FadingRed

Reconciling in Koku 2.5

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:14:09 -0500

We have gotten a lot of emails regarding the removal of our previous reconciliation functionality within Koku. We found that most users requested that we provide a heartier method to this approach, so we are taking the opportunity to reevaluate how we could provide reconciliation in the future.

For now we would recommend this fast and easy approach to for those who use this functionality within Koku to utilizing the blue “unseen/seen” indicators as well as the ability to lock transactions.

Blue “Unseen/Seen” Indicator

Blue dots appear when you import transactions from a file or when your bank provides new transactions on the server and they are downloaded into Koku. The blue dots are referring to transactions that have not been “seen” yet.

If you click on a transaction to edit the note or add tags, you’ll notice that the blue dot is no longer visible. You can reset the blue dot by right clicking the transaction and choosing > Mark as Unseen. These blue dots can be a great reference to those transactions that still need your attention.

(Hint - you can use the keyboard shortcut ⌘K to quickly mark transactions as unseen or seen.)

Locking your Transactions

Once all of your transactions have been cleared and tagged, there is functionality within Koku to lock these transactions. You can lock transactions by right clicking the transaction and choosing > Mark As Locked.

Locked transactions will turn grey and cannot be edited until you unlock them. This can help you to distinguish alongside the blue dots of new transactions what still needs to be cleared.

(Hint - to unlock a transaction right click the transaction and choose > Mark as Unlocked or use keyboard shortcut ⌘ L)

If you have any questions about this functionality please do not hesitate to contact our support team at support@fadingred.com.

Diversity in Technology

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:53:24 -0500

I’ve been a software developer for quite a long time now. Over the years I’ve worked with people from different backgrounds who have varying beliefs. The field of technology is full of eccentric people, but to say it is diverse is far from true. US companies that employ programmers constantly face diversity challenges. One of the most obvious challenges is getting women and other minorities involved in our field.

I’m fortunate to work with five other really smart people at FadingRed, but our programming force is still skewed. Out of our 4 developers, Brittany Tarvin, who co-founded our company, is the only woman (though our designer is learning to program). Not satisfied with the status quo, she’s been taking small steps to raise awareness and interest for women in technology.

This month CocoaConf, a conference for Mac, iPhone, and iPad developers came to Chicago. This conference featured speakers who talked about the nitty-gritty technical details of development. Brittany and I were both invited to speak at the conference, and Brittany was asked to give a keynote presentation on women in technology. Her courage to stand up in front of a room full of ninety percent men and tell her story inspired great hallway conversations from the attendees of the conference. I’ve learned from my past experiences with men in technology that some understand that there’s an issue that needs to be addressed, and others don’t. Occasionally, I’ve had a hard time conveying the importance of focusing on diversity with other men. But after Brittany’s keynote, everyone at the conference was convinced. People were talking about how diversity affects small companies, getting kids involved in programming at a younger age, among other topics. The discussions were nothing but positive and very uplifting. I’ve been left with a lot of hope about where things could be in a few years.

Shortly after the conference, I attended the launch party for Girl Develop It in Chicago. Girl Develop It is an organization that focuses on teaching women how to program, and it is a very inclusive organization that accepts anyone as students, teachers, or mentors. Chicago has been increasingly becoming a technology hub, and the turnout of nearly 100 women (and approximately 7 men) interested in technology and learning to write code excited me. I had the opportunity to talk to women who were learning different programming languages and some who hadn’t started yet, but were looking for advice on where to start. Every woman I talked to was extremely excited about learning more about technology. If you’re in the Chicago area and interested in learning to program, check out Girl Develop It.

This month has been full of positive experiences for me, and I’m excited about the future as our community continues to work together toward increasing diversity.

Thoughts on How Some Companies Hire Software Developers

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:58:34 -0600

A year and a half ago I was in the market for a new job as a software developer. I already had a stable job at the time, and although I was working remotely and felt rather isolated, I wasn’t outright desperate to find something different. That is to say, I wasn’t prepared to jump ship for just any new position. Now after 18 months at FadingRed I can say without reservation that I made a good decision. However, I do have an observation from the job hunting process that I’ve continued to mull over for some time.

