Some of you may recall my article a few weeks back, Time Tracking Via the iPhone: 5 Apps Reviewed. In recent weeks, I have continued to experiment with a few different time tracking apps. That was until I came across Time Master, one of the most powerful time trackers I’ve ever used. At $9.99, Time Master (iTunes link) isn’t cheap, but they say you have to spend money to make money, and I believe Time Master will help with just that.

Time Master puts tracking invoices, billing and time all in the palm of your hand. I was impressed with the intricate organizational capabilities of this app. Putting all entries logged under a client and/or project results in a well-organized work-flow. This app continued to surprise me with its rich feature set. I found many small features that aren’t all that important, but definitely contribute to the overall user experience of the app.

The user interface can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but once you become accustomed to it, it is one of the app’s most impressive features. All of your entries are filed under a client, then under a project. Each category has a number of customization options, such as varying price points for individual projects, or varying price points per individual client.

One of the huge problems I run into when dealing with clients is expenditures, as the client isn’t always sure where his or her money is going. Time Master has a feature specifically for keeping track of expenses in much the same way as it keeps track of your time. I was astounded at how easy it was to generate a report that can then be emailed directly to your clients or copied into Excel or Numbers.

Time Master is a powerful iPhone application that gives me very little cause for complaint. The app does have some downfalls, though. One being that it is slightly unintuitive at first, so reading the instructions would be a safe bet. The second failing would be the lack of a “begin timer” button on the Time Entries page, as it isn’t initially clear how to begin the timers. These two minor issues aside, I think Time Master is solid, feature-rich, and a great tool for keeping your business in line.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Development strategies for the app-developer community
• A near-term outlook for the mobile app marketplace
• How to stand out in the app development game

Going through the day-to-day realities of web crawling I find myself using the Favorites or Bookmarks feature of browsers less and less. Oddly enough, however, this statement is coming from the same guy with thousands of them backed up on multiple drives.

Early this week, I had an epiphany that resulted in me deleting thousands of old Bookmarks from Firefox, as I started filtering through a list which has been gathering digital dust for years. While narrowing down a list of seemingly endless Bookmarks, I noticed all of these web sites I no longer visit or, for that matter, remember. Many of these sites no longer existed or had since been left to ruin, and I began to remember how only a few years ago I typically carried a copy of my Bookmarks on a flash-drive wherever I went. But then I looked at a few of these old sites and started thinking… I started thinking about how someone such as myself can go from utilizing thousands of bookmarks to only using a select few.

I have noticed that many people such as I have began to use bookmarks less and less, but why?

RSS was one of the first widely used formats that allowed people to retrieve their information in quick truncated lists. Now that RSS has become mainstream, people have turned to Digg, Reddit or Delicious to not only uncover new Bookmarks but to store personal ones as well.

People are turning to more outlets for information than ever before. Services such as Facebook and Twitter have drastically changed how people receive information over the Internet. Allowing people to get vast quantities of information at any time, and thanks to the iPhone Apps for services such as these, we can now access this information anywhere.

The point is, people are moving away from using the Bookmarks feature of browsers and choosing a more advantageous route. People naturally want to find easier ways to accomplish tasks, and using services like Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious someone could find a link, a quote, song, or any other bit of information at any time of day. Where it is commonplace to update your Twitter status via your iPhone in the morning before brushing your teeth, and where people no longer mail invitations to a party, instead sending them via Facebook, it is in this same world that browser-based bookmarks have become obsolete.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How do developers ride the Siri wave?
• Connectivity means making the machine disappear
• Access vs. ownership: Why UltraViolet has already lost

What many of you may not know, however, is that this is a completely redesigned program from the original, which allegedly had a slightly buggier interface and fewer options, and compatibility with only After Effects. The reinvention of “Looks” incorporates every industry standard video editor, a redesigned interface, and more advanced features.

Magic Bullet is one of the most complex video editing applications I have used in a while, but thankfully it’s also one of the easiest to use. This app is loaded with 100 look presets which are meant as a starting point, and literally allow infinite possibilities for color correction (which you can then save as a custom look).

The time line is organized in to 5 parts: Subject, Matte Box, Lens, Camera, and Post, which helps in discerning which order to apply the effects. I found this to be both a burden and a blessing at times, in that it is nice having a guide for laying effects, but at certain times I wish I had the option of placing an effect in any spot on the time line, rather than where an effect is supposed to go.

