We're pleased to announce the introduction of billing rates to LiveTimer. In order to enable these new features in your account, go to the Settings Tab, then Billing, and then click Enable.

LiveTimer supports 164 currencies and allows multiple currencies per account. You can even configure the format of each currency independently, including whether cents are shown.

In keeping with the flexibility of our classification system, we also allow you to specify the level at which billing rates are used. You can track billing rates per client / project / task, per activity, or per user.

Billing rates can be named and shared, or can be uniquely assigned.

We've also added the ability to mark certain classifications as "Not Billable". For example, if you've defined billing rates for clients / projects / tasks, you can mark certain activities as "Not Billable" in order to override the billing rates.

Please note: We've got quite a few more billing-related features coming in the very near future. The first will be reports that use these billing rates, which will make these new features truly useful. Rest assured, they're right around the corner!

Firefox 3 has just been released today by Mozilla, who is attempting to set a world record for the most downloads in a day with this release. If you're a Firefox user, we highly recommend that you help them out and download Firefox 3 before 11:16 am PDT (18:16 UTC) on June 18.

We've been testing the beta and release candidate versions of Firefox 3 with LiveTimer, and have been very impressed with its improved speed and memory usage. For instance, the weekly bulk entry view of the Time Ledger, which is the most memory-intensive part of LiveTimer, is noticeably more responsive using Firefox 3 than it is with Firefox 2 on both Mac and Windows.

We are not recommending a switch from Internet Explorer or Safari, especially if you're pleased with your current browser. However, if you're a Firefox user, we definitely recommend trying out Firefox 3.

LiveTimer is now listed in Apple's directory of iPhone web applications.

Thanks to Apple for naming LiveTimer a "Staff Pick".

LiveTimer has also been selected by Apple as a Featured web app for iPhone:

We're proud to announce the launch of LiveTimer's new iPhone interface, which makes tracking your time effortless when you're on the go. We've optimized LiveTimer to work smoothly and responsively on iPhone, whether you're accessing the Internet using Wi-Fi or the slower EDGE network.

In order to access the iPhone-optimized site, you'll need an iPhone or iPod Touch. Open Safari and visit your account's login page (e.g. https://myaccount.livetimer.com). You may want to check the new "Remember me?" option when you login to avoid having to re-enter your user name and password. Furthermore, you may find it helpful to add a LiveTimer link to your home screen (just click the + button, and then "Add to Home Screen").

Both the Timer and Time Ledger are available in LiveTimer's iPhone-optimized interface. You can even create new classifications, such as clients, projects and tasks, as you track your time. If you want to access all of the features of LiveTimer from your iPhone, perhaps to view a time report, just click "View main site" and you'll be taken to the familiar LiveTimer interface. Another click on "View iPhone-optimized site" will take you back.

We hope you enjoy tracking your time with LiveTimer's iPhone interface.

On April 7th, we started using the excellent uptime monitoring service Pingdom to keep an eye on the availability and performance of LiveTimer every minute of every day from locations around the world.

After all of the work we've put into our infrastructure, we're proud to share LiveTimer's current status and uptime history with our customers.

We've added the option to change the sort order of the Time Ledger. Until now, time entries were always displayed in descending order, with the most recent at the top. For example:

Some users found this counter-intuitive, especially since end times appear above start times when editing time entries. Therefore, we've added an ascending sort option in which the most recent time entry appears at the bottom. With ascending sort enabled, the same Time Ledger entries appear as follows:

In order to change this preference for your account, go to the Settings tab, Preferences, and then update Sort Order under Time Ledger Preferences.

Due to popular demand, we've added a new date format preference. As you can see below, we've added quite a few options, but please let us know if we've overlooked any:

We hope that this makes LiveTimer a more natural fit for our international customers.

We're proud to now offer a 50% discount on LiveTimer for non-profit organizations. In order to qualify, your organization must have 501(c)(3) status.

If you qualify, please email us (support AT livetimer DOT com) the following:

• Proof of your non-profit status (a scanned copy of your confirmation letter from the IRS)
• Your EIN (employer identification number from the IRS)

Alternatively, you could send this information by postal mail to our address. After we verify your status, we'll be glad to offer LiveTimer at the very low cost of $2.50 per user per month.

We'd love to hear how LiveTimer is working for all of our clients, non-profit and for-profit. Please email us at support AT livetimer DOT com to share your story.

Reports can now be exported in CSV (Comma-Separated Values) or XML (Extensible Markup Language) formats. Just look for the CSV and XML links in the upper right corner of each report.

CSV files can be easily opened with any spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel. In addition, most databases can import CSV formatted data.

XML files provide detailed, structured information that may be particularly useful to developers. The XML report format is discussed extensively in the LiveTimer API.

If you'd like us to provide additional export formats, please email us at support AT livetimer DOT com..

We're happy to announce the conclusion of the LiveTimer Beta. Thanks to our many users who have made the Beta period so successful. Your valuable feedback has helped shape LiveTimer into the product it is today, which we hope will meet your time tracking needs for years to come.

Now that the Beta is complete, all existing accounts have been transitioned to the standard 30 day free trial period. If you wish to keep your account beyond the trial period, we will begin accepting credit cards soon. We will email further instructions soon to everyone listed as a Billing Contact in your account (which can be verified through the Users tab).

Even though LiveTimer is out of Beta, we will not stop refining and improving it. Please continue to check our News page (or subscribe to our RSS feed) for updates.