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In their own words

“Easy accounting for start-ups, small businesses and contractors.”

Why it might be a killer

Launching a startup and keeping it afloat is not necessarily an easy task. This site provides anybody with a very well-focused service.

What it does

Someone once said that the right structure does not necessarily mean that a project will succeed, but the wrong structure spells failure. In capital letters. The same applies when it comes to startups, and I can tell you that the launch of any new site is so hectic that every resource and building block you can get counts.

When it comes to accounting software for your startup, Bionic Books puts up a very competent service. While it is not a substitute for a real accountant doing the job, this solution will provide you with a clear profit and loss statement and a very comprehensive date balance sheet. Tax considerations are likewise dealt with.

The software has been written specifically for small business and young enterprises, and the emphasis is on providing a solution that is easy to understand, and which can be really used by laymen and those who wish to avoid getting mired in technicalities.

This software has the advantage of being browser-based, too, so that it is accessible from any location where an Internet connection is available, and the data is constantly backed up.

If you want to see if this solution is your potential key to success or at the very least a tool that will give you some breathing space, you can follow the link provided below, sign up for a free account and draw your own conclusions.

Some questions

Are there different plans available?

Link: https://www.bionicbooks.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/bionicbooks-com-easy-accounting-for-startups

 

What it does

TinyChat is a new free service that will enable anybody to create a chat room in an immediate manner, and to invite others to it equally effortlessly. That is, this new solution entails absolutely no sign up process or registration of any kind, and once the chat room itself is vacated all the data is erased.

The advantages of such an approach are evident, as users don’t have to worry about who has what messenger installed, or who is who within the chat room. And as it is rightly pointed out online, a service like this one is very suitable for talking with people who are not necessarily the most versed individuals on computers and technology around. They don’t have to install or setup anything, and all they have to do is follow a link and start chatting away.

On the other hand, you can (if you so wish) furnish your Twitter credentials when you create the chat room, and upon doing so a direct message will be sent to all your followers letting them know of the room’s location should they want to drop by and say “Hi”.

In their own words

“TinyChat is a free service that allows you to create a free chat room that is accessible by anyone with a browser. Simply create a chatroom from the homepage then send the link it gives to you to anyone you want to chat with. After you leave the chat room, all the chat data is gone, so its perfect for secure chats.”

Why it might be a killer

It is the perfect tool for those who are not really computer literate and need a quick solution for chatting online.

Some questions

Which advanced features could be added without making the service lose its simplicity?

Link: http://www.tinychat.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Comm/tinychat-com-create-a-free-chatroom

 

What it does

When the Internet was becoming widespread (and some time beyond that too) I recall that having a site of your own was a completely different prospect from the reality we are accustomed with now. That was to happen, really, but the tools and applications we have nowadays can but leave us old-timers a bit awed.

The Tank site is a case in point. In principle, it is a tool that will let anybody come up with a site of his own without having any kind of programming knowledge at all. This application also has the advantage of being entirely browser-based, and you can make adjustments from anywhere an Internet connection is available.

The creation process involves using a dashboard for putting the different elements together. Photos can be merged with posts, and support for pods is to be implemented sometime soon.

By way of conclusion, this solution will let you express yourself on the web as long as you have your basic building blocks at hand. If you would like to know more about this tool, and also inform yourself about pricing considerations, station your browser at www.withtank.com and proceed from there.

In their own words

“Tank is aimed at those who want to create simple, great-looking sites that work. No broken links, no cruft, no clutter. Solid sites composed of urls as clean and succinct as the xhtml it’s built upon.”

Why it might be a killer

It is an apt way to get a site together in no time at all.

Some questions

How much does this solution retail for?

Link: http://www.withtank.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/withttank-com-build-your-own-website

 

Matt Everson built a simple little micro app for project estimation: Web Development Project Estimator:

Although most web designers have an idea of how long a project will take based on their past experience, far too often this guess becomes a final estimate. If you’ve ever been 300+ hours into a project that’s paying you for 100, I’m sure you know first hand why this can be a serious problem for a business. Up until now, I’ve used an excel spreadsheet to help me estimate accurately. About a month ago though, it occurred to me that I could make this calculator into a sweet little online tool. I figured it can only lead to more accurate estimates, stronger web businesses, and a better valuation of what we do as designers.

Of course, the fun is tracking how close you come to the estimator :)

We’ve written quite a lot about project management and collaboration tools in the past but recently we came across a tool that takes the collaboration process to the next level. ProjectThingy is project management software that can be seamlessly integrated into your site giving your team and clients a familiar project environment and full collaboration capabilities.

