Desktop APM is an activity monitor, an interesting tool which tracks how much time you're spending on your PC.
The program counts your "Actions Per Minute" (mouse clicks and keypresses) and presents these in various ways. A bar chart shows how this has changed over the past few minutes; Hour/ Day/ Week views give you a more long-term picture; a calendar enables you to view your activity on any particular day.
An "Application Tracker" shows the time you spent working in particular applications, along with their activity levels. This might be useful if you need to bill someone for the time you spent working on a task.
The main Desktop APM window also displays key stats on your activity levels. "Highest APM" gives an idea of how busy you were this session; "mouse moved" measures the distance your mouse has moved in megapixels; and there are figures for "Active Time", "Inactive Time" and more.
There are several configuration options, including the ability to set an "Average APM". If you're not working as hard as you like then you can have Desktop APM display an alert or play a sound.
None of this involves any major privacy or security issues, because Desktop APM keeps only keypress totals, not the keypresses themselves (it's not a keylogger). But if you're uncomfortable then you can delete various histories with a click, or tell the program not to record them at all.
A Professional edition extends the program further with monthly and yearly reports, export options, live/ real-time APM, custom sounds and more. It's yours for around $3.75.
Version 1.15 brings (Changelog):
- Added typing speed (words per minute), total keypresses, total mouse clicks and total time for each day
- Live APM can be displayed at the top of Desktop APM with a visualisation that increases speed and contrast with higher APM
- Hotspots now display the total number of clicks at each spot by hovering the mouse over the spot
- Hide statistics such as time inactive or most inactive by right-clicking on statistics in the main window
- Timeline's search can now be cancelled by clicking the X button on the right of the search bar
Verdict:
Desktop APM is a capable PC activity monitor with a good range of options for seeing just how busy you are (or "were").
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