Archive for November, 2009
Managing kerchings with Cha-Ching
Nov 25th
Because of the wonderful and almost frighteningly simple way one can spend money online these days, I have always written down my outgoings into a notepad on my desk. However, with the frequency of buying apps and music from the iTunes Store, sometimes these little purchases going unrecorded and the balance in my bank differs from the balance guessed on my notepad.
So, a few weeks back I felt I could do with an application to keep me on track with my budget for online transactions. I browsed through the app store and came across Cha-Ching. Not only can I manage my finances there but I can also sync it, via wifi, with the Cha-Ching Mac application, which is currently free in beta. The best of both worlds.
I firstly put in my budget for online spending and then whenever I make a purchase online I tell Cha-Ching and it will then show me my remaining balance. Plus, I get to keep a record of the purchases I’ve made which is very useful to have. This has made me so much more conscious of what I buy, but more importantly spend. Instead of having to go through the tedius task of checking my bank account each day for my balance, Cha-Ching keeps me on track.
I’ve been using Cha-Ching for about one month now and I’m pleased that it hasn’t been a novelty purchase that I’ve used for a few days and forgotten about. Because I have it on my iPhone and Mac, I have Cha-Ching where I need it so when purchasing an app over the air on my iPhone I don’t have to wait until I’m back at my Mac before entering this transaction, which I’d likely forget about. Now I can just open up Cha-Ching, enter it, sync it and forget about it.
The Cha-Ching iPhone app [iTunes link] is just £1.79 and as mentioned above, the Mac application with which it syncs beautifully with is free in beta.
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Loading ...Quick Look: New Apple Remote
Nov 5th
When I ordered the Magic Mouse from Apple Store online a couple of weeks ago, I popped the new Apple Remote into my shopping cart. Then a day later the shipping dates changed on the remote which would have held my mouse up for at least another 36 days. So, I removed the remote and decided to buy at a later date when stock was in.
After doing a Twitter search for ‘new apple remote’ a few days ago, some were reporting that their Remote was now being shipped, despite the availability still showing as 2-4 weeks on the store listing at the time of ordering. (now changed to 1-2 weeks). But, I decided to pop in my order on Monday and just sit it out. Less than 48 hours later the remote had shipped.
Delivery method showed as ‘Postal’ on my invoice, so because of the Royal Mail strikes across the UK recently I wasn’t expecting it to arrive anytime soon. However, it seems Apple are now using a different courier service to get their goods to customers in the wake of these RM strikes, so it arrived in a timely manner by UK Mail this afternoon. Apple packaged it very well, in a shoe-box sized box!
Check out more photos of the New Apple Remote on Flickr.
I unpaired my old Apple Remote and paired up the new one by holding down the right and menu buttons together for 5 seconds, then a link icon appeared on the screen to show I’d successfully paired it with my iMac. I’ve been asked a few questions around the internet about the remote already, so here’s a little summary.
It’s slightly heavier than the white plastic remote. It’s also a lot colder to the touch, being all aluminium. Even though the play/pause button has been moved from the centre, the centre still acts as a play/pause button. This is good news as I’ve become rather accustomed to clicking the centre for that and I’m sure it would take a while to re-program that action.
There isn’t a great deal more one can say about a Remote Control, but if you do have any questions then fire away in the comments.
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