cftopper.com

RE: Teamwork Project Manager - Project Management made Easy!

That feedback feature I added has worked out great so far. We've got some great suggestions and enquiries in.

One customer used to feedback option to contact us. He had used the option to retrieve a lost password and wondered why the password we emailed him was different to the password he originally provided.

The answer, I replied, is security.
We do not store your passwords!

Instead we store a HASH of the passwords.
A HASH is a one-way transform. For example in the database, the password "tulsar256" might have been transformed to a string like "DDC3954CB4BC3AFE4A278BE8D7A1662" using hashing. And there is no way to determine what the original password is from this string.

We have finally launched!!

And what a wild ride it has been getting everything ready.

Check out Teamwork Project Manager at www.teamworkpm.net

The Website - Final Days

About a 5 days ago we had this marketing website almost complete. We stood back and looked at what we had created... and we decided... it sucked. Against the pressure of the looming launch date chiseled in stone on the preview website, we started again. We threw away the old website and said to our designer, Adam, "Hey Buddy, um... we don't like the site. Can you cook us up something prettier?".

Lo and behold, he disappeared off the face of the Earth for 2 days and returned with the new website design. And we saw that it was good. We worked round the clock slicing and dicing, XHTMLizing and CSSing, content-managing, tweaking and testing.

A few hours behind the intended launch time, we made the critial change to the IIS web server and set the new site live, flying open the doors allowing all to sign up for the shiny new kid on the block - Teamwork Project Manager.

Here we are in my office seconds after putting the website live. We are tired, we are hungry, we have sore backs and aching asses... but we're happy. That's me, Topper, on the left and Dan on the right.
We are holding the camera in our out-stretched hands (attempt number 10 to take a photo with both of us in the frame. The bad quality reflects that this was taken on my trusty K750i camera phone.)



We still have a lot to work to do on this website of course but we are proud of what we have created.

Teamwork Project Manager - Final Days

We started making some important changes with just days left to launch.

For example, our testing had revealed that user were getting confused between project view and top-level/dashboard view. They would just blink wildly and we've have to explain that you have to click-into a project. Also in project view they wondered where all the other projects had gone.

We fixed this by redesigning the navigation system into two bands of tabs in stead of just one with and extra "Project View" tab at the top level to make it obvious that the user was now indeed, in project view. It's so much more intuitive this way.

What else - oh yes, Dan whinged on about the need for starring of projects for so long that I finally relented. I didn't plan on getting this done for launch but I'm very glad I did now. Now, when you are members of a whole host of projects and the dashboard is getting a little busy, the user can switch to custom view where he will only see the projects he has starred.

Also when there are loads of active projects such as here at Digital Crew, we now only list the projects that have been active in the last 14 days on the sidebar. Other projects can then be shown by clicking "All projects". It looks so simple but we had a good 10 minute discussion over the best way to present this to the user. We considered tabs for "Recent Projects" and "All Projects"  but in the end, I think the way we have it now is much better.

Après Launch

This morning I woke up and eagerly turned on the computer, anxious to see if we got any sign-ups or feedback. I was delighted to see a very positive email - " I have started playing with the app and am incredibly impressed with the ui and the streamlined approach to project management.". He then asked us to provide a roadmap and listed a few more features he would love to see.

This type of feedback just hours after launch is great motivation for me. I'm going to get busy cooking up the extra feature this guy wants and serve it hot! Stay tuned.



PS. I will be adding a roadmap page to the Teamwork site before the end of the day,
PSS. I just added a "Chat Now" link in the footer of this website so feel free to get in touch.

Check out Teamwork Project Manager at www.teamworkpm.net

A buddy of mine wants me to come over and help set-up his newly reinstalled XP laptop. But my life is hectic at the moment. so for-now I've put this list of the top 5 must-dos for a new Windows PC.

As sent to my buddy in an email just moments ago.
Who knows, it might help somebody else.

---

Yo Bud,

This is just off the top of my head.
The 2 things you really need are to update windows and to install an anti-virus.

