usage

ManicTime from Finkit d.o.o. is a free time-tracking application that records how and when you use your computer and generates useful statistics and reports from the data. It works in the background and can track everything from billable hours to time spent in online social networks. It uses personalized "time tags" to accurately display how you use your time, including how efficient you really are, as opposed to how much you think you're getting done. It stores your information on a local database instead of an online or networked resource, which bolsters security.

ManicTime's … Read more

Use of mobile phones and the Internet continues to skyrocket despite a huge difference in broadband pricing worldwide, a new study from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has found.

According to the United Nations-run organization, a whopping 6.1 trillion text messages will be sent by the end of 2010. That figure, which has tripled in the past three years, means people around the globe are sending 200,000 text messages every second.

Mobile phones are now available to 90 percent of the world's population. And so far, customers are taking advantage. The ITU estimates that there will be … Read more

After months of hints, Verizon Wireless is jumping on the tiered data pricing bandwagon, a source close to the company confirmed on Tuesday.

Starting October 28, the company will launch a new promotion that will allow customers to subscribe to a $15 a month data plan, which gives individual smartphone subscribers 150 megabytes of data for the month. The new pricing is only a promotion for the holiday season and is meant to entice traditional feature-phone customers to upgrade to smartphones, the source said. The source was unable to say whether Verizon would continue to offer the pricing after the … Read more

Browser usage statistics for September provide a look at who's gaining clout on the Web: Google's Chrome, twin mobile powerhouses Apple iOS and Google Android, and Microsoft's IE9.

Google's Chrome browser continued its steady rise in usage on NetApplications' network of thousands of Web sites, which get tens of millions of visits monthly, increasing from 7.5 percent in August to 8 percent in September, the analytics firm said.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer remains the top-ranked browser, but its share dipped back below 60 percent, sinking from 60.4 percent to 59.7 percent. Second-place Firefox was essentially flat at 23 percent. Apple's Safari rose a tenth of a point to 5.3 percent. Opera kept its 2.4 percent share.

Chrome is a rising force, a fact that's very useful for Google's ambitions. Not only does it help spread the Google brand, but it also serves as a vehicle to disseminate Google technologies. For example, on Thursday, Google said it will add support for its new WebP image format to Chrome in an effort to speed browser graphics. And it's working to improve the browser: Chrome 7 is getting Google Instant search abilities, some hardware acceleration, and WebGL 3D graphics support by default. … Read more

A Washington, D.C. program intended to determine the effects of smart meters on household electricity use uncovered habits that could have ramifications in the way electric utilities implement pricing plans to consumers.

Bottom line: socioeconomic status does not matter when it comes to saving energy; most customers with access to smart meters reduce overall electricity use when presented with their habits and a financial incentive to save. Most would also rather curb usage or face high premiums a few times a year during extreme peak events than worry about keeping track of daily peak and off-peak usage hours. So-called … Read more

Wireless broadband services are great. But how much data are you actually using and how much is it all really costing you?

In this week's Ask Maggie advice column, I answer a few questions about wireless broadband services. Specifically, I explain why using a U.S. wireless broadband data stick is probably not a good idea without a special data plan.

I also try to explain why it's better to keep your home broadband service if you're thinking of subscribing to a wireless broadband service. And finally I try to provide some insight as to why usage-based … Read more

Verizon Wireless smartphone customers use 25 percent more data than AT&T iPhone customers, thanks in large part to new Verizon's new Android smartphones, a recent study indicates.

Validas, a company that analyzes cell phone bills and usage for consumers and corporate customers, analyzed 20,000 consumer phone bills between January and May of 2010 and discovered that Verizon Wireless smartphone customers consume on average about 421 megabytes per month. Meanwhile, AT&T iPhone users consume roughly 25 percent less data, or about 338 megabytes per month.

The full Validas report will be published on September 1.… Read more

Firefox's use of CPU resources has improved but hasn't gone away completely.

The popular Web browser has had a longstanding CPU (central processing unit) utilization issue that--in some cases--overtaxed the CPU, causing noticeable heat issues in small laptops.

I wrote about this last November after I had been grappling with this issue for more than a year. First, on an Hewlett-Packard business ultraportable and then on the Apple MacBook Air. As I stated at the time, my theory is that many users don't notice Firefox CPU utilization on large, well-ventilated mainstream laptops. But it can be an issue on ultraportables, which are more sensitive to heat because of the obvious design constraints (typically under an inch thick).

On the HP ultraportable (model 2510p, running Windows Vista), CPU usage became a major concern. The cause was twofold. First, at least one HP 2510p SKU (using a 1.33GHz CPU--the configuration I owned) had a design problem. When the unit got hot, it would shut off without warning. That, combined with Firefox's CPU usage issues, as spelled out clearly by Mozilla in the link above, made for an unstable mix. Firefox, I determined after much trial and error, triggered most of the shutdowns on my HP laptop.

While this never happened running Firefox on the MacBook Air (which I use now), it did continue to cause overheating. I have both the original MacBook Air (which uses an older 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor) and a newer version (which has a newer 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor). Running Firefox on the older Air became unsustainable at times because of the heat issue. While moving to Safari didn't completely alleviate the heat problem, Safari did not generate the level of heat and fan activity that Firefox did.

Before I go any further describing the issue, let me say this: that was then. Mozilla has made strides--at least for the Web pages I access most often--in improving Firefox CPU utilization on the Mac.… Read more

World Cup fever pushed the Internet to a new record on Friday, according to measurements from Akamai.

Traffic to news sites globally started a steady climb about 6 a.m. Eastern time and peaked six hours later at noon, reaching nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute.

The traffic dipped going into the afternoon but stayed well above normal. The figures suggest that the Internet was most active during the Mexico-South Africa game and stayed heavy through the France-Uruguay game.

The day's traffic far exceeded the previous record of 8.5 million visitors per minute, which was set when … Read more