Clock0doro: The pomodoro timer

Hi!

Have you ever wondered why there is no good free Pomodoro timer available? Have you felt frustrated by this? Me too.

I have decided to create my own Pomodoro Timer. Not just any Pomodoro Timer, but a good enough one that I can use for a long time. I have been using this Pomodoro timer for the past 10 months (Since Feb 2023) and I love it. It has helped me improve my time management skills and I use it almost every day. Today, I thought of sharing it with you so that you can also benefit from it.

What I wanted is…

I am looking for a simple timer that is always on top and can be toggled. It should have both audio and visual indicators, without any pop-ups, and should run for 25+5 minutes in classical mode. I want to be able to pause and stop it, as well as choose between a forced break or work time. Additionally, it should display the remaining time on an analog clock and have a progress bar. I wanted the stop bell to be annoying to force me stop working, and a sufficiently good work bell.

Oh and a bonus would be to synchronize with the time, so that I start work at minute 0 and 30!

Simple yet efficient:

You have start/pause button is what you’ll probably be using at most. Probably “Sync” (S) button to synchronize with the analog clock. You can force work or break (B) time. You can also toggle top-most (T). Sounds on the top right if you want. simple buttons.

Requirements and Install

1. You need .NET Desktop Runtime 6.0.: Get it from here: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0
2. Download the binary files from https://app.box.com/s/1wll5wn1nu9k0aep45xbfyoc8oxwxwfb (Windows, but portable to Linux and MacOS)
3. Always scan if the file was corrupted, use your antivirus or https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload
4. No install is needed. Enjoy!

Code source and licensing

The code source, and binary files are available at: https://github.com/kallelay/clock0doro

You can of course fork it, but watch out for the license: MIT License.

That and Merry Christmas!

Vivaldi is the new “Opera”

Opera

If you are a gold-era computer enthusiast. The words Fridge, IRC and built-in mail will ring a bell for you. But, at some point, these three things in addition to unite and RSS feed reader were all meaning one thing: Opera.

Opera 12 was for any computer enthusiast the everlost perfect browser hunt loot result. It was perfect, too perfect that I could never ask better. I gotta say that yes… Definitely those few “incompatibilities” due to the Presto engine were sometimes frustrating, but for me that was the best browser.

Then they decided, little by little to deintegrate it. Opera was at market loss, it did not know its place, but at some point they decided that we, the enthusiasts, are not the priority. So instead of focusing of a small community, let’s go mainstream (everyone should use opera)! And this marked the era of the compliance and standardization of Opera to other browsers, which caused Opera’s great marketshare loss. After adapting the chrome engine, many users stopped using Opera for good reasons: (1) It became a bad chrome clone and no longer the same opera and (2) It was VERY unstable.

Opera eventually recovered and is now the “best alternative to Chrome”, at least from my perspective. Furthermore, they tried to gain us back, the enthusiasts, as well as the normal people by adding new reliable features: Opera Link, Opera data synchronization, etc. Such features are already existing in other browsers. And when my colleagues ask me which browser do you suggest, I’d immediately say: Opera. It is basically like google chrome but has more optimization: battery/power efficiency, synchronization, fast and customizable, and a perfect pop-up video.

Vivaldi will be the new true Opera

10 years later, I still miss Opera. The Opera I always loved. I know about the existence of several browsers who have tried to be the new Opera. I will be honest, most of these browsers lacked the experience and the vision, as they are mainly made by hobbyists. What about Vivaldi? My first impression was: “Yeah, a lot of promises, it’s worth to keep an eye on it from times to times but it will probably get standardized at some point, just like Opera”. Here I was wrong.

From my now usual Outlook email reader (which I hate with passion) and my newly Opera, I still use Vivaldi to do literature research and corrections for my papers, in a frequency several times per month. It is better than Opera and Chrome at this case. Then, I have decided to take a look at it last night to check the novelties.

