Category Archives: Internet

Myspace Comments Suck

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Reason #293 why Myspace is Pure Crap: “This user’s comments are currently disabled. They will be back shortly. Please do NOT email me about this. Just wait it out. -Tom” …oh, Tom. We’re soo not friends anymore. I could also title this post “Thing #28374 You Would Never See on Facebook”.

Ugly Works

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Just reading this post enrages me. Google isn’t ugly. It’s simple. Craigslist isn’t ugly, it’s content-rich. Purple backgrounds with yellow text on Myspace? That’s ugly. I will agree though, who cares what a blog looks like? You can’t see my pretty header in Bloglines. Blogs are about the content. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover… well, unless that book is Myspace. In that case you’d be right.

Poverty and Africa

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I’m going to be brutally honest, today. I’ll begin by saying the situation in Africa sucks. The world has, for the most part, ignored the entire continent. Well, except maybe for South Africa. I hear they have diamonds…

I wish we could do a better job -not just as a nation, but as a world- to help the people in Africa. Sure, there are some great people visiting Africa and helping out. I know people who’ve gone on mission trips. I know people who’ve supported entire businesses through groups like Kiva. There are a bunch of people doing a bunch of good. The problem is, Africa needs more than a bunch.

Sure, events like Live 8 are nice, but essentially useless. People like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are hardly doing anything. All these things do is put celebrities in the spotlight. Awareness slightly increases but, in the end, the media focuses on the celebrity rather than the cause.

I’m not trying to discount the fact that these people are helping and doing what they can. My only problem is that they’re really not enough help to make the necessary change. Searching around a bit shows that the government probably spends a billion dollars a day on our military. It could be a bit more, or even a bit less. It doesn’t matter. When you search for ‘bush africa aid’ online you find contributions from the Bush Administration to be something like $_____ million. In total, the programs may add to up a billion or more, but we’re spending that much every day on the military.

Africa has obviously been ‘marketing’ itself the wrong way to the wrong people and the wrong emotional appeals. Africa tries to play the guilt card: don’t ignore us, you’re better than that. Africa appeals to principle: it’s the right thing to do. Obviously we’re not interested in hearing this so we ignore it. We need to turn it around into a values appeal. We need to do it because we want to. But we don’t. So we need to do it because we have to (fix a personal problem).

So, to be frank: a terrorist group needs to emerge from Africa. Please bear with me. Nothing seems to get through to this country unless it attacks our “freedom”. Side note: a recent poll found Americans can name more judges on American Idol than rights given to us by the Constitution. Perhaps I should rephrase: nothing seems to get through to this country unless it attacks our pride. If anything is to be done it needs a lot of attention. In order to draw attention it apparently needs to be something the military can solve.

History supports this notion.

We went to Afghanistan didn’t we? Couldn’t pre-9/11 Afghanistan be compared to Africa? We had no true interests there. Nothing was really a threat. We had no business to be there. We all saw how quickly that changed. What about Iraq? Africa seems like the place that really needs “democracy” and “rebuilding” the most. Hell, there’s nothing really to “rebuild”, it’s just plain “building”. Something as simple as bringing in plows would do them a world of good. On top of that, I bet there’d be little-to-no resistance…

So, is there a way to equate terror with countries lacking food and water? In other words, can we convince the nation-nay, the world-that starving countries want to crash busses into financial districts becuase they have no water? If so, problem solved. People take one look and say “I’ve got an idea, help them grow food so they’ll leave us alone”. Brilliant. I submit the most effective way to get someone like President Bush’s attention is through terror. The world looks to us. If we start, everyone else will follow.
I’m so glad the answer is this simple…
[tags]africa, aid, support, poverty, military, terror[/tags]

Review: Quicken 2006

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I decided to get somewhat ambitious, as you may have noticed, and went through all my finances. I decided it was time to see what the wonderful world of Quicken was like. I must say, it’s a very pretty world.

