MemberHub provides places for group members to connect and communicate, as well as tools for managing those members. It offers more features than such services as Convos and Tgethr, which we’ve looked at in the past.

Its core features are focused on easily sharing information and working collaboratively within groups, whether working online or via email. It is built around discussions and messaging, integrated file management and calendar functionality.

MemberHub is not a project management system, but it has functions not found in other group communication systems, like the ability to send out text messages from the app. This could be tremendously useful for both reminders and emergency notifications.

Thanks to the recent upgrade, administrators can now add members to a group without users needing to pre-register.

For larger groups, the process of managing members and hubs (or groups) within a business or organization has been simplified. Improvements to this area make working with the product much easier. MemberHub can manage members individually and as a part of multiple groups, which is one of the key differences between MemberHub and other collaboration tools I have seen.

As a user, I can now add multiple email addresses to my profile, to better facilitate being a part of multiple hubs or groups. Administrators can add members to the larger organization, and assign them later to individual sub-groups like Finance or Membership. Administrators can create subdomains with custom branding for each hub.

An organization of any size should see many benefits from implementing MemberHub. In my first review, I was impressed with its functionality as a communication platform. I still think that MemberHub is a great option for businesses, schools, non-profits, and churches. It’s now an even better option for larger groups.

MemberHub remains one of my favorite and most-recommended web services. I’m not aware of any other service that combines member management and online communications features as well.

MemberHub offers a free single-hub plan, and paid options ranging from $5 per month for 3 hubs and 30 people, to $149 per month for 1,000 people and unlimited hubs.

How are you keeping your group connected?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

• Enabling the Web Work Revolution
• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• Social Media in the Enterprise

Today’s acquisition is the latest in a series of acquisitions in the collaboration and web communications arenas, including Salesforce’s acquisition of the email contact management company Etacts, and Skype’s announcement that they are buying mobile video provider Qik.

Salesforce says that it plans to follow “the proven Facebook model of combining collaboration and communication into an integrated service.” With consumer sites like Facebook and Twitter creating expectations of real-time social sharing, it is important to incorporate such capabilities into the enterprise. A Dimdim acquisition seems to fit logically into that vision.

It appears likely that Salesforce will use the acquisition to add Dimdim’s presence and on-demand meeting and collaboration tools into Salesforce’s internal systems. At the recent GigaOM Net:Work Conference, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff discussed how they are using their Chatter tools internally to flatten the structure of their own organization, and to allow collaboration and communication across all parts of the company.

We’ve been fans of Dimdim as an easy-to-use and affordable screen-sharing and meeting service, and we’re sorry to see it being lost as an option. New account creation has already been disabled, and it appears that existing monthly accounts will only be available until March 15. Annual accounts will remain active until the current subscription period ends.

Have you used Dimdim? How will the acquisition affect you?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• Social Media in the Enterprise

My post garnered a lot of comments in response with some great tips and tricks from readers that I thought I would share with you.

The “Black Hole” of Minimized Windows

One of my issues was getting used to the Cmd-Tab functionality of Mac, compared to the Alt-Tab of Windows. While similar, the Mac Cmd-Tab doesn’t restore minimized windows; I’ve been struggling with the “black hole” that minimized windows seem to disappear into. You all came to the rescue though with these handy tips and tricks.

By far the most popular suggestion, and the one that I ultimately ended up using, is to use the “Hide” command or the Cmd-H shortcut to hide windows rather than minimize them. Not only does this remove the window from view but it also shifts the focus to the next application in the stack. This actually helped solve another issue, too, because I was still occasionally bitten by seeing what I believed to be the active window on my screen but having the Application Bar really focused on something else. Hiding the application works to resolve both issues for me.

There is one caveat, though (and I guess this could actually be seen as desirable): if you’re using an application like TweetDeck that is hidden and something happens that prompts a notification, it will bring that application to the forefront. I find this to be pretty distracting so have learned to continue to minimize those windows rather than hiding them.

Another very popular suggestion was to use the add-on utility Witch, which promises to make window switching fun.  I tried an evaluation of this utility and found it really useful, but found its plethora of options bit overwhelming, so I’ve settled on the more conventional shortcut hiding method. With Witch it is possible to completely customize how items appear, enable pop up previews and change the appearance of the app switching windows. I have a feeling that as I continue to become more comfortable and my needs increase this is something that I will be revisiting.