Then I noticed that they are doing extremely interesting things in the experimentation part:

• Popup video: We have got you
• Chrome-alike Blink engine for compatbility with website: we got you too
• Zoom, show images, hide images: We got you too
• Mute tabs?: Yes buddy, we got you
• Email client: Oh yes, we are experimenting it too
• We got calendar buddy, would you also like to see it?
• The old way of downloading, if you are missing Opera 12 bud
• Would you also like also to take a pause by clicking one button?
• Speed dial? Of course, that’s our main feature

• Ah, again, you would like to capture pages like the new Opera? No worries, we got you, too
• Time? There is a little time on the bottom right
• Beautiful animation? We got plenty
• Experimentation with pages? Yes buddy yes…
• Full explained history? Yes of course we do that here
• Built-in game? Yes we got you (and I am not kidding, it’s called Vivaldia Game)
• Would you like to see 2 or 4 pages at the same window/time? Yes

To explain it: Vivaldi identified what Opera has failed many years to do so. It is a feature and enthusiast browser, which could be used by mainstream and enthusiasts alike and it has compatibility with most of websites thanks to the webkit engine. To me, Vivaldi will be my new home as I am making the transition from Opera. It has more than I ask for, and soon will be finishing what I yearned for all this year: A better email client than Opera Mail. How stable is Vivaldi? This I don’t have the answer right now, but as I said, I use it usually for literature research as the other browsers (Opera, Chrome and Firefox) are not capable of handling such amount of tabs while make a good memory management.

Hey, what browser or email client should I use?

Right now, Vivaldi is still growing, but if they manage to do things correctly, I will say that it will become #1 browser for enthusiasts and maybe it will find its place in the mainstream too. So, if you are an enthusiast and be hesitant for a while, this is the right time to start your transition to Vivaldi, to see how beautiful and reliable it became. The devs have struggled, but they made the best job I have ever seen since a long time, kudos to them. As a permanent home? I can’t give an answer since I have just started the transition last night, but I gave a lot of hope and trust to it before and still giving.

What browser do you recommend right now? Opera and Vivaldi, they’re far better than Chrome and Firefox, trust me on this. For email, I use Outlook, but take a great look at Vivaldi. Vivaldi will soon become #1 email client AND #1 enthusiast browser, trust me on this.

When this happens, I will be saying to you: Check Vivaldi, but Opera is also good. If you have tons of emails, then Vivaldi full point. But I believe until then, there will be some time.

Vivaldi: https://vivaldi.com

Opera: https://www.opera.com/

Note/disclaimer: This post is not endorsed or sponsored by Vivaldi or Opera. It reflects the author’s pure opinion. This post reflects many years of experiences with many browsers, which eventually ended up by Opera (2011), then Google Chrome (?), then Firefox (?), then Google Chrome (2017) then Opera (2018+) being the best browser on the market at their time.

[Re-Volt] New Track: Forbidden Area 1

After 2 years of interrupted work and last day of vacation, Forbidden Area 1 is finally finished! (almost finished, don’t mind the bugs)

This track serves as first instalment in the series “Forbidden Area”. It also incorporates animation and texture animation.

The track was started on my birthday 2 years ago with sketches heavily influenced from Portal, Portal 2. By then, I understood perfectly that due to the limited free time and the quality to be assured, not to mention that I would like something I personally enjoy doing and racing, etc. by then the first sketches were heavily modified to ensure more racing and from just “Forbidden Area” track, it is now just “one Forbidden Area track that has all the rooms!” So in a way I and perhaps you, the reader, could consider it as an introduction to the whole universe.

The work flow was not constant: the stay-at-home weekends and the stay-at-home holidays, the remaining time at home during vacations, and stay-at-home stay-at-home-after-work-no-more-pc. Therefore, many things were done in pipeline / modular, causing inconsistency in the art itself, as well as more bugs. Nonetheless, the work plan was followed until Corona times. The track was previously scheduled for March 2020, but then delayed to August’14th 2020.

Grab it from RVZ: http://revoltzone.net/tracks/52549/Forbidden%20Area%201

2048×2048 Texture patch: https://mega.nz/file/oB4DwA7Q#60pyxOsdC95ddpUJRXcmEcAx6yC-2e43GpckZXUB4mI

Some screenshots of the RVZ (512×512) version:

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How was it done?

Planning the raceline: using pencil and papers, the plan was redone multiple times. Few ideas are genius, few ideas are stupid. Then own quality control on the plan to ensure everything looks fine.
Then, the modeling part was started. The planning was not 100% sure so, nor was the sizing of the track, so the plan/modeling/test cycle. Once the consistency is found: textures were added, and so the: plan/modeling+tex/test cycle. This has been carried out until the racepath became visible.

