April 2007

You are currently browsing the articles from My Unbridled Enthusiasm written in the month of April 2007.

IsNot

We just upgraded some of our projects to Visual Studio 2005, and I have to say it is really like being able to write code in VB.Net that looks like:

if aObject IsNot Nothing then

End if

instead of

if not (aObject Is Nothing) then

End if

something always felt weird about the double negative in is not nothing. So it is an improvement (even if Microsoft wants to patent it.)

Now if somebody would just come up with an is Something I’m sold

if (aObject Is Something) then

End if

Written by Carlos on April 30th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software Development.

Do schools kill creativity?

Very inspiring talk by Sir Ken Robinson where he talks about the role of education and creativity.

Only 20 minutes long.

Written by Carlos on April 27th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Just for Fun and Personal Growth.

You are richer than you think

Global Rich list can help you put things in proper perspective.

If your annual income is $50,000.00 you are in the top 0.98% richest person in the world with only 59,029,289 people richer than you, and if we assume the World population to be 6,000,000,000 (6 Billion) that means that there are 5,940,970,711 persons poorer than you.

Makes you think

Written by Carlos on April 27th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Personal Growth and Personal Finance.

Start investing with just $100

I ran into this article today, The author says that you to can become an investor for as little as $100.00, he makes some good points on how to choose the investments, but then he goes on to recommend you buy ETFs for as little as $4.00 using Sharebuilder.

If you follow his advice you will probably make Money, but not as much as you could. The problem with this is that if you invest $100.00 and pay $4.00 in commission you are already 4% in the hole. your $100.00 is now $96.00 and it will take you make 4.16% before you are back to the original $100. (Yes 4.16% Math is funny that way, 4% of 100 = 96. But you need make 4.16% of $96 to get $100) so if you Investment makes 10% return the first year your total return will only be 5.6% since the commissions ate the rest of you money away.
Also the article incorrectly states that Mutual Funds are not an option for Investors with small sums.

(If you have $10,000 or more to invest, you’re better off buying mutual funds that track the same indexes as the ETFs listed below. There are no commissions for buying and selling fund shares at many discount brokerages. Funds aren’t an option for investors with small sums to invest because of the funds’ minimum purchase requirements, typically $2,500 or more, although these are often much lower for IRA accounts.)

There are a few mutual fund companies that allow you to invest in small ammounts,for example T Rowe Price and TIAA-CREF allow you to invest as little as $50.00 a month. (no initial minimum balance required but you do need to make a monthly purchase) And they offer a wide variety of mutual fund choices,from very conservative investment to more aggressive investments.
More information on this can be found in this article Only Have $50 a Month? So What, Start Investing! by Jonathan over at My Money Blog.

Written by Carlos on April 25th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Personal Finance.