Everything is Everything » Other Awesome Work

A tab system on Google Docs

Mike — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:39:42 +0000

UPDATE 2: Thanks to some requests, I’ve made a three-person and two-person version of the tab (the two-person is really easy to make.) For bonus points, does anyone want to make a five-person version?

Also, I’ve gotten some questions on the sharing numbers. They are robust and you can use them for proportions, so putting 2 as a number will count that person as owing double.

UPDATE: Awesome, Lifehacker likes it! I’ve gotten request for two- and three-person versions of this beast. Anyone want to help out and build one in exchange for a link?

I’m one for efficiency and productivity tools, and I prefer the lifehacker mindset: spend a long time on solutions that will save time. Even if I end up using more time than I saved, I’ve learned something and created a product as well.

I know that there are many web- and iPhone-based solutions that look pretty cool for this type of thing, but I wanted to make one using Google Docs. The version I came up with has four people in it and allows you to enter up to 100 transactions per person. Under a transaction, enter the amount spent and a 1 under the column of every person who the amount should be shared with. You can use it to share something four ways or for 2- or 3-person splits or loans. Now that we have it, we will regularly pick up dinner for each other and “bill” each other on the tab system. This version also calculates how to settle the tab.

Try it out here, and if you like it, open the read-only version here and go to File -> Make a Copy to copy it to your own Google Docs. And please, let me know if you end up using it or making any improvements!

Click to try it!

How to customize it

To modify the app to use your names, expand the AH column, which stores the names that are used elsewhere.

A quick run-down on how I created the app: The thick black bars to the right of each person are actually two columns of formulas. The first one calculates how much that person owes to others; to do this, it looks at each other person’s spending in that row, divides it by how many people are sharing the item, and adds it to the tally if that person is marked as sharing it. The second column calculates how much is owed to that person based on how many people they are sharing with.

The thick black bar on the right edge of the spreadsheet does some Google Docs magic, which you should be able to figure out pretty easily, to calculate how to settle the tab.

Enjoy!

Flying over Highway 1

Mike — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:12:16 +0000

Oh boy do I love stop motion plane videos. This one was taken as I flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but with my iPhone still camera. The guy next to me thought it was pretty funny as I kept repeatedly hitting the “picture” button for about ten minutes – the upside of this is a HD-rez video. I think the city at the end is Santa Barbara.

Always keep on makin movies…

Thanks to Citizen Space for the computer time to edit this! No thanks to iMovie, which is a ridiculously cumbersome product.

Effects shot for Imaginary Friend

Mike — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:25:52 +0000

I created this several-second shot for a friend a few months back. Scenes like this one are difficult for a filmmaker because, unless you have a very big budget, you can only create a hole in a wall once. This means that some scenes have to be shot without the hole, hence the need for visual effects.

This was an involved process (though it may not look it) that required repainting the shirt sleeve and bedpost, compensating for camera motion, and complicated drawing. Enjoy!

Mashup party invite

Mike — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:09:31 +0000

As a late housewarming, our apartment is having a party on August 1. I’ve introduced the rest of my housemates to the mashup craze after getting ever more obsessed myself, so we decided to make a mashup-themed party. This will be complete with mashup music, mashup video, mashup clothing, and of course, mashup drinks. If you have any ideas for mashup drinks I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Here’s the poster I made:

Sichael Levinestern and Jaddie DiPisarcik

At least this is still legal while driving…

Mike — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:07:47 +0000

I can’t text or call while driving, but I can still do this!
While bored on the 110 freeway this weekend, I discovered this unique brand of iPhone art. I took the photos by shaking my iPhone in particular ways at a particular angle while hitting the camera button. It mirrored the way I felt that night–out of it.

[Show as slideshow]

Party Invitations

Mike — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:42:16 +0000

I designed many party invitations – these are a small sampling.

Ecstasy Party, Nov 2007

Fahrenheit Party, Apr 2006

Rendering of Future Lounge

Mike — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:58:22 +0000

My fraternity put out a brochure to alumni, and we wanted to convey the future of our common spaces as we imagined it. I took eight photographs of our downstairs lounge and stitched them together, yielding this image:

(click to see the changes. you must be using javascript.)

Then, using images available online, I added furniture, carpeting, and a fresh coat of paint. All of the elements were then colored, shaded, and given shadows to match the room. The biggest challenge was that I could only use free images from the web; it took a lot of searching to find objects at just the right angle.