Mint Redefines Free Online Financial Services

I see a lot of new applications each week. Most of them I dismiss as uninteresting or not very innovative.

But recently I discovered one that has the potential to change how I manage my finances.

Mint is a personal finance application that tracks and analyzes financial information via a single source. Mint tracks bank, credit union and credit card transactions and displays graphs of your spending habits.

These are things that Quicken or some other financial application has been doing for years, so what's the big deal?

The first thing you do when signing up for Mint is enter the credentials for each of your accounts. Mint automatically imports your most recent transactions and will monitor and update your records so you can track your spending habits.

As with Quicken and other applications, you don't have to manually enter transactions.

Mint claims to work with more than 3,500 financial institutions around the country. I was able to import both my credit cards, but have been unable to get my Old National Bank checking account to work and have yet to hear from Mint's support team about it.

Mint can send bill reminders and alerts via e-mail or text message. It can contact you when a credit card payment is due or when your spending habits change significantly.

You can set up an alert if an account balance goes below a certain amount, or if you spend too much on a category of purchases (restaurants, for example).

Mint is free; it generates revenue through credit card and checking account sign-ups through the site, earning a referral fee from the financial institution.

Mint also recommends accounts that better fit your spending habits and which could save you money. If you travel, Mint will find the right miles card for you, for example.

Obviously, the biggest concern with Mint is privacy. Some may not be comfortable importing sensitive financial information into a new, unproven service provider.

The company claims to provide bank-level data security, and it says it analyzes your spending trends anonymously so that banks cannot identify you.

I was not worried about sharing my information, because I believe services such as this are the wave of the future.

The old paradigm of software in a box has served us well for 15 years, but the Web and online distribution are the future.

Intuit seems to agree. It is jumping on that bandwagon by building an online version of Quicken that it plans to release later this year.

Whether Mint's early lead in the online financial management space will be to its advantage remains to be seen. I'm still using Cha-Ching, in addition to Mint, to manage my finances.

If Mint can solve the issues with my checking account and continue to innovate, I won't have any problem giving up my Sunday ritual of entering credit card transactions.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in The Evansville Courier & Press

Ringtones are sound of 'free use' issue calling

I purchased the new Kanye West CD last week and immediately ripped a copy into iTunes and synced it to an iPod.

Ripping a CD to a computer and digital audio device is allowed because it is considered "fair use" under copyright law. Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted materials without getting permission from the copyright holder. Fair use also covers activities such as making backup copies.

If I can rip a song onto my iPod, wouldn't it be logical that I could use part of the song as a ringtone? If things were so easy.

A ringtone is a 30-second snippet of a song that plays on your cell phone when someone calls.

The most common way to get ringtones is by purchasing them through the online stores that are integrated into your phones. In the past few years, the ringtone business has grown into a $5 billion-a-year cash cow.

The trade group the Recording Industry Association of America has argued that ringtones are not covered under fair use, and that you should pay $2 to $3 per 30-second clip.

This should come as no surprise, considering the RIAA has argued that ripping and backing up purchased music are not covered under fair use. It would prefer that a separate copy of a song be purchased for each place you want to play it. You'd need to purchase the CD for your car, for a ringtone for your cell phone and for a digital copy for your iPod.

Despite what the RIAA and phone industry want you to believe, there is no legal difference between a ringtone and the source song that should prevent you from using it on your phone. Copyright law states that a ringtone does not count as a derivative work, and thus doesn't infringe upon the copyright of the songwriter. The RIAA actually uses this fact to its advantage. Since a ringtone isn't a derivative work, it doesn't need to pay a royalty to the copyright holder for each ringtone it sells. If you were to purchase a Kanye West ringtone, the RIAA would collect and keep all royalties.

AT&T and Sprint sell tones at $2.50 a pop for a 30-second clip; Verizon tones sell for $3.

The ringtone is usually tied to the handset, which means a purchased ringtone can't be transferred to a new phone. Instead, each one must be repurchased.

What's more, some carriers cripple phone features to prevent the copying of ringtones downloaded to a specific phone. They want to keep you locked into their ringtone store.

The only thing preventing the use of music as a ringtone is the carrier locking the phone. If you have the technical inclination, you can probably get ringtones on your phone, but for the average person, it's easier to give AT&T or Verizon another $3, rather than go through the ordeal.

A convenient and simple integrated purchasing process for ringtones is fine. Locking phones down and preventing legal use of something we paid for is wrong.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press

Video, more storage part of Apple upgrade of iPod line

Apple launched its new iPod lineup last week in preparation for the holiday shopping season.

The iPod Shuffle received a pastel color upgrade, while the iPod Classic received a storage upgrade, as well as a metal interface to match the Shuffle and Nano.

