Timer Portable

Schedules are not just some stressful factors to put pressure on the normal pace of your work, but rather a way to manage time more efficiently overall. What’s more, time management doesn’t necessarily imply setting up complex triggers, or counters, and applications like Timer Portable are enough to let you know when time on specific tasks runs out.

As the name clearly points out, this is the edition of Timer which requires no installation, and can be used directly from a thumb drive. Since it requires Java Runtime Environment to function, you’re even free to use it on other devices supporting this platform, thus greatly enhancing flexibility.

At a first look, the application doesn’t really seem to offer much, and truth be told, it doesn’t. All it has to offer is found under a classic window frame, with a set of intuitive controls to configure the timer, and an output section where the process is updated in real time, with additional operation status when done.

You configure the timer by simply writing down numerical values in fields for hours, minutes, and seconds. Not all of them are mandatory though, but this method provides more accuracy in configurations.

Once you hit the “start” button the countdown timer initiates. As mentioned above, hours, minutes, and seconds fields update in real time, but you can minimize the application during the process. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go to the tray area, and you need to reserve it some taskbar space.

Even if minimized, a prompt shows up to let you know the configured time is up. Sadly, the log section resets as well, and instead of leaving all text there to count tasks, you only end up with the process status text. It would have been useful to have all history saved, especially since you can copy info from the log section.

All things considered, we can state that Timer Portable is a lightweight tool with which to try and manage your time a little better. Sure enough, portability provides the flexibility you need, but the overall simplicity prevents you from tracking history, or saving a more detailed log of events.