Not a lot of time to dish this week, what with Satan’s Flu™ occupying my person, and Mercury entering my Fifth Equinox (which I hate!) so I thought I’d bust out a few of this week’s most interesting stories.

1. Medical
   Diabetes Mine, a blog covering diabetes, this week put out an open letter to Apple (aka Steve Jobs) to design a better Insulin Pump. Well actually, the call was for a competition to design a better medical aide, the winner getting the Apple design team to Pimp my Pump, as it were. Techcrunch also ran the story, with some promising traction. Medical technology is one of my favorite topics; don’t even get me started on nano-technology.
2. Business
   From Guy Kawasaki, who discovered the MBA in a page, a veritable cheat sheet of MBA business theories that one might imagine perfect for the David Brents of the world (or the Michael Scotts, depending on your preference). For mine, this would serve as an excellent meeting-bingo sheet, although conspicuous only by its absence is “synergize”. Hmmm, at the end of the day, moving forward, we’ll reconnect on that at a later date.
3. Online Tabloid
   Also from Guy Kawasaki, Truemors was launched a month ago to a chorus of criticism from the blogosphere, many citing that the User-Generated Rumours site was not only destined to fail but would also hurt Mr K’s reputation. (For those that don’t know, Guy was an original Apple employee and is now a Silicon Valley investor). However, I get the feeling there’s something behind this model that will work, because to my knowledge there hasn’t been a decent example of tabloid media (oxymoron?) moving to an online format, perhaps with the exception of Myspace. One can only imagine that Rupert Murdoch might see fit to acquire it in due course.
4. Second Life Dying, or art imitating life?
   “Second Life is like a giant porno. All people do there is have sex,” says Baris Karadogan (ComVentures). Interesting take, Baris, and I’m sure a lot of people would agree with you, but let’s not jump ahead of ourselves (for they said the same thing about the interweb once!). Enter Sony, looking to introduce their own virtual world attached to the PS3, who have even stated that their virtual world will be policed and that violators will be dealt with swiftly. I’m off now to build my virtual cat-o-nine tails and digital public stocks. You guys work up some rotten tomatoes and we’ll bleed the freaks!
5. Time Travel
   You know that excitable guy/girl who used to always go on about how one day we’ll invent time travel, and you’d always ask them if that were the case why aren’t we coming back to visit ourselves from the future? And then after a moment of sulking they’d counter with Time Police? (which is irrelevant to this point, but I just wanted to paint an accurate picture). Well it turns out they COULD BE RIGHT! Not about the time police, but according to Amos Ori (Israel’s Doc Brown) we would first need to the technology to build the receiving stations as it were, that would allow future generations past that “wrap” back around to the past point.

– Ben Prendergast

Woah! In the last week we’ve seen a plethora (a PLETHORA!!) of online activity around the iPhone release, which occurs Saturday morning (our time) in the US. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting tidbits.
1. Apple released its official guided tour this week, complete with faux turtle-necked Steve Jobs.

2. This slovenly chap was (unfortunately for Apple) the first in line for an iPhone (four days before release), and further reports suggest that professional queue-sitters have been employed for up to $1000. Around the blogosphere, the Apple detractors are still out in force, some calling the iPhone the “greatest failure of all time”…

3. Which is vehemently contradicted by the actual reviews, available now that the review embargo has been lifted. My favourite is the hilarious “My iPhone Diary” by New York Times columnist David Pogue. New features uncovered like the fake GPS and real time traffic reports right on the Google map suggest we’re only scratching the surface as to what kind of new features we’ll see in this breakthrough device.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, provides a more austere review, yet interestingly vindicates the controversial virtual keyboard: “Three days in I wanted to throw it out the window, five days in I was typing faster than my Treo QWERTY keyboard.” However Walt also provides that the greatest drawback at this point seems to be that it is only available on one carrier (AT&T, the USA’s largest).

