How can I get the same data that the Screen Time app is returning on macOS?
Specifically I'd like to know — programmatically — the hours I'm spending each day on Visual Studio Code.
The data screenTime is stored in
/private/var/db/CoreDuet/Knowledge
/Users/wgnb/Library/Application Support/Knowledge
read Sarah blog for details
I don't have enough reputation to comment
I've been trying to figure all of this out too.
The closest I've come is this Github Repo: https://github.com/Evian-Zhang/ScreenTimeController
He confirmed the research I had already done by looking at the open file descriptors for the Screen Time agent. The ScreenTime database is stored here:
/var/folders/XYZ/xxxxxxxxxx/0/com.apple.ScreenTimeAgent/Store
You can read more about this part of the filesystem here
In this folder, there are several SQLite files which is what the agent writes to. Unfortunately, this folder is really locked down by MacOS.
You can read about how its locked down here and here.
The short answer is, as far as I can tell, you can't do it unless you disable System Integrity Protection either for those files or entirely. It is also likely that a software update would break your tweaks and you'd have to re-disable SIP on those files.
It really sucks because ScreenTime aggregates all of my devices and I would love to mess around with the data.
How is it recommended I back up my Xcode projects? Is there a way to backup the whole thing to the web to be pulled from in case the files are somehow deleted from my computer?
Not sure which is the "best", it must surely depend on your budget, development environment, resources, time, etc etc. Here some ideas, I list them in the order of preference, starting with the FREE.
"Git" in effect creates a backup, even if strictly speaking its version control tool.
You can create and save it on your iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Sky Drive, etc etc, of course you need to manually duplicate it on a regular basis.
You can for sure get commercial tools to do this, do a google/wikipedia search, read some reviews.
"Time machine" perhaps overkill, although maybe you can tweek it to focus on your projects.
"rdist" is UNIX utility that you could setup in a "crontab" to do regular copies of files that changed, although a risky strategy.
Just use Finder to manually duplicate the entire folder, you just need to remember to do it.
I know this question has been apparently asked here and here
But mine is different.
Do file histories include only extensions such as pdf, jpg, mp3, doc
etc
File history for moved files is available not just deleted ones?
At preset I am accessing C:\Users\Myname\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder
But here I am not able to see recently modified files which come under a directory in Users\Myname folder. Why do all recent files not get mentioned here?
Is there place where these settings can be changed?
Is it possible to look up recently accessed/modified folders?
I have a developing background in assembly and C but restarting after more than 6 years. I saw other threads where they were doing things programmatically but did not understand much and looked their requirements were different from mine. I am willing to try out programmatic solutions if an online source is pointed to.
I take a regular back up of my files, but yesterday happened to give my PC into someone's hand when learning something and the person was an impulsive shift deleter not even bothering with the messages on the PC and was not very aware of what was being done or happening.
Question 2 is because I have earlier accidentally moved folders into another folder in a previous PC
I found this when I was trying to help somebody else find a file they recently accessed
In Windows 8.1 there is something called "Recent Places" under Favorites in File Explorer. This was in the same favorite list where I had kept Recent Items and still did not notice it because of getting panicky. This showed me the folders I had accessed something I really wanted a week back. It would have saved me so much tension and my precious time.
Now am planning to update to Windows 10 and google searched if I will still have access to this data and found this
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/restore-recent-places-to-windows-10/037af727-9b06-485e-bb45-4a6c60a3f222?auth=1
Hope this is useful to someone
So, I need to make a file storage for our team. Also I have SVN server. Opportunity to do rollbacks and control on who created or deleted file is very neccessary and important for our project.
Any ideas? Maybe without SVN. I can connect using WebDAV but only in read-only mode (because there is no LOCKS support in it).
You can set up the SVN server to allow exactly that.
Read the chapter in the SVN book about WebDAV and Autoversioning
So, what you want is the ability to roll back changes, and limit who can make the changes, but without the bother of checking in and out files?
Maybe Subversion isn't for you. I've done similar sharing with Dropbox and there's now BoxNet that's suppose to be like Dropbox on Steroids. Dropbox (and I assume box.net too) has some features that are very nice:
You can setup folder sharing between particular teams. That way, you can say who can and cannot access these files.
Dropbox automatically saves each and every version of a file, so you can always go back to previous versions -- even if that file has been deleted.
Files are stored locally. All a user has to know is to save a particular file in a particular folder, and everyone has access to it. I've successfully used Dropbox to collaborate with managers that make the Pointed Hair boss in Dilbert look like a high tech genius.
There's also Skydrive and Google Drive, but I don't find them as universal as Dropbox or as easy to use. It's possible to use Dropbox without ever going to the Dropbox website. To the non-geek, it appears to be magic as files I've written and edited appear on their drive. It took me a few weeks to train one person that he didn't have to email me his document when he made changes because I already had it.
Dropbox gives you 2 Gb of space for free which doesn't sound like a lot. However, my first hard drive was a whopping 20Mb which was twice the size of the standard 10Mb drive at that time. If you're not storing a lot of multimedia presentations or doing a lot of Photoshop, 2Gb might be more than enough for your project.
I know Windows 7 and later has some sort of versioning system built into it. I know this because anytime someone mentions that Mac OS X has time machine, some Wingeek pipes in stating that Windows has the same thing, but only better!. Unfortunately, Windows is not my forte, so I don't know too much about this specific feature. I believe the default is once per day, but it can be changed. This might be the perfect solution if everyone is on Windows.
