This program uses the simple, direct effect of wordless images to wake you up from the hypnotic state that the computer can produce. It reminds you to keep¹ a gentle flow of light in your internal world while working on the computer.

It is a re-make of the Sufi Quotes program that has since been published two times with images (using part of our current code) for a smaller audience. It also resembles the Xfce time out plugin.

The program is available for all mainstream desktop operating systems (you can directly run it from a USB key, and no special runtime environment is required):

The program can get images from local folders, or it can hook up to our gateway on Google's App Engine where a web service is crawling images from a specific Flickr account. The version sold at the Auction can also connect to additional data feeds from an internal "Thoughts from the Teacher" image store.

Changes to implement:

• QSystemTrayIcon or minimize with pause/start, restore and quit menu option
• remove timer2 & search dialog & animation & bgcolor+beep option
• add full moon - new moon warnings
• add Facebook and Picasa connect
• support for offline work

¹ What are the ways to actually keep it? The Cloud of Unknowing (Ch. 31) says that these

tricks and wiles and secret stratagems of spiritual technique ... are better learned from God by experience than from any earthly man.

Nevertheless, you may try some that we found useful:

• put a syllable in front of your monitor (see e.g. CoU Ch. 39)
• do one thing at a time (e.g. don't eat or talk while working)
• pay attention to body posture (slipping in the chair might be a reminder)
• pauses, impressions, voluntary suffering, etc.