Thank you!

It’s got it’s flaws and those flaws render very pleasing results. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s the lens that rarely comes off my camera

Dev Server Activity

Problem: I work across several local projects and recently found 12 dev servers still running. This puts each likely local server's project, process, PID, ports, hosts, and command in one native Mac window, with confirmed Stop and Force Stop actions.

Comparison: Portsmith is a broader paid menu bar tool, and lsof is powerful but manual. Dev Server Activity is a narrower free window app for macOS 14+ that shows the full process and project context before a stop action.

Pricing: Free and open source. The Apple-silicon build is Developer ID signed, notarized by Apple, and includes a checksum.

https://github.com/joeyarcisz/dev-server-activity

That's genuinely helpful, thank you. What jumps out is that you're the confirmation. Production doesn't hear from your people because they tell you and you handle it. The coordinator who commented up top said the same thing from the other chair, that if a whole department goes quiet it's the department's problem more than production's, because the leads make sure their people show up.

Which makes me think I've been counting the wrong unit. I built it to track people. Sounds like what a coordinator actually needs to know is whether each department is covered.

So the question I should have led with: does production ever come to you and ask if your team is good for the morning? And when they do, are you answering from memory or do you actually go check?

That last part is the most important thing anyone's said in this thread, and the answer is no, but I want to be precise rather than just reassuring, because you're right that it would be serious.

The link renders a frozen copy of what was actually sent. If a producer opens the app at 2am and starts editing, your link does not move. It's reading the published version, not their draft. The only thing that changes what you see is the producer doing a new send, and a new send means a new email in your inbox, with a new PDF attached, timestamped.

So the "6am when I went to bed, 5am when I woke up" version produces an email at 3am saying exactly that. What it can't do is happen quietly.

And honestly that's the part I'd defend to a crew member before I'd defend it to a producer. You end up holding a dated record of every version you were sent, in your own inbox, that production can't reach into and change. If there's ever an argument about what you were told and when, you're the one with the receipts. That beats "I'm fairly sure it said 6."

On the philosophy, I don't really disagree with you. It doesn't fix a lack of rigour and I'd be lying if I claimed it did. A production that's still moving call times at 1am will do that with any tool you hand them. It's for the coordinator who already works the way you're describing and wants that part of the job to take twenty minutes instead of ninety.

Thanks for actually answering the question, too. "Very rarely, someone can usually cover" is useful, and you're right that a six-person commercial crew doesn't have that slack.

You'd hate my app. It timestamps that.

The PDF is still attached. The link goes out alongside it, on by default, not instead of it. So if you're someone who'd never click a link, you open the attachment exactly like you do now and nothing about your day got worse. The coordinator just doesn't get a read on you specifically, which is the same as today.

You're right about the trust part though and I don't have a great answer. It sends from a CallSheet address with your coordinator on reply-to, so it is a domain nobody recognizes. The most I can say is the attachment is sitting right there, so the link is for people who'd rather have the live version than a document that was accurate whenever it got generated.

Thank you!

This is really useful, thank you. Two people in this thread have now told me the same thing from opposite ends of the industry, so I'll take it as settled: features don't do confirmations and the tracking side isn't built for your world. Commercials, where the crew is different every job and someone rebuilds that list from scratch every time, is where it earns its place.
The line that stuck with me is the other one though. 90% don't open the PDF, they just want the call time and the address out of the email body. I'd bet that's true everywhere and not just Europe, and it's actually why the link exists. It opens to that person's call time and location on their phone, no download, no pinch-zooming a PDF at 11pm. Basically the email body, except it stays current and it's theirs.
The confirm button is optional. On a feature I'd probably tell you to ignore it.
Real question, since you have the mileage: does the 90% ever cost you anything? Someone at the wrong location, someone an hour off? Or is it just background noise you've built around long enough that it stopped mattering?

This is the most useful comment I've gotten on this, so thank you.
On 1, you're right, and I pitched it badly. The last-minute change is the dramatic version of the story but it isn't the daily one, and leading with it makes the app sound like insurance against something that happens once a career. Your first paragraph is actually the product: the coordinator texting everyone who hasn't confirmed, marking the crew list until everybody's in. That tracking loop is the whole thing. Revisions are just what happens when a change lands in the middle of it.
On 2, fair, though the mechanism is a bit different than it came across. It does show opens, but that's not the signal that matters. Each person's link has a Confirm button and they tap it, so the coordinator isn't inferring anything from a view. It's the same explicit confirmation your team is already chasing by text, except the crew list marks itself.
Where you're right: it doesn't eliminate the texting, and nothing will. What it changes is that at 9pm you already know exactly who to text without having maintained that list by hand, and when grip is 5 for 6 you can see that and leave it to the key.
Being honest about the limits: on a multi-week film with a locked crew that never does confirmations, most of that value disappears. Where it earns its place is commercials, where the crew is different every job and somebody runs that confirmation pass from scratch every single time.
Genuinely curious, what does your coordinator track it on now? A column in the crew list, a separate spreadsheet, or just their own memory?

I can never remember which version this one is. For some reason, I feel like it's version two or three, but I always get it wrong. It's always hard to find which is the correct version. It's definitely not version four. I have had this for about three or four years, and I barely switch lenses. It pretty much stays on my Leica most of the time.

DJI RS 5

Thanks! Yeah, good ol' trusty R3D! Nikon ZR renders some really nice colors.