Other folks in the comments discussed using a combination of Exposé and Spaces. While I do like Exposé, Spaces just doesn’t seem to click with me. If I could segregate apps, or instances of apps, into different Spaces for different tasks, then I think it would be more useful to me.

Where Am I? How Did I Get Here?

I mentioned that I missed being able to see the full path for the current directory in Finder.  Commenter Ted provided the solution: In Finder, open a folder, go to the “View” Menu, then click “Show Path Bar.” This was exactly what I was looking for and really makes the structure of my data make more sense to me.

Where Did I Put that Menu?

With the separation of the Application menu and the program window, I got particularly perplexed when working with a second monitor attached. Having to look to another screen to the see the menu of the application  I’m currently using just never seemed right to me. Many of you suggested MenuEverywhere, which adds a staggering number of ways to add menus to just about anything, while another suggestion was Secondbar is more of a single tasker by adding a very useful duplicate of the menubar on the second screen.

Much like with a PC, I am finding that there are a staggering number of utilities designed to fill gaps and provide extra functionality to the OS, and a staggering number of ways to work with and around your process. I am thankful for all of your suggestions and hope you find them useful as well.

Share your Mac window management tips below.

Photo by Flickr user neys, licensed under CC 2.0

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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A shared wiki is the logical place to store this type of information. A wiki is accessible to anyone on the team; a good wiki will become the clearinghouse for any and all information that needs to be documented. While there are many wiki packages, after a diligent search we chose editme.

I had identified a few very specific needs when looking for our wiki solution:

WYSIWYG Editor. Even as a tech-savvy company, my experience has shown that most users don’t easily adapt to using specialized wiki syntax. My goal was to make the platform as easy and accessible as possible; if people don’t understand it or the process is difficult then they won’t take the time to use it. I found editme had an easy-to-use visual editor but with the option of using some more powerful syntax as well. The ability to add images, formatting and links to other items and pages is crucial for maintaining an appealing and useful environment. editme does this quite well.

Permission Levels. Even though our team is very open, there is certain information that needs to be segmented and made available to a more limited audience. I liked that editme let me keep the wiki overall private and secure within our team but then also gave me the functionality to create groups for users and then easily assign pages to specific groups. Overall, I am happy with the way that I can assign and manage these permissions. (However, on a related security issue, I’m not fond of the way that that it sends password reminders and logins via plain text in an email. I would much prefer a reset link or other reset or reminder options.)

It is also possible to make the wiki site public, or a mix of public and private; the ability to segment access and permissions in those scenarios becomes even more critical.

Affordability and Support. As a software company ourselves, we have no problem supporting other products and services that we find useful and that contribute to our own success. I know that there are also open-source alternatives that we can install and maintain but as a business critical service we decided that going with a hosted and maintained offering was our best option. With unlimited users at even the cheapest plan and pricing ranging from $5 – $79 month, it was well within our budget, and as new employees join the team we simply point them to the wiki to get them started.

In the six months we’ve had our editme site up and running we’ve found that the adoption has been good, particularly in our Customer Experience group where we focused our initial efforts.

Initially, we had some trouble with the menu creation and the page organization features; they were functional but confusing. That has since been revamped and the new Page Organizer feature is really slick. We can now drag-and-drop pages around to easily change the structure of the site.

Billed as both a wiki and a collaboration platform, editme straddles the line between wiki and web site creator, comfortably living in both worlds. While we were primarily looking for a data organization tool, the additional web site creation and styling features are easy to use and a nice bonus.

Pricing for editme starts at $5 per month, and 30 day trials are available on all plans. It’s a hosted solution and works across all major browsers.

Find out more about how software is enabling companies to improve collaboration — check out our Net:Work conference, coming to San Francisco in December.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

As I originally anticipated, because so much of my work is done via cloud services, a good portion of my work process hasn’t changed significantly. I’m starting to think about supplementing these services with Mail.app or Postbox and iCal but am generally pleased with the way that things revolve around my online services. I’ve added Yojimbo to my arsenal and still find it invaluable for overall organization and avoiding information overload. I’m also currently evaluating a move to OmniFocus for task management due to a change in the nature of the types of tasks I am managing.

