Blog

Function Point Beta Program Update

2010-09-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hi All!

I am writing today to provide you with an update on the Function Point Beta 8.1 program and the plan moving forward.

Version 8.1 is now ready for full production use.

On October 19th, 2010 at 6:00pm pacific time we will be switching version 8.1 from Beta to production. This will move the primary log-in to the new system and permit SSL log in. The old system will be available from a secondary URL until November 2, 2010.

Since early August you have had access to the next version of Function Point. Version 8.1 will contiinue to be available from a link on the log-in page or navigating directly to http//beta.functionpoint.com prior to the official launch. If you have not had a close look we recommend you do so.

A few of the improvements include:
. New Interface Design
. Drag and Drop Estimate Creation / Edit Routines
. Tabbed Detail Pages
. Screen re-sizing
. Support for Internet Explorer 8 (coming October 19th)

These major items have been complimented with hundreds of other smaller changes, resulting in a more natural user experience.

We have received many unsolicited comments about the upgrade, and here are a couple of them:

“MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR, UPSCALE IMPROVEMENT TO THE UI!!!“ Jerry Suhrstedt, Heavy Guerilla.

“I am extremely happy with the changes that have been made with this new update and find it so much more user-friendly to work on estimates in the system.” Janet De Young, Foerstel Design.

There is much more to come as we push on the product road map.
Should you have any concerns with regards to our plan or our future roadmap, I encourage you to reach out to me personally. Your comments and suggestions are very important.

chris@functionpoint.com

877.731.2522

Sincerely,

Chris Wilson
President

World Cup and fp????

2010-06-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Many of our clients who have had 1 or 2 meetings with me will mostly likely be able to tell that I'm a huge sports fan. I'll always find a way to throw in a "Where's Lebron going?" to our Eastern Clients (Chris McGovern - Emerging Marketing , Kevin Michael Reed - KMR Group)between timesheet and reporting discussions, or "Did you see what Kobe did?" after I say how was your weekend.

As the head trainer of fp, I've had the great opportunity to talk to clients from all around the world from Sydney, to New York, to the United Kingdom and everywhere in between.

I feel I can get a pin point update weather for regions around the world just from my day to day meetings and phone calls.

Even though I'm more a basketball and football fan, (GO LAKERS! GO PATRIOTS) I still take time to watch the other sporting events such as the World Cup. It's been called the world's game as it is the most popular sport in the World. When I see games like England vs the United States, Australia vs Germany, and other games featuring Greece and of course the host nation South Africa, I think of the many different clients we have in those countries and the conversations I'll have in the next upcoming days. We'll talk about soccer/football and fp.

Maybe it's a testament to the idea of a global community, but it's never been easier to communicate with these clients, but hard to stay focused, especially lately =P

It may be a stretch, but I'd like to think football and fp are pretty similar. You have this amazing game bringing everyone together from around the world, no matter what background or culture. This is just like fp, no matter where you are from, if you are a creative agency in need of a project management tool, we believe fp is a world-class product for you. We have numerous clients that have met each other through the common use of fp, or have got into contact with our growing family first as a prospect through our many great references.
(Thanks Chris - Spiro & Associates , John - Blackdog Advertising , and Roger - Cactus Sky...hopefully I'll get a chance to visit you guys this summer.)

Call it a stretch....world cup...fp...maybe...People love football, and hopefully with our on-going re-writes and upgrades, you love fp even more. Think of it this way, if ipods, iphones, an ipads can bring people together based on a common appreciation for the functionality, I'm sure the project management sector can be brought together with function point. (no pun intended)

Here's a couple of highlights from my last fp-based adventure. I had the opportunity to visit one of our clients mf.1 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Thanks Colin and Ryan for making me feel welcomed!

(Ryan Hart, Ryan Chan, Colin Ottenbreit)
Colin looks like a hardass, but he's alright!

iPad productivity and fun mashed into one

2010-06-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

So ... you have a new iPad, or you really want to buy one ... and you are wondering ... "what can I do with it?"

Lets face it, the iPad is not really a laptop, and not really an iPhone / iPod, it is a completely new beast that was set loose into the market.

The iPad is mainly a consumer of services. It is great for watching TV (we will get to that one), watching movies (we will get to that one too), reading a newspaper, playing a casual game, reading a book or chatting with friends and family.

The iPad is NOT made for heavy programming, rendering images, finding the next prime number or planning the next mars expedition.

So lets focus on some of the things it CAN do (some of the coolest things anyways, as listing everything would be very time consuming).

Watch live TV
Watch movies (legally) downloaded.
Extend your display (use your iPad as an extra monitor - Mac Only)
Access a virtual drive (extra storage)
Remote control your "real" computers (MAC / PC / LINUX)
Use it as a storage device
Do emergency development (extreme emergencies)
Be Productive on the go using Function Point

All of the above can be done on any iPod or iPhone, but on the iPad, it can be done with style!

Watching live TV

If you own a MAC (who doesn't have one of those), and a TV tuner (after reading this blog, you will), you can purchase EyeTV from elgato (http://www.elgato.com/), and stream live TV over 3G / Wifi directly to your iPad.
Elgato also sell TV Tuners with the software (a bundle).

Once you configure your EyeTV to allow iPhone access, you have two options to connect to it:

Purchase the iPhone app (eyeTV $4.99 - there is no iPad version for it at this time, but it works great anyways) and connect directly to your eyeTV server. This will allow you to view all channels, schedule recordings, view scheduled programs and view recorded programs directly on your iPad.
Use safari to access your eyeTV server (you can actually use any mac that runs Snow Leopard to do that). At this point you can watch live TV, or view previously recorded shows (but you cannot schedule recordings or view schedules).

