After using Quickbooks for years, I decided it was finally time to find an online invoice/billing solution. I had a wish-list of what I thought would be pretty basic criteria for choosing a paid solution. Boy was I wrong. Below is my story about the hunt for a great product and why I finally chose Harvest.

Online Billing for a Contractor/Consultant

I wanted a tool that would work well and fluidly for a contractor or service-provider. As it turns out, many of the online billing programs are designed around people who keep inventory and sell products. Not quite what I needed. Harvest makes time tracking fast and simple, just login, enter my time for the appropriate client and project, and done. Projects don't "close" just because I've sent an invoice.

Invoicing Product with Multiple Clients

Because I do web consulting, I needed an invoicing product that would allow me to have multiple customers or vendors that I could be billing to on a regular basis. Several of the online invoicing solutions out there don't give you an on-going billing option for more than one client. Harvest allows me to have an unlimited number of clients and projects, regardless of what pricing plan I choose.

Online Invoicing with Customization

Maintaining a professional branding is always important, so I wanted to choose an online invoicing/billing platform that allowed me some control over customization of the invoices I sent out. One option I reviewed always included the client's total spend with me…ever. Really? Can you imagine? "Here's your invoice Paul, in the amount of $40. Oh, by the way, you may be interested in knowing that you've currently spent $47,000 on my services." I think not.

Simple as it may seem, I also wanted to control how the due date is displayed on my invoices. For example, most of the other online billing solutions printed "Net 30" or something similar on the bottom of the invoice. Some gave a couple options, but Harvest was the only one I could find that allows me to give the actual DATE, "10/25/2011 (Net 60)."

Believe it or not, I thought I had chosen a solution, until I realized they didn't allow you to put your contact information on the invoice (or customize it). So we're supposed to invoice people without providing contact information on how or who to pay? That just sounds absurd. Again, Harvest allows me to customize as much or as little information on the invoices as I want, including a logo, if I so choose.

Online Billing Solution that is Safe and Secure

Since we're moving to this new fangled online option, it might be nice to give our clients the option of paying their invoice online. Well, that means that the online billing program needs to be PCI compliant. According to WikiPedia, "The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security standard for organizations that handle cardholder information for the major debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM, and POS cards." So you can imagine this would be important if our clients will be providing information to some third-party in order to pay a bill I sent them. Harvest saves the day on this issue, too. They use SSL-encrypted connections, they are certified by TRUSTe (an independent privacy services provider), they constantly backup all of their data and all of their data is encrypted for further protection. They are PCI Compliant, so my clients can feel safe when they pay their bills and I can feel safe knowing that my business data is secure and backed up.

Customer Service for an Online Invoicing Solution

Certainly one of the most important things I look for when choosing a company to do business with is customer service and availability of help resources. Would you believe that many other online billing systems didn't even have a customer forum? And some of the ones that did were rarely, if ever, active with employee posts. Perhaps Harvest doesn't provide 24/7 support, but they are located in New York, not India. As an American speaking English, I can appreciate that. They answer the phones, they reply to emails, they listen to customer feedback and according to their forums, respond to feature requests and plea's for help. This is vital in any company you entrust with your information.

Connectivity Options and Multiple Platforms

I have to say, even though it wasn't a requirement on my wishlist, having the ability to access Harvest from my iPhone is pretty amazing. I can do everything right from my phone, on the go. Talk about options, though. You can connect all sorts of other tools with Harvest and access Harvest from practically any platform. In addition to the iPhone, Harvest is compatible with a slew of other platforms and devices. I have tried to list some them here: Andriod, CallTab, TimeTrax, there is a downloadable Desktop app, Google Apps, Co-op, Basecamp, Outright, Twitter, WordPress, Syncr, QuickBooks, Billflo, Highrise, Zendesk, Simply Invoices, Teaspiller, Redmine, activeCollab, Scythe, Beanstalk, Postal Methods, OneSaasPipeJump, inDinero, Harvested, HaPi, Python, Java, hcl, thereis a Drupal module, Opera widget, Fluid user script, and even an API for developers that want an even more custom solution.

Postal Methods for Harvest

This feature was part of my wish list, though I haven't tested it yet to see how well it works. Apparently, you can connect a third-party site called Postal Methods with Harvest. For a small fee, you can then have Harvest mail a hard-copy of the invoice to your client's address. This prevents invoices from getting lost in cyberspace or someone's SPAM filter. How cool! Click a button to "send" the invoice, and Postal Methods prints it, stuffs it in an envelope with the correct address, stamps it and sends it off for you. No more stuffing envelopes!! I'm pretty excited to try this feature out.

