As many of you know I started a business a little over a year ago now in web site solutions. I have been doing freelance design and development for years and decided it was time to organize something official. I formed Docavedia Information Services LLC and the projects started to pile in. Most of it being referrals, but all of it being enough to keep my part time business busy. I have made mistakes here and there and probably undercharged for some of the projects; all part of learning how to run a small business. One of my biggest fears ended up being one of my mistakes; how to keep things organized. I had spreadsheets and documents for everything I did, but how to organize it all along with my thoughts. It was easy when I had a few projects, but now I have many, all at some stage, being developed concurrently. Why was this a problem? I actually forgot to invoice on a couple of projects when payment for hosting services was due. That’s just wrong!

So I began the search for some sort of project management software. My requirements where, something flexible enough to work with the nature of web development, something mobile (as I am not always at MY computer), and something cheap (preferably free). After a few hours research I found a fit. dotProject is an open source, web based application for project management. It is written in PHP *bliss* and completely web based, making it accessible from anyplace that I can get to the web. Now dotProject is not another content management system, it is a true project management application; much like Microsoft Project. This little application helped me organize all that was going on between projects, and most importantly how much time was being spent on each project. I recommend it to anyone who has access to a web server with PHP and MySQL installed.

In the months I have been using it I already have noticed a difference. I am no longer worrying about what I forgot, or what stage I am at on a project, I just develop. Best I all, if I every need to hire an employee (I would have to be doing this full-time first) it would be easy to collaborate from multiple physical locations. So go and try it for yourself, www.dotproject.net.