Watching movies (legally) downloaded

Buy the application "Air Video" http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html (they have a free version which I never tried, the paid app costs $2.99 at the time of writing this blog post).
Install the server on your home computer that has the videos you would like to share (the server is free. You can install the server on multiple computers and access all of them). The server runs on Windows and Mac machines.
Share the folders that have the videos

Once those steps are done you will be able to access all of the videos and watch them on the iPad using WIFI. You can also open a port in your firewall to allow access from anywhere in the world (it works well over 3G as well).

Air Video allows for on the fly conversion as well, so you can watch the videos without previously converting them to the iPad format. Air Video supports lots of file formats including avi, and mkv.

Another interesting fact about Air Video, is that it supports the VGA out dongle for the iPad. Movies look awesome on a big TV as well.

My experience with it has been great, works fluently, and fast. Even for on the fly conversion, the video comes up in seconds.

Note: There are other similar programs that I have never tried as I am very happy with Air Video.

Extend your display (use your iPad as an extra monitor - Mac Only)

Your iPad is a 9.7' display with a resolution of 1024x768. Why not use it as another display? Since you cannot take your eyes off it anyways, you might as well be productive while doing so!

Using air display (http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/) you can do just that.
It turns your iPad into a secondary display (dual display setup).

I found air display to be a bit choppy and the quality of the picture is not as great as the main monitor, but it will most likely improve over time. The company that made it is the same as the company that made Air Sharing, and that product it amazing.

For now it can be used for fairly static content (don't expect to watch a movie on that display), but if for example you need another browser window opened on the side for test purposes (refresh from time to time to see results), it can be quite useful.

Access a virtual drive (extra storage)

My iPad has 32GB, which is plenty, but sometimes, it is just not enough :-)

How about having 132GB at your disposal? sounds better no?

This is what DropBox does for me.

At the time of writing this blog post, DropBox has 3 account types: Basic (2GB free), Pro 50 (50GB 9.99/month), Pro 100 (100GB 19.99/month).

Essentially downloading the DropBox app (free), allows you direct access to whatever you are paying for (in my case, 100GB of storage). Dropbox can be installed on Mac, Linux and Windows, and it is essentially allowing you to access the content of the DropBox drive from multiple computers (synched in seconds between all machines that run it with your account).

I am storing e-books, images and songs on it, and I am able to access those items on my iPad without needing to actually taking away of my precious built in 32GB storage (wifi / 3G required).

If you decide to subscribe to dropbox because of this post, please use the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE1ODI5ODA5 , that will give you extra 250MB of storage for the free account (and 500MB for the paid account) - I will also get 500MB as part of that deal.

I have been using DropBox for over a year. I used to carry a portable drive with me ... but no need for that one anymore.

Remote Control your "real" computers (MAC / PC / LINUX)

Being able to remote control a computer is great, it allows you to do things on a "real" computer from a "non real" computer (iPad). The application I am using for that is called "log me in ignition". It is not cheap compared to others ($29.99), but it does do what it advertises. It is fast, easy to use, and reliable.

Essentially, you create a new log me in account (http://logmein.com/), and you either subscribe to the pro addition or you don't - you can use it for FREE).
Once you have your account, add a free or paid log me in client to computer (you can set it up on multiple computers), and you will see them in your log me in ignition, from there on, it is self explanatory.

I have been using log me in for over four years, lets just say it works.

Use it as a storage device

Using air sharing HD (for the iPad - http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/air-sharing-hd/id365541415?mt=8), you can use your iPad as an external drive. Connect to it through bonjour on your osX, or simply browse to it from a web browser. adding and removing files is a matter of dragging and dropping.
The app also has a built in reader for PDF documents (with a table of contents, search and bookmarks), word, and excel documents and other formats.

Do emergency development (extreme emergencies)

Using iSSH (http://www.zinger-soft.com/iSSH_features.html), you can connect to a linux / mac machine remotely (windows as well if you install cygwin), and edit files, restart services etc.

I found it hard to work on for more than 10 minutes, but the interface is as good as you can get when the keyboard is on screen.

I also tried this app with a Bluetooth keyboard, but the tab and arrow keys did not function - I had to tap on the screen for those (I did not try it with an apple wireless keyboard - my apple one is used up and I did not want to disconnect it just to try, I tried it with a rocketfish bluetooth keyboard, but I suspect it is the same).

They will hopefully enhance the Bluetooth capabilities in the future , that will make it a truly workable environment for Linux / Mac terminal work (it is also a VNC client, but I have not tried it yet).

Be Productive on the go using Function Point

Function Point is a web based project management solution for the creative industry (http://www.functionpoint.com /). Track time, capture project requirements, collaborate with clients online, manage resources, upload files to projects, keep notes and key financial indicators close at hand, and many other business related activities.

Using Function Point, key decision makers can know at a glance the real-time status of a project (over or under budget, invoices and actuals and pretty much every other aspect that relates to the job / project).

You can track and manage hundreds of jobs simultaneously without fear of loosing your sanity.

You can use your Safari web browser to access Function Point through your iPad. At the time of writing this blog post, there is still work to be done to make it a complete experience, but we are actively working on making that happen (Function Point is at the front of HTML 5 and CSS 3.0 technologies).

We've been using Function Point for the past 8 years to manage our internal projects (it is after all our own product). It is a mature product that keeps being updated and upgraded.

There are currently thousands of users that use Function Point on a daily basis.

Closing remarks

An iPad is not a laptop, but it can certainly be used for many productivity and fun related activities.

I hope that this blog post helps with getting more out of your (future) iPad.

Alon Sabi
VP of Technology

Focus on YOUR AGENCY'S Core Competencies

2010-04-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

The long-term competitiveness of any company will depend on its ability to effectively define and deliver upon its core competencies. Core competencies should provide significant contribution to the value of the products or services offered and must be difficult for competitors to imitate.

What does this mean to you?

As an agency, it means that your time should be spent managing creative and providing (preferably billable) value to your clients, and not on administration or cumbersome project management. You don’t want to have a team of employees spending an undue amount of time on non-billable system or admin work, and shouldn’t have to think about the “behind the scenes” components of running your business. Profitability is of the utmost importance, and this is where fp comes in.

