Being the resident “extreme” iPhone case enthusiast (and also the klutz who drops his phone most often), I was intrigued by the new cellhelmet Kickstarter project. This $44.99 case combines svelte design with protection against drops, but bundles it with an actual insurance policy that replaces your iPhone if damaged while in the case.

The case in and of itself isn’t magical, and according to David Artuso of cellhelmet creator cellpig.com, the case isn’t “superman.” The design has angled edges to protect against drops, and a choice of six different colored backplate shields to protect the glass, providing great protection without the bloat of other solutions.

What sets the cellhelmet apart is the bundled insurance policy, administered by Global Warranty Group. Should the iPhone break while in the case, a $50 handling fee covers any repairs required, or complete replacement if necessary. I’ve written about iPhone insurance before,  this case including the insurance for the $44.99 purchase price is what makes it interesting.

The plan does not cover water damage, nor does the case protect the water sensors, but according to gadget insurance provider SquareTrade, glass breakage accounts for 82 percent of its claims. The cellhelmet is competitive with SquareTrade’s own insurance program, but is slightly less expensive, applies even to used iPhones, and of course, comes with a case. Your iPhone has to be in the cellhelmet for its policy to apply, however.

Coverage lasts for one year from the time you purchase your cellhelmet, and should you ever have to claim a total device replacement, you’ll have to buy another cellhelmet, but that’s consistent with other third-party insurance programs. If all your device requires is a screen replacement after an accident, you get unlimited repairs.

For slightly more money than a stylish iPhone case, and slightly less than a third-party insurance program, you can get both by backing the Pittsburgh-based company’s project on Kickstarter. Not a bad deal, especially if you can’t seem to keep a firm grip on Apple’s beautiful but somewhat slippery smartphone designs.

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I emphasize “might” because Cook hasn’t made plans public of what he’ll do with the $97.6 billion in cash Apple has on hand, but CFO Peter Oppenheimer hinted on Tuesday that the company is at least talking about a potential strategy.

Unprompted and during his scripted remarks during the company’s quarterly earnings call, Oppenheimer said Tuesday that the company is “actively discussing uses of our cash balance” but added that they had nothing to announce at the moment.

Then later in the call, when asked by an investor, Oppenheimer expanded slightly:

“We have always discussed internally our cash. We recognize our cash is growing for all the right reasons, and I would characterize our discussions today as ‘active’ with what makes the most sense with the cash balance. When we have something to announce we will announce. Again, we are actively discussing the best usage of our cash balance.”

Apple under Jobs was incredibly conservative — he clearly never forgot how close the company was to bankruptcy when he returned in 1997. Apple typically uses its cash to make big investments in components or for a few smaller acquisitions each year. You’d think your investors would be happy the company is swimming in cash and being disciplined about its use — but when the pile grows too big and it’s just sitting there in a bank account, it’s obvious that many investors would like to see that money put to work. There have been calls for share buybacks or investors dividends for years, but they never made much headway with Jobs at the helm.

There was a hint that things would be different under Cook during his first earnings call as CEO last quarter. At that time, when pressed on the cash issue, Cook told investors, “I’m not religious about holding cash or not holding it — I’m religious about a lot of things but not that one.”

That, combined with Oppenheimer’s emphasis on “active” discussions is a good indication the company is at least more receptive to creative uses of cash in the future.

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1. Take a picture of your products and serial numbers

Whether you want to inventory your items or need a handy reference when there’s a problem, taking a picture of the product as well as its serial number means you won’t be in the awkward position of trying to talk on the phone while on the floor with a flashlight trying to read those teeny tiny numbers.

Plus, if you should have a theft or disaster, having a visual record of your items makes it easier for your insurance company to settle your claim.

2. Schedule your items with insurance

Speaking of insurance, I suggest contacting your homeowners, renters, or business insurance provider to see about separate insurance for your most expensive technology items. While insurance providers and policies vary, typically scheduling an item provides it extra protection and covers it separate from your regular deductible. If your computer is scheduled, many times it will even cover data recovery should your computer be dropped or damaged.

3. Track key information in your Address Book and iCal

If only you’d contacted tech support before the warranty expired, the broken gadget would have been repaired at no charge! There’s an easy way to make sure you have all your info on hand when you need it.

As you take pictures of your items in step 1, put the serial number and warranty expiration date in your Address Book along with tech support’s phone number (create custom fields for Serial Number and Tech Support if you wish). Attach the picture of the item to the address book entry.

