Firelight

Illumination from the residents of Firefall, LLC

You can’t go home, and you can’t stay here

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I’ve been waiting to take the plunge and switch to Studiometry from iBiz, but a few things have been holding me back. So far my use of Studiometry has been on very basic level. It’s not the easiest thing to pick up because it appears to have a ton of functionality. Its interface is a concise but achieves this by using a layered approach. I think there is some HCI rule against hiding things from the user, but then again a main window can only be so large. Given it’s complexity I’ve been reduced to reading the help pages just so I don’t gloss over less then obvious features. So far it looks like it can do some really useful stuff.

It’s when I began trying out some of these nifty features that I started seeing some bugs. If I remember correctly I was supposed to be getting away from this by getting rid of iBiz. So far I’ve found a few issues with the Apple Address Book synchronization. After watching it wipe out the notes I had in some of my contact cards, I decided that it is best to avoid this functionality all together. Then I found a crasher when trying to use the “Time Sheet Entry” option without any projects created. That was unnerving. As clarified by their tech support, I was trying to use that feature in an unusual way. Unusual or not, it still crashed.

I would like to wait till the issues I noticed are resolved, but as long as the software doesn’t loose data and make awful mistakes it’s better then what I’m working with now. The most important stuff is the core functionality, hopefully I won’t find any quirks there.

The Problem with iBiz

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I promised more work related posts, so here we go:

As everyone here knows we spend a significant amount of time interacting with iBiz. Let me explain what iBiz [Server] does. It’s a time tracking and invoicing application for the Mac OS X platform. It supports multiple users in a local area network environment. It also integrates with several key OS X applications, such as Address Book, and iCal. All these great sounding features were factored in when I decided to purchase 3 copies of it in the beginning of September. After three months of daily use, and endless issues I can confidently say that iBiz sucks. In order to paint a more vivid picture, I’ll attempt to accurate describe what would normally be the most compelling features of iBiz, and how perception differs from the grim reality.

Cross Application Integration
iBiz works with Address book, but in a really limited fashion. A separate group is automagically created in your Address Book called “iBiz Clients”. In concept this is a really great idea, but in a networked environment only the server’s Address Book is used. This makes changing client information nothing short of a hassle because it has to be done on the server itself. That’s right, you can’t actually edit the client inside iBiz, it has to be done in the associated Address Book. As [un]expected double clicking on a client’s card from within iBiz client, even if I have the same exact one locally in my Address Book, brings up a cryptic error message. Thankfully for us client information doesn’t change that often.

iCal integration isn’t much better. You can publish events to and from iCal, but it has to be done manually, and the time spans are rarely accurate. Publishing to a new calendar requires that iBiz is relaunched after the calendar is created in iCal. As of this writing I can’t even publish a project due date to the calendar without this error: “iCal got an error: NSContainerSpecifierError”. I later discovered that this occurred because I failed to select a calendar in the project info window. So in essence I had to hunt around to find what the program should have already known was an obvious issue. Instead it probably tried to jam an event into an calendar called “NULL”, causing iCal to get agitated. Events can also be imported from iCal but with questionable results, only across a single calendar and only manually. I had really hoped to be able to add events in iCal and have them appear in iBiz, but after some time I learned it wasn’t going to happen. Needless to say we didn’t end up using the calendar features much.

Networking
iBiz Server has seamless networking, within a local area network. The clients were able to connect to the server immediately, without the need for any configuration. However there is absolutely no feasible way to connect to it from outside of the local network. I even tried to VPN, which doesn’t seem to carry Bonjour so well. There is no way to define what IP the client should connect to. So much for using it from home.

There is an option to check items out, because as soon as iBiz Client loses it’s connection to the server all the client / project information disappears. This requires that specific objects be selected for check out. Upon doing so, unchecked items disappear. This initially freaked me out and I didn’t have a clue how to get the missing information back. Thankfully I figured out that “Synchronize With Server” really means reconnect with server. I still can’t understand why iBiz doesn’t just maintain a local copy incase you need to disconnect from the network in a hurry or if the server goes down. We would occasionally lose connection to the server, which would stall our timers and clear our client lists until iBiz Client was relaunched.

Time Tracking
This part of iBiz is just a mess. I can’t even come up with a crafty lead-in for this section. We have been reduced to manually correcting timers at the end of the week. Often they are just flat out wrong. From what it appears, using the same timer for more then one day, or adjusting the time of an event then starting a timer causes all sorts of trouble. Jon lost 10 or 15 hours just in 1 week of use. That’s disgusting.

Invoicing
Invoicing is no better then time tracking. As other users have reported on Mac Update, we have generated the same invoice more then once and gotten completely different totals. I miss billed two clients. I don’t even want to think how much money this might have cost me just in these few months.

