14 DAY TRIAL // If you are a busy person, with a tight schedule, you might end up forgetting various events, like meetings or birthdays. In order to avoid these inconveniences, one could use Countdown.
Countdown is a simple tool that allows its users to create their own timers and customize them with ease.
Small and practical, Countdown comes wrapped up in a 1.2 MB archive, so it doesn't take a lot of hard drive space and you can download it in a matter of seconds. Aside from that, the application itself is very simple and does not require any tutorials to use it.
The Looks
Countdown doesn't have a main window, or a central panel. After opening it, you can only access a window that will allow you to create, configure and start a new timer. If you press Start, the timer will launch, creating a smaller window that can be dragged with ease anywhere on your desktop.
Countdown also provides a menulet that lets users view active or past timers, in a chronological order.
The Works
Simplicity is the key word when you are talking about Countdown: the menus are basic, intuitive, and the application can easily be accessed from the dock or menubar. Launching a countdown is no different, all you need to do is press CMD+N, or the dock icon, and you can start a new one.
You can insert a title for your timers, as well as a note, which will later offer more information about the countdown. After that, one can select the desired date and time for the countdown. The basic date format is MM/DD/YYYY, and, unfortunately, it can't be changed.
A user can also add a video/audio file that will be opened automatically when the timer is due, a very useful feature for home users. When the timer reaches 0, the application will open iTunes (or any other media player set as default). The disadvantage in using a third party tool is that the song will keep on playing until you come back to the computer and stop it.
One can start as many timers as needed, but keep in mind that some of timers on your desktop might cover other windows and distract you from your work. A solution for this problem would be the use Spaces (create a separate space for your timers). For testing purposes, I’ve opened 30 timers, and all of them seemed to work without any errors.
Although it’s possible to add a note regarding the timer during the configuration phase, I was unable to view it after the timer started, so, if the titles are almost identical, you might end up wondering what that countdown was for. Fortunately, when the timer ends, the note is displayed.
The application also provides a menulet, which lets a user visualize the timers in chronological order. However, it too seems to have some glitches as well. Sometimes, if you leave the timer in the background and use other applications, the menubar will stop displaying the time left until the nearest countdown. I don't know why, but it randomly happened 5 times.
The menulet also keeps a history of your countdowns, but you can delete them with ease by pressing the Clear ended timers button.
The preferences menu allows a user to change the time format, as well as setup the actions (flash the screen, play a certain song or bounce the dock icon) that will take place when the timer stops.
You can also save any of the active timers for later use. Unfortunately, the application will also save the date, so the timer will be expired when using it again. Of course, this won't happen if the timer is set to a date in the near future.
Another disadvantage is that, upon exit, the timers are not automatically saved, so they’re all lost unless you save them individually (this solution is not that efficient if you have a lot of timers).
The Good
The menulet is a useful addition, because it provides quick access to the timers, and lets you view all of them in order.
Each timer can be set to launch files when it stops, so you can use it in various ways, like: a timer for opening to-do/music files at a precise time or as a reminder for editing certain files.
The Bad
The Truth
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