The MacBook Pro remains a joy to use. I still marvel at its performance and enjoy the brightness and clarity of the display. Using the touchpad has become second nature. I had a scare recently when my machine failed to charge, but it was just a problem with the adapter and Apple replaced it with no hassles. I’ve even become accustomed to the different keyboard shortcuts so I do feel quite at home when working on it.

There are a couple of nagging issues I have, though. The first is the freestyle nature of the application windows in relation to the menubar, especially when working with multiple displays. For example, if I move an Excel worksheet to a second display it feels wrong to have to move my mouse pointer to a different display to access menu options. I imagine I am still retraining myself to work this way, but it feels unintuitive to me.

I also really miss the ease of Alt+Tab-ing between applications on Windows machines. The Cmd+Tab cycle works well enough between applications, and I’ve discovered that Cmd+` cycles through windows within an application but those options only seem to work when the windows themselves haven’t been minimized. A minimized window seems to fall in to a black hole of sorts, and I’ve yet to figure out how to easily restore them.

I’ve done a good share of tweaking of system settings and keyboard shortcuts (like disabling that peskily huge Caps Lock key) and with the addition of some useful utilities I’ve been able to personalize my system so that it works just as I want it to. I have found that generally OS X is very configurable, but resolving the couple of issues I outlined above still eludes me.

After six months I think I have reached a plateau of sorts in terms of productivity. I am feeling very comfortable with my current setup and am ready to move onto scripting, adding more utilities for file processing, and my personal goal of mastering the Services menu.

In addition to getting those last couple of pesky issues cleared up, I’m looking for recommendations on your favorite tips, tweaks, utilities and personalization options that take your productivity up a notch. Please leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to check them out and share them in future articles.

I’m trying to get the most out of my Mac. How do you tweak out every last bit of productivity?

Photo by Flickr user neys, licensed under CC 2.0

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• Report: The Real-Time Enterprise
• How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

The thing I really like about Alfred is that it provides an interface to everything on my Mac and on the web: I can run programs, search favorite sites, find and browse files. It’s powerful but also very simple. The complexity and advanced functionality is there when I need it but for running something quickly or a fast Google search, that functionality never gets in my way. These layers of functionality are really well implemented. And the app is completely hidden until I call on it.

For example, a shortcut of option+space brings up an empty Alfred window. A couple of letters typed into the window offers me some simple web search options:

Even the results are easily accessed with unique key combinations for choosing among them.

If I’m looking for local files a “find” command changes the search:

It learns which items I access frequently so they appear in the search results ahead of others. For example, Text Wrangler, my editor of choice, now appears ahead of TextEdit because it is the one that is used more frequently. These little details make the program a joy to use.

I really like the way that I can use Alfred as a window to web searches, especially for frequently searched sites. It’s set up for the biggies like Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and Twitter and such, but I can add other options to the mix as well, like my CRM app.

One of my new favorite features that I just discovered is the ability to search by Spotlight Comments. By using consistent tagging there I can group like applications together by searching by tag. For example, a search for media could display iTunes, Rdio, last.fm and all the various players I have on my system.

While Alfred itself is free, there is the option to add a Powerpack option to it for £12 ($19). The Powerpack adds some great features like direct file system navigation, browsing from within the launcher window and the ability to perform actions on files beyond opening.

The additional features of the Powerpack are handy but even the free version is quite functional and well worth checking out. Alfred is a free download for Mac OS X 10.5+, while the optional Powerpack can be bought at any time through the application or from the web site.

Alfred is the doorway to my Mac. What do you use for launching and searching on your computer?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

But when I hear from the folks at Springpad about changes to the service, I always read with interest. Even as my usage has waned, I really have always been very impressed with the service, and the possibilities of what it could become. The latest batch of changes promise to make Springpad even more useful.

I’ve already discussed the transition that Springpad seems to be making, moving away from a structured note-taking app toward more everyday usage, like capturing and then using data around restaurants, movies, books, food and recipes, for example. The company’s own description of Springpad as a “lifestyle application” encapsulates this change and is quite apt. So while I don’t really use it to store the notes and other such data as I have in the past, it’s still a wonderful way to grab information about my stuff and then get presented with more contextual information about it.

