Breaks are one of the most important aspects when working long hours in front of a computer screen. One problem that can arise is eye stress which comes from staring concentrated for to long at a computer monitor screen. Among the symptoms that computer users can experience are eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision and other symptoms that affect the eyes. The effects are only temporary but can be easily prevented by taking regular eye stress relief breaks.
Some computer users with lots of discipline might be able to force themselves to taking regular breaks but the average user usually forgets about them or are concentrated on work which they do not want to interrupt.
The best help for these users is to make use of a software program like Eyecare that informs them when it is time to take a break. Eyecare is probably the most basic type of eye stress relief breaks programs. It is a portable software program that runs quietly in the background. The only indication that it is running is a system tray icon and the process in the task manager.
The program will automatically bring up a black screen every 20 minutes for one minute so that the user can rest the eyes. There is unfortunately no configuration available at this point in development which means it is not possible to change the frequency of the screen blackouts. Eyecare is also a bit heavy on the resource side as it uses more than 20 Megabytes of computer memory while running. Viable alternatives with more options are Workrave or Eye Defender.
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I like Workrave. It makes me a bit angry sometimes because of interrupting what I’m doing – but it works!
KDE comes with RSIrelief which suggests (popup in the system tray) that the user take short and long breaks at specified intervals.