Jake’s Life

Things have come a long way since I was freelancing web design before. Back then I used Mambo with several extensions to manage my website, design inquiries, invoices, etc. I chose to look into more modern ways of doing this simply because of the Web 2.0 "revolution" and its offerings. I have a few criteria: The app has to be free (I refuse to pay for software when there are equivalent software that’s free); The app has to be quick to setup and operate; and the app has to give the appearance of professionalism as it relates to clients.

Invoicing

I tried Bamboo Invoices. Bamboo is a PHP app that is hosted on your own web server (or local server setup) that bills itself as simple. It is simple, but to go beyond simple to the point that it’s customized for what you need it gets time consuming. It also doesn’t allow you to process payments through the software.

I finally decided on CurdBee, which is a hosted invoice app. You register, it creates a sub-domain where you can login (for example, yourname.curdbee.com), and once you login presents a Dahsboard where you can view your drafts, overdue, and open invoices. You can brand the colors and logo it shows your clients, which is nearly unheard of with a free app.

To create a new invoice you click a few times, offer payment methods, and it sends an e-mail to the client to notify them. One thing I like about CurdBee is it allows my clients to pay through PayPal by clicking on a link from the invoice.

Project Management

For project management I wanted an app that was simple to use so that I could offer my clients the option of logging in to manage tasks and files, but not have to explain to them how to do it. Again, free was a must.

I looked at a few others before I decided on Project Pier. A self-hosted app, Project Pier lets you create a project, set milestones, create task lists, assign tasks to users, and show progress on completed items, upload files for review and storage, and even create simple forms to gather input from clients. A few useful features it has are RSS feeds based on projects so that you can be notified through your feed reader when something is updated, and tagging so that you can tag any aspect to quickly find later.

The great thing about Project Pier, and why it works for me, is that there are not a lot of features that I don’t use on a daily basis, but it’s not so simple that you have to modify how you manage projects just because the app doesn’t have the functionality.

Fax Service

I didn’t have one until a client insisted on faxing me the contract she signed. OneFax seemed to be the one to use: Unlimited faxes (both incoming and outgoing), an e-mail type interface for your faxes, and an easy way to send PDF’s as a fax. The 90-day free trial worked great.

I felt like I had to blog about this for some reason. It’s just that great.

Evernote, a note taking tool similar to OneNote, recently released a new version for Windows and Mac, as well as various web and mobile versions. I had tried Evernote way back when it first came out, and when it came down to that or OneNote, I chose OneNote. Now that this version has come out, I rapidly switched to Evernote (which makes it easy with their OneNote 2007 Import Wizard). I’ve also been expanding the use I have for this app, using it as:

• An archive for important paperwork, receipts, documents, certifications, etc.
• And image dump (Evernote has a neat feature that recognizes text in an image file!)
• Grabbing screenshots (select the screen clipper and you size the box to what you want and it will insert it in a notebook which you can save it from)
• Grabbing web content with the Firefox Web Clipper (select content on a web page and press a button dumps it into your notebook)
• Idea repository (they fly around my head all day)
• Code library (there’s so much code I have floating around for web development)

A few folks have e-mailed me lately and asked what tools I use on my blog. Well, on top of the visible ones, being Wordpress and Windows Live Writer (I’ve blogged on how much I like WLW before), I use a lot that may be invisible to my readers. This post will be dedicated to them (and how free they are).

ScribeFire: A great blogging tool I haven’t talked much about is ScribeFire. It’s a Firefox plugin which embeds a blogging app into your browser and makes certain things a lot easier. For example, when a tab is open and you create a new entry, go to insert a link and the URL of that page is automatically there for you. It gives you a WYSIWYG editor as well as a raw HTML code view. Control your previous entries and Wordpress categories from ScribeFire as well.

Paint.NET: Paint.NET is something I’ve used for a while now. I have Photoshop, but if all I need to do is create a thumbnail, modify a screenshot, or crop a photo, Paint.NET is much faster and more streamlined.

WebShot: If all I want is to grab a quick screenshot of a particular web site I usually use WebShot. It’s a very small app that lets you grab a screenshot and output it to a certain size. The great thing about it is that it will grab the entire page, not just one monitor’s worth, but everything from top to bottom.

I had to restore Vista to a factory install last week due to a nasty set of viruses I contracted. Luckily my 300GB external drive had plenty of free space to backup my files. While rebuilding my bookmarks (the only file I forgot to backup) I found some other web services that are worth mentioning:

Wiki-send: A simple file upload service which allows unregistered users to upload files which are “alive” for ten days. Registered users are able to password protect and manage the life of their files.

Overpic: A picture hosting service which also does not require registration, has multiple upload boxes on its main page for quick uploads, and can share with several social networking and blogging platforms.