I was really excited to read about the new Extension for Chrome, released today. The nice thing about the extension as opposed to the bookmarklet is that not only does it allow me to get info into the app, it also gives me access to the data that already resides there, without having to visit the site. I can quickly view and sort the info in my account. Adding items is easy and it does a wonderful job of recognizing the type of data that I am adding, and can also enhance it with useful information, such as pricing information or addresses for physical locations.

When I clip items using the extension, I can edit the information and add tags. I can’t seem to change the public / private settings at the time of clipping though, which would be nice. I do tend to capture a mix of items and the defaults don’t always match my intentions.

Any application that is supposed to help you capture and organize your information is really only as useful as the tools that are made available to help you get that information into the app. No matter what you can do with the data when it’s there, if it isn’t easy to grab and store it, chances are you just aren’t going to take the time.

I am not an iPhone or Android user so I don’t have access to the mobile applications available for those platforms, but they’ve received a couple of useful updates designed to make that connection even more useful, specifically the ability to send mobile alerts from within Springpad and to quickly push notifications about specific items directly to your phone for easy access. Again, the ubiquity of the data and the ease with which it becomes useful is key. I think mobile users with access to the Springpad application will find the service even more appealing than I do.

Springpad is free, web-based and works in all major browsers. Applications are also available for iPhone, iPad and Android.

I am rediscovering my Springpad — what can it do for you?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub. req.):

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• Who Owns Your Data in the Cloud?

A few short months ago, I was the only virtual attendee of our Monday morning meetings, and a webcam-enabled laptop in the room with my colleagues was sufficient to get me in attendance. We used Skype for simple point-to-point video calling and it really worked quite well.

But now that there are three remote team members, we find that Skype by itself, is no longer sufficient. Even though Skype has added multi-camera support, it’s not available on the Mac, which makes using it a challenge as we use both Mac and PC. We really like the Skype platform, though, and use it for our IM and individual chat needs, so when looking for a way to overcome our technical challenges we looked for ways to “piggyback” on our existing system, rather than move to an entirely new solution. After a couple of weeks of testing I believe we have found our solution with VuRoom, a video conferencing plugin for Skype.

From a participant standpoint, using VuRoom couldn’t be easier. I join a call in Skype as I normally would, then click a special link that the host provides. A web-based viewer launches showing me the video feeds of all participants. For the host it’s a bit more involved to initiate a call but the process is straightforward. Only the host needs to install the Skype plugin, so it’s possible to get new folks involved and attending with little fuss. Upon connecting with your participants, the VuRoom plugin starts automatically and steps you through the creation of your meeting. The current VuRoom product supports up to eight video collaborators. Video and sound quality is good and in my use so far I’ve not had any issues with dropouts or lost calls.

In addition to the conferencing functionality, VuRoom also offers desktop sharing and other collaboration functionality, including slide sharing. This lets the host do presentations and share documents with the participants. In our meetings we frequently see demonstrations of new products and so far this functionality has worked really well. The document or screen share pops up in an extra window the web view so I can still continue to see the others participants on the call in addition to the host presentation.

In looking for a solution, one of our challenges was finding something that was not only useful, but affordable. While most competing services seem to have per-seat licenses, VuRoom offers a fixed $10 per month fee for unlimited usage for up to the eight participants per meeting so it’s very cost-effective. VuRoom works with both PC and Mac versions of Skype and all modern browsers. A free 15-day trial is available for testing before purchase. Overall, we’ve been very pleased with VuRoom.

How do you keep your team connected?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): How to Manage Consumer-Grade Collaborative Tools in the Workplace

I find there are two different schools of thought when it comes to PKM and organizing all of the bits of information that we compile; it seems that the tools are either page-based or note-based. Page-based tools, like ConnectedText or OneNote on Windows, use a page metaphor to store related bits of information. You can often embed notes, images and files but they are all inherently tied to a “master page” that “owns” that data. I like to think that I work this way — with the ability to have discrete and tidy pages for clients and projects, all defined and ready-to-use. When I picture my information, that is how I see it. I looked at a couple of page-based options like this for my Mac; my favorite being VoodooPad by the wonderfully named Flying Meat Inc. If I had ended up choosing a page-based manager, VoodooPad is the “no-brainer” choice.