I was a bit skeptical of this application when I first installed it. I didn’t believe an application that was so powerful could be so easy to use. The interface of Looks seamlessly integrates with Final Cut Pro or any other editor and jumping from Final Cut to Magic Bullet Looks is as simple as creating an effect for the selected clip, and customizing it.

When I first installed Looks I was worried that it might slow Final Cut down, or cause my system to run a little slower. However, I was surprised when I witnessed no slow down. However, I did notice that it took slightly longer to render my footage. Magic Bullet Looks flawlessly made my footage look like it was shot on 35mm, which is one desire every videographer has in common. It isn’t easy to sell a piece of software for $399/$99 upgrade, but compared to the thousands of dollars you would spend forking out for a professional quality camera, this is a fraction of the cost without sacrificing much.

I installed Magic Bullet Looks for Final Cut Studio 2, and after using this software on several projects of my own, I have fallen in love.

These are before and after shots of footage I used Magic Bullet Looks on. The look here is a custom one I built myself, which is fairly simple to do.

I found that the possibilities for looks was literally endless, and that this would be a great tool for someone working in this industry. Red Giant Software has an example page demonstrating various aspects of this application at work.

Every filmmaker has one desire in common, and that is to create a distinct look for his or her footage. Whether that be wedding footage, or the next Oscar worthy film. The thing many people do not realize, however, is that being a filmmaker is similar to being a magician, in that neither want to reveal their secrets. The point is, the best effects are the ones you don’t see, and Magic Bullet Looks passed with flying colors.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How do developers ride the Siri wave?
• When video gets democratized, who wins and who loses?
• Connectivity means making the machine disappear

I have tried just about every blogging platform out there and the one I finally stuck with was Tumblr. I like many of the more advanced functions in WordPress, but Tumblr is where it’s at for me. I’ve notice over the past couple of months I have started mobile blogging a lot more, and what better way to do this than with the Swiss Army Knife of a gadget that is the iPhone.

I picked three Tumblr-specific iPhone applications to try, and my final verdict is that you get what you pay for. I sent each of these Tumblr apps through a grueling 3-4 day test consisting of posting photos, text, links, conversations, and audio. Enjoy.

TheTumbler (Free)

This app deserves to be free. The more and more I used it, the less and less impressed I became. There were frequent crashes, which caused me to lose posts once in a while. Not to mention I was never actually successful in getting it to post a simple text post, however I did successfully post in every other way, shape, and form. Overall TheTumbler is a decent enough app for a freebie. Currently I don’t believe this app has much to offer. But we should keep an eye out as I believe we will see good things from this app in the future with the promise of added functions such as groups, private posts, and tags…and hopefully more stability.

Tumble (Free/$1.99)

This app started to fall short for me when I discovered that you can’t post to multiple Tumble Blogs (or groups) from the application. Other than that, this app works well enough, but I’m not sure if it works well enough to warrant a price tag. In my opinion offering this app at the same price tag as Tumblrette (below) is their mistake. Offering this app at a lower price such as 99 cents would be a bit more beneficial. Tumble offers the standard features you would expect for a Tumblr application such as a viewable Dashboard, multiple account management, and location awareness; all of which are only in the pro version. The more basic features are available in a free version.

Tumblrette ($1.99)

I saved the best for last on this one. Tumblrette was by far my favorite app out of this lot, and like I said at the beginning…you get what you pay for. All of these apps basically have the same home-screen; they all have different post types listed and you tap one to start posting. Simple enough right? Tumblrette takes this a step further by giving you access to your Tumblr dashboard, allowing reblogging, and favoriting posts made by others. I don’t do this often, but I have in the past and I found it to be a nice addition. This app also makes a great feature of the Advanced Post Options, allowing you to change privacy or date settings in a few simple taps. I manage 3 different blogs that are all interconnected through Tumblr, and it is typically a pain to manage them on the iPhone, but Tumblrette conquers this challenge with ease. One feature that stood above the rest was an exclusive feature only found in this app was the ability to record audio and post it to a Tumble-blog.

Overall, my pick of these three was Tumblrette, and at $1.99 it is a solid steal. But go try each of these and decide for yourself.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile
• Work media tools in 2012 and beyond
• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications

This is when I turned to my iPhone as a solution for such a problem. While browsing for such an App I noticed that there were nearly enough time tracking apps on the iPhone that they can almost garner themselves their own category in the App store. After diligently browsing all of them, I narrowed my selection down to the five I would try out, and I tried each one for a few days before making my decision on which is best to fit my needs.