1. Update Windows

   
   (This is Mircosoft fixing all the security flaws and providing a more reliable and easier-to-use system.)
   
   To perform the update, just visit
   http://www.update.microsoft.com/
   
   The site should guide you through the process. It will ask you to validate your software and you may have to say YES to install something called an "activeX control".
   
   Once it starts - It will take a while to download but you can be using the computer away in the meantime installing other shit.
   
   When it finishes a round of installs, it sometimes asks you to reboot.
   
   Once it has rebooted, return to that website and check for updates again... keep at it until there is nothing left to upgrade.
   
   Note: with these updates, your version Internet Explorer will be be updated to version 7 at some point. Just say yes when prompted, IE7 is a good thing.
   
     
   

2. Install good and free antivirus software

   
   (You can complete this step even while step 1 is at work downloading updates)
   
   First-things-first, we'll download an excellent and completely free anti-virus solution. The best available (IMHO) is AVG Free Edition.
   
   It's available at:
   http://free.grisoft.com/
   
   Be careful not to get the paid-for version. Get the free Basic Protection version, it is all you need. Download it but don't install it yet; we first need to remove the crap pay-later-ware antivirus off your computer.
   
   Completely uninstall all the crap or pre-installed anti-virus on your computer.
   So if you have MacAfee or Norton, completely uninstall anything that bearing their name. You will probably have to reboot.
   
   Now install AVG Free Edition. Just run the program and say yes to everything.
   
   Happy days, we now have good free virus protection.
   
     

3. Install good and free Anti-Spyware

   
   Next I recommend you get SpyBot - Search and Destroy.
   (This is excellent free software that saves you from yourself and keeps shitty software away from your pc - it's a must have really.)
   
   The website for this software is awful and confusing so here is a direct link to download the software:
   
   http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html
   
   Click one of the download buttons under the heading "Hosted by Safer-Networking" (The other download screens are confusing).
   
   Install this with all options.
   
   Once it's installed it will ask you if you want to download all updates - this is important - say YES.
   
   Excellent, we not have good anti-spyware.
   
   Once every now and then if you've been doing a lot of downloading, you may want to download the run this program, download any updates and scan your computer. This will remove or block any shitty software that may be slowing your computer down.
   
     
   

4. OK, you need good and free Office Software.

   
   (If you have Office 2003, that's great, skip this step.)
   There is an free office suite, that is (IMHO), 90% as good as Microsoft office.
   
   It's call OpenOffice and is available at:
   http://www.openoffice.org/
   
   To download. click the is a big-fuck-off link (in green in case you missed it)
   
   On the next page, again, click "Download Openoffice". Then click "Windows"... on the next screen click "continue to download" and it should start.
   
   Install this when it has downloaded.
   
   You now have a full office suite.
     
   
   

5. Some Porn

   
   Next essential link, some good Porn, go to:
   
   Go to www.t*******lpost.com
   ;p
   
   (I'll replace this paragraph with a good suggestion, if you have any)
   

Sin é buddy - Enjoy.

---

If you have any suggestions/software to add to the list, let me know with the comments below.

This weekend I got the thumb out and put the documentation website we build for our own documentation portal up on CFTagStore.com as a full product complete with CMS. As part of putting the product online, I also setup a working demo of the Portal and CMS.

 This is the first time that we have put a complete working demo of the latest version of our Teamwork Content Management System online for the general public to play with.

I invite you to log in and mess around with TeamworkCMS and then to let us know what you think:

The TeamworkCMS Demo is available here:
http://demos.digital-crew.com/documentationportal/cms/

Login with "admin" and password "admin".

You can view the pages you add or edit on the Demo Website here:
http://demos.digital-crew.com/documentationportal/

The database and codebase will reset automatically every 2 days (or when we get complaints that some Ejit has messed it up too much).

I just dug to the story about "CIA acknowledges Bush signed secret directive on interrogating terror suspect" on Intrernational Herald Tribune's website and I was impressed with the layout.

