I’ve been a loyal reader of Business 2.0 for quite a few years now.  It is one of the only magazines to which I subscribe.  I really look forward to getting it each month to see all of the new business ideas and to read the magazine’s take on various things.  Well, I just received my October copy and this is the end of the road for Business 2.0.  Apparently they never figured out how to get/keep advertisers interested in the magazine and it the magazine’s parent company decided it didn’t bring in enough cash to trouble with keeping the magazine alive.  Some of the staff are going to write for Fortune, but I just don’t think it’ll be the same.  All of the other magazines are stuffed with ads, so I may buy a 100 page magazine, but only 40 of the pages are actual content…and I’m not interested in flipping through ad after ad to find a handful of stories that interest me - so I doubt I’ll pick up a subscription to anything else to replace Business 2.0.  Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

A while back, I posted that I made the move to 64-bit Vista.  Then I got an iPhone, which doesn’t have 64-bit drivers, so I downgraded to Vista 32-bit. Well, this weekend, I have had another ordeal - I just finished installing 32-bit Vista again.  My primary hard drive is beginning to fail apparently - it did have a handful of bad sectors.  I’m fine with that, except Vista refused to boot up so I can do a couple of things like de-activate iTunes, check for any files that I may need to save (mainly installers - I keep all data on a different drive), etc.  Well - after trying to boot into Vista in every way I could think of, I decided I’ll go ahead and reinstall.  Guess what - the install DVD fails to startup as well!  It would try to startup, but then it would hang at the loading screen (black screen with the little green progress bar at the bottom).  It appears that Vista’s boot process (from DVD or HDD) can be hung when there is a corrupted partion.  I can understand the HDD install not booting, but come on - why can’t the DVD boot?

I ended up getting an iso of the Ultimate Boot CD, running SeaTools to fix up the drive, and then using the disk partioning tools there to wipe the drive clean.  After that, the Vista DVD was able to boot just fine and now I’m finally back up and running.  This is one of the reasons I keep wanting to switch to Apple though - I know they have issues as well, but I can’t believe the various issues I keep hitting with Vista…granted, I’m a power user so I don’t expect most of the issues I see would cause a problem with “normal” home users, but geez, it’s bad when I’m tempted to downgrade back to XP at least once a week.

1) Cut the cable
Do you really need those 100 channels you never watch?  I have an HDTV that picks up over the air channels and I can assure you that my FOX, NBC, ABC, and PBS look just as good, if not better, than anything you would get on cable. It does mean giving up certain channels (I do miss Sci-Fi, Discovery, and a couple of other ones), but it saves a ton of money and you don’t have to deal with the cable company.

2) Check the unit price on grocery items
I find it amazing that identical items in the grocery have vastly different pricing.  Two different brands of the same pasta sauce may have the same price per item, but if you look at the unit price, you may see that one of them actually gives you quite a bit more sauce for the same price (you can’t always tell this by the size of the container).  Another really surprising thing is that larger “family size” items are often more per unit than the “regular” size item - sounds strange, but if you check out the unit price on the labels, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

3) Use fans instead of air conditioner when possible
This certainly depends on where you live, but around here, it’s quite hot in the summer.  If I know I’m only going to be in a couple of rooms in the house, I’ll just open a window or use a fan since there is no point to chilling the whole house.

4) Never buy on credit (specifically don’t pay interest)
Hopefully it’s obvious that it’s always worse to end up paying more for an item than what the store charged…if not, these tips probably won’t help… The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop using credit cards - go with your bank check card.

5) Minimize impulse buying (still working on this one - but it usually works well with #7)
This is one of the hardest things for me to do - you see the new gadget come out, want the extra pack of candy in the grocery that you didn’t plan on, decide it’s time to buy an HDTV…  The best way I’ve found to minimize this is to keep very little money in my checking account - I move it all to investments (either mutual funds or savings accounts like ING Direct).  That way, I can get the money if I need it, but I don’t have enough to make a huge purchase unless I go through a transfer process that takes 3-5 days…by then, I may decide I didn’t really need the item anyway.

6) Know where your money is going / Implement a budget
It’s really important that you know where your money is going - I don’t particularly like doing a true budget, so I track all expenses (including categories) in Quicken, then review spending each month to see how I’m doing against my mental budget.  Doing a “real” budget would be more helpful, but I haven’t found a nice way to do the budget the way I want in Quicken.

7) Treat yourself to something nice
When I first decided I would start cutting my expenses and saving up to pay off my student loans early, I kept myself from buying anything unless I really needed it.  The problem I ran into was that sometimes it would feel even worse than being broke - sometimes you just need to have a little something extra. I’m taking buying a $50 video game or $100 night out - not buying a car or something crazy like that.  If you don’t treat yourself, what will probably happen is that you’ll eventually break down and spend like crazy for a bit and it’ll put you back to square one - sounds crazy I know, but trust me, it’s better to set aside $100/mo blow money instead of spending $3000 one month because you couldn’t take it anymore.

