In addition to my contributions to the great pyramid scheme known as the US stock market, I have also dabbled in "investments" in precious metals over the past few years. I use bunny ears in conjunction with the term investment for precious metal buying because strictly speaking an investment is something that pays you (according to Kiyosaki of Rich dad Poor dad fame). Not something that you pay for and then pay to hold onto. ( A house that you buy to live in is also not an investment). Gold has been called a hedge against inflation not an investment - 150 years ago an ounce of gold would buy you a well tailored suit. Today and ounce of gold will still buy you a well tailored suit. Gold has been inflation proof (vs the dollar) so far.
Another traditional reason for purchasing gold is as a hedge against the market. When the market was doing badly sometimes the price of Gold would go up. However these days I think there is renewed interest in Gold and other precious metals and people do not run to Gold when the market goes down. The price of Gold now follows the market - because people (like me are already in Gold as part of their portfolio). This whole post is simply conjecture and needs more study.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
trouble with Apple's FileVault
Going back as far as Panther, Apple has built in a security tool called filevault which promised to be an alternative to third party encryption programs. The problem is in many cases it does not work well. Of the 100 or so laptops we have enabled FileVault on 5 have had problems with dataloss, being unable to disable Filevault, and slow performance. Apples own tech support have confirmed that file vault is problematic and they dont recommend using it. Truecrypt is a good alternative.
the worst phone I have had - iPhone 3GS 32GB
The iphone is by far the worst cell phone I have had. (the apps are great however and the Safari is the best of all the mobile browsers I have tried). About a year ago when the iphone 3GS came out I decided to dump Verizon and go with ATT- I had Att in the past and figured its network must have improved. If anything the reception on my new iphone was worse than on my old Sony Ericcsson. I got to enjoy droppped calls, unintelligible conversations and many missed calls. I returned the iphone and went back to my reliable Motoraola RAZR 3m with Verizon. Its all about the network. Until the iPhone is available on Verizon or ATT upgrades its pitiful coverage in Santa Barbara I will have to take a pass on the iPhone.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)