Research In Motion the maker of the BlackBerry email solution is the darling of the Canadian economy. I worked for them for almost two years after my graduation. The company is a mix of the best talent in Canada and a young vibrant group of 20 somethings. If I was to buy shares of RIM back in Jan 2005, I would have made 400% gain. I really miss my BlackBerry and their corporate culture.

Today they released news of their new handset the BlackBerry Bold, model number 9000. This handset is not much different from the Curve but does have a significant upgrade in specs:

• Networks: UMTS: 2100 / 1900 / 850MHz, GSM: 1900 / 1800 / 900 / 850 MHz, GPRS, EDGE and HDSPA networks
• Wi-Fi: 803.11a/b/g enabled
• GPS: Internal GPS with BlackBerry Maps
• Size: Length: 144mm, Width: 66mm, Thickness: 14mm
• Weight w/ battery: 133g
• Battery: 1500mAhr
• Battery Life: Standby 13 days, Talk time 5 hours
• Display: HVGA 480×320 pixels
• Media Player Audio supports: .3gp, MP3, WMA9 (.wma/.asf), WMA9 Pro/WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, Professional AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
• Media Player Video supports: DivX 4, Div X 5 & 6 are partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264 and WMV3
• Camera: 2.0 megapixel with 5x digital zoom and flash
• Bluetooth: Version 2.0 supporting stereo audio via A2DP and AVCRP
• USB/Data Transfer: USB port charges as well high-speed data transfer via USB A to mini USB
• Browser: HTML browsing will allow viewing of movies and clips from websites builtfor mobile streaming, RSS feed support as well.
• 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory
• 16GB microSD/SDHC card support
• 624-MHz StrongARM processor with full MMX

They sure have moved away from only catering to hardcore business email users, this BlackBerry will also appeal to the regular consumer. With a nice camera and now the ability to support iTunes with Media Sync, this will definitely be a worthy competitor to the 3G iPhone. The processor is two times faster then the BlackBerry Curve, for fluid, vidid video and multimedia purposes. It is announced that AT&T will be the exclusive retailer in the US and im sure Rogers will be the first to get it here in Canada. In the mobile space, RIM is certainly my favourite.

The highlight of my trip was defintely the Extreme ATV Tour. The guide from American Adventure Tours  was very cool and  picked us up from our hotel. We drove about 20 minutes out into the desert beside the Women Correctional facility. This tour is defintely not for beginners and I would suggest to take their other tour and not slow down the pace for others.

The ATV itself was a 4 wheeler and we went all the way up the mountains and full speed across a dry lake bed to Buffalo Bills Casino in the middle of the desert! I was told that sometimes they bring you up to the mountain top to take in the view but because we had some stragglers we were not able to do that route.

Its an exhilarating experience and I recommend it to everyone.

The other highlight of the trip for me is of course all the gambling! However, being a Computer Science major I only take calculated risk and would rather play poker against other players rather then against the house. Ihad the pleasure of playing at the Wynn, Excalibur, Planet Hollywood, Treasure Island, Mirage. My only souvenir for this trip was 1 dollar chips from each of the casinos I played at.

So that was my Vegas trip, I miss the warm sunny weather already

I am back from my trip to LA and Las Vegas. I was in LA to visit the Capcom mobile office in Westwood. It was awesome to finally meet all the people ive worked with over email and the telephone for the past 2 years. Sitting in the empty corner office with a breathtaking view of the Beverly Hills was defintely memorable.

We took a early morning flight to Las Vegas and immediately got into a cab and headed to the Gun Store. Capcom held a carrier appreciation event where we made targets of zombies in our game and let our carrier affiliates shoot real guns and real bullets. I must say, if you have never shot an assault weapon before, it is very wild! There were 5 guns in total to take a crack at. My favorite was the Ar-15 which is a modified version of the M16, it has a laser scope and was super loud, the AK 47 had a mount at the front and that thing can blast anything up smithereens! You have to wear goggles and ear phones, sometimes the bullets go flying into the air and can land on you and the sound is deafening. We gave away an XBox 360 to the person who shot closest to the bullseye.

