Time Monitor System Tray Program
Understanding and using the Time Monitor system tray application
This document contains information regarding the Time Monitor system tray application. It will give you a clearer picture on how Time Monitor monitors your computer system and what the system tray application provides.
The Time Monitor system tray program loads automatically when anybody logs on to the computer. You will know that it is running when you see the program's icon in the system tray area. The system tray area is usually located at the bottom right hand corner of your screen and contains various program icons installed by other applications. Here is a screenshot of Time Monitor's system tray clock icon:
The icon is the little round clock on the left. When you hover the mouse over the icon a popup ballon will indicate that Piranha Designs Time Monitor is running and monitoring the time of the account currently logged on.
A new feature recently added to Time Monitor now changes the clock icon to a gauge ball that shows the approximate amount of time remaining for the account currently logged on. For example, when the account has less than 45 minutes remaining but more than 30 minutes the gauge ball icon is displayed and looks like this:
When the account has less than 30 minutes but more than 15 minutes remaining the gauge ball changes and looks like this:
The gauge ball will change again at 15 minutes or less:
And finally will change to all red when the account is to be locked out.
When you right click on the Time Monitor icon a menu will appear giving you 3 options: About Time Monitor; Admin Controls; and Logoff Windows. If you select the About menu option a dialog box will be displayed that looks like this:
The About box will show you the version of Time Monitor currently running, copyright, registration and current user information. Notice that, in this case, the unregistered trial version of Time Monitor is running. A registered version would show the registered Username and registration key. The current user is displayed along with the time remaining. This particular user happens to be an administrator and the default time limit for administrators is always 24 hours.
When the trial period has ended Time Monitor will no longer monitor accounts and any time limits set will not be enforced. The screenshot below shows the reminder message you will see when you log on that the trial period has ended and that you need to register in order to reactivate the monitoring functionality:
Everyone with access to your computer can check their time remaining simply by double-clicking the program's system tray icon or by right-clicking and selecting the About option from the popup menu.
The next option from the program tray icon menu is Admin Controls. This menu option allows the administrator to access the Time Monitor Administrator program from any user account currently logged on. It will prompt for the Administrator's password if either the person currently logged on does not have administrative privileges or if the Always Prompt for Admin Password checkbox has been enabled from the Time Monitor Administrator's Settings dialog. The password dialog will appear as shown:
The Username drop-down list has been pre-filled with all accounts on the system having administrative privileges. Simply select your administrator account from this drop-down list and enter your Windows administrator account password to access the Time Monitor Administrator program.
Windows Vista users please note:
Even though you may be logged in with administrative privileges you will always be prompted for your password when accessing the Time Monitor Administrator program from the Time Monitor system tray icon. This occurs regardless of the Always Prompt for Password setting due to changes made to Vista's underlying security model. When you attempt to access the Administrator program from a standard user account you will be prompted for your password twice - first by Time Monitor and then again by Vista. This is one of those little pesky quirks of Windows User Account Controls.
The final menu option available on the Time Monitor system tray icon menu is the Logoff option. Please note that this is simply a convenience option. You don't have to logout this way. It makes no difference to Time Monitor whether you use this menu option or use Windows Logoff command.
One last note regarding Windows Fast User Switching:
In it's current release Time Monitor will continue to monitor the switched account even though some other account is currently logged in. As far as Time Monitor can tell the first account is still up and running. So, if you don't want that time counted against you we recommend that you log off the system rather than using Windows user switching feature.