Digital Meanderings
Meanderings of a coder

As many readers of this blog realize, I’ve been searching for financial programs that run on Mac OS. Unfortunately all of the software that I’ve tested thus far has sucked something fierce. Enter Billings 2 written by Marketcircle.

Billings 2 is a program that manages time tracking and invoicing.

The basis of time tracking is the “Time Slip.” A Time Slip can be thought of a piece of paper that identifies what you’re working on and how long it takes. (I think a lot of contractors can relate to this time tracking philosophy.) Time Slips are then bundled together into Invoices.

The application also tracks taxes, estimates, and retainers.

The application data seems to be stored in SQL Lite. This makes reporting easier.

This leads me to my favorite part of the application - the reporting engine. It is the most powerful reporting engine feature that I’ve come across. If you are familiar with Oracle Reports, or any other reporting engine then you can pretty much jump right into creating your own Invoices. For an in-depth look at the reporting engine and how to create custom invoices, check out the Report Engine Concepts document.

Overall, I definitely think that any consultant looking to change applications, or looking to make the switch to Mac should take a look at this application.

Billings 2 is provided by Marketcircle and costs $59.

Have you updated your Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo Mac to Mac OS X 10.4.9? If so, take a look in System Preferences and you might notice a new pane. Called Processor, it shows details of the CPU driving your Mac. You can choose to disable one core of dual core Macs - though why you’d want to isn’t clear - and enable a menu bar control

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Wow, just wow. A great write-up of programmer’s experience at Apple. Wonderful story!

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I imagine many of us use multiple Workspaces during the course of our daily lives. If you’re like me, switching back and forth between workspaces can cause trouble. i.e. Changing code in one workspace when you think you’re in another. You setup your machine to run multiple versions of Eclipse but that takes up Taskbar space and resources. With the tip below you can be privy to all the workspace you’re currently working in without having multiple versions of Eclipse.

Right click on your Eclipse shortcut and append the following text to the “Target” field: “-showlocation [workspaceName].” Restart Eclipse and you’re ready to roll!

If you’re not familiar with the movie “Hackers” I suggest you do a little research before reading the article. May I even suggest buying the movie Hackers?

Anyway, this post is about Razor and Blade the “elite” hackers that Kate and Dade visit when they need help dealing with the feds. They are self-proclaimed media icons and run a pirate television show named “Hack the Planet.”

I understand that podcasting isn’t illegal so they do not share that in common but they do share more important commonalities. Both of them are below the radar of mainstream media and Both of them have huge followings.

And just like Razor and Blade when their broadcast was received all around the world, podcasting is breaking through. With the sale of one-hundred million iPods podcasts are more popular than ever. In the fray are not only iPods but many other multi-media devices such computers, PDAs, and other “MP3″ players. All of these add up to an ever growing market for podcasting.

Thanks Razor and Blade for being the fathers of podcasting! Sorry Adam, I know you’re the true father of podcasting but I think they beat you buy a few years …

In light of the recent Massacre at Virginia Tech many universities are responding with their condolences and with assurances as to the security of their campus. My college, Bloomsburg University, is no exception.

The President of the University, Jessica S. Kozloff, wrote her own letter. In this letter she expresses her condolences to those at Virginia Tech. She also goes on to answer seven questions that have been brought to her attention. Her answer to the second question worries me.

2. Do we have Instant Messaging (IM) or text messaging or a central public address system?
Our communications system is described above. We do not have instant text messaging capability at this time. This technology is very new to most university campuses, but it is certainly something that we will look at very seriously. The campus is too large for a central public address system.

Instant Messaging is a new technology? How many years must a technology be around before it considered new?

A brief Google search returns a plethora of information about IM and its history. Specifically, Wikipedia provides an excellent history.
According to that article instant messaging has been around since the 1970’s and, in its current incarnation, since 1997. So at the bare minimum IM has been around for ten years. How is it new?

I understand this is only one administrator, and this is only one example of a lack of technological understanding. But is this a sign of a bigger problem? A sign of a general lack of understanding when it comes to technology? If it is, it would be very worrisome. Although technology is not a silver bullet, it most certainly helps, especially in situations where time may be short.

In the end, I believe that we to ensure that people in power know and understand the technology that is available. They also need to be informed of its strengths and its weaknesses.

Edit 2007-04-18 - Turns out another school has the same problem understanding technology. This time it involves caller ID, a bomb threat and a case of mistaken identity.

“When word of a whites-only scholarship at Boston University hit the media last fall–drawing coverage from bloggers and biggies like ABC alike–Daniel Kovach smelled opportunity. His goal: to boost traffic to the website he runs, Scholarships Around the US.” “Turn his year-old site into a $10,000-per-month cash cow”

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As an avid Billy Joel fan, I love the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” As a psycho, I know all the words and the historical significance of each lyric. Since insomnia has set in this evening I was tempted to create my own post linking to the historical references made in the song. But, as is almost always the case, the interweb has beat me to it! So instead of writing it myself, I will link to the Wikipedia article - We Didn’t Start the Fire.

Edit: Since I know most people are as lazy as I am, I’d like to mention a link I found at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry. A flash version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” that shows the historical references.

God bless the US Military - Condom Waterproofing.

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Well it seems that spring has finally arrived here in South Dakota and that means spring cleaning. Since I don’t own a home nor do I rent a garage, spring cleaning has always taken on a digital flavor for me. Here are some of the things I do.

Bookmarks
If you’re like me, you tend to bookmark a lot. Especially those websites that you don’t have time to read immediately but would like to check out later. After a year of saving those websites and all the other sites that I found interesting, informative, funny or just bookmarkable I have collected tons of bookmarks. My solution? Transfer my bookmarks to del.icio.us.

del.icio.us has been around a while but here are some tips to make your life easier:

• Download the new del.icio.us extension for Firefox. This extension syncs your bookmarks with the ones stored on del.icio.us.
• Clean-up your tags. It’s very easy to add multiple, similar tags. This can be very confusing when you’re searching for something. So take some time now and consolidate your tags.
• Get rid of unused bookmarks. In this age of virtually unlimited storage it’s very easy to keep addind and adding. Unfortunately this leads to a ton of extraneous bookmarks and it adds time when you’re searching. Take some time now get rid of these unused bookmarks.

In order to keep your bookmarks more organized in the future, be sure to organize them as you go. Review your tag list before you select one. After you read a bookmarked site for the first time, decide whether to keep it or not. If you keep it, make sure the tags you’ve selected are related to the site. If you choose to delete it, delete it now!

Files
Each year hard drives are getting larger and larger. We have online storage, network storage, CDs, DVDs and more. With all this storage space it is very easy to keep everything we download from applications to documents. Do you really need all of this stuff? Nope it is just taking up space so clean it up now!

To make spring cleaning easier for years to come, organize your files as you download or create them. I recommend downloading your files to the same directory every time, but please don’t use your desktop!

E-Mail
A lot of articles of this type explain how important it is to keep your Inbox clean. If you’re using Outlook or Thunderbird this becomes extremely important. Inbox folders grow very quickly! I recommend switching to GMail. It allows for tagging which allows you to easily organize your emails. Unfortunately Gmail’s tags lead to the same problem as we encounter with del.icio.us. So make sure you go through those tags too!

Do you have any other tips for spring cleaning for the digital age? Post a comment!