Project Bubble isn’t like all the other project management apps out there, and there are many to speak of. I’ve been on the search for a project management, invoicing, client relationship, etc… app for a long time. Most of them are too expensive for a freelancer like me – not to mention they are usually pretty awkward to use.
Here’s a few thing I love about Project Bubble. For a start, it’s completely free. Secondly, there isn’t any mention of gantt charts or things that freelancers don’t need for their day to day business. Thirdly, the user interface has been designed to be really easy to use, and simple.
Users of Bubble will find that creating projects, sharing tasks and sending invoices is a total breeze. Project management can actually be fun!
Bubble has SSL encryption for security, a community that is growing really quickly (with a special group for those that contribute), and a development team who releases updates almost daily – this I particularly love!
Pricing is based around whatever the user feels like paying, and is completely free for non-commercial use.
Freelancers can’t miss out on at least hearing about Bubble so they can check it out and draw their own conclusions. It’s worth a look!
There are some die-hard football fans out there and I am proud of you for supporting your team… but the thing I look forward to most each year is not the sport of football (unless the San Diego Chargers are playing) but the sport of commercial watching.
In the months leading up to this momentous day, most of us catch a few sneak peeks of the Doritos commercials on the web or maybe the new Budweiser spots – still there’s just nothing like kicking back on the couch with some hot wings, chips, and an ice cold soda. It’s about enjoying great friends and the commercial event of the year.
In our house, the room is usually crackling with talking, laughter, screaming, and the crunch of junk food during the game; but after every 4th down a hush grips the room while all focus on the 47 inches of glowing digital glory. “It’s time for the commercials!” someone undoubtedly yells – making sure that all non-essential sounds are mute.
Since this year’s ads were fantastic as expected and because I love getting to be apart of the film making community, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of my top 10 favorite ads this year, plus a few extras I enjoyed!
Ok, maybe you’ve seen this before… but that’s ok – maybe this will help…
I often get asked how I keep all of my projects backed up…
They always say, “Your not backed up till you have multiple copies in multiple locations.”
For the past two years I have accumulated more than 3 Terabytes of data from video projects, websites, and graphics I have done for my clients. All of that data has been stored on a local Drobo which lived on my desk connected to my iMac. The Drobo is built to create its own redundancy so that I would never loose data but this solution isn’t enough. If someone broke into my home and stole my equipment or a fire destroyed our home, years of work and all of my client’s data would be lost. I had to come up with a true backup solution because the mere thought of loosing that much work and that much information worried me.
My first idea was to use services like backblaze.com, mossy.com, or carbonite.com – each offer online backup solutions. I tried each of theses services on their unlimited data plans and began the process of sending 3 Terabytes of data to their data centers. I lost my patience when after 2 months of nearly constant backup I had not yet fully backed up my 3 Terabytes of data to their data center. If it took this long to run the initial backup, I knew when I added another 1GB video it would take too long to backup to any of those online services. What if I ever lost my local Drobo? It would take too much time to recover my data from these online backup services as well. Clearly this was not the right solution for me.
What I needed was a way to seed another identical Drobo with everything I currently have, then move that Drobo to another location. The problem was how to access the other Drobo remotely…? I didn’t want to have to purchase another computer or setup some kind of complicated VPN connection. That’s when I discovered the Pogoplug. The Pogoplug is an ingenious device that lets you access and share the contents of your external hard drives through the internet. HOLY SMOKES!
The Solution…
I purchased an additional Drobo (Drobo2) and filled it with 4 1TB hard drives (identical to the Drobo I already had).
Next I connected both Drobos to my local iMac and copied all of the data from my existing Drobo (Drobo1) to my new Drobo (Drobo2) thus giving me 2 Drobos with identical data on each.
I purchased 1 Pogoplug $120
I left Drobo1 connected to my iMac on my home network.
I connected Drobo2 to a Pogoplug at a friend’s house.
I installed the Pogoplug Drive Application http://pogoplug.com/downloads/ on my Mac so that any drives attached to my Pogoplug would show up on my machine as if they were locally mounted hard drives.
I purchased and installed ChronoSync $40 http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html
I setup ChronoSync so that Both target drives (Drobo1 and Drobo2) will be monitored for changes. Any changes detected will be copied to the opposite target drive. Basically, if I change, add, or delete a file on my Drobo1 the same file will be changed, added, or deleted from Drobo2 and vise versa. FYI: ChronoSync is the only application that I could find for Mac that would allow me to use the Pogoplug drives as targets.
