BKeeney Briefs

We’ve been very busy recently.  Besides all of our cross-platform desktop app consulting work we’re now iOS developers as well (feel free to contact me if you’re looking for iOS developers).  Our first iOS app, Task Timer for iOS, is now on the App Store.  This is the Lite, iAd supported version, of Task Timer, and simply lets you track your life and hopefully bill for it. This version works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Want to track how much time you spend commuting to and from your job?  Create a Personal project and add a Commuting task and the next time you get in your vehicle hit the start button and when you leave the car hit the stop button.  It doesn’t get much easier than that.

The same goes with your on-site with clients.  After the initial setup it’s as simple are pressing the start and stop buttons.  At the end of the day, week, or month, you can view a summary of all the time you’ve spent.

Task Timer supports multiple simultaneous timers for those multi-taskers out there that can bill multiple clients at the same time (yeah, I’m looking at you, lawyers).  The Lite version supports unlimited projects and tasks but does not sync to the desktop version.

What’s it worth to you to increase your billing by 30%?  Did I mention that the Lite version is FREE?

An upcoming (paid) version will be able to synchronize with the desktop version of Task Timer (for Mac OS X or Windows) all without being plugged in to your computer!  This will be a free upgrade for current owners of Task Timer for Mac OS X or Windows.

So never lose money again!  When we developed the desktop version years ago we saw an immediate 30% rise in billing!  Why?  Because we know, down to the minute, how much time we spend on a billable (and non-billable) projects.  It helps our bottom line with billing AND it helps us track how well we’ve done with our estimates.  If you’re not tracking your time you’re not doing a very good job at managing it!

We hope you enjoy this free version.

Consulting or applications.  It’s my eternal struggle with my business.  Consulting pays the bills but products are…well, this seems silly… a little part of me.  With consulting projects you always know they’re not yours and so you don’t have nearly as much invested in them.  Your products have history and baggage and all the good, bad and ugly that goes into products.

Today we released Task Timer version 4.1.  It has some nifty new features for Mac OS X users including the ability to start/stop timers from the menubar (even when it’s not at the forefront) and from the dock menu.  We also added some charting capabilities so that it’s easy to tell if you’re spending too much time on a project (or product).  Sometimes this is good, sometimes it’s bad to know all this.

Task Timer was our very first product.  Written initially in the REALbasic 5.5 era.  The database it used back then was horrible.  If the app crashed while the db was open it was hosed and the only way to fix it was to use a utility to fix it.  Another version came out when RS change the database format and yet another version came out when it finally became SQLite based.

With version 4 we did a complete rewrite from the ground up.  It needed it.  I’ve learned a few things about REALbasic since then and there are some much better controls available.  Reporting was another big thing in version 4.  We went from using a StyleGrid printer to using RSReport.  Trust me, RSReport is light years ahead of what we were doing before.  In the 4.1 version we added charting which was pretty easy to do using the MonkeyBread ChartDirector plugin.  Both 3rd party items are welcome additions into the BKeeney Software stable of tools.

If you try any of the BKeeney Software products I talked about above and want to purchase, please use the coupon code BRIEFS to get a 25% discount off the purchase price! The coupon is good through July 1, 2009.