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Marble of doom tracks computer hang time

Got a Mac? Got a beach ball of death? Log it with Marble of Doom.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn
CNET Networks

The Marble of Doom is a cute site created by some folks who clearly have a good sense of humor about waiting for their computer to finish processing. It's Mac-centric, and aimed to track all the time you've lost due to the Mac's version of the hourglass, also known as the "marble of doom" and "spinning beach ball of death." Whenever this happens, you just have to sit there and wait it out, leading to a somewhat inevitable destruction of any productivity.

The site tracks this time, and sorts it out by the application, assuming you're willing to repeatedly input it when you get the chance. You can choose anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes. The current leader for most lag is Adobe Photoshop, with Firefox and Safari nipping at its heels.

The site was created by folks from The IconFactory and ARTIS Software and had already amassed over 136 years (of failure) since launching this morning; however, the counter was reset after the site went down about just after 1 p.m. PST due to Digg traffic. Despite its tongue-in-cheek humor, the site got me wishing there was actually a user-friendly feature like this to track how much time you've spent actively using applications, and when they're unresponsive--in part for the user, as well as the developers.

[via Digg]