While I haven’t updated the blog recently, there has been so much work finished and things enhanced. Clever Tools is really looking amazing and I think you guys will love it.

I hate writing, but I understand the necessity to do so. I have had a lot of people email asking if we are still alive. The answer: YES! I had one person say that not updating your blog “make(s) you look like web 2.0 roadkill”. He is absolutely right and I apologize for not updating. Over the next few weeks I will be posting a set of articles called ‘Features at a Glance’. These will be short blog updates that show you an important feature or section of Clever Tools complete with screenshots.

I appreciate the continued support and interest in Clever Tools. With being a small company with very little funding (compared to a lot of competitors), we are working hard to get the project off the ground. I have to work at another job as a project manager in web development in order to make ends meet while I dump time and money into Clever Tools. I believe in Clever Tools and everyone who has gotten a sneak peak thinks it is great, which is why I continue to pour so much of myself into this project. I admit that if we had taken the VC funding that people were interested in giving, we would probably be done now. But, taking VC funding limits your options. I really want Clever Tools to be a community where the users have a say in how they want Clever Tools to evolve. We will be listening to our users and using tools to evaluate feedback and interest. So, unlike other companies, we will care about your opinion and do our best to provide you with great customer service.

Thanks again and a happy New Year to all.

Jason

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One of our goals is to make Clever Technology extremely easy to use with your current routine. We will be developing different interfaces that make it easier for you to use Clever Tools. Things like a Mac dashboard widget, Adobe AIR full program of CT, Outlook plugin, ect. We have started off with this Adobe AIR time tracking widget that works with PC and Mac. It in theory should work with Linux as well, but we have not tested it there. Any one have Linux and want to give it a quick test for us? Please leave a comment or use the contact us tab up top.

Here is the default view of the timer:

As the timer runs, the status bar updates in real time. You can start the timer without having it assigned to any project or task. In the drop downs you select the project and then all the tasks associated with that project are available to select. By default the description section is hidden to reduce clutter on the screen. Below are some more screenshots of the widget with the description box show, the status bar when you are over time budgeted, and what it looks like when a time entry is saved.

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Hello Everyone,

I realize it has been awhile since I last posted. I also know our time table for launch is off. Some major things have been happening here. Clever Tools parent company, Clever Technology LLC, received outside funding from an investor. This new influx of capital allowed us to do some new and cool things with Clever Tools. We did a lot of experiential and strategic research to determine why the current project management solutions fail to meet our needs and the needs of others. We identified some key aspect and have modified Clever Tools to fill those gaps. Along with that, we developed a new business process for online applications that we are in the process of patenting. We also have changed the Clever Tools business plan a tad. I hope to have more information soon. Suffice to say, we are here and working hard. We are EXTREMELY excited about the new direction and ideas Clever Tools has taken. We really think you will like it a lot!

Also, our investor, brings a lot of great experience to the table. With over 10 years of experience being the CEO of a major online business, we are very happy to have him on board.

I want to thank all of those who have signed up over the months who are interested in Clever Tools. Thank you also for your patience. Please stay tuned for more information! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or use the ‘Contact Us’ tab up top. I will respond personally to all inquiries.

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Hello Everybody,

There has been a lot of things happening around Clever Technology and our product Clever Tools recently. Some great press and insight over at Read/Write Web among other things. But the most exciting news is our private beta will start in one week exactly. That is October 1st.

We will invite 50 users from our beta invite list to begin testing Clever Tools to help us iron out the big bugs like sign up issues, compatibility issues with browsers, ect. Once we have worked through those, we will invite a larger number of people, see how our server handles them, and then invite more. So, those of you who who expressed interest in testing Clever Tools all those months ago will get to use it first.

As the article at Read/Write Web states, we will be releasing two tools to begin with- Project Management and Time Tracking. These tools will have no restrictions as of now and will be fully functional. There are still a few features we would like to add to them, but they will work great for what they are trying to accomplish.

I look forward to hearing your feedback and working with you. Thanks for signing up and I will see you in the beta!

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One of the best things about developing Clever Tools is listening to user problems and finding ways to help solve them. There is a local company here in San Diego that does web hosting, domains, VOIP, and other things. I am friends with the owners as I used to work for the company. They have a programming department and this department is assigned to different projects at one time. They were having trouble tracking where programmers were spending time and having issues trying to assign them to do xx hours here and xx hours on this project each week. So, basically they wanted the programmers to work a set amount of hours on this project and a certain on this task. So, we created a solution for this and also for users who want to reach goals.

Clever Tool’s time tracking tool now supports goal tracking. Project managers can assign goals to a user and track how well they are reaching these goals. For example, the project manager can set two goals for a user: work at least 10 hours on task a and 4 on task b in a time period of a week. These goals now show up in their account and each time they record time against a task, the goal is updated to reflect the status. This goal is showed graphically depicting how many hours they have completed toward the goal and how much time is left in the period to complete those goals. Project Managers can run reports to see who is reaching their goals and what percentage of these goals are they reaching. Goals can also be assigned to groups. Users can also create their own goals to help themselves to track time and goals. User generated goals are not shown to project managers. You can also look at the history for that goal and see how have you done in the past.

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It’s always fun to look in your referrer logs and see where your traffic is coming from. Recently we were added to Mashables Online Tools for businesses. This is a huge honor to us, as we are big Mashable Fans! Also, we got some coverage at CSS Juice (site links currently not working), which I had never heard of before. But, it is a really great blog and we have subscribed to their RSS feed.

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I thought I would take some time to show you how our file management system in Clever Tools works. Instead of using words, I have uploaded a screencast. The file manager is such a breeze to use and I think, very functional. Watch the video and judge for yourself. Note: It has audio.

Watch the video - Click Here

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I know our about page is pretty bare right now- I’m working on getting Andrew to write about himself- he’s shy. But, here is some information about Clever Tools, myself, and about being an entrepreneur. Here is the link.

P.S. I love the line in the interview where they say “A web application that might become the productivity Swiss Army Knife for freelance programmers”. Dead on.

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So, I used to think Open ID was not worth all the hype there is around it. But, I realized that atleast 2 times a day I am recovering a username or password from a site. Everyone has different requirements for usernames and passwords, so I sometimes forget what I signed up with. If all these sites supported Open ID, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Open ID is not going to be forced upon users as the only way to sign up and login. It is an option in congruence or instead of a standard username and password. Also, if you login to Clever Tools using Open ID, that tab will be defaulted on the sign in page anytime you come back. This should make it convenient for everyone.

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Occasionally, we will be posting previews of Clever Tools. We will highlight specific features, show you sketches, mockups, and final products. We thought we would kick this off by showing you the general look of the GUI for Clever Tools. The preview we are showing has no content to fill it. It looks much better with content. We will show you more along those lines soon.

The original mockup:

Now, I did this mockup. I have very limited Photoshop skills as I am more the ideas guy. This was based off another application I had developed for myself. The icons were borrowed from an open source groupware application.

The intermediate mockup:

A graphic designer took my mockup and we improved on it some more. This was a great step up, but I was still not exactly happy.

The final result:

The intermediate mockup was given to Andrew and he enhanced and tweaked it until we got something we absolutely loved. There are some noticeable changes and some some minor ones as well. Probably one of the best additions is the project selector which you can see at the top of this screenshot. We will cover that in more depth later.

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