isGEEK pairs with ABstocks.com to launch stock market investing for beginners and the technology savvy
isGEEK has recently paired up with ABstocks.com to launched a beginner’s guide to stock market investing and option trading. Many of our computer geeks and smart/tech savvy people use computers all the time and would like to find a way to generate some income or get into investments using their computer and an online discount brokerage: this is the time. You have the knowledge of computers that many regular users don’t have, so why not just educate yourself on some financial terms and stock market strategies to perhaps generate some money or invest. It can’t be harder than setting up a new wireless internet connection at home for a beginner! Just remember to start small and be very conservative in the beginning!
Another benefit of taking vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiency is showing more and more on the news and the studies show that vitamin D prevents cancer, boosts immune system and prevents MS (a deadly disease of the nervous system). 1000-4000 IU is safe usually per day but you have to do your research on your daily intake and check your blood vitamin D. People in countries in the north with less sun have most of the vitamin deficiencies.
Toshiba self-erasing hard drives?
Would you buy one of these? What will happen if the hard drive has a mix up and erases your data by accident? Either way it is an interesting article to read:
Toshiba to launch self-erasing hard drives
Please leave a comment to express your opinion.
Toshiba to launch self-erasing hard drives
5 Tablet Comparison
Here is a good table for comparison of the latest tablets on the market by the major companies.
Japan radiation is very high
According to recent news, the radiation coming from the two cracks on the reactor from the steam (water is sprayed to cool the reactor) is extremely high that can cause an instant death. It is reported to be 10,000mSv where as a typical cat scan is 3mSv amount of radiation. The water near japan is toxic and they can’t have any food exported or consumed in there due to high radiation.
Japan came with a news few days ago that everything is under control, but now this news is not very convincing. Some say Japan has has had a good history of hiding nuclear issues in the past. We never know how much they are hiding or even the international community is hiding to avoid a massive worldwide panic. This issue doesn’t seem to be improved at all and the long term effects will be seen in generations to come from the radiation.
Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 are out
We have just downloaded Firefox 4.0 and so far it has been good. The tabs, menus and the status bar are changed and they are smaller to leave the extra space for viewing more page space. The browsing speed seems to be faster. The options don’t look like to be changed . Overal it is a smoother web experience. Thanks to Mozilla team. For those that have firefox 3.6.xx you can simply upagrade to version 4 by going to the help menu and checking for updates and selecting to upgrade to Firefox 4. It is a ~15mb download and you have to close firefox for the upgrade. The download servers were slow for us, and we had to stop and start the download process a few time to get it done.
We haven’t tried IE9. It is not available for Windows XP users and only Vista/Windows7 OS. Since our main browser is Firefox, we are not going to get it updated very soon until most bugs are fixed on a new version of IE. Feel free to upgrade and test it on your machine, and the upgrade can be done by windows update.
Japan, Europe, Middle East
As we have mentioned, isGEEK will put financial news that are technology and world/stocks related. The first financial news was published here.
Japan increased the severity of their nuclear disaster today to a 5 from 4 (the Chernobyl disaster was a 7) . Portugal was downgraded 2 points few days ago, and the Bahrain condition is getting worse.
The stocks US/Canada stocks rebounded a little today and yesterday and oil also went up again. There was a few good news out about US/Canada economy recovery.
There are still many uncertainties and many unsolved issues with US economy such as the housing market and the high unemployment as well as 14 trillion US debt. We are not out of the woods yet or at all. It would be interesting to see what will happen in the next 6 months or shorter period if something drastic happens like the Japanese earthquake.
Lets all hope the radiation from Japan doesn’t spread to other parts of the world.
Here is an interesting video by BNN about Japan and the disaster.
Quick financial news for today
isGEEK will start posting financial news (a summary) every few days since it is important for geeks and smart people to know about the financial situation of the world and not only technical information and news.
Here is the financial news summary for today:
Spain’s rating is cut to AA2 by moody saying the bank system cleanup is going to cost double what what is estimated- China posts a huge trade deficit compared to estimated (meaning they are importing more than exporting)
- Bank of Korea increases the interest rate, since they are importing oil heavily and with the increase in the oil prices everything will go up in Korea so they have to keep up with the inflation
- Canada on the other hand vs Korea and other Asian countries, is a net exporter of oil and the loonie has been going up, so both higher oil prices and higher loonie help to keep the inflation lower in Canada. This is another reason why Canada is favored in the world with a good financial situation.
- Bank of England holds rate steady as expected
Conclusion
We are perhaps entering a bear market. Last time we entered a bear market and then the recession was in 2007-2007 with prices of oil hitting $96 around October 2007 that we shortly started a bear market then a recession. Manufacturers and retailers are under pressure right now with high oil prices since their cost has gone up, and if they transfer the cost to the consumer that is not getting any wage increase or mostly unemployed, they will see their sales decrease. This was not the case in 2007-2008 since unemployment was low and wage increase was in place so manufacturers and retailers could transfer the higher cost of oil or inflation back to consumers and consumers would take it.
So now the inflation, more inflation due to sudden oil increase, Libya, the new Europe problems and China trade deficit, is perhaps starting a bear market (at least past two days). It would be interesting to see where the market is going next few days.
Canadians use internet twice as any other nation
According to a recent article, Canadians are using an average 40+ hours a month on internet vs average of the world of 20+ hours a month. They say canadians are geekier and they spend most of their time on facebook and youtube. The two reasons we can think of is the Canada is in general colder than other nations and people choose to stay indoor and that explains the comupter content or internet consumption, and Canada consists of mostly newer immigrants which are the top of the crop in their countires (ie. Engineers, Doctors or at least with some educational degree). This explains the geeky-ness, and the love for computer and information.
Yet Canada has a low technology company establishment and US beats Canada on being way more innovative with successful start up companies. Is Canada just a user of the internet without producing?
The article can be found in here.
Recent NASA Articles
In the past two days there has been new articles coming out showing that there is life outside earth and even life on earth started from outside. Here is an article that is very interesting to read:
Strange life signs found on meteorites: NASA scientist
On another NASA related topic, a multimillionaire hires a ex-NASA scientist to work on a private spaceship project. This is the article to read:
Multimillionaire hires ex-NASA ‘naut to work on private spaceship
And now a financial news for today: stocks declined due to the war in Libya getting intensified and the oil prices are skyrocketing because of that. The inflation is edging higher with the oil prices and analyst say if the prices keep going up, we will hit another recession soon. The recession in 2008 started shortly after the skyrocketing oil prices of over $140 a barrel. The more the prices of oil going up, less disposable income people have and they will spend less, growth will slow world wide, interest retes will go up which will slow china. The demand in china going down means all commodities will decline and we will hit a slow recovery or a double dip recession. If we go to another recession, there is no more money printing and stimulus since all countries (mostly USA) has shot all their bullets and are more in debt than ever. If this recovery is fulty and recession hits it will be a mojor one, not the same as the last one which went by quick in 2 years.
Maybe that is why there is so much NASA activity? People getting away from Earth? Although this is a joke, but you never know!