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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Features, iPhone, iPod touch

The Freelancer's iPhone: Productivity solutions for independent professionals

Last summer I started to fantasize about working for myself. I pictured a home office, afternoons with the kids and life as the boss. My employer maintained a similar fantasy, and a few months later they went out of business and left 120 of us high and dry. Synchronicity is cruel. Thanks for that, Carl Jung.

I've learned that working solo is 1 part thrilling, 90 parts horrifying and 9 parts educational. Also, I've found the best setup for my iPhone to help me through my self-employed day. Here I'll describe the apps, settings and hardware that I've found most useful. Feel free to share your own.


Continue readingThe Freelancer's iPhone: Productivity solutions for independent professionals

Filed under: Software, WWDC, TUAW Interview

Video: Billable, keep track of your hours


Mike Zornek, owner of Clickable Bliss shows us Billable, a handy app for tracking freelance gigs or other hourly projects. Billable will do more than tracking though, so watch the video to see a really neat app from another indie Mac developer.

Filed under: Software, Productivity

Project Calculator



People seem to enjoy tracking the time they spend on various projects, so it's no surprise that a plethora of project-tracking apps are cropping up. We've mentioned dozens in the past, including iRatchet, iBiz, Billable and even On the Job, but now users have a new choice on the 'simple and streamlined' end of the spectrum with Project Calculator from blue banana software. Project Calculator features many of the fundamentals one would need for recording the time spent on projects, such as tracking multiple projects, manually editing projects and the time spent on them, exporting to various formats (CSV, PDF, HTML, etc.) for sharing with clients, wages/cost calculation, searching, filters and much more.

A demo is available, while a licenses costs a mere $14.90.

Filed under: Software, Productivity

iRatchet - invoicing and billing



The billing and invoicing shareware space sure is heating up lately, what with iBiz (my personal favorite), Billable and now iRatchet from Pretty Good Software. It has a nice array of features, including the typical Address Book, iCal and Spotlight integration, as well as mileage tracking, "robust" tax support, international formatting and - a pleasant surprise - .Mac and local backup support.

A demo of this Universal Binary is of course available, while a license costs $45.

[via Iconfactory Links]

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Universal Binary

iBiz updated, goes Universal


iBiz is a great time and billing management app for those who are self-employed or otherwise might have a need for keeping track of their projects, right down to the minute and dime. It integrates well with Address Book and iCal for all your contact and todo needs, which is great, for example, if a client would like to see a published calendar of the time you've spent on their project.

iBiz also acts a bit like a file/project management dashboard, as you can associate files with a project in iBiz and automatically start timing you work when you open the file from within the app. Once a project is done, iBiz also offers a healthy array of invoice options, ready for print, PDF and/or email. Networking capabilities are also baked in, with an iBiz Server edition available, but I don't work in that environment so I don't have much to say on that end.

It looks like we haven't mentioned iBiz on TUAW before, but I can personally vouch for it as a great app since I've been using it for a couple years now. This latest update brings it to version 2.5 with better iBank integration and bug fixes, and also adds Universal Binary goodness. A 10-day demo is available, while a single user license will run you a mere $29.99.

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