Allow us to focus on our core competency of understanding the business behind the creative industry. You will come to think of us as an extended member of your team at a very small fraction of the cost. We’re here to help ensure the information you need is available for you real-time, and that you understand which clients are profitable and which ones aren’t. We’re always here to help your team out, suggest best practice workflows, and work on options that will ensure that you’re doing what you do best.

Your focus needs to reside on your core competencies of delivering the best designs and best campaigns for your clients. fp is here to help you do this, while at the same time providing you with the ability to maximize your profitability.

Tate Lillies
VP – Business Operations.

Tracking Against Proposals

2010-04-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of Function Point clients track time against work that they have not yet gained. This can be very valuable. Tracking the time it takes to create your proposals and conduct sales meetings with prospects will give you a better view into the profitability of your work. Those large projects with large price tags can be very tempting, but they may not be worth going after if the prospecting process is overly labor intensive. Some of our clients have told us that they were committing too many resources in going after the large, glamorous projects but were not aware of how much it was costing them until they started tracking their prospecting initiatives. For some of our larger clients, this is not as big of a problem. But for our smaller agency clients, every penny counts. Tracking the time it takes to gain your work will allow you to make better decisions in the future. It's important to be specific in your timesheets as well. Once you have a better understanding of where the time is going in the proposal process, you will be able to become more efficient.

One way that some Function Point clients have cut down own their proposal and prospecting time is by creating a portfolio of estimate templates. Having a few templates for each type of work you do will significantly cut down on the time it takes to get proposals and estimates out to prospects. Furthermore, having a high, medium, and low cost template for each job type will help you to see where you can stretch your dollars with each of your clients. Copying old estimates for jobs that were profitable is also a great option, especially if you're using the actual time and expense values to create your new estimate (just one click with Function Point).

Here at Function Point, we're in the business of helping our clients to become more efficient and profitable. But we do seriously admire the awesome creative that our clients produce. We understand that while it's important to make strategic decisions when bidding for work, sometimes profitability takes a back seat to a happy client and an awesome new piece of creative to add to the portfolio (just don't tell my boss I said that).

Marc Wilson - Account Manager

Bye bye guys

2010-03-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hi guys! Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity of working with you. I have learned many things that I believe will be very useful for my future. I have felt very comfortable working with you and the best of all is that I have felt that my job was important and can be used by the clients. Special thanks to Randy for all he has done to help me with the SQL language and how to manage the FP database. Now, I have a wonderful chance to start a new job in India that I am really looking forward to. There is no need to say that you are very welcome to pay me a visit to India or Spain in the future. I hope the best for FP and I expect that you became a more powerful company.

Besos y abrazos!!

Welcome to FP800

2010-01-29T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is a very exciting time for all of us at Function Point. Team and Constituents alike.

Welcome to FP800

First a little history. In late fall 2004 we embarked on a new road for the company by launching the first version of Function Point, our web based time sheet and project managment software. In 2005 we worked closely with some of our first users identifying areas we could change, improve and build upon. In 2006 we added new capabilities around multiple rates and staff bill out amounts. 2007 saw improvements to tasking, briefs and resource utilization. In 2008 we improved forecasting revenue, viewing profitability of jobs and a variety of other capabilites.

Now in the first weeks of 2010 we have come to market with yet again a major step forward for the product and the FP Brand.

So what has been done?

Changed the future of proofing your work and obtaining client feedback including video.

Extended the system, allowing you to invite your clients to collaborate with you online.

Added file management tools for storing and backing up large production documents.

Rebuilt the calendar to improve the view of job, task and events.

We have also launched the first view of what our future interface and user interaction will look like.

More to come.

Tate and Ryan have been working very hard to produce documentation on the new system and you will see more of this over the next weeks. Marc, DJ and I will be active reaching out to invite you to sessions designed to improve your productivity and profitability.

Through all of this we have had one very strong and consistent theme. Your input and motivation to inform us of your thoughts. You play a very important part of the release we are offering to you this week and I want to say a big Thank You for that.

We appreciate your continued support and business. Carpe Diem.

Chris Wilson

S.E.M. Conference + Fusion 92 + Windy City + DEEP DISH PIZZA = New Year's Resolution

2009-12-17T20:54:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the great experience of visiting the windy city and attending the S.E.M. conference. I was able to catch up with an old friend "Big D" (Duncan Alney) from Firebelly Marketing and make new ones. I was able to meet some great people from various marketing and creative agencies and spread the "fp vibe."

When I left for Chicago from Vancouver it was wet and cold, typical weather for a Vancouver Christmas. I had always been a fan of the white winters. When I arrived in Chicago, I definitely took that back. It started to snow the first night of my trip. Not only did I get snow, but I also got temperatures dipping as low as -5 Fahrenheit, and combined with the wind chill factor, it went down to -30 degrees Celsius. When I walked around and admired the great architecture of downtown Chicago, the buildings acted as a funnel, concentrating the wind to those who ventured outside, even the magnificent mile of Michigan Ave could not keep me outside for very long. Unfortunately fate had other plans as my car was frozen shut for a good 10minutes!
On the flip side, Chicago deep dish pizza was well worth it.

Chicago is much larger city than Vancouver, with almost 11 million people. It's the third largest city in the United States. When I walked through the busy streets, looking around at the Christmas lights, the falling snow, and the stores filled with people busy buying presents, it made me think that when all this chaos and hard work is over, all that is left is the New Year's Resolution.
The very last TASK of the year.

The main purpose of my trip was to work with a growing Chicago-based firm called Fusion92, an Interactive Marketing Company . I spent 3 long days in the boardroom ironing out a workflow and understanding the needs of their company. I held numerous training sessions, jamming in all the info I could present in preparations for a January launch. This seemed to be a common theme in the conference and even when I got back to Vancouver. Christmas is coming up, we're frantically trying to wrap up all the year end tasks, we want to do things better next year. With January brings a new year, a new chance to do things better, more efficiently..."Can we get Function Point up and running by Jan 4th!?!?"

