I have been looking over my expenses lately and I the question I have asked myself has been: Where is my money going? So I have set out in ...]]>

Are you all about making money? Do you track your cash in or cash out perhaps? Do you own an Apple iPhone and want to stay on top of your set budget? Perhaps a small iPhone application can help you stay on your financial budget from your day to day expenses.

I have been looking over my expenses lately and I the question I have asked myself has been: Where is my money going? So I have set out in search of an application for the iPhone in which I can easily track my daily expenses and then perhaps at a later time export them into Excel and graph them so I can see visually where my money is going.

Pennies

I was recently looking over the iTunes App store and came across a small expenses application called Pennies. Pennies allows you to track your daily expenses by category as well as set a master monthly budget to ensure you do not go over it.

Interface and Usability

The main screen is a nice piece of work and shows you your top 3 expenses by category, how close you are to your maximum budget as well as your rough estimate on how much you spend per day. It also keeps a running total of your expenses for the month though it is rounded to the nearest dollar. From the main screen you can also add a new expense

Adding a new expense is easy. Just select the category in which your expense applies to (such as food, amusement, personal etc) and enter the amount. Hitting save will add to the daily tracking as well as your overall monthly spending. I find that you cannot edit the categories nor can you add more customized categories to suite your needs.

Set Budget

From the main screen you can set the monthly budget limit. A slider allows you to adjust the budget starting at $100 up to $100,000 in $100 increments up to $9,000 then it goes into $10,000 increments up to the maximum of $100,000. How many people here have a $100,000 monthly budget?

I would like to be able to set a value from 0 and increment it to what I see fit. I might want a $450 monthly budget, but Pennies does not allow this. I would also like to be able to set a budget for each category as well to ensure I do not go over a particular amount say on food.

Expenses

The Expenses portion of the Pennies application is nice; it gives a receipt-style list of your expenses and tallies it up for you.

One feature I do like about this is that you can attach notes to the expense. When you first purchase Pennies, it automatically creates a $2.99 expense for it and attaches a note thanking you for your purchase.

From the Expenses screen you can also add new expenses again there is no ability to modify or add categories which I am finding to be an issue.

History

History is done on a monthly basis and since I have had this application for only a day I will not see any history until the end of the month. I also do not see an export feature so I could upload the information from Pennies to say a program like Excel.

Conclusion

Pennies is pretty application with its ‘fuel gauge’ graphic for your overall monthly budget expenses and the nice little icons it uses for the pre-set categories. It is also very easy to use and to understand within the first 5 minutes of downloading the application as well. Being able to add notes to your expenses is quite useful and seeing a monthly overview allows you to ensure you stay on with your monthly budget, even if it’s a basic monthly budget.

There are a few things I would like to see changed or implemented to make this a wicked little expenses application.

Have it stop rounding up my monthly spending total on the main page. I spent $2.99 and it shows me I spent $3 of my $400 monthly budget? Looking over at the expenses sheet does show me the exact amount.

Allow me to at least edit the category names, though I am sure a lot of people would like to be able to add their own custom categories as I would.

Export the data. What is the point of this information if I just have to retype it out in a spreadsheet and do my calculations there? Allow me to email (export) the data via a CSV file so I can import it and work on it at the end of the month.

Is the application worth the whole $2.99 I spent on it? Sure why not. I mean it still tracks my daily expenses, I would just have to get used to not being able to create categories that fit my needs. It is still useable but those who might be a bit more involved with their monthly budgets might want to keep looking for a better application.

Pros

• Nice user interface
• Daily tracking of expenses
• Price is good at $2.99

Cons

• Cannot add or modify categories
• No Export feature
• Cannot set budget less than $100 and only does $100 increments
• Cannot set category budgets for better fine tuning of your monthly spending

Overall Rating: 7 / 10

I ...]]>

In recent news for Bloggers and websites in general who try to monetize to make some extra revenue (or those whose primary income comes from this sort of revenue) it seems that Google and their AdSense division has finally allowed all publishers to include AdSense into their RSS Feeds via FeedBurner. Many know that FeedBurner was acquired by Google a little way back and some people have been beta testing AdSense in their ads for a while too.

