Mindfulness at the Computer: Alpha 5 Release

Not sure but you may be able to simply drag the application executable to the launcher

This sounds far too nice & easy, but unfortunately doesn’t work. The other one looks indeed a bit complicated, and I’m not very much tempted to try it out right now. Maybe when I’ve looots of time… :sweat_smile:

But thanks for your advice, both of you, anyway! :heart:

Just experimenting, turning the app on and off.

Sometimes when it is on there appears a question mark in the launcher, sometimes two (sometimes none):

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Sometimes it is possible to pin one of them to the launcher, sometimes it still disappears when closing the app. In any case, even if it remains, it is not possible to start the app from the question mark.

Strange… :thinking:

I remember having a problem like this previously back when i was using Ubuntu myself, but i can’t remember how i solved it. Maybe you can ask here? https://askubuntu.com/

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I’ve now tried everything:

I have re-installed the old app—then my icon is back in the launcher. But… I cannot pin it there. Each time I try it doesn’t keep.

And in any case for the new version this doesn’t work. No icon, whatever I do. If I want to use the app (old or new) I have to open the folder each time and start it with the executable file.

Okay, thank you for reporting this. Can i ask which version of Ubuntu you are using?

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All: Has anyone tried the new “random breathing phrase” feature? It’s available in the “dialog” section in the settings where you can change it (default is “same” but we are changing the default to “random” in the next version)

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Ubuntu 16.04

Finally, after a day or so of rest and at a new boot of my computer the old app gives me now the launcher icon again and allows to pin it where it belongs. So I’m using the old version… :grin:

Okay, i’m glad that is working. For alpha 5: could you ask on https://askubuntu.com/ if they can help you with your problem there? (I could ask instead but there may be follow up questions that i can’t answer)

I just got a notice from my virus scanner that it has quarantined the alpha 5 release because it believes it is infected with malware, classified as Win64:Malware-gen. However, according to How to remove Win64:Malware-Gen Trojan (Virus Removal Guide) , that’s their name for a generic Trojan. So it could be a false positive. Has anyone else run into this issue?

upload it to virustotal.com see if other virus scanners detect anything

Details at https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/932113c7bf451c31ce9857896618a18fe74008d196083b2f29ce10aed243312d/detection

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Hi! And thank you for reporting this, it’s good for us to know that this has been reported

When i look at the link you gave to virustotal many of the engines that are run they say that the file is clean, so i think this may be a false positive like you said

The application i free and open source software (meaning among other things that anyone can look at the source code) so there is a low risk of anything bad happening. We also rely on few external libraries (just one actually which is reliable/safe) and also i have built this Windows executable+zip file myself. In addition i haven’t heard of any other reports from other users

In short there should be a very low risk for viruses in our software, and i think you can feel more safe with our application than many other programs!

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Thanks for the reassurance. I have add the path to my exclusions list so my anti-virus software (AVG) won’t keep putting mindfulness into quarantine.

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@Aminah and all: We are considering adding a new feature to the application. Our understanding of the typical user is that she feels disconnected from her body, breath and disconnected from other people. The body and breath are addressed with the breathing dialog and the rest breaks. But we are considering adding some ways for users to remember how she contributes to the well-being of others when using the computer

In my own case i like to use the breathing phrases “breathing i share the well-being of others, breathing out i contribute to the well-being of others”. But are there any other ways that we can add this in the application? Grateful for help with this!

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Hello @sunyata_zero, nice to hear from you. I hope all is going well with you and your project.

I have to admit to not being entirely sure how to approach your question. I’m a bit tired atm so my thinking isn’t likely to be especially crispy clear; I’m not even certain how I relate to the basic notion you’ve put forward. That said, of course, keeping the intention to act in such a way that is kind and beneficial to others in a central spot in one’s mind is lovely, and certainly there are many times when it would be especially good to remember this while being behind the wheel of a computer (as an aside Ajahn Brahm’s talk Cultivating Ethics in a Cybernetic Age just popped into mind so maybe some indirect inspiration can be found there).

In terms of just raw ideas of features you want to add… like what, are you thinking something along the lines of creating a user network as a channel for positively contributing to others’ lives??? Hmmm… I return to my opening remark of not really having a clue about how to answer this one. Regardless, I surely wish you the best of luck! :slight_smile:

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An interesting idea, and I think you are right that adding brahmaviharas to the application would be appreciated by many. Those particular phrases are too wordy for my taste, but I like the overall idea.

Here’s a perhaps crazy idea - you already allow users to input their own pairs of in/out phrases. How about having a feature where we can share these and borrow from others?

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Thank you both for your responses, i’m open to different ideas and thank you for your inspirations and ideas! One option i’ve been thinking about is to use some space in the rest dialog (which takes up the whole screen) to show texts and screengrabs showing how the user has helped and interacted with others when using the computer. Maybe some of these messages will come from an email thanking the user for her help with some work related to the computer or document she has been writing

Update: Also the user may want to simply add images of people that she is benefitting with her work at the computer, so looking toward the future as well as the past

Thoughts on this? Grateful for your feedback!

Kind Regards, Tord

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A new alpha release is now here!

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