Aaron Koblin is an artist specializing in data and digital technologies. His work takes real world and community-generated data and uses it to reflect on cultural trends and the changing relationship between humans and technology. (TED)
One of my favorite shots from 2011.
Who says you can’t swim in the New England ocean in September?
Nothing will stop a determined toddler.
This photo was submitted to the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com
Most of my clients pay for my services by check. (Actually, all until recently.) I do a lot of work for other businesses and the best way for them to pay is by submitting a check when the job is done. This has always worked out great. Recently, I ran into a client that had an unpaid debt. It was a small amount, and it got overlooked in accounting. There were no hard feelings or animosity, but she wanted to clear up her debt. She said “do you accept credit cards?”
Well, until that time, I never needed to. But with the world we live in now, many people don’t carry cash, and when paying on the spot they need a receipt to track the expense.
So I did some research. I checked out banks, and online vendors. I researched for days! What I came up with is this. If you only need the service twice a year, you still are required to pay a monthly fee, and processing fees, and gateway fees (whatever those are) in order to offer the service to your clients. For someone like me, that is a waste of money. But.. For that “waste” of money, I would have the ability to accept cards anytime I needed to.
Oh.. the decisions. It would be convenient. It would allow me to take deposits over the phone. It would allow me to get rid of the fear of a deposited check bouncing. (It’s happened to the best of us!)
So I continued my research and have found (and am now praising) Square!
www.squareup.com for those of you that want to check it out. There’s no monthly fee. There’s no commitment. You sign up and input your banking info. You verify the account and you are ready to go. The company mails you a little square “dongle” that fits into the headphone jack of your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone. Once you install the app on your device you just swipe the card.
The company charges a flat processing fee per transaction and that’s it. You don’t have to pay when you don’t use it. The credit card gets charged, Square takes their percentage and then deposits the remainder in your account. My first transaction cleared in 3 business days. It was no more inconvenient than going to the bank and depositing a check.
Square does have weekly deposit limits, but they list on their site that if a higher limit is needed, they can be contacted about it and find a solution. I haven’t needed it yet, but if I do in the future, I’ll contact them and keep you posted.
So, for all you small businesses out there, take a look at Square and see if it’s the right fit for you.
Following up to a previous post “What exactly do I do”, I have dug up an old photo that I worked on restoring about 3 years ago.
While I don’t have a photo of how the actual piece came to me, I do have the original scans that I started with. This photo was taped together in a couple places because it has been completely torn. There were many many pieces that had flaked off that weren’t even worth me scanning because there was no way I could have puzzled them all together.
Here’s what I started with for scans:
And here’s the final product in Sepia tone and a Black and White version:
I guess you could say that this is one of the more “complex” restorations, but now the image lives on in a beautiful reprint on canvas.
Everyone does it.. Grab the mail, sort through it and toss the “junk”.
Well, I have now learned my lesson and will open and read everything that comes to my mailbox. Even if it just looks like your average run of the mill credit card offer that I do not want or plan on accepting. Thank you CITI. (*Insert sarcastic scoff here*) Continue reading
The best way to explain it is that graphic design is involved in pretty much everything.
When listing services, it’s easy to forget about some (and also, very hard to list them all). In my experience if you make a long list.. People may not ask about things; they will just assume you don’t do it if they don’t see it on the list.
So this is more of a “sampling” of projects and descriptions to give you some ideas… Continue reading
1. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing is worse than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
As I was spreading the bread with gooey marshmallow fluff this evening, I wondered.. What is Fluff made of??
So, I looked it up:
Marshmallow Fluff contains Corn Syrup, Sugar Syrup, Dried Egg Whites and Vanillin.
There are no artificial preservatives, stabilizers or emulsifiers.
It’s also gluten free and Kosher!
Just in case you were curious.
From Wiki: Blog comes from the contraction of two words.. “Web Log”
Who knew..