Then put the warranty expiration in your iCal Now you’ve got all the info you need in one place and won’t miss that warranty expiration date.

A bonus outcome of this tip is that if you are at the electronics store and you have questions about compatibility or which model you own, the information will be handy so long as you sync your address book info manually or through iCloud.

While these tips won’t prevent problems from occurring, they’ll help protect you from further cost and inconvenience when they do.

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I abandoned moribund Quicken in 2009, and since then I’ve used iBank through several point releases and the latest major version update. Not surprisingly, upgrading from iBank 3 was quick and error free, but so was switching from Quicken 2007. An old QIF file with two dozen accounts and a decade of transactions imported without problem.

Finances appear in a two-pane interface; accounts and information on the left, selected accounts like the register on the right. Instead of an editing pane, transactions are now done in the register itself. The developers opted for a two-line list view to better handle investment data and to support multiple currencies, features lacking in Quicken Essentials. Personally, I prefer single-line transactions, but it’s not a deal breaker. Regarding editing, splits could be better. You can only see four splits without scrolling, annoying for paychecks and other many-split transactions.

The register also has a Cover Flow view of dubious value, and the more relevant and functional reconciliation view, straightforward “checkbox” reconciliation.

Transaction Templates encompass the concept of repeat transactions, scheduled, as seen above, as well as imported. If a downloaded transaction meets certain criteria, like payee name, then appropriate type, categories, splits, memo data are automatically added as expected.

While Quicken Essentials claims support for thousands of institutions, you can find out if iBank supports direct downloading for yours here. If not, or more likely if your financial institution charges an egregious fee for direct downloads, the built-in WebKit browser allows logging in from within iBank for downloading. This is a nice feature, though it would be nicer if iBank supplied ID and password too.

Reports are a big improvement over iBank 3, the biggest changes being combining report data and charts, WYSIWYG printing, and the ability to “drill down” to individual transactions in a report. The depth of accessible detail offered is well in advance of “spending cloud”  gimmicks and the simplistic reporting of Quicken Essentials.

Speaking of gimmicks, iBank 4 adds “envelope” budgeting. Instead of categories, you get envelopes, but with the ability to “borrow” unused money from one envelope for another. The problem is that there are no envelopes. It’s a metaphor too far, but iBank 4 retains category budgeting, so not a big deal.

Besides tracking general securities information, as seen above, iBank 4 does your stocks, funds, and retirement accounts all the way down to individual transactions. Can you imagine personal finance software that doesn’t? It’s called Quicken Essentials.

If you think I’m dismissive of Quicken Essentials for Mac, you’re wrong. There’s not enough there to be dismissive about. Assuming Intuit continues development, instead of ultimately pushing Mac users to Mint.com, it will be a long time, if ever, before Quicken Essentials catches up to iBank. Why wait for Quicken Essentials? For the same price of $59.99, iBank 4 offers a robust, full-featured personal finance program right now.

The developers of iBank, the robust alternative to moribund Quicken for the Mac, have gone mobile with their latest product. With iBank Mobile for the iPhone and iPod touch you can bank on the go, but probably not go it alone.

To be fair, there is no perfect personal finance manager (PFM) in the App Store. There are standalone apps like the cryptically-named iXpenselt, and cloud apps like Mint and Quicken Online Mobile — which unbelievably does not sync to Quicken for the Mac or PC.

Synchronization with the desktop is where iBank Mobile comes in. Certainly, it was a much improved experience over using it as a standalone application. Creating fake accounts, transactions, and categories using iBank Mobile for the purpose of review was incredibly time consuming. Having said that, once iBank Mobile is up and running, it follows the money pretty well.

Accounts

Left, the Home screen provides an overview of accounts and access to the spartan control scheme: Home, Spending, Settings, Sync, and New Transaction. The Spending screen shows categories and activity. Drilling down from Spending lists transactions sorted by category, each transaction selectable for details. Transactions can also be accessed by account.

The interface is straightforward and useable to this point, with one minor complaint. Accounts can only be sorted alphabetically, though they can be grouped in two lists: Primary and Other.

There is also an issue regarding general performance, at least on an iPhone 3G. Upon first accessing accounts, totals may appear as “calculating” until iBank Mobile catches up. Scrolling through transactions is a little sluggish, too.

Transactions

Creating a transaction is a guided process: Account → Transaction Type & Amount → Payee → Categories & Memo. Payee editing benefits from autocompletion, which is great, but lack of a “back” button through every step of the transaction process is not so great.