I have to brag about the Pogoplug a little here… The Pogoplug not only gives me a way to access my files remotely but it allows me to access those files from any computer in the world using the web interface. Additionally there are sharing features so I can share a file on Drobo2 to anyone in the world via, Twitter, Facebook, direct link, etc…!
The Hardware List:
1x iMac 27″
2x Drobos
1x Pogoplug
1x Licensed Copy of ChronoSync
Backup that I don’t have to worry about PRICELESS!
Sooo… How do you stay backed up?
Here’s a nice rundown of apps that I install on every Mac I own. I’m really not quite sure how I would function without them… They may not be the best solution for everyone but I’ve certainly found them all useful and essential to my line of work. Just wanted to share….
The Freebies
Firefox – web browser of choice as a web designer.
Skype – the perfect solution for communication at home and abroad. Also great for training and teaching because of the screen share feature.
Xmarks – Syncs my bookmarks between all of my macs and all of my browsers – it event makes them available on the web. Syncs passwords too!
VLC – Play anything video player.
TweekDeck – My new favorite desktop client for Twitter and Facebook.
Logmein – Remote desktop to my mac from anywhere on the planet.
Switch – Allows me to convert audio files to different types fast.
Skitch – Quick way to share a screenshot, idea, or graphic with the web.
Renamer4Mac – Fast way to rename tons of files at once. I usually use it for renaming photos.
Vimeo Uploader – Fast way to get new videos up on vimeo.
Dropbox – Gives me 2GB of online storage that syncs automatically with all of my macs local and web.
iStat Menus – Gives me a quick look at what my computer is doing and why it’s taking so long!!!
Caffiene – Keeps my computer from sleeping by clicking 1 quick button in my menu bar. Great for rendering video.
Pogoplug Drive – Combined with their pogoplug hardware I can access my Hard Drive from anywhere.
This stuff costs $$
Coda – My favorite HTML CSS editor and FTP too.
iShowU – The best app I know for doing screencasts.
Stomp – Quick tool for preparing video and screencasts for the web.
AppZapper – the uninstaller Apple forgot.
1 Password – password repository that I sync between Macs using dropbox.
Toast – Favored DVD CD burning software.
Mailplane – Multiple gmail accounts in a desktop application. True gmail on your desktop.
Final Cut Studio – Video editing software, motion graphics, audio editing, and more…
Adobe Master Collection – Photo and graphic design software.
iWork – Word processing and document creation for a fraction of the price of Word and highly functional.
Non-essential but cool (some free some $$)
Onyx – All the customization features for you mac that Apple forgot to give you access to. (Be careful with this one…)
Cyberduck – gosh darn best FTP app I know of.
MPEG Streamclip – faster way to convert video free.
Photo Drop – super fast way to batch convert photos (makes cool droplets)
Handbrake – rips any DVD into iTunes.
Meta X – allows me to apply iTunes naming, image, data, etc to the video I rip using handbrake.
DVDxDV – rip/convert the DVD video back into any Quicktime video format.
Audio Hijack Pro – Allows me to rip or mute any audio from any source including applications on my mac.
Picasa – Simple yet fast way to manage, organize, and share my photos.
So what apps do you use?
How to manage your small business expenses and income automatically with 3 useful web applications for under $20! Believe my I’m no accountant. But for the first time ever I actually have my bookkeeping and accounting on autopilot. When tax time comes I’m ready!
Freshbooks – is the tool I use to manage my estimates, invoices, time tracking, and billings.
Outright – is the incredible app I use to combine my income and expenses to give me a live overview of my profits, losses, taxes owed, and more. Outright is the automatic accountant.
Shoeboxed – the repository for all of my expense receipts. The best part is I do no sorting their service does all of the sorting and input for me. All I do is take a photo of the receipt with my iPhone.
My wife was working in the mall on the infamous black friday, swamped with customers when I needed to contact her. How was I going to do this? Calling her would not only be disrupting but would distract her from her customers. Texting is just tacky at work…. ah I’ll use Twitter!
After a recent discovery of a great iPhone and Mac desktop app called Echofon I knew that the iphone app would push a notification to my wife’s iPhone and she’d be notified just like sending a text message – without the terrible text messaging fees, and she could just check it when she was free.
Some of the coolest features include:
- iPhone and Desktop App Sync
- iPhone push notifications
Now that we’ve started using Twitter as our primary text messaging tool I think I’ll downgrade the texting plan that we are currently on!
What do you think about using Twitter vs. using Texting? Is there a future for this do you think?
Search
Recent Posts
Loading ...