May 2012
2 posts
6 tags
Catching a Falling Knife?
(Note: I’ve moved my day-to-day investing journal off-line for privacy reasons, but I’ll still write more general posts like this one from time-to-time.)
Every week, as I watch the market fall and the value of my portfolio start crumbling away, I don’t push my hands into my face and look away. I get excited. I look at my portfolio, and I think each of my stock picks are great,...
6 tags
CSCO, and Freeing Up ETFs
Tracking activity in my Fisher portfolio, I bought a $5,000 position in CSCO. To maintain enough cash for future decisions (at least $10,000, but ideally $20,000), I had to dump at least one position. I have $10,000 in IWM, an ETF tracking the Russell 2000 index. For me, ETFs are conservative bets to take when I’m not sure what individual stock to look into. So even though I’m only up...
April 2012
7 posts
7 tags
Busy Day - WFM, NFLX, AAPL
Been staring BAC and BCS in the eye, as both of them have been in the shitter since I bought them (each down almost 20%). I know now that I should have considered selling them earlier, before the kept on diving… But if I knew that then, I wouldn’t be here now!
I’m keeping the BCS in an effort to test my Fisher Investments portfolio. They made the call for a reason, and I got it...
3 tags
Learning Profit-Taking
One of my core issues is these days is trying to understand how and when to take short-term profits on my positions. The problem I have is that I try to only buy a stock if I think that the long-term fundamentals are good. So if a stock takes a short-term run up, should I sell and take profits, or hold on that the stock might go higher and risk leaving money on the table?
Today, I took a swing at...
3 tags
Riding the Bowl with Wal-Mart
So now I’m taking some of my own advice: I bought Wal-Mart. My opinion is that their current legal issues with respect to bribing government officials in Mexico is more-or-less a “cost of business” issue that will get worked out over the long-term. The fact is that the news has pushed the price down—but I don’t think the news affects the overall value of the business....
4 tags
Tempted by Wal-Mart
So Wal-Mart got hit with allegations that it bribed government officials in Mexico in efforts to gain market share in that country. The bribes “greased the palms” of a wide range of government players to get favorable treatment in light of government actions and processes. In many countries, like Mexico, this might just be the “cost of doing business.” And while this type...
2 tags
Still Buying in to the Falling Market
As someone who really started putting money in during a bull market (i.e., in the past year or so), I’ve been dying to put money in while the market’s been going down over the past week. I’ve turned into one of those guys who breathes out victory when I see the TV in the elevator showing red—the market’s going down!
So now, with the rest of my portfolio in the John...
4 tags
Breaking Up Winners and Losers
Right now, I use Google Finance to track the performance of my portfolio. In it, I have my short term (less than 6 months) and long term (at least 9-12 months, if not more) positions—which right now is a pretty mixed bag of winners and losers. I also have another section of my portfolio on another account—there’s are my “big bets,” usually smaller positions that I...
3 tags
Taking AAPL on the Dive
The market’s been so volatile these days… But DJIA has still stayed above 13,000. AAPL took a dive, down $10 (1.7%). It’s still above my existing positions, but I’m tempted to buy in. Even though people say there’s a lot of risk because of its weight in the indices and its size, it still looks like its earnings and earnings potential justify the market cap. I’m...
September 2011
1 post
Markey's Lobster Pound
A couple of times a year, we decide to head up to Markey’s Lobster Pound in New Hampshire for affordable, super-fresh lobster. And every year I stress out about what exit to take and which left and right turns to take off that exit—because the only address you can find on the Internet for the Pound is Route 286 in Seabrook. You can’t plug that into a GPS and have it lead the...
July 2011
2 posts
Re: Is Branded Skateboard Hardware Better?
So I went to my local hardware store (Brookline Lock), and they had exactly the hardware I needed. I found both fine and coarse threading, with nylon locking nuts and with Phillips heads. And I think I bought enough for two trucks and four wheels for under $2. Definitely the way to go, and definitely better to support a local business than UPS (which sucks).
Cabs and Carseats in Virginia?
We’re going to Virginia Beach for vacation, flying in to Norfolk Airport. Norfolk Airport is about 20 miles away from Virginia Beach. Seems like cab fare can run anywhere between $25 and $40 one way. As with other places we’ve traveled to by air, I looked into whether cabs are exempt from child car seat laws. So far, we’ve found that in Boston, Chicago, and New York, cabs have...
March 2011
1 post
Is Branded Skateboard Hardware Better?