While we love Basecamp and use it daily here at ReadWriteWeb, the idea of embedding this type of software into a page using only a few lines of code is appealing. Easy to use, you just point to the domain you want it to live on, create a username, password and voila – ProjectThingy spits out the code for you to cut and paste to your site.

Sponsor

Feature overview:

Projects

• Name and mission statement
• Status: none, in progress, problem, complete
• Due date
• Milestones with dates and status indicators
• Project members from your user pool

Work items

• Discussion threads with assignments
• Limited client access
• Work items
• Name and description
• Status: none, in progress, problem, complete
• Assign to any project member
• Attach links and files (up to 1GB per file)
• Add link and file revisions
• Clients only see latest revision when assigned

Messages

• Project and work item message threads
• Optionally assign to any project member with status: none, in progress, problem, complete
• Clients only see messages when assigned

User pool

• Unlimited number of users
• User permissions: no access, client, team, administrator

Pricing

There are four levels of pricing and you can cancel your subscription at any time. ProjectThingy will keep your data for six months after you cancel, making it easier for you to return if you change your mind later on.

• Free: 1 Active Project, 50MB Storage
• Small: $19 P/M: 10 Active Projects, 6GB Storage
• Medium: $39 P/M: 30 Active Projects, 20GB Storage
• Large: $139 P/M: Unlimited Projects, 100GB Storage

Using Amazon Web Services for scalability and reliability, ProjectThingy runs on EC2 with a MySQL database with data storage on Elastic Block Storage and files in Simple Storage Service buckets.

The team behind the project Chris and Utka Ritke have created five short videos if you want to learn more or check out their FAQ page.

Discuss

By Glen Stansberry

As the mistletoe is hung and egg nog served, friends and family of Web developers around the world are pulling their hair trying to figure out what to get someone who works on the Web for a living. Our loved ones typically have no idea what to get us for Christmas, because for many, our job and online world are very foreign places. Instead of getting the traditional pack of underwear, neck ties or socks, you can give your friends and family a nudge in the right direction with a gift idea from this list.

Please notice that often it’s even a better idea to take a closer look at the blog of a web-developer to find a wish list containing concrete items that a designer, blogger or programmer would like to get for Christmas. It also makes sense to consider the environment of the web-developer — for instance, if you find an Apple logo on the back of his or her car, it is probably not a good idea to spend money on a Windows-application. If possible, pay close attention to the applications, frameworks and tools the web-developer uses. Once you know the environment, you can better find out what is needed and how an untraditional Christmas gift can become a pleasant Christmas surprise.

It’s been said that “It is better to give than to receive,” so let’s help our friends and family give to us by providing an extensive list of tools that we’d love to see under the Christmas tree this year. Feel free to send this list to your relatives if you’d like to get a solid, useful gift for the upcoming holidays!

1. Ergonomic Office Chair

Ergonomic office chairs are a bit of a pricey Christmas gift and may be out of most people’s shopping budget. High-quality chairs as a whole aren’t cheap, but when you take into account how long developers spend sitting in office chairs, they’re a small price to pay for health.

Here are some highly reviewed ergonomic chairs:

• Aeron ergonomic office chair: $674.

  

   

• Freedom Chair by Humanscale: $700.

  

   

• Stealcase Leap: $849.

  

   

• Office Star Deluxe Ergonomic Leather Chair: $270.

  

   

2. Ergonomic Keyboard

Because Web developers usually spend anywhere from 8 to 12 hours per day on the computer (sometimes more!), a comfortable keyboard is an absolute must. However, many developers use whatever keyboard is shipped with their computer, and many times the keyboard isn’t very friendly to extended usage.

Please notice that some web developers prefer to work with laptops instead of desktop PCs which is why it may be reasonable to look for an ergonomic mouse instead. Here are a few of the top ergonomic keyboards:

• Kinesis Advantage
  A little pricey, but one of the best: $299.

  

• Microsoft Natural Hand
  One of the most recommendable ergonomic keyboards: $60.

  

• Tru-Form Pro -Contoured Ergonomic Keyboard
  A highly rated Windows ergonomic keyboard: $80.

  

3. Office Plants

While it may not be high on the list of things a Web worker might want, a plant for the office is an extremely thoughtful gift. Studies have shown that plants make for much more productive work environments, because they improve air quality, control humidity and provide many other benefits. In fact, studies have shown that office spaces with plants actually improve creativity.

Photo by misocrazy

There are any number of household plants that can improve an office space. WikiHow has an excellent article on how to choose a good office plant for your Web developer.

4. Visual Editors

Visual editing applications can speed up the layout process of a website, providing quicker turnaround times. While not all Web developers use visual editors, many do use them to see what’s going on with their code.