So as you make your New Year's Resolution, get back into shape (which I have to do after all that pizza), try new things, spend more time with family, etc, make a New Year's Resolution professionally. Think of how you can manage your time better? Will you need more staff? How can you load balance, and see how efficiently you are working? Can you take on any more projects? As you sit by the T.V. after a 3rd helping of turkey dinner, think to yourself, how can I manage my time better and work more efficiently. Like many at the S.E.M. conference, Function Point caught their attention.

Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful Christmas break.

Looking forward to talking to you in January!

Ryan Chan
support & deployment manager

Good Service Does Exist!!

2009-12-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

We all love to fly, Right??

For years the perception of flying and service has been in decline. Overbooked planes, delays, dirty planes and food that is either not available or not something you would want to eat.

On my trip this week to visit clients I have been pleasantly surprised. Flying to Winnipeg was a breeze; the people welcomed, handled my bags, and used my name on more than one occasion.

Words like “Care-antee”, and “we don’t overbook”, are used by this company.

That being said, the most important part of the trip was my opportunity to visit the offices of a number of clients and prospects. This was Function Point’s opportunity to show a Care-antee and to hear from clients, while looking people in the eye and seeing the emotion they put into there business and work.

With prospects it was further exploration off the fit between each company culture, and for people to understand our commitment to service.

On the way home, I had similar service and the plane arrived over 20 minutes early with the announcement crediting the flight crew being quite amusing.

It was really refreshing trip for me. I have much from the trip to discuss with our team. Items around over delivery, pleasant surprises and treating people with unique experiences that are memorable.

Service clients and more will come.

I enjoy my work.

Chris Wilson
Chief Client Advocate

What Ended The Recession?

2009-11-25T15:44:00.000-08:00

What ended the recession?

I came across a very interesting marketing / business fable the other day (below) and it got me thinking... A few months ago, all I ever heard of was the recession. Agencies were telling me that they were struggling and that because of their financial woes, they would be cutting back significantly on spending. They were working with less projects from existing clients, gaining fewer new clients and seeing a big decrease in billable hours. Times were tough indeed. Then I looked at the paper one day and saw an interesting headline, "The Recession is Over" it read. "Ya right", I thought to myself, "like it can end just like that. Like people are going to just go out and start spending again". Well... it happened. All of the sudden I wasn't hearing about the recession as much. Actually, I stopped hearing about it at all. Instead, I started hearing great stories about winning marketing pitches and exciting new projects starting up. New work was coming in and agencies were becoming much more concerned with process, productivity and efficiency. It was as if Principals of agencies were more concerned with how to avoid a future downtown than they were about how to get out of the current one. Agencies were hiring again too. I spoke with a lot of managers that were combing the recent grad lists from design schools looking for fresh new talent. Times were picking up indeed.

But how and why? I read later articles that spoke of contraction. Experts were saying that while the worst is behind us, we're still in serious trouble. But there was one positive theme that kept popping up and continues to do so; consumer confidence. Consumers are the major shapers of overall economic activity and it makes you wonder, did we only need a little boost of confidence to get us back on track? Was being told the recession was over the actual reason for it's end?

I'm not sure, but here's an interesting fable that is sure to make you think...
There was once a hot dog vendor who sold the very best hot dogs in the city. His business was booming, people loved his hot dogs, and his business steadily increased month after month. The man loved his business and believed in the need to provide great food at a great price.
This man was so busy advertising and selling his hot dogs and making lots of money, that he didn't even have time to read the newspaper or listen to the radio. Consequently, he never heard a word about a predicted recession or the need to cut back to save for the potential economic slowdown. As long as he continued to offer his delicious hot dogs, his customers bought them. He kept advertising, and they kept coming. He kept selling, and they kept buying.
Then one day his college educated son came to visit him. His very intelligent son told him that an economic recession was surely coming. His son told him that people wouldn't have enough money to buy his hot dogs. The successful hot dog vendor had a lot of faith in his son and assumed all the money he's spent on his son's education must be good for something. So he believed his son, took his advice and cut back on his advertising. Additionally, he started ordering less supplies and product, because after all, people would be cutting back soon. He even went so far as to take down many of the billboards that lead to his roadside stand. And sure enough, people stopped coming to him. People stopped buying his hot dogs, and he eventually went broke.
Then he thought to himself. "How smart my son is in predicting this horrible economic crisis."

Increase Profit Margins and Cut Costs

2009-11-20T15:47:00.000-08:00

As a newly appointed Account Executive here at Function Point, I have to say: ‘To be able to be the voice that reaches out to people with services that help them increase their profit margins and cut costs a 1000 fold is definitely a privilege’.

No matter how you slice it, when everyone else is panicking and things look bad, there has always been 'opportunity'. If you are diving in or expanding what you are doing, or just managing your risk a little tighter, remember that there are plenty of goods and services that people need and want, no matter what the economy is doing.

In a time of short days and increasing numbers of pink slips, it is easy to let our concept of what is possible for us narrow down with the early twilight. But one of the few upsides of the recession is the opportunity to re-evaluate not only what you want in order to grow but also who we are.

Talk to you soon.

DJ Rana

Exciting Times! Function Point and the Olympics.

2009-11-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe that it’s already half way through November! Things are certainly exciting and busy both here at Function Point and in Vancouver as a whole.

Activity in the city is ramping up for the Olympics as crews are working furiously to complete all the venues on time and people are beginning to get into the Olympic spirit. We’re only three months away from the opening ceremony and there is already fresh snow in the mountains … winter is upon us. Whistler is even opening tomorrow for the season (two weeks early) and it feels like the party is about to begin.

On the Function Point side we’re working feverishly to complete our new Client Extranet for release in December. Not only will this be a huge upgrade on the client collaboration front, it will be the first look at our new interface design. We’re really excited about this launch and sharing our vision for the product as we work through a re-write of the interface over the next year.

Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions, comments or suggestions you have. We are currently working with a number of our clients and prospects as well as a database full of suggestions as we map our next several releases. We’re always interested in hearing new ideas.

Cheers.

Tate | VP of Business Operations

Aligning Personal and Business Goals

2009-11-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I have opened a novel. I’m the kind who likes to read journals, newspapers, articles on business and so on. What many would consider boring. As my not so friendly friends put it, “Chris, you are putting me to sleep with all that time sheet stuff. LOL.

But I find a lot of value in a lot of what I read. That being said, this week I posted on our twitter account a link to an article I am going to act on with our team. “How to Align Employee and Company Interests”. I found the article really applicable as I want to see our team grow and remain engaged with all things Function Point.

The article from the Harvard Business Review, talks of asking each team member to prepare a list of their top five priorities. Then in review ask three questions: 
1) Which of these priorities do you think will have the greatest impact for the firm?
2) Which of these interest them the most?
3) Which would they be the most successful with?

Of course the ultimate outcome would be an alignment where one of the priorities is identified when answering each of these questions. Makes sense, but of course we are all human and the likely hood of this is rather small.

The article continues with process for getting everyone onto the same page. Communication, instilling confidence and aligning interests with responsibilities.

So the long and the short of this is related to my upcoming team member reviews. I am going to follow this suggestion and use it as a starting point for personal engagement with each of us in the office.

I am a big believer that the small things that we do today makes a big difference tomorrow, next week and in the next quarter.

With all the great successes we have been having lately I can say the team is doing great work. I feel privileged and can only express how the team at Function Point has never been stronger and more able to move our customers, our product and their own careers forward.

My Gosh, I was just handed a hard cover! The age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture by Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant. Something bigger than an article yet related to my passions. I'll read on...

Thanks Jane

Chris

Making a Better Password

2009-10-14T16:33:00.001-07:00

Passwords.

Did the sight of that word make you flinch?

Using good passwords is like getting regular exercise. We know we're supposed to do it, but it's hard to get excited about it. But good passwords are also like a good roof on your house. You're better protected from the harsher 'elements' outside. (In this case, you're better protected from bad guys who want to hack your email or even your bank account).

We all know we're supposed to have hard-to-guess passwords. Here's a simple way to make a hard-to-guess password that is easy to remember.

First, Pick a 4 or 5 word phrase that you can easily remember. This can be a common phrase that others know, like "don't have a cow man", or something special only to you. You'll know it's a good phrase if you think you'll be able to remember it after a few days or weeks.

Go ahead and write it down for now, and put it some place reasonably private, like your daytimer, your wallet or your purse.

Ok, now lets convert this new phrase into a short string of numbers. We can do this by counting the letters in each word:

don't (5 letters -- we'll count the apostrophe as a letter)
have (4 letters)
a (1 letter)
cow (3 letters)
man (3 letters)

When we put the letter counts together, "don't have a cow man" translates to "54133". The number your phrase generates is going to be a part of your new password.

You shouldn't write this number down anywhere. You can go ahead and try to memorize it right now, but don't worry if you can't do it. That's why you chose your phrase to be memorable, so that you can easily 'recreate' your number. If you think you are going to forget how you got your number from your phrase, go ahead and write 'count the letters' on the same piece of paper that has your phrase.

The thing to keep in mind is that you are only going to keep this piece of paper around until your new number is memorized, much the same way we write down our phone number until we have it memorized. Once you know your number, go ahead and tear up the paper and throw it away.

One last thing about this 'number' we just made up. Why not just use your birthday, or some other, easier-to-remember number? The answer is that while those numbers may be easy to remember, they are also easy to guess. That isn't true of the number you just made up. This new number doesn't have any simple connection to you, so it makes it harder to guess.

Ok, you have half of your password complete. Now on to the easy part!

Go ahead and pick a word you like: 'blue', 'homer', 'bicycle'. This word should have at least 4 letters, and should be a word that is important enough to you that you will always be able to remember it. The name of your cat or your favourite colour are fine choices.

Let's choose 'blue' for our example.

For the last step, mix the characters from our memorable word with the digits from the number we generated. Keep the characters and digits in the same order they appeared in the word and number, but alternate the characters and numbers in an easy to memorize way. Here's some examples:

54bl133ue

bl54133ue

The most important thing is to split up the letters of the word. This way the new password can't be 'read' as a word or phrase.

That's all there is to it!

Now instead of having to remember a long, meaningless password, we just have to remember a number (that only has meaning to us), and our favourite 'password' word. We can even re-use our number in other passwords.

Here's some more tips that will make this 'system' of passwords even more secure:

Have several simple words that you use for your passwords. Combine them with your number to make different passwords for different accounts/logins.
Change your 'number' (ie, pick a new memorable phrase) every 6 months (or even sooner), and update your existing passwords to use it. For instance, "bl54133ue" might become "bl23412ue", because my new number is "23412".
Change the pattern you use to translate your phrase into a number. For example, count the vowels 'a, e, i, o, u' (in that order) and put the counts together as a number. Eg, "don't have a cow" = 31020.
Pick a longer phrase to get a longer number. 6 or 7 digits is harder to guess than 4 or 5.
Put punctuation between the numbers and characters like this: "bl-54133-ue" or "54.bl.133.ue". This satisfies the common requirement that passwords have symbols in them (usually punctuation). As well, this can even make it easier to remember because the two parts, the number and word, are kind of kept separate.

That's all for today. Have fun making new passwords! (Just joking. I hate password stuff too).

Happy fall everyone!

"Finish your damn sandwich and come help me out!"

2009-10-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

With the close of the Summer season and the transition into Fall, it's back to work as usual.
Here in Vancouver it seems like an almost instantaneous change. 3 months of sunshine, right until Oct 1, then the rains. When it rains, it pours out here in the West Coast and it doesn't stop until hmm....next May! Surprisingly we've had some Indian Summer days to remind us what we can look forward to next year.