I started working on bringing my old 9” board (from the early 90s) back into working condition. Back in the day, I didn’t know anything about decks, trucks, bearings, etc. I just bought a third-hand board and beat the hell out of it. It’s not only that I didn’t care about technical details, but I also didn’t have access. No neighborhood skate shops, no mail order, no...
December 2010
2 posts
How to Forget a Wireless Network in Jolicloud
I’m a big fan of Jolicloud. I won’t get into the details, but if you have a slow/old computer or a netbook, you should look to install in ASAP. For example, Windows XP is such a dog on my Dell Mini 10v, but Jolicloud cruises. And start-up (which kills me on Windows) is easy-living on Jolicloud. But to get to the meat of the post:
I couldn’t figure out how to have Jolicloud...
How to Rearrange Apps on the iPad
It’s pretty inconvenient when the App Store installs an app that you want on your first page on the second page - and then you have to go into iTunes to rearrange your icons. Well, not anymore. Here’s the hack to rearrange your apps without iTunes.
Drag the app you want to move into the dock on the bottom of your screen. If your dock is full, just move one app out - you can always...
October 2010
2 posts
Resetting a Triton Quiet Power III Dishwasher
So our dishwasher—probably about ten years old—has seen better days. Recently, it’s been leaving a few inches of water at the end of wash cycles—and if you let that sit for awhile, well, it can get rank. I cleared the garbage disposal (the washer is hooked up to the sink), removed the screens etc. from the bottom of the washer, but nothing helped drain the machine. So I...
Low Battery Problem with RiteTemp 6030
I recently installed a RiteTemp 6030 (or 6000 series) digital thermostat to control our central air. As the seasons changed, I decided to test out the heat on a colder night—but what? The heat refused to turn on. Immediately, I thought, crap, the heat’s broken, but I couldn’t find the time to call around and set up an appointment for someone to check it out. Thankfully so!
I...
November 2008
1 post
Payback Time
I love the fact that my landlord: (1) never turns on the heat, even in the winter, and (2) often never turns on the hot water. Well, I’m not exactly sure if he never turns it on—though I suspect this is often the case—but I know that sometimes it’s because the heat breaks or runs out of oil. Whatever, it’s not my problem. There should be hot water in the apartment,...
May 2008
1 post
Singing Acoustic
In my sense, playing acoustic guitar is a substitute for the entire composition. It’s just you and your voice and the guitar… And you’re walking through the vision of the song in your head and playing along with it. So when people see you perform it, they should see you walking through it, working through it, and being in a different world where they can only see part of your...
April 2008
3 posts
Disable Front Row Keyboard Shortcut (Command-Esc)
The Front Row keyboard shortcut, command-escape, is pretty damn annoying, because it’s so easy to hit when you’re trying to cycle through application windows with command-` (backtick). So God bless the creator of this post that directs you on how to disable the hide/show of Front Row keyboard shortcut. [blog.erdener.org]
Keyboard Shortcut to Add Footnote in Mac Word
Here’s another keyboard shortcut that doesn’t seem to be documented. If you want to add a footnote now: Option-Command-f Good luck, and God bless.
Promote/Demote List Item in Mac Word
For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out the keyboard shortcut to promote/demote a list item in the new Word 2008 (or word:mac 2008). You know, when you’re on list item 1.f., and you want the next line to turn into 2? It’s CTRL-SHIFT-LEFT ARROW (or RIGHT ARROW to demote). I couldn’t seem to find any other documentation on this, so, well, here it is.
March 2008
1 post
Cognitive Power Point in International Contexts?
(Or why business school annoys me, Part x.) So I’m preparing a Power Point for my international entrepreneurship class, and I start the way I’ve been developing my slideshows for the past couple of years. Single color background Large black sans-serif text No more than three bullet points per slide Concepts rather than sentences Large, rich, demonstrative graphics Clear, meaningful,...
February 2008
6 posts
Thoughts on Making Music - Replacing the Melody
So I finally dusted off the old keyboard and plugged it into my Powerbook G4 12”. I am decidedly lo-fi. I *could* use my more powerful computer; I could use better instruments. But I’m using my tiny laptop, cheap headphones, and Garageband. Because if you can’t make good music with that, will money solve your problems? I have the “sound” and the mood in my head....