I know I might contradict myself in this post but a post over at John Chow’s website sparked this little thought of mine in regards to Google AdSense and RSS Feeds: How effective is running Google AdSense in RSS feeds for generating some extra revenue?

RSS Feeds and Who Uses Them

Most people out there in the Blogosphere (think that is the first time I’ve used that term) are fairly tech savvy people who know what an RSS Feed is and how it is used. For those who do not know what an RSS Feed is or why you use it, an RSS Feed is a syndicated version of one’s website (hopefully dynamically driven content) where you can read new posts remotely (without visiting the website) on an hourly, daily, weekly or sometimes even monthly basis (depending on when content is updated). This allows easier access to some of your favourite sites without having to actually go to them (there are pros and cons but that’s another story). People ‘subscribe’ to these RSS Feeds and you can keep track of your ‘subscriptions’ via services such as Google Reader (web based) or something like RSS Bandit (windows client).

Google AdSense a Brief Lowdown

Now most people have seen Google Adsense, in fact if you look at the top of this post there should be a 250×250 block for a Google AdSense Ad with text links to other websites who might have something that is related to this particular post (ads generated based on content). They can be in the form of text links, links with a brief description, or even images. When people click on them they are taken to a website which might prove to be useful to them.

My Thoughts

Now with those to aspects briefly described, now is time to explain why I don’t think Google AdSense for RSS Feeds (via FeedBurner) will be very successful and I invite people to prove me wrong!

RSS Feeds as I mentioned above are more for those web-savvy people (such as other bloggers) and one thing I find is that most bloggers, or web-savvy people do is not click on AdSense ads, or not as often as other people might want. I know I don’t really click on them because ads are rarely ever interesting (enticing) enough for me to click.

I have found that AdSense and other text links ads (or ads in general) are for the not-as-savvy computer users who are ‘tricked’ into thinking they are links and thus click on them to be moved to another page. That is why you are able to adjust colours of the ads to match those of your site (as I have done). I find that if your website receives savvier computer users you might find yourself earning less revenue on these types of ads. This is where you might want to look at Private Ad Sales and be paid on a weekly, monthly basis.

In regards to RSS Feeds I believe they will not be as effective in generating revenue using a service such as Google AdSense due to the fact that most bloggers, computer savvy people are less inclined to click on an Ad since I do find that these types of people make up the vast majority of people who use them (RSS Feeds). This also was somewhat proved to me on a previous mentioning from John Chow saying he has never really made a large sum of money off the ads on his RSS Feed. People are just not as inclined to click on an Ad in an RSS Feed as they would be on a website.

Though I guess time will tell as more people introduce Google AdSense or other advertising within their RSS feeds. I could include AdSense into my feed but I just do not see the point so I am not going to do it. Am I then SoL for the potential of generating a little bit of extra income? Probably not, I mean after the 2 years I have been using Google AdSense I have not received a cheque from them. I have earned more with private ads than with AdSense and other text based advertising.

I still stand by the fact that if you do not generate a large amount of traffic then cost per click ads (such as AdSense) will not fetch you much in revenue generation. If you are just starting out I don’t think it hurts including service such as AdSense, but if you are not receiving mass amounts of traffic then don’t be expecting a monthly payout. Look at selling Ad space privately until you get more traffic.

What do you think about ads such as Text Link Ads, or Google’s AdSense? Do they work for you?

The technogeeky side of me does enjoy keeping track of ...]]>

Every day it seems I check out the Apple App Store to see if there any iPhone apps that might prove to be useful in my day be it online or offline and one thing I needed to find when I replaced my Sony Ericsson W580i with my Apple 3G iPhone was a stopwatch that is more geared towards joggers and runners; I believe I have found my solution!

The technogeeky side of me does enjoy keeping track of statistics and my journey to become a runner from a newbie jogger means I like to keep track of how far I have gone and in which time it took me to achieve it. Also following The Running Room’s recommendation for beginner joggers is that I jog at various intervals and needing a program that helps me track is a feature I set out to find.

The Running Gypsy

The Running Gypsy is an application for the Apple 3G iPhone which utilizes the GPS feature that is built into the phone. It also keeps track of the lap times, distance travelled (as well as per lap), your average speed, current speed, as well as your average pace and current pace.

