Comments for Waggle Dance

Comment on How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu by Chris

Chris — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:26:30 +0000

Thanks for the ideas, wagnerpereirasp! I have just started to play with pygtk to see how easy a UI would be and have been thinking about moving the time and limits data to sqlite3.
I currently limit access to the data files by making them only editable but root or an sudoer - there should be a better way. The script has to run as root to force shutdown someone anyone’s session. I wish there was a cleaner way to shutdown gnome-session other than just killing it, but I haven’t found one yet.

A system tray applet that displays the remaining time and can launch the time editor (after a gksudo login) sounds like a great idea!

Translations is also a great idea - I am afraid I’m personally limited to English, so any help is appreciated!

Comment on How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu by wagnerpereirasp

wagnerpereirasp — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:48:07 +0000

Hi Chris, I loved this script. I’ll put it to use as is to do the same need you mentioned.

But I’ll also try to upgrade it, here is a list of functionalities I believe we can improve:

Must Have
1) Different limitations per day of the week
2) Limit not only by seconds in use, also by specific times of the day, it would be like the user connects but has only 30 seconds to logout (or will be forced logout) if he is not inside a allowed window.
3) Hability to extend the allowed time for the current day if an administrator types in a password and how many time to extend (this would attend your need to give extra time as reward).

Good to Have
4) A graphical interface to administer these options
5) Prevent the user to manually change his control file to “obtain” extra time.
6) A better logout method, something that pushes a logout allowing to save data
7) Support for different languages, best if it is done by plug ins (will allow anyone to create a plug in)
Create a control window for the user, so he can check the remaining time at any time and giving him some options, could be the ability to use extra credit (off course reducing the credit from a pool)
9) Create a .deb package

I personally don’t have much available time, but I also need to ensure proper usage for my teenagers (that is thought) so I will try, first thing first, I will translate the script to Brazilian-Portuguese as I am from Brazil and post it for anyone else to use.

Comment on How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu by Chris

Chris — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:18:01 +0000

I had tried timeoutd - one of the problems I found with it is that it doesn’t seem to give any warnings to the desktop when it is about to kill your session. I does fit a real need, it can limit console and shell sessions as well, but it doesn’t really fit my need/want as well.

My script is in active use at our house and has been effective in limiting my teens computer time - that being said, I really need to add a GUI so my wife can control their time allotments and I would like to add some kind of a reward system where Mom can give them extra time to use when they want when they have earned it.

Comment on How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu by aliencam

aliencam — Sun, 11 May 2008 07:24:43 +0000

Hi, I was looking for a program that does exactly this, and I found something called timeoutd in the repos as well. I was wondering if you have seen this or if you have made any changes to your script since the last update.

Comment on What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years by Post-it Prayers

Post-it Prayers — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:03:53 +0000

[...] a recent blog entry for another blog I have, I posted a picture of my desk and, it you look carefully, you can see my little, yellow [...]

Comment on 6 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe with Open Source by Chris Clark’s Perspective » Blog Archive » 6 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe with Open Source

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:47:35 +0000

[...] Waggle Dance » Blog Archive » 6 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe with Open Source [...]

Comment on What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years by » What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years JJMacey Dot Net: Linux + Open Source Applications - Run Free!

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:54:21 +0000

[...] can find Chris’s original post here. Bookmark It Hide [...]

Comment on What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years by A Mirror of my thoughts « Ifblog (ponderings 2.0)

A Mirror of my thoughts « Ifblog (ponderings 2.0) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:57:49 +0000

[...] What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years [...]

Comment on What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years by Saif’s Everything & Anything » Blog Archive » Windows vs Linux (yes I have to go into it)

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:07:17 +0000

[...] I found a post at 91courtstreet entitled “What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years” that goes into a similar discussion, just better Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a [...]

Comment on Uhhh… the sea monkeys have my money… by Why your kids should read your blog… @ Waggle Dance

Why your kids should read your blog… @ Waggle Dance — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:40:09 +0000

[...] Uhhh… the sea monkeys have my money… [...]

Comment on If a blog falls in the woods and nobody backlinks it, does it make a sound? by Dave Hugh-Jones

Dave Hugh-Jones — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 09:42:48 +0000

I saw your fish. The little red f***er got away before I could catch him. (The blogfish networking code is still causing a wee bit trouble -
firewalled mode is not easy. But CVS version should be better.)

Comment on Offending Geocodes by skeff

skeff — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:17:04 +0000

Geez Chris, there’s a bunch right in your back yard. Perhaps I could interest you in some perv-savvy tools. http://www.gunsrus.net/catalog.asp

Comment on onTheCase by Brian Trauger

Brian Trauger — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 02:57:42 +0000

I always heard that your ‘camel case’ was called ‘polish notation’…