One pattern I noticed was that some companies would effectively state in their developer job postings that the ideal candidate would live and breathe the technology in question. The expectation seemed to be that it would be her one motivation in life. Immediately upon returning home from work, she would fire up her own computer and do more of exactly the same work. There would simply be no stopping her. If the job posting would mention any kind of breadth, it was often simply a matter of more of the same: familiarity with slightly different programming languages, slightly different application libraries, slightly different platforms.

On the one hand, I can see that the intention might be to find someone who is actually serious about the work being offered, which is not an unreasonable goal. However, it comes across as a search for someone whose drive and motivation can be easily exploited. The thinking appears to be that, hey, the candidate would do this work on his own even if he weren’t being paid, so not only can we probably get him for cheap, but he also might just be willing to work eighty hours a week without complaint.

There are numerous problems with this mindset. The very first is that even if a company does manage to find a developer fitting that criteria, he will very likely burn out in short order. Thereafter, all the productivity the company dreamed he would provide with his manic zeal will simply plummet, or else he will just end up looking for a new job. At that point, every single penny invested in hiring him and building up his knowledge to be a productive member of the company will be lost. Furthermore, whatever work he did end up completing during his tenure will then need to be maintained by someone else, someone who will need to spend many hours trying to read and understand his code without being able to ask him for clarification about how this or that part of it was intended to work.

Another problem is perhaps more insidious but more difficult to quantify. A job candidate that is so deeply focused on one small area of technology has an increased risk of missing the forest for the trees or of staying the course and being left behind when the industry moves on to new things. Wikipedia has a nice rewording of a somewhat overused and thus trite, albeit relevant, proverb: If a person is familiar with a certain, single subject, they may have a confirmation bias to believe that it is the answer to everything.¹

I find it odd that in technology circles I rarely hear of what appears to be a common idea in design fields, which is that of the T-shaped designer. This is someone who has deep knowledge of and expertise in at least one area of her field (represented by the vertical stroke of the T), but also a very broad, general understanding of many other topics beyond that area of expertise (the horizontal stroke). The expertise allows her to accomplish real work. Meanwhile, having broad knowledge helps her to discover new paths to accomplishing tasks for which the traditional or well known methods might for some reason not be optimal or appropriate.

I’m hardly the first to say it, but it bears repeating since I don’t believe it to be fully accepted or understood within many companies: software development is primarily a creative or design process. It is quite distinct from production work, on which much of management teaching seems to have been focused for most of the last century.² Production in the software world is nothing more than a file copy or download. At the most antiquated, it’s another pressing of a CD or DVD.

Indeed a great deal of software development work involves doing something new and different, each and every time. It might be slightly different or entirely different. If it were exactly the same, then one need but reuse verbatim the very same code written the last time it was required. Doing so would effectively be nothing more than selling or distributing one more copy of the most recently released product, and if that were sufficient then there would no longer be any need to hire or retain software developers. Instead the developer finds herself in situations where she must constantly generate new and different work, which requires continual decision making and weighing of the advantages and disadvantages of any given approach. Again, having broad experience allows for insights that help her better navigate that decision making process, which will ultimately lead to higher quality products which more strongly benefit the company.

Ultimately I believe that job postings that show a preference for single minded developers with narrow interests show little respect for the candidates being sought, as well as a lack of understanding of what will actually be beneficial for the company itself. Such postings are painfully indicative of the type of organization that is doing the hiring and of what it might be like to work for them. A healthy company must have respect for its employees, and I do mean all employees even though my focus has been on software developers. This respect can then be reciprocated by the employee through motivation, enthusiasm and productive, high quality work, which is absolutely in the company’s very best interest.

1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_all_you_have_is_a_hammer,_everything_looks_like_a_nail

2. See Chapter 2 of Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister.

Tis the season!