Looking over the other apps that is offered on the iTunes App store did not seem to compare to what the Running Gypsy program could do for me and that it has the ability to tie into the GPS of the iPhone was an added bonus.

Testing out the GPS and options

The other day I went for a leisurely walk around the block during my lunch break at work and though I would see how far and how long it would take me to complete my little lunch circuit.

I went outside, selected the Running Gypsy application and let it acquire the GPS signal. There are 3 signal levels for the GPS portion of the Running Gypsy: No Accuracy, Moderate Accuracy and Accuracy OK. Sure not the best ways of telling you how the GPS portion will perform but it will give you its best ‘guess’. If you want to test out the GPS portion of the iPhone it would probably be best to go a route in which you know the distance and then see if the Running Gypsy reports similar results. In my test I found that at Accuracy Ok, it did a good job!

Are Laps Important?

With the Beginning Running Room program you run and walk in set intervals and each week you change those intervals to build up your endurance. The main feature I wanted in a jogging/running application is the ability to use Laps and to see my previous lap without interfering with looking at my overall time. The Running Gypsy does just that and in an easy to use form. When you hit your specified time just hit the Lap button and it will lock the Lap time for 5 seconds just below the total duration time and then

To fully test out the Running Gypsy to ensure it is an application that I was satisfied purchasing (even though it did only cost me $1.99), I took it out with me for a run. I did my 2 minute run, 1 minute walk and repeated that 7 times.

Sure holding the iPhone in my hand while I do this might be a bit awkward for some but I do not mind it. I thought about purchasing one of those Garmin running watches that do the same thing but at roughly $70-80 dollars for one, I do not see a need at this time as the iPhone does the same thing for me. Perhaps when I become better and go further distances holding my iPhone might be an issue but for now I will make do. I am sure there are armbands out there for the Apple 3G iPhone as well but I find that some of them do not fit around my biceps.

So in summary the Running Gypsy utilizes the power of GPS in the Apple 3G iPhone and allows me to keep track of my progress while out jogging in my effort to be active and healthy. I can then go back and look over previous workouts and laps to see how I am progressing (hopefully I am). If you are a running or jogger, even a walker and own an Apple 3G iPhone I recommend checking out the Running Gypsy over on the iTunes App Store and downloading it.

When we got to the parking lot ...]]>

With the purchase of Robyn’s new 2008 Toyota Yaris we decided that we would take a little road trip to take a dip in one of the many lakes here in the southwest of British Columbia. Robyn mentioned that there was a lake she wanted to try out along the way to Whistler just a bit past Squamish, and no it’s not Murrin Lake which is right next to the highway either.

When we got to the parking lot of Petgill Lake (north of Squamish, past Brackendale) a police officer was telling people that the parking lot was full and we would have to turn around and park about 1Km down the highway if we wanted to get in. He was actually having cars towed from the parking lot too. Imagine being at the lake for a couple hours returning to the parking lot only to find your car is missing? Your first thought would probably be that someone stole it right? That would suck.

So we turned around and drove only to find that the walk back to the lake would have taken too long and with the sun being at its highest it would have not made for a fun walk. We noticed that there was a sign pointing to another regional park and lake called Cat Lake so we decided to take that gravel road to see if we could find it.

Traveling the gravel road in Robyn’s new Yaris went fairly well. The gravel road itself is a forest service road with many pot holes and driving went slow to ensure we didn’t bottom out her car or do any crazy damage since it is only 3 days old. We managed to pass a few vehicles that were coming back but being a fairly narrow road with a shear drop on our side made it a bit daunting.

10 to 15 minutes of driving on the gravel forest service road we eventually got to the destination; Cat Lake. The parking lot was full with about 20-25 vehicles but we manage to snag a spot as another car was leaving.

Once at the parking lot you only have a 5 minute walk down a trail to the lake. The lake itself is decent size and was fairly busy. Not much in the way of sandy beaches but there are the occasional dock in which you can swim off of.

Some people at one side of the lake were riding their bikes down a path and up over a ramp into the water.

There were no motorized water craft as there is no way of getting such a vessel onto the lake, nor is it really big enough for one. People were floating on large inflatable islands, inflatable water loungers, using pool noodles or just (like me) swimming with the floating drift wood.

