Part 2 of 2

Matt’s list of must-have apps: I work with both Mac and PC for different things. While I definitely prefer the Mac, I haven’t been able to do away with the PCs in my life completely yet. Note: Jessica already summed up all of the collaborative tools that we use, Highrise, Basecamp, Google Docs, etc. So I’ve left those out of my list. They rock, we both use them, let’s just leave it at that.

Mac Software and Web-Apps:

Firefox extensions

My must-have list: firebug (of course), web developer’s toolbar, fireftp, pdf download

Textmate

I’m not going to repeat everything that is on Jessica’s list, but this one is worth it. There just aren’t enough ways to say how much we think it rocks.

Adium

I use Adium instead of iChat. This is hands-down my favorite IM client. It just does everything I want.

Key Fixer

These little tools change the behavior of the home and end keys to what you might be more used to if you also use a PC or have switched from a PC. Since I write code on both platforms, keeping my keyboard working the same way on both is vital.

PC Software:

SQLyog

If you are doing much development with MySQL databases you probably already know about this, if you don’t you should really check it out. A lot of tasks are made easy while still giving you all of the power and flexibility of a command-line. By far my favorite GUI for this sort of work.

Multiple IE

If you are doing web-work, especially anything with UI Design/CSS, you need this. We keep an XP Pro machine on hand just to run this (and, um Netflix streaming movies, shush).

Pidgen

It’s like Adium for PCs. It bundles all of your IM accounts together in one application with minimal fuss. I’ve tried a bunch of them, and used Trillian for a long time, but Pidgen works better for me.

Foxit Reader

If you are old enough you may remember a time when .pdf was not a four-letter word. If you use a Mac, you have probably experienced how lovely it is to see them pop open in Preview almost instantly. Foxit’s reader has made the .pdf a viable document format for me on PC again. It’s fast and lightweight.

We noticed today that the good folks at Jaded Pixel selected one of our clients as their ‘Shop of the Moment’.

Taste Chocolate

Taste Chocolate is a Portland, OR (local for us) company that runs high-end chocolate tastings, similar to wine tastings; and of course sells the chocolates as well. If you are in the Portland area, check it out. It’s a lot of fun and in addition to being a mouth watering experience, it’ll change the way you think of chocolate.

We had a blast with this project, it was a complete identity, from logo design, cards and promotional materials to website to press-kits. Much of the photography used throughout was ours as well, taken at live tastings. This project forced us to really think about how we can use shopify to do things that it doesn’t natively do. We’ve got tag-based product recommendations here for example, which might not seem like a big deal, but gave us a warm-fuzzy.

We were very pleased to see that one of our clients was picked as a ‘Shop of the Moment’ by Jaded Pixel today.

The Green Girls are cool people with cool, eco-friendly products, so check ‘em out folks!

We’re really proud of the site, which is a wordpress / shopify integration that we think works quite well.

We recently picked up a Lensbaby variable focus lens (ours is a 3G) and are absolutely having a blast with it.

Could we replicate the effect in Photoshop? Well, sort of, but it wouldn’t be easy or 100% right.

There is also a random element to using the lensbaby that we love. Often we don’t get the picture we thought we were getting, but what we do get is even better.

Things we love about it:
1. The pictures we take with this are like nothing else we’ve done.
2. Craig Strong (President and Co-Founder) of lensbabies is a truly nice guy, as are his crew and the dedicated lensbaby users.
3. They are locally made here in Portland, OR
4. It looks like a cross between a lunar lander and a vaccum hose.

These things definitely have a bit of a learning curve, but classes and workshops are available (I took one and had a wonderful time). If you get a chance we recommend you try one out, they’re just too fun to miss out on.

We’ve been using Adobe Lightroom (now Photoshop Lightroom) for months now, ever since we stumbled over the beta version in Adobe Labs. We loved the interface, the integration with Photoshop, the ease of use. Pretty much the only thing we didn’t love was the new dock icon. What is up with the new Adobe icons? We can see why they’d want to update the Photoshop feather and whatnot, but the whole minimalist typography thing? Could be done better. That’s all we’re saying.

When it came time for us to actually pony up the cash for the full version of Lightroom, we had a crisis of conscience. What if this wasn’t the right decision? What if we only thought Lightroom was All That? We’d been eyeing Apple’s Aperture for a while; the Quicktime videos on Apple’s site had been pretty impressive, and all our web searching had basically convinced us that we should at least give it a try. And there was a 30-day trial…what could it hurt?

