KWBaker

Whether it’s for tax purposes, business expense management, or personal budget interest, holding onto physical receipts is a bit of a hassle and chore. But luckily, with advancements in image recognition and financial apps, you can now keep track of your receipts using your smartphone.

From general note-keeping apps with receipt scanning features to dedicated expense-tracking apps, here are six of the best apps to scan, track, and manage your receipts.

1. Expensify

Expensify is one of the most popular receipt management apps thanks to its financial report and expense submission features. You can capture receipts through the app, plus import your credit card and generate mileage reports. You can submit these reports through the app by simply entering the recipient’s email address.

One drawback of the app is how long it takes to extract information from images after they’ve been captured. These scans can sometimes take a few hours, which detracts from the convenience factor of doing the text-recognition scan in the first place. The company says that this is because it prioritizes accuracy over speed—but other apps can scan accurately and take much less time.

Elements that work in the app’s favor are its professional look and its ability to track expenses for specific trips.

While the base app is free, this plan is limited to five scans a month. You can upgrade to a paid plan through the app if you want unlimited scans and some extra features.

Download: Expensify for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

2. Zoho Expense

Zoho Expense is part of Zoho’s larger suite of expense-tracking apps and software, but it has receipt management and text recognition built-in. This makes it useful for managing receipts, plus allows you to track expenses like mileage.

The free plan gives you 100 free scans a month, which is a huge allowance compared to many other receipt apps that limit OCR scans. Its scanning is also accurate and fast, usually generating correct information from a receipt in less than a minute. While the report generation functionality is a bit finicky, overall this receipt scanner app is efficient and effective.

Download: Zoho Expense for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

3. Evernote

Evernote is a general note-taking app, but the fact that it can recognize images with text makes it a useful receipt storage app too. This is especially true if you want to keep receipts recorded but don’t need to generate expense reports.

The app not only lets you take images of receipts to store, but it can also scan your gallery for images with text. Once you enable this function, Evernote will even notify you when you take a photo of a receipt with your main camera app and ask if you want to store it. The best way to sort your receipts, so that you can easily filter through them at a later stage, is to add a label specially for them.

If you need more powerful receipt management tools, you can opt for a dedicated app instead. But if you simply want to keep a record of receipts that you can easily sort through, Evernote is a useful tool that has other organizational features you can use in your daily life. Read our guide to Evernote for lots more.

Download: Evernote for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

4. Google Lens/Google Photos

There are two ways to keep your receipts organized using Google Lens—either through its integration with Google Assistant or through the Google Photos app. You can also access it a standalone app on Android, but it’s already available through the other apps, which is more convenient.

When used with Assistant, you can use the command Show me my receipts to generate a list of your latest receipts. In Android Oreo, the feature is fairly simplistic. But Android Pie is better able to recognize and sort these receipts.

You can also sort through receipts with Google Photos. Simple type receipts in your search bar and Photos will pull up any pictures of receipts.

These apps cannot generate reports for you, but they are still useful if you need to keep photos of your receipts. A major convenience is that Google Assistant and Photos are already pre-installed on many Android devices. This means you don’t need to download extra apps and can instead integrate your receipts management into an app that also manages your photos.

Download: Google Lens for Android (Free)
Download: Google Photos for Android | iOS (Free)
Download: Google Assistant for Android | iOS (Free)

5. Smart Receipts

Smart Receipts is another dedicated receipt management app that has the ability to generate reports and visualizations. It also has a variety of specific customization settings to help you organize your receipts according to your preferences.

The major drawback is that the free plan requires you to buy OCR scans if you don’t want to manually input values. You only receive two free OCR scans, and must purchase the rest inside the app. This would be fine for those who are willing to pay for the scans, but the OCR scan is not completely accurate at detecting prices of receipts. This means that you end up having to edit the total value—which defeats the point of why you paid for OCR scans.

Nevertheless, the generation of graphs and reports is a useful feature of the app. The fact that graphs auto-generate is especially handy and means you can easily keep up-to-date with the latest expenses. You can also upgrade to the premium version of the app through an in-app purchase, which is less expensive than buying Smart Receipts Plus separately on the Play Store.

Download: Smart Receipts for Android | iOS (Free, premium version available)

6. Receipts by Wave For Business

As the app’s title indicates, Receipts by Wave is primarily a business expense tracking tool. However, its website syncing and ability to scan multiple receipts at once makes it a robust tool for anyone looking to scan and track receipts. The app also lets you search your phone’s gallery for receipts.

The app’s OCR capabilities are impressively accurate, meaning you don’t have to waste much time editing receipt information. It is also one of the few receipt scanning apps that is truly free and doesn’t put limits on the number of scans you can do each month.

The only downside is that if you want to manage your receipts after submitting them, you will have to log into the Wave website. Otherwise, it is great at getting the job done.

Download: Receipts by Wave for Android | iOS (Free)

More Apps to Organize Your Finances

Receipt management apps are just one subset of the many apps that can help you manage your finances. Nowadays, there’s no shortage of digital tools that can help you craft your budget, keep a detailed record of your transactions, or visualize how you spend your money. Then there’s the multitude of smartphone apps you can use to complete payments.

If you want to do more than just record your expenses, but also want find ways to actually lower your spending, take a look at these apps and tools that will help you save money.

Read the full article: 6 of the Best Apps to Scan, Track, and Manage Receipts

Sometimes you can find ways of taking amazing pictures without spending much money at all, and one of the best examples of this is a technique called fire spinning. This usually involves just a couple of basic items, available at any hardware store and grocery market, and with a little creativity you can create some pictures that are downright otherworldly.

Safety warning – please abide:

Before I go into detail about what it takes to create an image like this, I need to make it abundantly clear that fire spinning is dangerous, not only to yourself, but the area around you, and even your camera equipment.Please follow these safety precautions:

• Take care to only do this where you have plenty of open space, and nothing around you that will catch on fire.
• Make sure that you wear thick clothing such as full-length pants, closed-toe shoes, a long-sleeved shirt, and something to cover your eyes (glasses or safety goggles) and hair.
• Never do this in a field of grass or near a house, dry wood or brush, or near anything that could potentially catch on fire.
• Also make sure to put plenty of distance between your camera and the sparks, as they fly farther than you might think!

The images you see in this article were all taken at night, on a deserted beach where nothing else could start burning, and my camera was far enough away from the subject to avoid any wayward flying sparks or smouldering embers.

What you will need

You may already have some of the items necessary for a fire spinning photo, but if not, you can easily find everything you need for only a few dollars. You can add additional things such as multiple chains and whisks to create different effects and styles, but for a basic fire spinning shoot you can start with the following trinkets:

• A few lumps of fine steel wool (thick stuff works okay, but the finer steel wool is better: 0-0000 grade)
• A small chain, roughly half a meter in length (1.5′)
• A wire whisk commonly used in baking
• A small clasp or carabiner to faster the chain to the whisk
• Something to light the steel wool on fire (cigarette lighter, grill lighter, etc.)

Other items necessary for the shoot include:

• A tripod for your camera
• A wide-angle lens (I shot the top picture at 50mm, but I would have preferred something wider like 35mm)
• A flashlight, so you can see as you’re setting up your camera and planning the shoot
• A friend who is willing to hold a spinning fiery object attached to a chain

Once you have all the things you need, preparing for your photos is fairly simple. Stuff a wad of steel wool into the whisk (fluff it up a bit so it gets some air), attach the whisk to the chain, and you’re all set. Fine steel wool is better (I used grade 00 for these images) because it will burn easier, and send more sparks flying around during your shoot. The basic idea involves lighting the steel wool, which will cause it to smoulder, then spinning it around in the air, which will cause sparks to shoot off in every direction.

While the steel wool won’t exactly burn like a piece of paper, twirling it in the air will cause sparks to fly all around. By using a long exposure on your camera, you essentially take a time-lapse image of the sparks, which results in an incredibly dynamic image not unlike something you might see during a fireworks display at an independence day celebration.

The fire-spinning method

After your chain, whisk, and steel wool are ready, you will need to find a location, and decide how to frame your shot, which is why it can be handy to have a friend help you out. You can do fire spinning photos by yourself, but it really helps to be able to direct someone else who’s doing the spinning, so you can get everything positioned exactly how you want in the shot. It helps to draw some lines in the sand or dirt so your helper knows precisely where to stand, and depending on how dark it is, you may need to use your flashlight to help get everything positioned just right.

The rest of the process is fairly simple, but it will probably take a great deal of trial and error to get the shots you want. Set your camera and tripod low on the ground, several meters away from your friend, and have him shine a flashlight on his body so you can lock focus (either use autofocus to lock, then switch it to manual – or try back button focusing). Large apertures should be avoided, since you want a very wide depth of field, and you don’t need to worry about gathering enough light because the sparks will be plenty bright to show up even with small apertures. Use a long exposure time of 20 or 30 seconds, and a low ISO of 100 or 200.

When you are ready to take the shot, have your friend hold the lighter under the steel wool until it starts glowing. That’s your cue to press the shutter button, then just stand back while your friend spins the chain and the sparks start flying. One final trick is to use your camera’s 2-second self-timer so your friend has a bit of time to light the steel wool on fire before the actual exposure begins.

Once you get the hang of the basics the rest is all about finding a technique that works, to get the shots you want. You can try lots of variations to get different photos such as:

• Stand in place and twirl the chain in a circle
• Stand in place and twirl two chains, one on each side
• Walk across the frame while spinning the chain to create a giant glowing tube
• Have multiple people in the shot spinning multiple chains
• Flash an off-camera speedlight on rocks or other background elements to add depth to the shot

With a little practice you can get some astounding results, and it’s always good to shoot in RAW so you can tweak the colors, and pull some details from the shadows later on if you want. If you search online for “fire spinning photos” (or steel wool spinning) you will find thousands of images, using all sorts of variations on this basic technique. I realize it’s somewhat cliché to say this, but the possibilities really are endless.

Have you ever tried fire spinning before? What are some of your favorite tips and tricks that others should know? Share your thoughts and any of your favorite photos in the comments section below!

This is the second of a series of articles we will be featuring this week on dPS all about special effects. Check out the last one: How to Photograph the Full Band of the Milky Way

The post Fire Spinning with Steel Wool – A Special Effects Tutorial by Simon Ringsmuth appeared first on Digital Photography School.

So far as some people are concerned, when it comes to bashing economists, any old stick will do.

That, at least, seems to be true of those anthropologists and fellow-travelers who imagine that, in demonstrating that certain forms of credit must be older than either monetary exchange or barter, they’ve got some of the leading lights of our profession by the short hairs.

The stick in this case consists of anthropological evidence that’s supposed to contradict the theory that monetary exchange is an outgrowth of barter, with credit coming afterwards. That view is a staple of economics textbooks. Were it nothing more than that, the attacks would hardly matter, since finding nonsense in textbooks is easier than falling off a log. But these critics have mostly directed their ire at a more heavyweight target: Adam Smith.

In The Wealth of Nations, Smith observes that

When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man’s wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men’s labour as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society.

But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this superfluity.

But if this latter should chance to have nothing that the former...

A higher salary will do more for your finances than pinching pennies ever will. However, if you don’t learn to be frugal with a little bit of money, you’ll probably end up with the same financial issues when you start earning more. Or, as financial author Patrice C. Washington puts it, “how you manage $100 is likely how you’ll manage $100,000.”

Read more...

Here’s an 8-minute video in which photographer Alexi Lubomirski shares the story of how he became a professional photographer.

After hearing discouraging stories about the industry while in school and having many doors slammed in his face, Lubomirski landed a gig as the photo assistant for legendary photographer Mario Testino.

“We worked together for 4 years, and it was an incredibly intense 4 years,” Lubomirski says. “We worked every single day. When Mario woke up at 8 o’clock in the morning, we were there. When he went to bed at 11 o’clock at night, we were there.”

In those 4 years, due to how busy he was, Lubomirski only managed to do 3 test shoots by himself. One of those shoots was Lubomirski’s first to be published in a magazine, and that helped to kick start his career.

With a lot more hustling, Lubomirski has gotten to where he is today: a photographer who has photographed the biggest celebrities in the world and been published in some of the biggest publications.

“Meet as many people as possible. Ask as many questions as possible,” Lubomirski says. “It doesn’t matter how many doors get slammed in your face. It only takes one person to make a difference.”

(via Alexi Lubomirski via ISO 1200)

When the end of some tape sticks itself to the reel, the result can be frustration leading to broken fingernails. If you fold the end of the tape under, it will be accessible — but you’ll still have to search for it, and after you pull the folded end up, you’ll have to snip it off and throw it away. A better solution is to leave something removable attached to the sticky end of the tape. A penny will do the job, especially as you’re likely to have one in your pocket.

-- Erico Platt

The exponential growth of wireless data, cloud computing, streaming content and big data is a rising tide lifting the fleet of data centers owned by the six publicly traded REITs.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer).

That’s the short version, attributed to Burke. A longer version reads as follows:

Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).

It’s as true today as it was 200 years ago–except for now, in modern times, the sin of giving into political apathy would be extended to women too. Edmund Burke‘s writings, which laid the intellectual foundations for modern conservatism (a cautious kind of conservatism, to be precise), can be found in our collections of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books. You can also download his major work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, through Audible’s Free Trial program.

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“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

By wrapping a rag around a hacksaw blade, you can get it into small spaces. Be sure that the teeth of the blade are oriented correctly for a pull stroke. If it’s a really tight space, you can break the blade to a shorter length that will fit.

-- Jeremy Frank

While not all science fiction is dystopian—far from it—a question does arise when the subject of that most pessimistic of genres comes up: is all dystopian literature science fiction? In a post a couple days ago, we brought you five of Anthony Burgess’s favorite dystopian novels, a list that would seem to answer with a resounding No. For one thing, Burgess includes what we might count as historical fiction on his list—Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead. Is Orwell’s 1984 science fiction? It makes more sense, perhaps, to call it political satire, or “speculative fiction,” the term dystopian novelist Margaret Atwood prefers.

In the introduction to her essay collection In Other Worlds, Atwood defines “speculative fiction” as “realistic and plausible” whereas science fiction contains more fantastic elements. Hairsplitting maybe, but for Atwood it means that dystopias—at least her dystopias—are not simply philosophical thought experiments divorced from lived reality, like much utopian fiction. They are projections, and at times imaginative transcriptions, of the present, showing us what may already be happening right under our noses, or what might be right around the corner.

As Burgess wrote of 1984, “It is possible to say that the ghastly future Orwell foretold has not come about simply because he foretold it: we were warned in time.” In other words—the totalitarian future Orwell foresaw was entirely possible in England and America, and needless to say, already largely a reality in places like Stalin’s Soviet Union and current-day North Korea. In our Burgess post, we asked our readers to name their favorite dystopian novels (or films). However we define dystopia—as dark futurist fantasy, sci-fi, or “speculative fiction” about nasty things on the verge of coming to pass, we’ll never lack for examples.

The list of novels below below offers a range of futuristic tales, some more realistic and plausible, some more fantastic. Like Burgess, readers had a broad definition of “dystopian” as a genre. I was surprised, however, that no one mentioned any of Atwood’s excellent novels, so I’ll throw in both Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid’s Tale as my picks.

• We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin
• Dahlgren, by Samuel R. Delany
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• Market Forces, by Richard K. Morgan
• Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
• In the Country of Last Things, by Paul Auster
• The Iron Heel, by Jack London
• The Gate to Women’s Country, by Sherri S. Tepper
• This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin

 

Related Content:

A Clockwork Orange Author Anthony Burgess Lists His Five Favorite Dystopian Novels: Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Island & More

Huxley to Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949)

Hear Ray Bradbury’s Classic Sci-Fi Story Fahrenheit 451 as a Radio Drama

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

 

10 Must-Read Dystopian Novels: Our Readers’ Picks is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

For about five minutes — before we remembered that we have an infant, a 6 year-old, two full-time jobs, a not very big apartment, an international business trip this month (sadly, not mine) are now doubting we are actually made of whatever is required to pull this off — we thought we might have a Friendsgiving dinner party this year. I love Thanksgiving and I want more of it in my life, ditto to friends and also dinner parties. Everything about this was going to awesome. I didn’t have to plan the menu to my perfect Thanksgiving dinner because I wrote it in my head probably five years ago and from what I hear, Alton Brown’s turkey recipe is the only one you’ll ever need. (Or should I dry brine? Or maybe this lacquered thing? Or maybe a mash-up of all of them? Or maybe just import a smoked one from Texas and be the most chilled out host in the history of Thanksgiving, ever, amiright?) Right, well, I had everything else planned out:

... Read the rest of apple cider sangria on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to apple cider sangria | 84 comments to date | see more: Apple, Drinks, Photo, Thanksgiving

Are you ready to binge on Season 4 of House of Cards? The geo-restrictions placed on many great online platforms are really annoying, especially if you pay a subscription. You can get around these fences with a cumbersome VPN, but Getflix offers a simpler solution. By employing smart DNS, this service gives you instant access to your favorite shows, across all your media devices. A lifetime subscription would usually cost you $855, but MakeUseOf Deals has is currently offering it at just $59! Getflix: Lifetime Subscription Getflix’s Smart DNS service allows you to access geo-restricted content without sacrificing speed. Data...

Read the full article: Getflix Smart DNS Lifetime Plan Now Just $59, Originally $855

Owning cool tools is only half the story. Using them creatively is a big additional topic. A new section of this site, named Tool Tips, will offer suggestions.

If you’re interested in a way to quieten a window fan, or you’d like an interesting new Sous Vide cooking application, or you’d like to catch crawling insects without using poison — Tool Tips can show you how.

Kevin and Mark have given me the task of sharing my ideas here, and I’m hoping you will share yours. I’m interested in any creative applications for tools or devices, in the workshop, the kitchen, a vehicle, the outdoor environment, or elsewhere. I want clever and effective techniques for building, modifying, repairing, cooking, cleaning, or improving just about anything. Do you know something that may be worth sharing? We pay $5 (by PayPal) for each tip that is used.

Here is a sample to give you the idea:

Most people don’t realize that in the United States (and possibly in other countries, too) the threaded tripod socket at the bottom of a camera is a standard fastener size. A quarter-inch bolt (20 threads per inch) from any hardware store will fit. For photographing small objects, you don’t need a very expensive heavyweight tripod. You can bolt your camera to a piece of hardwood or steel, to minimize vibration. Or you can fabricate the world’s longest selfie stick. Just be careful not to apply too much torque when tightening the bolt, if your camera has a plastic body.

See how easy it is? I’m convinced that there must be thousands more applications for tools, and I want to know what they are. Please share your ideas by sending them to tooltips@cool-tools.org, so that we can make this a really useful section of the site. Be sure to include a photograph! Also use an email address so that you can receive your $5 fee through PayPal.

Background: I’m a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine (more than fifty articles so far) and a tinkerer by nature. My primary interest is electronics, and my book Make: Electronics has become a fundamental resource since it was published more than six years ago. You can find it at complete with a nice endorsement by Kevin Kelly from his big book of Cool Tools.

I also love to build things. Last month it was a set of shelves for my cats to climb. This month I’m working on underground-wired LED lighting for a 350-foot driveway. And I have creative ideas for microwave cookery!

 

-- Charles Platt

Photographers tend to ignore some of the most critical photography tips. Maybe it’s an unwitting offense, or perhaps it’s in the interest of time. For some, it might just be a desire to spend more time actually clicking the shutter than doing other stuff. For others, it might even be a case of not having learned the tips in the first place. No matter the reason, many a photographer is guilty of violating these six essentials of photography.

Take Near Perfect Shots In-Camera, Use Photoshop for Touch Ups

Sure, most photographers really do try to get everything right in-camera, but the reality is that precious few of us have never used Photoshop, Lightroom, or another post-processing program to save a photo. Some consider post-processing to be the easy way out, but there are certainly times when a little white balance, sharpening, cropping, and the like rescues an otherwise good photo from the trash bin.

Clean The Camera Sensor

Taking photos is fun. Cleaning your camera isn’t. Even though it’s a good idea to clean your camera’s sensor regularly, it’s probably a good bet that most of us only do it occasionally. You might even just take your camera to a photo store and have them do it every once in awhile. The point is that even though we know we’re supposed to do it, even though we know a dirty sensor is no friend to a good photograph, many of us still persist in shooting with a dirty sensor. But hey, that’s what post-processing is for, right?

Buy the Gear You Need, Not the Gear You Want

The popular photography adage, “buy the gear you need, not the gear you want” is a great tip, but the lure of having the latest, hottest new camera or lens can be incredibly strong. Sure, your skill level, knowledge of photography, creativity, and inspiration all play a more important role in producing amazing images than the gear you use; yet, we’ve all been guilty a time or two of stretching our wallets a little too far for something we want, rather than something that we need.

Don’t Overpack Your Camera Bag

Only take what you need, right? Wrong! Many, many photographers just can’t resist the urge to take one (or two, or three…) extra lenses “just in case.” How many times have you taken a couple of tripods, three camera bodies, or things like an intervalometer when you knew you wouldn’t be doing any time-lapse work? Often, once you’re out in the field, you find that you use the same gear all day long with that extra stuff just sitting there in your camera bag. It’s good to be prepared and have backups, but stuffing your camera bag to the gills is seldom, if ever, necessary.

Shoot During Golden Hour

We all know that the best natural lighting of the day is during the Golden Hour. The difficult part of taking advantage of that is that you have to get up at the crack of dawn or stay out late - something that is difficult to do unless you’ve got some time off work, are retired, or you’re independently wealthy. Novice and pro photographers alike have lots of other stuff to worry about - work, photo shoots, the long commute to work, sick kids - that can preclude any early-morning photographic forays from happening. So instead of having that gorgeous, warm, and soft Golden Hour light, most of us just try to make do with that harsh, ugly daytime light.

