Posts Tagged: freedom

Noticed — 2 Comments
23
Sep 09

New York Times mention

Pretty exciting – my work was featured in a New York Times article on productivity tools.   Farhad Manjoo writes:

“One Mac app that has found a way to solve this problem is called Freedom, which blocks all of your computer’s networking functions for a pre-determined number of minutes. In other words, once you set it, you’ve got no Web, no instant messaging, no e-mail — and the only way to undo Freedom’s block before the time runs out is to restart your machine.”

Freedom also garnered a mention on Mashable, in a post on 20 productivity tools for Mac users:

“Sometimes the Internet is more of a distraction than it is a productivity aid. For those times, the best solution is just to unplug. Freedom will turn off your Mac’s networking card for up to 8 hours, so you can get what you need to get done done, without the distraction of Facebook, Twitter and the latest viral videos.

Obviously, as a web writer, this doesn’t really work for me during the work week, but it’s great for when I’m on a deadline — like trying to finish an article of 20+ Mac productivity tools!”

This was cross-posted to the Freedom blog (http://macfreedom.com).

Noticed / Thoughts — 3 Comments
31
Mar 09

Freedom featured in Salon

Rebecca Traister of Salon has posted a great meditation on Freedom:

Yes, Freedom. Like the word Mel Gibson’s William Wallace shouts just as he’s being disemboweled by a British executioner in “Braveheart.” Freedom, like the thing that people around the world yearn for, fight for, die for. Freedom riders, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of expression. Freedom like “chimes of.”

That’s just like what I downloaded, except in my case, the Freedom I was seeking was meant not to liberate me from the oppressive bonds of an unjust regime. No, my Freedom was designed to bind and restrict me, to prevent me from e-mailing, surfing, browsing and playing online games. Ah … sweet, sweet Freedom.

Traister continues:

I’d need to take a breath and dive in for more. And that’s when I wrote this sentence. And this one. All of the sentences so far, actually. Except for the few minutes during which I did call the bank to check on getting my money back from that guy who was using my credit card for gas. But that was actually kind of important, too. The kind of thing that might have been put off for another hour, or another day, if I had Webs to surf, words to unscramble.

It’s been about a week with Freedom, and I like it, I really do, even if I’m a bit ashamed that I need it. I still use it mostly for about 15- or 30-minute periods.

It is inspiring to read commentary like this – even if it is a little tongue-in-cheek (and appropriately so), it is pretty cool to know that you’ve developed softare that has helped people.

One note, in the article the writer includes a verbatim quote about what I do with donations to Freedom.  I use the money Freedom generates to 1) pay for shareware (I’ve now paid for most of the shareware I use) and 2) purchase software I need for research.  Freedom has allowed me to purchase DevonThink Pro Office, which is completely revolutionizing my research process.  I didn’t start out with a plan for what to do with donation money, it just sort of worked out (and felt right) that it be passed on through the software economy in a virtuous cycle.

Download Freedom.  Read Traister’s Story.  Story Comments.

Noticed / Software — 1 Comment
5
Feb 09

Freedom in the Chronicle

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog writes about Freedom today:

Fred Stutzman, a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science, may not have had Rousseau in mind when he created the “Freedom” application. But he does believe that to escape the siren song of social media, scholars might need to freely impose restrictions on themselves. “When there’s wireless everywhere,” he told The Chronicle, “how do we really escape the Internet?”

Mr. Stutzman’s answer is to relinquish one’s right to surf the Web to the supervision of a sort of robotic schoolmarm. Freedom is a shareware application that users instruct to disable their computers’ network adapters for a fixed period of time, leaving them unable to browse the Internet for up to eight hours.

Mr. Stutzman created Freedom as a tool for researchers and writers such as himself who, like many Internet users, have become so restless that they must exile themselves from cyberspace in order to concentrate on their work. “As a doctoral student, it’s something that we’re all familiar with,” he said. “Anybody who needs to do long writing or Internet research … it’s hard to draw the line between work and time-wasting.”

Freedom’s current version is 0.4.1, and you can download it here for free (thanks to iBiblio for the hosting!).  I also enjoy reading feedback or feature requests on blogs and Twitter, or you can email me privately.  Windows users, I’m sorry, but there are no plans to develop a Windows version.

Hacks / Software — 5 Comments
22
Dec 08

Announcing Freedom v0.4

I’m pleased to release Freedom v0.4, a major update to the Freedom software.  This new version is a fresh rewrite, incorporating the ability to access local networks, an extended time period, and many significant bug fixes.  Particularly, Freedom’s authentication mechanism has changed (fixing the password-timeout bug) and Freedom will now appropriately handle suspends and sleeps.