Split transactions work well, especially if you already have a list of categories, as there is no autocompletion here: select or create. Categories are best derived from the desktop software, which underscores an important point. Whether using iBank Mobile is a chore or a pleasure really comes down to whether or not you use iBank for the Mac. Syncing is where iBank shines.

Synchronization

Even if you don’t plan on syncing with iBank, the passcode option protects your transaction data on the iPhone, while encryption is used during syncing. As for syncing itself, it just works. Via Wi-Fi, MobileMe, or WebDAV, setup is simple. Syncing more than 5,000 transactions took about five minutes, while normal syncing after setup takes seconds.

Summing Up: Bronze Award

As a standalone application, iBank Mobile is rather spartan; no online options, no bill calendar, no charts, no budgeting, just transactions and spending. According to the developers, customer feedback will be a driving force in updates, though direct download of transactions from financial institutions is a priority. For now, I don’t recommend iBank Mobile as a standalone PFM, but then I don’t recommend any standalone PFM application for the iPhone and iPod touch. However, I do recommend iBank Mobile as complement to the desktop product.

The value in iBank Mobile is tracking where your money goes as you spend it over time, like cash from an ATM withdrawal. That information then easily integrates into iBank for the Mac through the excellent syncing options. What you do with that information is up to you, but the first rule of personal finance is knowing where the money goes, and iBank Mobile makes that possible wherever you are.

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This is the first in a series on some of the more advanced functionality of Numbers, my favorite spreadsheet app. If you’re new to spreadsheets, or just want to make them look a little less like Microsoft Excel, this article should be right up your alley. In this article, we’ll talk about conditional formatting.

What is conditional formatting?

The real power behind spreadsheets is not just how well they can crunch data, but how you can visually present the information in a variety of ways. Sometimes, however, you may want to give more attention to a particular area, or hide certain data if it’s not relevant. You often see conditional formatting applied to financial spreadsheets where positive values are in black or green, but negative values are always in “the red.” So how do you do that? It’s where conditional formatting, or formatting based on certain criteria, comes into play.

Here’s a quick example. Let’s say I have something that shows you my net worth for each month of the year. (These numbers are entirely made up, for demonstration purposes.) Assuming that these numbers were coming from a different spreadsheet, I could likely have one of three possible values for each month. If I were doing well, the value would be a positive number. If I were feeling the toils on the economy and not so great at managing money, the value might be negative. The last option would be if we haven’t gotten to a particular month yet, for example, in September 2009 the value reads “$0” as no data yet exists to calculate that value.

Net Worth without Conditional Formatting

Applying some formatting

Based on this example, you can see that before I begin to do any formatting, I have a mix of positive values, negative values, and some that read “$0” because we haven’t yet entered data for those months. To apply formatting, I would select the first cell next to January.

In the Inspector under the Cells tab, you’ll see an area that is labeled “Conditional Format” with zero rules applied. If I click “show rules” I will get a new window that allows me to start stacking on a series of rules that I want to compare this cell against.

For this example, I’m going to pick “Choose a rule” and select “Greater than.” If I enter “0” as my value, I’m telling Numbers that I want to apply special formatting to any value that is greater than zero. This would be where my net worth was in the positive numbers. If I click the “edit” button, I can now start layering on formatting. To keep things simple, I’m just going to change the text color to green and press “done.” You do have options here for a variety of other formatting choices, including bold or italics and changing the cell background. Looking back at your document, you should see that the value has now turned green!

Now I’m going to apply another rule, this time to address negative net worth. This rule is going to be “less than 0” and I am going to format the text to be a red color with bold styling.

Finally, I am going to apply one last rule, which will address the “0” values for upcoming months. Usually, you will not see a net worth perfectly at “0,” so I have used this assumption to keep our “0” values open for this next example. If a value is “0,” we’re assuming its because we are at a month in which nothing has happened yet, so we will simply want to “hide” this value until an actual value (positive or negative) can take its place. To solve this, we’re going to format the cell to take values that are “0” and turn the text white, so it will simply blend in with our background and therefore be hidden.

One down. A few to go.

Once we are finished here, we can close this window and go back to our spreadsheet. Now we’ve laid out the set of conditional formatting rules, but they currently only apply to the net worth listed in January. The next step most would take is to simply grab the little dot on the right of the cell and drag down to “fill” down, but do not do this. You will inadvertently fill down the value of that cell and not its formatting.