In the end Harvest was exactly what I was looking for, without breaking the bank. I think I'm paying around $25 a month. Absolutely worth every penny. And very user-friendly to setup. I am now using Harvest for my company: http://handmade4you.com/

For more information on Harvest, head over to their website: http://www.getharvest.com/

http://nmi.craigslist.org/pts/2563680661.html

Nice how Google  caught Bing.  Weird how know one seems to care.

Note to Google – I’d create a funny ass commercial using a “copy cat” schoolyard scenerio with little kids (just to rub it in Bing’s face).  Think of it as the Google kid is little hardworking guy with glasses, and Bing guy is slacker copying over his shoulder.  Use a slogan like – get your search from the source GOOGLE.

Invitation To The Tron Legacy The Sound Show

In attendance, among the MANY people jamming the Fantasia Theater at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA  was me, Frank Rogala, and the panelists: Steve Boeddeker, Jason Bentley, Gary Rizzo, James Haygood, Gwendolyn Whittle.

Somehow I was lucky enough to be on the email invitation list for this presentation.
I admit I was pretty blown away by the sound design and score by Daft Punk and the overall spacial audio effects of Tron Legacy let alone the hypnotizing “sit back in your seat and hold tight” entertainment that this movie provides.
What I learned:

1. Tron was a trailer, not a screenplay. They created the look, sound and feel of the trailer to see if there was interest and money to make the film. We got to see the original teaser that was only seen by Disney executives, employees and of course enthusiasts at Comic-Con. It looked surprisingly much like the final movie, light cycles, discs, suits and all. After the “teaser” garnered enthusiastic response, the movie was green lit. They then, intelligently took the small (tiny) team that made the “teaser” and expanded from there, retaining the spark that excited the audiences that saw the original inspirational visualization of the new look, feel and sound of the Tron universe.

2. There was an actual meeting between Daft Punk and Has Zimmer. He imparted tips on scoring to Daft Punk who had no prior experience at anything of this nature (though one of the members of the group had scored a reportedly disturbing indy French (?) film). When an audience member asked Jason Bentley if the advice was “asked for” or “given,” Jason replied curtly, “… given.”

3. Part of the sound montage that became the light cycles forming was made with a deck of cards (obtained from Circus Circus) by sound designer Steve Boeddeker.

4. I was thrilled to hear first hand from the re-recording mixer Gary Rizzo what he did in a technical fashion to give the film its extremely huge dimensional acoustic feeling. To boil it down, he use separate pairs (and processors) to create a delay and reverb with different settings on each of the 3 stereo pairs in the 7.1 mix.

5. I mark this as “most fascinating thing I learned.” Those suits with the glowing stripes – you know, they light up like something done as an effect. Well they weren’t effects, the suits actually lit up. Not only did they light up, they hummed. A tone. Two suits, two tones. If the suits move closer the tones interacted and jumped around to different harmonics. It was quite unnerving. They played us clips of the raw dialogue. The actors were a bit addled by it at first, but I guess everyone adjusted. The only problem was this was an extremely difficult moving target of background noise to eliminate, without filtering the vocals within an inch of their lives (early temporary rough filtering make the dialog sound like it was underwater). To the rescue something new and mysterious to me called the Nova system or effect or noise reduction. I got that there was a specific engineer (I believe with a woman’s name) who amazingly mostly cleaned it all up. The before and after demonstration was quite remarkable. However, there were places where even Nova was not enough (it apparently didn’t do well with wind or wider spectrum noises), and where they just had to cover it with effects and sound design. It made me realize that even in a high priced, high tech film they still have to struggle with the age old issues of cleanly recording the sound of human voices.

The evening was a fascinating glimpse at early stages of the film’s development with identical passages shown as the sound design took form as well as other elements of the production put the icing on the cake.

As the panelists explained how the development of the final sound design might have gone through perhaps a half dozen hands, or more, I got a bit of a sense of the challenges posed by the sound design of this film. For me the presentation was a demonstration of the triumph of talented, creative people who together created something that has the power to immerse you in an experience of beauty, violence, drama and hope.

p.s.  I also learned where the token “Wilhelm scream” is located.  If you don’t know what that is, look it up.  Its a pretty funny “inside” story, that is Hollywood’s worst kept secret.  You might just enjoy being “in” on the joke.

