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License upgrade discount ends December! Only $749!

Posted by admin on December 30, 2009 in News, Project Management Software Leave a comment

If you have a Corporate 2008 or Standard 2008 or earlier server license, take advantage of our special upgrade price of $749 for the very latest v4 codebase. A huge step up from previous versions, click here to purchase

– Ben Prendergast

A message from a long-term customer

Posted by admin on November 27, 2009 in Project Management Software, Testimonials Leave a comment

This is why we love building and refining Copper. What other job would offer the honour of being privvy to hundreds of different business models across the globe, all with a single purpose, to better manage their businesses and add value to their customers in turn.

This is from W. Ross Wells, from ZenFilm in Texas.

We started our company in September of 2005 in the living room of our house… after years of operating much larger production facilities… the paradigm for production was changing and we saw that smaller, lower overhead, aggressive little shops might have the staying power in the changing media climate.

4 years later… we have 9 employees and we have experienced exponential client and revenue growth.. Copper has been with us ever since we added our first employee… it has grown with us and honestly it is part of the family.

You made an extremely high end management system available to us when we had no cash to spend… and now that things are better… we have a really high performance platform to run our company with.
It means a lot that you are doing well… sometimes we dont stop to think how far we’ve come… we have come a long way and you have helped us do it.

Sincere thanks and best wishes for many more years of partnership.

Thanks Ross, as discussed we’ll beer it up next time I’m State-side.

– Ben Prendergast

New Standard v4, Single Codebase, Changelog.

Posted by admin on November 26, 2009 in News, Project Management Software Leave a comment

We’re excited to announce that all of our plans are now under a single build, for the first time in Copper history!

This means that from our Standard product at $29/mth, you now have access to the web’s best project management and collaboration tool. Standard offers the best 5-user PM tool, with interactive gantt charts, resource time management, stopwatches and task comments that drive automated timesheets, billings, and our improved file upload function.

In addition, we’ve been super busy, adding a new file upload feature, improving UI workflows, and have even more planned over the coming weeks.

4.03 Tweaks/Fixes (rolled out 2nd Dec 2009):
- Fixed Projects/Contacts Tab
- Language Token fixes in Projects
- Removed Est/Act/Comp column to declutter project view
- Fixed issue with Springboard Activity Tab not filtering by year
- Now sections remember how a user had them (open/close them, they stay open closed!)
- Fixed New Event on Calendar
- Fixes to Multilanguage in Gantt (Finally! Copper is about 99.999% Translatable now)
More to come in 4.04 – in dev now.

Now there’s no excuse! Come on board and see how Copper can improve your studio/business productivity instantly. If you have any questions or queries, please get in touch!

– Ben Prendergast

Follow us on Twitter!

Posted by admin on October 15, 2009 in News, Project Management Software Leave a comment

Follow us on Twitter for updates, new releases, and other Copper news. Click here: @copperproject

– Ben Prendergast

We’re Hiring! Talented PHP/MySQL/CSS/AJAX Developer Wanted

Posted by admin on September 30, 2009 in News Leave a comment

First released in 2002 by Australian-based Element Software, Copper is a web-based project management software tool used by creative teams across the globe to manage their clients, tasks, projects, contacts and files.

With a loyal client base, Copper is utilized by leading organizations such as Sony Pictures, Apple, Mercedes Benz USA, Novell and Redken to name a few.

As the business moves in to an exciting new phase of growth, the opportunity has arisen for an experienced and talented Web 2.0 Software Developer to join this independent company on a contract basis.

Working from the comfort of your own home or studio, this role will see you, the successful candidate, taking technical briefs from clientele in order to diligently and effectively develop & self-test intuitive solutions.

As the successful candidate you must possess:

  • High level proficiency with PHP, MySQL, AJAX and CSS
  • Experience with Actionscript / Flash / Rails a bonus
  • A strong focus on usability and user interface
  • An active interest in web 2.0 products, web sites & technologies
  • A sense of urgency about your work
  • A very strong focus on providing long-term solutions
  • A pro-active and disciplined approach to your work

This is your opportunity to work with a leading Australian Web 2.0 product with offices in Melbourne & San Francisco without leaving your home!

Daily/hourly rate commensurate with technical expertise & experience.

To apply, please forward your current resume and covering letter for consideration to info@copperproject.com.

– Ben Prendergast

Roundup: Solar Panels, Wireless Electricity, Honda Segway, Minimal Cam.

Posted by admin on September 28, 2009 in Off Beat Leave a comment

This week I thought I’d blog about some of the tech that’s floating my boat at the moment.

Solar Panel Roof Tiles

Let’s kick off with this from Springwise: Solar panels build right into roof tiling, just genius, and a truly interconnected grid of power generation is something sorely lacking in Australia.

http://springwise.com/weekly/2009-09-16.htm#solepowertile
Link: http://www.srsenergy.com/

Wireless Electricity

Witricity uses magnetic coupling to transfer power safely and wirelessly. Check out this demo where Eric Giler demos a wirelessly powered iPhone and TV. The tech is still at 45-50% efficiency (a few thousand time more efficient than a battery), but coupled with solar tiles above, we may just have ourselves some awesomeness!

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html

Honda unveils a Segway thingy

Minimallisimo, the sexy one-shot minimal digi camera

Just because it brings back the surprise element of not knowing how your shot is going to come out until you develop it.

Link: http://minimalissimo.com/2009/09/oneshot-camera/

– Ben Prendergast

How does Copper compare to MS Project?

Posted by admin on September 23, 2009 in News, Project Management Software Leave a comment

I received this question today via email, and thought I’d post up my response:

Q. How does copper compare to MS project software? Why use copper, what are the costs and how does it work better than MS project?

A. The biggest issue with MS Project is that it is simple a single user repository and having come from a PM background I often found that it dictated how I work. I also found when I did use it within a team environment that MS Project did nothing to assist in the management of the politics of a project, and tended to make me focus more on the technical side of the timeline than actually getting things done (and the more I focussed on that, the less work that got done, and the more I’d have to update my schedule!)

With Copper, we turned that on its head. We still provide great project setup tools like the flash gantt timeline view and drag and drop subtasks in the project creation screen, but the real power of Copper comes with its multi-user platform, which assists in the collaboration component of all your projects.

Once you’ve allocated your users to tasks (or even gone the extra step of committing their available time, if you want finite resourcing), they then go ahead and provide a running commentary of the work they do along with how long it takes them and their subjective impression of how complete a task is. This is an easy process for them, and provides a natural update mechanism, removing the pain associated with timesheet tracking, and ensuring if one member is away for whatever reason your team can pick up where they left off. This is to say nothing of the other areas of Copper like the document management module, contacts module, reports, and group calendar functions within Copper. Being available anywhere anytime, I don’t hear of may customers going back to MS Project once they’re on board with Copper

The net result is that over time you can review how your projects have tracked and we’ve found teams become more cohesive the more they use Copper. In a recent survey we found that over 80% of our customers save between 10-20 hours per week, and 20% save more than 20 hours a week just by using Copper.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any specific questions on functionality, or anything else for that matter!

– Ben Prendergast