Matt is now married to a wonderful woman. Those of us who know Matt really thought this would never happen. It’s not that he was not interested; it’s just that he never slowed down long enough to meet someone and form a relationship.
I’m off to Colorado to tie the knot with my long-time girlfriend, Stefanie. We’re throwing a small wedding in Aspen this weekend and afterward we’ll be honeymooning in Europe for a month. I’ll try to find some time to post pictures but I’m not sure whether we’ll have Internet connections in our hotels.
FYI, the photo was taken in a Tokyo photo booth. It cost $1.00 and – although it looks silly – it’s probably the best picture we’ve ever taken. Have a nice month everyone!
I’m updating my RSS feeds and came across an interesting article by Andy Gluck over at Financial Advisor magazine. He talks about Web 2.0 and some of the sites that he and his kids have been using.
He ran into the same problem Mike did when he talked about Web 2.0 a few months ago. If you ask ten different people what “Web 2.0″ means, you’ll get ten different answers.
From the article:
It’s reminiscent of the six blind men who each touch different parts of an elephant. One touches the tusks and says the elephant is like a spear, another touches the trunk and says the elephant is like a snake, and so on. In this case, the beast is so large and multifaceted—the World Wide Web 2.0—that it, too, defies any single definition and is experienced in different ways.
It’s been a little over six months since I installed Vista on one of my machines. I thought this would be a good time to re-visit Vista and let you know how it’s going. I’ll sum it up for you: pretty screen-savers.
The new Microsoft Office Suite is extremely cool. It’s the most radical change I can remember since the move from DOS to Windows. There are no menus. Nothing but tool strips, which are toolbars on steroids. Instead of having two separate concepts of menus and toolbars, they’ve been merged into one new entity.
I started using Word 2007 today and my first impression was that I absolutely hated it. I never used toolbars in Office 2003, and didn’t appreciate them being forced on me in this new version. I want my damn menus back. But then something clicked in my head – this really isn’t any different than having menus. Look at the tab strip above the fancy new toolbar. See the Home, Insert, and Page Layout tabs? Think of them as menus. Clicking one of them changes the toolbar options that are displayed, just like clicking different menus used to display different sub-menus.
I did a post at the beginning of the year where I laid out the pricing models of all the current portfolio management software. Something that struck me then, and has continued bugging me, is the high cost of Schwab and Advent’s systems. They start at $8k and $10k respectively.
Techfi started out charging $2k and reluctantly raised our price to $3k in our last year or so. At the time (if memory serves) Advent had an entry-level product for around $2k and Schwab’s starting point was about $3k. I’ve been stumped trying to figure out how the price could have jumped so dramatically in just five years. Had it only been low because of pressure from Techfi? Well apparently Schwab has seen the error of their ways and is dropping the price on Portfolio Center.
On one of the many mailing lists that I am a member of, I received a report of how the next generation of financial software will be built for mobile devices. I will not give a plug for the mailing list because 90% of the time it’s just a form of spam, however, once in a great while they put something in like this. I’m not sure I agree with the assessment.
Microlending, peer-to-peer lending, or social lending is something I’ve been keeping my eye on for the last year. It’s an auction service that bypasses banks and lets individuals loan money directly to the borrowers. It is quickly becoming a legitimate investment option and it won’t be long before it bursts into the mainstream finance world.
The concept is that people who need money request it, and other people bid for the privilege of lending it to them. These lenders spread their loans across numerous borrowers, reducing their exposure to defaults. The borrowers’ loans are filled by “syndicates” of lenders who have bid different dollar amounts on different interest rates.
I just got back from my bachelor party and feel obligated to do a New Orleans-related post. Actually I got back yesterday but needed a day to recover. I have a vague recollection of Mike buying me tequilla shots around 6am and it gets blurry after that. Great party.
We had a day of rain, a day of Jazz Fest, and I had a day of lying in bed with a hangover. My dad showed up as did numerous friends. Yes, the picture above is a store with a foot of water *in* the store.
Once again, the insurance companies are being sued. This time Minnesota suing American Equity Investment Life Insurance Company, over Equity Indexed Annuities (EIA). In January Minnesota sued Allianz Life Insurance Company over EIA contracts.
Once again insurance companies are pushing sales people with bonus commissions and other perks. I can remember one company that visited my office long ago and was pushing 110% commissions and if you sell 5 you get a free cruise. Tell me that does not stink of something being wrong.