Reporting
Reporting does exist, and it is really easy to run, but it isn’t that flexible. We ran into a [major] issue with the fact that iBiz has NO WAY TO DIFFERENTIATE EMPLOYEES. None at all. We’ve worked around this by using event folders, one for each person. This really fowls up the reporting. I can’t do something as simple as see how many recorded hours an employee worked over a given time period. Aniel had to sit with a stack of printouts one week to see where all our hours had gone. I’m not saying iBiz was responsible for the huge loss of billable time, but it didn’t help in tracking the loss down.

Interface
I have to say that iBiz’s interface is not so bad. It’s very simple and that lends to a very small learning curve. Though I’m constantly rewarded by interface glitches. For example, the “Add” and “Insert” event buttons will be grayed out but still accessible. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between adding and inserting an event. As far as I can tell they have almost the exact same function, except “Add” refuses to place an event in a job group, and insert event can put one inside or outside. Job event types are yet another thing that has to be entered in on the server. Those don’t change too often, but that’s just silly that I have to go to the server to do certain things. Speaking of the server, it runs as a faced application, which means OS X has to be logged in for it to run. Not the most ideal situation for a server environment.

General Madness
I have not kept track of how many full out bugs and interface glitches that we have reported to the developer. My logic for not keeping count was that we probably wouldn’t find another and that keeping track would be a waste of time. After the 5th or 6th e-mail to the developer, I should have gotten the hint. It was a twice a week occurrence for a while. Last I looked I wasn’t using Beta software.

I can’t say I’m as bad off as some others. There are reports going around of data loss. Not that I’d know how to backup iBiz server, without doing some investigation. I certainly don’t consider backing up folders in ~/Library manually an acceptable option for most users. Other applications, like Address Book or DevonNote provide concrete methods to backup their databases.

Final Thoughts
I feel like an idiot for using iBiz this long. It has probably cost us a ton of money in lost time, incorrect invoices, and in the hours wasted working around its flakiness. It’s also embarrassing to explain to a client that our software messed up and miss-billed them. Those kind of mistakes don’t help to build trust.

I think we’re going to switch to Studiometry. From what I’ve read and observed from my limited use, it appears to have a much higher learning curve. I could care less. I just don’t want it doing stupid shit. It’s also a little more expensive, and I hope that’s just because it’s a more solidly written application. Hell, it’s even dual platform, lets me define employees and even lets me specify the server’s IP.

I hope I’m not going to be making the same type of mistake I made before with iBiz and not writing a similar entry three months later. I’ll post updates on how the transition works out. I bet it’s going to be ugly.

About

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I guess I’ve never attempted to explain the whole purpose of this blog. Come to think of it I’m not sure we even have one. Recently it seems like half of our posts have been about hobby related activities. Which does in fact accurately describe a decent portion of our time here at the office. I can’t say that it’s directly helping to further along Firefall Pro as a company, but it does make spending most of our waking hours here at the office enjoyable.

The dry bar, constant music, and “just don’t set the place on fire” attitude probably helps too. Either way it’s nice to be able to get paid, or pay myself as the case may be, to do what I enjoy. It’s that or the fact we need money to keep up our growing electronic-flying-things habit.

Back to the meaning of this blog. I believe it’s supposed to recount things we have learned while working here. Granted that’s vague, which is probably the reason we chose the topic in the first place. It doesn’t quite pin us down to any specific content. However I think I’m going to make an effort to add in a little more work related information to better depict what life is really like here. Otherwise at first glance it will seem like we get absolutely nothing work related done, and just keep the local hobby store in business with our boundless purchases.

If you need more clarification, or have a suggestion about our blog’s direction or lack there of, feel free to comment.

P.S. I hate the word “blog” because of a conference that Aniel and I had to attend.

Fwd:

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There is an e-mail going around* that refers to a fairly nifty optical illusion. Unfortunately the e-mail points to a site that is only borrowing the image instead of the original one (though they do give credit). Here is the body of the message:

"THIS IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!
Subject: Illusion

Take a break and check this out. How in the heck does it work??? Click on the link below: darn cool illusion…….

Darn cool illusion [<-- link]"

If you got this message check out the real site, if you didn’t get this message, check it out anyway.

*Thanks Dot.

Chopper Dave

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So as Scott said, I did indeed buy a helicopter a couple weeks back: the Blade CP. This little beast is amazing, especially considering the price. It has a 6 channel transmitter/reciever, a full collective control system, and everything else you could want. It gets rave reviews everywhere, and people all over the place are hailing it as one of the best micro helis out there.

Only problem is, I don’t know how to fly a heli.

I bought it figuring ‘how hard can it really be?’ Turns out, pretty hard. Granted much of the difficulty stems directly from the fact that I’m trying to learn in the office, which means I can only slide laterally around for a distance of 3 feet to 10 feet, depending on the direction, before I have to shut down the engine out of fear of a crash. If I could keep it in the air a little longer, I just know I’d be amazing at this thing.

Don’t assume, however, I am always able to do that – shut it down before a crash. On the very night I bought this magical little toy, I flew it under a van. A parked van.

