FruitfulTime Software: 4 (commercial-gone-free) software for bookmarks, notes, tasks, and time management you may want to take a look at

As I am sure we all know by now, quality software is not limited to only big name developer. Smaller, possibly unknown, developers often also create great software. FruitfulTime is one such small developer.

Legend has it that FruitfulTime once provided commercial solutions software aimed at four different tasks:

Bookmarks management
Notes management
Tasks management
Time management

(It actually is more than a “legend” because it is completely true… I have just always wanted to say “legend has it…” =P). Recently, for whatever reason, FruitfulTime management decided to make all their software (4 in total) available for free for anyone and everyone to use. Where there is free, there is Ashraf, right? So I decided to check out what FruitfulTime has to offer and you may want to consider doing the same.

Table of Contents

FruitfulTime BookmarkManager
FruitfulTime Notekeeper
FruitfulTime TaskManager
FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter
Final Words, Download Links, and Registration Keys

FruitfulTime BookmarkManager

FruitfulTime BookmarkManager is a simple program that provides a platform for you to store all your bookmarks in. Being browser independent, BookmarkManager will work with most all browsers. The import via HTML file feature allows users to import existing bookmarks from almost any browser (because most browsers will allow you to export your bookmarks as HTML). Since it has a backup/restore feature, BookmarkManager can also be used as a bookmarks backup program.

When adding a new bookmark, users need to define the name, URL, and optionally label it. Deleting bookmarks is easy enough – with buttons allowing users to delete single bookmarks or all bookmarks – and double clicking on a bookmark will open it in the default web browser (for users that have many, many bookmarks, there is the search feature to find bookmarks quickly and easily).

For convenience, BookmarkManager gives users the ability to use hotkeys to perform basic functions like adding a new bookmark:

The only quirk with the hotkeys I have is that when using the global hotkey to add a bookmark (you can use it when surfing a website from almost any browser), you have to manually click “Add” on the “Add New Bookmark” window as opposed to the bookmark being added automatically.

One interesting feature of BookmarkManager is that it allows users to e-mail all bookmarks (only Gmail is supported):

Although as it stands, BookmarkManager is a simple, easy-to-use package, I would like to see one major feature added: a bookmarks validator.

FruitfulTime Notekeeper

Notekeeper is a program that helps you organize all your notes by allowing you to create and save them all in Notekeeper. The text editor supports rich text, so you can format the text in your notes as you please, and even insert images. Notekeeper also allows users to attach web or file “references” to each note which can be clicked upon and taken to the respective website or file in question.

All notes can be tagged with a color or with text tags; the search feature allows users to search notes by title, tag, or note-content. Each note can be individually exported as a rich text file. If there comes a time when you decide you have too many notes, you are given the option to archive your old notes. Once archived, you can easily go back and view them and/or restore them.

Last but not least, for security purposes, users can password protect Notekeeper.

FruitfulTime TaskManager

Essentially, TaskManager is Notekeeper + task management features. With TaskManager, users can easily create tasks and for each task set priority and due date, update status and progress, set who the task was assigned to, and tag each task. In addition, each task can have multiple subtasks (which have the same properties as tasks except for the tags), have notes attached, have web/file references attached, list of contacts involved with the task, and set an automatic reminder for X minutes/days/weeks/months before the task is due (there also is a reminder for before the “start date” but I can’t seem to find a start date option).

Like Notekeeper, TaskManager also has a search function that allows users to search task name, subtask name, and notes content, password protect TaskManager, and archive/unarchive tasks. In addition, TaskManager also has the ability to backup/restore data, and to filter tasks by a handful of criteria.

FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter

ProductivityMeter is a time tracking/management/usage/whatever-you-want-to-call-it software that tracks how time is spent on the computer. It tracks idle vs active time, what programs are used, the titles of the windows that are active, and what websites are visited. Graphs are presented for each category for easy visual comparisons.

Timesheets can be attained for each individual item that details time spent and what the time was spent on (ex: a timesheet can be attained for time spent in Firefox which will detail – with a graph and table – how much time was spent, and what websites/pages the time was spent on).

There is a tag system which allows you to mesh together separate categorizes under one tag (i.e. I can tag Firefox and Internet Explorer as “Internet Surfing” for easy management). Then separate statistics and timesheets can be attained for each tag.

One major aspect of ProductivityMeter is that it comes in two versions: Personal Edition and Business Edition. The difference between the two is Personal Edition is intended for single computer use, while Business Edition is intended for employers to use to monitor their employee activity (it uses a server/client relationship where employers can install ProductivityMeter on all computers and monitor activity from their computer; upto 50 computers are supported).

Final Words, Download Links, and Registration Keys

Since all FruitfulTime software have now been made free, I highly doubt any updates will be issued anymore. However, as it stands, all four software are worth taking a look at if you need software to serve their respective purposes; they are small, efficient, and (potentially) very useful. In particular, I can see ProductivityMeter Business Edition being useful to many people because of its ability to allow activity to be monitored remotely (businesses and parents alike will find use for it).

Now as I mentioned, Fruitful software used to be commercial but now they are free. Instead of just making all the software “freeware” (per se), Fruitful management have released legitimate keys for everyone to use to register the software. So you will find download links and relevant registration keys below (use the registration keys to register each software):

Fruitful BookmarkManager

Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win7

Version reviewed: v2.0.2.0

Download size: 990 KB

Registration key: 6F82029E0C032ECA001D9D00006800009D87

Fruitful BookmarkManager homepage [direct download]

Fruitful Notekeeper

Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win7

Version reviewed: v2.0.1.0

Download size: 290 KB

Registration key: 9EF202BE0302BA0100925B000032000083F5

Fruitful Notekeeper homepage [direct download]