Utility to measure application usage?

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Van Bagnol - 05 Jan 2005 15:45 GMT

Is there any utility that meters how much time is actively spent in
certain applications over the course of a week? And is it possible to
limit the usage of those apps after a set quota?

Specifically, I want to know how much time is being wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H
spent in iChat and similar apps, and throttle their usage if it gets to
be excessive, for designated user accounts which unsurprisingly happen
to coincide with my kids' login accounts.

I suppose I could run a crude background AppleScript to the Activity
Monitor or Unix's "top" or "ps", but ideally I'd like to know how much
time an interactive app spends in the foreground subject to an arbitrary
idle time grace period.

I seem to recall that TimeSlips X has a facility for logging the time
spent in certain applications or editing files, but I'm not sure if that
can be done for all users in a multi-user system where fast user
switching is in effect.

Van

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Van Bagnol / n p c o m p l e t e at bagnol dot com / c r l at bagnol dot com
...enjoys Theatre / Windsurfing / Skydiving / Mountain Biking
...feels "parang lumalakad ako soo loob ng panaginip"
...thinks "An Error is Not a Mistake ... Unless You Refuse to Correct It"

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George Williams - 05 Jan 2005 17:03 GMT

> Specifically, I want to know how much time is being wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H
> spent in iChat and similar apps

Not sure what ^H^H^H^H^H^H means, but is it wise to restrict
your kids' access to their peers? It might seem like a stupid
waste of time to us, but it may do more harm than good to
isolate them.

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clvrmnky - 05 Jan 2005 17:47 GMT

>>Specifically, I want to know how much time is being wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H
>>spent in iChat and similar apps
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> waste of time to us, but it may do more harm than good to
> isolate them.

A series of "^h" characters deliberately placed in text is a geeky
reference to those of us who grew up on terminal emulators (or, in some
cases, real honest-to-god hardware terminals.) Under some circumstances
what your terminal sends as, for example, a backspace key is not what
the server on the other side of the connection expects or understands.

A typical example of this type of misunderstanding is printing (echoing)
^h or ^? for the backspace key.

A more modern example of this usage is the <strike> tag used in the HTML
of blogs and articles.

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Van Bagnol - 07 Jan 2005 01:11 GMT

> >>Specifically, I want to know how much time is being wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H
> >>spent in iChat and similar apps
> >
> > Not sure what ^H^H^H^H^H^H means,

[snip]

> A series of "^h" characters deliberately placed in text is a geeky
> reference to those of us who grew up on terminal emulators (or, in some
> cases, real honest-to-god hardware terminals.)

Wow, has it been that long? I'm too young to have become an old fart! :-)

Not only did I grow up on hardware terminals, they often didn't _have_ a
backspace key and we manually typed control-H to erase a character. And
the red stripe on the thermal paper meant that you better refill. And
you were a VIP if you could bring a 300 baud coupler home.

> Under some circumstances
> what your terminal sends as, for example, a backspace key is not what
> the server on the other side of the connection expects or understands.
> A typical example of this type of misunderstanding is printing (echoing)
> ^h or ^? for the backspace key.

More specifically, the terminal settings did not match the capability of
the model of terminal. Either it assumed you were on a hardcopy terminal
(where backspace-and-retype created a dark glob of ink) or that the
'Erase character' key was RUBOUT.

> A more modern example of this usage is the <strike> tag used in the HTML
> of blogs and articles.

Ah, kids nowadays...whadda they know? :-)

Van

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Van Bagnol - 06 Jan 2005 10:03 GMT

> > Specifically, I want to know how much time is being wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H
> > spent in iChat and similar apps
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> waste of time to us, but it may do more harm than good to
> isolate them.

They're quite welcome to have their friends over, who after all, just
live up the street, and the friends' parents have said they're welcome
at their houses as well. Last time they were over they helped rake the
leaves and actually had a good time doing it.

_Limiting_ chat time is not the same as _eliminating_ chat time. I don't
think unconditional restriction is wise, but I think it's prudent to
_measure_ time-consuming activities in light of other obligations
(piano, chores, homework) before taking any action.

3 hours iChat + 0 piano practice + 1 hour homework + 5 minutes cleaning
room (and in that order) is suboptimal time management. 1 hour homework
+ 30 minutes piano + 30 minutes cleaning room + 2 hours iChat takes less
time, gets the work done, and makes Mom happy.

Reducing chat time from three hours to two doesn't harm the quality of
bonding significantly. Oh, and having been a Usenet contributor for
close to 15 years, I _know_ what a stupid waste of time is. :-)

Van

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Michael Vilain - 05 Jan 2005 20:55 GMT

> Is there any utility that meters how much time is actively spent in
> certain applications over the course of a week? And is it possible to
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Van

Were this requested on a Solaris system, I'd suggest a cron job that
collects info on processes and stores the info in MySQL for your
analysis and perusal. You can still write something like that on MacOS
X. Perl would be able to do this nicely.

Or turn on process accounting and have plenty of room on the system disk
to collect statistics. AFAIK, there isn't process accounting on MacOS
X. But it collects exactly the statistics you're asking for for
everything on the system.

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Dave Hinz - 05 Jan 2005 21:02 GMT

>> Is there any utility that meters how much time is actively spent in
>> certain applications over the course of a week? And is it possible to
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> collects info on processes and stores the info in MySQL for your
> analysis and perusal.

Why would that be solaris-specific?

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Michael Vilain - 06 Jan 2005 00:19 GMT

> >> Is there any utility that meters how much time is actively spent in
> >> certain applications over the course of a week? And is it possible to
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Why would that be solaris-specific?

I just did some "wandering around" and process accounting does exist on
MacOS X, much to my surprise. Don't know what sort of resources it
takes up in terms of disk space (used to be a pig and required you to
make / very big oh so long ago on Ultrix. Never really ran it on
Solaris but it was there.

So, Van, read the man pages on process accounting:

man -k account

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Van Bagnol - 07 Jan 2005 00:50 GMT

> I just did some "wandering around" and process accounting does exist on
> MacOS X, much to my surprise. Don't know what sort of resources it
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> man -k account

Interesting. It would appear I can run a root-level cron task to start
collecting process info on iChat. But it also appears that the acct
record stored in the log gives broad-brush process information such as
total user-elapsed time and total CPU-elapsed time, so I may have to
take 'ps'-style or 'top'-style snapshots anyway. The problem is that an
iChat launched on startup but remaining idle would inflate the user time
but depress CPU time.

It seems that there are a number of ways to slice it, and although the
geek in me wants to explore more technical aspects than is necessary,
the parent in me just wants a quick-and-dirty off-the-shelf measurement.

Then again, I can schedule the router to block iChat ports until some
agreed-upon time. :-)

The general question of "How much time do we spend on X?" is still an
interesting one, as I'd like to know how much time my eyeballs are spent
in NewsWatcher, Safari, Mail, GarageBand, etc.

Van

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / January 2005

Utility to measure application usage?