We then checked into the Wynn hotel on the strip. Now I have been to Vegas last year on vacation but was never able to stay in these high class hotels and I must say the rooms are worth it. But theres a gazillion things to do in Vegas, you wont even be in your room!

The main reason for the trip was the CTIA wireless convention which was held at the Las Vegas Convention Centre this year. It was my first time to a trade show and it was very well planned and organized. I was able to see a few products which were new but the majority of mobile phones I already have worked with for the past couple of months. Most of the booths were hyping WiMAX… I thought that was old news? LG had the best booth, really concentrated on mobile TV and they showcased 3 different technologies. Samsung’s 08 lineup of phones was awesome and will likely drive Motorola out of the handset business for sure.

We managed to catch a few shows while in Vegas: Penn and Teller and Spamalot.

Penn and Teller was very entertaining and was more show then magic. However I think Teller’s slight of hand is amazing and for a silent act he pulls it off. One of the coolest things about their show is that they sometimes explain or show you how they do a trick, but its so difficult you still wouldnt be able to do them without lots of practice. They were nice guys and were inthe lobby after the show to give autographs and talk to the audience.

The other show was a Tony award winning musical Monty Pythons Spamalot at the Wynn hotel stars John O’Hurley as King Arthur.I know him as John Peterman, Elaines boss in Seinfeld. The show was hilarious and over the top, with references to everything from Mariah Carey to the current political candidates Hillary Clinton.

The highlight of the trip however was the Extreme ATV tour across the desert. Part 2 soon.

This past Easter long weekend, my girlfriend and I headed to Niagara Falls to check out the comedy club Yuk Yuks at casino Niagara. The cost was $17 a ticket for a Saturday night and we bought early in case it would sell out. It was a surprise when we bumped into friends and that helped to speed up the wait, as we stood outside of the theatre just watching people playing poker. About 45 minutes before the show a line formed in front of the theatre and we were excited.

When the doors opened we speed walked to grab one of the 6 or so booths right in front of the stage. The room which sits about 200 filled up quickly and was sold out. My friend had warned to avoid sitting in front of the stage to avoid being teased. She was indeed correct, as a couple of people in front were teased. For special occasions like birthdays this is the perfect place, you could order a wide range of drinks, wine and even chips and popcorn.

The MC warmed us up and the opening comedian was on for about 20 minutes and he was hilarious. I found the headliner from Nova Scotia not funny and me and my girlfriend both didnt understand anything he was making reference to. In the end he did do some great impressions. All in all we had an awesome time and the atmosphere was very good. I would defintely recommend checking out Yuk Yuks and look forward to the next night out!

Yesterday the investment banking firm Bear Sterns stock fell 47% and I learned an advanced investing technique called shorting. Most people buy a stock in the hopes that the value will increase in the long run, on the flip side when an investor goes short they are anticipating the value to decline.

The basic idea of shorting is to borrow shares of a stock from a broker , selling it immediately then buying the same number of shares back. If the price at which the shares were bought back is lower then the price at which they were borrowed, the investor profits from the difference.

Here is an example:

You borrow 10 shares of company ABC at $50. You immediately sell the shares at 10 x $50 = $500. The price of the stock falls to $40 a week later and you decide to cover, so you buy back, 10 x $40 = 400. You just made $100 in profit by shorting.

It sounds easy enough but it is risky, very risky. There could be the case where you tried to short a stock only to see that the price kept on rising. At some point you will have to cover the number of shares you originally borrowed.

Here is an example:

You borrow 10 shares of company ABC at $50. You immediately sell the shares at 10 x $50 = $500. The price of the stock rises to $70 a week later and you decide to cover, so you buy back, 10 x $70 = 700. You just lost $300 by shorting.

So be careful when shorting because you are playing with money you dont have. In the next article I will discuss other aspects of this technique.

The purpose of this blog is a medium in which I can share with anyone who is interested my goals, objectives, interests and opinions. I will mostly write about personal finance and investing as that is most important to me at this stage. Im sure my financial situation is like many other Canadians my age, I am 27 and hope to buy a condo in 2 years and retire early.