Dreamweaver is a robust Web authoring tool for both Mac and Windows users. It’s far and away the most popular of the Web editors. $399.

Coda is a beautiful Mac application that combines a powerful text editor, Subversion, CSS, file transfer and terminal all in a single window. The file transfer is done by the Coda makers’ excellent FTP-application Transmit. If you already own Transmit, Coda costs $85, without $99.

You can find more editors worth considering in our reviews CSS Editors reviewed, WYSIWIG-Editors reviewed and Source code editors reviewed.

5. Advanced Text Editor

Text editors are lifelines for Web developers. Lots of time can be saved with text editors that have extended functionality. Auto-completion, language formatting and a slew of other features would be helpful when laying out a theme or programming Web functionality.

• Textmate
  An advanced text editor for Mac: $52.

  

   

• UltraEdit
  Popular professional Windows text editing application that boasts over 2 million users worldwide: $50.

  

   

• BBEdit
  Another powerful text editor for Mac users: $125.

  

   

• E Text Editor
  The Windows equivalent of Textmate: $34.95.

  

   

Please notice: if a web-developer uses Notepad++, a robust freeware editor for Windows users, he or she will be very unlikely to switch to one of the above mentioned applications.

6. CSS Editor

CSS editors are very specific visual editors that pay attention only to CSS. They’re quite handy to have around for debugging code and quickly setting up website designs.

• Style Master
  A robust CSS editor for both Mac and Windows users: $60.

  

   

• CSSEdit
  The Mac-only CSS editor that won the prestigious 2007 Apple Design Award for Best Development Tool: $39.

  

   

7. Subversion Client

Subversion is an excellent way for developers to work on shared code without having to worry about spoiling someone else’s updates. Subversion is also quite handy when it comes to backing up data and keeping versions of local files, which can be especially useful for designers wanting to store revisions of their work.

The only downside to subversion is the learning curve. It can be quite tricky learning how to create, manipulate and sync your repositories. But a subversion client can make the learning curve much smaller with tools for streamlining your workflow, making updates, reverting to previous revisions and using diff to compare versions all within a client on your computer, no terminal necessary. Here are some of the best subversion clients:

• Versions
  A Mac-only subversion client that also interfaces with Beanstalk, a subversion host: €39.00 (approximately $52).

  

   

• Tortoise SVN
  A freeware SVN utility for Windows. If a web-developer doesn’t know about SVN yet, he’ll never forget you if you’ll point him to it.

  

   

8. Hosted Versioning Subscription

What better complement to a nice subversion client than a subscription to a versioning service to remotely house your repository?

If you’re using Subversion, then Beanstalk is an excellent SVN hosting service. Beanstalk offers a free account as well as higher levels of service with more repositories, users and storage, starting at $15 per month.

If you’re using Git, then GitHub is a popular online Git repository. It has a free plan if you’re running an open-source project, giving you up to 100 MB of space, otherwise GitHub offers monthly subscription plans starting at $7 per month.

9. Creative Coffee Mugs

It’s a safe assumption that many designers and Web developers drink coffee or tea. Coffee mugs make great stocking stuffers, because they’re typically not that expensive, and it’s guaranteed they’ll be used. Web Urbanist has an excellent roundup of interesting coffee mugs that you can give as gifts this holiday season.

10. Backup Software

There is nothing more valuable to developers and designers than daily backups of their hard drive. Losing a hard drive is a Web worker’s worst nightmare, and any tool that can ensure it doesn’t happen is greatly appreciated.

• Mozy
  Mozy is a simple solution that runs in the background and backs up the hard drive at set intervals. Both Windows and Mac users can enjoy this service for free if they’re backing up less than 2 GB of data. Otherwise, a $5 per month subscription is required.

  

   

• Jungle Disk
  Jungle Disk uses your Amazon S3 account to regularly back up your hard drive on Amazon’s servers. Available for Windows, Linux and Mac users for $20.

  

   

• Syncback
  If you’re a Windows user, you can save money with the freeware utility Syncback, which schedules backups to an external hard drive. Lifehacker has an excellent tutorial on how to do this.

   

11. Browsershots

Browsershots is an incredible resource that every developer should have. Browsershots takes a screenshot of any Web page and allows you to test layouts across many different browser types and operating systems. Developers can see how their layout looks in IE on Windows, Firefox on Linux, and almost any other combination they can think of.

Browsershots offers a priority service that gives paying members immediate screenshot processing (which can otherwise take hours if many screenshots are requested).

