Finally launched a very basic web app I’ve been piddling around with for a while. It’s called ClipRunner, and it’s only purpose is to help get bits of text from one computer to another.

I built this mainly for my own needs. Seemed like every time I turned around, I needed to get a little bit of text from one place to another. Usually things like a long URL, an IP address, WEP key, or something I otherwise wouldn’t be able to remember going from one office to another.

The concept is pretty simple. Type or paste your text into the big field, enter a “pickup code” in the little field. Then go to the other computer and go to cliprunner.com/yourcode to retrieve it.

Is it secure? Well, it depends on what your criteria is. There is no real authentication, so if someone guesses your code, they’ll see it in all its glory. But as the fine print points out, be smart about it. For example, pasting a Photoshop serial number is one thing. But don’t SAY it’s a photoshop serial. And don’t use a pickup code of: photoshopserial. I think that’s pretty reasonable.

At any rate, I’d love to get feedback on the utility of this thing, even though I know I’ll be using it myself

FireBox has just released a new open source PHP application called AC/BC. This is a script built in support of a fairly new project management application called activeCollab.

Even though it’s original purpose was to be a replacement for the paid Basecamp service, it’s growing into something way better. The only drawback is that users wanting to switch had no way to get their old Basecamp data into activeCollab.

We needed this functionality as well for a project and set about to create the software for our needs, then offer it back to the activeCollab community as a free application.

Find out more here.

We’ve just totally rewritten and restructured the online documentation to FireControl, our proprietary content management system. We’ve broken out each cms function and explained them in detailed, albeit understandable, terms commplete with screenshots.

If you’re currently a client, check out the new docs.

If you’re not a client (and you should be), check out the new docs.

If you’re curious about FireControl and how it could help you manage your website, check out our online demo.

FireBox Studios is currently in development on a new web-based calendar application called FireCal. This new system, created for PHP and mySQL, will be focused on simplicity while still being highly flexible.

Instead of incorporating every feature under the sun and becoming bloated, we will be keeping things lightweight and simple. Then when we’ve heard feedback from our initial customers, we’ll decide what additional features may (or may not) be added. But don’t worry, every upgrade will always be free.

The key advantage of using Firecal is its flexible date entry system. You will be able to either enter a one-time event, or specify a recurring event with 5 different recurrance types. PLUS, you’ll be able to add extra dates to any event (ie, Yoga classes every other Wednesday, plus this one extra Thursday). Or you can specify dates to exclude from a recurring event range (ie, Yoga classes every other Wednesday, but not on Christmas).

We are pushing for a May 1st product launch, but should that date need pushed back, we’ll post it to the site. Click here to sign up for the Firecal mailing list to be notified as soon as it’s available for purchase.

Also, for those that are wondering, our project management software is still going to (eventually) happen. We’ve been very busy with client development work and have not had time to devote to it. We had already built a solid event calendar system for a couple clients and it seemed like releasing that as a commercial app first seemed like the more logical route.

Again, once we have more to say about the PM app, we’ll post something here.

We’ve just released an upgrade to our popular PHP script for generating XML for SlideShowPro, a Flash-based photo gallery application.

Originally released back in February 2005, our script allows owners of SSP to automatically scan through multiple folders containing photos, resize them, create thumbnails and generate a correctly-formatted XML document, which is then read by the Flash movie.

Updates in version 1.2 include:

• Added ability to have all images dumped together in the root folder, eliminating the need to create subfolders on small galleries
• Automated thumbnail folder creation
• Set PHP timeout to zero, to try to keep script from timing out
• Added support for Permalinks
• Added support for Image Pause intervals
• Added additional error checking

The script is free to anyone that’s purchased a SlideShowPro license (only twenty bucks!) and can be downloaded here.

I’m writing this first actual “blog” entry to share FireBox’s project management experiences, specifically software applications built for it, and my decisions based on it.

