SplashMoney for BlackBerry Review

“It’s in the way that you use it,

It comes and it goes.

It’s in the way that you use it,

Boy don’t you know.”

-Eric Clapton, It’s in the Way That You Use it.

For months I’ve been trying to find the right solution to tracking my finances. Like most, I’m on a tight budget, and every penny counts. I cannot afford to bounce a check, and must make sure there’s enough money in my account to cover my bills. I need a simple way to make and track a budget. I’ve looked at Quicken, Mint.com, spreadsheets, and more. There is so much variety of software, and each can be used in so many different ways. All I know is, I stopped carrying a checkbook because I rarely write checks. But I do have a smartphone (Blackberry), and perhaps that will afford me a way to stay on top of my money wherever I go. To that end, I have begun a trial of SplashMoney for BlackBerry, by SplashData.

SplashMoney comes with a desktop component and a BlackBerry component. From their website:

Manage your money anytime, anywhere. Connect to your online bank from your desktop computer or wireless handheld and download transactions directly into SplashMoney. Create budgets and then track and analyze your spending with customizable reports and charts. Synchronize your handheld with your desktop computer to stay on top of your finances whether you’re at home, on the road, or in the office. Includes free desktop companion software for Windows.

Installation

Installation is pretty straight forward on both the desktop and handheld. But you must enter a registration code or trial code in both.

Setup

SplashMoney can handle many accounts. Setup is simple. Just go to File, New Account, and describe the account in the associated boxes. I set up a checking, savings and credit card account quickly and easily.  It can handle many types of currencies.

SplashMoney does more than keep a running list of your transactions. It features reports and budgets so you can see where your money is going. A transaction not only includes fields such as Date, Payee and amount, but also category, class, memo and type. Let’s look a bit more closely at these.

Categories such as groceries, rent, car payment and dining help you determine budgets. The program comes with several pre-defined categories, but you can easily change them. You can also have sub-categories. With a few months’ worth of data you can see where your money is headed, and create budgets to help you make better money decisions. If, for example, your dining category is eating a huge percentage of your pay, it’s easier to spot that trend when you look over a months’ worth of data than if you just scroll through your check register.

The Type field includes Check, debit, deposit, ATM and any other types you’d like to add.

I cannot remember what I did a week ago, and if I didn’t write memos in each transaction, then I’d be completely clueless. The key to success in budgeting is to be diligent. I carry my BlackBerry everywhere, and every time I make a transaction I immediately enter it. It’s become second nature.

Class comes pre-loaded with Personal and Business types.

Lastly, Status determines if a transaction has cleared your bank. This is very handy for reconciliation.

As you can see, the software allows for flexibility and customization. In fact, it even lets you split transactions among different categories. Nice.

Data

So how do we enter data into SplashMoney? There are many ways. The simplest is to add each individual transaction into your handheld, then sync with the desktop. Or you can import bank transactions into your desktop and sync to your handheld. Or do both. Like the Clapton song I referenced earlier, it’s in the way that you use it. I prefer to never sync the handheld to the desktop. I like to import data from my bank into the desktop, and reconcile that to my handheld.

In theory SplashMoney lets you import your bank data automatically by connecting to your bank from either your handheld or the desktop. I couldn’t get this to work, though I didn’t try very hard. Also in theory, you can import CSV files to the desktop. This I tried very hard to do and was very unsuccessful and frustrated. I contacted support and they were quite nice, attentive and tried hard, but ultimately it wouldn’t work.

You can also import QIF and OFX files. This worked wonderfully. I wanted to import the entire year’s worth of transactions, and from that make reports and budgets. Unfortunately, my bank only lets me download the last three months’ worth of transaction, so I’m a bit out of luck there. But at least I have something to work with.

Reports

SplashMoney has a simple to use system for viewing your data. You can choose the dates, organize by category and choose your account. Want to see how much you spent on dining last month? No problem. Though the reports are perhaps not as sophisticated as what you may see in Quicken, they are easy to use and give you straight forward answers.

Budgets

This is a wonderful section of this versatile software. I find that allocating a specific amount to each category really helps me stay focused on how I’m spending my money, and more importantly how I’m saving my money. And as with all the other features of SplashMoney, budgeting is very simple to set up. You choose a particular category from the Budget tab, then a dialog box pops up and asks you to enter an amount. Easy.

The budgeting section could be improved if it allowed you to set up a budget for each month. Here’s why. Some months have four pay periods, others have five. This affects how much you receive in pay and how much you may pay out. Currently the software only lets you set up a budget for “this month”. Also, it doesn’t give advanced options such as carrying over your budget categories where you spent less than the allotted amount.

Security

SplashMoney features state of the art blowfish encryption.

Conclusion

SplashMoney is not the most feature-rich software out there. It’s not the cheapest. But it is simple to set up and use, provides you with the information you need, and best of all, can be carried with you at all times via a handheld. I have grown to depend upon it. Whenever I use my debit card, I take an extra 10 seconds to enter the transaction into my BlackBerry, and I always know my balance and budget.

