The video above shows you some basic functionality of the app running & how to use it just to wet your appetite. As we’ve said before this is no ordingary French dictionary, this is going to be an epic renovation and building dictionary of super super handy proportions.. No more worrying if you know exactly what a word says just look it up in seconds.

The great news is that we are constantly updating the word lists and we’ve already send an update to Apple correcting a (rather embarrassing) spelling mistake and we’ve added 1500 more words. As promised these updates are always going to be FREE, so don’t wait around CLICK HERE and go the App Store today & get the WORLDS 1ST French Renovation iPhone/iPod Touch App brought to you by us here at www.Montpillard.com

So here’s the skinny :
iTunes Link : Petite Assistante
Cost : Launch price £1.19 NOW FREE (see post for why)

Right now we can’t give any away as a launch special as Apple only allow this via the US store so we’ve dropped the price by 1/3rd for a week. Lets hope they fix that soon so we can do a small giveaway.

“Petit Assistant” is a nice and simple app, we’ll to be honest it’s more of a dictionary than an application however the ability to have 1000′s of renovation terms in French and English with a look up between the two of them in your pocket is going to be priceless.

Why?
Currently i have to carry a book around with me no matter where i go to constantly do word look ups & it gets cumbersome, also i guarantee the one time i don’t have it on me i think of something i need to know, so with it all in your pocket this will be no more.

But aren’t there online translators?
There are indeed, but all these require a data connection where your requests is sent and processed by a server. In France we constantly find no data connection and when I’m in Brico Depot & I’m looking up a word it takes ages to send it out to the server and return it plus it costs me a small fortune using data while roaming. My last data bill was over £100 in 2 days just with this type of use. “Petit Assistant” will be a pocket tool which will do an internal lookup of over 10,000 words (to start) to give you quicker and much much cheaper results.

How much will it cost?
Nothing.. It’ll be a free app and that’s because we want your help. This really is for everyone French or English. We’ll start to build the word list shortly and we’ll be publishing it on the site, we’ll then be opening it up so everyone can add words and their translation. This will then be placed into an online file that can be updated instantly by the app should you want to.

When will it be available?
A few weeks… The actual coding and UI design isn’t the hardest thing since we are keeping version 1 very simple, the longest task is to build the word lists, if i can find a way of opening up the submission page sooner for your help then i will do.

So that’s it.. We are really trying to do something very simple and put it in your pocket so when you’re in a lumber yard, paint store or a tool hire shop you’ll be able to get exactly what you’re after.

If you want to help then drop us an email we’ll love to hear from you, and if you want to sponsor the app even better.

More soon….

The latest Google SketchUp model has arrived so as usual we thought we’d share it with you by clicking HERE (500k)

The model is not yet complete to the new specifications but we wanted to see a before and after, so they’ll be a newer version posted shortly. This will include extra Velux windows, the internal balcony overlook closed up (maybe – opinions please) and the bathroom removed and placed where the 3rd read bedroom is.

We are also changing the design of the master bedroom, and these changes will all be reflected in the final model as we are now close to submitting for final planning approval.

As always this model is free for you to use and chop and change around. We’d love to see what you come up with, but as with all of the download this will be under a creative commons share alike with no commercial use.

Enjoy.

Your rights of use ( please read )
We are releasing this model under the CREATIVE COMMONS rights management. The copyright we are releasing this under is BY-NC which basically means :

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

The model is the first bit of work we have from David who took the previous contractors ArchiCAD drawings and converted it for us so that we could pan around the property and get some sizes etc etc .  In time we will of course release the autoCAD files so you can rip the building apart and redesign the interior until your heart is content.

The idea in the long run is to open the plans up to everyone and run a competition with a cash prize to the design that works the most for us and we’ll then build the house accordingly( submissions will have to be practical people ) .

You already know we are huge fans of the power of the internet and the talent that lays at the other side of the computer screen and we want to tap into that and use the collective creative juices that are out there.

Here is a simple video I captured so you can see the model :

Google SketchUp
The model is in Google SketchUp format.
You can download SketchUp (standard ) FREE for Mac & PC HERE .

Download The Model
The file is 4,1Mb zipped and comes out to 12Mb+ when unzipped.
You can download the model by clicking HERE

Your rights of use ( please read )
We are releasing this model under the CREATIVE COMMONS rights management. The copyright we are releasing this under is BY-NC which basically means :

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

So you are free to change the model,  release your shared work but not for any commercial gain.  We have given this to the community for free and insist this is carried on.

