I am frequently asked how to achieve certain stylized effects with photographs. When I respond with my typical “I use Photoshop,” most people aren’t impressed. It’s not that they dislike Photoshop, but that they don’t have access to it (i.e., it’s expensive) and/or don’t know how to use it.

So when I came across Rollip, I figured it was worth sharing. Rollip is a tool that offers cool photo effects online, so you don’t have to purchase or learn how to use Photoshop. Instead, you simply select the desired effect and upload your photo. You are then given the option to download a web-quality version, or purchase a high-quality version ($2.99 for 15 photos).

I tried a couple of effects – vintage, line drawing, and so on – to see how it worked. For the average mom playing around with pictures of her kids, I think it would work quite well. Check it out at www.rollip.com. Happy filtering!

I’ve been freelancing for 10 years. Over the course of the past decade, I have tried many different types of time keeping and invoicing methods. QuickBooks (recommended by my first accountant) was more than I needed, so I ended up with a tried and true paper-based system. I keep a calendar on my desk and simply write down client tasks and the associated hours worked on each day.

As I returned to full-time this year, my paper-based system has become quite tedious. At the end of the month, I must pull out my calculator and add up all the hourly notations under each day. I just finished my invoices for May and was frustrated at how long this process took, so I decided to revisit my method. Enter FreshBooks.

I’ve reviewed both FreshBooks and BlinkSale in the past, when recommending similar tools to readers of my books. I was impressed with their features over a year ago, but FreshBooks in particular has grown quite a lot since my last review. I love that they offer the ability to send snailmail copies of invoices for you (at minimal cost). This is not offered by BlinkSale.

Another reason I selected FreshBooks is its integration with a Mac OSX Time Tracking Widget, making it super easy to track client time on the fly (without having to visit the FreshBooks web site).

So this morning I created a FreshBooks account (free for the first 30 days) and am going to test it out. I’ll be able to send my first invoices at the end of June and am looking forward to testing the time tracking tools in the meantime. I’ll let you know what I think next month. In the meantime, check out FreshBooks for yourself.