The new pipeline architecture became “Makeitgood” and modeling+texturing. Then models to be made were numerous and the time was limited. The planning was rectified even more and more. The pipeline work was carried out with many makeitgood items being finished (EXCEPT AI NODES, THEY NEVER FINISH) and modeling at early August 2020. The final quality assurance was added to work pipeline, this is where I discovered an annoying part of myself that’s looking for great quality and perfectionism if possible. Many modeling bugs, errors in makeitgood were spotted. 80% are fixed, 20% I wish you could forgive my limited time for them 😦

The big day has come: August’13th. Everything is finished. Except the annoying camera collision problem… it is probably going to take more than expected. Destructed city took me one day to fix all the bugs…. Here, the deadline for the track was August’14th…. and one bug gave me full despair. It was then I asked in Re-Volt’s #tracks discord team whether someone was familiar with this. It turned out to be yes! and from 1 to 3 days of work, mrroblinx fixed it a jiffy!
Then final tests included AI nodes tests (which the QA was “fine”) and here we have at 14th of August 2020 a finished track!

[Re-Volt] Two new tracks “Frogger” = FroggerVolt

Hi all!

It’s my finally my vacation time! This year, I have been updating nVolt engine and nextgen nVolt engine, as a preparation to update TexYUI and later RV Car Studio. In addition to rushing to finish one track (Forbidden Area 1)

But, as an “ice breaker” to my inactivity to Re-Volt, I am pleased to announce the release of a Re-Volt dream, in which we have “Frogger” game inside Re-Volt, FroggerVolt!

The concept itself is not new, and the files were dating 10 years ago. The concept was made by Urnemanden and myself. Today, RVGL (and Re-Volt) has matured enough to allow more customization. And this resulted in a genre: Sprint track, which “Frogger” is based upon!

The track comes in two flavors: The “easy” and the “hard”. By the time of writing the easy has been released on RVZ (linky). The hard version will be released in a later date (should be in this link)

Have a nice day!

[Re-Volt] New Track: Destructed City 2019

Hi all!

It has been a long time but I am still there. Trying to collect the tiny bits of free time to make something useful 🙂

Today, I am presenting to you:

Destructed City (2019)

— The war has just started. It is the first day. A raid is coming, should we hold a final race before the total destruction?

This track is RVGL Only. Please use RVGL’s latest version.

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Download link: https://app.box.com/s/1kta3mia7yy78d9dy3ckchtjxjyukxop

Have a nice day 😀

(Copublished in RVIO)

[Reflections] Success

if you are a “boat”, don’t try to race on a road track. Use the sea. You can slide on the road, but you will hurt yourself. Let the others race at 500 km/h but remember, only you can go intercontinental. Maybe the real race was from Dakar to Boston?

This is my story:

5 years ago: I was on the verge of failing at the university after a series of success with a bitter taste of failure for 3 years.

I got the worst marks… Failing the year was certain
I understood that “normal” or”normally successful” doesn’t go with me
I bid the farewell to my arrogant fantasy to be the best, I understood that I was in the abyss… And soon I will be repeating the year

— One thing in my mind: salvation: how? —

I did it wrong. I was imitating the best ones’ methods to be #1. I did it to become #1… I learn for the exams, not for myself, and I do it with no grain of feeling.

Why don’t I try something different? I am likely to fail anyway…

For starters, I would like to learn, not because they glue our asses to the bench with their presence list. I want to learn. Point.

I gulped everything related and unrelated to my studies. Ex, Coursera, and Wikipedia kept me awake at night. Engulfed my being.
You name it, I take it: Java, vb, HTML, photo editing, video editing, creative programming, religions, history, cultures, I have taken them. Electronics? (my major) I have eaten the exercises and learned kinds of stuff beyond the scopes.

2 years later, the head of the department was giving me the prize in. This is no wonder: Outstandingly topped the courses that almost failed me. I got the #1 spot in my field.

It is the same day I got the prize, I returned home, woke the pc up and resumed another edX course.

Is being #1 a success? it made me happy for one day, no
I don’t have the answer anymore. I lost what success means. It echoes from times to times, but I can’t see it. Maybe it’s just a smile of someone close? dunno…

The original story started from a video in Facebook from Nas Daily, about success and how the road of success differs from a person to a person, above was my comment on it.

Do I consider myself successful? No, but I avoid fail once, and I think my experience could help somebody who is facing similar situation, I faced 8 / 5 years ago!

[Re-Volt] RV Car Studio goes open source

Hello Re-Volters! Happy new year 2019!

It has been 5 years since you have heard about RV Car Studio from my side. Since its release on 22nd December 2013.

After that, just couple of updates were released, all of them were minor, and no major release was committed.

Yes, RV Car Studio was not able to see more light as a lot of things have been going on in real life. At the end, the other tasks made it impossible to resume working on RV Car Studio despite my own will to commit on it. The decision to open source RV Car Studio is finally made today.

