User activity tracking app for Mac OS

Factual Questions
1

I’m looking for something that I’m not sure exists. Not a Keylogger per se, I don’t think - Aobo appears to be the only legit one of those around for the Mac that I can see, by the way.

My idea is to track what my stepson is doing on his Mac, at an application/Website level, and to make it permanently visible on his desktop (or the toolbar) without him being able to minimise, remove, or reset it. I want to display how many hours he’s racked up on Facebook and WoW (his two weaknesses) plus anywhere else he might be wasting time when he’s supposed to be studying. Ideally it could even tell when he’s active on Facebook, as distinct from when it’s in the background idle. It would show the number of hours on each activity today, this week, and ever, and the proportion of uptime wasted like this versus that used productively.

This is to help his self-discipline, and in particular where he thinks he’s been on Facebook for 5 minutes and it’s really been 30.

I suppose a keylogger would technically do it (in the sense that I’d get notifications of his usage which I’d then have to confront him with) but I’d rather be open than stealthy - sneakiness being one of the things we’re trying to discourage in him so it wouldn’t been a good look in his parents.

Thanks for any suggestions folks.

2

Take a look at Rescuetime. It’s not exactly what you describe, but it’s pretty close.

3

Well that’s fabulous! I had little hope but that’s as close to my needs as one could wish for. Thanks a lot!

4

Whew-- at first i thought you were going to spy on him. But this is helping him… IF he agrees to it. Handy Hint: Let HIM install it, so it’s a SELF-discipline exercise.

And maybe you should make a deal with him, that you’d track your time, too… in case there’s a certain… message board?.. that’s insidiously addictive? And when you’re SURE you’re just going to refresh that one thread you started… you notice a fascinating discussion of blacks owning slaves, or a new Star Trek series (ooh, false alarm), and, oh, look, Sarah and Glenn said something embarrassing, and oh, it’s after midnight already…

… and he could give you a hard time in return!

5

Yes, we’ll be trying to pitch this as helping him manage his own time, given he has exams coming up shortly.

Oh no, I never surf the SDMB from home. That’s what work is for.