However, my reality is somewhat different than my vision when it comes to organization. I’ve got a snippet with notes from a meeting here, a phone message here, a bunch of URLs, a password for an FTP site, and it’s all been entered on whatever page I happen to be on — all with the intent of moving and organizing later. But they don’t get refiled, moved or organized, which means I cant find them at a later date.

So I decided that It’s time to embrace the chaos, find a tool that works like I do, and not like I think I need to. I decided it was time to look at note-based information managers. This type of app is based upon the ubiquitous capture of anything that you need to store. A block of text, a picture, a receipt, a PDF, a URL, all in a simple note document.  Notes can be tagged, filed, sorted, based upon any number of criteria. Each note is a distinct piece of information and through efficient organization and search, hopefully you can pull them together as needed.

This is a crowded field, so I looked at a number of options before ultimately choosing Yojimbo. I looked at Yojimbo with high hopes based on Will’s great review from back in September. He was spot-on in highlighting the cool usability features that it offers. Even though I found the functionality, look and feel very similar to some of the others I looked at, one of the big selling features was the presence of a screencast video on the website. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take the time to learn all about the products that I was looking at but I found the head start that I got by watching the video left me feeling more comfortable with it than the others. It was one of the first programs that I trialed and I found myself liking it quite a bit.

There were, and still are a few things I wish it did better or differently, but I found that all of my notes about the other products I was looking at ended up being being stored in Yojimbo, together with meting notes and other snippets of info. I don’t think it was conscious decision that I had made my choice until my trial had expired and I was faced with exporting my data in to another product. Yojimbo isn’t my perfect PKM; it just outlasted all of the others I looked at and sort of just fell in to place.

With that said, it isn’t that I don’t really like Yojimbo. It has a great mix of simplicity and power and I was able to start amassing information quickly and easily and then build my organization around it. The tagging is brilliant and it is just so easy to get data in to the system. I am also slightly addicted to the “print to Yojimbo” option as a means to get receipts and other info captured nicely in PDF format.

Choosing a Personal Knowledge Manager was among my highest-priority projects as I am collecting so much information since my transition, tips and tricks, utilities, software, training, blogs and other resources, all along with my normal day-to-day work, and I didn’t need the headache of information overload on top of everything else. Without my even noticing, Yojimbo stepped in and saved the day.

Yojimbo is a Universal Mac Application requiring Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later. A 30-day free trial is available and if you find it as useful as I did, it will run you $39 to license.

Did I make the right choice? What do you use to keep all of your information organized?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

The first thing one notices is that there are no buttons — the entire pad is clickable. I found my natural inclination was to tap-to-click rather than a full click on the whole pad, so I’ve adjusted that in System Preferences. I also previously had a two-finger tap set to bring up the right-click menu. I’m a big fan of the contextual menus that appear with the right-click but I had to adjust this behavior as I was accidentally triggering it far too often. For now, I am using a two-finger full-click in the lower right of the trackpad.

The most compelling feature about the Apple Trackpad is the built-in gestures, predefined touch movements that trigger certain actions. They’re really handy for navigation and browsing, and are very smartly implemented.

The key to using and remembering the gestures is to know that the pad recognizes how many fingers are on it and responds accordingly:

• One finger is for regular movement of the cursor.
• Two fingers in either an up-down or side-to-side motion functions like the scroll bar allowing for easy navigation within an application, on web pages and in other documents. For browsing this is really super-handy, although I notice that it stalls when it reaches a video and other embedded objects. I have to move around the object to continue the scrolling. A turning of your fingers rotates objects such as photos while a pinching motion will zoom in or out on the page or object.  While I find these really handy when I need them, they can also be really frustrating when they get triggered inadvertently.
• Three fingers swiping side-to-side works like as forward and backward navigation and is just outstanding for web browsing or even navigating around within the Finder.
• A four-finger swipe side-to-side brings up the application switcher, but I find hitting Cmd-Tab to be a much more useful way to access it. Swiping up clears the screen of all open windows for easy access to the desktop, while a swipe down opens up the Expose view of all open windows.

Apple’s Trackpad is made of glass, but I don’t feel that it’s any smoother or easier to navigate than others I’ve previously used. It is larger than most trackpads, which is nice, although I find myself resting my palm on it more often than I would like.

Overall, I think I’m adjusting well to the Trackpad. For casual browsing it’s really tremendously useful but for heavy keyboard work like data entry or even typing, I do miss the convenience of having the navigation so easily accessible like it was with my TrackPoint.

