. It’s recommended to keep at least five copies.

P.S. If you haven’t voted for us at the Epsilon Award yet, you still have time until October 27th.

Cross-platform version

Fanurio is developed using Java which enables it to run on many platforms. We are currently providing installers for the most popular ones: Mac OS X, Windows and Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu. For any other platform, we provide a cross-platform version.

There are no big differences between the cross-platform version and the others except for the packaging and how they are installed. To install it, you must simply unzip the .tar.gz archive to a location you prefer.

Launch scripts

The .tar.gz archive contains two types of script files that launch Fanurio. The first type launches Fanurio and creates the data repository somewhere in a user-specific folder on the computer. The purpose of these scripts is to create the repository in a location that’s recommended by the operating system. These files are:

• fanurio.app - Mac OS X
• fanurio.exe - Windows
• fanurio.sh - Linux and other flavors of Unix

The second type of script files launches Fanurio and creates a subfolder called local (hence the local suffix in their name) in the same folder where they are located. This type of scripts is especially suited if you want to run Fanurio from a USB stick. Data will be kept in the same folder with the rest of the application files so that you can reuse it when moving from one computer to another. These files are:

• fanuriolocal.app - Mac OS X
• fanuriolocal.exe - Windows
• fanuriolocal.sh - Linux and other flavors of Unix

Install on USB

The cross-platform version is also useful if you want to install Fanurio on a USB stick. Some of our users installed it on a USB stick and use it from there on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Fanurio can also be installed on a USB stick running PortableApps. Just follow their instructions to do it.

If there’s anything you want to say about the cross-platform version, please leave a comment or send us an email.

How to sync data between two computers

If you install Fanurio on two different computers (desktop and laptop) or two different platforms (Windows and Mac OS X), it’s very likely you will want to keep your data synchronized. Here are some common situations:

• If you do consulting work and you need to travel a lot, you may have a laptop and a desktop PC in your office. When you get back to the office, you may want to sync the desktop with the laptop.
• You’re a big Mac fan but unfortunately you have to do some of your work on Windows. You want to use Fanurio to track time while on Windows and then sync this information with the Mac.

This post explains how to synchronize your data between two computers. There are multiple ways to do it, each with its advantages and disadvantages. Hopefully, this post will make it easy for you to choose the right one.

I. USB stick installation

The first solution is also the easiest. Instead of installing Fanurio on two or more computers, install it on a USB stick. This will save you the trouble of synchronizing the data because it will always be kept on the stick.

Download the cross-platform version and follow these instructions to install it. The nice thing about the cross-platform version is that you can install it on a USB stick and then run it from there on any computer, whether it uses Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.

Recommended: If you have to work on your client’s computer and you don’t want to install Fanurio there.

II. Shared folder

This solution is a bit more technical because it requires you to configure Fanurio manually. By default, Fanurio keeps its data somewhere in your user account but it can be configured to keep it somewhere else. Please read this section for more information.

If you can create a folder that is accessible from all computers, you could configure Fanurio to keep its data there instead of the default location. Follow these instructions to learn how to configure Fanurio manually and then add this line to the settings file:

database.dir=PATH_TO_SHARED_FOLDER

You need to replace PATH_TO_SHARED_FOLDER with the actual path. Assuming you are on Windows and you have a shared folder called Folder on computer Alpha, the path is //Alpha/Folder. If you have a dual-boot system (Linux and Windows), you can access the Windows folders from Linux.

IMPORTANT: If you share the database folder between two computers, make sure you don’t use it at the same time on both computers. The database doesn’t support concurrent access.

Recommended: If you can share a folder between two computers or two platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux).

III. File synchronization

Another solution is file synchronization software like FolderShare (reviewed here) which can help you synchronize the data folders of each Fanurio install. The location of the data folders is presented in this section.

• Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Fanurio/data
• Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Fanurio\data
• Vista: C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Fanurio\data
• Linux: ~/.fanurio/data

IMPORTANT: As is the case with shared folder, you shouldn’t work independently on each computer and then expect the data to be merged by the synchronization software. Instead, try to synchronize it after each use.

Recommended: If you want to keep your data synchronized no matter where you are. This is a more general solution than the shared folder approach.

IV. Backup transfer

The last solution and probably the less practical one is to create a backup on one computer and then restore it on the other. The main disadvantage is that you have to do this manually every time you switch computers otherwise they will be out of sync.

You can read this post for more details on how to create and restore a backup.

Recommended: Only if you need to use a second computer from time to time otherwise there’s too much overhead to create and restore the backup.

As you can see, none of these methods is perfect but they work in many situations. One feature that we intend to implement is the synchronization of multiple computers from Fanurio thus eliminating the need to rely on outside tools.

Fanurio 1.11 Released

Fanurio version 1.11 was officially released yesterday. I’ll use this post to talk about what I think it’s most important and isn’t covered by the release notes.

