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Ask HN: Do you find this useful?

11 points by nudge ↗ HN
I recently wrote this very simple web timer (it lets you put a countdown on any website you want to limit your use of). It's gotten some good reviews on sites like lifehacker.

I've seen a lot of really helpful critique / suggestions on HN, and I would appreciate any thoughts you might have. Does the site seem useful to you? How can I make it better? All observations welcome.

Thanks.

http://x.minutes.at

11 comments

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newobj
I think it's a pretty much perfect implementation of a service of this nature. Esp. like that I can use bookmarklets. How robust is your frame buster buster? I do get a slightly weird interaction when loading nytimes, at least in chrome. A killer feature would be pausing if you tab away, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to do this. Having said that, I don't really see myself using something to limit my time on a page.
mrphoebs
Great design, I don't see myself using it though, maybe a firefox plugin???
chegra84
Brillant. It is simple and intuitive. I love it :D A lil work needed on the implementation though; when I clicked on a link in the same site, it disappeared, the timer that is.
Zev
Love the simplicity of the idea (and the implementation too, for that matter). The cancel button, however, doesn't cancel.
nudge
Thanks, I'll fix it.
keefe
It's certainly an interesting idea. I'd get rid of the dialog boxes and just do a form, jquery makes that extremely easy. I'd honestly never use it. I clicked the link because I am very interested in making myself more aware of time, but I don't care to have my activities limited. Here's an example: I want to take a 5min break and read HN. I read HN mostly because occasionally, something new and useful shows up. This happens very rarely but when it does, I'll be there for 20min instead of 5.
mailarchis
Its unlikely that people will visit sites with a timer on but they might be interested in knowing how much time they have spent on a site. So, instead of reverse timer a simple timer will probably do the work. Also it will be great to have it as a browser plugin
nudge
Thanks. A few people have asked for a plugin so I will work on that for FF and chrome.

As for knowing how much time you've spent on a site, there is a stopclock mode, i.e. counting upwards from 0. Just http://howmany.minutes.at/yoursite

wdewind
You need to lower/change the barrier to entry. I could see myself using it if it limited itself everytime I went somewhere (ie: 2 minutes for hacker news, since I check it too damn much), but there is simply no way I'm going to go to your site first and then enter it. The bookmarklet is a good attempt at a fix, but it really needs to be seamless and automatic. For me deciding how much time I need on a site each time I go to it requires a fair amount of thought and consideration, whereas I could get used to getting everything I need out of HN in 2 minutes unless I was there for a lengthy stay.

Focus on an FF plugin maybe?