As our Lightroom trial came to a close, we went ahead and downloaded Aperture. Unlike most trials, we actually had to get a trial license from Apple, but it was easy enough and we were up and running in no time. Well – not exactly no time. Aperture took quite a while to load and then grab our RAW files (even though we didn’t tell it to grab that many); we thought this was just because we were starting it for the first time, but future imports would reveal that Aperture, much like iPhoto, is a slow loader.

Aperture sports a weirdly disjointed interface that could use a little TLC from Apple’s design crew. The top of the screen shows a row of icons familiar to iPhoto users (Smart Folder, Book, Web Gallery, etc.) and several editing tools which seem to have been selected at random. Using the tools is a bit confusing, since clicking on them seems to have no effect; one needs to click the tool and then click the image to make a change. The sidebars seem both cluttered and insufficient. They’re different enough from both Lightroom and Photoshop that we are unable to find what we’re looking for. For example: how do we darken shadows? We wade through things like “Chroma Blur” and “Auto Noise Compensation” before we finally find a “Shadows” option, but the slider is already all the way over and our shadows don’t look the way we want them to. Clicking “Advanced” reveals a series of baffling options like “High Tonal Width” and “Radius.” We mess around with them a little, but soon give up in frustration. We miss Lightroom already.

Once we do get an image to look the way we want, we’d like to sync the adjustments with other pictures in the series. We’d like to, but we can’t figure out how. In Lightroom, there was a big, friendly button that said “Sync.” Where are our big, friendly buttons? Oh, Lightroom. We did not appreciate all you did for us.

The “Auto Exposure” button (on the right, under the histogram; it’s a little button shaped like a camera shutter) yields good results. No complaints there. However, our final images look sort of washed-out, and we find ourselves opening Photoshop just to tweak them. Isn’t that what Aperture is supposed to be for?

Want a breakdown? Here’s how Aperture fared in our battle for photo editing dominance:

• Interface elegance: Lightroom’s interface is intuitive and easy to understand for anyone who has experience with Photoshop. Aperture’s seems cluttered and confusing, and there’s a learning curve for new users. Winner: Lightroom.
• Automatic adjustments: This is where Aperture took the lead. Nine times out of ten, the automatic adjustment looked good, if not great. Lightroom’s automatic features are a bit more of a crapshoot. Winner: Aperture.
• Manual adjustments: the way Lightroom handles manual adjustments is identical to Photoshop, if Photoshop only handled pictures. All the sliders and graphs a digital photographer needs are right there. Aperture’s adjustment options range from too simple to too complex, with nothing in the middle. Winner: Lightroom.
• Revert to earlier version: In Aperture, the option to revert to the original is always a click away. However, in Lightroom, one can mouseover every step in the image’s history. Want to remove everything but the first levels adjustment? No problem. Plus, you can preview it in the left-hand thumbnail. Winner: Lightroom.
• Sync: Syncing in Lightroom? Easy. We couldn’t figure out how to do it in Aperture. That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible; it just means we’re impatient. Winner: Lightroom.
• View as slideshow: Now, you’d think this would be where Aperture took the lead, seeing as iPhoto’s slideshow feature kicks butt, and Photoshop’s? Not so much. Imagine our sadness when we clicked the “Slideshow” icon and then had to wait…and wait…and wait while Aperture built previews for each image. Ten minutes all told, and then the slideshow quit in the middle and we couldn’t figure out how to re-start it from the place we stopped. In Lightroom, you just click the “Slideshow” section and it’s ready to go. Winner: Lightroom.
• Save: Both programs make it easy to export images and customize file names. Winner: Tie.

We wanted to love Aperture, we really did, but there’s no denying it: Lightroom has our hearts.

CouldBe Studios (that’s us, in case you’re confused) is many things to many people, but sedentary it ain’t. We shuttle between a home office, an office-office, and several points in between. How do we do it? Here’s a list, in no particular order, of the apps, programs and sites that make it possible to run a business from anyplace we happen to be.

• Basecamp: Having a place where we can communicate with our clients and keep track of notes, tasks and milestones is definitely a good thing. For them and for us.
• Highrise: It’s new, but already we’re digging the ability to collaboratively add notes to contacts. Need to know who talked to the ISP last and what they said? It’s all there. Our inner OCD rejoices.
• Backpack: We still use this to keep more “lightweight” lists, and we’ve even been known to use the Writeboard feature to write drafts of blog posts. Yes, we know we can use Writeboards in Basecamp. We’re just used to them in Backpack. (Did we mention our inner OCD?)