Are you a fan of the Trackpad? Share your tips and tricks in the comments.

Editor’s note: If you’ve just moved to Mac, check out TechUniversity: Mac Video Tutorials & Screencasts.

Thankfully, in many instances, I found I was able to start with a direct Mac version of the Windows software I was already comfortable with and using productively. For browsing purposes I’ve been using Google Chrome on the PC for months, so I jumped on to the Mac version and got to business as usual. I’ve installed Firefox and have briefly tested Safari, but I’m quite happy with Chrome, even if it still retains its beta status on the Mac.

With the browser comes access to all of the web-based services I use that make up the bulk of my tools, including CRM, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, as well as the help desk/ticketing systems that I use for my job. I use Thymer for task management, but Things and OmniFocus will probably get some evaluation time as I’ve always been quite curious about them.

There are also quite a few programs where it was just a matter of installing the Mac version of my existing tools. I use Jing for screen grabs for blogging, tech support, jokes and even short screencasts for training or support. Functionally and visually it’s identical on the Mac. I know that Skitch and LittleSnapper are popular alternatives but I’ve always been quite pleased with Jing.

Skype is a staple for IM and video chats for both work and personal use, so a switch to the Mac client was a requirement. Functionally it’s virtually identical but the interface is different enough that it required a bit of an adjustment period.

I’ve long been a fan of Dropbox for syncing all sorts of things between my computers as well as quick file transfers between friends and clients. Again, the availability of a Mac client was a requirement and I’ve found it to work equally as well. I do miss the ability to just double-click on the Dropbox icon in my status bar but rather now needing to explicitly choose to open the folder. Once I settle on a program launcher though that will cease to be an issue.

I spend a lot of time on Twitter and have been using TweetDeck for a long time to manage that service. I like the ability to create the custom searches I need to track as well as being able to post to Facebook as well as to some of the client accounts to which I contribute. I knew that the cross-platform nature of the Adobe AIR meant that a Mac version of TweetDeck was available. I briefly experimented with Tweetie as it’s one of those programs that Mac users have always raved about but quickly moved back to TweetDeck — if for no other reason than I was more comfortable with it.

The nature of what I do, along with my natural curiosity, means I’ll probably continue to look for alternatives and to explore the Mac-only options that exist in these categories. But the availability of Mac versions of my favorite tools meant I was able to get myself up and running quickly.

How much of what you use could be easily transferred to another platform?

Image by stock.xchng user mab_design

One of my biggest concerns was adjusting to a touchpad after many years of using a TrackPoint. While the multi-finger touch options are really useful, especially for browsing and such, for heavy text work, I still keep reaching for my TrackPoint, because removing my hands from the keyboard for navigation doesn’t feel natural. I also find myself inadvertently zooming in and out because of the pinch motion.

I find the MacBook Pro’s keyboard to be functional, but the flat keys still don’t feel right to me as I have always liked a sturdy tactile IBM keyboard. At this point, I think I’ve nearly reached my same typing speeds, so I don’t believe it’s adversely affecting my productivity, but it still feels awkward.

Conversion to using the Cmd key from Ctrl for shortcuts hasn’t been a huge issue for me, but relearning the new shortcut keys for text selection is an ongoing process (thanks to everyone for the tips in the comments of my previous post). I’m also finding that having to use Fn+delete to match the behavior of my old delete key still trips me up quite a bit.

The screen is probably the most significant upgrade from my old laptop. Even though it’s smaller in size, the widescreen format and higher resolution let me see more of websites and documents, while the brightness and clarity of the display is just astounding compared to how my dull and off-color my old screen was. It’s a joy to work with and everything just seems to look better.

The hardware itself is quite light and manageable. I love how quickly it wakes up and makes itself ready to work. The long battery life is quite nice and while I haven’t really tested or timed how long it lasts I find that for my regular work flow it really won’t be an issue for me.

The biggest issue so far has been the change in software. While many of my day-to-day staples have Mac counterparts, they often work differently. Sometimes even just the UI differences are enough to just make me feel “off.” For the rest of my software, where a direct Mac counterpart isn’t available, I’m still finding replacements and learning them. I was prepared for it to be an ongoing process, though, and even though I am taking a productivity hit, it’s also giving me the opportunity to evaluate and review a lot of software that I had only been able to read about prior to my switch.