Bill4Time Mobile

2.5 stars / Free, $19.99 for an account
Key Features: SSL encrypted, integration with Quickbooks, and multiple pricing levels for invoicing purposes. Not to mention all of the typical features for an app such as this; and it is also free.

However Bill4Time comes with a few strings attached. This iPhone App is actually a mobile platform for the Bill4Time.com Web and Desktop application, which costs $19.99 per user. This was a solid app for me as far as potential features, however I did not need the Web variant of this application, and the $19.99 price tag didn’t help me decide in Bill4Time’s favor.

PunchClock

3 stars / 99 cents
Key Features: Ability to set different price points for different tasks, export to HTML.

This is a pretty basic but it does come in as one of the cheaper applications in this comparison, and you do get what you pay for. Among the basic features there was one feature that was not present. The one feature that I desired that I saw that PunchClock lacked was invoicing capabilities. As far as this app’s exporting capabilities go, it could be better. It simply emails an Excel file to whomever you wish, which is handy; but the file itself is extremely unorganized and frustrating to decipher. This is a fairly young app, so hopefully we will see this in later updates. But for now my verdict is that PunchClock is too basic for my needs, and it just wouldn’t meet my needs until it implements a few necessary features.

iTimeSheet

3 stars / $5.99
Key Features: Exporting to Excel, Analytic module with charts, week/month/day navigation, and Searching.

iTimesheet seemed more to me to be a fun muse rather than a professional application for freelancers. It has the potential to meet all the criteria for what I needed in an App such as this, but for some reason I find myself unhappy with it. I would attribute these shortcomings to the lack of ability to set a price for different projects, and as far as the analytical mode, I found it to be quite interesting, albeit not very useful.

A few features I would like to see in future updates to this app would include the ability to see a total amount of time for a particular client, as well as the total amount of time spent on a project. I would also like to see a feature implemented that allowed me to set a price for each particular project; for example set a project at $65/hr, and have it calculate my totals. Then this app might prove to be useful. As of right now iTimeSheet Lite is the way to go simply because it is free, I personally don’t find the $5.99 price tag all that appealing for this particular App.

Easytimesheet

3 stars / $2.99
Key Features: Full featured Email client, Password protected, support for different currencies.

This app comes in at $2.99 and in my opinion it honestly isn’t worth that. Sure it is a cheaper price, but after using it for a day or two you will be frustrated and find yourself back at this review trying to figure out a different solution for the time tracking problems.

One notable feature included in this app is its inclusion of a full featured Email client. I thought this to be a huge plus until I used it, it was buggy, at times crashed, and I just found it much easier to use the iPhone’s defualt mail client. Aside from that, this app didn’t have the features I was looking for when I went on this search for the perfect time tracking App.

TimeWerks

3.5 stars / $4.99
Key Features: Ability to track multiple project and clients, different rates for different projects, multiple currencies, and exporting into HTML.

I believe out of all of the apps I looked at, this one impressed me the most. It gives you the ability to sort, track, and invoice multiple projects for multiple clients, and set prices for different types of jobs. Once you are finished with a job it features the ability to email the invoice which is in a very readable format. View a sample here.

This program is easily the most feature heavy of all the apps in this comparison, and that does come with bit of a learning curve. However, anyone with a little iPhone savvy should be able to adapt to this app in a minimal amount of time. In the end I deemed this one worth of its $4.99 price tag, and will be using this in the future to keep try of my projects and clients.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Cleantech, meet connectivity: a new era of energy efficiency
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Solyndra and the future of cleantech investing

Before the iPhone hit the market in 2007 the general population’s experience with a touch screen interface was limited to devices such as the Palm Treo, Tablet PC’s, and GPS navigation systems.  All of which have one thing in common, their touch screen interfaces can only recognize a single point of contact at a time.  It wasn’t until the iPhone that consumers really got a taste of a practical use for the touch screen, and we have started seeing multi-touch interfaces making their way into other products such as HP’s Touch Smart PC.

There is one word that I find most appropriate to describe what Apple has accomplished with their multi-touch user interface for the iPhone: renaissance.  As many of you recall from your days in literature classes, renaissance means rebirth, and I see it as the rebirth of the personal computer, meaning the end of the keyboard and mouse interface.

