Do you need project management software?

Do you like it when it’s free?

Okay, silly question.  We don’t like to pay for stuff when we don’t have to.

Well, I have a program for you that you might like.  I’ve been using this one myself for over a year and couldn’t be more pleased.  It’s called Clocking IT and is designed with the IT professional in mind.  That said, I use it for an awful lot of writing and document design project where I’m being paid by time spent rather than by project.

It works like most project management software.  You can have multiple clients and projects, a discussion group for any project that you choose to make collaborative, and you can have multiple users for each company account.  There is a Gantt chart option to ensure appropriate allocation of time and resources, and the reporting methods are both powerful and flexible.

The program is web-based, but you can enter time spent offline into the database quite easily.[1]

I find it useful not only to track how much time I’m spending on clients, but also to make sure that I’m dedicating enough of my time to marketing and development projects.  Since I do also collaborate with other people, I sometimes give them user accounts with my company to ensure that we’re on track with whatever project we’re working on.

All in all, for the small business, this is a very cool program and the price can’t be beat!

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1. Gorilla Client
2. Do You Have Office Hours?
3. Intelligent Goal Setting

It’s a reader.   In the books I’ve downloaded, chapter headings are hyperlinked.  You can change the size and width of the text to suit yourself and bookmark passages.  Books can be sorted by title, author or most recent download and are displayed by cover art.  The interface is simple.  You download the book, and read the book.  ’Nuff said.

I’ve been using mobile devices to read books since about 2004 or so. I started with Mobipocket. A friend of mine recommended it because they have software that syncs with Palm-based devices and Baen Free Library offered many titles in that format. (By the way, offering freebies did work. I wound up buying many more titles in series I liked).  I use a Palm-based smartphone to this day and carry around a large library with me most of the time.

The Mobipocket software for the PC  is a bit more robust.  There are more display options and sort options, as well a way to create reading lists for syncing rather like the iTunes interface.  However, the Mobipocket software is designed to sync to devices and not just as a reader, so these functions are more necessary.

These days, I really am more likely to read a book in electronic format than not. Even so, I can tell you that I’m extremely unlikely to buy a Kindle. Not because it’s a bad design. I’ve played with it. It’s a nice little device to read a book.  But it’s more or less a single-use device that costs more than my Netbook. Call me the Alton Brown of technology, but I don’t buy many electronic single-taskers. There was no way I was going to buy a Kindle, nor the Kindle-formatted titles available. When I pay for electronic books, and I buy several titles a year, I’m much more likely to go to Fictionwise and get the Mobipocket versions. Then I could read them on my Palm or my PC. Now that I have a netbook, I’m more likely to be carrying my computer around with me, so having books on my Palm is less crucial to me.

I applaud Amazon for having the sense to realize that the money is in the information, and that the device may not be as important as all that.

Related posts:

1. Document Formatting Services
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I’m not going to lie to you.  Netbooks are cool.  Anyone who is into compact cuteness (as I am) is sure to like them, but a computer is first and foremost a tool, or you might as well buy a three hundred dollar lump of plastic and be done with it, if you don’t consider what you want to do with it.

But don’t let the cheap price tag and easy portability seduce you without some careful thought.  How do you use a computer?  What needs does it serve?

Netbooks on the market as of this writing tend to come with about 1-2GB of RAM, a small keyboard, a hard drive of over 100 GB (160 seems to be standard), and a battery that can last 3-4 hours on average and a price tag of between 300 and 400 USD.

You’re not going to be doing any hard-core gaming on this machine, friends, but I’m assuming if you’re looking for an ultraportable for the latest LAN party, you’ve already sussed out the specs on a much sexier machine and you’re up for the $1000+ price tag.  If you’re doing video editing, same/same.  You’re doing work that requires power, and you’re going to have to pay for it.  But you know that.

This machine is for routine computing – email, web browsing, writing, and spreadsheets.  I actually run Office 2007 on mine with no problems whatsoever.  While I had intended when I bought it to be a stopgap for a dying laptop, I’m finding that as I use my little AspireOne[1], I’m more and more in love with it.  I can write just as well on this as I can on my laptop, it fits in my purse and I can run all the software I need to do my work, except the Adobe suite.  But since the bulk of what I do is write, I can do 90% of my work right from this little netbook.  The longer battery life is a real pleasure, and I really do that most cliché of writing activities – write from a coffee shop.

They don’t have CD or DVD drives, but can handle downloaded movies okay.  I’ve watched movies streamed from Netflix on my netbook, as well as iTunes downloads of televisions shows.

The 160GB hard drive is plenty large both for my working files and my music/audiobook collection.  I don’t own many videos, and the ones I do are on an external hard drive.  If you really want an extensive media collection that’s portable, you probably want a larger laptop, anyway.

The netbook is what some people are calling “good enough computing”.  Just because we can own terabytes of material, do we need it?  Yes, as our media is increasingly digitized, we probably will[2], but do we need it on every machine?  The netbook is meant for portability.  If you’re considering one, consider how much you travel.  I can pretty much count on going up and down the East Coast three to four times a year.  This netbook is a much more travel-friendly machine than my laptop was.  Weighing in at a kilogram, this baby slips into my purse just fine, and can still deliver on all the computing power that a writer really needs.[3]

But what about spreadsheets or presentations?

If your netbook has a video out (and all the models I looked at in most of your box computer stores did), you’re golden for presentations.  Just remember one should always test a presentation on the machine one will use before giving it!

As far as spreadsheets are concerned, I regularly teach advanced classes in Excel and none of these very complex and highly-linked spreadsheets have ever taxed my little machine when I review exercises for class.

The one thing that might frustrate some people with a netbook is the keyboard.  It’s small.  After some time typing on my netbook, I find that a regular keyboard seems enormous! I adjusted fairly quickly, but I also have little hands.  If you have big pianist hands, you might find it a bit of a challenge.  I highly encourage you not to buy a netbook before spending some time playing with one in a store.  The quirks of keyboards and touchpads can drive one crazy, so it’s best to experiment with several models before committing.

The takeaway here is that a netbook is good for what it does.  It handles the net quite well, and you’re all good with most office-type applications.  Resource-intensive applications involving graphics and movie editing require more power.  It’s cheap, it’s portable and makes for a good working machine. Just don’t expect to play World of Warcraft on it, ‘kay?

[2] The answer to, “Will I need more RAM or a bigger hard drive?” is almost always “Yes!”

[3] I often say that I could do my job on a smartphone, but I certainly wouldn’t want to.

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Office v. OpenOffice v. Google Docs
2. Office 2007
3. Clock It with ClockingIT