8) Use utilities efficiently
Nothing special here - use compact florescent light bulbs, turn off the lights when you’re not in the room, minimize hot water usage, don’t water the lawn if you don’t have to, etc.  Turning off the computer at night can save about $20/mo - you’ll be surprised at home much it costs to use different items you have around the house.

9) Be as frugal as possible, but not cheap (buy good quality / be proactive)
I’ll explain this one via an example - 6 months ago, I bought a little battery-powered drill for $30.  I used it to drive in some screws here and there and it worked fine.  I recently decided to put in new cabinets and needed to do more heavy duty work.  Well, the drill basically bit the dust - it couldn’t take the stress.  So now I need a new drill… If I would have went ahead and bought a good quality drill from the start for $100 or so, I would have come out much better than having to go buy a new one now (plus the time lost messing with the cheap drill trying to finish the job).  These days, I try to buy the middle priced version of whatever I’m buying - I don’t care for paying premium prices, but I don’t mind paying a few dollars more when those few dollars create enough value to justify the extra expense.

10) Avoid marketing as much as possible
This sounds dumb, but the more marketing you’re exposed to, the more stuff you’ll want to buy - that’s the point of marketing after all.  Now that doesn’t mean that you’ll buy something just because you saw a single ad, but it does mean that the more ads you see, the harder #5 gets.  I know I’m going to have to stay away from Apple keynotes - I don’t know why, but they always make me want to buy the newest thing Apple thought up…so far, I’ve been able to resist, but it’d be even better if I would just stop watching…

A quick FYI on Amazon’s Unbox service.  I had 7 rentals on my computer that I had not been able to watch yet, but I needed to downgrade my Vista install to 32-bit (from the 64-bit version).  So I copied off the Amazon videos and uninstalled the Unbox software.  Then after the new version of Vista was installed, I tried to re-import the videos into Unbox (they provide an Import function).  What I didn’t realize is that the Unbox agreement says you can’t move rental videos from your original download location…  I’m not sure if Amazon Customer Service is going to help here or not, but I think they will this one time.  Something to keep in mind if you’re thinking about getting a video rental.

When the iPhone first launched, I posted about three reasons I would NOT be buying an iPhone…yesterday, I broke down and bought a 4GB iPhone.  So what changed?

1) Price

I have a 5th generation iPod - so I don’t need an 8/16GB+ player - so 4GB is just fine with me.  Apple decided to discontinue the 4GB model, so the price dropped to $299 from $499.  If you look at other smartphones out there, $300 isn’t a bad price at all.

2) Seeing is Believing (i.e. why the on-screen keyboard works)

One of my original concerns was the fact that the keyboard has no feedback at all.  After playing with the phone for a bit, it’s pretty obvious the keyboard is just fine.  There is a large keyboard for use with Safari for web browsing and that keyboard is great.  Then there is a small keyboard for SMS, e-mail, etc.  The small keyboard is usable, but it isn’t quite as good.  But when I thought about it, even the small keyboard is vastly superior to the other non- querty keyboards and it’s really not much worse than the hardware qwerty keyboards I’ve used on a Treo.

3) Did I really need GPS? No.

I originally thought I really needed GPS in the phone - and I admit, I think it would still be a great feature with the built-in Google Maps.  But after thinking about this for a while, I came to the conclusion that I would most likely use the maps to figure out what streets to take, finding where to connect to the interstate, etc and really didn’t need my position or real-time navigation.  I also have a Garmin GPS unit for times when I really do want a true GPS and I have a feeling it would work much better than anything they can cram into a cellphone anyway.

The one thing I’m still worried about from my original post is 3rd party application support.  The included applications are decent overall and I can certainly get the job done, but it would be nice to have the option to extend the functionality easily (e.g. adding a Pocket Quicken application).  I know it’s possible to do a hack on the phone to make this work (or was possible at one point), but this is still something Apple needs to address.

I noticed Amazon had a $0.99 sale on a couple of new movies I had been wanting to see (Ghost Rider, 300, Shooter) so I decided to give it a try - after all, no shipping, no tax, means you can’t beat the price.  My setup is Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit and an Xbox 360 with wireless adapter (I stream the movies to the HDTV via the 360).  My initial impressions:

The Good
Install and movie purchase was quick and simple overall (however, it is a tiny bit less simple for 64-bit users…more on that later).  It was dead simple to stream to the 360 - if you already have the media center connection setup, then you’re ready to go.  The quality is on par with DVD - it’s certainly not HD, but I was watching on a 56” HDTV and it looked as good as any DVD I have.

The Bad
When I first installed the software, I got a message saying something was wrong with my computer’s DRM configuration.  My only guess is that it has something to do with being on a 64-bit - but I really don’t know.  The Unbox software offers to help troubleshoot - so I did that and it found a patch to automatically install…after that, everything went fine.  The download speed is a bit slow - I rented 5 movies the first night (you can keep them for 30 days) at around 10pm.  By 8am or so the next morning, 4 of the 5 movies were downloaded.  The files are between 1.5GB - 3GB - so it’s certainly going to take a while to download them, but the speed could be just a tad better…but it’s not a huge issue - just realize that you’ll need to wait about an hour or so after you rent the movie before you can start playing it.  The biggest issue I have with Amazon’s Unbox service is the lack of 5.1 channel audio - the audio quality is decent, but it’s certainly not on the same level as a DVD and there is no true surround sound.