Finding the Config File for Vidalia
I’ve been playing around with Vidalia builds lately on my Mac. (For those who don’t know, Vidalia is a Tor and Privoxy bundle that basically gives you better anonymity for your Internet usage via “onion routing.”) At some point, I rolled back my build from an experimental 0.1.6 build to a stable build. Then, all of a sudden, Tor couldn’t start because of a “read...
How to Disable Dashboard - Use Onyx
Onyx is great. It’s a great maintenance tool for checking your disk, cleaning up logs and caches, running maintenance scripts. But it also lets you access other settings that you can’t (or are hard to get to) in your System Preferences. For example, I don’t use Dashboard all that much. But it still eats resources. I’d rather just ditch it. (I know it doesn’t load...
How to Sync Your iCal with Google Calendar (GCal)
It used to be one of the Holy Grails of Mac-dom: two-way syncing of your iCal with Google Calendar. Then there was Spanning Sync, but at $25/yr or $65/lifetime, it’s too pricey. Then there’s GCalDaemon—but with its complicated shell interface to a Java application, it’s not quite worth the effort. Now there’s gSync. It installs quickly and pretty intuitively. (If...
How to Uninstall Menufela
I love Menufela—it lets me hide Spotlight and even hide the entire menu bar, so I have the ultimate, clear desktop. But I’m working on slimming down my Powerbook G4 12”, which means removing everything unnecessary—including, in this case, Menufela, which is currently using 14.13 MB of RAM. Menufela doesn’t have an uninstall feature. To uninstall it, download...
Lightscoop and the Nikon D40
Let’s be real. A lot of people take pictures in their apartments/homes with pretty crappy lighting, often while sitting on their couch. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get really good pictures this way. The colors are too dark; the image is too grainy; the flash pops up and blasts away. But you can still take good pictures for cheap. You can use the Lightscoop—or just hold a...
January 2008
15 posts
Dreamhost E-mail Retention "Policy"
I use Dreamhost. I’m actually someone who really likes them. I was just wondering, do they have an e-mail retention policy? Not really. But they have an e-mail backup system. Basically, your e-mail is backed up, but only accessible two weeks in the past. If you access your Dreamhost account via UNIX/SSH, in your home directory “cd .snapshot”—”.snapshot” is a...
Using Sugar to Keep Flowers Fresh
Never knew this. If you add some sugar and some vinegar to the water in your flower vase, your flowers should last longer. See 10 Extraordinary Uses for Sugar. Apparently the sugar “nourishes” the stems and the vinegar kills the mold and bacteria that develops around them, the stuff that makes the stems and water gooky. (If you follow the link, the tip about using sugar as a hand...
Mangosteen
Last time I was in Thailand, I couldn’t get enough mangosteen. It’s sweet, slightly citrusy, and melts in your mouth at its ripest. I have never seen it in the US—apparently the US has only recently allowed importation of the fruit. But until I find them domestically, I will satiate my thirst with these memories of this amazing fruit.
Tips to More Effective Underlining/Highlighting...
(An example of a bit of underlining overload.) When studying, it helps to underline while you read. But you *can* make your underlining more productive. (1) Try to limit underlining to once or twice per paragraph. Underlining (1) highlights the important part of a paragraph for later reference and (2) is a visual and physical cue to your brain, as your reading it, of the importance of the...
What is an Entrepreneur?
So in my first business school class—International Entrepreneurship—the professor opened discussion with the question, What is an “Entrepreneur?” The discussion focused on a few theories—most of them in conflict with my own understanding of entrepreneurship. Other students focused on innovation and technology, on increasing profits, and elevating entrepreneurship to...
In Defense of Food: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly...
I recently listened to the NPR Science Friday podcast with Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food. The book can be summed up with the tagline: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. Pretty simple. Michael Pollan’s New York Times Magazine article on organic food and vegetarianism changed my life. In it, he made the argument that although our meat production industry is cruel and...
Squidgy: unpleasantly damp; clammy
I’m reading an article on a recently discovered 1-ton rodent that once existed in South America, oh, about four million years ago. The article comforts the reader not to be fearful of its size, since it was probably a vegetarian: “Its small grinding teeth suggest it had only weak masticatory muscles for chewing food, and probably tucked into soft vegetation, fruit and squidgy aquatic...
Advertising Fuels TV?
I’m watching 30 Rock on-line via NBC. And it just struck me as incredible that, if it weren’t for advertisers, who would pay for TV? This is incredible because I’m not wholly convinced that advertising actually works. Will a 30-second spot on TGIFridays convince me to go there? I suppose it does if I haven’t already vetted TGIFridays off my short-list of placed to ever eat....
