We recently launched LiveTimer Mini, a compact version of our most frequently used features. We created LiveTimer Mini by reworking our iPhone interface to be compatible with every desktop browser we support (Internet Explorer 7+, Safari 3+, Firefox 2+, and Google Chrome). In the process, we also boosted the performance and improved the look of our iPhone interface.

In order to try out LiveTimer Mini, just click on the Mini link in the lower left corner of your LiveTimer account. This should resize your browser and load LiveTimer Mini (note: because Google Chrome does not allow web sites to resize your browser, it may be necessary to resize your browser manually). Once in Mini mode, you can return to full sized Standard mode by clicking on the Standard link in the lower left corner.

LiveTimer Mini currently has all the capabilities of the iPhone interface, including a small version of the Timer and Time Ledger. You'll notice that the Time tab looks a bit lonely at the top. It will soon be joined by an Expenses tab for expense tracking, a feature that many of our users have waited for patiently.

Many Integration Options for LiveTimer Mini

Although LiveTimer Mini runs just fine in desktop browsers, you may appreciate integrating it more closely into your Mac or Windows desktop. Options include:

• Mac Dashboard Widget - Browse to your account in Safari, switch to Mini mode, and then right click and choose "Open in Dashboard...". Select the entire page, from the upper left corner to the lower right corner, and then click Add. Voila! LiveTimer Mini has become a Dashboard Widget.
• Fluid Application in Mac OS X - If you'd like a visual indication of when your timer is running right in your Mac's dock, try running LiveTimer with Fluid. The simple instructions are described in this article and this video, and work for both Mini and Standard modes.
• Google Chrome Application in Windows - Creating desktop applications with Chrome is simple: Browse to your LiveTimer account, then click the Page controls in Chrome, and then "Create application shortcuts...". As mentioned above, switching between Mini and Standard modes in Chrome is a bit tedious because it requires that you manually resize the window, but that's the only downside we've found.
• Firefox Prism Application in Windows - Firefox 3 has an add-on named Prism that can be used like Chrome to create a desktop version of your favorite web applications. A future blog post will be dedicated to running LiveTimer with Prism.

We will soon post video tutorials that explain each of the above techniques in detail. In the mean time, don't hesitate to ask for help if you have trouble with the brief instructions provided here. Also, please let us know how LiveTimer Mini works for you!

If you've ever wanted to run LiveTimer, or another site, more like a desktop application you may want to give a Site Specific Browser (SSB) a try. An SSB lets you use a web application like an installed application.

There are two options that I know of for this: Prism from Mozilla which runs on any platform supporting FireFox 3; and Fluid which runs on Mac OS X 10.5 and later.

On the Mac my preference is to use Fluid. I have Fluid apps created for LiveTimer, Pandora, and my web mail client. Fluid allows applications to show a small message called a Dock badge similar to how the Mac's Mail client shows unread messages. LiveTimer detects when you are using Fluid and displays the duration of the currently running timer.

To get started you need to have a Mac running OS X 10.5 or later. Install Fluid and launch it. It will launch an application which creates SSBs. To create your LiveTimer SSB you only need to enter two pieces of information. The first is your LiveTimer URL. This will be in the form of https://myaccount.livetimer.com, obviously replacing myaccount with your actual account name (copy this from a browser running LiveTimer). The second is a name Fluid will use when creating your application: LiveTimer is a good choice. Click Create and in a few seconds you will have a new application created. Click Launch Now and you can run it. Log into LiveTimer and you should be up and running. Use the "Remember me" option and on your next launch you can skip the login steps.

Are there any issues? There is one minor one that we've found, which is that Fluid doesn't alert our app that a page is unloading so we can't show you the option of saving your changes on an edit if you decide to switch pages. We're hoping the Fluid team will fix this soon.

If you don't have a Mac running OS X 10.5 you can give Prism a try. I'll write up how to use Prism in a future post.

UPDATE (July 26): We've added a video that demonstrates how to configure LiveTimer with Fluid.