Check for updates

If you followed us so far, you’ve probably noticed that we make new releases quite often. It takes us between one and three months to release new versions. Until now, you were able to check for updates but manually. Starting with this version, Fanurio can check automatically for new updates. By default, it checks every 5 days.

This means we’ll no longer send notifications by email since Fanurio can do it automatically. If you want to be notified by email about new versions, please register here.

Cross-platform version

Another interesting addition is the cross-platform version. It is a .tar.gz file that contains everything that’s needed to run Fanurio on any platform. It covers those cases when the Windows, Debian or Mac OS X installers are not suitable.

You may also want to use the cross-platform version if you need to install Fanurio on a USB stick. It comes with launch scripts that start and configure Fanurio to keep its data on the stick. To learn how to install and run it, please read this user guide section.

The nice thing about the cross-platform version is that you can install it on a USB stick and then run it from there on any computer, whether it uses Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.

Cost, profits and money reports

The last thing I want to mention and the most important feature of this version is the possibility to record costs for project items. Many freelancers are reselling goods or subcontract some of their services. In both cases, knowing how much it cost is important to determine the actual profit.

To help you understand how much money you’re making, project reports can now display both time and money. You can read more about project reports here.

I hope you’ll find this new version more useful and it will help you have a better understanding of how much your work is worth.

Fanurio 1.10 Released

Fanurio version 1.10 is officially out. Although the release notes page has more technical information about what’s new, this post focuses on the new features.

As you will see, this version makes time tracking even easier and has better integration with Linux.

Better Linux integration

A Linux version was uploaded on our website right after we released version 1.9 but one thing that it missed was a standard installer. It also didn’t add a menu entry and you had to create a desktop shortcut by hand.

To fix these problems, we created a .deb installer that makes it easy to install, uninstall or upgrade Fanurio just like any other Linux application. The installer also creates a menu shortcut that can later be copied to the GNOME panel or to the desktop.

If you are using Java 6 (which we highly recommend), Fanurio can also add a panel (tray) icon. You can read more about tray support on Linux in the user guide.

Smart timing

Fanurio has a timer that can help you record time for what you do. But a timer is useless if you don’t remember to use it. To solve this problem, Fanurio has a few reminders to help you start, resume or stop the timer. Instead of relying on your memory and attention to control the timer, you can use these reminders. We are calling this feature smart timing.

You can read more about smart timing in the user guide.

New timer actions

Until now, when you started the timer, it wasn’t possible to specify the project item that was timed. You had to do it when the timer was stopped. In version 1.10, this can be done very easily. Just open a project, select a project item and press Shift-F5. You will start the timer for that particular project item.

Shift-F5 is the shortcut of the new timer action that lets you start the timer for a particular project item. This is one of the five new timer actions (start…, transfer, discard, info and recover) that have been added to this version. And since we now have eight timer actions instead of three, we’ve organized them in their own menu.

These are roughly the most relevant features and improvements of this version. The release notes page lists them all.

I hope this version will help you record time easier and more accurately than before.

How to change Fanurio’s tray icons on Windows

Fanurio adds an icon to the tray bar when running on Windows. The icon can be used to access Fanurio and to show the state of the timer.

By default, Fanurio uses three different icons to indicate the state of the timer:

• when the timer is stopped
• when the timer is running
• when the timer is paused

There are users who don’t have a problem with the animated icons and users who find them distracting. It would be a lot easier for us if everybody would like to use the same icons but we don’t know if that’s true. Until now, there were only a few people who wanted to use a different set of icons.

If you find the animated icons annoying, you can configure Fanurio to use a different set of icons. Here are the steps for doing this:

1. Make sure Fanurio is not running.
2. Copy the new icons to C:\Program Files\Fanurio\lib so that Fanurio can find them.
3. Open fanurio.properties with a text editor.This is where Fanurio keeps its settings. You can find this file in C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Fanurio\ or in C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Fanurio\ if you use Vista.
4. Add the following lines to fanurio.properties.
   • tray.icon=filename1
   • tray.icon.running=filename2
   • tray.icon.paused=filename3

   filename1, filename2 and filename3 are the names of the files that you want to use as tray icons.

5. Save fanurio.properties and close it
6. Start Fanurio

Let’s suppose that you want to use the following icons instead of the default ones:

• when the timer is stopped
• when the timer is running
• when the timer is paused

You need to:

1. Right-click on the images to save them on your computer to C:\Program Files\Fanurio\lib as indicated at step 2.
   
2. Add these three lines to fanurio.properties as indicated at step 4.
   • tray.icon=clock-green.gif
   • tray.icon.paused=clock-gray.gif
   • tray.icon.running=clock-red.gif

Please leave a comment if you prefer certain tray icons. Thanks!

How to move Fanurio’s data to a new computer

If you want to replace your desktop PC with a laptop or if you decide to switch from Windows to Mac OS X or Linux, you may wonder if it’s possible to move Fanurio’s data to the new computer.