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 13:49:18 -0600

With the Apple review team out for the holidays, and the FadingRed team visiting with their families, it’s a great time to reflect on the importance of finding balance. We have a unique freedom at FadingRed which allows us to take unlimited, untracked, vacation time during the year and every holiday season I am reminded how important that is to personal happiness. As much as we love our jobs, it’s so important to take a step back, enjoy the people around us, clear our minds, and just enjoy the moment!

It’s not just about vacation days though, it’s about having the ability to shut your work mind down like you do your office computer, and appreciate everything else in your life. It’s also a great time of year to reflect on everything we are thankful for. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to work on making exceptional software for our phenomenal clients and customers all year long. Thank you to everyone who has supported this team, our products, and our people.

We wish everyone a happy holiday season with work email disabled!

The holiday season is upon us!

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:49:00 -0600

The holiday season is upon us! With Black Friday kicking off the shopping season at the end of the week, Koku is the perfect way to keep your finances organized. With specialized tagging and reporting, you can see how, where and for whom you spent your money while you were shopping!

For example, you can tag transactions with specific names so that you can see how much you spent on each of your loved ones this season. By tagging transactions with specified store names, you can also see where you spent your money based on location. You can also take advantage of Smart Lists to keep your holiday shopping information all in one place. A Smart List gives you the ability to apply flexible and powerful filters to your data to create custom lists for specific types of transactions. This means you can take control of your holiday finances and be able to evaluate your spending using hard data!

Koku 2 - a new iPhone app, and more!

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:31:50 -0500

On October 11th we introduced Koku for iPhone and also updated Koku for Mac with some exciting new features. Thanks to Koku for iPhone you can now stay on top of your spending while hitting the town. And with iCloud syncing support, your data stays up to date whether you’re at home or on the go. Koku reports have also been enhanced so they are even more powerful and intuitive.

In addition, we were thrilled to have Koku featured in the Mac App Store during our launch week and were listed in the New and Noteworthy sections of both App Stores. We’re extremely proud of this accomplishment and excited to get a year’s worth of hard work into the hands of our wonderful users!

Koku is currently on sale through December 1st at a reduced price of $14.99 for Mac and $1.99 for iPhone. If you’ve already purchased Koku and are enjoying it, please consider writing us a review in the App Store! This lets our team know how we’re doing and helps other people get a sense of what it’s like to manage money with Koku.

As always, another major update is behind us but we are far from finished. Some really exciting and highly requested features for Koku are already in the works for upcoming releases. We are also always reviewing feedback and working to make all our products even better. Please get in touch with us if you have any comments or questions to share with the team!

We hope you enjoy Koku 2!

Website Design Overhaul

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:42:45 -0500

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak at a local mobile developer conference, WindyCityGo, run by some delightful Chicagoans. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this conference as well, which gave me the opportunity to soak up some knowledge from other members of the mobile field. Much of this interdisciplinary conference was focused on technical aspects of platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. But the talk that stood out in my mind was Jason Vanlue’s talk on mobile web design.

While I listened to the talk, I kept thinking about our company’s website which had not received an update since early 2010. The design was nice, but was starting to show its age. Specifically, we hadn’t thought about how it would look on mobile devices during that design iteration (because we didn’t have any mobile products at the time). So while Jason was talking about designing from the content out and designing for mobile first, I was nodding my head and thinking, when can I start re-designing our site?

Shortly after the conference, I found some free time and started working through some design ideas that I had. At this point, the a new version of Koku was well underway, and we had already updated the copy for the Koku page to incorporate new features and highlight the new iPhone version of Koku. I took Jason’s advice and designed from this content out, adding details and interest only once the text looked really good on all devices. The result was fantastic. After a day or two of working on it, I had something that looked great and was functional enough to show the rest of the team. They loved it! But no design is complete without a few nit-picks, and with those ironed out we were ready to launch a completely overhauled site that looks wonderful both on your desktop and on your mobile device.

What you see before you is a result of this design overhaul. Take a look around, and I hope you like it as much as we do!

The new Koku Blog

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:25:51 -0500

We get up every day and actively work on making managing your money easier and a better experience. So naturally, we spend a lot of time thinking about all kinds of personal finance topics that will hopefully be of use to our customers. We are passionate about personal money management.