We've also gone through some exciting changes here at Function Point. Besides the much anticipated client-extranet and re-writes, we have physically moved into our brand new office.
Fortunately, I have a patio, window and sunroof in my office. Unfortunately the rain makes a very loud background noise on the phone, so despite what people think, we are not in igloos or in tents or in the mountains. Not mentioning anyone...Big Gator (aka Chris Spiro ) who has kindly given me the nickname "Moose" and even in our meetings addresses me as "Moose", not "Goose" as in Top Gun, but "Moose."

With the Fall season approaching, it seems as though everyone is getting down to business and trying to implement of Fp system to cut costs and better manage their resources. Function Point is growing at an alarming rate, and as Manager of the Deployment sector, things have never been busier. Lunch has suddenly become a privilege not a right, as my good friend Nicholas from Ferrand Communications gently stated:

"Finish your damn sandwich and come help me out!"

This is very fitting as I always get teased for eating 7 meals a day, or pretty much an equivalent to a sandwich every hour!

New clients, new office, and new features makes Fp the place to be.
Definitely looking forward to finishing off the year strong and looking forward to the upcoming year!

Ryan Chan
Deployment Manager and Head Trainer

New space, new focus

2009-10-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

It seems quite hard to believe that we've been in our new office for almost 2 weeks now. But you can already see the effects. Just a coat of paint can change the whole way a space feels. And instead of just a coat of paint, we have an entirely new office. It's a mostly open office space that allows the different teams to be closer and work as a more effective cohesive unit. And at the same time, it gives each person (especially the developers, who were working in the room pictured in Alon's last post) more space in which to do what they do best.

The new office has a very professional air to it. Instead of the previous one, which with all the new staff, became a very make-shifted space. It worked, but there is no doubt that this way will work better. The space finally reflects the company--it simply feels like a place where excellent work gets done.

The only downside of an open space is the way heat disperses. The people next to the heater are always warmest. And since I'm usually cold AND on the opposite end of the room from the heater, I've taken to wearing fingerless gloves while working. Partially for fashionable reasons, of course. Gotta try and keep up with the new office.

Sarah

Good bye Function Point, Hello Function Point

2009-09-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day in our current office ... We've been in the same office for the past 12.5 years ... I guess it is time to move on ... our current space is WAY too small for us.

When we were four, it was perfect, when we were seven it was OK, we are now eleven with a constant need to grow (our plan is to take over the world. It will take time, but we are patient).

We decided it is time to move when the development team could not fit in any of the rooms but the boardroom (picture on the right) ... so for the past few months we do not have a "real" boardroom. The boardroom became the hub of development.

All that is going to change ! We are moving into a much bigger space with an amazing view of the Vancouver mountains (Finally I will be able to see those magnificent mountains whenever I raise my head from my monitors).

We are moving on Sunday. Everyone will help. We are actually moving one floor down from where we are, so we expect a smooth transition to the new place.

Next blog post will be much better because I will have the mountains as an inspiration.

Net Neutrality

2009-09-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve been at Function Point for the better part of 5 years, although I wear many hats here at Function Point most of our clients will recognize me as the guy that winds up on the phone whenever anything QuickBooks related comes up. The Function Point system is built to encapsulate the time tracking and project management aspects of a Professional Services agency and to export relevant data to an Accounting System. My experience has been that creative agencies are better off managing invoicing/project management and accounting/payroll with separate applications. With QuickBooks being geared for Accountants and Bookkeepers we have a free hand to stream line Function Point for time tracking, tasking, estimating and detailed invoicing. Aside from work I like travel, watch movies and stay up to date on the political events around me. Take the recent news about a new U.S. policy on how the Internet works, I have been watching the issue media and I’ll do my best to explain what ‘Net Neutrality’ is without taking a political stance and hopefully without getting too technical.

First a quick explanation of what makes the Internet different then other communication systems. Take the example of how a voice message sent along a traditional phone system, the message will travel along one set route as one single piece of data. With the Internet the voice message will be broken into a million pieces (packets) by software and sent out along many paths to its destination where it is re-assembled by software again. An Internet transmission from New York to Los Angles can have part of the messaging routed through Canada, while another part of the message is routed through Texas while yet another part of the message was sent through Miami, and along each route the data can be in the hands of different telecommunications companies. Right now at every ‘intersection’ of the Internet ‘highway’ data packets are looked at by the Traffic Cops of the internet (routing servers) and are directed to which route has the least traffic. To do their job these traffic cops have to do nothing more then look at the “To Address” of the data packets, and that’s where Net Neutrality comes in.

With Net Neutrality the traffic cops will only be able to look at the ‘To Address’ and verify the content is legal. The telecoms want to look at more then the “To Address”, they want to know the computer program that Data Packet is for, i.e. is the Data Packet Voice(VOIP)/Video(YouTube)/Text etc. To understand why is the reason I explained how the Internet works first. With something like a text web page, if the page is broken up into thousands of packets and the packets arrive in a random order at their destination over a few seconds, the user will see the page load and the pieces will fill in as they come in from the Internet. With a voice or video transmission it becomes very important that the message comes in with the same order it left in, otherwise the message will be garbled. The telecoms want to look at the data type so then can send Voice an Video data packets with a higher priority then other data, or at least that’s their marketing position. Other companies like Google and Skype want to use the Internet to run their own phone companies over the Internet, they are afraid that Traffic Cops will be used to discriminate against the data packets sent by their programs because it competes with the core business of the telecoms. Telecoms control the traffic cops, without Net Neutrality they have a lot of control over how well every program that uses the Internet works.

Message From The Dev Zone

2009-09-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone.

Well, it's been a few months, and I'm fully settled in.

The dev team is busy working on major system upgrades and some great new features, and I'm thrillled to say that I'm applying my expertise to some cutting edge stuff!