The way I see it, a personal computer is defined by four major components: the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and CPU.  Just looking at Apple’s iMac line of products, they have already combined the CPU and monitor.  Imagine if Apple or another company elaborated a bit more on that concept and discontinued the keyboard and mouse all together.

I am not implying that slapping a touch screen on a current Mac or PC and calling it a day. But rather I believe that in the next few years we will see the standard of the personal computing interface change dramatically, and possibly take a backseat to practicality.

As consumers are we beginning to see the keyboard/mouse dynasty come to an end as touch screens become more advanced? Perhaps this is propelling us into the next level of home computing where the nerd fantasy of owning the Minority Report computer becomes a reality.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Why the iPad is Right for the Enterprise

It’s a device that originated while most of today’s tech generation were just learning to walk, and it took the world by storm.

Of course I’m talking about Nintendo’s Gameboy. The nice monochromatic display, the flat gray casing, and who would forget the monolithic size of the device… but all this aside, the Gameboy completed us. Today the iPod touch has grown into a device synonymous with personal entertainment, productivity, and practicality. However the iPod touch has a few extra features that set it a bit above the Gameboy competition.

Back in the day it was a child’s dream to have a Gameboy, whether it was being used in the home, on the road for those family trips, or as a means of playing Tetris against your buddies at recess. It was an incredible device for its time.

When I was eight my Gameboy was my pride and joy, there wasn’t much else. It is sad to say but I feel the same about my iPod touch. Some would argue that they are totally different devices and thus incomparable. In retrospect however, the Gameboy changed the portable market just as the iPod touch and iPhone have done.

The Gameboy set the stages for portable gaming, they were among the first mass produced portable gaming consoles in color, later they allowed people to play against their friends wirelessly, now with the DSi releasing next year, you can take photos and browse the Internet. Given the iPod and Gameboy families are fundamentally different, it is still safe to assume that the Gameboy and iPod families have certainly started sharing the same side of the street.

The Gameboy is still highly regarded as a gaming system and this will hinder its sales among older more adult crowds simply because the Gameboy or DS is still regarded as a Gaming device that has a built in Calendar, Browser, and touch screen sensitivity. However when a shopper purchases an iPod touch or iPhone they are thinking that this is a device that can play music, browse the Internet, and it can also play games.

The portable gaming market has long been in need of an overhaul if they are looking to compete with the iPhone. One of the primary reasons for this is the iPhone’s untethered existence. Unlike the leading portable gaming consoles, there is no need for cartridges, a charger, or even money (aside from the cost of the device). In all practicality it wouldn’t be all the difficult to actually own an iPod touch or iPhone without a computer, since you can buy and download directly to the device. This feature is key in developing future technologies for portable gaming, and because of this fact I believe the next generation of portable gaming is going to adopt many similar features as to those of the iPod touch and iPhone

The iPhone has laid the groundwork for the next generation of portable gaming, and as a result the lines between the cell phone market’s “mobile gaming” and true portable gaming are starting to blur.

So in conclusion how do you think the iPod touch and iPhone have changed the portable gaming market, or do you think they are two separate entities that should not be compared?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Takeaways from connected consumer’s second quarter
• Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016

About seven months ago I made the decision to sell my Macbook and use only my iMac. I love this decision and I don’t regret it, other than one small issue…portability. This isn’t a huge issue but since I do quite a bit of traveling it does cross my mind once in a while.

Traveling without my iMac isn’t to say I go without a computer. I typically am given a loaner, or have a personal computer I am allowed to use on such trips, which is one of the reasons I decided I didn’t need my Macbook. However there is a catch, the computers I use are typically Windows machines. So how do I make the constant switch between the two machines without my own files, applications, or preferences? One simple application…Firefox.

One of the main issues I have with using a strange laptop is my hindered freedom when it comes to installing and customizing applications. However I was given Firefox to work with, which if used properly can be one of the most versatile and practical applications you can have installed. So how can you make Firefox bend over backwards for you?

On a consistent basis I use Gmail, Twitter, Pandora, Tumblr and various messaging clients. All of which have separate window/application on my Mac.

For email I use OS X’s Mail application, and I’ve gotten in the habit of not necessarily checking my mail. But rather having it check and notify me every thirty minutes or so of new messages. Aside from me just hating to go to the Gmail website, I find this to be much more productive. So to combat this on a computer without Mail, I installed the Gmail Notifier Firefox Extension.