My Hours: Straight-to-the-point time records service which allows users to create projects, then track the time and simple expenses while working on those projects. Also provides a variety of reports based on the information you submit.

Me. I know, not very spectacular. 

Things have been going lately, definitely a lot differently than I thought. I’m not going to go into it very much but the break up was reversed. I’m not going to post to the entire world the details I know, but thank you to those who have expressed concern over the situation and listened to what I’ve had to say about what’s going on inside.  

On a different, yet similar note, I’m almost completely broke. The large contract job for the RMS I was working on is waiting for some other things to happen, and in the meantime it’s at an almost complete standstill. I am looking ot pick up other remote web work, so if you happen to know of any “odd jobs” or site redesigns that are needed, pass my information along.  

I’ve been working on this for a few weeks now and it’s coming along quite nicely. It’s an application for field deployment in all of our patrol vehicles which allow officers to access and store information on subjects, vehicles, locations, special details, and monitor others’ activities in real time. It also integrates state court records and open county warrants. What’s great is that it’s not a generic public safety solution, instead it’s custom tailored to our specific needs right down to being able to chose themes based on where you are viewing it (for example, dark colors for use at night in the patrol vehicles and light colors for reading in the office).

[I will for the record state that it is in no way devised from reverse engineering my previous employer's similar system, which is archaic in comparison. Instead it is built from the ground up so-to-speak (and ten times better I might add).]

Sveet, ja?

Cue inspiration, please…

I’ve had a 2GB media card for my phone for a while. I used it with my Dash, my Wing, and now it sits in my Blackberry Curve. The only thing is that besides storing ringtones and photos that I take with the camera (so that the onboard memory doesn’t get filled up) I haven’t done much with it. There’s plenty of space for video though, so I decided to start encoding some TV episodes and other video files for it.

Blackberry Desktop Manager comes with a modified version of Roxio Media Manager 9, but as is usual with bundled software, it’s bloated and not very flexible. It is pretty easy, grabbing your media files from your computer and dropping them on your media card, choosing to convert them for the device, and watching the bar slowly creep towards 100%. I prefer to use slimmer apps though, such as MediaCoder or SUPER.

Both programs are fairly straight forward, although SUPER is a bit more flexible, and the interface a bit more crowded. Both apps will let you save presets, which is great when you find just the right format to encode video files to. My issue was finding that format since so many forums and sites slightly vary based on the author’s experience, and this one will too. I converted a video using Roxio Media Manager which output a file as follows according to Media Player Classic:

Video: MPEG4 Video 320×240 [Elecard MP4 Video Handler (ehs)]
Audio: AAC 44100Hz stereo 96Kbps [Elecard MP4 Audio Handler (ehs)]

The audio bitrate varied from conversion to conversion so it’s probably set to not mess with it unless it’s too high. Given widespread issues of audio not being in sync with video I’m inclined to keep it where it is, but others have had success changing it.

In Media Coder I used a different format:

Video: MPEG4 Video 320×240, 300 Kbps, 20 fps
Audio: LAME MP3 44100Hz stereo 96Kbps

The file played great, and cut a 6MB file down to just under 1MB. (If you want to load my preset download it here.)

Let me preface this post by saying that both of these blog tools have served me well in the past. When I first began using Wordpress on my hosted server I found w. Bloggar to be the best tool available for me to use: It was fast as hell, advanced, and did a great job. Then came Windows Live Writer (which I have previously posted about) and I switched to this. Lately I have been going back and forth using both since w. Bloggar had an update last month, but it’s time to choose. Hopefully my fellow bloggers can learn a few things as to maybe which blog tool would serve them best.

I won’t be covering installation and setup as they are both equally simple. I’ll be covering options and tools which I use most often (and I see others using most often), such as general formatting of posts, editing of previous posts, drafts for later publishing, inserting media such as screenshots, images, videos, and photos, and using features such as categories, tagging, etc. I’ll also be covering some annoyances I find in blogging tools and how both of these apps stand up.

Layout

As said above, w. Bloggar is fast as hell. Its layout is simple (but then again I’m using Windows Vista, so anything can seem simple if it’s not transparent and shiny). It’s layout is also pretty advanced in terms of functionality, putting many options at your fingertips. Any text formatting (bold, italic, strike), inserting (links, photo links, uploads) and coding needs (Javascript, code commenting, HTML code insertion) is all immediately available for your mouse to click on it.

Windows Live Writer’s layout is very simple and direct, with everything you need right up front as well. The sidebar holds information on your blog (in my case Wordpress) and links to the Dashboard and main site. Underneath it are sections containing your drafts, previous posts, and commands to insert items into the post you’re working on. The user interface blends well with Vista (it matches the rest of the Live family), and you can even change the colors of the menu interface to match your specific desktop theme.

