Personal Blog of Mike Bowden

It has been a very long time since I’ve written a blog entry. For that I apologize, I do have a small reader base and I haven’t been taking blogging seriously. That will be changing however, as I plan on putting a great deal of time into this blog. Which will include my portfolio and posting some projects that I’ve been working on. You know, those things that keep me from actually being able to blog, outside of my full-time job of course.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be releasing some pretty cool entries dealing with how things have changed with me, in my work life, personal life as well as my digital life. I’ve recently acquired a new full-time job, which of course is taking 90% of my time. I’m also still in college for BA in Game Design & Animation, which roughly takes 40% of my time. So as you can see I’m spreading myself a bit thin trying to accomplish everything in life that I’d like to. Which does include writing on a successful blog.

I have a few tactics in place however that should allow me to manage full-time work, as well as full-time college workload, while still finding time to write on here. In the coming weeks I will be releasing some really interesting topics that I’m sure most of you will throughly enjoy.

I will also be writing about how my digital life has changed drastically, since I’ve made a major career change (Not working for myself anymore, more on this later.), in that I’m having to use my MacBook more and not being able to utilize my MacPro. How I’m dealing with moving files back and forth. How I’m keeping things organized and most importantly how I’m keeping my freelance work and my full-time work separate from each other, while keeping both of them separate from my personal life.

Starting Monday of next week I will be releasing entries on a more regular basis. My goal is at least three a week. So to start I’m going to start working on the blogging ideas I’ve been having and get them queued up to be released on certain days. If this method of blogging works for me I will continue to use it. Waiting to release entries until next week also lets me get ahead, giving me over a week to queue some great entries.

This week I’m going to cover four different applications; Streamtime, Studiometry, 1Password and KeePassX and a few different topics on password security, management and protection. The two studio management applications have gone through a number of tests with us in our studio. I’ll be sharing our results with both applications this week.

The other two applications I’d like to touch on this week are password management applications which also have a good bit of password security and protection rolled in. Currently I’m using both applications together with good results. But I’ll most likely decide on one or the other, just to make things more simple. I do not like to complicate things if I can help it and would prefer to use just one application, instead of two or three that practically do the same thing.

Studio Management Reviews

I’ll start the week off with my final review of the two studio management applications that we’ve been utilitizing over the past two weeks, Streamtime and Studiometry. I will be going in-depth on both of these applications, the pros and cons and a few of the cool features that we enjoyed while using them. I’ll also be making my final choice as to which one we will be going with in the near future for our own studio management needs.

I do plan however to write some tutorials for both applications. I feel that both Streamtime and Studiometry are great applications, they each have basically the same features and functions with a few extra over here and there, some missing here and there, you get the idea. I understand that some may prefer one over the other, so I’ll try to cover both of them equally.

Password Security, Management and Protection

Password security hasn’t been something on my mind at all, until recently. Zach and I have been doing a lot of security related programming for clients in the past months and in the coming. So we’ve learned a lot about cryptography, encryption and security within applications, web sites and the like. After learning what we have, I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf and take my own personal security as seriously as I do my clients security and privacy.

So we’ll be taking a look at a few different applications that will aid in this, make things easier to keep up with, generate very secure passwords and make them unique for each user-name and password we need. This will eliminate the need for remembering different passwords and user-names for different services or web sites. As well as falling into the very bad habit of using the same user-name and password over and over again. It would be less catastrophic to loose a little bit of data if someone compromised one account, than allowing them to be able to access them all!

We’ll also be taking a look at different types of passwords, there amount of security, how long it takes to break them and how to make them stronger. This information was gathered for our clients during research for projects, but we’ll be passing some of this information on to make others aware and hopefully help protect our data and accounts just a little bit more.

VMWare Fusion Beta Notes and Thoughts

I’ve been using VMWare Fusion for quite some time now and have absolutely loved it. I looked at free alternatives in the past and even other paid Virtual Machine applications. But I decided upon VMWare and have stuck with it since. Eventually I’d like to go back and revisit the other applications I demoed and possibly any new ones that have hit the market since.

