Making Time Tracking Software

Giraffe Upload now on your favorite social network

Nir Dobovizki — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:47:14 GMT

Giraffe Upload just went social, you can now connect with the people behind Giraffe Upload and get relevant news and information wherever and however you like (all those were just created so they are kind of empty at the moment – don’t let that stop you):

Giraffe Upload on Facebook
Giraffe Upload on Twitter
Giraffe Upload on Google Plus
Or, if you prefer to get updates via e-mail, subscribe to the Giraffe Upload e-mail list.

And, if you want to send us a private message and not use any of the social networks, you can always contact us via e-mail at GiraffeUpload@nbdtech.com or use the contact form

Giraffe Upload site updated

Nir Dobovizki — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:32:00 GMT

I’ve updated the Giraffe Upload web site, the home page now explains better what Giraffe Upload does, there’s a new page about shooting directly to SmugMug and the page about different ways to backup your photos now has a nice summery at the top and text instead of the endless table of the old version.

Also, you can now signup for the free trial from every page of the site.

As always, I want to hear your opinion, you can leave a comment, send me an e-mail or use the contact form.

Do you want a web version of yaTimer

Nir Dobovizki — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:04:00 GMT

I’m thinking about building a web version of yaTimer.

The advantages are obvious (work on any device from anywhere without installing anything), the disadvantage is that this will require a lot of work (and so will seriously slow down development of the desktop version of yaTimer).

Please tell me what you want by filling this survey, filling the survey only requires 4 clicks and it would really help me – or, if you are willing to invest more than 4 clicks leave a comment or send me a message.

Thanks

Are you a freelancer or a consultant?

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:33:00 GMT

Are you a freelancer or a consultant? do your clients pay on time? do you have a good system for remembering to send friendly reminders to clients that tend to pay late or some less friendly reminders to client who are late?

If you do have a system to get your clients to pay on timer tell me about it (preferably via a comment on this post – but you can send me an e-mail if you want to keep it private), if you don’t go to http://InvoiceSquirrel.com

Invoice Squirrel is a system that track outstanding invoices and payments and helps you get paid on time by sending you reminders when you need to follow up with your client.

This was supposed to be part of Task Zebra, but the beta made it obvious this should be a separate product.

Invoice Squirrel is in early development, I will decide if to continue development and release it as a full blown product based on the number of people who sign up on http://InvoiceSquirrel.com

yaTimer 2.8 is released–and rounding time in reports is here

Nir Dobovizki — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:12:07 GMT

I’ve just finished upload yaTimer 2.8 to the web site, this update is still a free upgrade for all existing customers and, as always, you can wait for the auto-update to do its thing or get get it right now from the upgrade page.

This version adds what is probably the most requested reports feature – rounding times so you can give your clients the reports directly from yaTimer when you bill them is fixed increments (1 minute, 1 hour, 6 seconds, whatever works for your business).

5 hours of downtime

Nir Dobovizki — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 21:45:44 GMT

My server had 5 hours of downtime today, it was completely my fault and I’m very sorry.

I don’t take this lightly, I care very much about uptime, in most months my uptime is above 99.9% and even in “bad” months I keep it above 99% – such a long downtime happened only once since I stopped using shared hosting (and that time was my fault too, I’ve learned from it and didn’t make that mistake again).

This is the story of what happened, this is not an excuse but just what happened.

I had a lot of updates (security and others) I had to install, so I tried to do the responsible thing:

I’ve chosen to do it on Sunday when it’s very early in the morning in the US (where most of my customers are from)
I’ve checked every update to make sure it’s safe to install it on the server
I made sure I can reboot and troubleshoot the server remotely before I started
I prepared backups
I know from experience it takes about one minute for the server to reboot and I know I can install the updates while the server is running – so I thought I can install everything without any noticeable downtime.

I very was wrong.

Everything started up according to plan, the updates were installed while the server was running and I rebooted to apply them.

Then everything went bad.

First, after a minute of rebooting the server came up and showed “Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 100% Do not turn off your computer” for over 2 hours.

Then it just stopped responding to anything, practically disappearing from the internet.

