Square Up - Review

While perusing the interweb, I came across a great article article about a mobile app. Every once in awhile, I see an idea and say to myself "Damn, if only I would have thought of that". This was one of those times.

The company is called Square.

The app (QR code here)? Well, it allows you to take credit card payments on your smartphone.

I tested it on the Android platform using my HTC EVO. It has a clean interface and is extremely simple to use. I was able to process a $10.00 payment to myself within minutes of registering for the service. Within seconds, I received two e-mails. The first was an e-mail noting that I had accepted a payment of $10.00 to my account. The second was my receipt. It's that simple. Really.

The registration process itself is straight forward. You'll need to provide some pertinent identifying information including a routing number. Once set-up, there are some things that you should know:

• They limit deposits made to your account to $1000/week. Anything above that will be deposited within 30 days (it is reviewed to help prevent fraud). Providing more information up front and continued use can raise that limit.
• There is a higher fee for taking a payment without swiping the card through the reader. The reader is free when you register for the service, but until it arrives, you'll be manually entering transactions.
• They charge a percentage of the total, plus a $0.15 fee per transaction. It's 2.5% for transactions processed with the reader and 3.5% for transactions processed without the reader. There is no monthly charge and no equipment charge.

It makes it so easy to easy to accept card payments, that you never really need to think about it. You can take credit card payments at a bake sale if you feel the urge. You can even track cash payments and download them as a .csv to import into other software. Plus, it's pretty fun to scribble your name on your phone.

This really is my new favorite app.

Square Up
App
QR Code

IE9 - Review

I was suring around that darned interweb on my beloved Chrome browser, when I thought I might give IE9 a try. After all, this was the new IE9 that has been optimized for HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration, right?

The basics that IE9 gets right:

• UI:
  
  • Finally. Microsoft is getting with the program. The IE9 UI is lean and mean - a la Chrome or Firefox. I know this isn't some revolutionary advance in UI design, but it's still nice to see.
  • One of several cues borrowed from other browsers is that that address bar now does double duty for search and address.
• Speed Demon:
  
  • IE9 still scores slower than Chrome, Opera, and Safari on the benchmarks, but not by much. We're talking about 100 milliseconds behind the #1, Chrome. The days of using sluggish performance as an excuse not to use IE are over. Firefox and Chrome are baking in hardware acceleration into the next versions, so that gap may widen again. But for now, 110 ms isn't enough to make me look past IE9 as a candidate for my everyday browser.
  • Add in Management - IE9 has an add-in manager that includes such information as the estimated time each add-in addsto the start time of the browser. And yes MS add-ins are listed.
• Tab Management:
  
  • When you have more than one active tab, if you select the top-right "X" button for the browser, IE9 actually asks if you would prefer to close the current active tab, or close all tabs. Nice, right?
  • Also, taking a page from Chrome IE9 has the ability to easily pull off a tab into it's own browser session. I found myself doing this a lot when I wanted to compare tabs side by side using the "snap" feature.
  • Another feature "borrowed" from Chrome - When opening a new tab, recently visited sites appear. Additionally, the frequency of visits to the sight are represented by a volume bar. The longer the bar, the more visits to that url.
• Pinning url's from a Tab to the Taskbar:
  
  • I've always been a fan of the taskbar in Windows 7. It may not look as cool as the dock on Mac's, but I find it to be every bit as functional and a bit less cluttered. This is a matter of taste though.
    
  • Another neat trick when pinning to the taskbar is that the icon on the taskbar is "branded" like the site. When opened, the browser gets "branded" with the sites colors, including the forward and back buttons. This is not something that changes the game, but in a day and age where more and more websites are becoming like applications, it is nice to know that Redmond appears to be paying to both the big and small details.
    
  • One other unique possibility is the fact that the pinned sited can take advantage of Windows 7 "Jumplist" feature. That holds promise for such features as baking in right-click navigation into a site pinned to the taskbar. Hopefully this won't go the way of "slices".
  
  
  

Overall, IE9 represents a huge leap forward for Microsoft. They have addressed many of the issues with IE that have prompted so many users to switch browsers. It will be interesting to see how (read:if) this integrates with Windows Phone 7. Will they integrate such features as "IE9 to phone" like Google with their Chrome to Phone? Hint hint: Both would be awesome. Microsoft has shown that they can listen to feedback and has created some great products recently (Kin debacle aside). Let's hope they continue this trend. In the meantime, I'm going to keep IE9 on my laptop.

Fanboys

A friend's recent post on Facebook asking for feedback on whether to switch to "The Now network" highlighted on of my pet peeves: fanboy's.

A post by one person who had the EVO led to a debate between an Apple fanboy and an Android supporter. I'm not going to state the obvious, but I think you know where I would fall in this debate.

The thing that irks me so much about this is the fact that no matter how good Android gets, Apple fanboy's will always have on the blinders. At the end of the day, there is room for both OS's. Even webOS and WP7 can (and hopefully will) join the party. The worst part is that the Apple fanboy is in IT. Crazy, right?

I may prefer the open nature of Android to the vice grip of control that Apple keeps on it's products, but I think the more at this party, the merrier. Not only does it serve as an incubator for innovation, but it also benefits all of us.

From 120PSEye

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

The Wonders of Modern Technology

How great is this? I've managed to pull down an app from the Android market that allows you to post to your Blogger account from the comfort of your Swype enabled Android superphone.
All kidding aside, it is pretty amazing that you can now do just about anything that can be done on the traditional mobile platforms from your phone. Prior to purchasing my Android device, I had a Web OS device. It's easy to see why iphone users were such gadget snobs.
Now that I've gone droid, I'm not sure that I'll ever go back. Not only do I no longer have iphone envy, I can actually do everything an iphone can do. And all that without having to deal with being oppressed by "the man".
And with Google's Android eco-system growing at the rate of one new superphone per month, it's no wonder Mr.Jobs has not been himself lately. The only downside to all of this fantastic innovation is that my wonderful new toy will be obsolete within the next 6 months. That being said, we are all winners, since the competition and innovation trend to trickle down. Viva la revolution!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.5