Net Worth with Conditional Formatting Applied

The last trick up my sleeve is how to copy formatting between cells and that is to use a feature called “Copy Style.” This is similar to the “Format Painter” of Microsoft Excel. Simply highlight the cell we were working on, go to the Format menu and select “Copy Style.” You can then highlight the remaining cells, go back to the Format menu and select “Paste Style” and you should end up with something that looks like the image to the right.

The Copy/Paste Style is a very useful tool and is found in all of the iWork applications. There is even a quick button to access it that you can add to your toolbar (open the View menu and then click “Customize Toolbar”).

If you are familiar with Conditional Formatting from Excel, nothing has really changed except the limit to the number of rules you can apply. Microsoft Excel previously limited users to applying three rules to a cell (usually that was more than enough) and, as far as I’ve found, Numbers imposes no limit. In the next article, we’re going to dig a little deeper into the power of Numbers with how to do horizontal and vertical lookups. If you have any Numbers-specific topics you would like me to cover, please use the comments below and let’s get the discussion started!

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For $2.99 (introductory price, in the App Store) you can track your purchases and budget on the go, always knowing what your cash flow situation looks like. Cha-Ching Touch brings extreme usability and a lovely user interface to your finance-tracking tasks, adding the ability to add locations to your payees, to make point-of-sale entry that much simpler. Cha-Ching Touch will also sync with the (currently in beta) desktop version of Cha-Ching 2 (scroll down the page a bit), so your dollars and cents should all add up at the end of the day no matter what device you’re using.

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If you haven’t noticed, the writers here at TAB like to write about invoicing applications. Some of our recent reviews include Billings, OnTheJob and Involer. But forget all of those other invoicing applications. I just found the one true ring of invoicing and time management: GrandTotal + TimeLog from Media Atelier.

I have been testing this application bundle for the past two weeks ,and I am very impressed with the quality and overall user experience. Because of its integration with Address Book, iCal, MobileMe, and iWork, it really feels like it’s a native app.

GrandTotal

As an invoicing application, GrandTotal has an impressive feature set. Here is a short list of the many things GrandTotal can do:

• The ability to create recurring invoices
• An invoice editor that lets you customize your own layout (using existing templates or creating your own)
• Quotes & account statements
• Flexible tax settings & multiple currency support
• Integration with Address Book and TimeLog
• Catalog for recurring and fixed amount items
• Reminders for due & overdue invoice
• Many export options, including PD

Version 1.2 was released this week and with it came the following new features:

• iPhone application (more below)
• All-new UI for the Preferences dialog box
• Ability to create an invoice with just the Gross total
• Addition of a Recent list to the Overview

As I mentioned, the application is very easy to use. Let’s take a look at the main UI (items are intentionally blurred to protect the innocent):

GrandTotal Overview Tab – Recent/Open Invoices

GrandTotal Preferences – TimeLog Integration

TimeLog

As a time-tracking application, TimeLog’s feature set is also very impressive. Here is a short list:

• Uses iCal calendars and calculates the time spent on projects. You can assign clients to your projects from the Address Book. Your timesheets are then synced with MobileMe, ensuring they are current no matter which Mac you use.
• There is a menu item that lets you manage your time easily. You can start and stop the Timer with just one click.
• TimeLog can track the applications you use and then display the usage in the TimeLine. One caveat here is that it tracks everything you do. The developer does not have blacklist functionality yet, but he is working on it.
• Export your timesheet to Pages or Numbers — this is great for sharing your data with others prior to sending out an invoice.
• Integrates with GrandTotal — all of your timesheet data is easily available in GrandTotal for quick processing of invoices.

TimeLog Main Window

iPhone App

New to version 1.2 of GrandTotal is an iPhone app that lets you review your invoices while on-the-go. The best part? It’s free.

In the app, you can view Overdue, Due and Open invoices. You then click the invoices to see the full details as well as the contact information of the client. The client information is “hot” in that it will take you to your address book contact entry so that you can call/email/text them. A nice feature to have would be to re-send any outstanding invoices via the iPhone app.

The one requirement in using the iPhone app is that you must have a MobileMe account to sync your GrandTotal data. Otherwise, the app doesn’t work (which will be a deal breaker for some).

GrandTotal iPhone App Main Screen

GrandTotal iPhone App Invoice Detail Screen

Conclusion

The tag-team of these two products provides a pretty powerful punch in managing your time as well as your billing. The user interface for both GrandTotal and TimeLog is exceptional and makes it pretty easy to get set up for your small business.

Further, you now have iPhone integration so that you can review your invoices and their current standing with your customers. This way, it’s just a quick call away for asking the question: “Is the payment on it’s way out?”