12. Subscription to libraries or magazines

Knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s definitely a good idea to give a web-developer subscription to a journal or magazine, or you can also consider a subscription for an online-library. For instance, O’Reilly is an excellent resource for the developer thirsting for knowledge. A Web development industry leader for many years, O’Reilly provides many great resources for those wanting to learn new languages, techniques and other development skills.

For a monthly fee, O’Reilly provides online access to its complete library, with a service called Safari. The Safari Bookshelf plan is $22.99 and restricts access to 10 books per month. The Safari Library plan offers more types of content (video, full downloads) and allows for unlimited access to its books for $42.99 a month.

13. Books, books, books

There are plenty of books out there that a web developer would love to get for Christmas. It would be important to list all of them, but fortunately we and other bloggerse have selected some useful books already. Make sure that you select a gift that really fits to the interests of a person: no, not every web-developer is a huge fan of Swiss design and not every typographer would love to have a book on SEO optimization techniques. Here are some useful lists where you can find useful and interestind web-development related books:

• Usability and Interface Design Books
• 30 Essential Books For Industrial Designers
  Some useful books for web-developers are in the list as well.
• 25 Must Buy, Borrow Or Steal Books For Web Designers
• 40+ Books For Professional Design and Development
• 30 Delightful Graphic Design Books
• Useful Web Design Books
• Powerful Design Books

14. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium

If you’re feeling really generous this Christmas, then head on over to Adobe and snag the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium software package. While it is a tad expensive ($1,699), you’ll get 11 Adobe products that can greatly enhance a Web developer’s workflow. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator and Fireworks are all included, along with many other programs. This software package is a virtual Swiss army knife for Web developers. If you give it to a Web developer, he will certainly never forget you.

Notice: while there isn’t a comparable set of free tools to match the Creative Suite 4 Web Premium package, Gimp is an open-source image editor that is supported across Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. If a web-developer is a Gimp fan, you may want to search for a useful Gimp-book out there.

15. iPhone Developer Program

Many developers want to get more involved in the iPhone Developer program, which gives developers access to build and distribute iPhone apps through Apple. A standard program developer account costs $99.

An excellent complementary gift to the iPhone Developer program would be the iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK, an excellent tutorial that answers questions that the iPhone SDK documentation doesn’t answer.

16. Password Management Software

Nobody likes to remember all of their passwords, least of all Web developers. We may have tens or even hundreds of account, user name and password combinations to remember, many of which are used daily. Software that stores passwords is a perfect gift for any Web developer. There are plenty of software options, both free and paid, that help with password storage on any platform.

• 1Password
  Highly rated Mac software that stores your passwords and syncs data between different browsers and other programs: $39.95.

  

   

• Roboform
  Roboform is another highly rated Windows password client that has won many awards, such as PC Magazine Editor’s Choice and Download.com’s Software of the Year: $29.95.

  

   

• Passpack
  Passpack is an online solution for storing passwords. It offers a free account of up to 100 entries and a pro account for €10 ($13.50).

  Passpack

   

• KeePass
  An open-source password manager for Windows.

  

   

17. Screen Capture Software

Capturing screens is an almost daily routine with Web developers. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this is especially true with development. Many times, it’s easier just to show a screenshot of a buggy Web page than to try to describe what’s wrong. Here are a few screenshot services and software that can speed up this process.

• SnagIt
  Windows-only screen capturing software that quickly captures, edits and shares screenshots: $49.95.

  

   

• Jing
  Jing is the little brother to SnagIt, because they’re both made by TechSmith. Jing quickly takes snapshots and allows simple editing and sharing via many online services. Jing is freeware.

  

   

• Skitch
  Skitch is similar to Jing, except that the software only works for Mac computers. You can snap a screenshot, annotate, edit and upload the screenshot to skitch.com. Skitch is freeware.

  

   

18. Project Management Software

There are plenty of reasons for Web developers to use project management software: to collaborate with other project members, to organize their workflow and to generally stay on top of all that needs to be done when working on a project. Here are a few of the best project management and task manager software products.

• Basecamp
  Long considered the best project management tool, Basecamp is an excellent online service that tracks projects for many users. Basecamp offers a free basic plan, and extended plans start at $24 per month.

  

   

• Action Method
  Action Method is an excellent project management tool that allows you to add references, discussions and events to any project. Unlike services like Basecamp’s, Action Method allows you create unlimited projects with a paid account of $12 a month.

  

   

• OpenProj
  OpenProj is an open-source project management solution for your desktop. It has been downloaded over 800,000 times since its launch.

  

   

• activeCollab
  activeCollab is another highly rated online project management software package. However, unlike Basecamp, activeCollab allows you to install the software on your own website and server. Plans start at $199 per year.

