By Staff

Apple’s iPhone is all the rage these days, and the number of applications that can be downloaded and used with it is growing like crazy. Thanks to the multitude of resources available on how to create an iPhone app, including Apple’s own iPhone Developer Program, it’s becoming considerably easier to launch an iPhone app, and possibly even make money from it. iPhone app development still has its hurdles – you do have to have some programming knowledge to be able to write your own application, or the funds to hire a developer or outsource your idea to a programmer. Then there’s the matter of submitting your design to Apple and getting it approved, which has a fee attached and isn’t always a walk in the park. One team of developers had a list of 40 ideas before they came up with one successful application. But as with anything, persistence usually pays off, and if you keep at it and come up with an original idea, chances are good that you’ll have an app accepted. If you decide to create a “paid” app, Apple takes 30% of the sales revenue, and you get 70%, which works out pretty nicely for you. 

Because the iPhone and its applications tend to appeal to a young and definitely tech-saavy crowd, more and more young people are breaking into the developing industry by launching their own apps. While there are many young entrepreneurs out there who’ve been successful, we’d like to highlight four who have recently made the news headlines with their ideas and products:

Lim Ding Wen – Doodle Kids

Lim is a 9 year-old from Singapore and is the youngest person to develop an iPhone application. He created the Doodle Kids app, a program that lets users draw pictures on the screen with their fingers. While his father is also a programmer and Lim is probably a bit of a prodigy it still goes to show that it’s never too early to start doing what you love! Lim is currently working on another iPhone app. 

Owen and Finn Voorhees – MathTime

These 9 and 11 year-old siblings developed an application called MathTime. It’s a flashcard-type app to help kids hone up on their math skills. These two also designed the app all on their own, and after being accepted by Apple, MathTime is now ranked one of the top paid educational apps.

Allen Wright – A Note to God

This 17 year-old doesn’t have the developing knowledge that Lim and the Voohees brothers did, but that’s not stopping him from going forward with his iPhone app idea. Instead, Allen has submitted his proposal for an app called “A Note to God” to a company that developed the program and then presented it to Apple under Allen’s name. The app is currently still waiting approval, but they expect to hear the decision very soon. Read the full story about Allen’s idea here.

Cameron Banga, Michael Phelps, Jeff Lange – BatteryGo!

These three college guys decided to give iPhone app developing a try instead of getting a “real” job over the summer. The app they came up with, BatteryGo!, lets users know how much talk time they have left on their phone. Though this team didn’t know much about creating an iPhone app, they were able to familiarize themselves by spending lots of time taking online tutorials. BatteryGo! is now among the top 100 paid apps in Apple’s app store. 

Photo credit: nialkennedy

  By Staff

If you’ve got an adventurous spirit and love being outdoors, maybe you should give treasure hunting a try. We’re not talking treasure maps marked with an “X” and fending off pirates here, but a more high-tech method that involves a metal detector. You might be thinking that metal detectors are only for old retired guys, but the beauty about this money-making idea is that anyone with a little bit of determination can have success with it.

If you live near a beach you have the perfect landscape to work with, but you can also try this out in a park or a field that has a historical background. Beaches are good because people will drop all kinds of things during walks on the beach or while swimming. There’s also always the possibility for rare trinkets to come in with the surf and be buried in the sand. Just look at the treasures one hunter has found! Fields or other open spaces are good for finding more historical items of value, such as old coins or even antique jewelry.

Your main investment for this venture will be the purchase of a metal detector. These vary in price range, depending on how high tech you want to get. You’ll have to do some looking around before buying one, but there are tons of blogs out there dedicated completely to treasure hunting and finding the right metal detector. If you’re not ready to buy a metal detector right away, you could try renting one. Rental services like zilok.com list metal detector rentals for low as $30.00 a day. 

After you’ve gotten your metal detector and learned how to use it, you’ll need to find a place to use it! You can try out a random area and hope for the best, but most metal detector hobby sites out there suggest doing some research first – history of the area, what kinds of artifacts have previously been found there, etc. It can greatly improve your chances of finding something of value.

You could get lucky and have some great finds on your first trip out, but more likely it will take some time. Once you’ve got some “treasure”, you’ll need to clean it up, and again do some research to find out about your artifacts. Many of the treasure hunting websites out there have forums that you can visit to find out more about what you’ve found and what to do with it. If you think you’ve got something good, you can list it on ebay.com and try to sell it, or hold on to it, start up a collection,  and see what value it brings in the years to come!

Metal detecting isn’t exactly quickest and easiest way out there to make money, but over time it can become a very fun and rewarding hobby! There are many good lists of tips and guides out there, so use them to help get you started. Good luck!

Photo credit:

Looking for something fun to do? Or maybe you just need a little break from chasing after those Benjamins. Check out Bitstrips.com, an online comic creation and sharing service. This website lets you design yourself or any other character you can dream up and put it into your own comic strip! Its very simple to use, and all the different customizing tools let you put a personal and creative spin on your strip.The one you see here didn’t take much time to make at all, but was tons of fun to put together!

Are you an aspiring comic strip writer? Not only can you use this website to create your comic strip episodes quickly and easily, you can also use Bitstrips to share it with a large audience and potentially gain a great following, which could lead to opportunities down the road.

By Staff

Do you have a passion for filmmaking? If so, and if you’re any good at it, howcast.com has an awesome program for you. When you apply for the program, you pick a movie topic from a list and howcast.com will send you a script, voice-over, graphics, and guidelines all to be used in your video. Once you shoot and edit your film, you send it back in to howcast.com and pray that it will be accepted.

The Good News

For every accepted video you send in, howcast.com will send you $50. If your video attracts more than 40,000 views, they will split the ad revenue your video generated. 

The Bad News

You must have a 3-chip DV or High Def camera and an editing program that can handle .MOV files. Howcast.com says iMovie and Pinnacle will not work.

Photo Credit: reinn