apathy (dot) JTSage

So, a little side project that I have been working on:

Overview -
I work in the theater industry, doing the job of a technical director. It's along the lines of a construction site foreman, with not enough staff, materials, or time - all in all, a lot of fun :) That said, tracking things like the budget and payroll are time consuming tasks that I just don't want to spend the time on. So, I came up with a better way. I call it TDTrac:

TDTrac is a web based show budget and payroll hours tracker, built by a TD, for other TD's, freelance designers, and anyone else who finds it useful. TDTrac is completely free, released as open source. We also offer hosting plans for a nominal fee (no domain required!) so you don't need to pay for webspace elsewhere.

TDTrac Features:

• Track as many show budgets as you wish
• Budgets can be organized by vendor, category, or even amount spent
• Track payment pending budget items - things ordered but not cleared through any account or credit card you use
• Track reimbursable budget items through the reciept of payment from your reimburser
• Track as many active or inactive employees as you wish
• Track which employee hours have been paid and which are outstanding
• Configurable hourly or daily pay rate for budgeting purposes
• Configurable hourly or daily pay methods for accurate work force accounting
• Allow your employees to add thier own hours, while being notified on your next login
• Optionally allow your employees to add budget expenses, or even view the current budget

You can find out more by checking out the site I launched for it here: TDTrac.com - there is even a live demo.

1. Yes, that's snow. It does that here
2. Yes, it makes it harder to drive
3. No, your little VW bug will not make it up the 30degree brick incline
4. Yes, I assure you, my little S-10 will. Please move
...

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I just moved over to a new hosting service. This time I went with linode, a PEX based virtual server host. I now have my very own linux install with a dedicated IP to play with. Perhaps I'll get around to writing a full review in a few days when I know more. But, it sure is nice to have all my toys in one place, and I'm finally off the MSU THR server completely. Woot.

In other news, my portfolio got some backend updates, although no cosmetic ones yet. It's now DB based, so it should be easier ...

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And so ends my first show for the new school year. Smallish design (as dictated by the distinct lack of stage space), but it was very pretty. Great group of people out at the college - I rather enjoyed this one, which is a good thing. Only real downside on the whole thing was that an installation of new overhead equipment coincided with the tech of the show, so it did not go as smoothly as it could have / should have - buuut, we got through.

perhaps if i'm not incredibly lazy later I'll post some photos of this ...

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Alrighty, due to the wonderful new arrangement with my webspace, I have deemed it high time that I actually create a new blog. Not only that, but I intend on actually updating this one regularly.

Not too much else is going on right now - well, that's not all true.

A friend and mentor recently passed away. He was one of my professors while still in college, and he can only be characterized as a stubborn, hard to understand man - and I greatly respected him. He told me many things in the years I was there, but the one ...

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