Using 2006 Deluxe has been a pleasure so far. It’s much more, me-oriented than Microsoft Money. When I started using this software my first reaction was “Microsoft has made some pretty lazy software”. Quicken greeted me with the ability to set goals. I told it I would like to:

  • Setting GoalsManage my checkbook and bills
  • Know where my money is going
  • Save more money
  • Track all of my investments in one place, and
  • Know my net worth

In hindsight I don’t know if I really wanted to know the last one. It’s slightly disappointing. In any case, once the goals are set it walks you through setting up your accounts. The ‘Direct Connect’ feature seems a million times more functional than Money’s. It tells me more than ‘Error’ when and if there’s an issue. Money just sits with a turning wheel while something, unbeknownst to me, goes on in the background.

Once I had my accounts neatly setup and downloaded, I unfortunately had to go through and setup the categorization/memorized payees. Quicken doesn’t download QIF data anymore because it’s, apparently, an outdated standard used for troubleshooting; not downloading transactions. I didn’t mind, though. It allowed me to make sure there was consistency throughout hundreds of transactions.

Some things I really like include:

  • Account BarAccount Bar: it’s always on the screen, tells me my account values and lets me quickly switch between them.
  • Portfolio/Investments: Quicken pulls up a very nice, stat-filled screen for each security I own. The market value/price graph doesn’t crash the program either (as Money did as it tried to download the data) because it uses previously downloaded values.
  • Pin Vault: This feature allows me to save my PINs and then lock them with a single password. Money could save all the PINs automatically but this additional security feature is nice.
  • Budget SetupGUI: Microsoft’s blue is nice, but the subtle shadows make this a very attractive program. The graphs are pretty, the tabs are intuitive. It looks good and that’s important.
  • Reports: I haven’t even had a chance to go through all of these but they’re all very useful and I can’t wait to create some useful analysis.
  • Budget: Quicken’s seems like there’s much more to it. Money would simply ask how often I would spend X dollars in Y category. It would then just apply it as a monthly average value. Quicken allows me to do either that, or by month or quarter. In other words, instead of budgeting $7.45 each month for ‘Christmas Gifts’ I can tell it I only expect to spend $100 in December.
  • Reconcile: I don’t think Money even had this feature. It helped me figure out which transaction I accidently deleted. All I had to do was pull up my online statement for January and I could quickly find the loss.

Obviously I’m enjoying playing around with my new program. I know I wrote about using Money to track your money. After two days I’d recommend Quicken to anyone out there looking for a very nice personal finance program.

[tags]money, finance, personal, software, review[/tags]

Savings Accounts

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I’m in the process of managing my finances and I realized: a lot of people don’t earn money with their money. In other words, your Wells Fargo savings account is only earning you… what… 8/10ths of a percent? Your money is wasting time in there! If I’m not mistaken, you’re earning money slower than prices are inflating. Heck, you may be losing money.

Well then, what do you do? Simple: find a high interest savings account or put some money in a CD.

Personally, I do both. Since I only pay tuition two times a year I can lock my cash into a CD for a few months (6, 12, etc) and then use it once I actually need it. Money that would have just been sitting around waiting to pay for college has earned me over $400. It’s just that easy…

But, what about the short-term money? Well, I transfer all my cash into an ING Direct account. This savings account earns me 3.8% and through April, my new deposits are earnign 4.75%. I’ve already earned $30 in the first few months. Sometimes a number doesn’t say much so I need to look at it a different way. That $30 is the same as 6 free burritos. Can you imagine a mini pyramid of burritos every month? It’s a great thought…

I guess my point is this: put your money away and let it earn some interest. ING works in a funny way, though. What you do is ‘link’ an existing bank account to it. This serves as a direct connection between the two accounts and you easily (within 2 business days) transfer money in and out. To me, the money seems more difficult to get to. This acts as a barrier to spending and allows me to earn more burritos.