After I locked down the basic survival need of email, I moved on to a few supplemental additions to my Firefox workhorse. I installed TwitterFox to fight my Twitter needs. TwitterFox lets me post, view, and reply to all of my friends on Twitter. This is one of my favorite clients for Twitter simply because I seldom find myself needing to actually go to the Twitter website, I can do everything from within this extension.

I, like many of you out there, love to listen to music while I’m working, and I rarely listen to the same artist song after song…I keep iTunes on a constant shuffle. Aside from just listening to my iPod, I like to frequent Pandora, and that is exactly how I’m bringing my music with me to an unfamiliar computer. Using Foxytunes, a Firefox extension that allows you to control nearly any media player out there as well as Last.fm and Pandora right from your browser.

Among listening to music, surfing the web, and Twittering I find myself blogging from time to time. Whether it’s a note to myself for later, or a post I want the entire world to see, I want the process of writing to be as frivolous as possible. So finding a blogging extension that fits my needs was a bit of a challenge until I stumbled across Scribefire, a blogging extension for Firefox. I have used just about every mainstream blogging platform in existence today, and this is a common trait between Scribefire and myself. Whether you use Tumblr, WordPress, Livejournal, or Myspace, Scribefire has you covered as far as your blogging needs go.

The last thing I needed was something for messaging. I could use Meebo, but I wanted something that I didn’t have to click into a tab each time I wanted to check my buddy list out. So I tried the Meebo Firefox Extension, which brings the functionality of the popular web service into Firefox, with a buddy list sidebar it makes messaging within Firefox a breeze and almost easier than using a standalone messenger.

Using a strange computer is always a hassle, but hopefully making a few customizations within a single application can ease the pain, and make the time pass a little faster until you can get back to that sweet, sweet Apple of your eye.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How to deliver the next-generation web experience
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in cleantech
• How direct-access solutions can speed up cloud adoption

I use my Mac for a fair number of things, and one of those is sharing media with my Xbox 360.

Ever since I got my Xbox 360 a few years ago I wanted the feature of streaming media to the machine, one of the rare instances when I was left wishing for a Windows PC. Soon after Connect360 saved me by offering exactly what I needed and expected.

Connect360 gives you the ability to stream all of your music, movies, and photos from your Mac to your Xbox 360 over a wired or wireless connection. Share your iTunes playlists, WMV+WMA, H.264 and MPEG4 video files, and your entire iPhoto library. However Connect360 is not the only option when it comes to sharing media between the Mac and Xbox 360. Rivet is a new contender in the ring offering many of the same features as Connect360, and a few extras.

The two programs are very similar in nature; however there is one small feature that sets Rivet apart. Rather than Connect360 projecting a flat list of media when viewed on the Xbox 360, Rivet replicates the file and folder structures on your Mac. Connect360 does not have this small feature and I didn’t know what I was missing. It makes browsing your files on your Xbox 360 a breeze, which is a huge plus when faced with as many media files as I have.

I demoed Rivet for about a week and didn’t notice any exemplary features aside from mimicking the folder structure of my Mac. At $18.95 Rivet does come in a bit cheaper than Connect360′s $20 price tag. Rivet is a solid product at a solid price point, but the only real advantage in my opinion is the dollar cheaper price point. Is this enough to make me want to pay for a new program? I would not purchase Rivet for my own personal use simply because I have used Connect360 for some time, and dropped $20 on it, and I don’t feel Rivet has any additional features to warrant me buying what is essentially the same program. However I will say this is only because Connect360 jumped the gun and was sharing media a few years prior to Rivet and if the roles were reversed, I would say that Rivet is an extraordinary product and would recommend it to anyone looking to share media for their first time.

What is your preferred method for sharing media with your Xbox 360?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How consumer media will change in 2013
• What the shift to the cloud means for the future EPG
• Development strategies for the app-developer community

Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanza, there is one undeniable fact. The holiday season is around the corner, and it is time to find the perfect gift for the Mac Addict in your family.

As good as an iTunes gift card or iPod case may be this season, “Think Different” and get that special Mac Addict in your life something that matters. Get them something they will remember, and something they will use. This will add some personality, and practicality under their tree this season. So what do you get for the computer geek that already has everything?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How do developers ride the Siri wave?
• Connectivity means making the machine disappear
• Access vs. ownership: Why UltraViolet has already lost