Overall I am finding the experience to be enjoyable and positive. There are a lot of quirks, a lot of frustrations, but some nice features and benefits as well. I can’t say I like it better than my PC, but I’m not hating it.

How was your transition to Mac?  How long did it take for you to be hooked?

Support

I’m a naturally inquisitive person; this is especially true when it comes to computers and technology. Over the course of my PC lifetime, I’ve been fine-tuning my knowledge, learning how to take advantage of everything that a PC can offer. While I thought it likely that some of this knowledge would be transferable to Mac it was a concern of mine that, as a new Mac user, I would be starting over from scratch. I’ve always been the support person; rarely have I needed one.

I wanted to make sure that I had a support system in case I needed it. Fortunately, my new employer has a team consisting almost entirely of Mac users, so I knew those folks were only a Skype call away. As I’ve started working more with other independent folks, the number of my colleagues who use Mac has also increased. With Twitter, Google and other resources also available, I felt confident that I could find answers to my questions.

Software

I started out by making a list of all the programs that I most rely on and made sure that there were either Mac versions available or suitable replacements. The fact that a lot of my work is done in my browser means that the software issue was much less of a barrier than it might have been in the past.

The software choices are overwhelming. Even in instances where there are cross-platform versions available, often times there are also Mac-specific options that I’ve never been able to evaluate. Finding the right software is going to be an ongoing process, but I needed to be sure that I had an viable option in each category from day one.

Usability

To persuade me that this could be resolved, I took advantage of the personal shopping experience that Apple offers and made an appointment to meet with an Apple Expert who could answer all my questions and address my concerns. I had a very specific list of topics I needed to address. I didn’t want a canned demo of how cool iPhoto is — I wanted to know how the touchpad works, how the menus work, and the differences between Ctrl and Cmd. I wanted to make sure that I could replicate all the processes that I was used to on the PC. Magali from my local Orland Square store did a wonderful job of answering all of my questions and demonstrating what I needed to see. She was also able to show me some of the benefits that the Mac platform could bring me when I described my workflow.

I’m still early in my transition, but following a clear and logical process of defining my requirements made me feel confident that I would have the support I need, access to all of the right tool, and the ability retrain myself to make the necessary adjustments. When it was time to really pull the trigger, I found that the Mac wasn’t nearly as scary a choice as it had been in the past.

What made it possible for you to switch? What is holding you back?

Photo by Flickr user sciondriver, licensed under CC

Obviously it was time for a replacement, but the adventure I took to get there has been a wild one. You see, for the first time in my life, not only did I consider a Mac as a viable option, but I’ve gone ahead and made the switch.

I guess you would say that I’m a PC. I’ve been using PCs since I purchased my first one nearly 20 years ago. From DOS to Windows 3.0 to Vista, it’s been my world. I’ve learned the ins and outs of using and managing the various OS flavors. I’m comfortable with shortcut keys, have compiled thousands of tips and tricks for hundreds of software packages for Windows. I’m not an evangelist or a fanboy, but I’ve been quite productive using my PC and really haven’t been affected by virus, spyware or the “typical” issues that are used to describe a bad PC experience.

On the other hand, Macs  have been a mostly unknown entity. Although those who know me will speak of my legendary disdain for iTunes, I’ve never really been “anti-Mac.” I’ve helped friends and clients purchase and set them up so, it isn’t that I had no exposure to them, it was just that the time I had spent with them didn’t really do anything to convince me that there was a compelling reason to convert.

This time, I guess it was peer pressure more than anything that even got me thinking about the switch. Co-workers and friends have been raving about them, and whenever the discussion changed to my laptop replacement, the “get a Mac” proclamations became too much for me to dismiss. So I started to seriously consider it. I researched models, made lists of software, thought about pros and cons, chatted with friends and did my normal over-analysis. It’s an important decision though — my computer is so closely tied to my livelihood that it isn’t something I could take lightly. I found that my primary concerns were tied to three major areas — support, software and overall usability.

In my upcoming posts I’ll be outlining not only my pre-purchase thought process and evaluation experience but I’ll also be documenting the transition, my retraining, software changes and choices, usability challenges, and some great surprises that I’ve discovered in the process — about Windows, about Mac and about me.

