note: read the last line of this post before setting any timers! :)
Like many of you I’m sure, I’m constantly distracted by the web. Whether it’s a breaking news story, a friend with a funny YouTube video or an email that seems so important I can’t afford not to reply within the next 5 minutes – I am too easily distracted. I used to use Firefox as my default browser and used the LeechBlock extension to block access to certain sites for periods of the day. Today however I am a devoted Safari user and unfortunately there wasn’t anything available that provided the same functionality – until now.
Steve Lambert, a prolific creator of neat and useful Mac applications, has come up with another gem. The app is called SelfControl and it’s designed to block access to specific websites whilst you get on with what you need to be doing. It’s as simple as they come, launch the app, add any sites you specifically want to block and drag the slider along for how long you’d like to block access to those sites for.
My list includes Friendfeed, Twitter, Google Reader so far…I’m sure a few more will come to mind.
Oh, one more thing…there is no way to stop the timer! Even closing down the app or restarting your computer will have no effect. I literally get to Friendfeed, Twitter.com or Google Reader right now – LOL.
how did you add Google Reader to you blocklist? when I try to put it google.com/reader the program reduces it to google.com which is too much blocking for me.
thanks for any help. the program seems very useful to this gradstudent…
b.
In Echo of Bekman,
How do you block google reader?
google.com/reader gets reduced to google.com
reader.google.com ends up blocking google traffic as well.
Ideas?
Same problem as above: how to block Google Reader without blocking all normal google searches.
I have to agree with others- the wonderful leechblocker firefox plugin is amazing in comparison to this in functionality. If there was any way to make leechblocker system wide, I’d snag it right up.
This program requires the ability to block sections of websites (major ones like Google), not just domains.
I suspect the host-file is being altered by the program, hence we’re blocking by way of a local-host redirect. Simple and effective, but I wonder what would happen if the computer crashed in mid-block state- of course I haven’t dug about to see if it’s actually altering the hosts file- this is just speculation.
Cheers for a good program none-the-less!! It helps to catch Twitter for me, which seems to be sucking up a little bit of time during the day. :)
-Allen
Is there a similar program for blocking skype or msn?
Hi,
This is a known bug in our free and open source project. Feel free to submit code, or make a donation so we can hire someone to write some code to fix it.
This is the ticket:
http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/selfcontrol-app/ticket/241