I can't reveal too much about what we're working on, but I can tell you we are integrating a modern web 2.0 experience with the simplicity and accessiblity of our current system, and adding stability and speed improvements all around.

All right, it's back to work for me!

Successfully creating new reasons to get excited about where Function Point is headed!

2009-09-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hi Richard here on a glorious Friday afternoon. I'm the "newish" business development officer here at Function Point. I started in June of 2009. My role within Function Point ties the marketing side to the sales side , while drumming up new business. Getting prospects excited about what we're doing at Function Point, and where we are headed is the name of the game. You still with me?

Ah yes, "the economy". When I started in June I had dig up as much new business as I possibly could in order to move into more of a business development role-basically the marketing side of my role was non-existent. June and July were two of the most intense months of my professional life. Cold calling up agencies --and constantly hearing the "economy" as the major reason for non-interest in my firm at time. The "economy" was also a factor when agencies where "cleaning house" so to speak.

Internally, we had to create a reason for agencies to get excited about our software. I personally felt like the term the "economy" was a subconscious defence mechanism --as if it's true meaning was now almost forgotten. In the beginning of August Chris-our CEO, myself, Marc Wilson and Tate Lillies came together with a plan -- and it worked

Now... I'm not going to reveal the strategy here but I wanted to note that if your role within your firm is similar to mine --THERE IS HOPE! The "cat and mouse" game around the new defence mechanism term known as "the economy" is exactly that--a term. We signed up 8 new clients in August alone and I'm looking up at our pipeline for the month of September and it looks like it's going to be matched.

Here sits my firm Function Point - that's gained 8 new clients, in one month, in a "bad economy". I just hope this gives that good ole' feeling of: "If we can do it! So can you!". On a side note, I'm really excited that hockey starts October 1st this year...who's with me?!
TGIF.

The Support Side of Function Point

2009-09-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

Let's start this post of my talking about me !

I have been working for Function Pointsince March of 2000. This was before the Function Point system was in existence. Back then we wrote custom FileMaker systems for companies. My current role as technical support at Function Point has me doing many different tasks.

Technical Support if you encounter a challenge with the system that's not user based, I'm usually the person that fixes it (despite what Ryan may tell you).

Developer when I'm not trying to solve problems I get to build things for the Function Point system. While Alon is usually building things from scratch so to speak, I'm usually taking his work and using it throughout the rest of the system. A good example of this will probably be the new list views. As part of development printout adjustments also falls in my realm of responsibilities.

Network Technician -- while we have our production servers located in a server farm in Toronto it's still nescecarry to do maintenance on them from time to time. As part of this role it's my job to update self-hosted clients to the latest release of function point. I get to support Windows, Mac and Linux computers. Function Point is designed and built to run on a LAMP server (linux apache mysql php).

Ok enough about work ...... let's talk about play

If I'm not working or sleeping then I'm probably out scuba diving. Living on the west coast has it's advantages like having the ocean in you backyard. I earned my PADI open water diver certificate in 1995 and have been very active in diving since then. In 1997 I earned by open water scuba instructor certificate. Since then I have been very active in the teaching of scuba diving. I love sharing my passion for diving with others. In addition to being a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer, I am also a TDI Advanced Nitrox & Deco Procedures Instructor. I also dive an Evolution CCR (closed circuit rebreather) {hmmm something about being in over your head in more ways than one !}.

One of my favourite activities while diving is wreck diving. Here in BC we have a number of ships of varying sizes that have been sunk as artificial reefs. The Artifical Reef Society of BC is currently preparing the 371 foot destroyer escort HMCS Annapolis for sinking in 2010 as BC's next artificial reef. I have personally spent many volunteer hours on board assisting in the removal of potential hazards (to the environment and to divers). One way you can show your support to this project to fill out a letter of support to sink the former HMCS Annapolis.

One of the other things I do while diving is under water photography. You can see my photos on my website.

I think I will sign off for now. Hopefully you found it interesting and mildly amusing

Dennis Chow
Technical Support

So September has come around again.

2009-09-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

The summer has been incredible. There is just so much going on and all of it really exciting.

On the big scale, Vancouver is gearing up for the Winter Olympics in February 2010. New highway to Whistler, the Canada Line subway to the airport and this years public school schedules being switched up to accommodate some extra time off for Olympic volunteers. The city is changing so much.

Our office is moving this month and we have spent the summer watching a new space get transformed. We simply can’t wait. A couple of big rooms, lots of sky lights and a great view of the city and the north shore mountains.

The team has grown by three people in the last few months and everyone is really contributing. Ryan, our new deployment manager has stepped right into the role and has been getting rave reviews from some of our newest clients. Trevor has brought his 15 years + of UI expertise to the development team just as we have needed it most and Sarah who has just graduated from UBC has totally excited us with her ability to take on complex challenges. All have added to the social fabric of Function Point.

With a new product launch, upgrades and further support tools in the works, these next month’s are going to be exciting. That is not to say without challenges, but with great talent pushing toward our common goal of building strong relationships both in office and with our growing family of clients around the world we sure to flourish.

I remember my parents musing about how the older you get the faster the years go by. Only if I would have been listening?

Wow, what a summer… where did it go!

Chris Wilson
President

From Apple to PC to Apple - the full circle

2009-09-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

First of all, a bit about my history with Function Point ...

I have been working as part of the Function Point team since 2002, right from FP V0.00001 pre Beta.

OK, that's it for the history lesson, back to now !

OK, enough with now, lets go to some real history ...

When I was 11 years old (just a few years ago), I got my first computer. It was a brand new Apple IIc with 128kb of Ram, a floppy disk, and a 7" monitor (green colors only).

My father told me that if I "just play with it" he will be very disappointed, so right from day one I bought booklets to learn BASIC (yes, that is a computer language), and that was when I fell in love with programming.

About a year later, I got an adapter for the Apple IIc that connected it to a real TV, and gee those 16 colors looked AMAZING, I thought that this is the where technology would end ... because who needs more than 16 colors with 128kb of RAM ???