  

   

19. Idea Capturing Tools

Keeping ideas and thoughts together can be a struggle for developers and designers. Fortunately, there are tools that can capture and store the ideas.

• Evernote
  This tool can be indispensable for capturing ideas anywhere. You can record a voice memo, take a screenshot, clip a Web page or just write a note. Evernote syncs your captured ideas online and locally, and it even has mobile access and an iPhone app. With Evernote, you’ll never let your Web developer lose an idea again. (Evernote even allows people to purchase the premium level plan as a gift.)

  

   

• Jott
  Jott allows you to call a number and record an idea (or “jott”), and then the speech is converted to text. Jott is a free service but has extended plans starting at $39.50 a year.

  

   

• Moleskine – Sometimes the best way to capture a thought is to write it down the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. A moleskine is an excellent gift for those who prefer the paper method.

  

   

20. Music or movies

Because Web developers spend hours in front of the computer each day, it’s only natural that many will listen to music. Music is a gift that never wears out. Consider an iTunes or Amazon MP3 gift card.

A subscription to a music service is another great gift idea; for a monthly fee, you can listen to as much music as you want. Rhapsody music is a music subscription service that allows you to use (non-iPod) portable music players and your computer to stream any song, album or artist from its vast collection. Plans start at $12.99.

Another great idea is a high performance over-ear headphones that deliver the perfect atmosphere for a creative and enjoyable workflow. Some good examples of professional over-ear headphones are:

• Sennheiser HD-555 Audiophile Headphones
  A comfortable, high-quality headphone system. Price: $98.99.

  

   

• Bose® QuietComfort 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones
  This system has a noise reduction and quality sound for travel, work and home. AAA batteries guarantee a 40 hours average life. Price: $269.

  

   

• the recent Consumersearch Headphones Review may provide you with more useful pointers to various headphones.

You may also consider buying a couple of DVDs with movies the web-developer will probably like. In the end, web developers are also people and yes, sometimes we do watch movies.

Summary

To conclude, here is a brief summary of some useful things that would put a smile on a web-developer’s face, make him or her happy and will definitely help to make the life of a web-developer easier:

• ergonomic office chair,
• ergonomic keyboard or mouse,
• creative coffee mugs,
• office plants,
• visual editors, CSS-editors and text-editors,
• Subversion client,
• hosted versioning subscription,
• backup software,
• subscriptions to librarier or magazines (e.g. O’Reilly),
• books, books, books,
• Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium,
• iPhone Developer Program,
• password management software,
• screen capture software,
• project management software,
• idea capturing tools,
• music, movies or headphones,
• even more ideas…

What’s your favourite gift?

What would you like to get as a present for Christmas? Is something missing in the list? And what are you going to give to web developers for this Christmas? Share your thoughts, ideas and opinions in the comments!

What gift would you like to get for Christmas?
( polls)

About the author

Glen Stansberry is the editor at Web Jackalope, a blog about creative Web development. You can follow him on Twitter. (al)

by Cameron Chapman

There is a huge variety of project management applications out there. Most are general purpose apps, not aimed at any one industry. But there is a growing number of project management apps aimed specifically at one industry or another. Applications geared to creative types are becoming more readily available, and some of the offerings are really quite good.

Many of these project management apps have built-in code repositories and subversion browsers (or are built around them). A few have built-in bug and issue tracking. Others include more than just basic project management. All of them can help you keep track of activities and team members. There are both free and paid options. Some have very slick interfaces, and some are modeled more after desktop applications. All are relatively easy to use and easy to set up.

Below are 15 useful project management applications, almost all of which are targeted directly at Web developers, designers (both Web and print) and other creative types. The last one is not geared specifically to creative types but is the most unique project management application I’ve found and is included on that basis as well as because of its potential usefulness for designers and developers.

Also consider our previous article:

• Web Applications: Improve Your Workflow

1. Basic Project Management Apps

These applications are marketed specifically for project management. Most include things like task-, team-, and goal-management features. Some include additional features such as time tracking and invoicing.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is a bug- and issue-tracking app that tracks timelines and milestones, integrates with your email client and more. You can update tickets through your inbox, manage your beta testing (by making tickets and milestones public), integrate it with subversion and manage and prioritize your tickets.

Project creation is simple; only a project title and description is required. Once a project is created, tickets, messages and milestones can be entered. Ticket creation can be done by email (the email address to send tickets to is displayed on the “Tickets” page). You can show tickets based on a variety of criteria, including date, state (open or closed) and who is responsible for them. Message creation is easier than email, and you can attach files up to 50 MB in size. When you create a milestone you simply enter the title, the date it’s due and the goals or focus for that particular milestone. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Permissions are easy to set, and you can invite users by email. One of the best features of Lighthouse is its Beacon and API integration. With the API, you can customize tickets, projects, changesets, milestones, messages and more. Integrate it with other services (such as Google Calendar), or make desktop applications that use Lighthouse. The APIs make Lighthouse infinitely more useful, because you can really customize it to fit your current workflow.