So, to everyone out there with their money sitting around, open an ING Direct account and get $25 for free. Thats right. If you leave a comment here with your email I will send you an invitation. Once you make an initial deposit of $250 you’ll automatically earn $25. Again, thats like 5 free burritos and, well, they taste even better when they’re free.

Plus, if you open an account I’ll earn $10 and that’s pretty awesome. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.
[tags]personal, money, finances, saving[/tags]

Honesty Challenge

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I’m required to write a paper this weekend. But first, I have to challenge myself to three days of nothing less than pure honesty. In other words, starting tomorrow morning everything I say and do will be 100% honest. There will be no lying, no exaggerating, no stealing, no cheating, no law breaking (speeding!), and so on. I can’t imagine this being even remotely easy. Sarcasm is my weapon of choice!

I can’t wait to share my experiences. Does anyone else out there think they could live up to this challenge?

…wait, why is being honest even considered a challenge?

[tags]personal, improvement, honest, college[/tags]

Studying for Tests

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To answer the question: yes, I did drop off the planet these last few days. Actually I’ve just been running all over the place. My roommate’s family came into town which meant lots of time not spent studying for my accounting test. Shoot, very little time to study! What do you do typically in those situations?

Personally, instead of stressing out, I decided to do the last thing most people probably would: I took a nap. Sure, there may be a lot to do but I figured I’d want to take care of everything once I was well rested. In short, it worked out for the best… the test was Monday evening (7:00pm) and I napped until 1:45am that morning. I proceeded to study my notes, homework and practice problems. I took a nap between and then one more at 6:00am.

Sure, I could’ve stayed up all night and read everything I could possibly find… but that’s a waste of time. When it comes to studying, tests, and school in general I’m a big fan of benefit-cost analysis. In other words I asked myself: How often do I see these people (roommate’s family)? Would the few hours spent with them be worth more than the extra time spent on practice problems? The answer was yes. How? Put simply: the few hours spent re-reading all the material would only earn a few more percentage points. Points which can easily be made up later…

So how do I go about studying for tests? Well, the first test in a class is always the best. It sets the pace for the rest of the year. So, I essentially do the (I know this will sound bad) bare minimum required to understand all the material. For example, I had a Cost Management test last week which I studied a little bit for. Why didn’t I dedicate a lot of time to it? I did pretty well on all the previous homeworks (which were largely problem solving). All I had to do then is re-familiarize myself with them. From there all I needed to do was read the chapter notes and slides. The end result was nearly a perfect score on the math problems. I had already spent the time mastering the material once or twice a week (through homework). The multiple choice questions? Those are a different story. I did alright, but, as I mentioned, this is the first test and those points tell me where I need to focus more energy next time.

My point is, I studied until I felt comfortable enough to go into a test with a decent understanding of all the material on it. Did I know each chapter in-depth? No. Did I know any chapter in-depth? No. Did I need to? My grade (a B) suggests I didn’t. Having never actually read a chapter from the book I feel this is a great way to set the bar for the rest of the semester. It’s quite obvious where I need to go from here. I need to read a bit more and make sure I’m familiar with multiple-choice questions. Simple as that.

How do I know this works? Why is it I don’t just end up with the same score as the first test? Simple: I change my study behavior. The first accounting class I took in college was the hardest thing I had encountered. I got a 73 on the first test. I worked smarter (not harder) and started to realize what would work best; I got an 85. By the final I had perfected my study routine and scored 107%. There was no curve, he just added 10 questions (worth 1-point each). That means I either missed one question from the test or 3 of the extra questions.

In short, spend the time ‘studying’ as the semester progresses. Sure, I understand the need to study for hours and hours before a big test. But, if you prepare along the way, it makes the act of studying that much easier.

Yes, I’m on the Dean’s List. I know I’m in (at least) the top 7 percent of the school. But that doesn’t necessairly mean I’m “smart”. You don’t have to be “smart” to succeed… look at the Fortune 500 CEOs. No, all you have to be is clever.

[tags]college, study, test, midterm, homework, personal, success[/tags]