Back to VMWare however, I was recently emailed by VMWare to inform me that I was accepted into their beta program.

As soon as I received the email, I immediately downloaded the beta version and started to tinker with it. This week I’m going to put it through its paces and see what its really made of. So far with the few hours that I have had to spend with it, I’m impressed. Some of the issues I’ve had before have been corrected and there are a good deal of new features worth a look. I’ll be taking a look at all of this and reporting back here with my findings.

This week is going to be busy, not just because of the above, so keep an eye out. I may be releasing entries at odd times of the day. Such as this one, which didn’t make by Monday. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on what this week will bring, so feel free to post comments. If you’d like me to pay particular attention to a feature or another piece of software, let me know. I’m always interested in researching other applications and I want to know what my readers use, especially if I like it better than what I’m currently using.

So we recently finished our demo with Kate McLeod over at Streamtime. We’ve very impressed with the way the applications runs, functions and the features that it has. We really haven’t had a chance to go through it as much as Kate did with us during the demo. So when comparing Streamtime with Studiometry I thought they were very similar in features and function, but now I see that Streamtime has FAR FAR more features and functions than Studiometry and is definitely a winner over Studiometry in my book.

Don’t get me wrong, Studiometry is a great application and it has its place, but that place isn’t with us and what we need in our company right now. Streamtime defiantly is however and we’ll be looking into getting a license or two with them in order to expand our company. Streamtime is probably the end all solution for any design, development or IT firm out there that handles large scale projects or on-going clients. The price tag is a bit steep for us right now, but the price does seem to be justified as you are getting a license for the FileMaker Server and getting client applications to connect to that server.

Streamtime Work Flow

Basically the work flow within Streamtime is very similar to how we do things in our company currently. It simply gives us a central location to store all of that data and information. It’s also a central place to retrieve all of that data, run numerous reports and gather any information we’d like out of the application with a few clicks of a mouse.

I’ll list all of the features that we’ll use within Streamtime below. There are more features than what is listed, this is simply what we’ll use and in the order that we’ll use them.

• Contacts
  • Correspondence
  • Notes
  • Maps
  • Directions
  • Active Quotes
  • Active Orders
  • Work in Progress Jobs
  • Invoices
  • Budget
• Job Quoting
  • Tenders & Orders
  • Tasks
  • Quote Notes
• Job Tracking
  • Job Schedule
  • Tasks
  • Task Schedule
  • Task Gantt
  • Projects
• Job Invoicing
  • Job Details
  • Invoice Summary
  • Quote
  • Time & Materials
  • Purchase Orders
• Live Reporting (This is where it gets fun)
  • Client Contact Report
    A report that shows the details of correspondence items which have an active reminder event found within the date range specified.
  • Client Contact History Report
    This report shows the correspondence history for a contact.
  • Sales by Sales Code
    An invoice sales history returning cost price, sell price and gross profit for each Client Manager by Client Sales Code.
  • Sales by Client
    An invoice sales history by client showing Client Manager, total costs, sales and profit.
  • Client Budget by Month or Year
    A summary report of the clients budget screen in Contacts for a specified client by month or year.
  • Quoted vs Actual vs Invoiced
    This report gives the totals from the Job Invoicing Summary Screen listed by Job showing totals for Quotes, Time and Materials plus PO’s and invoices that have been generated against a job over a date range.
  • Quote vs Actual
    Allowing you to compare quoted Time and Materials and Costs to Actuals and see how effectively your staff are quoting and working on jobs.
  • Timesheet Weekly Summary
    This report shows a staff members timesheet for a seven day period from the start date specified.
  • Timesheet Billable vs Non-billable Summary
    This report shows the total hours and percentage spent by each staff member on billable and non-billable work in the date range searched.
  • Company Profitability Report
    This report shows a break-down of the income for each cost matrix CAT.
  • Client Profitability Report
    This report shows a break-down of the income of each Client by cost matrix CAT.
  • All Client Income Report
    Utilize this report for a summarized understanding of what your client returns.