Don’t Check Your LCD After Every Shot

How often do you see photographers firing away without at least an occasional glance at their LCD? Photographers are an inquisitive bunch, so many of us can’t resist having a peek at a shot or two right after taking them. But the issue with that is that the more time you spend looking at the shots you’ve taken, the less time you have to actually take photos. What’s more, if you’re gawking at your LCD, you may well miss a better photographic opportunity in the meantime. Yet, as great of advice as that is, we still persist in looking at that LCD.

The Last Word

Does ignoring these photography tips make our photography lives harder? Sure. But does ignoring them make you a bad photographer? Not at all! At some point, we’re all guilty of peeking at the LCD or leaving the house at 10:00 am when we planned to leave at 5:00. We’ve all bought a high-end camera body when we knew we didn’t need it. And most of us have certainly taken way too much gear on a trip when one camera and a couple of lenses would have done the trick. But photography is about adventure, and breaking all these common sense rules just makes for a more interesting journey, right?

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Modern architecture on wheels. That's what the Escape Vista Mobile Cabin delivers. Available in 25- or 27-foot versions, it includes all the essentials — a bed, combination refrigerator/freezer, sink, storage,...

Visit Uncrate for the full post.

Feature: A majestic, full-size heathen god and temple, in the buckle of the Bible Belt. ...

The previously reviewed BlackRapid camera straps (and their variations) are a revelation in themselves, allowing a camera to be securely hung over a shoulder and that camera is both out of the way and easily put to your eye. But photographers also need to put that camera easily onto a tripod.

Everybody knows that the easiest way to get a lot of sharpness in your photo is to use a tripod – but the BlackRapid straps use the tripod mount bolt hole, making a fast stick-it-to-a-tripod connection a memory. Especially if your tripod uses a fast-release plate. Now, BlackRapid makes a plate that has a hollow in the bottom for their strap to clip to, and once you remove the strap you can use an Arca-Swiss headed tripod. Better, but this is still too fiddly. Custom SLR’s M-Plate Pro offsets the strap connection from the tripod plate. The M-Plate Pro also allows tripod connection to either Arca-Swiss or Manfrotto quick release heads – without removing the strap. Three-in-one. Less fiddly, more flexible. Security is better since there’s no time your camera is unstrapped.

This M-Plate Pro plate is a single chunk of machined aluminum with a hex head bolt attaching it to your camera. At $70 I think it’s a bit overpriced but I haven’t found an alternative. It’s a very simple, solid design that gets the job done in the most effective way possible, just like a Cool Tool should.

-- Wayne Ruffner

International Amazon link

Available from Amazon

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Legendary comedian Andy Kaufman appeared on The Dating Game in 1978 as a virtual unknown, and took the kooky show a step further with an early incarnation of his Latka Gravas character from Taxi. Same accent, same earnest, innocent expression and manchildish demeanor. Andy never gives up the act, taking it to fruition with the audience and players seemingly uncomfortable and unsure of how to handle the situation: exactly the way Andy Kaufman liked it. Via Dangerous Minds

Apple won't change its mobile software to help the feds unlock a terrorist's phone, saying that would set a dangerous precedent and undermine security and privacy. The FBI says all Apple cares about is protecting its brand. We spell out what's at stake.

Right now, as I write this article, a small timer in my Mac’s menu bar counts down from 25 minutes. It currently reads, 24.31. When it reaches zero, I’ll stop working and, for five minutes, chill out, check Facebook, hit up Tinder, and otherwise procrastinate. After that, it’s another 25 minutes of writing. Amazingly, that small timer is the one thing I’ve found that can keep me really productive. The productivity industry likes to offer the world and deliver Arkansas. The Pomodoro Technique is one of the few things I’ve found that lives up to its promise. Within a day...

Read the full article: How a Simple Pomodoro Timer Made My Life Better

If you don’t shop much at an alternative online retailer, Amazon is probably your go-to source for online shopping. We recently showed you some awesome Amazon tips for getting more out of their service, but there are plenty of great resources outside of Amazon, too. These services are focused on helping you save money on Amazon shopping, and offer a nice range of tools to help you in that quest. Since Amazon runs separate websites for the UK and USA, we’ll take a look at a few sites by region. Happy saving! Super Saver Delivery Tool (UK) On Amazon UK,...

Read the full article: The 5 Best Third-Party Amazon Tools for Big Savings