Some apps limit the features or scope of their trial software in a way that makes it hard to tell if it’s right for you. A free trial or limited free plan: You should be able to use the software for at least one workweek with every feature enabled, to see how it logs your work and fits into your routine.You shouldn’t be locked out of a tracking system because it only works with certain operating systems, phones, or browser extensions. Support for more than one computer platform or browser: People switch computers and platforms, sometimes of their own accord or sometimes when they switch jobs.Plenty of freelancers may have similar computer-free tasks, and a good time tracker should be able to adapt to those occasions. Even though my job as a Wirecutter writer is mostly about working at a computer, I’m sometimes building standing desks, cutting up piles of cardboard boxes, donating goods to nonprofits, or doing other work tasks not involving a screen. But we made sure that our picks would still work for offline tasks, whether you time them with a phone app or post-fill a timesheet with the app. Most of the apps we tested are aimed at those who work from a computer-writing, designing, programming, Web-based tasks, and the like. And we focused on solo practitioners instead of teams. By “freelancer,” we mean anyone who works for a client that is not their full-time employer, in nearly any field. We wanted to find the software that best allows someone to track their hours so they can then bill for them. This article was originally published in Little Village issue 296.We researched, interviewed, and tested for this guide with a freelancer’s mind-set. The stories told through song and narration take place in a bleak world, a timeline very familiar to many of us, but SLW cc Watt tells them with a sense of humor punctuated with a wink and a snarl. It is impossible to listen to Real Manic Time and not think of the last year and a half of uncertainty, isolation and encroaching cynicism that is the result of watching our money-driven, me-first economy flail around. The bait-and-switch of the sequencing might sound disarming but it actually pays off, building a loose but cohesive thematic thread throughout. All of that right before the soaring Pixies-esque guitars of one of my favorite tracks, “Lie Broken By the Truth.” Just as you start shaking your head along to the faux-handclaps and syrupy delivery of “Something Lost,” it’s over, and the drum machine, discordant sax and staccato guitar punch burst in, delivering you into “History Belongs to the Whiners.” Or as you find yourself feeling as whimsical as Bucko’s flute and Watt’s bouncing bass in “Fleeting Are the Times,” the Spaghetti-Western guitars accompanying Watt’s fake commercial voice in “Lip Service” begin. The shortness of the songs keep the album moving along. Bob Bucko Jr, the final team member shows up on track three, “Darkness Reigns,” with a whimsical whisper of flute (he’ll return with later with sax). This is also the first appearance of one of the two other collaborators in this project, drummer Grace Locke Ward (Petit Mal, Leslie and the Ly’s), a rare sighting and much needed treat. “Something Lost” follows, a sympathetic punk ballad about desperation that also has the distinction of being one of the longer songs on the album, at nearly two minutes. The album starts with “The Verdict,” where, over a layer of Phil Specter-like ooohs and aahs, Watt tells us of the fate of our first anonymous victim of the system. This loose narrative is told through Locke Ward’s unique brand of weirdo pop, irreverent punk and crazed-smile satire and Watt narrating a series of vignettes, small one-shot stories where unnamed protagonists run into the absurdity of autocrats and the rules imposed by them. Here, we get 30 tracks at just under 38 minutes, a series of short songs and spoken word collages that, like the title suggests, invokes the feelings of a brand of mania only the last year could have inspired. Real Manic Time, the first release of SLW cc Watt (a nice nod to the online nature of the project), dropped on Bandcamp May 1. (To say I was shocked upon hearing about this team-up is an understatement.) Yes, THE Mike Watt of Minutemen and Firehose fame. While most of us gorged on trashy Netflix documentaries or started and stopped fad hobbies to fill in for the lack of human contact, Sam Locke Ward (also an award-winning cartoonist for Little Village) comes out of the pandemic with a new band, a new album and a new collaborative partner: Mike Watt. Being Iowa City’s - scratch that, Iowa’s - most prolific songwriter for years, you would think it would be hard to keep surprising people.
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