4. The competition responds with the Nokia E65. However, I get the feeling Nokia is to iPhone what PC is to Mac, and right now there would be frantic activity in both the marketing and development labs of said competition. By contrast, Apple are probably readying their “Hi, I’m an iPhone, and I’m a Nokia” ads.

5. What about the plans? US mobile phone plans are somewhat different to Australian plans (they’re mainly based on bundled minutes), however here is a really great breakdown of the TCO (total cost of ownership) for the iPhone.

Interestingly, there are myriad plans, which is somewhat at odds with the Apple simplicity ethos, but perhaps the most interesting story in all of this is how other carriers will be brought on as it has a bearing on what networks the iPhone will support in the medium term, and of course how the Australian market will in turn be serviced.

– Ben Prendergast

Well I’m feeling a little guilty here, I’ve been hard at work keeping new features flowing but clearly you’re needing some love in your inbox, so here it is.The last few months have been among our strongest on record (thanks to you), and I’d like to thank all who have come on board or continued to show their support!

We’ve been busy building the structures for new features, and have a couple of new products in development that are really going to boil some of your potatoes.
But on to the news!

30 DAY TRIALS A simple request, you wanted more time to review our editions, so we’re now offering full 30 day trials on all our products. Tell your friends one month of efficiency is on us! Sign up here. http://www.copperproject.com/demo.php

NEW ENTERPRISE EDITION REPORTS, RESOURCING The word was past down from our last survey, “build us a report writer!”. So we did. Our new reports module is now in beta, and you can now produce reports relating to clients or projects, or relating to particular resources. You can save these reports for reprodution, export them to CSV, or have them run periodically and be emailed right to your inbox. We’ve also made some changes to resource management widget, and you can now quickly allocate a resource without having to specify the hours they will work on a task These features are now available to our Enterprise customers now so get in touch and we’ll send you the update.

NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM Do you know someone that could use Copper in their business? If so, we’re offering no questions asked referals. If you refer someone to the Copper product and if they purchase either a server license or sign up for a hosted account, you’ll receive a 20% commission (server-license) or once off $25/$50/$100 bonus (Hosted account). No strings.

ELEMENT ON THE RADIO Australian customers might be a fan of the Byte Into IT show on Melbourne’s RRR, as was/is CEO Ben Prendergast, heard here paying his respects to the doyens of the Australian IT media, replete with unabashed self-promotion. http://media.libsyn.com/media/rrrfm/Byte-Into-It-20070509.mp3

– Ben Prendergast

You know, it’s not every day someone publishes your mug on their webiste, let alone the Apple site, and with a company review no less.

Click here to see the article: http://www.apple.com/au/pr/casestudies/2007/01/element_software/

Thanks especially to the Apple retouchers for some splendid photoshop work.

– Ben Prendergast

1. All New Standard 2007, $29/mth
2. New Enterprise Update
3. 20% off licenses until the end of March

NEW STANDARD 2007 EDITION ($29/MTH) We’re really excited about this release. Our survey uncovered a hidden user-group, those that have less than ten users, but needed full functionality. Well, we agonized over a free version (truly we did) however this is much better (for you, and our accountants). Starting TODAY we have the Standard 2007 version which includes groups, timesheets, invoicing, budgeting, central files, and basically EVERYTHING in the Corporate version, for $29/mth. http://www.copperproject.com/buy.php

NEW ENTERPRISE UPDATE The Enterprise version is now at 3.1 which means a number of those unavoidable pesky bugs have been squashed and we have a really solid product on our hands. The new version now includes a quote function, so you can build up a project timeline and quote to PDF within minutes (and of course still invoice on completion). If you’ve been waiting for this functionality head over to the sight and check it out. http://www.copperproject.com/demo.php

20% OFF CORPORATE & ENTERPRISE LICENCES UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH That’s right, if you’ve been waiting for a special deal, seachange, heartful exchange of goodwill, this is it! Use the coupon code ‘SilverTime’ for a 20% discount on your Corporate or Enterprise license, but only until the end of March.

– Ben Prendergast

1. Element Software featured by Apple
2. Fly, Enterprise, Fly.
3. A new pricing model to be decided…by you!
4. Erstwhile a new product approacheth

ONE. Replete with many a saucy photo, this month bears witness to our CEO espousing the virtues of Apple products on the Apple website, along with a delicately placed plug for our litte Copper products. To put a face to a name, and otherwise dispel all myths, click the link below: http://www.apple.com/au/pr/casestudies/2007/01/element_software/

TWO.. Our Enterprise edition is performing splendidly, thankyou. It seems we’ve hit on the perfect mix of features for the team requiring a little more flexibility with their producitvity solution. However, March will see the release of an update (what already? - Ed) to include a new Reporting module and other goodies taking our flagship product another step forward. We’re also now offering Enterprise edition 14-day trials so if you’d like to pop the hood get on over to http://www.copperproject.com/demo.php

THREE… As per our yearly survey, we’re nearing the release of a free Copper product, however in order to move ahead we need your help arriving at a suitable pricing model. Whether you’re a customer or not, please click here and vote for the model that suits you best. Thanks in advance for your help!

FOUR…. Tally ye not! A new product doth approach! Yes, it’s weird when old English is employed to spruik a new web 2.0 software product, however all will make sense in good time. All we can say is that it will be financial in nature, will be web-based, and it will be beyond awesome for those who require a product of its type. Feeling lucky you feisty braggard? Well if you can guess what it is we’ll give you one free when it’s released!

– Ben Prendergast

It’s here. Our premium project management product, Copper Enterprise 2007, designed specifically for those requiring more sophisticated functionality than our popular Corporate edition.

We’ve included a raft of brand new features, and hundreds of refinements, to allow you to collaborate more efficiently than ever.We’ve continued with our simple philosophy; to create the most elegant yet flexible project management system available for commercial teams. No overbloated functionality. No ugly interfaces. Just a beautiful tool that ensures your team just gets things done.

The new version is available now in two options. $2999 (100 users, with 12 months free updates) or for $299/month fully hosted.

Here are six key new features in 2007!

1.New, more efficient, wide-screen Interface. After reviewing the results of our yearly survey, we’ve produced a new interface that offers even greater efficiencies over the Corporate edition. We’ve increased the width of all pages, introduced a new compact navigation/breadcrumbs/action bar, and have added quicker data entry features throughout.

2. New Enterprise Timeline and Related Projects. Sub-projects, phases, super-tasks, sub-tasks! Whatever you call them, we’ve added a new feature called Related Projects to handle them. This new feature accompanies our new Enterprise timeline. Now you can display a timeline for a client’s entire project portfolio, or simply link interrellated projects giving further visibility and control over how projects and resources interrelate

3. New Resource Management.Another groundbreaking change to Copper is its new resource allocation feature. With it you can see at a glance what a resource is doing over the coming period, and allocate work as required, providing finite control over project and task alllocation for resources. View a users calendar we see which tasks and projects are starting and finishing for that period, view a users hours logged in the new timeline (including a comparison to what was committed). This new feature provides new visibility for resource and project efficiency, allowing you to quickly review and refine a project timeline.

4. New Import/Export features.Throughout Copper we’ve also added new import and export features. You can export a project to an MS Project XML File, import your contacts with vcard support, and export your entire database for external analysis. For Mac users, you can now sync your entire Springboard for convenient task tracking.

5. New Administration features.We’ve added new adminstration features such as LDAP integration, database backup, label editor, a refined permissions interface, and more. With these features you can further tailor Copper to suit your needs.

6. Futureproofing. Free of Charge Perhaps the best feature! All Enterprise customers receive 12 months of free updates and email/phone support. We’ve already started on our first update, with new Report options, extra integration options, and new accounting features in development. But we need your input to continue the inspired work, so there has never been a better time to come aboard!

– Ben Prendergast