Lighthouse is great for Web development teams (or individuals) and has a very easy-to-use interface. They have paid and free plans, all of which include unlimited open-source projects. The free plan lets you manage one private project with up to two people on the account. The paid plans range from $10 per month for the Personal plan (with up to 3 projects, 10 users and 100 MB of file upload storage space) to $120 per month for the Platinum plan (with unlimited projects, up to 50 public projects, unlimited users and 30 GB of file upload space).

When combined with a subversion app, Lighthouse provides a pretty complete project management app for developers. Subversion integration is pretty straightforward, and the help file provided gives complete step-by-step instructions for setup.

Springloops

Springloops is another subversion browser that integrates project management. It counts a unique AJAX code browser and Basecamp integration as among its features.

The Springloops interface is very intuitive and easy to use. Tabbed navigation provides access to the log, source and deployment information. Adding users is done via email, along with the ability to create usernames and passwords (making it easier and faster for them to get on board with a project). Creating new projects is simple, with a few different templates available (including a starter template). You can migrate an existing repository into Springloops as well (including plain text dumps). For added project management ability, Springloops can be integrated with Basecamp.

Springloops has a number of plans available, both paid and free. The free plan includes 25 MB of space, 3 projects, 3 deployments per day (using FTP or SFTP connections), roll-back capabilities, Basecamp integration, subversion and an unlimited number of users. The paid plans range from the “Flowerpot” plan at $9 per month (including 1 GB of space and 10 projects) to the “Forest” plan at $96 per month (including 18 GB of storage, unlimited projects, automatic deployment and secure SSL encryption). All of the paid plans include a free 30-day trial.

CreativePro Office

CreativePro Office offers complete office management tools. CreativePro Office is completely free, setting it apart from the other apps here.

CreativePro Office has the usual tabbed navigation, including tabs for clients, projects, time sheets, finances and team members. The dashboard presents a calendar with upcoming events, a list of your projects, outstanding invoices, notes and search functionality. Project creation is a bit more in-depth than with most other apps listed here, though only a client name and project name is required (you can also fill in a project URL, description or comments, category, date range, status, contacts and tags). Client tracking is integrated, making this handy for those who work with lots of different clients, and it could even serve as a simple CRM program, depending on your needs.

Integrated invoices and financial information is handy, and the finances page gives you options for viewing and creating invoices, expenses and reports.

CreativePro Office is very robust for a completely free application and is definitely worth checking out before shelling out for an expensive paid solution.

Jumpchart

Jumpchart is a website planning application that allows you to plan the navigation of your website by creating, dragging and dropping pages into the plan. You can also add text and formatting to pages and then export your CSS files and site map when you’re finished.

This is a great planning app for Web designers, though it’s not strictly a project management application. You can add comments to each page, which could serve to keep track of tasks related to specific pages. More traditional project management functions could be kept track of in the text of each mockup page or through the comments. The mockup and planning capabilities of Jumpchart make it worth using, even if hacks are needed to make it more conducive to full project management.

The free Jumpchart plan offers 1 project with 1 MB of storage and a maximum of 10 pages and 2 users. The paid plans range from the Simple plan at $5 per month (including up to 5 projects, with 25 pages and 5 users per project, and 100 MB of storage) to the Deluxe plan at $50 per month (including up to 30 projects with unlimited pages and users and 5000 MB of storage).

No Kahuna

No Kahuna is a simple project management and issue-tracking platform. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, with an excellent user interface. Features include task and activity tracking and collaboration tools.

No Kahuna is excellent for basic project management and ticket tracking. There aren’t a ton of features, which can be a very good thing. It’s very quick to get started, also a big plus.

There are free accounts available that include unlimited projects and users. However, if your projects accumulate more than 30 open tasks, you will need to upgrade. Paid options are reasonably priced, ranging from 3 projects for $9 per month up to 100 projects for $99 per month. Open-source projects are always free, no matter how many open tasks you have.

Basecamp

Basecamp is often considered to be the best project management and collaboration platform out there. Its features are impressive: to-do lists, file sharing, message boards, milestones, time tracking, project overviews and commenting.

The user interface is definitely one of the best out there, and because of its popularity, tons of other companies are making products that integrate with Basecamp, extending its capabilities.

