You may wonder why there is no pretty picture of Windows Vista’s Aero graphics. (You may also wonder what happened to Boomtrends. Turns out I have a really demanding job and a somewhat demanding social life.) Back in November, I signed up for Microsoft’s “Powertogether” program, which encourages developers to adopt the latest out of Redmond. After watch 3 hours of videos about Windows Vista (and hours of hitting refresh on the website since it was bombarded by freeloaders like myself), I received confirmation that I qualified for my free copy of Windows Vista Business Edition.
In the months since, my home PC became unbearably slow so I decided to raid Fry’s and Newegg to build a new one. I picked out parts with my soon to arrive Vista CD in mind. About a month ago, it arrived! I installed it on my new system and I was excited as a geek with a new computer with a new bloated operating system! Then it froze.
Then it was pretty and awesome. It has built in speech recognition and I could IM without touching the keyboard. Then it froze, again. This bipolar behavior has been the norm since. Now I cannot blame all this just on Vista, since there is a very strong possibility that the issue relates to device drivers for my specific hardware. But give me a break! Microsoft has been working on this OS for 6 freaking years…couldn’t someone write drivers ahead of time?
So where is the screen shot? I couldn’t get the thing to run long enough with Vista get one for you. I’m done. I installed XP on my computer and starting now, it is for sale. Core2Duo e6400 2.13ghz, 2gb PC25400 Ram, Geforce 6200LE 128MB PCI-E Video card and all the other stuff that goes with it. Make me an offer. I’m getting a Macbook.
As I mentioned in the last update (which was way too long ago), things are a bit hectic. I’m looking forward to adding a new section on the site to share just what I mean in the near future. In the meantime, please excuse the plain Wordpress template while we migrate Boomtrends to the new site. Also, as I mentioned we are looking for guest contributors to Boomtrends. Today’s post is from Apurva…enjoy!
If you’re like me, you have trouble remembering things like: Do I owe anyone money? Do they owe me anything? I remember lending Freakonomics to someone, but who? I have Entourage Season 1, but who did I borrow it from? For questions like this, BillMonk provides a great little utility.
Their goal is to “…defuse the financial tensions between friends by providing a tool that manages social money in a way that is easy and fair. Use BillMonk when you need to track money and there isn’t a better way.”
Or, as Hamlet put it, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” Um. let’s just move on.
To start, you can add your friends via your Facebook account, an excel spreadsheet, or manually with email addresses. Your friends don’t even have to go through the setup process to get an account. If they choose not to, they’ll receive an email message or text message whenever you mention them in your account.
The site itself provides two unique tools. First, it allows you to track who owes you money, and whom you owe money to. If your friends have accounts, whenever one of you makes an entry mentioning the other in a transaction, the information will be shown in your view. To settle these transactions, you can either pay them in person (duh), or you can sign up for an Obopay account (who coincidentally just bought out BillMonk). Once you have your bank account linked to Obopay, you just click on the amount you owe someone and the money will be transferred. Conversely, if someone owes you money, the amount will show up in your account. Of course there’s a service charge for all this: 10 cents to send money and 1.5% to load cash into your account.
I like the way BillMonk keeps track of all of the various transactions a user has with different people, and the current amount owed at any given time. For instance, if I buy dinner for Rob and we decide to split the $100 bill, and later I owe him $8 for coffee, BillMonk knows that he only owes me a total of $42. When I tell BillMonk that he’s paid me $20, it automatically lowers the amount owed to me to $22.
Although not really a part of the site, Obopay also offers a mobile service that lets you transfer money to your friends through your cell phone via SMS messaging. While I haven’t used this feature yet, I think it has some far-reaching potential. How often do you go to dinner and there’s someone who didn’t bring enough money, so they offer up their credit card, while most of the other people are looking for change because they only have 20 dollar bills?