Conclusion
There’s no question that Unbox is a great deal if you find a movie you’d like to see for $0.99 - it’s the way to go at that price.  I’m not sure I’ll be using it for full price rentals though ($3.99) - for that price, I can get NetFlix or Blockbuster Online (and better sound quality).  If Amazon can drop the price to $1.99 for a one day rental, I’d be doing a lot more Unboxing.

Files needed:

1. iTunes 7.4.1 installer (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download)
2. iTunes 7.3.2 installer (http://filehippo.com/download_itunes/?3005)
3. GEAR Software 64-bit Driver (ftp://downloads.gearsoftware.com/updates/windows/drivers/Driver_Installer_AMD64_EM64T.exe) After you have the above software downloaded, follow these steps:

Step 1 - Uninstall iTunes 7.4/7.4.1 if you have it installed already (if not, skip to step 2).

Step 2 - Install iTunes 7.3.2.

Step 3 - Using Windows Explorer, copy the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\CD Configuration to your desktop (or anywhere you’d like - just make a backup copy).

Step 4 - Uninstall iTunes 7.3.2.

Step 5 - Install iTunes 7.4/7.4.1.

Step 6 - Install GEAR Software Driver (link above).

Step 7 - Copy the backup of the CD Configuration folder back to the iTunes directory (C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes).

You’re done!  Launch iTunes and you’re good to go again until something breaks in the next update.

One of the things that has been hugely frustrating about my move to Vista is that the backup tool is “dumbed down”.  It only copies files it wants to copy and it requires that you backup C: whether you want to or not.  All I wanted to do was schedule a daily backup from my data drive D: to my archive drive V: - I want any type of file copied…just a basic mirror type copy.  Apparently this is impossible in the standard windows backup application.  Enter Robocopy - a small command-line utility from Microsoft (included in Vista) that does exactly this.  Robocopy can take a source and destination and perform a mirror copy without a problem - and since it’s a command-line application, you can schedule it to run whenever you’d like.  It has tons of options to exclude certain files/directories based on name, attribute, date, etc - but the basic command to do a mirror copy is just this:

robocopy d:\ v:\ /MIR

Nifty huh?

I saw a link to a “nerd test” while reading over the old RSS feeds from some fellow Knoxville bloggers (Mike & Dylan) and I had to take it.  Apparently, I’m a Nerd God - but I’m not sure why…my answers weren’t really that “out there” for most of the questions…  Of course, the fact that I don’t see anything “wrong” with my answers is probably part of the issue…or maybe I’m just that l33t.

My score on The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test:Modern, Cool Nerd

(60 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 43% Dork)

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90’s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and “geek is chic.” The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

So I set a goal for myself at the beginning of 2007 - that goal was to be debt free except the house by the end of the year.  (Yeah - I drank the Dave Ramsey kool-aid…well, mostly at least…)  After the first few months, I figured out how to trim my expenses even more and figured out that I could actually pay off my student loans by my birthday (end of September).  At the end of 2006, I paid off all credit cards and any other foolishness I had - so I only have 3 “debt” items laying around these days: student loans (~$15K total), 1st mortgage, and 2nd mortgage.

I’m on track to pay off my student loans by the end of September, but it’s really tempting to pay off the 2nd mortgage first.  Both are about the same amount (second mortgage is a few thousand higher, but that just means waiting a month or so to pay it off if I chose that route), but the interest rate on my student loan is 4.25% while the second mortgage is at 8.25%.  Because of that (and the terms around each loan), my student loan payment is $125 a month and my 2nd mortgage is $190…so paying it off first would free up $190 instead of only $125.

But here’s the catch (and the reason I’ll probably still pay off the student loans first) - in a worst case scenario, I could probably sell the house and at least break even (if not, I wouldn’t owe much).  In that case, both mortgages would be taken care of, but the student loan will still be there. No matter what happens (practically…there are a few legal things that I’m going to ignore), I’m stuck with the student loan for up to 14 more years (the remaining length of the loan).  It seems really risky to me to pay off the second mortgage before the student loans.

Realistically, my plan would be to pay off the student loans first (just to have them out of the way), buy some new camera equipment (as a celebration type thing…and because I “need” it…), fill up the 5K for Roth IRA 2008, then focus on knocking out my 2nd mortgage as quickly as possible.  If raises go as usual next year at work, I can probably expect I would have the income to do all of the above between now and Jan 1 2009.  It’s just a question of what else will happen between now and then.

Anyway - I’m 80% sure I’m going to go ahead and pay off the student loans as planned, but it’s still a hard choice because of the interest rates (and the fact that I could invest it and do decently as well).  But when it comes down to it, I’ve really liked not having credit card payments and it feels great not to be paying on my everyday items anymore.  I can only imagine what it will feel like to have the house paid off one day…  The really amazing thing is that it’s not that hard - oh, it’s hard, but not that hard.  At the very least, it’s been interesting having to make all these choices now that I have a “real world” income.