Of course if you’re having this issue, your version of WatchMe can’t phone home to let you know when the new fix is available.

Keep an eye on the download page, or monitor either Twitter or Facebook to see when the new version is available.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused anyone.

P.S. I will personally email those of you that reported the issue as soon as the fix is available.

New features include:

• A new option to adjust the transparency of the application.
• New options to prompt you before clearing all notes or flags from the countdowns and timers.
• New functionality to add and subtract time from a timer when right clicking on the time display.
• The application will now open to the same screen position it was in when it was closed.
• New “Pro” mode that provides the user with the ability to make use of “Pro” only functionality (anyone who makes a donation to help out the development process will receive a key to switch into “Pro” mode. Anyone who has donated already will be receiving their keys via email).
• New functionality to manually enter the time into a Timer (available to “Pro” users only).
• You can now set a timer or countdown to reset automatically each time the application is launched (available to “Pro” users only). Just right click on the time display to turn this option on or off.

Check out the release notes for a full list of new features.

Just a reminder that you will need version 4.0 of the .NET Framework or higher in order to run this new version. If you don’t have it you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/net/download.

• The application now requires version 4.0 or higher of the .NET Framework. This shouldn’t be a problem as most of you will at least have this version, but it might be a good idea to run Windows Update on your machine and make sure you have the latest .NET framework.
• New option to adjust the transparency of the application.
• New interface for adding and subtracting time from a timer.
•  You can now set a timer or countdown to reset automatically each time the application is launched.
• The application now opens to the same screen position it was in when it was closed.

And finally, the ability to manually enter the time into a Timer (rather than just adding and subtracting time).

I don’t have a release date for this version yet – as always I don’t want to release anything until I feel it is ready. Saying that, I have been beta testing this version for a couple of months now and things do seem to be working well. I’m hoping to get some free time in December to finish things up so stay tuned near the end of the year for a possible release.

EDIT: Mar 27, 2013 – I’ve been beta testing the newest version with a larger group of people since December and things are looking good. There are a couple more bugs I’d like to squash in the next few days and then I might try to release in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

The big highlights for this version include:

• Countdown Timers – You can now create a “countdown” that will do just that – countdown to zero from a specified time. You can add a new countdown to any tab from the “Countdowns” menu. These countdowns are easy to tell apart from the traditional timers as they have an alarm clock icon in their time display. To change the start time (as well as notification options) right click on the time display and select “Set Time”. There is a whole section of options related to the new Countdowns in the options screen (System | Options) including what time format they should use. 3…2…1…Blastoff!
• Control the Location of the Config Files – Until this release the configuration files used by WatchMe were located in a default location and could not be moved. Now you can choose where you would like to store these files to make it easier to back them up, etc. When you select “Manage Data Files” under the System menu you will be given the option to move your existing files to a new location, or even to create a whole new set of files. I store my files in a folder managed by Dropbox so that I can have the same timer files on both my work and home PC – slick!
• Run WatchMe off a USB Memory Stick – In order to make the application more portable between machines, if you put the WatchMe executable and the config file in the same directory on a USB memory stick, you can take your timers with you to any machine.

I have been trying to do the “one thing at a time” approach as much as I can with my work, and it has been working well. This is what made me decide to create the “Focus Light” feature in WatchMe. You can tell the app how focused you want to be, and it watches how often you’re switching tasks (via your timers) and gives you feedback on how “focused” you are. As long as I’m keeping my light green, I know I’m on track.

1. Storing config file(s) in different locations: You will be able to move the config files into a different directory, rather than being shackled to the default location that is used now. I have my beta version storing the config files in my dropbox folder so I can have the WatchMe on my work PC share the timers with WatchMe on my home PC.
2. Running from a USB stick: By default the application will look for the config files in the same directory as the EXE first. This way you can put the app and it’s configuration files on a USB stick and then use it on different machines.
3. Countdown Timers: Having the ability to create timers that count down from a set time rather than count up has been a common request for quite a while. I’m still working out the mechanism for this, but it will most likely be a new kind of timer you can add to the interface (just like the current timers). From there you can set the start time and it will count backwards, as opposed to up like the current timers.

• Added default file names when exporting timer data.
• The inactivity notification no longer opens a new dialog box every time it fires – only a single dialog box will be displayed no matter how long the timers are inactive. No more closing a bunch of warning windows when you leave the app running over the weekend.
• Fixed an issue where an “object” error may occur while deleting a timer.
• Reworked the internal timing code to to improve its precision and efficiency.
• Added code to not allow tabs to have the same name.
• Made the hour, minute and seconds controls larger when setting up a timer alert.

After hours of trial and error I finally came across the solution that worked for me that no one seems to have mentioned: it appears that (at least for my set-up) the Windows PC running iTunes has to have a WIFI connection and not a direct wired connection to the router. This doesn’t make any sense to me – when my PC is wired to the router directly and the iOS devices (iPhone 3GS, iPad and iPad 2) are connected to my wireless router they are all on the same network (same subnet) and can see each other fine. Why it matters how the PC connects to the wireless router for WiFi syncing is a mystery to me – but hey, it works. Hopefully this may help someone else that’s in the same boat.

Here’s my set-up:

• Windows 7
• iTunes 10.5.1
• DLink DIR-601 Wireless Router

• Fixed an issue with the Focus Light not moving down the screen when new timers were added.
• Increased the maximum text size for a timer note to 10,000 characters.
• Added the ability to export the timers for the active tab only.
• Added new keyboard shortcuts (PgUp, Alt – PgUp, PgDn, Alt – PgDn) to increase and decrease the time displayed in a timer. Focus must be in the timer’s textbox for this to work.