Remember I said before I could troubleshoot and reboot the server remotely, this is the point in the story that system that allowed me to do so crushed.

Then the server started rebooting continuously (a sign of life, good, something I can work with) and the remote control system came back to life (even better).

I took the server off line and started the process of restoring the server from backup (the restore failed, obviously), I then tried to restart the server, it resumed the reboot cycle, so I trued to take it off line again, at that point the remote control system crushed again.

The next time the remote control system started working, partially and showing error messages, it started the server who surprisingly just started working.

So, what the cause of the downtime? probably one of the updates I installed destabilized the system – that means I made a mistake when I checked the updates are safe and I should do a better job with it next time.

Also, I should have installed the updates in small batches – so that applying the updates wouldn't have taken take several hours.

And did get some things right – I had backups and I did it at a time most of my customers are sleeping (I didn’t get a single e-mail complaining about the downtime, so I hope no customer were effected).

I’ve learned my lessons, next time:

More backups, and backups of the backups, and another working copy of everything on my computer.
Go slow – install the updates in tiny batches.
Be much more careful when checking the updates are safe to install.

And again, if you were effected I’m very sorry.

Lessons from the Task Zebra Beta

Nir Dobovizki — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:34:22 GMT

There’s nothing like getting real people to use your product for the first time.

What didn’t work

Task Zebra was supposed to be a to-do list/invoice tracker hybrid – a single place you go to and get a list of the task you should do today + a list of invoices you should do something about (send friendly reminders, collect payments, etc.).

After looking at feedback and usage patterns from the beta I see this was a stupid idea – this makes the product lack focus and makes explaining what it is (and so all the marketing efforts) more difficult.

Also, since the first thing new customers see is the task list they don’t see it as an invoicing helper - I thought the product was in the “help me get paid” market with an added to-do list but the customers see a “help me get organized” product.

This is made painfully clear by the fact that during the beta exactly zero invoices were tracked by Task Zebra.

What did work

The to-do part of Task Zebra is actually surprisingly effective – I’ve been using it myself and it just works – it pushes me to work on the right things and help me finish the important tasks on time.

Going forward

So, here’s what I’m going to do:

Remove all the invoice tracking functionality – Task Zebra will “just” be an effective to-do list.
Drop the price – as an organizing tool for individuals the original pricing was to high, I’m dropping the price to $12/year (yes, just $1/month). this is an introductory price, I don’t know how long I’ll keep it so low
Spin off the invoice tracking as a different product – this product will be called Invoice Squirrel and registration for its beta is already open (the official announcement will be next week).

And before I end this post I want to say a big thank you to everyone who helped out in the beta.

Convert SVG to XAML

Nir Dobovizki — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:37:05 GMT

I have an SVG to XAML convertor I wrote for an old project that was canceled and I was wondering if anyone needs to convert SVG graphics to WPF XAML.

If you need something like that leave a comment on this post (or, if you don’t want to comment in public use the contact form), if I see activity here I’ll polish the converter a bit and release it as a product.

If no one cares the convertor will remain forgotten on my hard disk until at some point in the future it will be accidently deleted (probably due to hard drive failure).

Task Zebra now open to everyone

Nir Dobovizki — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 07:57:45 GMT

The private beta phase of Task Zebra is now officially over and anyone who wants to try it can just start a free trial on the Task Zebra web site.

mystery time management product (for FREE)

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:37:36 GMT

I’m preparing for a new time management related product and I’m going to give it away for FREE (yes, that’s right, for nothing) in exchange for your feedback, if you’re interested go to http://eepurl.com/jPVwP and enter your e-mail address.

I will only make this product if enough people show interest, so register now or the new product will never be made. Also, this offer is open to everyone so by getting friends that need time management help to register you can increase the chance that the product will be made.

Here’s the link again:

http://eepurl.com/jPVwP

The new product will only be available for free to people who register at http://eepurl.com/jPVwP, it’s even possible the product will only be available at all to people who register, so register now before you forget about it.

Registration is done using MailChimp, one of the largest and most trustworthy mailing list providers in the world, you can be absolutely sure your e-mail address is safe with them because if I ever do try to spam you they will cancel my account so fast my head will spin.