Do you have a phone with a data plan? Like an iPhone or a Blackberry? As these phones get more popular, demand for something called “tethering” is becoming to be more noticed.
“Tethering” allows your phone to act like a modem, allowing a laptop to use it as the network and use data via your cellular data plan, not wifi. This is expensive, unless you have a good data plan allowing for lots of data, however it is very convenient especially when you are somewhere that doesn’t have wifi – the GO train comes to mind.
Currently, only the latest Blackberry’s like the Bold have this. The iPhone does not.
WordPress 2.7 is out and one of the steps to upgrade is to remove the wp-admin and wp-includes directories in the blog. Upgrading WordPress at 12am is not recommended, because I blew away my wp-content folder which has all the contents including all of the images used in my posts.
Luckily, the database contains the content of my posts, but I’ve lost all my images unless I figure out a way to come up with them from a backup. What’s worse, is that before trying to upgrade, I was going to skip doing all the backups, but instead I decided to backup the database but not the files. So, when i deleted the files I still lost some info, but thankfully not all the content.
So, if you’re looking at older posts and wondering where the images are – they’re gone. :(
MuchOnDemand hosted LIGHTS on Tuesday where they played her new video for February Air. Video is supposed to be available online on Friday. In the meantime, here are the MOD videos of her interview and two live performances:
Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation provides a nice Interactive Map of traffic information for the Toronto area. It includes closures and restrictions as well as traffic information.
The title is how Autoblog summed up an article in the New York Times. It argues that GM fed short term profit goals with business strategies such as offering lots of SUV’s and few economical cars and were not prepared for the sharp turn of the markets.
Every year, Ward’s Auto names the 10 Best Engines. The editors of Ward’s Auto compared 32 engines over a 2 month period. 2009 marks the 15th year of this competition and surprisingly, the first that the Nissan V6 engine is not on the list.
The 2009 winners are:
Audi AG: 2.0L TFSI turbocharged DOHC I-4 (A4 Avant)
BMW AG: 3.0L turbocharged DOHC I-6 (135i Coupe)
BMW AG: 3.0L DOHC I-6 Turbodiesel (335d)
Chrysler LLC: 5.7L Hemi OHV V-8 (Dodge Ram/Challenger R/T)
Ford Motor Co.: 2.5L DOHC I-4 HEV (Escape Hybrid)
General Motors Corp.: 3.6L DOHC V-6 (Cadillac CTS)
Honda Motor Co. Ltd.: 3.5L SOHC V-6 (Accord Coupe)
Hyundai Motor Co. Ltd.: 4.6L DOHC V-8 (Genesis)
Toyota Motor Corp.: 3.5L DOHC V-6 (Lexus IS 350)
Volkswagen AG: 2.0L SOHC I-4 Turbodiesel (Jetta TDI)
It’s official, yesterday I got my latest statement from my broker and my RRSP is officially in the negative. I’m not saying it’s lost money – I’m saying that the total value of my RRSP is lower than the dollar value of contributions I’ve made since I’ve started working. It means that if I never invested at all, as of today I would be ahead of the game.
Having been a proponent of investing with many of my friends, I find myself unable to justify investing a single investment dollar in the past 11 years that I’ve been working. I should have just kept it under my mattress.
So what am I doing about it? Not much. I still fundamentally believe the stock market will give long term gains that people should use to generate the capital needed to retire. However, I think the days of our generation investing in 100% equities is over. The old advice was: “Keep 100 less your age in fixed income” in order to have preserved capital as you get closer to retirement. Those that didn’t follow that probably saw significant losses over the past six months.
I have about 10% in fixed income, but I’m not 10 years old. Oops.
HDGURU did an amazing job picking through the volume of available HDTV’s and came up with some solid recommendations in each size category. This also supports my current HD buying advice: buy the largest screen you can, but not the premium one in that category. Meaning, instead of buying the most expensive 46″ tv you can, pare back the features and buy a 52″ model with less features. The “wow” factor of the size will outperform any of the small differences in picture quality from other features.
Their full list is on their site, but here is a snippet:
Low Price-Samsung LN52A550 (Why? SPVA panel)
Medium Price-Samsung LN52A650 (Why? SPVA panel, 120 Hz)
Premium Price- Sony KDL55XBR8 (Why? LED Backlight, 120 Hz)
Premium Price-Samsung LN52A950 (Why? LED Backlight, SPVA, 120 Hz)
Curiously, in these brackets, my favorite brand, Sharp, is not represented. And while that is disappointing, I tend to agree with that assessment right now. While my d92u unit was the top end at the time, the new Sony’s and Samsung’s offer LED backlights while the high end Sharps still do not. At the low end, Sharp LCD’s still are higher priced than the other brands.
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