Best Simple Word Processors for Mac OS
I was checking out the word processing applications in the NYT via 43Folders and took the time to reflect upon my own word processing use. As of now, I prefer Pages over Microsoft Word (at least until they release Word 2007). I like WriteRoom a lot, but I also like the very simple and clean Bean (not mentioned in the 43Folders review). For straight-up text, I like TextWrangler. Unlike the...
Getting a 5% Discount Off of Rolex Watches
There’s somewhat of a tradition in Asian cultures where, upon an engagement, the wife’s parents by the husband a watch. As the engagement ring is a sign of the husband’s “value,” the watch is the symbol of the wife and her family’s wealth. These days, it seems like the Rolex is the standard. I’m not complaining. But when we went out to buy, I learned a bit...
Script to Display Battery Stats in Terminal →
Click to download a perl script that displays the percent charge left on your battery as well as an estimate of the time remaining. Use something like GeekTool to display this on your desktop if you hide your menu bar. See this post to see how I integrate this onto my desktop: http://thnlnk.com/seven29/Mac.Terminal.Program.to.Access.Battery.Stats/257 Caveat emptor: This *barely* works well. But...
Mac Terminal Program to Access Battery Stats
My Mac desktop setup is kind of unique: I hide absolutely everything, so I get a full screen all the time. The Dock is small and on auto-hide; the menu bar at the top is hidden by Menufela. But by hiding everything, I lose info like the date and time, as well as my battery status. Well, the date and time are easy enough to get to with GeekTool. I have GeekTool run this command every minute: date...
Do Used Coffee Grounds Really Absorb Odors? (Hint:...
I used to love the fact that used coffee grounds could be used to absorb odors. (I’m even working on trying this out outside of the fridge.) My mom used to do this, storing them in a plastic tub and putting them in the back of the fridge. Since then, I’ve done this quite often, but remain skeptical as to its actual effectiveness. My question is *how* or *why* would used coffee...
Pet Peeve: Blind Linking
I hate it when blogs make links to other posts but don’t explain what the next link is about or why it’s important. For example, here’s a post that mentions the hazards of alcohol-based hand sanitizers. But this link doesn’t even mention what those actual hazards are, but it makes a few links to other sites. OK, so they link to themselves, to a previous post about an NBC...
December 2007
23 posts
21 ways to use old coffee grounds →
I produce a lot of used coffee grounds. I used to often put these in a small mug in the back of the fridge to “absorb odors”—but I’m convinced that the effect is negligible, especially in light of the risk of coffee ground spillage and the incredible clean-up hassle that creates. I also don’t have plants or a garden so can’t really use coffee grounds for these....
Real Simple: 22 Items You Need in Your Cleaning... →
(Link goes to the printer-friendly page so you can see all 22 items at once.)
Treatments for Sneezing and a Runny Nose
So probably because I’ve been sleeping less, I just got freakin’ sick. Mostly it’s a lot of sneezing, a super runny nose, and massive congestion. I took pseudoephedrine to try and clear myself up, but it’s not working, either because it just doesn’t work anymore or because my nasal membranes are so inflamed from nose-blowing. I then tried a cup of warm water with 1/4...
The Poo Avenger
Since we have a dog, I take a lot of walks around our Cambridge neighborhood. As a walker, it can be infuriating how many people don’t shovel their sidewalks and don’t sand/salt them when they ice over. It’s extremely dangerous. I can understand that in our neighborhood, there are many older people. But it’s mostly wealthy families. Who apparently only melt the ice on their...
Using the Canoscan LiDE 50 with My MacBook Pro
My God, I’ve had some trouble getting my Canoscan LiDE 50 to work my MacBook Pro, running Mac OS 10.4.11 (Tiger). The scanner worked fine with my old Powerbook, but my MacBook refused to recognize it until now. First, to use the LiDE 50, you have to download and install the Canoscan toolbox software and the Scangear 7.1X driver from the Canon web site. Install the toolbox software *first*,...
2 tags
Shooting with the Nikon D40 and the Nikkor 50mm...
So the Nikon D40, while being a great camera, doesn’t accommodate a great lens, the Nikon 50mm f/1.8. The link is to the AF/auto focus, while I’ll be using and talking about the manual focus lens. I’m doing this because that’s the one that I have, but also because given the limited capabilities of the D40, it’s cheaper to just get the manual one than to use a...