With that in mind, we are happy to announce that Koku now has its very own blog on all things personal finance! Have you ever wondered why banks charge you fees to hold on to YOUR money? Remember when you accepted your first full time salaried job and your employer mentioned that you can take advantage of the company’s 401(k)? The Koku blog will help demystify all these topics and more!

We’d love to hear about what you’d like to know about personal finance! Feel free to send all questions, comments and ideas to @kokuapp.

Happy Holidays from FadingRed!

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:42:00 -0600

It’s that time of year again! We’ve decked out our office with twinkle lights, a mini red tree, and we’re all planning some good ol’ quality time with family and friends. This is also a great time of year for our customers as well. Both Senuti and Koku come in extra handy this time of year and we’re always excited to be able to add some productivity to the holidays.

We love Senuti around the holidays because it makes the hassle of populating your brand new MacBook Air with all your favorite tunes a breeze. You can simply plug in any iPod, iPhone, or iPad device, hit transfer, and start listening to music, playlists, or even watching videos without the trouble of computer to computer transfer. No need to stress on Christmas morning!

Koku is especially useful during the holidays with all that shopping. We love how you can quickly see the purchases you’ve made, tag them, and then analyze your spending to see how much you’ve shelled out so far. If you’ve been using Koku for awhile now, you can even go back and see how much you spent last holiday season, to give yourself a gage for this year’s shopping spree. No stressing about how much money is in your account, it’s all right there at your fingertips!

We hope everyone enjoys this wonderful time of year. Make sure to take the time to stop and appreciate everyone in your life.

Cheers,

The FadingRed Team

Compatibility with Mac OS X Lion

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:25:25 -0500

Today Apple released OS X Lion via the Mac App Store. We are happy to announce that Koku, Senuti and iColors are all compatible with the latest version of Mac OS X Lion.

With the release of Lion, Senuti will no longer be providing support for users running OS X 10.4 as of October 20, 2011. We will continue to support users running OS X 10.4 until this date so please contact our support team if you have any questions or issues.

Koku 1.2 is released!

Sun, 01 May 2011 19:34:49 -0500

We’re excited to announce the release of Koku 1.2 today which adds several new features and enhancements. It is now possible to keep track of what happened to the cash in your wallet by creating a cash account, a new account type introduced in this release. In addition, we’ve done a major overhaul of the reporting functionality to bring you even more informative and insightful reports. The reporting updates include a new transaction view so you can reveal the transactions that make up any given report, as well as the ability to search a report’s transactions just like you can in the account view. In the distribution reports, we’ve greatly improved the way your data is organized to craft a more logical report. Each slice in the graph now represents an indivdual tag from your tagging history making the flow of money even easier to understand!

Our team has also been working hard to add new localizations to Koku. A new Spanish localization has been added in this release and Koku also currently supports German, Dutch, and Norwegian. We are excited to continue bringing Koku to more users around the world.

This release also includes several bug fixes and minor enhancements to keep things running smoothly.

We’re constantly working to improve Koku and would love to hear your thoughts! Shoot us an email to let us know how we’re doing or to share your ideas with our team!

The Mac App Store and Price Changes for 2011

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:48:48 -0600

Last week, Apple launched the Mac App Store with over 1,000 Mac apps available for sale, including our very own Koku! Koku is now available in the Mac App store for purchase at the price of $29.99 (USD) in addition to being available in the FadingRed store.

Whether you choose to purchase through the Mac App Store or through FadingRed, you will be receiving the same great product. Currently, there is no way to transfer purchases that were made through the FadingRed website to the Mac App Store, as this is not supported by Apple. Also, we continue to encourage all potential customers to try Koku for free by downloading the free trial from our website before deciding to purchase. It’s a great way to get a feel for whether the software will work for your needs.

In addition, we have made some pricing changes on the FadingRed store. Koku is now available for $29.99 through the FadingRed store (previously $32), and Senuti is now priced at $18.99 (previously $18). These changes reflect our attempt to maintain pricing consistency with the Mac App store and to avoid confusion for our customers.

