Who knows where the time goes? TeaBert does. It’s a countdown timer widget for Nokia touch-enabled devices.

You set up TeaBert by creating an activity, then determining how long the activity should last. For example, you could set your daily jog around the park for 20 minutes. Next, start the timer, and TeaBert would count down the time of your jog: 19:59, 19:58, 19:57…all the way to 00:00. Finally, when time is up, TeaBert alerts you by ringing a cuckoo-clock chime four times — and by changing the colour of the activity on your screen from yellow to red.

To start and stop timers, you simply tap an activity on your list. For example, tap Green Tea, and the tea timer starts. Tap the activity again, and the timer stops. Or wait for the timer to run down; when you hear the cuckoo-clock alarm, tap the activity again to end the countdown. Here are two screenshots that show an activity started (yellow) and finished (red). By the way, the small digits below the timer indicate the time — in hours, minutes and seconds — when the countdown was started.

TeaBert offers two modes: Timer and Edit. Timer is the ‘normal’ mode in which you select one or more activities and let the timer run. Edit is where you create, edit, and delete activities for your list.

TeaBert comes pre-loaded with four activities: Green Tea brewing, pre-set at 2 minutes 15 seconds (shown as ‘2:15’); Good Egg at 4:30; Today’s Running at 30:00; and ‘The dog likes to walk’ at 1:30:00. Each activity is also indicated by an icon. Green Tea, for example, shows an icon of a steaming teacup.

You can edit any activity on the list by first tapping Options > Edit Timers, then tapping on the activity. Up pops this edit task screen, which lets you change the activity’s name, duration, and icon:

To add a new activity, click on the ‘Add Timer’ box at the bottom of your activities list:

Next, you will see the edit task screen again, this time with the generic ‘Timer’ as a place saver in the Name field. You replace it with any task you want, set the duration, and select an icon. Below, I am setting up a nap timer for 20 minutes, using the alarm clock icon:

Finally, to delete an activity, you select Options > Edit Timers, then select the activity you want to delete. At the bottom of the edit screen are two boxes, ‘Delete’ and ‘Save’. Tap ‘Delete’, and the activity is removed.

TeaBert has two cool features. First, even if you exit the widget while a timer is running, the countdown continues as if the widget were still running. For example, if you set a timer for 20 minutes … then shut the widget at, say, 15 minutes … and then returned after 5 minutes … TeaBert would show that you still had 10 minutes to go. Second, you can display TeaBert on your homescreen, saving you a few taps to see your current countdown progress.

One mystery remains: I understand the ‘Tea’ in ‘TeaBert’, but what does the ‘Bert’ signify? I thought it might be significant, since Kaedinger, the German publisher of this widget, also publishes SeekBert (fingertip search), WallBert (‘mobile pimping’), and RaceBert (lap timer). But according to a note I received from the developer, there is no special significance, other than serving as a way to distinguish his apps from those of other publishers. Oh, well. (He also promises a soon-to-be-released update with a longer and louder cuckoo alarm.)

TeaBert is available on Ovi Store for $1.99. It runs on all Nokia S60 5th Edition devices (including the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 mini), takes up just 0.1 megabytes of storage, and does not require an open Internet connection. Let the countdown with TeaBert begin!