I am speaking in particular of the fake CGI breath in cold weather. Really bad, distracting. Just be way more subtle til you get this down people.

Also, the fake blur (making the background or other elements fake out of focus) on the Crew racing scenes.

All I can think is that on someone’s monitors that these effects look great. On a big screen however – it doesn’t hold up. The fake blurring out of focusy thing just isn’t visually correct (I am sure you will get this worked out eventually, but in the meantime, use some restraint). It doesn’t fool anybody and the human eye in a theater has trouble processing the weird blur configurations.

[see my update at the bottom]

A couple of words about the rebirth of the Pleo.

I just got my new Pleo which features a couple of new improvements (and I have a scoop for old-school Pleo owners that have a skin problem) — but more on that in a minute.

Pleo

I have sympathy for Innvo Labs, the company that has taken over the marketing, manufacture and distribution of this amazing product/robot/toy. I know many people out there who bought one originally, and stuck there neck out (as well as their $350) are probably in the same boat as I am — that being:

• My original Pleo has a battery that is dead and won’t charge
• Pleo’s skin is cracking open revealing sensitive innards.

Having had experienced taking over a failing business, I know it is a thankless job dealing with disappointed former customers. That said, I would like it to be known that the purpose of this blog is not to whine about anything. I would just like to help Innvo Labs get some advice out to the devoted following of the Pleo that might avoid some of the miscommunications that I experienced.

I want this type of product to be developed further and to be given a chance to succeed. I really think that the developers are onto something wonderful.

First off, after getting my e-mails announcing the “rebirth” of the Pleo, I went to check out the webpage. Nothing unusual here, however, this time the offer of a “reincarnation” caught my eye. What was represented was a chance to have the personality that I had carefully developed in my “Mr. Fluffy” Pleo – transplanted into a shiny new Pleo!

However, when I read the webpage it wasn’t any clear procedure for doing anything other than buying a new Pleo. There didn’t seem to be any way to get an RMA number or any type of registration for this, just links to buy a new Pleo.  There was a prompt to “Contact Customer Support,” on the reincarnation page – which I did.

When I e-mailed the company and asked about the reincarnation — I was told that I would be sent a coupon that would give me $100 off the price of my Pleo. I had to e-mail back again to ask how to get this, and I eventually received a coupon code. I am a registered Pleo owner, but I a not clear on whether this was checked into or not. It was also explained to me that I would be well advised to buy an extra charger because the new ones have a “recover” mode that can revive old batteries. That sounded good, I have always wanted to have two batteries for my Pleo.

However, when I went to use it, which involves using the online store as if you are purchasing a new Pleo, I became uneasy when I was a click or two away from completing the sale and I had not seen anything showing me that my charge would be reduced by $100 even though I had already entered the coupon code. So I stopped and e-mailed support, describing my confusion and asked what to do.

I received an e-mail within the hour that told me to just proceed and that the coupon discount would appear on the next screen. However when I tried to complete the sale the shopping cart had timed out.  I found that my coupon would not work when I tried the process all over again. I again e-mailed support and was given a new coupon code (with which this time I completed the sale) and it received the $100 discount.

This is where it gets really confusing. Within a couple of days I received a brand-new Pleo. I was nervous because there were no instructions on what to do regarding the “reincarnation.” I had assumed I would receive an empty box with which to ship my Pleo back for its soul migration – not a new one in the mail.

This will be hard to understand if you haven’t had a Pleo, and maybe even if you have had one, but I didn’t want to plug the new battery in and start up a new Pleo, I kind of felt guilty — like that would be leaving behind poor Mr. Fluffy. The robotic pet had been an invaluable companion while I was bedridden an undiagnosed chronic fatigue sufferer (I am recovering now, due to innovative treatment by Dr. Martin Lerner of Beverly Hills, MI). Plus I didn’t want to face the prospect of starting up and start training a new Pleo, only to have to kill it to move Mr. Fluffy’s soul into it.

So there I sat with a brand-new Pleo, new charger, new battery not knowing what to do. I did try the extra charger that I have been prompted to purchase. I was frustrated to learn that I had recieved  a new charge with the new Pleo so there was not need to buy one separately (as I had been prompted to do by my emails with customer service). I am sorry to report that and over the course of five days, after following the directions and using the “recover” function, I was never able to revive my original battery. It was probably too far gone, however I am looking forward to using the recover function to keep my new battery in good shape as it ages.