However, are these two apps the best out there? Have we reached invoicing nirvana? Well, I would say it’s pretty close — if you don’t mind a few items:

1. The price. Compared to the competition, which averages about $40, to purchase both GrandTotal and TimeLog be prepared to spend about $75.
2. iCal integration is excellent, although there is a big caveat. I would discourage you from using any existing calendars as TimeLog changes the data to existing iCal meeting entries.
3. Application management. In the competitive space, both Billings and OnTheJob contain the majority of features in one, rather than two applications.

At the end of the day, you can overcome these issues if you want to have the most full-featured time management and invoicing products on the market.

The developer says that more is on the horizon. Maybe an iPhone app for TimeLog? Possible integration with accounting applications? Stay tuned. One thing is for sure, based upon what we have with GrandTotal and TimeLog, we can only continue to expect great things in the future from Media Atelier.

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The annual Apple shareholders meeting had a different tone than usual on Wednesday, lacking the presence of company CEO Steve Jobs. The Apple board hasn’t had a straightforward year, leading the company through a global financial crisis and aiming to stem the ongoing investor uncertainty surrounding Steve Jobs’ health.

Shareholders seemed to embrace the positive on the whole, wishing Jobs a Happy Birthday (he turned 54 on Tuesday) and offering mixed opinion on how the board handled disclosing information surrounding recent events.

A Healthy CEO

As expected, a great deal of time and attention was given to Steve Jobs. As the man who has provided visionary leadership for the company in recent years, to many he is a vital member of the Apple corporate machine. His announcement of escalating health concerns last month caused a stir in the technology press, with rumors about his condition changing every day. Thankfully, this has now settled down as people have come to realize that Apple won’t collapse without his presence.

Shareholders approached the board with a mix of acceptance that personal matters need to be kept private, and questions of whether enough information has been provided. According to Fortune, they were in good enough spirit to sing Happy Birthday and wish him well.

Comments from an Apple shareholder for 20 years, Roland Quintero of Palo Alto, Calif., summarized the general consensus well:

The problem is between corporate and personal responsibility. Anything Apple says would affect the market. The board’s decision reflects a desire to maintain stability and market share. As a shareholder, I, personally, would like to know more, but I understand the no-win situation the company is in.

It’s good to see that shareholders do accept that a level of privacy is needed, both for the sake of Jobs and his family, and also to preserve a stable share price for the company. As the months without Jobs tick by (and software/hardware releases keep coming), Apple seems to be coping very well with Tim Cook temporarily running the company. It would be great to see Jobs back and fighting fit in the future, but this stint without him should go a long way towards showing that Apple has the internal vision and direction to continue innovating without him at the helm.

Re-electing the Board

The shareholders made the decision to re-elect the entire Apple board of 8 people, including former vice president Al Gore and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Votes were taken on four proposals to change shareholder say on executive compensation, increase required company disclosure and alter staff healthcare provision, but none were passed.

The decision to retain all board members demonstrates a show of support on behalf of the shareholders, and a belief that the company is still being lead by those with the knowledge and expertise to ensure future success. It’s exactly what Apple needed to retain stability and confidence in otherwise turbulent times.

In typical secret fashion, Apple prohibited attendees from carrying mobile or communications devices into the shareholder meeting, to ensure that information wasn’t misinterpreted or leaked during the presentation. Despite this, a few tweets did manage to leak out while the meeting was in progress.

Dividend Payments

Questions surrounded dividend payments, with hopes from shareholders that a portion of Apple’s extensive cash balance would be used to reward those investing in the company. Apple held over $25 billion in cash at the end of the most recent quarter, the second largest cash level among high-tech companies.

With many companies struggling financially at present, Apple would appear to be in a strong position to continue operations as normal, along with pumping money into research and development. With any luck, they’ll come out of the current recession with an ever-improving hardware and software lineup. On the whole, the re-election of the board and wishes for Steve Jobs’ return to good health bode well for the company.

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There’s no shortage of invoicing applications for OS X, with a notable few including Billable, iBiz, Billings, and On The Job. They all offer different functionality, and may fit your requirements perfectly. However, another contender has recently emerged on the scene in the form of Involer.

Rather than attempting to be a complete solution for project management, tracking time, and storing client details, it sticks to the basics — sending and managing invoices. Involer aims to keep this process as simple as possible with an intuitive user interface and basic invoice designs.

