I’m in front of my computer constantly and a program I’ve been wanting for a long time is one that would allow me to block certain programs from myself for a set amount of time. A way for the smart part of me to head off the dumb, impulsive lizard part, and a way for me to get more stuff done at the computer.
I could never find one, so I decided to just have one made for me. It worked so well and I liked it so much that I was thinking about making it a WebJillion product. But, I decided I didn’t really want to mess with the updates, support and general mess that comes with desktop software. So, instead, I’m giving it away for free. It’s called Temptation Blocker and you can download the installer here.
Now, first, it’s Windows only — 98/2000/XP. Second, it comes completely as is. There won’t be any updates, improvements, and the only documentation is going to be right here in this post. If you have any questions or problems, post a comment and I’ll try to help, but I can’t promise anything. I’ve tested it for a couple weeks now and it works great as far as I can tell, so there’s no risk that it will break your computer, but there could be a few small bugs here and there.
The Main Idea
Temptation BlockerSo, have a major deadline looming or ripe opportunity closing and just don’t have time to waste playing Half Life 2 or checking Bloglines one last time? Well then, add Half Life 2 and Firefox to the list of programs you want to block in Temptation Blocker, set the timer for how long you want to block them and then hit the “Get Work Done!” button.
Now, everytime you try and access Half Life 2 or Firefox, you’ll get a dialog box telling you how much time you have left before you can access that program. During this blocked time, you can’t access those programs. You also can’t access Temptation Blocker during this time without entering in a random, 32-character string. This acts as a deterrent from you getting to your program before time is up, but it also let’s you access it if you really need to. (Note: During the blocked time, your Windows Task Manager is also disabled, in an attempt to save your from yourself and a quick Ctrl-Alt-Del. If you don’t like that idea, then you probably shouldn’t download the software).
The Program List
When you start up Temptation Blocker it pulls the programs you currently have in your Start Menu into your list of possible blocked programs. If you want to add a program to the list, just go to Programs->Add New Program, browse for it and then hit “Open”. If you want to remove a program from that list, just select it, right click it and choose “Delete Program”.
Profiles
You can save your current list of checked and unchecked programs with profiles. Just go to File->
Save Profile, name it whatever and click “Save”. Now, when you come back to Temptation Blocker you can go to File->Open Profile, open that profile and all your programs will come up.
If you want the same programs to come up everytime you start Temptation Blocker, name the profile “default.profile” and Temptation Blocker will automatically pull it into the program list everytime the program starts.
That’s about it, really, everything else with the program should be pretty self-explanatory. If you have any questions just post a comment.
It’s really helped me get more stuff done in front of the computer, hopefully it can help you to. And if not, just uninstall it. After all, you can’t beat free.
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Free Software: Temptation Blocker
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