Below's just some thoughts I had last night inspired by the fact I can spend a day at the office being really busy but can't remember where the time's gone and often forget important stuff. Like a lot of small businesses we can't afford a secretary to keep us in line. Does anybody have a clue if there's something like this already? It's not exactly something I can easily think up a search for. Although I tried and found mostly Windows stuff that wasn't really close enough to what I had in mind.
Automatic time tracker / secretary ================================== Keeping tabs on you ------------------- * pops up and asks what you're doing every 15 mins to which you give a one or two word response EG "phoning Tom" * if no response checks least idle terminal every half hour & sends message to it * if terminal idle for 2 hours but email gets sent, send an email * email says "what are you up to?" to which you reply with a short explanation * if it can't find you, when you're back it asks "what were you up to between xx and yy time?" * perhaps impliment a jabber bot * perhaps in future provide an SMS gateway Reminding you ------------- * things scheduled for certain times & dates should pop up when due and/or when the reminder time is set. * Frequency of reminders based on how responsive you appear (eg, no point telling you something's on in 5 minutes if you're not listening). Summaries --------- * Should provide you a timesheet of what's happened each day which should be filled in & returned. * Should provide weekly & monthly timesheet/reports Ingredients ----------- SQL database for schedules & event logs A reminder daemon - lets you know what's on A contact daemon - keeps track of the best way to contact you and provides a communication channel for other programs A command processor - when info comes back from the contact daemon it must be interpreted either in the context of a reply or a new command. EG You should be able to send an email to the secretary with something like "Schedule meeting 9am with Tom" and it will know that since it's 10am at time of writing you mean the next working day and the meeting's at your office. If it doesen't understand it can email you some examples and ask for clarification. -- ---<GRiP>--- Grant Parnell - senior consultant EverythingLinux services - the consultant's backup & tech support. Web: http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/services We're also busybits.com.au and linuxhelp.com.au. Phone 02 8752 6622 to book service or discuss your needs. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