(Note to 37signals: you know what would be really cool? If all these accounts could hold hands and be friends. You know, one login to rule them all? Plz and thx.)

• iChat: While we remain highly suspicious of the A in AIM, we grudgingly admit that we feel a certain amount of affection for iChat, especially for video conferencing. Originally we thought we’d use Skype for video chats, but since our love affair with Skype went sour we thought we’d give iChat AV a try. We haven’t been sorry.
• Ma.gnolia: We bookmark obsessively, but the thing that sold us on Ma.gnolia was the ease with which we can send bookmarks back and forth without having them come up in our bookmark stream. If one of us runs across a site we want to share, we can just click the little “Send Bookmark Recommendation” icon, choose a recipient (or several) from our list, and viola. Especially handy for links we don’t need to act on right away but hope to peruse at our leisure. As a company we’re always working on a million things, so it’s nice to be able to prioritize without missing out on anything.
• Box.net: Essential for file sharing, which is a thing we do a lot of. We miss the friendly little drag and drop-able interface of the previous incarnation, but still think it’s pretty spiff. The new color scheme is definitely easier on the eyes, and since one of us is desperately myopic we appreciate things like that.
• Honorable Mention: Google Reader. We were using NetNewsWire Lite for our extensive and well-documented RSS habit, but once we moved to Google Reader we never looked back. We love the fact that we can view our feeds from anywhere – including our phone. Google, we kind of love you.

And last, but certainly not least…


• BlackBerry Pearl smartphone: Our mobile line is our business line, and we figured that since we’re going to be connected all the time we might as well be really
  connected. Being able to read and respond to e-mail on the bus? So freaking cool. Also, look how much more productive we can be during our commute!

Anything you’ve found especially useful that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments!

Technorati Tags:
couldbe studios, productivity, mobile office, basecamp, backpack, highrise, ichat, ma.gnolia, box.net, blackberry pearl

We spend a lot of time working at home or shuttling between home and office, so when we set up the office phone we wanted to make sure it was available anywhere. After looking into several VoIP options, we decided Skype was the way to go. It had a lot going for it: we could set it up on the home computer and the work computer, so it’d be accessible from both, and when we were away we could route calls to the cell phone. And it cost way, way less than regular phone service. Way less – even when we got a SkypeIn number, which we then, giddily, handed out to all our contacts, feeling as we did that we were giving the metaphorical finger to The Man. Sure, the call quality was a little spotty (especially with our cheapie USB phone, which we thought would work with the Mac but were fantastically mistaken) but: free.

Unfortunately, free isn’t synonymous with good. The first hint of ungoodness came when we realized that the call-forwarding feature wasn’t so much forwarding calls. This was baffling, since a) it had been working just fine for months and b) we hadn’t changed anything. We verified that none of the settings had been inadvertently modified, made sure we weren’t mysteriously logged in to the service (forwarding only works when Skype is not running) but – nothing. Calls were just not being forwarded. Huh.

Then we tried taking advantage of the promotional pricing offer for unlimited calling. Half price until January 31st: what a deal! Except not so much, since our order confirmation, sent on January 20th, showed that we were charged full price. Interesting. All the pre-payment screens had showed the promo price, right up to the point where we hit “buy.” Bait-and-switch? Processing glitch? Vast conspiracy between PayPal and Skype?

We sent a support request to Skype, since it’s the only way to contact them. The request went unanswered for a week, at which point we got the following e-mail from Skype: “Unfortunately, we have been experiencing extremely high volumes and as a result we are very sorry that we have not been able to get to your request for Billing Support in as timely a manner as we would like. As many issues have been resolved already, we are hopeful that your request is among them.” Um. The e-mail went on to suggest that if our issue had not been spontaneously resolved, we should contact Skype support. Again.

Our latest indignant support request has, unsurprisingly, remained unanswered. We say unsurprisingly because the Skype forums are bursting with similar stories. Yet nowhere on the official Skype site, not even the Skype blog, is there a mention of the issue. (The closest thing we found was an unsubstantiated series of forum messages from another user – not a Skype employee – claiming that credits would be issued to everyone who overpaid.) What the hell, Skype? Is ignoring support requests a good way to run a business?

We’ve got a business to run, too, and that’s why Skype is not going to handle our phone calls anymore. We’re keeping them for messaging, but we’re no longer enthusiastically singing the praises of Skype to anyone who will listen. Being ripped off will do that. Funny thing.