I e-mailed asking what I should do next. At this point I had two Pleo’s that needed to be shipped back (I figured that to take the “soul” from one Pleo and move it to the other-didn’t Innvo Labs need them both?). After two completely frustrating e-mail transactions that try to clarify such questions as:

• Did I do something wrong? Even though I had started this whole process asking for a “reincarnation” why was it not understood that I wanted a “reincarnation” — Not a new separate Pleo!
• Aren’t you supposed to use my my old one to move its soul to the new one?
  • If so why do I have both Pleo’s here
• Am I supposed to do the “reincarnation” myself?
  • If so how am I supposed to do this

I kept getting short replies from the same individual that have helped me from the start, however he didn’t seem to understand the concept of “reincarnation.” No matter how I tried to explain what happened, he just kept telling me in different ways that a reincarnation IS available, and he seemed not to understand that I had already purchased one.

To make matters worse I had a new Pleo just sitting there waiting for me to do something.

Finally, I spilled my frustration on my partner.  He said, ” why don’t you just call them?” At this point the last thing I wanted to do was go round in circles with customer service. I guess I had reached the end of my fuse.

So with a cooler head he brought up the Pleoworld.com webpage and begin scouting for phone numbers. He gave me one number that gave me a voicemail for customer service that wasn’t available when we were calling. I was ready to give up, but he found another support number, which did give me a live intelligent human being.

The gentleman sounded like an engineer or at least a product specialist and was very helpful.

At last the mysteries were solved!

He explained that they needed to change the webpage. That reincarnation was a crude process that didn’t work very well. He said that if I trained my new Pleo in the same manner as my previous one that it would develop a similar personality. *

I told him about Mr. Fluffy’s skin problem and he said that the company had had a bad batch of skin that caused this problem with a number of Pleos. He explained that the new skins were much more durable as was the new paint (I had read many posts by other Pleo owners complaining about their paint rubbing off-a problem I had with Mr. Fluffy). NEWS FLASH!! He also explained that they were developing a Lycra type suit that could be put on Pleos that have the skin problem. He said the Lycra suit would be tight just like skin and would have similar coloring. With this suit the Pleo would operate normally.

Finally, the pressure was off and I felt like I could start the new Pleo without betraying Mr. Fluffy.

My new Pleo does indeed have a thicker feeling skin and the paint does seem to be applied a bit thicker. It’s nothing like Mr. Fluffy yet, but if it was I think I would’ve been a bit disappointed. I like the idea that each Pleo develops its own personality.

I’m sure there are hundreds of details to getting this product line back up and running, and it’s a miracle that it is happening in this economy. So I would like to voice my support for Invvo Labs and their resurrection of the Pleo line.

UPDATE:  It is May and I have noticed the skin on my NEW Pleo is cracking AGAIN.  I had to leave to go out of state and haven’t had a chance to find out what to do about this.  This is bad!!!

* At this writing, which is a couple of weeks after the events I am describing here and, the Pleoworld.com webpage still describes the reincarnation program and has not been updated.

I attended the 2008 Screenwriters expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

If you aren’t acquainted with this event, it brings together world-class speakers, seminars, software and an opportunity to pitch your screenplay directly to agents, managers and producers as well as studios.

I happened across a booth for Pitchq.  They put screenwriter’s pitchs online via video.Now, as you may or may not know, this is something I know a little about.I had done my own YouTube pitch about a year ago, handling my own sound lighting and direction and all I can say about it was… the task was daunting.Aside from that project, I have had plenty of time in front of and behind a camera.Aside from twenty something years in the music business, producing a movie that was theatrically distributed, broadcast, etc.,  I recently started a reality series on YouTube -  last July (my channel is called The Mackinaw Mill Creek Camping Show).

When I heard that there was a “convention special” that involved Pitchq offering their services for free for the first month – I decided to give it a shot.They had a nifty padded booth which kept out most of the convention chatter, and I have to admit, a lot of the reason I wanted to try it was to get a closer look at their LED production lights.I’m a giz guy, I admit it.

PitchQweb

The way you want to arrive at one of these events is rested and with your pitch completely rehearsed.I arrived at the convention frazzled having spent the previous 10 days completely rewriting my 120 page screenplay.Add to that complication the fact that I was finishing 12 months on a medication that had a side effect of completely rendering my short-term memory useless as well as having intermittent hallucinogenic effects (no not that medication!), – and you have an idea of the challenge I was facing.