Deposits

-Secure

-Easy to set up and use

-provides all the financial information you need

-Provides budgeting and reconciliation

Withdrawals

-The reporting is a bit simple

-Could benefit from more budgeting features

-Problems importing CSV files and connecting to my bank

SplashMoney is $29.95 and comes with a free trial.

Rush Time Machine Tour Review

The power trio, Rush, played the Chicago leg of their tour last night at Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island, a man-made peninsula along Lake Michigan, completed in 1925.  It was formerly the site of Meigs Field, a famous single strip airport featured in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator program.  In the middle of the night in 2003, Mayor Daley had it torn up purportedly in the name of Homeland Security.  This caused quite the uproar in the City of Chicago.  Nevertheless, it is now part of Museum Campus which features the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum.  Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears stands adjacent to the pavilion and this beautiful area, located just off downtown, set the scene for the 8000 people fortunate enough to get tickets.  How did Rush sound?

Mobile Checkbook 4.0 for BlackBerry Review

I almost never write checks.  I mainly use my debit card and rarely even carry my checkbook with me.  Keeping track of my transactions is very important to me and I found a very simple solution.  I always carry my BlackBerry with me, and Mobile Checkbook by Mobatech has created a simple, yet very effective solution for tracking my accounts.

The Stanley Cup

I was minding my own business 11:30p Friday night, 6/11/10, just hanging out by the circle drive in our downtown Chicago apartment building.  Many people milled about on State and Rush Streets, visiting the many restaurants and taverns.  It’s some good people watching.  I was texting on my BlackBerry Curve when I heard police sirens.  That’s not unusual, especially on a weekend night.  The suburbanites love to come downtown, get drunk and do things they shouldn’t do.  What was unusual, however, was the fact that two police cars, sirens blaring, pulled up quickly to our circle drive.  This caught the attention of many passers-by, who wandered over to see who was getting arrested.  Odder still, two young ladies came out of the backseat of one of the cars, laughing and smiling.  Who were these important ladies that needed a police escort?

Just as suddenly, a large limo/van pulled up next to the police cars, effectively blocking off the drive for all traffic, including those wishing to park in our building.  Curiosity brought a huge throng of people over, all with cameras out and ready to photograph whatever excitement would follow.  Next thing I know, the van door opens and out pops Andrew Ladd of the Blackhawks, holding the Stanley Cup up high for all to see.

I just bought a new camera, but it was upstairs.  I had no chance to get it and was stuck taking photos w/my BlackBerry.

The Hawks stayed for about 15 minutes and allowed us all to take photos.  We cheered for them, clapped and showed them our appreciation.  They then left and went to their next destination.  They stopped at many popular hang-outs and did the same thing.

SplashID for BlackBerry Review v5.0.3

If you’re reading this, chances are you have a plethora of user ID’s and passwords for a myriad of websites, emails, computers, credit cards and many other items that require passwords and security.  SplashData’s SplashID is a password manager, also known as a wallet program.  This program, along with its desktop companion software, will help you manage all your important personal information. 

Views

The software features two views, list view and tree view.  List view, pictured below, allows you to choose a category, type or use Find to quickly pull up what you need.  Tree view skips the Types field and displays just the categories.  Both views feature a search bar to quickly get the info you need.

Tree view:

Click on an item to expand it:

Any time you expand a view in Tree view, the software asks you to confirm your action.  I wish it would just expand when I click the plus sign.  List view doesn’t make you take this extra step.

To see the detail of a particular card, click on it, then press “detail”.

 

Categories and Types

Categories are used to group related records such as business, and personal records.  Types act as templates for inputting information.  A little complicated?  I agree, but it works.  A credit card template will have different information than a website login, and types allow you to define what information goes into the templates that you create.  You can use both to narrow down the items you are looking for.  For example, you may have web logins for work and for personal use.  Choose the Personal category, then choose Web Logins under Types and you will only see work logins.

And here’s the Business category with Web Logins:

Data

Your data is stored on “cards”.  The program has many built-in templates that you can modify, or you can create your own.  I am shopping for a new home in the city of Chicago, and to make it easy to find streets while I’m on the go I created a Streets template, downloaded tons of street information and put it into my template.

Find State Street:

See detailed view:

 

This streets template simply includes the street name, and it’s location.  Once you start using SplashID you will find many uses for it.  Our company carries hundreds of products, and each product has multiple prices, so I made a category for our products that I can quickly pull up while with customers.  I also keep track of my credit cards, memberships, logins, and many other things.  In fact, SplashID provides over 20 card templates for bank accounts, birthdays, calling cards, credit cards, domains and many more.

Import

Using this software is quite easy, but the key is getting data INTO SplashID.  Fortunately, this is not difficult either, as long as you have the desktop component.  If you’ve ever imported a comma delimted file (CSV) into Excel, then you can import data into SplashID.  As you can see below, you can import data with other data types as well, including from other wallet programs.  Obviously, you can also add individual cards as well.