Robyn and I only stayed long enough for a dunk in the warm water and swam around in our little private section of the lake. It was a fun way of cooling off in the heat of the summer even if the drive there was a bit daunting.

If you are looking for a more remote lake without much traffic I would recommend taking the Cat Lake route past Squamish on the way to Whistler. If you do not have a truck, just take the forest service road a bit slower and you will have no trouble getting to the parking lot. The lake was worth the journey.

Apple 3G iPhone’s SMS feature

Now I’m a fairly new user ...]]>

One of the most popular uses of today’s cellphones is the ability to send text messages (or SMS). More and more people are finding it easier to send text messages to their friends than dialing their number and calling them. Text messaging is also more convenient than calling especially if you just want to ask someone where they are, how their day is, or where you should meet.

Apple 3G iPhone’s SMS feature

Now I’m a fairly new user to the Apple iPhone series and when I started to use the text messaging feature (the SMS app) of the iPhone I was greatly pleased. The Apple iPhone allows your text messages to be stored as ‘conversations’ with a fun and clean interface. No more having to scroll back a couple of text messages to see what the person said to you among your other text messages, the SMS app allows you to keep each conversation separate from one another.

It also has a great way of displaying your messages outgoing and those that are incoming.

Things To Change

There are a couple of things I have noticed while text messaging with my Apple 3G iPhone and they are as follows:

Program Orientation – I would like to be able to rotate the iPhone into landscape mode when text messaging. It would allow for an easier time with the keyboard, similar to the way Safari on the iPhone works.

Removal of Conversations – Yes I know you can clear the conversations but the initial contact is still stored at the main screen. I don’t care if I have 8888+ or some number from a voicemail or missed called. I want to be able to remove those. I would keep the regular conversations from my friends etc, but at least if I clear the conversation allow me to remove it from the initial main list.

Overall I am quite happy with Apple’s implementation of conversations for text messaging and it allows me to follow text messages from multiple people easier and quicker. I also don’t have to go back and check to see what someone said, or if it’s a question from a while I never got around to looking at I still have the ability to look back to see what the previous messages were.

How do you find Apple’s take on text messaging with conversations? Does it make it easier for you?

Most people in the Greater Vancouver area know about the Capilano Suspension ...]]>

British Columbia offers many beautiful places to hang out in the hot summer days especially if you are from the Greater Vancouver (or Lower Mainland) location. Today while browsing a store in North Vancouver for patio furniture for Robyn’s balcony she suggested we take a drive up over to Lynn Canyon. I have never been to Lynn Canyon prior to this and was happy to check it out.

Most people in the Greater Vancouver area know about the Capilano Suspension Bridge which is near the base of Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver, but what some people do not know is that there is a second suspension bridge on the North Shore; the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge.

How To Get There

If you are heading towards North Vancouver from either the Lion’s Gate Bridge or Second Narrows (Iron Worker’s Memorial) Bridge stick to the Upper Levels Highway until you see the exit for Lynn Valley Road. Head North on the Lynn Valley Road until you reach Peters Road and turn right and follow that all the way to the parking lot for Lynn Canyon Park.

Visitor Centre

Robyn was mentioning to me that back when she was a bit younger her and her friends would visit Lynn Canyon park on hot summer days and the only thing that was available to visitors was a hot dog stand and the occasional ice cream truck. Now it seems that they have built a visitor centre which has washroom facilities and a place to grab some food.

She also mentioned that a lot more tourists are being taken up to Lynn Canyon than when she used to hang out. Lynn Canyon was more of a place for local North Shore residents than for tourists. Robyn mentioned how she might have seen 1 bus of tourists whereas now bus after bus can be seen dropping off people.

Afraid Of Heights?

The Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge towers over Lynn creek at a staggering 20 stories (256 feet or 80 meters) which is slightly higher than the Capilano Suspension Bridge (230 feet or 70 meters).

With the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge being shorter than the Capilano Suspension Bridge is it narrower and the side railings are not as high which might make some people a bit more hesitant crossing it.