The answer is YES and below I’ll show you how it can be done. All you have to do is create a backup on one computer and then import it on the other. Here’s how to do this step by step:

Old Computer

1. Start Fanurio on your old computer
2. Go to File > Backup and name the backup migration
3. Go to File > Show Backups to open the backups folder
4. Copy the file called migration.fro to your new computer

New Computer

5. Start Fanurio on your new computer
6. Go to File > Show Backups to open the backups folder on the new computer
7. Copy the migration.fro file to the backups folder on the new computer
8. Go to File > Restore and choose migration from the list of backups

Once you complete these steps, the data from the old computer will be available on the new computer.

Fanurio runs on Linux

If you are in a hurry, you can get the Linux version from the download page. For more details about this version, read the rest of this post.

One question you may ask is why did we release a Linux version now and not earlier since Fanurio is implemented in Java?

It’s true that technically it was possible to run it on Linux from day one but running on Linux is different from running like a Linux application. That’s true for any platform, whether it’s Linux, Windows or Mac OS X.

There are many small details that must be taken care of to make an application look natively and this release handles them. We still have a few non-critical issues to fix before we can say Fanurio is a perfect Linux application.

We released a Linux version now because we had quite a few requests and because Fanurio is good enough to be used on Linux. Below is a list with the important remaining issues.

• Tests: We’ve tested Fanurio only on Ubuntu 7.10 with Sun Java 1.5.
• Tray icon: The Windows version integrates with the tray while the Mac version integrates with the dock. That makes it easier to access Fanurio. It would be great if the Linux version would integrate with the tray too. [Fixed in version 1.10]
• Idle detection: Idle time detection is a very nice and helpful feature. That’s not implemented yet for the Linux version.
• User interface: Whether you are using GNOME or KDE, Fanurio will look like the Windows version. We didn’t find an appropriate look and feel and so we decided to use the Plastic look and feel. The GTK look and feel provided by Sun on Linux is not really an option.
• Installer: We don’t provide installers for any Linux distribution. There’s a .tar.gz file from which you can extract Fanurio. We’ll probably create a .deb package for the next official release. [Fixed in version 1.10]

Apart from these major issues there are a few other ones but they are to small to be mentioned here. I hope you’ll find Fanurio useful on Linux even if it doesn’t have the features listed above.

If there’s anything you want to say about the Linux version, please leave a comment or send us an email.

Fanurio 1.9 Released

Today we released Fanurio 1.9, our 10th official release. It’s actually the 12th if you consider 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 but those were bug fix releases so I’m not counting them ;-).

The release notes page documents all the changes while postings like this one will be explaining only the most relevant features. These postings are meant to give you the big picture on what’s going on. I’ll publish a new article here every time a new version is released.

So, why should you use version 1.9? First of all because it has much better project reports, second because it’s better integrated with the Mac and third because it has more billing features.

I know this doesn’t tell you much so let’s take a closer look at each one of them.

Better project reports

Version 1.8 had two reports, a time log report that displayed the recorded time and a project report that displayed all the items of a project and their time. Due to numerous requests for better time reporting, we’ve decided to merge these two reports into a single report.

With this new report, you can see how much time you’ve worked for a client or how much uninvoiced billable time you have for a certain project. Now, it’s easier to see time by date, week, month or year for one or more projects.

I should probably emphasize the fact that this report is about time and not about money. A money report is planned for the next release.

Better Mac integration

Ever since we launched Fanurio, we wanted to have a Mac version. But we don’t just want it to run on Mac, we want Fanurio to be a good Mac citizen. That’s why we’ve added two important new Mac features. Fanurio can now import contacts from Address Book and it can detect when the computer becomes idle.

Idle time detection was available on Windows only but now it works on any Mac that runs Tiger or Leopard. Previous versions of Mac don’t have a reliable method of detecting idle time. But what is idle time detection?

Let’s say you want to write something and before you begin to work, you start the timer to see how long it takes. After ten minutes, the phone rings and you leave the computer for half an hour forgetting about the timer. When you’ll get back, Fanurio will ask you to do something with that half an hour you’ve been away.

Idle time detection is what Fanurio does when you start the timer but you’re not using the computer.

Improved billing

Fanurio is about time tracking and billing. These are the core features which we are constantly improving based on direct feedback. This version makes no exception.

For instance, you can move time from one project item to another if you put it there accidentally. You can also add time to an item without specifying the start or the end time of the day.

One cool new billing feature is the possibility to distinguish domestic clients from foreign ones. Let’s say you are from Canada and one of your clients is from Germany. Whenever you will create an invoice for that client, Fanurio will know to display numbers, dates and currency according to German rules.

These are roughly the most relevant features and improvements of this version. The release notes page lists them all.

I hope you’ll enjoy this new version and that it will make you more productive.