Freedom v0.4 remains Mac only, and it is tested through OS 10.5.6.  This new version was paid for (thank you!) by those who have donated in the past.  I strongly recommend that all users upgrade as soon as possible.

Download Freedom directly (.dmg)

Freedom’s website.

If you run into any problems/have suggestions please leave them in the comments.  I do not plan on developing a Windows version, sorry.

Previous posts about Freedom:

Productive Unit Structures: Introducing Freedom
New Version of Freedom: v0.3
Freedom in the Telegraph

Software — 8 Comments
12
Aug 08

Freedom in the Telegraph

Following yesterday’s excitement regarding Freedom’s appearance in BoingBoing and Lifehacker, the Telegraph (UK) has an article about the software.

A new tool promises to help computer users lacking in willpower by banning them from the internet and email for set periods.

Freedom, which is free to download, disables a computer’s internet connection for up to three hours at a time.

The only way to over-ride the block is to re-boot the computer, a time-consuming task that should deter users from breaking their self-imposed bans.

The programme is designed to help procrastinating computer users, particularly those who work from home, to resist the temptation to constantly check sites like Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia, as well as their email accounts.

Fred Stutzman, the developer behind the programme, said that he was motivated to build Freedom by his own lack of self-control.

…other people have been dismissive about the internet addicts who feel unable to go cold turkey on their own.

“There is already a product available to eliminate online distractions from your work time: it’s called ‘willpower’, wrote a commenter called Brownie on the Lifehacker blog.

Mr Stutzman’s response to the critics? “I don’t disagree with them – in a perfect world we’d all be able to limit our Internet use, TV watching and chocolate-chip-cookie consumption. The reality is that when we’re faced with a deadline, something like Freedom can help, and there’s no shame.”

This is officially too funny. I love the internets.

Software / Teaching / Thoughts — 1 Comment
3
Jun 08

Summer 2008

You really know it’s summer when the blog posts start popping up, apologizing in advance for three months of radio silence. Let me join in the fray and apologize – this is going to be a busy summer for me, and unfortunately Unit Structures will suffer. I’m aiming to graduate in the spring of 2009, so this summer finds me writing and defending my proposal. I’ll be running dissertation research in the fall and winter, and hopefully finishing writing in the spring. This also means I’ll be going on the job market this fall – if you see anything interesting, feel free to send it over to me!

In addition to my proposal, I’ve got a few other projects I’m working on. I recently signed a contract with an academic publisher to produce a manuscript entitled “Research and Analysis of Online Social Networks.” This book will bring together many of the research threads I’ve been working on over the past four years. Thankfully, it is a short book, and I hope it will be ready in electronic form by late fall. I’ll also be conducting social networks research this summer. Jacob and I will be analyzing audience perception and cultural processes in OSN’s. We’ll be presenting preliminary findings at ASIST 2008. In another line of research, I’ll be running interviews later this summer, analyzing relationship management in OSN’s.

My summer work is being supported through my work with HASTAC and MacArthur’s Digital Media and Learning Competition. I’m having a wonderful time working with the DML team, and I’m looking forward to working with them on many future iterations of the DML program. Travel will be fairly limited this summer, but I’m looking forward to attending the CSST Research Institute, a NSF-supported program exploring socio-technical systems.

In addition to maintaining sanity and getting to the beach a few times, I’ve got a few goals for this summer. I’d like to do some writing for a popular publication or two – if anyone has advice or good connections, I’m all ears. I’m also hoping to keep productive on the software side of things – I want to build a few more little apps like Freedom, and new ClaimID features are keeping me very busy. I’m also open to consulting opportunities, etc.

With regards to Unit Structures, I’ll be shifting from long-form posts to more link-oriented stuff. I’ll update with interesting things that cross my radar. It will be a little different, a little more reflective. What about you? Do you change your blogging habits in the summer?

Software — 4 Comments
29
Apr 08

New Version of Freedom: v0.3

In response to a few bug reports and feature requests, I’ve updated Freedom. The new version should fix the “asking for your password at 5 minute intervals” affecting some users, and it now allows up to 6 hours of Freedom. To update Freedom, download the new version and drag it to your Applications folder.

Please also let me know if you run into any bugs. I was able to track down the bug in Freedom 0.1-2 to a problem described in an Apple Technical Note, so I’m feeling more confident.

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