Composing a Post

Composing your post in w. Bloggar is fairly simple, but I will say that you have to know at least some basic HTML to be on top of what’s going on. Any formatting that is controlled by HTML on your blog shows its code in the main window of w. Bloggar. For example, a link in your post will not appear as linked text, it will show all of the code.

All commands are executed with a button on the menu bar (or you can enter the code yourself), but either way the code is displayed. This is not to say that you only have to look at your post littered with HTML code. There is also a Preview tab in the main window that you can use to view it as it looks without the code. It’s important to note that this is not true WYSIWYG due to not being able to edit in the preview tab.

Live Writer gives you a WYSIWYG editor, letting you compose and edit your post using a word processor approach. You don’t see your HTML code as you format your writing, and it even offers you the option of downloading your site’s template to view how it will look after you post it.

Inserting Media

Inserting media into your post is easy with w. Bloggar, although there are some extra steps involved for inserting images. To insert an image file into your post you can choose one of two ways: (1) insert the code for an image already on the web, or (2) upload the image from w. Bloggar and choosing to insert it into the current post. While uploading the file then inserting it may not seem like a huge deal, it can only be done one at a time.

To insert media like YouTube (or other) videos all you have to do in w. Bloggar is choose Insert HTML Code, then paste the code from the media’s web site.

Live Writer, in a lot of ways, was made for bloggers who use a lot of media in their posts. In fact, it has an entire Insert menu on the sidebar where you can choose to insert any number of things.

When you insert photos into a post you choose them from your local hard drive and when you publish the post it automatically uploads them for you. With its video insertion menu you can type the URL of YouTube videos and it will post them, as well as other video providers. If you have a Soapbox account you can insert those videos. The Insert Website Image feature allows you to input a URL and Live Writer will grab a screenshot of it in your browser.

Other Features

Windows Live Writer allows you to postpone your posts depending on whether your blogging platform supports it, which makes it easy to keep a steady flow of posts on your blog by composing posts when you get those bursts of inspiration. w. Bloggar doesn’t support this.

Live Writer also allows you to post entries into multiple categories much easier than w. Bloggar, which allows you to post in one from the main window (to post to multiple categories you must open a menu and check the boxes for the categories you would like the post in).

Live Writer allows you to tag your posts for several social bookmarking platforms by default, and lets you add others to use in the future. In w. Bloggar you must use the standard insert HTML code feature. Live Writer also shows your previous posts in the sidebar, waiting to be edited when you realize you’ve messed up a link, fellow blogger’s name, or were just way too drunk to blog. Live Writer presents them visually in a WYSIWYG manner, whereas w. Bloggar shows them in robotic code view.

Windows Live Writer is also extensible, allowing you to install plugins which provide additional functionality. You can check out the entire gallery of plugins to see what kind of tools are open to you when you use Live Writer.

Conclusion

Both of these tools have their pros and cons, strengths and limitations. They both support a huge variety of blogging platforms such as Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger, Mambo, Drupal, and Live Spaces. They both provide most of the functionality a blogger would need from their go-to application, but one of them provides this functionality in a more straight forward and simpler fashion: Windows Live Writer. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if you run XP or Vista, or what blogging platform you use (as long as it is a widely used one of course), Windows Live Writer would serve you well as your main blogging app.

What app do you use to post to your blog? Windows Live Writer? w. Bloggar? Ecto? Word? *shudder* Your blog’s administration interface? I’d like to know!

[Windows Live Writer] [w. Bloggar]

I have longed for a solid, convenient, and mobile way of tracking my finances for a long time. When it comes to finances, right now I keep receipts, check my online banking daily, and keep track of things in my head. While I haven’t overdrafted my account in a long time I still feel as though my finances are scattered and need to be more tightly tracked.

I need a solution that I can track on my computer, on my Pocket PC, quickly and easily. I need to keep track of my account balance, bills, and pending transactions. With these needs a Web 2.0 solution makes sense but I have yet to find one that has everything I need. Mint accesses your bank account information for you and displays your bills, spending, and balances all in one spot but has no mobile version. Moneytrackin’ has a great service which allows you to track your account balances and provides a mobile version, but won’t let you track bills (it does let you enter transactions to be made periodically, for example a bill which is set up to auto-withdrawal, but the service enters it into your account on the day you specify instead of reminding you about it ahead of time).

One desktop financial app I like is MS Money Essentials, but it cannot export files (to be transferred to a mobile device for instance). I have tried MS Money Plus and it’s too involved, way more than I need. Quicken is nice, but the GUI is nasty looking and some tasks are way more complicated than they need to be.

How do you track your money?

Comcast recently admitted that while they aren’t blocking bittorrent traffic they are using shaping techniques to limit your upload speed (which in turn effs up your download speeds. I hate it, so…

How to bypass Comcast bittorrent throttling