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CouldBe Studios is excited to welcome our very first employee, Kirk Fryrear!

We’ve recently taken on a lot more work, and we wouldn’t be able to handle the load without bringing on staff. This represents a significant change for us, it’s a little scary and very exciting. I’ve known and worked with Kirk for years on other projects, so he is a natural fit for us.

Kirk brings excellent video-editing skills to the table in addition to solid web-design credentials.

Welcome Kirk!

Matt Beck
Partner
CouldBe Studios

Check out our latest work at Bead Austin!

www.beadaustin.com

Once again we’ve been privileged to work with great people. We’re proud of this site, and we had a really good time working with the client on it.

Cool folks, cool products. Check it out!

Check out our latest shopify e-commerce site for i-popperz.com. These guys have some seriously cool earbuds and accessories.

We had a lot of fun working with this client, they have great products and a clear sense of where they are going. They already had some quite well-done graphics for their packaging, so we built the site around that.

Anyway, we like them and we think you will too, so go check ‘em out.

Part 2 of 2

Matt’s list of must-have apps: I work with both Mac and PC for different things. While I definitely prefer the Mac, I haven’t been able to do away with the PCs in my life completely yet. Note: Jessica already summed up all of the collaborative tools that we use, Highrise, Basecamp, Google Docs, etc. So I’ve left those out of my list. They rock, we both use them, let’s just leave it at that.

Mac Software and Web-Apps:

Firefox extensions

My must-have list: firebug (of course), web developer’s toolbar, fireftp, pdf download

Textmate

I’m not going to repeat everything that is on Jessica’s list, but this one is worth it. There just aren’t enough ways to say how much we think it rocks.

Adium

I use Adium instead of iChat. This is hands-down my favorite IM client. It just does everything I want.

Key Fixer

These little tools change the behavior of the home and end keys to what you might be more used to if you also use a PC or have switched from a PC. Since I write code on both platforms, keeping my keyboard working the same way on both is vital.

PC Software:

SQLyog

If you are doing much development with MySQL databases you probably already know about this, if you don’t you should really check it out. A lot of tasks are made easy while still giving you all of the power and flexibility of a command-line. By far my favorite GUI for this sort of work.

Multiple IE

If you are doing web-work, especially anything with UI Design/CSS, you need this. We keep an XP Pro machine on hand just to run this (and, um Netflix streaming movies, shush).

Pidgen

It’s like Adium for PCs. It bundles all of your IM accounts together in one application with minimal fuss. I’ve tried a bunch of them, and used Trillian for a long time, but Pidgen works better for me.

Foxit Reader

If you are old enough you may remember a time when .pdf was not a four-letter word. If you use a Mac, you have probably experienced how lovely it is to see them pop open in Preview almost instantly. Foxit’s reader has made the .pdf a viable document format for me on PC again. It’s fast and lightweight.

Last year we did a round-up of the apps that make it easy to run a design company on the fly, and it’s high time we updated that list. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same, but one thing’s for sure: we’d be lost without these!

Part 1 of 2 (Matt will post his in the next few days).

Jessica’s list of must-have apps: I work exclusively on a Mac (well, two, actually) so these are all Mac-friendly.

Transmit

I was pretty meh on the subject of FTP clients until I tried Transmit. Now I don’t know what I did without it.

Fluid

See above re: FTP clients and switch for site specific browsers. I finally installed Fluid on a whim and…wow, was I ever wrong. It’s given me a whole new appreciation for my Dock.

TextMate

Can’t rave enough about my love of TextMate. Makes coding a breeze.

Google Docs

We keep the majority of our paperwork (contracts, contract templates, etc.) on Google Docs. We can share amongst ourselves and access files from anywhere - handy when you’re constantly shuttling between office and home office. Also: it’s not Word!

Google Apps

We finally switched our couldbe studios email over to Google Apps, and it’s been great.

Basecamp

For all our project management needs.

Highrise

Keeps track of our contacts.

Ma.gnolia

Social linkage.

Firefox

And, of course, what’s Firefox without extensions? I use Firebug, Foxmarks, 1Password and ColorZilla.

Campaign Monitor

Not only does Campaign Monitor make it easy to send and track email newsletters, it makes setting up managed accounts for clients a breeze.

Reinvigorate

I personally loathe Google Analytics, but none of the other free or low-cost offerings seemed much better. Enter Reinvigorate. They’re in private beta right now, but we were lucky enough to get in. And I do mean lucky: Reinvigorate is a fabulous service, and I can’t imagine switching.

DropSend

When we’ve got to email huge files to clients or printers, DropSend is invaluable.

Blinksale

Simple and easy to use. We looked at FreshBooks, but given our requirements Blinksale is a better fit.

We love it when our clients ask for custom illustrations! Check out the site for Bloom Essentials. The Bloom Girl was so much fun to create.

The good folks at jadedPixel (the team that brought us Shopify) published an interview with Matt today! He talks about our business, our clients, and why we recommend Shopify so damn much. Check it out, and join me in a rousing chorus of “woo hoo.”

We just launched the new site for Munchkin Designs, and I couldn’t resist placing an order - you know, just to test the system. It came a couple of days ago, and check out the cuteness:

Lisa Komer, Munchkin Designs’ owner, makes the most adorable custom-designed printed materials. And her site is pretty cute, too, if we do say so ourselves. Drop by and check out her new line of tees!