If you’ve made the switch from PC to Mac, or vice versa, let us know how it went for you in the comments.

Photo by stock.xchng user andrewatla

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Managing and processing the billing can be a challenge, however, and while some invoicing services do provide basic recurring billing featured, the functionality tends to be limited, and the process daunting. Chargify, a new hosted payment processing solution, hopes to change that by providing an easy way for companies to implement recurring billing.

Unlike Paypal or many of the invoicing apps we all know and love, Chargify lets you tie this subscription and billing process to your own signup page, with your own products and plans. Alternatively, you can create a hosted signup page and let Chargify handle the whole process. The more technically-minded folks can integrate the service with their own app or website via the API.

Chargify is primarily designed for subscription services, and the options available for setting up your various products and plans are extensive. You can include setup fees, free trial periods and expiration periods to customize your plans and pricing.

Setup isn’t a horribly complicated process, but there are a lot of options, and you obviously want to verify that the billing process is working using the test gateways before you start collecting and processing payments with live cards. A dashboard gives you up-to-the-minute views of revenues collected and a slew of useful reports.

Chargify doesn’t replace your merchant account and gateway, but rather supplements them, providing additional functionality including analytics, payment and credit card expiration reminders, metered billing and coupons and discounts.

Using Chargify doesn’t exclude you from paying the standard processing fees that you normally would incur from your merchant account and gateway. It does, however, let you choose among different processors to take advantage of the one that is giving you the best rates.

One of the concerns that a lot of freelancers and small businesses have is how to manage and process payments, and how to handle the risks associated with storing credit card information. In this instance, neither you nor Chargify actually store the credit card data, it all goes through Authorize.net, which is fully PCI Compliant.

I’ve focused primarily on using Chargify in a small business environment but it can also be used by developers who are looking to add payment functionality to their applications without wanting to build a solution from scratch.

Chargify plans vary in cost, depending on your requirements. For small shops selling hosting or recurring services, your first 50 paying customers can be managed for free. The jump to the next level is a bit pricey at $49 month, but supports up to 500 customers, while additional plans for larger accounts are also available. Each level also includes 1000 non-paying customers; useful if your business has a corresponding free plan or “freemium” model.

What tools do you use to handle recurring billing?

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Freckle is a joy to use, the syntax is easy to learn and the reporting and the “pulse” view is great. What that said, it’s always been kind of a hassle to take this info from Freckle and build my invoices, so I was thrilled to hear that the Freckle team had added invoicing to the service.

I’ve been using Freckle for a while and have a lot of time recorded in there, so I was pleased that I could choose a date and call items before my cutoff as “already billed.” This let me set a clean slate for billable time moving forward for invoicing purposes.

Creating invoices is simple and in true Freckle fashion you can just hop right in. No need to set up anything in advance — choose your project, click “invoice,” adjust the date options if required, and you’re set. You can add your company and client information during invoice creation.

When you create your invoice you can choose to include a full reporting of the time spent or just a total. I like having this choice as it lets me accommodate the needs of the client and our billing terms. For those clients where I can just provide totals the quick reports in Freckle have always let me pull up what I needed, and I could just enter that into my other invoicing app. It was when I needed to provide a full account of my time in detail that it became time-consuming, cutting and pasting line-by-line. It’s a joy to just get that data right onto my invoices now.

This is a first release, though, and still in beta, and while I didn’t have any problems with it, there are some enhancements I’d still like to see.

For each invoice created Freckle provides a link that I can send to my client, or I can easily print a PDF or hard copy. But that means that I still have to go and mail or email my invoices — I guess I’ve been spoiled by my existing service that just takes care of all of that for me automatically.

There is also no way to charge a mixed rate. My company offers different services that often bill at different rates — with Freckle the rate is entered once and applied to every line. An override for specific lines would be great.

Finally, there is no link to Paypal or other payment gateway. Most of my clients pay by check so this isn’t a deal breaker for everyone but there are some who prefer Paypal or credit card and that integration makes it so much easier for them — and I obviously like to make it easy for folks to pay me.

Overall, for the clients and projects that I can fit into its functionality, the addition of invoicing is useful, but I quite can’t get rid of my other invoicing apps just yet.

Invoicing is included with any paid Freckle account plan.

How do you manage your time tracking and invoicing?

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