Splashwallet Reviewed

What do you keep in your wallet? Me? Mine is a storage unit with a filing system all its own and the more I put into it, the harder it is to fit it into my back pocket! Receipts stick out in all directions and its becoming harder and harder to find space for the growing number of business and credit cards that seem to grow within its recesses. What's more, I keep a picture of my son in there somewhere although I haven't seen it in some time...

Splashdata provides a solution to my wallet woes with a suite of programs for your palm, appropriately titled Splashwallet. The four programs that programs that make up Splashwallet are: Splashphoto, Splashshopper, Splashmoney and SplashID. So how does Splashwallet stack up?

Splashphoto:
Think of splashphoto as a digital version of the little black photo album that you wish you could carry around with you to show off your dog/cat/kids to whoever is willing to stop and listen. I found it to be a powerful little program that allows you to organize, maintain and categorize all of your handheld's photos with ease. The program has an intuitive interface and I found myself navigating its functions with little need to read the accompanying manual. I particularly liked the fact that Splashphoto is integrated with my built-in camera, which meant I could access the camera from within Splashphoto in order to take a picture and then work with it inside splashphoto to add a description and then categorize it to an album. And of course, what would the program be without a slide show function. Those who are familiar with iphoto will appreciate the little details that have been included with the slide show feature. The program allows you to set the time delay between slides, set your shows to music and even select from a number of transition in order to give your show some flare. Having been a road warrior in the past, I can see Splashphoto being ideal for those who spend time away from family and friends for extended periods of time. For those who have built-in cameras on their pda's splashphoto can be a very nice alternative to the built-in camera viewer. This program will definitely be staying on my Treo 650!

Splashshopper:
I live and die by lists and Splashshopper provides a nice set of tools with which to create and maintain lists. Don't let the name fool you, this program isn't just for shopping. I found it to be just as useful for maintaining TO DO's and reminders as it was for shopping lists. The program allows you to create lists and then add categories to those lists. Want to keep a list of your favorite movies? Add categories for the genres and you'll find yourself very organized in deed. No more slips of paper in my wallet! Splashshopper also provides a set of decent icons that can be used to add visuals to your lists. A nice little feature for those times when you want to quickly identify what groceries you need while fending off angry shoppers at the grocery store! Once your list has been created, you can mark those items that you need and create your shopping list in moments. What's more, you're able to add prices to your list so as to keep a running price tally while shopping. Very handy for those of us on a tight budget! Overall, Splashshopper is a decent program. I have also used Handyshopper in the past and found the two programs to be very similar. This made the learning curve very straight forward. Will I keep this program on my Treo? If I didn't already have a number of lists already going in Handyshopper, I would definitely consider Splashopper. It is an easy to use program with all of the features that one would need to keep their lists organized. For those who don't need the entire Splashwallet suite, you can still pick up splashshopper on its own for $29.95 US or you may want to have a look at Handyshopper which is free. Either way, you will definitely be doing yourself a favour.

Splashmoney:
Now I might have found this program more useful if I actually had any money to track! Seriously though, Splashmoney is a useful little program for tracking your spending, financial accounts, credit cards – pretty much anything related to your finances. Those who are familiar with PocketQuicken will likely feel right at home using Splashmoney as it offers some of the same features but takes things a step further with built-in graphing capabilities. Splashmoney allows you to create accounts for all of your cards and accounts and then track your financial transactions as they come up. When you have time, you can sit down and reconcile your accounts without the need to access your computer! Think of it as a handheld version of Quicken with some nice little extras. If you have access to the Internet on your palm (e.g. Broadband or phone service) you gain the added benefit of being able to access and download your account details directly from your bank which makes reconciling a snap. Splashmoney also provides the tools necessary to create budgets and which I have found to be particularly useful. One of the features I particularly enjoy with the program is the ability to view my spending via graphs and/or create reports. I'm a visual person and both of these functions allowed me to monitor the household finances in detail. Very nice indeed! Splashdata has done its best to make Splashmoney play nice with Quicken, Microsoft Money and Excel, for those of us who use any of these programs on our desktops. Although not quite as slick as PocketQuicken in terms of integrating with the desktop, the reporting, budgeting and graphing features make Splashmoney a very powerful little program for the money and it will definitely stay on my pda.

SplashID:
Like so many people today, I have more computer passwords, PIN numbers, registration codes and security ID's than I can shake a stick at! SplashID is designed to assist you with all of these things by remembering them for you. The program sports 256-bit encryption and the ability to password protect all of your private data on the fly. Although the program comes with a number of pre-generated templates with which to enter and store your passwords and confidential information, it also allows you to create and/or modify templates. Like Splashshopper, SplashID allows you to add icons to your files in order to add visual cues to your data and you're also able to add third party icons to either program if you prefer something a little different. SplashID's strength resides in its ability to guard your personal information. It does this very well with its encryption and password features, in addition to the ability to screen certain fields in your templates. This can be very handy when others are looking at your pda while you are accessing your data (let's face it, we all get those longing looks and curious glances from others who are wondering what we are doing with our pda's while out in public)! SplashID is a fantastic program and it will definitely stay on my Treo. As a clinic manager, I also have the responsibility of maintaining our computer servers for the clinic and our physicians. As such, SplashID has been an excellent tool for managing all of the system passwords and licensing information that I would otherwise have to keep password protected on my computer.

The bottom line:
There are many programs out there that offer very similar features to any one of the Splashwallet programs. Handyshopper, PocketQuicken and Password Plus all come to mind. However, Splashdata has created a set of programs that are nearly equal and in some cases even better than some of the other programs out there. As a suite, Splashwallet is an excellent deal for someone needing all of the programs outlined above. Splashdata has created a set of tools that are easy to use and fairly flexible while keeping a very reasonable price of $59.95 US for the entire suite. This is a definite steal when one considers that each program is worth $29.95 US on their own and many third party programs come with a similar price point. If you're in the market for any of the programs I have discussed above, I would recommend taking a closer look at Splashwallet.

Cheers!