Life started for me after completing my undergraduate in 2000. I was very fortunate to have graduated without debt and I was ready to take life by the horns. Since the Computer Science program at York did not offer co-op I entered the workforce with no experience. It was very intimidating applying for jobs on Monster or Workopolis which required 3-5 years programming experience and I was not very optimistic in landing a full time job after 3 months with 0 callbacks. So what happened next? I settled for a technical support position with Canada’s favourite company Research In Motion (the maker of the popular BlackBerry).

After almost 2 years and a promotion later I was tired of hearing customers complaints and the pressure of fixing their mission critical email servers and so I started to look around. I was so lucky to find an opening with a company which every boy growing up in Canada should know…the company is Capcom. This studio in Burlington develops mobile games and I have been with them ever since.

My future aspirations and goals is to have more cash flow and to retire early. Currently the magic number is 40, so I have 13 long years left to achieve this. I have an insane thirst for knowledge and have been spending all my free time reading books, blogs and websites. Everyone has these same goals but what differentiates the winners from the losers? The ones who are successful are not only intelligent but they work hard, very hard, theres no magic wand here, just hard work and determination. So here we go!

The announcement of Visa going public on March 19th of this month is probably the biggest buzz in the industry at the moment.

Visa is considered as the world’s leader in retail electronic payments service, I myself have a CIBC Visa Select card . Visa cards are accepted in more than 170 countries around the world. Visa does not lend money but rather charge a service fee to merchants for using their network. The company was originally called Visa International Service Association.

I had been watching for Visa’s IPO since early 2007 after Mastercard went public and finally in late 2007 they started to restructure and merge Visa Canada, Visa International, and Visa U.S.A. a into what is now called Visa Inc.

Offer Overview

• Issuer: Visa Inc.
• Ticker Symbol: “V” on the NYSE
• Shares Offered 406 Million Class A shares
• Price Range $37.00 to $42.00
• Dividend $0.105 per share. Quarterly starting June 2008 (roughly 1% yield)

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and therefore am not recommending to buy any stocks discussed.

Why VISA IPO is attractive:

• Plastic will replace paper (cash and checks) in the near future. Developing countries such as China and India will soon be a slave to plastic just like us.
• Entry barriers into this business is very high.
• Visa has a very strong brand and will continue to experience growth in emerging markets such as Asia. The brand is as strong as MacDonalds, Sony, Coca Cola Company, Mercedes Benz.
• I believe John Patridge (Visa COO) is on the right track with such ideas as: Visa Gift Card, Card to Card transfers, ECommerce Solutions and Mobile transactions
• Double digit year to year growth in revenue

Update - According to Goldman Sachs the IPO has been moved ahead to Tuesday the 18th

Tax season is upon us and I hope to help you in choosing the right software solution. Filing taxes online through Netfile is definitely the better way, you save on cost and you receive your tax refund sooner ( in 10 days I believe). In order to file your taxes online with the CRA you will need Netfile certified software and all your documents such as T4, T4A. When looking for tax return software there are a few things I specifically look for:

• Number of returns allowed (CRA allows a maximum of 20)
• Tips/guide for additional deductions
• Wizard to walk through the whole filing process

This year my top 3 choices is UFile, QuickTax and StudioTax.

Ufile By Dr. Tax.English Futureshop Only

UFile

My taxes last year was filed using UFile by Dr Tax Software Inc., the software was easy to install and the wizard was very helpful and informative. You basically follow the 5 steps at the very top and then fill out the Netfile form and attach the .tax file created by UFile. Be sure to have your 4 digit Access Code ready when filing with Netfile.

This year I believe UFile has a new feature called MaxBack Refund Analyzer to automatically calculate and ensure you have maximized your entitled refund. If your net income is more then $25,000, you are allowed 8 returns and 16 with UFile Plus. Support is only available through email with the normal version and Ufile Plus also provides additional phone support.

