Tag: Software

Lumy

Lumy.jpgThe Lumy app does on thing and one thing only but does it with style. The apps help photographers find the magic hour.

Magic hour (sometimes known as golden hour) is a period around sunrise or sunset at which the light is often soft, warm and perfect for taking photographs. Professional photographers swear it as the time of day with the best lighting.

Upon launching the app, Lumy uses the iPhone's GPS location to find the magic hour for that location. The user gets a screen four times. One each for morning and evening magic hour, and one for sunrise and sunset. The cloud cover is displayed just under the times.

Swiping left across the time will show the amount of time before magic hour or sunset or the amount of time that has passed since it occurred. Swiping right will add or remove a reminder alarm for that time period. Swiping down brings up a calendar. Tap a date to see the magic hour and sunset values for that date. Swiping up will refresh the app with updated location information.

Tapping the gear icon in the lower right hand corner of the app reveals the app settings for alerts and weather.

New Jersey Transit MyTix App

MyTix is the official New Jersey Transit mobile app for purchasing and using electronic tickets on the trains and buses in the garden state. I used it for the first time on a weekend trip with my family to The High Line in Manhattan. While we waited for the train to arrive, I downloaded the app and tried to buy one-way tickets for our trip from Princeton Junction to Penn Station.

The app has a rudimentary and unattractive user interface but provides the functionality needed to buy and use an electronic ticket. I was required to create an account using my email address and zip code and then link my credit card to that account. Once I completed that step, I was able to buy tickets. The app allows the user to set up more than one payment method. That's quite useful if you need to separate your business and personal expenses. I can use my business credit card to buy tickets for business trips and my credit card when travelling with my family.

Purchasing a ticket is straightforward. Choose the travel method, select an origin and destination, choose the ticket type, e.g. adult, child or senior, and then the payment method. It wasn't clear to me at first. I had to activate the tickets before I could use them. I had some issues activating the tickets. The app is susceptible to network latency. Despite having enough cellar coverage to browse the web, the app would not activate my tickets. I moved around on the train platform until I got a signal strong enough to complete the process. However, once activated, one must use tickets within 24 hours. The app provides a count down timer. Active tickets appear under the Active tab in the My Tickets screen. The All tab has a history of the last few expired tickets. Tapping an expired ticket will show you the ticket details.

While sitting on the train, I selected my purchased tickets, and a QR code was displayed to present to the train conductor. She quickly scanned the displayed QR code and indicated that she just needed to see the countdown timer to verify that the tickets had not expired.

My GoDaddy Bookkeeping Experience

Last year I started consulting again. As in the past, I chose to go the independent route and formed an LLC. I wanted an easy way to invoice my clients, track expenses and cash flows, and create reports for taxes. I tested several solutions before settling on a combination of Freshbooks and GoDaddy Bookkeeping. At the time Bookkeeping did not support invoicing but and Freshbooks did not have any sort of tax features. Freshbooks integrated with my bank and business credit card and could import expenses and deposits and Bookkeeping automatically categorized transactions according to IRS approved Schedule-C tax lines. I needed both. I paid for both. It was expensive.

Over the last year GoDaddy added a very capable invoicing feature. So just before it was time to renew the service I decided to connect GoDaddy to my online accounts. I had no problems linking the business credit card account. However, when it came time to link the business checking account I ran into some issues. I opened a ticket with GoDaddy. This is a screen shot of part of the conversation with GoDaddy support.

GoDaddy Bookkeeping

I was stunned. Why? Here's what the GoDaddy Bookkeeping web site promised.

Easy Bookkeeping

I am angry. How useful (or easy) is a business accounting service if "most business accounts are not supported"? Is GoDaddy targeting businesses that are so badly organized they use personal accounts? I want to close the account. But I like the tax accounting feature. Freshbooks doesn't have this and now cost more than Bookkeeping. So I'm stuck with exporting information (QFX from my business checking account and importing into Bookkeeping.

So much for :

There is nothing to download, install, or update. Ever.