Apple also introduced a new member to the iPod family: the iPod Touch, which can be summarized as a thinner version of the iPhone without the phone. Apple took the iPhone's music, Web-browsing and YouTube features and put them into this new device.

The biggest change to the iPod family is the redesigned Nano. It is now shorter and fatter. The fat design allowed Apple to add video support for TV shows and movies downloaded from iTunes.

Apple also added support for downloadable games, which the iPod video has had for the past year.

Apple also set out to reinvent the patented iPod interface that has served it well since the iPod was introduced in 2001.

The iPod now has support for the Cover Flow album browsing technology used in iTunes and the iPhone. It also modified the classic iPod interface to give previews of photos, videos and album art as each section is scrolled.

Changes such as this are what set Apple apart from other tech companies.

When a company hits a gold mine product, it often milks it for all it's worth.

Look at how long Motorola been selling its Razr design for mobile phones. The Razr was introduced in 2004 and has sold well over 50 million phones. But it hasn't seen many changes since its inception.

Research and development are not cheap, and if something works, a company is reluctant to change it until absolutely necessary.

Not Apple. Its goal isn't to build products that just stay ahead of its competitors. Instead, it aims to build products that are superior to the product it replaced. It isn't afraid to kill a successful product and put a new thing in its place.

Apple is competing with itself more than anyone else. The old iPod Nano was the best-selling iPod in the product line, and Apple could easily sell millions of them through this holiday season and the foreseeable future. Instead, it chose to discontinue it and release a completely new design. The only thing the new Nano shares with the previous generate is the name, click wheel and price.

No company has come close to knocking Apple off its pedestal as the leader and innovator in the digital music space. Microsoft recently dropped the price of its Zune digital music player to $200 to better compete with the iPod, but it won't even put a dent in the Apple juggernaut.

Until a company can match the style, ease of use and integration Apple has with the iPod and iTunes, look forward to many more iPod Christmases.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press

Studios have taken sides in movie format wars

There's nothing like a format war to stifle the adoption of new technology. In the 1980s, it was whether to choose VHS or Betamax for playing our movies on tape. In the 1990s it was Laserdisc versus DVD. Now in the 21st century, we're forced to choose which high definition DVD format to back: HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

On the surface, both formats are strikingly similar: The discs are the same size as a CD or DVD, and they make movies look fantastic on your high-definition televisions. The biggest technological difference between the two formats is that Blu-ray is capable of storing more content on a single disc. Bigger than that difference, however, is the trend of each major movie studio putting their support behind one format or the other.

If you're interested in seeing the latest James Bond film, "Casino Royale," in HD, you will need a Blu-ray player because Sony Pictures releases its HD movies exclusively on Blu-ray. Disney, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and MGM are also exclusively in the Blu-ray camp. You'll need to buy an HD-DVD player to see "Transformers" in HD later this year because Paramount is exclusively releasing discs in that format. HD-DVD is also backed by Universal Studios, The Weinstein Co. and DreamWorks Animation. Warner Bros. and some smaller studios have taken to the practice of releasing discs on both formats. Confused yet?

Format wars usually put corporate profits ahead of what's best for the consumer. Each of these company's is backing a single format for different reasons. In the case of Sony, it developed the Blu-ray format so if it succeeds, Sony will be earning royalties for each movie released using that format. Other studios such as Paramount and DreamWorks are earning a paycheck for putting their support exclusively behind HD-DVD. Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together are set to receive about $150 million in financial incentives such as cash and promotional guaranties for exclusively supporting HD-DVD. Toshiba, a major HD-DVD player manufacture, plans to use "Shrek the Third," a DreamWorks film, as part of a major HD-DVD marketing campaign later this fall as part of this deal.

While you can purchase both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs at most major retailers like Best Buy and Target, renting the discs is definitely not as easy. Blockbuster plans to only offer Blu-ray titles at its stores, so I recommend signing up for a Netflix (netflix.com) account. Not only is it a better renting experience, but Netflix is format-agnostic so you can receive both Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles in your mailbox.

If you're desperate for high definition movies, purchasing a player will set you back $250-$300 for HD-DVD and about $500 for Blu-ray. Microsoft sells an HD-DVD player add-on for its Xbox360 console for $179. The drive connects to one of the USB ports on the back of the console. I own the drive and it works as advertised, though it looks a bit awkward having an external drive. Sony's PlayStation 3 console has a Blu-ray player built-in, which makes it a great choice if you're even remotely interested in gaming as well as watching movies. In November, Samsung plans to release the BD-UP5000 that will put an end to the format wars by fully supporting both HD-DVD and Blu-ray for a little over $1,000. I plan to pick one up.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press