Pricing is reasonable, though it’s definitely not the cheapest solution out there. The Basic plan is only $24 per month and includes up to 15 active projects, 3 GB of file storage and unlimited clients and users. The Max plan is a hefty $149 per month, but includes unlimited projects, 50 GB of file storage, time tracking, SSL security and a free Campfire Premium account.

2. Wiki-Based Project Management

Wikis are another option for project management, whether you use one instead of a basic project management application or in addition to one. One of the solutions below is geared to complete project management and includes additional features, while the other is just a wiki and is suitable for project management and other uses.

Trac Project

Trac Project is a project management app that is based on wiki functionality. It also includes a subversion browser, a timeline, ticket tracking, a road map (showing milestones and the number of current open and closed tickets) and builds status tracking.

One of Trac’s best features is the range of plug-ins available for it. There are plug-ins for Web administration, authentication, code documentation, file management, ticketing, testing, user management and version control.

Another big advantage: Trac is free and licensed under a modified BSD license.

PBwiki

PBwiki is one of the easiest free wikis out there to use. You can share files with other users, set access controls for individual pages and folders, add other users to your wiki, monitor and track version changes and more.

Setup is quick and easy and can be done in less than a minute. The PBwiki interface is very intuitive, and there is virtually no learning curve. Creating folders and pages is straightforward, as is editing existing pages. You can also comment on each page, and get a printable version with a single click.

There are multiple themes you can choose from for the design, as well as templates for individual page content (or you can start from scratch). There are a few different plans available, both paid and free. The free plan allows from 1 to 3 users. Paid plans range from $4 per month per user (if you have more than 10,000 users) to $8 per month per user (for 4 to 999 users).

3. Bug and Ticket Tracking

Any time you work on a Web application or website, there are going to be bugs and issues that crop up. While some basic project management applications have built-in ticket tracking, others don’t, and sometimes the built-in solution doesn’t quite meet your needs (either because it’s too robust or is missing key features).

16bugs

16bugs is a very simple bug-tracking system. Its main advantage is the color-coding system used for different types of information (like updates, comments and closed tickets).

Setup is quick and easy. The user interface is easy to figure out. Creating bugs is easy, and the color-coded labels on the activity tab make it easy to see what’s going on at a glance.

There are a variety of account types available. The free account allows 1 project, 1 MB of storage and Basecamp imports. Starting at $8 per month, paid plans include more projects (3 with the Basic plan), 150 MB to 10 GB of storage, RSS and email notifications, Campfire notifications and SSL (starting with the $15-per-month Big plan).

JIRA

JIRA is issue- and bug-tracking software that includes a lot of great features. It has advanced reporting features, workflow mapping as well as issue and project organizing; it is also customizable.

JIRA also offers a number of plug-ins to extend its functionality, including Bamboo integration, charting, time tracking, project management, a calendar and more. By using plug-ins, you can customize JIRA to meet your exact project management and issue-tracking needs.

JIRA’s biggest drawback is its pricing; it’s not cheap. A hosted account starts at $299 per month for up to 25 users and goes up from there (250 users costs $599 per month). If you want to download JIRA and host it on your own server, it starts at $1200 for a single project team, and goes as high as $4800 for an entire organization. If you need an academic license, solutions start at only $600.

4. Collaboration and Conferencing

If you’re working with a remote team on your project, you’re probably going to need some online space to collaborate and meet, whether it’s to work on general concepts or to work out specific bugs. Here are three solutions to help you collaborate with those on your team or with your clients.

activeCollab

activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that lets you set up a collaboration area right on your website. You can have unlimited projects, organized into groups for easy management.

Collaboration features include file sharing, discussions (set up like an online forum), assignments, collaborative writing and reminders. Project management features include printing and exporting, time tracking, calendar and schedule functionality, ticket management and milestones. Plug-ins (modules) mean that activeCollab can be extended to suit your specific needs.

There are two pricing options available: Corporate and Small Business. The Small Business edition includes source-code browsing, plug-in support, themes, discussions, milestones, checklists, files, project templates, a mobile interface and localization support. It’s priced at $199, with support and upgrades being an additional $99 per year after the first year. The Corporate edition has all of the above features, plus the calendar, tickets, time tracking, pages (with collaborative writing and more), a project explorer, and status updates. Both packages include unlimited projects and users. You can also purchase a Copyright Removal license, which removes the “activeCollab Powered” graphic from the footer of each page, for an additional $199.

DimDim

DimDim is a Web-conferencing platform that provides collaboration tools for meeting online. It’s scalable, reliable and flexible, with both hosted and on-site versions available.

DimDim allows you to share your desktop with those you’re meeting with, as well as share and present documents (both PowerPoint and PDFs). You can also share Whiteboards, and it has built-in voice-over-IP and teleconferencing capabilities. There are public and private chat capabilities as well as annotation and markup tools.