Happy New Year!

Koku 1.1.3 Release

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:43:29 -0600

We are very happy to announce that on Monday we released Koku 1.1.3. This new version has implemented our users most requested feature - the ability to edit multiple transactions at once!

You may now also tab through transactions with ease. A crash was fixed while syncing multiple accounts and a bug was fixed while tabbing through fields while in the checking account.

There are also updates to the German and Norwegian localizations. Be sure to update to Koku 1.1.3 today!

Koku 1.1 Release

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:36:00 -0600

We are very excited today to announce our release of Koku 1.1, the first major update to our personal finance management application! Koku 1.1 includes considerable enhancements to the user interface, several new features, and an even simpler organization based on user feedback!

For example, this new release introduces a tag manager view which allows for a quick and easy review of all transactions associated with a given tag. The tag manager also has the ability to create, edit, and remove tags from the system all in one place!

The account view has also been completely re-designed to provide for even more efficient data entry, and includes the addition of a notes field on transactions. Throughout the application, helpful hints and links to online support pages have been added to assist you in learning the various new features with ease.

Another great feature of Koku 1.1 is that additional options have been added to the account view layout, providing you with the ability to customize the way you want to see your transactions displayed. Organization of accounts and reports is now even easier in version 1.1 thanks to the addition of folders for grouping items in the source list.

Finally, you’ll never have to worry about losing your library! You can now enable automatic backups to occur on a daily or weekly basis. This functionality is easily personalized through your Backup Preferences.

Koku is still available as a free trial for use of one checking, savings, or credit/debit account and does not expire. A license may be purchased at our store to manage multiple accounts (Koku requires Mac OS X version 10.6 or later).

As a final exciting update, FadingRed plans to submit Koku 1.1 to the new Mac App Store!!

Check out the release notes to see a full list of the new, amazing features! http://www.fadingred.com/koku/releases/

Race for the Cure

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:36:00 -0500

On Saturday September 25th, 2010, FadingRed participated in the Susan G. Komen Chicagoland Race for the Cure Against Breast Cancer. It was so amazing to see how many people had signed up for such a great and meaningful event!

Here’s a picture of all of us before the race began.

Koku Version 1.0.5 Release

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:04:04 -0500

This version fixes several key issues including:

Added basic applescript support
Fixed a bug with QIF importing
Fixed issue with backslashes at the end of tag names
Fixed a rare crash when editing tags
Fixed the QIF information link

Last Day for Koku Introductory Price 8/31/10

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:23:24 -0500

Tomorrow (8/31) is the last day to get Koku for the introductory price of $25! Take advantage of this great deal while it lasts! Starting September 1st, 2010 the regular purchasing price will be $32.

You can purchase Koku for $25 at https://www.fadingred.com/store/

50% Off For Students At iApps4Students

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:58:00 -0500

iApps4Students is having a Back to School SALE! From August 15th - September 1st 2010, Students can get BOTH Senuti and Koku for 50% off their normal price!!

Check out iApps4Students and see all the discounts you can rack up!

Introductory Koku Price ends 8/31

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:54:00 -0500

** LIMITED TIME OFFER ENDING **

GET KOKU FOR THE INTRODUCTORY PRICE OF $25 UNTIL AUGUST 31, 2010!!

You will want to take advantage because starting September 1st, 2010

the regular purchasing price will be $32.

You can purchase Koku for $25 at our store.

Introducing Koku!

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:39:39 -0500

We are proud to announce the release of our first stable version of Koku, version 1.0. Koku is a personal finance manager that’s actually fun to use! It includes a lot of exciting features like Direct Connect to automatically download account transactions, Smart Tagging to add multiple tags to each transaction, and custom, interactive reporting tools to help you analyze your spending and income habits.

For more information, visit the Koku page.

A free trial may be downloaded to track your first checking, savings, or credit card account, and does not expire. To use Koku with multiple accounts, you must purchase a license for $25 from our store.

Stay tuned, as more exciting features are in store!

You can also stay up to date by following Koku on Twitter!