But I was blown away by the quality of their text-to-speech (listen). It's really is getting there! Look's like it's powered by ReadSpeaker.com.

I predict that in a few years we won't be able to distinguish between recorded and dynamic text reading.

Check out this demo of the speech recognition in Windows Vista (actually working for the most part).

That's pretty cool if you ask me, will be very handy when feeling lazy. See the mouse grid system and number systems - utterly brilliant.

Google Checkout is here! Google Checkout is here! Google Checkout is here!

For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free through Google Checkout. For example, if you spent $1,000 on AdWords last month, this month you can process $10,000 in sales at no cost. The more you spend to promote your business through AdWords, the more you save on transaction processing fees with Google Checkout.

If you exceed your free transaction processing for the month, or you don't advertise with AdWords at all, you'll only be charged 2% plus $.20 per transaction.

https://checkout.google.com/sell

Happy Days - they are only charging 2% + $.20 per transaction! I can't wait to change CFTagStore.com over to using this. At the moment we are using WorldPay and are simply being raped on the transaction costs.

After catching up on Joel's blog; I just ordered Aardvark'd, Fogcreek's documentary about their last summers interns and the software they developed.  My plan is to get a group of players (read:Geeks) together and have a Geek-Night-In watching this.

Interns get free housing, free lunch, Aeron chairs, dual-Xeon workstations with 30" LCD monitors, and weekly cultural events like Broadway shows, a Yankees game, and tours around New York City.

Shit. Dual-Xeon workstations with 30" LCD monitors and Aeron chairs - fuck, almost makes me want to apply. I decided I want an Aeron chair for my office but can't find anybody who supplies them in Ireland.

Aside 1: You spent months making a state of the art Intranet and content management system for your client, only to find that 2 months later they've used their new-found WYSIWYG and ease-of-publishing power to envelop the whole thing in Clip-Art. And shitty Clip Art at that:

• http://abum.com/file/shadow/animations/17632.swf

Guys, guys, guys, check this out, watch a load of tv shows instantly online in high-quality. This is definitely a site to bookmark.

• http://www.peekvid.com/

I also recommend that you download this tool that I got somewhere along the line that will allow you to nail the video player to the screen while you program in the background.

• Nail It!

Currently watching the Smurfs - Ah! The happy memorys. Run!, it's Gargoyle.

I found this on Keith's link log (I should get me one of those) and it's absolutely brilliant. Required viewing.

• Dance, Monkey, Dance

Dan told me the other day that he stumbled upon an online WYSIWYG that is much better that FCKEditor which we use in UDI and in turn use in all our content management systems as the main editor.

I was a bit reluctant. Why?

1. When I went looking for the best editor a year ago, I thought I had found it in FCKEditor. I honesty thought FCKEditor was the best out there.
2. I had put so much effect into the integration of FCKEditor with UDI, hacking FCKEditor to death until it fit my needs, that the thought of change was dismaying.

But an hour ago I asked Dan to show me that Editor... the editor is TinyMCE.

TinyMCE Kicks FCKEditor about

Yip. I admit it, I was wrong, FCKEditor has been delivered a heart-stopping fist-of-death by TinyMCE. The loading seems faster. The integration seems better. The toolbars are easily modified (wasn't easy in FCK). But what really made me wet what the advanced image editing... images can be resized and clipped online! It's just what dummy clients need. Hell, even the documentation is better.

What really convinced me was when Cormac chipped in with a link to this excellent online WYSIWYG comparison which places TinyMCE above FCK and names it as the best open-source solution.

It remains to be seen if TinyMCE is flexible enough to allow me to do some advanced things; like allowing the user to easily link to existing web pages from a tree menu of available site pages when adding a link.

Anyhow, I've downloaded TinyMCE and all going well, I'm determined to have it an integral part of UDI by this day next week.

• http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/
  Check this ste out in Internet Explorer and then Firefox
• http://patrickhaney.com/
• http://www.lisamcmillan.com/journal/best-of-web-apps-edition