Thankfully, it’s remarkably resilient. So far, I’ve been forced to purchase only two crash kits. These contain new main and tail rotors, landing gear, and stabilizer bars. at a cost of $20, it’s not too bad. I can honestly say, it’s probably the cheapest way to fly a full CCPM heli.

What prompts me to write this out tonight, however, is my most recent upgrade purchase. I read online that upgrading to the acrobatic kit does many wonderful things to the experience of flying this heli, including enabling inverted (UPSIDE DOWN!) flight, but more significantly to me, increasing the head speed making a hover remarkably smooth and steady. So I went shopping. I bought the upgrade kit, a lithium polymer battery, and a lithium polymer charger. Of course, I haven’t been able to fly it yet, for a reason I will cover shortly; now let me tell you about our hobby store.

The hobby store on 30th between 7th and 8th is a virtual wonderland of fun and games, with myriad flying, driving and floating vehicles. It has fair prices, a wide selection of parts and models, and is close by – meaning I can get my blow that money and leave with happiness in hand, rather than waiting a week for delivery of my joy. However – and this is a big however – The man who operates this store… well, he’s something else.

The first time we met this man, he informed us of his son’s multiple high level connections throughout the world, oh, maybe a dozen times. His son, by the way, apparently owns three dozen stores, two factories in china, and has at least a bakers dozen black market sexual slaves. He’s also, I believe, a member of royalty in no less than 4 middle eastern and asian countries. Needless to say, this man was a little overzealous in trying to get our respect, or something. I haven’t a clue.

The second time I met this man, he told me how there’s this great guy in the FDNY, who happens to be black, who can fly a helicopter amazingly well. He even flew the blade cp through the corridors of the store! Of course, he doesn’t recommend we do anything like that. Oh, and by the way, his son hates great planes, and tamiya.

In any case, I went in to get the parts, and the guy gave me a lipo, and a charger. I, stupid little boy that I am, figured he must know what he’s doing, so I just took them. Bad move! Of course, the charger requires a 12 volt power supply (can’t plug it in the wall) and the lipo won’t connect to the receiver because the plugs are totally different (the lipo has a deans connector, and the receiver has a JST adapter.) The store is of course closed, so I sit here, gently weeping, cradling my handicapped chopper in my arms.

Tomorrow though, oh ho, tomorrow.

Evolution of the Hobby

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I wasn’t feeling well on Thursday afternoon. As a programmer this is disastrous. It’s impossible to write code when you’re not alert. You don’t have to be sober, but you need to have at least some cognitive function. Knowing that I was virtually useless for next few hours, possibly the rest of the day, I might as well waste it on something interesting.

Jon, who had to already know what was going to transpire, lead me to a hobby store that he encountered while walking to work one day. Once we got there I began questioning the owner as to what was the best device for indoor flight, leaving the part out about wanting to hit Aniel with it. After telling the owner what planes we’ve purchased in the past, and that they came from HobbyTron. He informs us that they are currently under suit by his son’s company for failing to pay for a large number of goods that they ordered. Supposedly they have been doing this with a lot of other suppliers and then settling to prevent their credit from being negatively impacted.

I’m not entirely sure if I believe the owner, but I don’t see why he would lie. I understand that HobbyTron has to be a direct competitor and is most likely gutting their business. However from the level of detail the owner provided, his remarks seem to be a little more then a careless jab. In the end HobbyTron has never really sold us anything that has flown. Aniel’s helicopter never made it very far without flipping over and blowing apart the blades. My plane, well that probably had as much to do with cheep design as it did with Jon being behind the controls. Aniel’s new plane was clearly not designed to be flown indoors or any semblance of a confined space. Believe me, we tried.

After listening to the owner talk about the crazy world of hobby, and being discouraged from purchasing an airplane because of it’s poor maneuverability, we were pointed to a helicopter that was supposedly suitable for my purpose. I say supposedly because I bought it only a few minutes later and hauled it back to the office. It cost about $250.00, moving us from the kindergarden class right into the intramural league.

So we got it back to the office, plugged in the charger, watched the included video and waited impatiently for it finish charging. Once it was charged I prepped the device for flight as indicated in the video and unintelligible manual. I put the remote on, plugged the battery in and pushed up on the throttle. The damn thing wouldn’t fly! It would even spin up. We franticly tried everything we could think of to get it going. Among this rush Jon was fussing with the remote as I’m idly sitting next to the craft waiting for a sign of life. He flips the remote off and it takes off, right for my crotch. Why it moved in that particular direction, I’ll never know, but what I did know was that it was out for my junk and in a hurry. Thanks to marvel of wheeled chairs I was able to roll far enough away for the helicopter to only hit my legs. Jon, out of nowhere, grabs it like a hawk carrying off a small pet in it’s talons. This was not a delicate grip.

Anyway, here I sit, days later with no helicopter. When we returned it I omitted the part about Jon trying to squeeze the juice out of it. Supposedly I’ll get it back tomorrow and they won’t have noticed the unusual wear. Aniel bought a different one on Friday, I’m sure he’ll post about that soon.