Looking down at Lynn Creek from the bridge

The Park Itself

Our mission was to walk across the suspension bridge and head over to an area called 30 foot. The Lynn Canyon Park itself encompasses about 616 acres of lush second growth rainforest and is dotted with hiking trails. Our walk would only take us about 10 minutes past the suspension bridge to a popular hangout for a younger crowd a place called 30 foot.

30 Foot

30 Foot is a secluded area along one of the tributaries that meet up with Lynn Creek and offer a place for people to go cliff jumping. Yes cliff jumping can be very dangerous but the people looked to have figured out the safer areas to cliff jump from. I would assume that 30 Foot is in reference to the height of the cliff that people jump off of.

If you are ever over on the North Shore of North Vancouver I highly recommend taking a side trip up to Lynn Canyon Park and checking out the suspension bridge. It also is not as busy with tourists as Capilano Suspension Bridge is and it’s free. Why pay up to $29 per person to be on a bridge crowded with tourists when you can head over to Lynn Canyon and walk across a suspension bridge for free.

Robyn and I plan on heading back there one day to check out their trail system that meanders through the 616 acres of rainforest, who knows we might go hang out at 30 Foot on a hot day and play in the cool waters too.

One of my favorite forms of entertainment has always been movies and even though I have had a 3^rd generation Apple iPod Nano for a while now I have not really thought about loading a movie on to it only to watch it on a 2” screen. Sure the screen is one of the clearest in Apple’s product line-up for its size, but still 2” screen is pretty small. Then the Apple 3G iPhone was released to us Canadians.

Widescreen Or Bust

I have always been one of those people who have bought widescreen movies and have tried to convince people to buy widescreen over the 4:3 aspect which crops the picture and you lose portions of the scene. I was happy to hear that when the first generation iPhone was released that it would support the widescreen ratio and with the release of the 2^nd generation 3G iPhone and its 3.5” display I thought it might be time to load a movie or two on to it. After all 3.5” diagonally in a widescreen format is much nicer than a 4:3 format on a 2” screen right?

DVD to MP4 to iPhone Using Windows

Now how does one convert your DVD movie into the format needed to sync to your iPhone from iTunes? Well I looked over a couple of programs and the only ones I have been able to get to work properly without buggering up the quality has been a combination of using DVD Decrypter and another application called iPhone Video Converter.

One word of warning, the movies I upload to my Apple 3G iPhone I do own. Using illegally gotten movies is not recommended and it seems like there also might be issues now loading movies and/or songs to your portable devices too, but I don’t feel like looking further into that issue.

Instructions

I thought about doing a tutorial on how to properly rip a DVD to your iPhone but I thought it would be pretty much ‘reinventing the wheel’ and I did not want to just repeat someone else’s website from which I found the best instructions. If you download the above two tools and follow the instructions from the Sheer Boredom website you should be able to enjoy your movies on your iPhone.

The Ripping Experience

It took me a while but using the above instructions I was able to rip a DVD (in my case Minority Report) to my Apple 3G iPhone for the first time successfully. Other attempts failed with some weird issue when I went to ‘sync’ the movie from iTunes. At about 20% of the way though the sync my computer would hang and reboot. I am unsure why my Vista machine would reboot but perhaps the two video files I previously attempted to create were somehow corrupt.

The one thing I did not like with iTunes and my iPhone in regards to movies was that I could not just ‘drag and drop’ the movie file onto the phone. I had to go into the properties of the iPhone, select Movies and then enable the ‘Sync’ option for movies in order to transfer the file. I would have thought just dragging and dropping the movie file would have sufficed but I guess I was wrong.

Finally after about 2 hours I successfully ripped my first DVD onto my iPhone, granted it took up 1.6GB of space but the quality of both the video and the audio is remarkable. People around me that I have shown this to cannot believe a cell phone has the capability of such a feat. Though I am not sure if I would rip any more movies onto my iPhone as I just noticed that on my 8GB iPhone I only have about 6GB to play with so that only leaves enough room for 5 or so movies. Then again I did not think I would want the 16GB iPhone but I doubt I will watch movies very often on it either.

Have you had a chance to rip movies onto your iPhone yet? What about your iPod Nano? What about ripping a DVD to another personal media player you might own that is not of the Apple brand?