Using a computer is an everyday thing, but breaking down and visualizing that usage in a simple way requires a more advanced process. WhatPulse is an information-gathering platform capable of reporting specific actions such as keyboard activity, the screen regions that receive the most clicks, and the running time of applications, among other things.
Writing takes up a significant part of my time in front of the computer. If I decided to monitor the keyboard usage a bit more closely, I'm sure the number of keystrokes would be quite high. Obviously, the mouse is not far behind, given the massive daily doses of browsing and casual image editing.
Why Monitor Your Computer Usage?
Why is it important to know this? Essentially, the idea is to better understand the workflow we develop. By adjusting some habits or replacing tools, it should be enough to optimize our productivity, but first, we need solid data. In general, operating systems are quite bad at providing this kind of information; however, there are very powerful external applications, such as WhatPulse.
Getting Started with WhatPulse
The first step to using WhatPulse is to create an account on the service, or log in using Facebook credentials or similar (personally, I prefer to create an account). The free version of WhatPulse has the ability to monitor keyboard, mouse, and applications, while the premium edition records much more specific activities, such as bandwidth consumption in each application.
WhatPulse lets you choose which kind of actions it can monitor. If necessary, you just uncheck a box to block access to network statistics, or the system's "uptime". WhatPulse's data is uploaded to the cloud when a certain level of activity is reached (for example, 50,000 keystrokes), but you can disable this behavior completely and let WhatPulse work offline (the account is still required).
Privacy and Trust
I understand that WhatPulse's behavior can be a bit intimidating, especially when it records the number of keystrokes. That kind of trick is usually associated with keyloggers, but the security tools on our test system had no complaints, WhatPulse's reputation is solid (the program is more than fifteen years old) and most importantly, it records the number of keystrokes, but not the order. So you know, if you want comprehensive statistics of your computer usage, this service is ideal.