This review will take a look at the main features of Involer, explaining what the app does well and where the areas for improvement lie.

The Interface

The Involer interface takes one of the most simplistic approaches I’ve ever seen. Consisting of four areas: Company, Client, Invoices, and Invoice Preview. While dauntingly sparse at first, you do come to realize that it covers most of the basic functionality you need.

One gripe I had immediately was the lack of any visual hints on how to get started after opening the application. It isn’t possible to actually add an invoice until you’ve entered a company and a client — something which would be easy to explain in any of the empty space when opening the app.

The preferences pane is equally sparse, with only a few options to handle updates and excluding certain items from an invoice.

Adding Information and Creating Invoices

Adding a client and company is as simple as hitting the + icon in the left hand sidebar. This creates a new blank record, which then needs to be double clicked to edit the name. If you don’t add a name straight away, there’s no way of knowing that an empty client actually exists — some form of dialog box to request a client’s name when being added would be beneficial. However, it is possible to import client data from Address Book (limited to their name and email address).

Creating an invoice occurs in an attractive interface, with a simple two column layout for item and amount. You can edit the title and thank you note, and optionally add a tax value. Tax rates are specified for every company on an individual basis and calculated automatically for each invoice sent to them.

Previewing an invoice looks good, and the layout and style retains the simplicity inherent within the app itself.

Sending and Exporting

There are two ways to distribute an invoice — via PDF or Print. Both generate a decent looking simplistic invoice, but I’d appreciate a way to have greater control over customizing the font and appearance to match my branding. In addition, it would be great to generate an email with the PDF attached, automatically addressed to the invoice recipient.

Searching and Organizing

Two of the main aims of Involer are to have “all of your invoices stored in the application, allowing you to refer back to them at any point” along with the ability to “find a specific invoice with just a few keystrokes.” This is achieved through both a timeline-style browser and a search function.

The timeline browser is a great addition, especially if you send out a large quantity of invoices. Unfortunately, the search feature didn’t work at all for me, likely a glitch with the latest release and something which will be high on their list of priorities to fix.

Simplicity Gone Too Far?

Generally, I’m a huge fan of applications which cut back on unnecessary features and execute the bare minimum excellently (WriteRoom for instance). However, I feel that Involer may have taken this concept a little too far in cutting back on features that people do actually need.

One major oversight would seem to be the lack of any Invoice ID. This is almost always a requirement, and while it could be added manually to the title, it makes sense for a piece of software to automatically generate this for you. Design wise, I generally find that companies often use invoices and receipts as a good way to project the professionalism and style of their brand. Stripping all this away may not suit everyone’s taste.

Conclusion

Ironically, many applications which are perfectly production ready are labeled as a beta. Involer is one advertised as a full release, when I think actually it could have done with a few months of limited beta testing. There were a number of issues which made the app feel slightly difficult to use, not least of which was the search function not working correctly.

If you’re searching for an app to create and manage invoices in a basic way, Involer could well be for you. I’m confident that updates and enhancements are being made to fix problems with the early release of the app. An updated version (1.1) was released this past weekend with a whole host of fixes and updates from the original release, with more coming soon.

The concept of the app is great, but the execution needs a little more polish before I’ll be considering using it for myself. Involer is priced at $19.99 and a fully functioning 10 day trial available to download. It requires Mac OS X 10.5 and higher (Mac OS X 10.5.2 or higher recommended). Involer runs natively on bother PowerPC and Intel-based Macintosh computers.

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Grab a party hat, don your celebratory garb and prepare to get your freak on because, praise be, it’s the first ever Weekly App Store Roundup of 2009.

Indeed, with Macworld drawing near, attendees should immediately check out our very own Conference Schedule – it’ll make sure you’re consistently in the right place at the right time.

In the meantime, those who can’t make it can attend vicariously through TheAppleBlog: we’ll be bringing you the latest Macworld coverage throughout. And, if you can handle even more Apple-happenings being foisted into your giddy brain-box, then read on for my picks from the App Store this week.

This week I’ve been looking at Shoutcast Radio, SledMania, Fnorder and Crayon Physics.

SHOUTcast Radio (free)
Back in my Windows days, a permanent fixture for all my media-playing needs was Winamp – it was light-weight, refined and functional where Microsoft’s Windows Media Player was sluggish and over-bearing. However, the killer feature for Winamp was it’s support for SHOUTcast Radio — providing access to bajillions of ‘net radio stations streaming the nichiest of niche tunes. Of course, these days, iTunes handles ‘net radio quite comfortably, over on the iPhone though, SHOUTcast Radio may become my new go-to app.

