User Profile for mactheweb

RatRace 1.0 (Mac OS X)

Nice start but missing some features  

RatRace looks like it may develop into a useful application. The time line feature is helpful. It opens quickly and seems easy to use. I can't recommend it for business use right now, though. Timers are great but a multi-day timer needs the capability to let the user manually adjust time. A reset to zero doesn't cut it. It's just too easy to forget to turn a timer off when an unexpected client walks in the door or when I simply forgot to turn the timer off for lunch. It also needs the ability to add time that wasn't run on the clock. I work on two computers and need to be able to add the time from one to the other. Without that time lines don't mean much. It might work as a time clock for employee hours but as a project tracking tool it isn't quite ready for a real consultant's work flow. It is also important to be able to keep notes on each day's work, which RatRace doesn't do. Project notes are a nice idea but a multi-day project needs day-by-day documentation. Was time spent actually working on the project or was time spent doing research? The first is billable, the later may or may not be. Was time part of the original bid or was it a change order? These questions will come up during billing. There needs to be a place in the time tracking to record a record of how the time was spent. I suppose that if you are not billing for your hours and simply want a record of time spent without detailing what the time was for, this would work for you. Or if you are super good about starting and stopping the timer for every interruption and support call it would be okay. Neither of those descriptions fit me. Documentation (from the Help menu) seems clear but sparse. Since this app doesn't have a lot of features to describe it is adequate. I like the multi-day tracking ability and the capability to view estimated time against actual. The interface is clean and obvious, not always the case with time tracking software. If RatRace makes it to version 2, I'll check back. [alert admin]

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Monday, March 12 2007 @ 04:19 PM PDT

RatRace 1.0 (Mac OS X)

Nice start but missing some features  

RatRace looks like it may develop into a useful application. The time line feature is helpful. It opens quickly and seems easy to use. I can't recommend it for business use right now, though. Timers are great but a multi-day timer needs the capability to let the user manually adjust time. A reset to zero doesn't cut it. It's just too easy to forget to turn a timer off when an unexpected client walks in the door or when I simply forgot to turn the timer off for lunch. It also needs the ability to add time that wasn't run on the clock. I work on two computers and need to be able to add the time from one to the other. Without that time lines don't mean much. It might work as a time clock for employee hours but as a project tracking tool it isn't quite ready for a real consultant's work flow. It is also important to be able to keep notes on each day's work, which RatRace doesn't do. Project notes are a nice idea but a multi-day project needs day-by-day documentation. Was time spent actually working on the project or was time spent doing research? The first is billable, the later may or may not be. Was time part of the original bid or was it a change order? These questions will come up during billing. There needs to be a place in the time tracking to record a record of how the time was spent. I suppose that if you are not billing for your hours and simply want a record of time spent without detailing what the time was for, this would work for you. Or if you are super good about starting and stopping the timer for every interruption and support call it would be okay. Neither of those descriptions fit me. Documentation (from the Help menu) seems clear but sparse. Since this app doesn't have a lot of features to describe it is adequate. I like the multi-day tracking ability and the capability to view estimated time against actual. The interface is clean and obvious, not always the case with time tracking software. If RatRace makes it to version 2, I'll check back. [alert admin]

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Monday, March 12 2007 @ 04:17 PM PDT

Really needs documentation.  

Absolutely spot on about the documentation. They may believe that good programs don't need it. They're wrong. GoodPage is a bit too complex to master without documentation. As a professional web designer I'm always interested in applications that will speed my workflow. This might, but I'm not willing to spend hours of otherwise billable time to maybe or maybe not learn how to effectively use this program. Trial and error is not only time consuming but…

Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)

Friday, January 05 2007 @ 03:53 PM PST