Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

It is time for the first major give-away on this site (ever).

Intuit was kind enough to contact me and send me 2 copies of  QuickTax Standard, which I will gladly give away (since I already bought a copy for myself before they sent me these (yes, irony is a good friend of mine)).

Legalities: Please note, I do use Quicktax (and Quicken) but the copies I have I paid for with my own money (more fool me), I think these are useful tools, but I am not being directly paid to run this give-away (in fact I am out of pocket because I have to ship it to you).  I do run advertising for Intuit to sell Quicktax, as you have seen over the past few weeks, but this give-away is not connected to those ads.

How can you win one of these free copies? Well, let’s first start out with some of the ground rules:

Free Software

Ground Rules

1. I assume  you are a regular reader of this blog, so all you need to do is leave a comment on this post with your e-mail address to enter (no mailing address needed yet, just an e-mail).
2. Given this software is for Canadian Taxes, you should really be a Canadian, or have a use for it (don’t just enter so that you can re-sell it on E-bay that is just scummy).
3. Your comment needs to have a good reason why you want this software (if you say you are having problems with the CRA and are thinking about going for a short airplane trip, you are disqualified), yes, I want it is a valid reason, but so dull. Also remember I have ANTI-SPAM filters on my comments, so if your comment looks like SPAM it might not get entered (or if you are a SPAMMER!).
4. If you subscribe to my feed, you will have my undying respect and your Karmic mojo will increase 3 fold (no, you don’t get another entry, but I figured I’d beg).
5. Feel free to TWEET this (remember I am on twitter as the BigCajunMan (see the button below), and if I see you tweet this, I will add another entry in for you).
6. I hope shipping this isn’t too expensive (no it is not going to go Fed Ex or overnight, it will go via Canada Post).
7. If you are associated with Intuit or are married/related to me, you are not eligible to enter.

Contest will close on Tuesday February 23rd at Midnight.

Cliff Stoll is an interesting “hero” for techno-geeks like me, and seeing that he did a talk for Ted, made me want to share it with you, good reader. His book The Cuckoo’s Egg is a very interesting read.

He found a KGB hacker, even though his expertise is in Astronomy, but he decided to figure out how all this Internet thing works, and became a techno-sleuth while doing it. His frenetic pace and stacato delivery is both wild but also refreshing to hear (OK I don’t think I could work with him, he might drive me nuts, but he is still an amazing person to listen to).

Clifford Stoll captivates his audience with a wildly energetic sprinkling of anecdotes, observations, asides — and even a science experiment. After all, by his own definition, he’s a scientist: “Once I do something, I want to do something else.”

For Christmas my in-laws gave me a GPS (not sure the exact reason, might be that they think I get lost a lot, or they think I need someone to tell me when I am going the wrong way (I guess they forgot I already had my wife to do that)). I haven’t had a lot of chances to use the GPS, as I mostly have been going to places which I had already been to before, but I have been trying it out just to see how the device actually works and how it deals with various issues, like when I decide to take different routes.

I enjoy having this technological marvel, but it got me thinking: I wish there was something like this for financial decisions and spending follies.

Just think of how great it would be to have something that would announce to you, “Because you went out to dinner and spent $135.67 you will now only be able to retire in 37 years 3 months and 2 days” or even better, “You have just spent $400 more than your budgeted amount for discretionary spending this month, and there are still 17 days left in this month“.

Wouldn’t that just be astoundingly cool?

In some ways Quicken is kind of like that, but it doesn’t have the instantaneous feedback that this kind of tool would need.

My guess is that  if you had a stern voice in this contraption (my GPS has a Female English accent, so it sounds a lot like my Mother), might it stop folks from impulse buying? Might it stop them from squandering money if they were afraid of how the device would react to it? Maybe, but just think how embarrassed they might be standing in line at a store and have a voice boom out, “You do not have enough money to buy that, put it back on the shelf!“?

If anyone does invent such a device, I have put in a patent claim on it already, so you will owe me royalties, or simply pay me a lump sum and you can use the idea .

So I finally broke down this weekend and rented an HD terminal box from Rogers, just to see what it all looked like, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the picture is quite good and I did enjoy seeing Hockey and Football games in High Definition format.

I did not buy the terminal box, I will rent it for a month or two, and hopefully the PVR or terminal itself will go on sale (again) and I may purchase it at that time, because having an HD television which doesn’t receive the signals does seem a little silly (albeit frugal).

The interesting tricks in getting this new service is:

• My bill goes up $12.95 a month (plus taxes) so that is the know kick in the teeth.
• I then received a note about my account and I also get hit with a $2.99 Digital Services fee.

The second fee is what has me scratching my head, because, I already have two digital terminals in my house (both for regular TV, but they are digital none the less). Does this mean I pay this fee on each of them? This is not a “rental” fee, because I own those boxes, so I am paying over $10 for the right to have a digital terminal?

What Next With Digital TV?

Here is another interesting question to answer, when Canada finally follows the US and stops broadcasting on the Analog frequencies for TV, what happens to the Cable signals? If I connect an “aerial” I can receive digital (and HD) signals right now in the Ottawa area (very limited channels, but it is still possible), but what happens when digital takes over?

• Will we need “Digital Terminal” set top boxes? You’d think the answer would be “no”, but I am pretty sure the real answer is “Yes”, at least for now.  These boxes allow your Cable provider to monitor your usage and control your access very easily.
• Will HD signals be “free”, or will I be paying a fee to receive those as well (i.e. either buy a Set top box, rent one or what)?

My Cable bill is now about $90 a month again, I am not happy with that, and am thinking, this may have to change very soon.

Any ideas or opinions on this topic Home Entertainment/Home Expense subject?

PC Repair For Fun and Profit

After reading an interesting blurb in Wired about the Geek Squad I am astounded at what passes as genuine good customer service. I have seen more articles about “We’ll Come Fix Your PC at Home” services (maybe I should copyright that name) and what they charge, it really does make me scratch my head.

I am one of the folks that people call when they aren’t sure what to do about their computers. I am by no means an expert, but more of a well informed “noodler of technology” and the stuff I know, I usually have learned through trial and error (emphasis on error), however I am glad to help friends who ask questions or need help (I am also quick to point out when I am in an area I have little experience in). Most of the people I help, usually pay me back by helping me in other areas, or they let me drink their liquor or beer (which is fine payment by me).

The “We’ll Come Fix Your PC at Home” seem to offer similar services, but their fees seem much higher than the job warrants (yes they have overhead like those annoying VW Bugs with logos all over them, and all those nifty T-Shirts they wear), and I wonder if this is really not just a “mugs game”.

Who really uses these services? Let’s assume small businesses use legitimate service providers in these areas, so the folks that are using this are families and folks that do not know computers, and thus are easy prey to these “Technology Buzzards”, who can do what they want to your system and you won’t know whether they caused the problem or not (much like a lot of Car Repair shops work, but let’s stay away from that subject for now).

How can consumers protect themselves from this techno-scurge? Find friends who know computers and ask them questions, most folks will gladly help out (but make sure they know what they are talking about too). Take courses at your local community college, if your PC is an important part of your life maybe you should know how it works? Only use repair services that have been recommended by people you respect and who you think know computers, better still ask the folks at work that support your computers about things, sometimes they are glad to help out too.

Don’t pay $249 to get someone to come to your house to do an Operating System Installation/Upgrade, unless you really don’t want to do that, then Caveat Emptor is all I can tell you.