SledMania ($0.99)
Browsing through the most recent releases to the App Store brought even more Windows nostalgia flooding back. Back on my first Windows computer, I spent many Winter-evenings indoors whiling away the hours on a mini-game called SkiFree (which those of just the right age and geekiness may also remember). The game has retained quite a following: it’s mildly unsettling to note that a troupe of particularly passionate fans have even created SkiFree fanfiction. With a similar pixellated style, SledMania captures some of the spirit of SkiFree, albeit without a genuinely terrifying abominable snowman careening down the hill behind you.

Fnorder (free)
Amidst a torrent of awful practical joke and novelty apps, comes Fnorder. It’s another utterly useless app except there are two things to note that elevate this above the steaming carcasses of fart sound generators and iPhone magic tricks. Firstly, the app was co-designed by Steve Jackson, the excellent game-designer behind several titles including Munchkin. Secondly, Fnorder is actually an amusing and occasionally spooky purveyor of weird advise, described by its creators as, “… the I Ching for paranoids.”

Crayon Physics ($4.99)
There’s a ton of exciting creative stuff happening over in Finland: Mikko Walamies, the guy behind Rolando‘s artwork and Secret Exit, the two-man team currently creating long-awaited Zen Bound, both hail from Finland. Indeed, it’s a veritable hot-bed of digital creative talent and, as it happens, Petri Purho, creator of the award winning Crayon Physics game, is also a native Finn. The game is exceedingly clever. In order to solve puzzles, you draw your own objects which then react realistically with the game environment. It’s far less complicated and way more fun than my description sounds, so go grab it and have a play.

Just One More Thing

I’m feeling a tad fruity as it’s that time each week when I draw your attention to something exciting, interesting or irksome happening over in the App Store. This week it’s the latter, as I draw your hawk-like attention over to Pay Me Modile App [sic].

Enabling you to track loans to friends, including related notes and the initial lending date, this is a simple idea for a useful app. Furthermore, it even integrates with your iPhone Address Book meaning you can send friendly reminders to your more unreliable acquaintances quite easily. It’s great and the developer should be commended and cuddled for creating such a handy tool.

The problem is, there’s a spelling error in the title which lets the entire app down. All but the most sheltered of us are prone to making blaring, public mistakes, so it can be unpleasant to then be subjected to such pedantry.

And yet, the App Store is big business — times are hard, competitors are multitudinous. Hard-working developers just can’t afford to slip up in this economically tempramental climate.

Where Mint.com, Rolando and Tweetie are upping the game and providing serious bang for one’s hard-earned buck, errors like this — while not impacting on the quality of the app per se — belay an expeditious approach by the developer, lacking in focus and ultimately leading some consumers to question the quality of the final product. Let’s hope 2009 brings a renewed focus for App Store developers, allowing us to celebrate yet more innovation on the iPhone.

Apparently the fresh air of Finnish Lapland over the holiday season didn’t off a burgeoning bug in my system, so I’m toddling back off to bed with a cup of cocoa in order to recover. I’ll be seeing you next Saturday with more apps, in the meantime, drop me a message and let me know what caught your eye in the App Store.

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Having done quite a bit of traveling for our move from Pennsylvania to Washington state, I was inundated with advertisements for ways to keep business cards, documents and travel receipts electronically organized. Unfortunately, none of these products worked on the Mac. In my quest to get organized and also to prepare for tax time I searched for an equivalent all-Mac solution and here’s the combination that has worked best for me.

Step One: The Hardware

I debated for quite a while on whether I should buy a new scanner since I already own a decent multi-function device. I suspect that many readers do as well and, while I cannot say that a special scanner is absolutely required, I do need to point out that receipts can be tricksy little items. There are no fixed/standard sizes and you never know when or where you will need to turn them or other paper items into digital documents. With that in mind I sought out an inexpensive, compact, Mac-friendly device with TWAIN support and settled on the Pentax DSmobile 600:

Pentax DSmobile 600 Scanner

While Mac support was a key factor, I wanted something that was highly portable (it comes with a travel bag) and that did not require external power – the Dsmobile 600 is powered solely through USB (cord provided). I deemed TWAIN support critical since I wanted to ensure compatibility with existing software and I hoped that my receipt-organizing solution would support this standard as well. I bookmarked the Pentax (I did not want to spend $115-135USD on it before finding the key element in my quest) and pressed on.