Using Obopay’s mobile service (or even PayPal’s mobile service), you could easily settle bills right at the table just with a simple text message. For the user who chooses to manage all of his money and transactions through BillMonk, it’s an easy process to download transaction history from Quicken or any other utility that enables CSV functionality. It even provides the capability to ‘tag’ your expenses for easier historical navigation.
While the payment feature is the most popular feature of this site, BillMonk also allows users to set up libraries of all the ’stuff’ they have, focusing primarily on books and DVDs. Using this feature, you can browse your friends’ libraries and ‘check-out’ and ‘check-in’ stuff. The process of going through your actual libraries and inputting them manually is a bit tedious, but it is cool to see what all your other friends have. Instead of rushing out to buy something, you could just as easily find a friend of yours that has it and is willing to lend it out to you.
Now, admittedly, this may seem like a lot of work to keep track of your money and things, and it probably is overkill for easygoing people who are good about paying people back and remembering who has their stuff, but if you have a forgetful set of friends, BillMonk might just be what you’re looking for. As for me, though, I still have no idea who I borrowed Entourage from.
It’s been a little over a month since you last heard from the Boomtrends crew and many people have asked what happened to us. Well…a lot has happened. Warren and I have both been in the process of career changes from the consulting business to the software services business. Warren joined a large software firm and I’ve joined a startup, both in the valley.
Between interviews, existing jobs, side projects and boomtrends (and some semblance of personal lives) we didn’t have much spare time. For 2007, Boomtrends is a top priority and we are looking for some help to ensure that happens. If you are interested in joining the team, email me ( rob at boomtrends.com ).
Look for a more robust site design, regular updates and continued coverage of cool technologies. Thanks for reading and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I like to be “connected”. I sleep with my mobile and my laptop on my nightstand. But when I leave my computer, I must rely on my mobile to stay in touch. I have no problem keeping up with my RSS feeds, stocks, news and email (yes Google owns me…) but IM has always been a challenge. The built in IM client on my phone supports AIM, ICQ and Yahoo! and it also sucks. However this leaves Jabber (Google Talk), Live Messneger (MSN) and Skype on the sidelines. Also, I cannot sign on to both of my AIM screennames at once with the integrated client. I need Trillian on my phone!
EQO is like Trillian for your phone. I discovered EQO a couple months back but I didn’t have a chance to test it on a non-T-Mobile-crippled handset. Now I have. EQO supports mobile IM with AIM, Live, Yahoo!, Jabber, Google Talk, ICQ and Skype. It allows you to sign on with multiple screennames, like Trillian. It also supports VoIP connections if your PC is running with Skype and the EQO Skype plugin. You can even install an EQO widget on your online profile (MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Xanga and Tagworld) so your visitors to your page can IM you whenever. Okay, maybe that is not such a good idea. EQO even threw in their own little mobile social network so you can message all your EQO friends with text, photos or just where you are and what is going on around you (A toned down version of Dodgeball or Loopt).
Wow, that’s a lot of features! I tested EQO on the trusty Nokia E61. After creating an account and picking my phone, I received the install text message and was up and running. EQO allows you to create a very simple profile so your EQO friends can see what you are up to. But what I really care about is the mobile IM. I was able to quickly login to AIM, Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo!. EQO works really well for mobile IM. It definitely beats the built-in clients I’ve tried. I didn’t get a chance to test the Skype VoIP forwarding but I’ve used the same feature with SoonR. Just pick who you want to call on your Skype buddylist (from within the EQO client) then both your phone and their phone will ring, just like Jajah.
The last feature of EQO that I would have liked to try (Assuming I were to have EQO friends) is messaging to other EQO users. Suppose I am at Medjool and there is a really good DJ, I can let all my EQO friends know just by changing my public profile. Pretty slick!
Overall, EQO rocks because 1) It integrates all your IM applications on your handheld and 2) Unlike your phone’s IM app, EQO DOES NOT use up all your text messages! If you are an IM addict, EQO is your crack. Enjoy:)
