Posts tagged budget
Managing kerchings with Cha-Ching
22 years ago
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.
Fruit Bytes [rating:5/5]
Lightbox on a budget
163 years ago
by Sam
in Photography
Sometimes when I photograph objects, particularly something like my iPod touch which is very shiny, it’s difficult to get the exact results you want without seeing tons of reflections which can easily ruin a shot. I don’t want to buy anything professional like a lightbox for the amount of photography I do, but I’d still like to take some shots and have that plain white background which you see in magazine ads and catalogues.
I happened upon some photography on Flickr which looked like it was taken in a professional studio, when infact the apparatus to help create that shot was just over £5. Today I purchased that apparatus from IKEA, placed a few objects in and took photos. Here are a some of the results.
So, how was this achieved and what exactly are IKEA doing selling photography products, I hear you ask? Well, they don’t. It’s a pop-up laundry bag which acts like a photography tent. It’s perfect and it’s called SKUBB which costs £5.29. I haven’t positioned any lights on it for the above photos, I was just allowing natural daylight coming in through the windows. For the shiny floor I simply placed an A4 sheet of glossy photo paper into the laundry bag, then hooked my digital camera up to my JOBY Gorillapod tripod, set the camera to Super Macro and had fun experimenting. Very pleased with the results which will make photographing small and shiny objects so much easier in future, especially the shiny metal behind of the iPod touch!
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