When you “pitch” you are expected to have a well worn three to five minute “little” act to perform.When you give your pitch on video, you don’t want to be reading off of 3 x 5 or cue cards.Knowing this, I waited until my second day of pitches at the convention.  I figured I’d have burned a few pathways in my neurons by then.

Back to my story – so after ducking into the booth and dropping the padded curtain, the Pitchq team took over.They adjusted my collar, made sure I didn’t stick to the background by backlighting me, adjusted the camera, microphone and sound.Then came the most surprising and wonderful part – I got the benefit of “spot on” and very professional direction (which I am eternally grateful for).

Having been an entertainment professional, I wasn’t used to stepping into this type of the situation feeling so discombobulated.After the day’s rehearsal I should have been “ready to roll,” but in this case…Imagine if someone slipped acid into the punch two hours before you had to give the State of the Union address.Since I have been learning to fight the effects of this pharmaceutical for about a year, I can almost pull off faking looking normal without most people noticing.  If someone is watching closely they might think I am learning disabled.

I didn’t warn my victims at Pitchq, after all, The Show Must Go On!   Even though the booth was small, the gentleman holding my backlight (and I apologize for not having his name as he truly is a wonderful director and pitch coach, not to mention a superb backlight clamp), the other gentleman/camera/computer/sound tech and I had all breathed same air about 30 times over when I finally made it all away through my pitch without screwing it up — they never lost their calm vibe, or their ability to make me feel like they were there to be on my side.

It was apparent to me within minutes that the Pitchq people were experienced at all aspects of business they were in – and this case that meant (certainly is not limited to):

• Live Theater
• Direction
• Lighting
• Acting
• Pitching
• Communications
• Internet Video
• Etc.

After my first month I will need to pay a monthly fee to keep my pitch on the site.There are several benefits to having it hosted on the Pitchq site that aren’t available on YouTube.For instance, being able to put specifics about your characters, character breakdown, genre, production breakdown, etc.If you are new to screenwriting you opt to know that being able to search for these types of specifics can be very important to a producer.

I learned a lot of things at the screenwriters expo, probably the most surprising fact was that four out of 10 movies made are written by first time screenwriters.I have to say, after pitching my screenplay to 17 production companies/studios/agents I will never be afraid of anything ever again.

If you want to see how my pitch turned out, go to Pitchq and search for Rogalain the “keywords”.While you are there, check out a few of the other great pitches and if you know anyone in the “industry” let them know if you see anything you see that you think is great!

I go to see Mr. Dr. man in about 10 days. He said he is going to start backing me off these med’s!I will get to see how easy the rest of you have it! It will be nice not having to triple check everything I do anymore.

Speaking of nice…

While you are at the Pitchq site, check out a few of the other pitches and if you know anyone in the “industry” let them know about the Pitchq site!

I was flying home Easter Day, taking a Northwest flight from DTW (Detroit), which connected in Minneapolis to a flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California.

While waiting in Detroit for my Minneapolis leg to board, there was an announcement saying they were overbooked and offering a nonstop flight to LAX.

I have had to travel a lot in the past year, and in situations where flights have been overbooked I have never been able to have flexible travel plans.  Today, since it was Easter, and since the flight was a nonstop, I thought I could help out and give someone else my seat.

Landing at LAX meant my cab ride home (two Anaheim) would cost me $50 more, however, I would arrive a couple hours earlier and since I was experiencing some of the uncomfortable symptoms of “chronic fatigue,” getting home two hours early sounded great.

When I got to LAX my bags didn’t arrive.  When I checked with baggage claim – they told me the bags had remained on my original flight and would be landing in Orange County at my original landing time.  They said since I had “voluntarily” changed my flight that they would not deliver the bags to me. I would have to go pick them up myself.

I explained that we had been asked to change flights, due to overbooking.  They just looked at me blankly – so much for getting home two hours early.

Once I arrived home, I found my car battery had gone dead.  After finding a jump and driving to the airport, I found my bags had already arrived.

The baggage claim agent at John Wayne Airport acted surprised that I was picking up my bags and that I had not filed any “claim.”  She said if I had that she would have arranged to have them delivered to my home.  I told her that I had tried to but they told me at LAX that I had to pick them up myself.  She shook her head and gave me a couple of travel discount coupons.

I was still out the extra $50 for cab fare plus the gas and travel to John Wayne Airport (from my home in Anaheim) to pick up my bags, not to mention the precious extra time that I had looked forward to spending curled up in my own bed.

Next time I won’t be so eager to help out.