Keeping Your World Visible With The Batch Eye Saver

Your eyes are very important. Screw with your vision and it’ll screw with you. We live in a world of close-up work, and our eyes don’t like it.

 

Our eyes work like any other muscle, changing shape to perform a task; they exist in a round shape when focusing far away, and they become egg-shaped when focusing up close. And like any other muscle, they can develop fatigue, glitches, and problems. The eyes’ natural state is the round long-distance lense, but when your eyes focus on anything you can touch for too long, too often, they forget how to relax back into that round shape. They remain in the egg shape, causing near-sightedness.

 

Our eyes are designed for ten minutes of close-work at a time, at most. Going longer causes cramping and near-sightedness. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t read for more than ten minutes. To avoid cramping, fatigue, and other problems, look away every ten minutes and fix your eyes on something far away. Every half-hour, you should get up and stretch your entire body. Allowing your eyes to rest for a few seconds (You hear that? Seconds. No long break, just ten seconds or so is all your eyes need to relax.) every ten minutes will help your eyes stay healthy and your vision to stay clear.

 

Remembering to look away from the computer every ten minutes just doesn’t happen. You can set a timer, but after a while you forget to reset the timer. I came across a program at a health and fitness Giveaway that displayed a little window every ten minutes, reminding you to look up. As good as the idea was, however, the program wasn’t very well-designed. It was glitchy and took up a lot of memory. I liked the idea, however, and have written my own version using batch and VBS. My little program runs well and is easy to set up, and will help keep your eyes happy.

 

This may seem like a long –Ible, but the content is very simple and short. Case-in-point, I tend to be wordy and florid with my speech, and as I write the way I speak, my instructions can be a little lengthy and confusing. Anyone who has seen my –Ibles on hiding data (http://www.instructables.com/id/A_Few_Ways_To_Hide_Data_On_A_Computer/) and getting free media (http://www.instructables.com/id/El-Mano8217s-Official-Guide-To-Free-Media/)  may know what I’m talking about (I’m working on the Free-Media guide, for anyone who’s actually seen it, and I have more to add to it.) This Instructible is 6 steps long in order to make the instructions simple for anyone not familiar with scripting. Just follow the directions and look at the pictures, and you can easily set the program up.

I've entered this in the Humana Health By Design contest. If you like my work, my -Ible, or me in general, please vote for me.

Step 1 The Setup

First, you need a folder to put the program in. Any folder will do, but all three files must be in the same directory (folder). I went to Program Files (My Computer, C:\, also called Master Drive, Program Files), and created a folder (Right-Click, Create New, Folder, give the folder a name) I named the folder ‘Eye Doctor’. Remember what folder you picked.

Comments

[Win7Maniac]

Keep in mind that you are excluding newer versions of Windows. In Windows 7, the batch file does not have that icon, it's a grey gear in a white box. Also, you should add a tip saying to run Notepad as administrator (right click, Run as Administrator) to avoid a saving error, since Program Files is a system directory. And furthermore, there IS NO startup directory in Vista and Windows 7. Instead of excluding these users, which many people, you need to include a workaround. Mine is using 3rd party software to modify the Registry. I use Glary Utilities to do this. Download and install it from (www.glaryutilities.com) and go to the Modules tab. Then go to the optimize and improve tab on the side, and click Startup Manager. This lists all your entries, to add a new one click Add program. . ., name it Eye Doctor, and copy the path (if you followed the suggested path it's C:\Program Files\Eye Doctor\Timer.vbs) and click OK. The program works on XP too, but your method doesn't work on Vista or 7.
Please watch out for this in your future instructables. Compatibility is very important.
Ryan

[Win7Maniac]

I apologize but know GU doesn't open VBS files in the browsing, only Windows files such as .exe, .com, or .bat files. To get it to work, under the File Name box in Files of type:, you have to open the drop-down menu and select All Files. Then select Timer.vbs and click OK.

Also, a suggestion, you should have a UI on this thing. The VBS file's great, but you should at least have a taskbar icon. Otherwise your user has no way of seeing the status of the program, the option of closing it without removing it from Startup and restarting, or even the option of knowing if it's running. I can't check for compatibility with Windows 7 without waiting however long it takes. It needs some work.

Thanks,
Ryan

[El Mano]

Yes, it had bugs. That's what I love about people. They're so quick to judge; put anything on the web, and you get free proof-reading. Never be afraid to post a rough-ish draft. Anyway, not having an on/off button was annoying. I have several nice screensavers and a fifteen-minute monitor shutoff in action. Everytime the program went off, it exited the screensaver and forestalled the power-saving shutoff. I added a userface, if you count "Eye Doctor is on. Press any key to continue...", and there's now an indicator for those who want it. I don't know how you'd create a taskbar icon, unless you simply mean a shortcut to the new Eye Switch, which is the user's job. I'm not sure what you mean with GU. I only have Windows XP, so if it's a Vista or 7 thing, I can't do much.

[Win7Maniac]

The page might not be deleting because of the comments we put on it. GU (Glary Utilities) works on all 3 OSs and maybe more, so don't worry about compatibility there. Thanks for the support.
Ryan

[Win7Maniac]

OK, thanks for fixing the stuff. GU is my acronym for Glary Utilities, which I mentioned in the previous comment. Also, here is my revised code, titled "main.bat", but you'll have to create pause.vbs which pauses for 15 seconds and idle.vbs which pauses for 10 minutes. There, of course, are some bugs in my code, like executing the vbs files, which I haven't created yet, but I'm working on it. Feel free to use it:
http://www.projectbicara.com/main.bat
The domain I posted it on is an incomplete project, especially since all I have up as of now is a modified Arduino schematic, but you can take a look. I plan to greatly expand it soon.
Thanks for fixing the stuff, and good luck!
Ryan

[Win7Maniac]

Very nice modification, and an ingenious way to go about it, too. I would have never thought of the way you resolved the issue. However, (I know, more criticism :P) what happened to Startup? For that, i recommend putting back what you originally had (at least part of it) on the next page, and looking at Glary Utilities.
Thanks for the support, hope you win!
Ryan

[kabturek]

thanks for some great info!
"Workrave" ( http://workrave.org ) is a great (and free/open source) program that helps eyes and hands :) (and its avaible for all major platforms)