A few years went by, the Apple IIc collected dust, and the new PC Clones replaced it ... the first one was an 8MHz with a "turbo" button to 16MHz (with a whole 20MB drive and windows 3.11), later a 32MHz, 128MHz, 512MHz, 1Ghz (win 95), 1.2Ghz , 1.8Ghz (Win 98), 2.6Ghz (Win 2000), 3.0Ghz (Win XP), 1.8Ghz dual core (Win VISTA) , IMAC 24", 2.96Ghz ...

Just a second !!! ... an IMAC ???? what's with all the PC's, and suddenly an IMAC ??

Well, I guess the latest and the greatest of Microsoft OS did not cut it for me ...

Let me tell you a bit about the transition ...

I have been using a PC since I was thirteen or so (just a few years ago), so it was not easy to switch. I started by buying a MAC, installing bootcamp on it with .... VISTA (yes) ... and Parallels running Windows XP Proffesional (just so I feel at home in both environments).

When I first started to use that setup, I kept logging in to the VISTA side, later I switched to spending more time in Parallels on MAC ... but slowly and surely I found myself using the Mac OS more and more (the VISTA Bootcamp partition is long gone) ..

The trick for me was to find replacements for all of the programs I used to on the Windows side ..

So here it goes, the golden list of programs I used on my PC, and switched to on the Mac:

Development PHP IDE --> Zend Studio (PC) --> Zend Studio (MAC)

Productivity --> Office 2007 (PC) --> Office 2008 (MAC)

Development / Subversion Client--> Tortoise SVN --> Syncro SVN

Email Client--> Thunderbird (PC)--> Mozilla

Browser --> Firefox / Safari (PC) --> Mozilla (again) / Apple

Maintanance --> Add / Remove Programs(PC) --> App Cleaner (Free)

Development / design --> Photoshop / Homesuite color picker --> Colorpicker Cannot find the link, email support team if you want it

Development / design --> Photoshop (PC) --> Photoshop Mac

Download Manager --> Free download manager --> Igetter

DVD / Disk Burn --> Nero --> Burn (Free)

Media Player --> VLC --> Flip4Mac Telestream / Apple (quicktime) / VLC

Reading Windows Help files --> Windows CHM reader --> Ichm (free)

Development SSH drive --> ExpanDrive --> Macfusion (Free)

Development SSH client --> SSH Secure shell --> Iterm (Free)

MySQL GUI Client --> EMS MySQL --> Navicat MySQL

Security --> Norton 360 (PC) --> Norton AntiVirus 11 (MAC)

File Split / Concat --> HJsplit --> Split & Concat (does not work on Snow Leopard yet ..)

Software KVM --> Synergy (PC) --> Synergy KM nice GUI for synergy (Free)

RAR Files extract --> Winrar --> UnRarX (Free)

It seems that one can find pretty much everything to use on a Mac.

Good Bye Windows, Hello MAC OS

Thank you for reading :-)

Alon Sabi

VP of technology

First blog post!

2009-08-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first blog post! I never thought I'd be writing a blog, but here I am, desperately attempting to write a blog. It’s not that writing is out of character for me, even though I spend my days writing code in front of a computer screen. I enjoy writing about events and people who never existed and will probably never exist. But I’ve never found the same excitement in non-fiction. Nonetheless, here it goes, a bit about me. I'm a recent graduate from Computer Science (and microbiology) at UBC, who took one directed studies course in web development and have been hooked from then on. Which is what led me to applying for a developer job here at Function Point a scant few months ago now.

And as I delve deeper into work here, there are 2 events on the horizon that are worth more than a passing glance. First is the progress of the newest version of Function Point, and the very cool new features that I get to help develop. Every feature is a puzzle to solve, and I enjoy almost every minute of it (enjoying *every* minute of it would be too exhausting, so I’m sticking to almost). The second event is more of a non-event. It is that for the first time since I started Kindergarten many, many years ago, I am not going back to school in September. I imagine it will be a bit of a shock to the system—I wouldn’t be surprised if I wound up at UBC before I realized I was supposed to be heading in the opposite direction!

End of blog post. (Thanks for putting up with it)

Sarah

Web developer

Exciting Changes, for a Time of Change

2009-08-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

It’s been almost 6 months since I joined the Function Point team, and what an experience it has been. As a recent SFU graduate majoring in Business and Economics with plenty of experience in large financial corporations, I have been fortunate to find a unique position that allows me to apply my knowledge while meeting a wide range of professional minds in the creative and architectural industries. As a deployment manager I have met many top level CEOs and creative minds that have a wealth of experience and wisdom to tap into.

I have entered the workforce at a most interesting time in our economic history. It’s been over 30 years since we have experienced such an economic contraction, with foreclosures and banks failures an almost regular news story, it appears everyone is re-thinking how they do business and are ready for a change. With flashes of opportunity breaking through the dark clouds of recession, firms are more focused on monitoring themselves. I have definitely found value in SAAS products such as our own that help companies police themselves, and become more efficient and productive in the way they do business. I am very excited to see where the next 6 months take us. With a new version on the horizon with many new features like our Client Extranet and revamped user capabilities combined with this new philosophy of efficiency, time-tracking, and responsible business, there are no limits to where this product can attain.

When I’m not out saving the world from certain time-tracking dangers, I usually spend my time playing some kind of sport, usually basketball and volleyball, the ones that aren’t weather dependent. I am an advent runner as well, and you can usually catch me running anywhere from False Creek to Grouse Mountain. Here on the “Left” Coast, summers are amazing, but short, so I try and soak as much sun before the rainy season returns. (By rainy season I mean Spring, Fall, and Winter). So far you’ve met the snowboarder, the climber, and combined with the office “pooch” Levi, we’re definitely an eclectic bunch here and we definitely look forward to getting to know you.

Ryan
Deployment Manager