Security

The most important reason to get SplashID is to have a secure home for your passwords and private information.  This is where SplashID shines.  You need only memorize one password to use SplashID, then you can access your many stored passwords.  According to their website, SplashID uses, “Unbreakable AES and 256-bit Blowfish encryption.”  You can’t beat that. 

Instead of using the same passwords for all your needs, you should use a different password for every need.  SplashID helps you by using their automatic password generator that will give you unguessable passwords.

SplashID has a mask/unmask feature that hides your passwords from those looking over your shoulder.  A masked password such as this: ****** will unmask into your password.

 

Desktop Companion Software

The desktop software performs all the same tasks as the BlackBerry, plus a few more such as importing.  I won’t go into much detail, but the following screenshots should give you an idea of what the desktop is about.

Category view:

Detail view:

Double panel shows types on the left and items on the right.

The triple panel shows the same as above and adds a detail screen at the far right.

Other Features

From the SplashID website:

Key Features:

• Enhanced security – AES and Blowfish encryption, auto lockout after 10 failed attempts, password strength meter, and password hint option
• Desktop web browser plugin with web form autofill (Safari and Internet Explorer)
• Attach files to records for secure retrieval at a later date
• Add custom icons to records from any image file (48×48 PNG recommended)
• Smart Types (Most Viewed, Recently Modified, & Recently Viewed) help you get to your most popular records faster.
• Sync multiple SplashID databases (with other version 5 BlackBerry databases only)
• Enhanced Lookup feature instantly displays relevant results as you type
• Email and share securely encrypted SplashID files to other users
• Toolbars give you button features where they are needed the most
• Updated icon set with enhanced high resolution graphics
• Unlimited number of customizable record types and categories for storing all kinds of confidential information (usernames, passwords, bank accounts, credit cards, registrations, insurance, prescriptions, and more)
• Synchronize data between your BlackBerry and your Windows or Mac desktop using the included desktop software, via USB or Wi-Fi (if available). Mac sync is Wi-Fi only.
• Automatic password generator – for generating random hacker-safe passwords based on user criteria
• Complete backup and restore feature
• Set URL field in your records to deliver you to the correct address every time — completely defeats phishing
• Sequential backup system

 

Cost

The software for your BlackBerry and the desktop companion run $29.95.  Not cheap, but once you start using it you will get addicted.

Conclusion

It ain’t cheap.  But if you want a simple, portable way to have all your important data at your fingertips, this is a great investment.  It’s very flexible in that it lets you customize your data, it gives you a way to import tons of data at once, and it’s quite easy to use.  Most importantly, it is extremely secure. 

Calendar Pro for BlackBerry by SBSH Quick Take

The BlackBerry native calendar:

Agendus’ Calendar:

Calendar Pro:

If these pictures are not enough to make you get Calendar Pro right away, consider the following.  I had an issue with duplicate entries on my Calendar Pro calendar. 

I went to their forums and asked for assistance.  I received expert help quickly and they solved my problem.  It turns out that my calendar was drawing from several other calendars (ie Facebook, Yahoo and Outlook) and they showed me how to eliminate the other calendars.

Calendar Pro is $14.95 and worth every penny. 

Theta Poker for iPhone/Touch Review

A couple months ago, while roaming the aisles of my local Best Buy, I happened upon the iPod Touch.  I turned on the display model and found a beautifully crafted poker game made by Apple.  This was so much more amazing than any poker game I’ve ever seen on any other device that I had to buy a Touch.  But beauty is only skin deep, as the game sucks.  The Artificial Intelligence (AI) is horrid, so I began my search for a good, fun Texas Hold’em game.

Break’s Over

I took a break from writing.  I didn’t realize almost a year has passed.  In that year lots has changed for me, but all in a good way.  Here I am in the picture below, 31 lbs lighter, posing w/my daughter Rikki.  We are sitting in the first row watching my favorite team, The White Sox.

Below is a photo of my car.  Check out the placard on the left.  Life is good.

I don’t plan on writing every day.  In fact, I have no plan.  But when the tech mood strikes, which seems to be more often as of late, I’ll share my thoughts.  Hope you keep visiting my site.

WizMouse

Here’s a great, free Windows utility.  WizMouse gives you the ability to scroll in windows in which you do not have focus.  As long as your mouse is over a particular window, even if it’s a background program, you have the ability to scroll.  This beats the heck out of having to click on windows to get the focus, then scrolling, then returning to another window by clicking on it.

Control Your Open Windows

Aerosnap, a new beta program, let’s you view two programs side by side on your monitor.  All you do is drag one program to one side of your screen, and drag the second program to the other side, to view two programs side by side. 

The free program comes with several options including startup with Windows, changing the size and activity of snapping zones or using hotkeys.  It’s easy to use and makes your computing life more convenient.