Overview

As you can see from the above, just for the main features we’ll be using in the application, that it has a massive amount of features and functionality. We feel that it will be a perfect fit for our company and will allow us to budget, quote and manage projects much more reliability than we have been before, not to mention we’ll be able to be more accurate with our estimating and quoting in the future. We’ll have access to all previous jobs and be able to go through and copy items and expenses over as needed to new jobs that require the same type or amount of work.

All in all we feel that the application contains everything that we need in one and will make things much easier for us in the long run. Again the price point is a bit steep for some, but there is still a lot that comes with the application to combat the price. Maybe they would be willing to work with us on the price or give us a discount, who knows. Only time will tell.

We have an appointment scheduled with the Streamtime people for Friday at 11AM EST. They will be showing us the application, inside and out. We’re very excited about this, as we’ll have someone that knows what their doing show us the application and all the features that are contained within it. I’ll be reporting here once we’ve gone through the demo with them and our thoughts on the application, features, functionality, work flow and overall speed.

Personally I feel that Streamtime will end up being our choice over Studiometry. But only time will tell as we have yet to use Streamtime anywhere near as much as Studiometry. Both seem to boast pretty much the same features and functionality, so only time and usability will tell which one will win over my team and I.

If anyone is interested, here is a link to the Streamtime Demo they offer on their home page.

I’m also going to be going over a few of the applications that I personally use for my day to day tasks, to-do’s and projects. I’ve used a number of different applications in the past and while most seem fairly good and work out for the most part, there have only been a few that I’ve stuck with. I still haven’t pinned down one that I really want to use, nor have I got a good management system in place for personal productivity. I am however working out all the kinks with what I’m using and trying to get a good system in place. Once I’ve done so, I’ll outline an entire mini-eBook on the subject and release it here for everyone to download.

My goal is to eventually write a full eBook on the subject. What I went through, what I’ve tried and what failed and worked for me. Along with the final system I decided to use in the end. So without divulging too much information about the eBook and digressing too much from the topic at hand, I’ll leave it be.

So as most of you know, we’ve been testing out studio management applications to try and find one that suites all of our needs and fits our style of working. We’re currently looking into Studiometry, but have recently found Streamtime and have decided to take a good look at it as well. Streamtime caught our eye mainly for the fact that it utilizes a FileMaker Server/Database. This is a good thing for us as we use other things that utilize FileMaker databases. (Bento)

We have only used Streamtime for a short period of time, but are very impressed with the sheer amount of features built into the application. The application seems to have just about everything that Studiometry has and even a bit more. The application seems to function ok, but it doesn’t “feel” like a native OS X application, such as Studiometry. But it does have pluses compared to Studiometry, such as a “splash page” which is a personal landing page for the user of the application and displays just about any pertinent information that the user would need, right there first and foremost.

To me, having a splash page that contains all the information you’ll need to get started with your day; tasks, to-do’s, notes and reminders. Is a BIG plus and it’s something that I need in my work day as much as possible. I tend to steer away from the things that need to get done, but seeing deadlines and what needs to be done NOW only helps to keep me on track.

Streamtime also seems to have a bit more on the reporting side, which is another big plus for us. Mainly because we provide our clients reports on every aspect of their project from start to finish. Normally on a weekly basis our clients will receive an average of 2 – 4 reports, depending on the type of project or the length of the project.

The gantt charting system is pretty slick in my opinion. I love the ability to slide and move time blocks around for each employee or freelancer working on the project. Makes scheduling and assigning time much faster, easier and even enjoyable. It also makes it easier to read who has what scheduled and for how long.

As with Studiometry, Streamtime has the ability to export all financial information directly to the accounting software of your choice. We have always used Quickbooks, our CPA has as well. So this makes it easier to export/import over the correct data and keep our books looking good, without having to do double the work.

Streamtime also has multi-platform support, so it will work on Windows and OS X. This is great for us, as I mentioned in the Studiometry Overview, we utilize multiple operating systems in our studio and having the ability to run the application on Windows and OS X aids us tremendously, as some of our developers prefer Windows or Linux over OS X. Sadly Streamtime has informed us that they will not be supporting Linux.