A couple years ago, our workload became such that we needed to find a better way to manage multiple clients with multiple projects, track time, create schedules, etc. Up until then, “project management” consisted of hand-written to-do lists, stickie notes and whiteboard chicken scratches. From there, I’d progressed to using the Task manager within Microsoft Outlook, but that wasn’t worth much, and didn’t allow me to abandon the previous methods. Read the rest of this entry »

FireBox is proud to announce the latest release of our custom content management software, paraSite 2.2. Since we released version 2.1, there have been 15 entries in the software’s change log. Many of these are minor tweaks that the client never sees, but everything we do to the software ultimately makes it a more stable, faster, more functional tool for our clients.

Note: If you are a client running paraSite 2.1 or earlier, let us know when you would like us to upgrade you to 2.2 at no charge.

Notable revisions and enhancements in the past few months include:

• All content types can belong in multiple categories and sub-categories
• ….plus many behind-the-scenes code revisions and performance enhancements, too many to list

What’s next for ParaSite 2.3?
ParaSite 2.3 is on track to be a fairly significant upgrade. Our CMS development is driven by our clients’ needs, both for functionality and ease of use. Planned upgrades for paraSite 2.3 include:

• All-new user permission system. Instead of simply specifying 3 user levels (Content Editor, Site Manager, and Developer), we will be able to set specific permissions on a per-group and per-user level for all content types. For example, you could assign one user to be able to add and edit news articles, and nothing else. Or set up another user to be able to only add events which would require approval from the Site Manager.
• Content Syndication. All content types (ie, news, events, products, members, etc) will have the ability to be “syndicated“, enabling other sites to share your content and allow visitors to get your content in multiple ways. For instance, a user could add your “feed” to their news reader (or news aggregator) and instantly download new articles, blogs, events, etc as soon as you post them.
• Brand new skin. We’ll also be redesigning paraSite’s admin “skin”, or graphical template to allow for easier reading, better navigation and faster loading.
• Custom URL’s for all. We’ve offered the ability to specify custom URL’s for any page within your site, but soon you’ll be able to specify custom web addresses for ANY page or content type. In other words, instead of an article address that looks like this: www.yourdomain.com/news/45/405, you can make it look like this: www.yourdomain.com/myarticle. This allows more relevance in search engine listings, and is easier to read and remember.

FireBox is proud to announce the latest release of our custom content management software, paraSite 2.1. Since we released version 2.0, there have been 34 entries in the software’s change log. Many of these are minor tweaks that the client never sees, but everything we do to the software ultimately makes it a more stable, faster, more functional tool for our clients.

What is ParaSite?
If you are not a FireBox Studios client, or have been a client for over a year or so, you may not be familiar with our proprietary content management software, code-named “paraSite”. We built the software in June 2005 to power the North Parkersburg Baptist Church site and have been continually expanding and improving it ever since.

The software is a tool for clients to add/edit/delete/move pages of their site as they see fit, from a simple web browser interface. It also allows us to set up complex content types like product listings, member listings, news, calendars, etc.

Notable revisions, bug fixes and enhancements in the past few months include:

• Content types can have three settings for the ‘body’ field: graphical html, plain text, or none
• If keywords and descriptions are not specified for a page, they are generated automatically “on the fly” when the page is requested. They are generated based on words and phrases used within the page’s ‘body’ field.
• Categories and sub-categories for any content record (multiple categories and subcats will be available in v2.2)
• Added ability to sort content lists in the editor by name, id, date created or date modified
• All pages can be assigned a custom URL path (ie, /news/article instead of /page.php?id=42&cid=76). This allows more search-engine friendly addresses that are easier to remember and can be separately tracked and identified with traffic statistic software like Webtrends and Urchin.
• Added ability to use PHP code within the ‘body’ field as well
• Added ability to export ANY content type or category to an Excel spreadsheet file. Simply pick one or more content types (ie, news articles, events, products, members, etc) OR one ore more categories/subcategories, click submit and immediately start downloading an excel file of the results.