AOB
If you have any problems, questions or comments please feel free to use the comments section below or get in contact with us through the site.

We’ve watched in stunned silence at the way some people have run their renovations, with all the good will in the world and enthusiasm failing to plan has cost people £1000’s or even worse their dream houses.

Project management can be done in many ways of course and using many programs however when it comes to a being Mac user your options initially seem limited. I’m used to using Microsoft Project, it’s extremely powerful, very easy to pickup and of course bloody expensive.

None of that helps me in the Mac user world, and I was starting to worry about not having a Mac version of MS Project.

Let me introduce you to Merlin 2.0
Merlin was super easy for me to get my head around. If Microsoft were to make MS Project for the Mac then surely this would be the outcome of that venture.

The ability to easily input tasks, assign dates to them with critical start and end points and well as very easy task linking ( so you know that item C cannot start until B is complete ) gives you a very clear and quick overview of your critical items on these paths.

Gant charts are a very clean and important way to show you what is happening when and what the impact will be if something clips. The ability to put in critical “End By” dates helps you keep track of your timescales.

A few things I found easier to do in Merlin than in the other packages was assign HOURS to tasks rather than full says or a % of a day. For instance I know the screed in the bathroom should take 3 hours to set and to be able to add “3 Hours” in the time window rather than say 65% of a working day ( normally 8 hours ) was nice. I want to get on with planning – since I’m not Charlie Epps.

Other things that I’m used to that seem overly complex in the other apps I tried was assigning costs to a resource. If I have a plasterer coming in at €150 a day I can put that in the planner again his time and get a report of the estimated or the project maximum costs. Very nice.

Below is a sample snapshot of the Gant chart function that they all do and to be honest this is what I find the most useful function in all these programs.

Fill the items out, see the plan and then print if off in A1/2 or 3 and have it on the wall. This not only focuses me but it also keeps my contractors’ minds on how much time they have set for the work.

Alternatives
By no means is Merlin the only package out there, in fact on the Mac you seems very spoilt for choice and it comes down to personal preference. Merlin is certainly not the cheapest software at $225 out there but I felt it was by far the best of the bunch and while Omniplan was cheaper at $140 but it’s a boxed product that you can’t buy online so as a European user I’m crippled. It appears that I was wrong and have since found a webstore for Omniplan. You can get it HERE

There are also a lot of online programs and my favourite would be Basecamp from the guys at 37Signals, but the total online nature of the program limited the choice since we need to be able to use it offline in the house. If only it used GoogleGears to do some sort of offline mode then we’d switch in a heart beat.

Sharing Plans
As with most of the things we are going to try and do on this renovation we’ll be sharing items with you. We are in the process of creating the relevant plans for the small “tarting up” renovation for March & Aprils and we’ll post those plans online for you to download and examine for yourself.

Links
You can get a trial copy of Merlin HERE

Evernote

Imagine having at your finger tips all your scanned ideas, photos, notes, articles etc etc all the time no matter where you are,  well with Evernote you do but with a little extra.

What Evernote does is actually look at the items you have uploaded and then OCR’s it so you can then search within the picture for words so you are not just sorting mindlessly through all your documents .

Example

We have scanned in many ideas, photos and pages that we have seen that we would like to incorporate into our house. Most of these are showers or pumps at the moment and when I’m out and about I cant remember what I’ve seen so i just type into Evernote “shower” and it brings me up all my documents ( photos and written ) with the word “shower” in them

Evernote syncs between as many Macs, iPhones or PC’s you have it on so no matter where you upload your document from it’ll find it’s way to your phone when you search its amazing. While I’m out looking for idea’s Dawn is constantly adding stuff that i can see on the fly.

The Cost?
As with everything else we are going to try and bring you it’s fantastic value at the starting cost of FREE ! Yep FREE, now for that you get 50Mb a month upload however like us you can end up paying $45 for a year and get 500Mb a month and priority OCR over the free users. We are adding so much content to our Evernote account it’s great as Dawn can do it from work and that gets synced with my iPhone and my dad is even uploading from the web.

You can grab it from the iTunes store for your phone HERE or go to Http://www.Evernote.com for desktop and other phones.

Here’s a video that’ll explain it better than i can: