Here’s a little money-saving hack that came to me as I was drifting off to sleep last night. [Never can tell what will enter the brain in those last fleeting moments of consciousness, or how they get there, but I’m always pleased when I can remember them the next day.]

At issue: keeping fresh coffee beans their freshest as long as possible.

Reason: I enjoy coffee as espresso shots with an equal amount of water (Americano) or touch of steamed milk (Cortado or Macchiato style) and consume far less than when I used to keep the pot brewing all day long.

I stopped buying whole bean coffee in one pound bags a few months ago because even on my most coffeeholic days I pull a double-shot in the morning and another in the afternoon. And at that pace it takes at least 3 weeks to finish a pound. 

Storing the beans in the bag, or a tin, means that on week 3 the shots are pretty flat and lifeless.

So… It dawned on me last night (or maybe it dusked on me) that the bottle of wine I recently finished would make a perfect place to keep my beans, and the reason for that is because the bottle is a nice dark green (light is bad for beans) and the little vacuum pump wine bottle stoppers could double as bean savers (air is even worse for keeping the little black jewels fresh).

This hack probably exists out there in webland already, but I wanted to post it here as my very own “original” idea before looking. Too often I just don’t bother once I’ve found another source, and to be blunt, that just stifles the imagination.

Now I just need to find a funnel to get the beans into the bottle. Cheers.

Every once in a while I get a bug up my butt to see how (in)efficient I am with my time. I’m pretty sure I’ve demo’d every Mac OSX time tracking application available, from freeware to $50+ uber track & invoice apps. 

Thing is, they pretty much all work the exact same way.

You set up clients (if invoicing is included), then projects and tasks. There’s usually a little timer window of some sort that you use to click the start/stop button after selecting the particular project and task you’re working on.

Simple in theory. Utter crap if you have sporadic, erratic and frequently interrupted work habits like mine.

I spend so much time at the end of the day adjusting the time tracking software’s results to get closer to reality that I have to track that time too (as wasted). Ugh.

Today I came across MacTimeLog. It works differently, and I like it.

You launch it and set two items in the preferences: the amount of time you work in a day and the names of your current projects.

After that the only thing you need to do is type an initial event (like “begin day” or whatever) and set the timer going. From that point on you log your time based on when you switch tasks.

Retrospective time accounting. Brilliant. Plus when you’re off-topic (slacking), the timer is constantly reminding you that you’re going to have to own this activity with an entry. You can even set a growl notification for a more forceful reminder if you’d like.

Toss a couple asterisks (**) at the end of a log note and the system counts that event as time wasted (which they refer to as “slacking”). 

Use three asterisks for things like lunch and other non-work, non-slacking events and that time doesn’t count against your work time. Damn clever, and exactly how my mind works.

Only thing is MacTimeLog is beta software, and it seems like it’s not going to mature any further. It’s based on a *nix app (GTimeLog), and it already looks more polished than its predecessor.

I’ll use it as is and be damn happy about it, but I sure would like to see:

• minor edit capability in the log window of past events
• more flexibility for setting up each day’s work schedule (planned hours and start time)
• an alternate view that’s smaller with “keep on top” functionality so the window can remain in front of the chaos that is my active applications windows.
• and probably a few other things.

As far as simple conventional timers go, Loggr is a pretty nifty online alternative.

Addendum: I alerted the developer to this post and he was kind enough to reply and reassure me he hadn’t abandoned the project. Just busy. Like the rest of us. He also reminded me that you can edit the log, just not in the time tracking window. 

Sometimes I feel like the 3rd world war is currently being waged… online. Like the battles that are constantly being fought by Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Sony, IBM, Verizon, AT&T, et. al. over my attention/money/data essentially constitute a war over who will “own” me.

Maybe I just think too much, or drink too much.

What do you think?

Addendum

Wired answered my question quite nicely…