This is the 3 channel RC glider I’m building. Getting there. Just a bit more structure and some electrical/mechanical work, then I can cover it! Looking forward to throwing it off a cliff after 6 months work!

Bellow you can see I’m starting to fit the electronics. It’ll be a squish in there but we’ll get it all in hopefully! Thinking of adding a small USB camera  ;-)

This is the other plane. It’s a trainer and regularly gets smashed up  ;-)

PS: Not all are like this – some are great, but most web design companies have at least a few clients like this.   Enjoy!!

About The Author:
Julian Stone is the CEO of ProActive Software, developers and creators of the leading web based project management software http://www.proworkflow.com.

But look at the sample comment! haha! eh? What?

I guess people should be a little more professional when adding product  screenshots and make sure the integrity of the data matches the integrity of the app! This just looks tacky and unprofessional.

(Spot the one man band!)

The comment says:

Hello Ladies…

Look at your man, now back to me, now back to your man, now back to ME. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using other Basecamp apps and switched to Headquarters, he could work like he’s me.

Where are you? You’re on a boat with the man you man could work like.

What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it/ It’s two tickets to the thing you love. Look again. The tickets ARE NOW DIAMONDS.

Seriously, that  a weird sample comment there…

Article:
”Hacking the iPhone App Store’s Ranking Algorithm”

They seem to have a really good handle on what’s going on and I guess it’s really easy to pull statistics and trends from hundreds and thousands of downloads but what I’d really like to know is how to market an iPhone app that is non-viral. ie: Project management apps like our ProWorkflow iPhone app.

We’re doing ok and there have been thousands of downloads, but I want to find out more about marketing lower traffic but more commercial applications through the App Store. Let me know your thoughts and I’ll compile a blog post abut it.

In the meantime here’s the SlideShare presentation from ReadWriteWeb. It’s a good read and great analysis.

No huge scoping documents, documentation, peer reviews, industry research, tight visuals or anything! No large teams of usability experts or developers – just two hardworking bootstrappers (working remotely from each other) with a loose idea, a few pencil sketches, and understanding partners who let us work all hours to turn the idea into what is now the ProWorkflow project management solution. A world class tool managing huge amounts of customer info globally.

We’re now a tight team managing critical info daily for thousands of people worldwide. They depend on us to deliver results daily and we do. They expect the solution to work reliably daily and it does. We deliver the goods and have done for years.

Below are some of the original design sketches sent to Alan to work on. We just communicated lots, built the app and then started to build a business!

Now we have:

• Thousands of users globally
• 629,022 projects created
• 2,620,234 tasks created
• 9,349,890 hours tracked
• $301,762,038 has been invoiced through ProWorkflow
  (Note: these are from live accounts and don’t include trials)
• An awesome team in 2x offices
• A pile of servers
• An iPhone App (One of the top in our industry)
• Time Tracking Widget
• Integration with Xero, QuickBooks and Kashflow
• 3x plans for different account sizes
• Support, Help site, Videos, Blog etc
• A professional and robust API
• Most backend systems we have built and automated (including multicurrency recurring account billing)

This post should also be a little encouragement to people that you can build a world class solution and business from nothing. We did this with no debt or funding – only sweat equity! Just some smarts and hard work.
.

Collaboration Concept:

The basic idea behind ProWorkflow is that Staff, Clients, and Contractors can login to one place, see their work and all work on the same page. Essentially all working on the same project together.

The ProWorkflow tool makes sure all the permissions are under control so people only see what they need to see and can only access what they need to access.

We manage project in 2 screens when most other solutions take up to 10+ screens to do the same thing! Here’s a few of my early sketches to figure our our core process/permissions model.

The first Visuals!

Below are some of the very first ProWorkflow visuals as supplied to Alan (Cofounder) to develop.

Job (Project) Page:

This is the original ‘Projects Page’. Pretty loose visual, but it’s quite funny seeing that we used to have the navigation on the right. It’s all a heap more professional and powerful now.

Job (Project) Details:

In the original version you would expand the Job to see the details. Nowadays we click through to a new ‘Project Details Page’. This old version was pretty basic.

Timesheet Page:

This is still pretty much the same concept so I think it must be time to rethink this page using some new technology available.

Contacts Page:

This has been extended somewhat…

Notes Page:

Pretty simple really. Not much to say here…

Calendar Page:
And my all time favourite development visual – the ‘Calendar page’. Brilliant! The developer (Alan) must have loved me for sending this brief. I think developers must have great patience at times to put up with designers like me  ;-).  Sheeesh!

I’ll see what else we can find in the cupboard from the ‘early days’ that can be blogged. Possibly real screenshots of version 1.0?

Check out http://www.archipod.co.uk/

I do realise that not everyone hangs on everything I have to say, but for those out these who leap out of bed in the morning just to hear my thoughts on things, here’s your very own “Julian101 iPhone app!”

Keep me in your pocket! Show me to your friends (and followers)! And let me keep you updated with my latest ramblings! I’ll be sharing thoughts on business, design, creativity and to be honest, whatever comes to mind!

Download Now!

Am I right in assuming that monthly…

• 200,000,000 downloads p/m x 1/4 = 50,000,000 paid downloads
• 50,000,000 paid downloads x Av $2.59 = $129,500,000 Income
• $129,500,000 x 70% = $90,650,000 Income to Developers
• $90,650,000 Income to Developers / 28,000 Developers equals…
• Total: $3,237 per Developer
• = $38,850 per year!

I’m not going to make any conclusions here but am keen to hear what other people think of this. Is that level of average revenue enticing enough to make writing iPhone App’s worthwhile? Would you quit your development job yet to develop iPhone apps?

Remember I’m talking here about average apps, not the odd successful iPhone apps that sell millions… Like this, this and this.

Awesome! After about 6 months hard work and testing, the ProWorkflow native iPhone app is now live and available in the iPhone App Store!

I’m really proud of our ProWorkflow team and the dev team at Curious Media. Curious Media are PWF customers that developed the app in conjunction with the PWF guys. They all put in solid effort to plan, design, develop, test and document this app.

The iPhone app will add some awesome value to our user base and extend the ProWorkflow application’s use past the desktop to anywhere people are connected! This is a first release so we’ll be looking for feedback to develop the solution further.

Although there was significant cost to develop, we have decided to make this app free so it’s easy to download and deploy for all ProWorkflow users and their staff.

Richard has added an iPhone App section to our Help Center to help users get the iPhone app up and running.

Make sure you spread the word! Tell your workmates, friends, colleagues, business contacts, clients, contractors and anyone you can think of!

Download Now!

I’m guessing they must have screwed the contractor who did the signwriting. Alternatively some twit added the small pics next to the bigger ones. Either way it’s pretty funny (and sad). Take a look at the pics below.

And here’s the close-ups of the signs…

Above: Women and very small kids with two heads.
Below: Men with scared, pleading children. haha…