Subversion can do autoversioning as Stefan stated. Considering his position in the Subversion community (especially his work on TortoiseSVN), he knows his stuff. Unfortunately I don't know too much about it since I've never used or seen this feature implemented. It's probably due to the fact that I work mainly with developers who know what a version control system is, and therefore have no need for something that does the versioning for them.
Also don't forget to check if you can use your corporate Sharepoint which does something very much what you want. I am not too impressed with Sharepoint, but if the facility is there, and your company can give you the support, it is something you probably want to look into.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
Questions asking us to recommend or find a tool, library or favorite off-site resource are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, describe the problem and what has been done so far to solve it.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
I'm known around the office as "the backup guy". As a developer, I often jump back and forth between projects, and as a result I don't always remember exactly what changes were present in each when I return to them. I usually have to compare my local changes versus those in our source control system, and then I'll eventually remember it all. Thing is, I don't always have the luxury of doing this. Sometimes I have to build something for a client quickly, and so I make a backup of the working directory, and that way I can get the latest files from source control, and build the DLL quickly - all while knowing that the other (in-progress) changes are safe.
The problem is that I've now accumulated a bunch of backup folders in each project directory, which makes it harder to find the specific change I was looking for. while my practices have evolved to the point that I always take the time to give each backup folder an informative name, I'm starting to think I'd be better off writing my own tool.
For example: If I select a few folders in windows explorer, I'd like to have my own context menu item that triggers my own backup application. This application would prompt me for a backup name, and description. It would then move the selected folders to a specific, centralized backup directory - where it would also generate a 'readme.txt' file, outlining the backup details. Also, the backups would also be organized by date/time. I feel this would refine my backup procedure, and facilitate future lookups.
But yet, I can't help but wonder if such tools already exist. Surely, someone must be as obsessive as me when it comes to backups.
Do you know of any tools that could help me improve my backups?
I'm aware of this post, but isn't exactly aligned with what I want. I'd prefer to keep the backups on the same machine - I'll handle moving them over to other machines myself.
Update
To clarify: If I'm working on Task A, and suddenly I need build something for a client (Task B), I have to backup what I have so far for Task A, and get the latest from source control into the working directory. I then start and finish Task B, and then restore Task A. This is an ideal, neat scenario. But sometimes, I only get back to Task A a week down the line, or further - because I get hit with Task C, Task D, etc - all of which affect the same project. Now, if these changes are scheduled to be checked in, then I would probably benefit from checking them in as I progress (but to be honest, we usually wait until it is complete before we check it in, at this company - that means less checkins of unfinished code). So I'm not sure if each of my backups should equal a branch - because I'm sometimes excessive with my backups.
I think what you want is a distributed version control system, such as git.
First, your existing source control system can probably already support this, in the form of branches. Instead of just copying the working directory, commit it as a separate branch, where you can keep that client's version of the application.
However, as skiphoppy said, a distributed source control system would be much better suited for this. I quite like Bazaar, but git is very popular too (although I don't know how good its Windows support is, since it is primarily a *nix tool developed for the Linux kernel)
Subversion using TortoiseSVN will provide you with this functionality. The concepts are different (revisions, not "backup names") . The readme.txt that you make mention of is summarized in the Subversion log. Any comment that you provide can be used to guide others looking at the revision. Check out the Wikipedia page on Subversion as well as the homepage to download it and TortoiseSVN.
CloneZilla, backs up your entire hard drive partition, its free and reliable. I use it in place of Acronis Echo Server, and it restores my entire system in 8 minutes.
As skiphoppy says, a DSVN can really help. Git offers the ability to shelve the stuff you're working on now so that your working copy is clean yet you can pull your current working set off the shelf when you're done. That seems like what you really want.
If you're using Perforce, there's a couple of tar-based utilities that do this, too, but I haven't yet used them.
How about changing the way you work, sounds like one day things will go tits up if you carry on as is. Fair enough on the need to build a dll mid way through a change and having to back up your work in progress, but once release is done then re-integrate your changes with the release version immediately. I'd never allow myself to have multiple back ups of the same app, but hey, that's just me.
I use Hybrid Backup www.hybridbackup.com.au - based in Australia they were the only real people i could speak to that could handle exacly what i wanted - i dont have dll problems i have over 1000 files that all change everyday and everytime anyone inmy office does anything - i have well over 250gb of live data i need backed up everynight with every single change i have ever done - ever - basically i can be fairly lazy and copy files all over the place and copy directories to make sure everythings is backed up again but knowing that everyday everysingle thing i change (including my directory backups) are backed up and i can remmeber a file i know i had and see my backups exacly as they were 5 months ago - that was it - but the big thing is it syncs to 2 different places - brisbane and sydney - so i know everything safe - they even sent me a external backup vault/server to store everything on. cost a bit but business is data where im from and im sure most other people.
anyway just trying to point out you should have a awesome backup system so you dont worry about those things to start with.
I think it's a pretty reasonable practice to check in every night. Sometimes I check in 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes 20 (every time my code is working, actually).
If your code is always checked in, you should easily be able to just sync to a different branch without backing anything up.
If you can't check in your changes by the end of the day, a very reasonable answer is to discard them. You are most likely in some hole that you will have trouble digging yourself out of, and the next day you will replicate the work in an hour and do it MUCH BETTER than you did the first time. Also, if you go that long with broken code, how do you test?
Finally, if your code REALLY can't be checked into the build every day (it actually does happen in some situations, regardless of what I said in the previous paragraph), branch.
No more backups.
I use:
ZenOK Online Backup for my documents and small files (photos, videos and large files)
Love it.