What is RV Car Studio? Basically just a tool for editing Re-Volt cars. Although it was intended to allow cars from scratch, right now, it can only help by editing the current settings of the cars. The features in RV Car Studio makes things very easy! You can automatically calculate Inertia Matrix, wheels positions, change the positions of 1, 2 and 4 car parts (wheels, axis etc) at the same time! Everything in real-time!

GitHub repo of RV Car Studio

More readings:

[RVCarStudio] build #2620

[RvCarStudio]RV Car Studio

edX and Coursera… What’s going on?

Perhaps you have previously heard of edX and Coursera, right? Yes? No?

edX and Coursera are two MOOC “Massive online learning course” websites, what’s a MOOC? Call it a platform for learning, get graded and perhaps if you do well you’ll get a certificate. A certificate has a nice weight on CV, guys…

Not so fast, hold it just there. “Certificate” … is not free, right? Until 3 months ago, they were FREE. But now, not every course offers a FREE CERTIFICATE.

Back then, it was possible to audit (see tutors tutoring by video, having handouts) the course and even possible to access to graded materials (you have to submit your responses before a deadline). If you pass the exams and homeworks (get a score of 50% at least for some courses, others may demand more than 50%), you’ll be offered a valid “certificate of honor” or a “certificate of accomplishment” (edX, Coursera respectively)  but if you pay more you’ll get a “verified certificate” and respectively a “certificate with signature”.

But now…
edX and Coursera still offer the opportunity to see videos,  but accessing graded materials (aka homeworks and exams) is no longer granted by Coursera. and as simple as nothing: You are forced to not to answer anything on Coursera therefore you’ll get nothing. EdX on the other hands offer you everything but at the end you’ll only get a compliment about finishing a course and no certificate.

This is both good and bad, the good thing, as a Tunisian where quality learning is almost non-existent,  learning from edX and Coursera was the only reason I’m into education, but I get my motivation to learn from ‘seeing a possible certificate in the horizon‘ (in other words, expecting it after hard work). Now certificates are gone, and so 50% of my motivation. EdX and Coursera played a very great role in my life, not only they offered me great education, complimented my engineering studies and also offered me opportunities to see how people are taught in Harvard and MIT (for instance). I saw many people in the forums it was a great experience for me!

Now, if you think of it again, Honor means you’ll get for instance, an MITx certificate for free, and guess what… not everybody is doing a hard work and some are even cheating. This is bad, if a word gets out about how people got MITx certificates (for instance) without shredding their souls and they present themselves at work or at universities as an MITian (for instance). Here is it …. MIT’s name will be at stakes! And that’s what it did happen: Quality loss in graduated people while the quality was boosted in courses. The only solution is to make the courses only accessible to those who deserve it :”money”.

 

Here we go again.

Nonetheless, edX was the one who shaped me (along Coursera) as I am today. I’m pretty grateful for what they have done. The other part was shaped by my National School of Engineers of Sfax. Thank you very much guys, I hope I do well.

[Math] Collatz conjecture

Hello world, how is it going?

Collatz Conjecture, ever heard of it? It’s probably most known as “3n+1” or “Half Or Triple Plus One” .

The procedure is pretty simple and starts with a simple number picking. So yes, pick any number, let’s call this number n.

algorithm: (<– : stands for assignment)

• if your number n is odd then do the following instruction: new_n <– n * 3 + 1; n<– new_n;
• if your number n is even, then divise it by two: new_n <– n/2; n<– new_n;
• Repeat the algorithm until you get your number n‘1’

Now you see, you’re always going to converge and get “1” at the end or to be more exact “4-2-1” sequence. And that would be with any number you take!

 

Well, that’s nice, but I have other words to say about these.
As the goal of the algorithm is to make 1.5*n converges, then 3N+1 wouldn’t be the only maze in here!

5*N+1, 7N+1, 11N+1 would all fit if an algorithm is well implemented!

Now here is my proposed algorithm to make 5*N+1 converges

• if your number n is even: n <– n /2; 
• if your number n is a multiply of 3: n<–n/3
• else : n<–5*n+1
• Repeat the algorithm until you get your number n ‘1’

or perhaps

• if your number n is even: n <– n /2; 
• if your number n is a multiply of 3: n<–n/3
• if your number n is a multiply of 5: n<–n/5
• else : n<–7*n+1
• Repeat the algorithm until you get your number n ‘1’

Conclusion, Collatz Conjecture isn’t about 3*N+1, but it’s more about 5*N+1, 7*N+1 …. , P*N+1 where P stands for a prime number

2016