Posts Tagged ‘android’

Get a Fresh Money Perspective With Mint

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Real estate agents can always benefit from tools that help make for more efficient use of time – especially when it comes to finances. In many respects, the agent’s life is a small business. And we all know how complicated the financial aspect of earnings, taxes, expenses and retirement savings can get.

That’s why I want to tell you about Mint.com. It’s the hottest thing in personal finance apps since online banking.

The site has gained a lot of recognition and increased its user base after being sold to Intuit (the same company that brought you Quicken) last year. If you ever talk to people who use it, you’ll quickly see why. They absolutely love it!

What is Mint? It’s an online money management system that does all the heavy lifting for you. When you set up an account, Mint goes out and pulls your data from your banks and brokerage accounts in order to build a financial picture for you. This sounds a little scary at first, but the company uses bank-level data security and has never had any reported problems. The company does a good job at explaining the security measures at this link.

We all know that personal budgets and savings plans are about as exciting as insurance seminars. That’s probably why Mint has become so popular – unlike the old systems that had you sitting there laboring for hours entering your data, Mint gets to the goods in a matter of minutes. You get real insight and you never have to open a spreadsheet once.

It tells you: where your money is going, where you could find potential savings, how your investments are doing, and now offers a way to set up and track goals for yourself.

Who doesn’t need that?

Mint can even help you detect suspicious activity in your accounts. And of course, they have an app for your iPhone or Android device.

To sum it up – Mint is like the personal finance tool for people who hate personal finance. It’s easy and dare I even say fun? Plus, all the kids are doing it. So if saving more and spending less were on your New Year’s Resolution list this year, you might want to step on over and give it a whirl.


Cool Apps: Total reQall

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For the most part, most of the tech stuff that I look at and test falls under the heading, “Mildly Interesting.” Every so often, though, I stumble across something that absolutely blows me away.

I had that experience a couple of weeks ago.

I have been blown away…by reQall.

Before I get into the ins and outs of what it does, though, let’s chat. Now, I’m sure that there are those of you out there who are hyper-organized, who never have any trouble remembering anything. All of your ducks are in their respective rows and every tiny detail is in its place. Well, most of us are not like that. Most of us have great ideas, but we have them when there are no Post-Its on which to jot them down. We make appointments, but can’t remember them. We know that there was … something … that we were supposed to do, but we can’t quite remember what it was because we haven’t had a quad shot gargantulatte (no whipped cream on that, thanks) with a side of Red Bull.

For those of us who are dealing with that grim reality? reQall is at our beck and/or call.

With applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Outlook, GoogleApps, email, Evernote, SMS, IM, and even an extension for Firefox, reQall is there, wherever and whenever we need it.

What it is is a high-toned, get-your-backside-in-gear memory aid that’s an organizer, a reminder system, and a productivity assistant, all rolled into one. Have an earth-shattering idea while on the road? Call reQall from your mobile phone and your recording is transcribed into text. Suddenly remember an appointment that you forgot? Record it with reQall and it’ll appear in your Outlook or Google calendars.

reQall is smart. If you say, “Meet with Jack Bauer every Tuesday night at 8,” reQall knows that it’s a meeting, and that it’s every Tuesday night at 8. It’ll also record it accordingly in your calendars. If you say, “Remember to buy milk” it’ll record that in your shopping list.

Here’s where it gets scary smart, though: reQall will remind you of things at the precise moment you need to remember them. Let’s say, for example, that you want to buy flowers for your wife on your anniversary. Create a reminder in reQall and when you’re near the flower shop, it’ll remind you to stop. Right then. I know. Crazy, right? But in the best way.

There are a ton of things that you can do with reQall, each of them cooler than the thing that came before it. Sign up for an account today and see just how organized you can become. You’ll have total reQall.