There are free and paid plans available. The free plan offers the complete feature set, with support for meetings of up to 20 people. DimDim Pro offers the complete feature set, plus custom branding and up to 100 people in a meeting for only $99 per year. There is also an Enterprise-level package that includes all of the above but also allows simultaneous meetings with up to 1000 attendees for $1998 per year.

Vyew

Vyew is a browser-based Web presentation service that allows for custom branding and PowerPoint-like authoring. With Vyew, you can give a live presentation or just post a document for your colleagues to review at their convenience.

Features include real-time desktop sharing, whiteboarding and drawing tools, embedded comments, built-in voice over IP, free teleconferencing, built-in webcam video support, text chat, dedicated rooms and direct URLs and more. It’s a complete solution for Web conferencing.

Vyew has a number of plans available, including a free plan, which includes unlimited meetings, SSL secure log-in, up to 20 participants (all seeing ads) and up to 5 VyewBooks (presentations) with up to 50 pages each. There are two paid plans: Plus at $6.95 per month, which includes everything the free plan has plus up to 25 participants (or 5 with no ads), and up to 25 VyewBooks with up to 100 pages each, and Professional at $13.95 per month, which includes everything the Plus plan has, but with up to 45 participants (or 15 with no ads), and up to 100 VyewBooks with up to 300 pages each.

5. Invoicing

Unless you’re working on an internal project, chances are you’ll need to send out invoices. Having an invoice program that also does proposals is helpful, as is having one that integrates directly with your project management app.

Simply Invoices

Simply Invoices integrates with Basecamp, More Honey, Tick and Harvest to invoice based on time that you track with those programs. Features include invoice templates, unlimited invoices, the ability to save invoices as PDFs and invoice tracking.

There are a few different plans available, including a free plan that includes up to five invoice templates and SSL support. Paid plans start at $9 per month (which includes up to ten invoice templates, plus a custom logo and link-free invoices) and go up to $25 per month (which includes an unlimited number of templates).

Less Accounting

Less Accounting is a simple online accounting and invoicing program that is incredibly easy to use. Less Accounting has a variety of features, including proposal creation and tracking, mileage tracking, sales-lead management and expense tracking. You can import your existing Wesabe.com account, and you can even invite your CPA to look at your books. Less Accounting also sends a weekly email with an update on the status of your accounts.

There are a variety of account plans available, including a free plan. The free plan includes up to 5 invoices, expenses, sales notes, deposits, proposals, mileage logs each month, SSL encryption, reports and bank-account integration. The paid plans range from the Even Less plan at $12 per month (including invoicing, expenses, contacts, SSL encryption, technical support, deposits and reports) to the More plan at $24 per month (including everything in the Even Less plan, plus sales notes, bank accounts, proposals, mileage logs, bank reconciliation, support for multiple types of sales tax and more). A 30-day free trial is available for all plans.

6. Time Tracking

Whether you need to keep track of your time for billing purposes, for your boss, or just to measure your own productivity, chances are you’ll need a time-tracking application.

LiveTimer

LiveTimer is an easy-to-use time-tracking program that works on both your computer and iPhone. It can be used for billing purposes or simply to improve your productivity and accountability.

Features include a daily ledger, bulk time entry (by day or week), customizable classifications, multiple currencies, custom billing rates, intelligent report filters and a developer API. The iPhone integration makes it easy to track your time even if you’re not at your desk, making it more useful than many other Web-based time-tracking applications.

Pricing is cheap, at only $5 per active user per month. Qualifying non-profits get a 50% discount. There is a 30-day free trial available.

fourteenDayz

fourteenDayz is a time-tracking program specifically for teams. It features day-by-day time sheets, exportable reports (in both PDF and Excel formats), drag-and-drop categories and no user limit.

There are 6 different plans offered, including a free account (which includes up to 4 active projects/clients, 10 project categories, an unlimited number of users and reporting functions). The paid plans range from the Personal at $5 per month (which includes the free account features plus up to 7 active projects/clients, 15 project categories, 30 project subcategories and PDF reports) to the Platinum at $99 per month (which includes all the Personal features plus unlimited active projects/clients, unlimited project categories and subcategories, XLS/CSV exportability and SSL connections).

Further Resources

For more project management applications, check out:

• Simple Spark
  Directory of Web 2.0 applications, with a list of more than 300 project management apps.
• Listio
  Another directory of Web 2.0 applications, with a huge list of project management apps.

About the author

Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 6 years of experience. She also writes for a number of blogs, including her own, GreenStyle Magazine, which will be relaunching later this year.

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