Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
Review: Carbonite
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
Here at Clear Estimates we try to develop software that is intuitive, robust, and easy to use. One of our role models has always been the makers of WinZip (now owned by Corel). They provide an excellent example of a product that is very powerful and feature-rich if you need it to be, but extremely straighforward and easy to understand if you don’t want to get involved in the nitty-gritty.
In our office we have regularly used WinZip and WinZip Self Extractor (the maker of our setup file) and now we’re using another product: Carbonite. What is it? Here’s the summary, pulled from their site:
- A small application on your PC
Carbonite installs a small application on your computer that works quietly in the background looking for new and changed files that need to be backed up. It looks and feels just like part of your computer, and is integrated with your desktop — there’s no new interface for you to learn.- Completely Automatic
When your computer is idle, Carbonite automatically backs up your new and changed files. You don’t have to do anything! When you’re using your computer, Carbonite goes to sleep so it will never slow you down or interfere with your Internet connection.- Secure and encrypted to protect your privacy
Carbonite takes data privacy and security very seriously. All your files are encrypted twice before leaving your PC. Files remain encrypted at our secure data centers, so only you can see your files.- Get your files back with a few clicks
If you accidentally delete or otherwise lose files, it takes just a few clicks on your desktop to get them back. If your computer is damaged, stolen or “just dies” and you lose all your files, just visit Carbonite’s website from a new computer. Within minutes you’ll be able to begin restoring all your files.
We’ve been using the service for a couple of weeks now and we give it TWO THUMBS UP! The price of $50/yr is well worth the peace of mind it brings. And compare those costs to data retrieval services should you ever damage your hard drive ($$$$)!
Underneat the logo on the website it says “Because your life is on your PC”. In some cases your business is also on your PC. As a paperless business, all of our information is in electronic format, so we have a lot to lose. Of course most of our data is hosted on a remote server anyway, and we had always used an external hard drive to backup local files, but the frequency of backups (at least daily) and the ease which which the service is executed is very refreshing. So the bottom line is you should really give this service a shot: http://www.carbonite.com/
The first backup process took several days (we had 10+GB of files that needed to be uploaded) but since then it has been seamlessly transporting files as they’re created or modified.
Nearly daily I deal with people with stolen/damaged computers who need to reinstall Clear Estimates, so I thought I’d pass this along!
-Nolan Orfield
Posted in Technology | 2 Comments »
Coming this week: Clear Estimates v2.5!
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
You asked for it and we delivered. Check out the new features in this video tour:
Posted in General, Our software, Technology | 2 Comments »
Google spreadsheets useful for estimating? Video demonstration.
Friday, December 14th, 2007
Click here to watch video demonstration! 
Google has built a web application that will allow you to create, save, edit, and share spreadsheets within your web browser. This is much more than a convenient development; what this suggests is that Google acknowledges the increasing demand to shift technology from our computers’ hard drives to web hosts and that they would like to be the forerunner in providing us with this rapidly expanding technology.
In software engineering, a web application is an application delivered to users from a web server over a network such as the World Wide Web or an intranet. Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of the web browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. … for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebApp
But without reflecting on what this means with regards to software trends, let’s look at what Google Spreadsheets mean to your business. Here are the pros and cons of developing your spreadsheets online:
Pros:
- You don’t need software! This is a free “Web App”, so the program is run from a web server, not your computer.
- The files can be accessed from any computer. All you need is a web browser with access to the Internet. That means you could start creating a bid on your Google spreadsheet at your office, continue working on it from your home computer, then edit it if necessary on site with your client.
- You can choose who can access and who can edit the spreadsheet. Multiple people can even work on the spreadsheet simultaneously from remote locations!
- You can start your spreadsheet from scratch or upload data from a XLS (Excel) or CSV (Comma Separated Value) file.
Cons:
- The processing speed of entering data into the spreadsheet is limited to the speed of your Internet connection. Your CPU can still take your high-speed modem in head-to-head competition, but this will likely be less of a factor in the future. If you’re still using a modem, Google spreadsheets may get frustrating.
- Although you can implement an impressive collection of formulae, the application isn’t as diverse and powerful as software like Excel, so there are some limitations, particularly if you’re an advanced user.
- You’re required to create a gmail account (free).
-Nolan Orfield
Posted in General, Technology | 3 Comments »
Database or spreadsheet. What’s the difference, anyway?
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
To address this question it’s easiest to look at estimating from a historical perspective: Once upon a time, every contractor created estimates by hand. He/she would pull out a pad of paper and pencil, jot down some figures line by line, then sum up each item to achieve the estimate. This was a simple and effective way to create a bid, but human error, inflexibility, and time consumption left plenty of room for improvement.
With the advent of computers, anybody with an ounce of technical savvy immediately recognized the benefit of using spreadsheets; it’s faster, making changes is easy, and computers are great at math! Evidently the term “spreadsheet” at one point (before my time) referred to a physical sheet of paper in which data was laid out in a grid format. These days when someone refers to a “spreadsheet” they are most likely referring a type of file created in programs like Microsoft Excel. Data is still laid out in rows and columns as in the paper variety, but the capability to integrate formulae and build relationships between the “cells” (the box where a row and column meet) make electronic spreadsheets much more powerful and MUCH more useful. While this is a big step up from doing things by hand, spreadsheets still have their limitations: Making changes that will apply to an entire document can be tricky, tracking change-orders can be challenging, and the flexibility that only spreadsheets can offer also means a lot can go wrong in the hands of someone inexperienced with the technology. Additionally, those with good attention to detail will add so many line items that the spreadsheet quickly becomes aggravatingly long and cumbersome. For these reasons, it is oftentimes best to work with the next technological “step up,” a database.
It sounds intimidating, I know. If spreadsheets can be difficult to use, how in the world are you supposed to learn how to build a database? A number of contractors have successfully developed customized Microsoft Access database-based applications but, unless you have a Ph. D. in computer science, taking this route probably isn’t worthwhile. Good news: A number of companies (such as Clear Estimates, Inc, of course) have already taken care of this for you! Database-based programs are more powerful than spreadsheets because they utilize one centralized location (the “database”) that contains multiple tables full of data that are all linked and interdependent. As complicated as this sounds, a well-designed database-based system is very easy to use; these programs ideally utilize nice looking “graphical user interfaces” (pretty screens) that present the data in convenient and easy-to-understand formats, as opposed to spreadsheets that put you face-to-face with the raw data. Not only are these programs easier to use and more powerful, but they also have the potential to incorporate additional features like integration with QuickBooks, generation of various reports, scheduling, and other things that are difficult or impossible using a spreadsheet.
So which method is the best? It depends on your style and your company. The trend has been to adopt more sophisticated database-based methods, but what it ultimately comes down to is finding a system that is robust, flexible, and can be set up to mimic your estimating style. These days there’s no excuse for doing things by hand. A plethora of options exist in estimating software, database and spreadsheet-based alike, so there’s no reason you can’t set up a system to work well for your company.
-Nolan Orfield
Posted in General, Our software, Technology | 1 Comment »