Screenshot

QuickTax

This is the most widely used tax preparation software, however this year users are very upset that Intuit has reduced the number of returns to only 2. There are 3 versions for personal income tax returns, Basic, Standard and Platinum. The Basic version does not have support for RRSPs and spousal/dependant credits so I suggest at least purchase the Standard version. The prices for QuickTax is much higher then UFile. I have not used this personally myself so I recommend reading reviews on Amazon.ca.
Screenshot

StudioTax

StudioTax was created by 2 developers from Ottawa and is available for download for free from their website. Be generous and do make a donation. I tried it out myself this evening, the file was only 5.5 mb and easy to setup (please note you will need .NET Framework 2.0 installed before setup). The walk through wizard and interface is just awful, there are many bugs and spelling mistakes. The software calculated my refund correctly but I did not submit to Netfile. Support is only available through email. I think this software is a great solution for those who are on a budget.

Screenshot

In conclusion, my pick would be UFile which I intend on picking up at Futureshop for $19.99. Happy filing everyone!

What are they?

All weather tires or more commonly known as winter tires is my topic for today. This winter has been relentless, snowfall in the month of February was the highest in history and tonight we were hit with another 15-20 centimeters. I was driving home from the movie theatre in harsh freezing rain conditions with about 5 cm of snow on the highway. Traffic was really slow on the QEW and I drove past countless accidents and cars which spun out of control into the ditch but I was not afraid because I change my tires every winter to all weather tires.

Most of us have a set of all season tires which we use all year, they are great all around tires but below zero celcius they stiffen and lose grip with the road. If you live in the snow belt such as Waterloo-Kitchener, Hamilton and up north in Barrie and further north I highly suggest you get all weather tires for the winter.

Which tire to choose?

Snow tires are specifically designed to provide better traction and braking in deep snow conditions as well as greater stability and control on slushy roads. Some winter tires offer additional features that will enhance the tires’ performance in icy conditions. These features may include studs, specialized rubber compounds or additional traction enhancers moulded directly into the tire.

There are so many tires from different manufacturers out there and it was hard for me to choose. From my endless searching I found that the top 3 were:

1. Michelin X-Ice
2. Bridgestone Blizzak REVO
3. Bridgestone Blizzak WS-50.

Here is a quick video about different tires:

Here is a video which demonstrates the difference between All Season vs. All Weather tires:

Quick Tips:

• Install 4 tires - 2 tires or mixing tires will cause handling issues which can be very unsafe.
• As weather gets warmer, the rubber on your winter tires will melt. Change them to All Season tires (marked with M + S for mud and snow).
• Ensure you have proper air pressure.

When buying all weather tires, be sure to look for the symbol of the mountain with a snowflake logo on it. These tires have been designed specifically for use in severe snow conditions.

I myself bought the Michelin X-Ice from Canadian Tire but I am sure any reputable car shop, although expensive I was able to afford it because my car uses 13″ wheels. I hope that everyone has a safe drive into work tomorrow!

1998 - Created my own AsianAvenue page and started to customize the layout with simple HTML, CSS. Each day I would write a little exceprt about what occured and my daily ramblings for all my friends.

2001 - I followed a link from a AsianAvenue friend to LiveJournal and was talked into joining. At first the idea of sharing my personal thoughts with the world scared me abit, but once I started to write a few posts I didnt mind.

2004 - I discovered Xanga, a online community of bloggers. It was a great way for me to update my friends with everything that was going on in my life. This period was some of the best times of my life.

2006 - I tried out Blogger but felt that I was too disconnected, there was no sense of community.

2008 - Here we are, my very own domain name. I hope to make this my permanent blog where I can write about a wide variety of issues that interest or concern me.

As you can see, its been 10 years since I first started to blog. Blogging has certainly changed, there are bloggers who are making 6 figures just writing consistently about niche subjects or how to make money online. What I find really beneficial are the blogs from teams such as Microsoft, Sun, Adobe who try to keep us up to date with their projects and replying to comments. Blogging has certainly given a voice to those who would never have been heard, so I urge everyone to start writing and let yourself be heard.