Step Two: The Software

While a specialized software package was not absolutely necessary – one could use a manual solution composed of a well-crafted Numbers spreadsheet, organized directories and decent file naming conventions – the goal was to make this task easy. Since my receipts were already somewhat disorganized, introducing more manual tasks into a new process would doom it from the start.

After an exhaustive search trough Google, Version Tracker, MacUpdate and many forums (including our fine forum) I settled on a $39.95 program called ReceiptWallet, developed by Scott Gruby.

The most basic description of ReceiptWallet is that it is a document organizer & repository similar to Papers in that it can store almost anything you throw at it. This makes it great for user manuals or other items you just do not wish to transcribe. While it can store everything, the true power of ReceiptWallet lies in the ability to import, interpret, itemize, report on and export financial data associated with receipts. After playing around with the demo version, I was confident enough in the software to warrant the purchase of the Pentax (it turns out that the model I chose is also one recommended by the developer – always a good thing) and a license for ReceiptWallet and started organizing my paper mess.

Working With Receipts & Documents

When you first start the program you create a new “library” that is either used for organizing documents or receipts. Each library type presents unique fields with which to categorize entries. Receipts have an associated merchant, amount, method of payment and potentially itemized entries whereas documents have titles, categories, URLs and other taxonomy elements. Fields are completely customizable in any library you create, but I suspect most users will settle on the defaults provided by the author.

ReceiptWallet Main Window

My main goal was to manage receipts so I began with a receipt library and started scanning any merchant slip I could scrounge. The software does an admirable job when attempting to discern the date and amount of the purchase. It is no easy task since every receipt is different and the condition that some where in was far from optimal. After taking a guess, the program allows you to make corrections, itemize any detail you wish to capture and tag the entry with a note. Again, you can add more fields to accommodate any level of detail required (e.g. department number, employee number, etc) and all this captured data is available via built-in reports and can be exported in a formate that most spreadsheet and financial programs can read.

Adding a receipt

Not Limited To Scanning

Organizing paper receipts was my primary goal but it turn out that that task is only part of the story. Much of what I/we purchase today is either delivered electronically or at least has a receipt which is delivered on-screen or e-mail. While OS X provides a handy “Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder” option in the Print dialog, ReceiptWallet lets you take this one step further and lets you create Droplets for each library as well as ReceiptWallet itself. Rather than hunt around in e-mail or use Spotlight to find old receipts or even license keys you can put those documents/elements right into an organized database with full searching & reporting capabilities, all by just “printing” them! The software would be worth it for just that feature alone. Imagine having all those Amazon, Apple Store, eBay & PayPal records immediately accessible or never having to submit a replacement request for a lost license key. Remember, though, that the software is not limited to receipts. You can save any HTML page or any document from any program as PDF and store it directly in an organized document library within ReceiptWallet.

Integrating It Into Your Personal Workflow & Mindset

ReceiptWallet doesn’t come with a magic wand that will turn you into an well-organized life form. You will need to find the best way to integrate it into your daily/weekly workflow. That’s easy for electronic documents and receipts but requires a bit of discipline at first when dealing with those bits of paper you quickly tuck away into bags or pockets each week. I suggest using a physical drop box where you place any receipt from any purchase during the week and then designate some small period of time during the week to process the data from the past seven days. That way you have a focused task for brief period time that is long enough to mentally allocate without considering it a distraction (which would probably be the case if you performed the task daily).

The title of this post includes the word “budget” and ReceiptWallet can be a powerful tool when it comes to helping develop and stay on a budget (which is one of the best ways to get started managing your finances). If you are diligent in scanning, importing & itemizing your expenditures, then you will know just how much you are spending on, say, groceries in general or even specific items and use that to change behavior (if necessary). You’ll know and have a record of anything that you can deduct from your health spending account (if you have one). You’ll even get a good picture of what you spend each week on eating out (this can be a real eye opener). You can use all this data to develop a baseline of what you think you should be spending and then use it to keep yourself honest. I guarantee you’ll save enough in one year to pay for the cost of the scanner and software if you use it to create and stick to a budget.

One final feature that I’ll mention (there are more facets to the software than I’ve touched on) is that the IRS (for those in the US) will also accept scanned receipts as evidence during audits, and ReceiptWallet makes it simple to keep solid backups of all your key data in the event the government comes-a-knockin’ at your door.

If you’ve been using ReceiptWallet for a while or have come across another solution for organizing your receipt and document mess, please drop a note in the comments if only to help the next pilgrim in search of the best means to getting his/her life in order.

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