Technology, Money & Questions

Posted by VK at 8:50 AM Comments

In my last article on Assets and Liabilities we saw that traditionally anything and everything that appreciates in its value over time is considered to be an asset. But, our traditional explanation doesn't holds good in this information era.were money holds an important place as never before. Hence, I suggested you to take a different perspective towards Asset, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad way.

An asset is something that not only appreciates in its value over time, but also brings cash inflow from time to time.

Going by this standard for assets, we can consider all the following instruments as assets.

1) If you are a business man, your business is your biggest asset. If you manage to make it successful, your business will bring you lot of cash inflow on top of appreciating in its value.

2) If you are an employee, your exclusive skill on your career domain is your important asset. You are paid for your skill. So, you need not hesitate to invest on your self improvement which would help you grow in your career.

3) Properly planned and rented buildings are absolutely wonderful assets. Of course, only if they are not mortgaged or the income from those rented properties is actually more when compared to your monthly installment.

4) Any virtual asset that brings you money is an asset. Virtual asset is something that exists in the virtual space, i.e., over the internet. There are several instruments available in this information era to make money via internet. Your speciality website can bring you lots of money through advertisements, blogs also work in the same way. The notable thing is, these assets also grow in its value over time.

5) All your investments are assets. Money invested in stocks, mutual funds, bonds, PPF etc,.

Build more and more assets if you want to become wealthy over time.

Posted by VK at 8:48 AM Comments

Posted by VK at 10:36 AM Comments

Cloud computing can be pretty much anything provided as a service over the network. It can be the ability to rent a single server or thousands of servers and run a large scale distributed application on those servers. It can be the ability to deploy an application with multi-tenancy in a platform without having to worry about the infrastructure needed for the peak usage. It can be the ability to store peta scale of data over the network, while providing restricted access and protection to the data via a service. As I said initially it can pretty much be anything, from Network bandwidth as a service to security as a service.

The use of virtualization in clouds has created a new set of layers: applications, services, and infrastructure. These layers don't just encapsulate on-demand resources as services, they also define a new development model. Within each layer of abstraction there are several business opportunities for defining services that can be provided on a pay-per-use basis.
Software-as-a-service [SaaS]
SaaS is the topmost layer and features a complete application offered as a service, on-demand. A single instance of the application runs in the providers platform and services multiple clients. The most widely known example of SaaS is SalesForce.com. Now we have many other players in this layer including Google.

Platform-as-a-service [PaaS]
The middle layer, or PaaS, is the encapsulation of a development environment abstraction offered as a service. It includes a payload of services. For example, a PaaS might consists of an OS, Web Server and a Database instance bundled bundled with a programming environment provided as a service. PaaS services can be provided for every phase of software development and testing or they can also be specialized around a particular area. Google App Engine is the best example.

Infrastructure-as-a-service [IaaS]
IaaS is the lowest layer and it delivers basic storage and compute capabilities as standardized services over the network. Servers, storage systems, routers, switches and other hardware resources are pooled to provide support for particular type of workload. IaaS allows efficient expansion of resources on-demand and peak workload can be easily handled. Enterprises need not spend money on infrastructures for peak usage. The best known commercial example is Amazon web services.

Posted by VK at 9:55 AM Comments

Today Apple unveiled its first multi-touch mouse - The Magic Mouse.

The Multi-Touch area covers the top surface of Magic Mouse, and the mouse itself is the button. Scroll in any direction with one finger, swipe through web pages and photos with two, and click and double-click anywhere. Inside Magic Mouse is a chip that tells it exactly what you want to do. Which means Magic Mouse won’t confuse a scroll with a swipe. It even knows when you’re just resting your hand on it.

Apple claims the following features:

1) You can click and double-click anywhere on the mouse's Multi-Touch surface.
2) Works as a standard two buttoned mouse when you enable Secondary click in system preferences.
3) Scrolls in any direction and pans to a full 360 degrees with a brush of a single finger along the Multi-Touch surface.
4) Using two fingers, swipe left and right along the Multi-Touch surface to advance through pages in Safari or browse photos in iPhoto.

More than its features it certainly looks sleek, elegant and beautiful.

Posted by VK at 10:20 AM Comments

If you are a salaried employee, you might be well trained in planning your monthly expenditures. You know the amount of money that flows in every month and hence, you plan your expenditures accordingly.
What would you do if you happen to get a sum of 5000 rupees unexpectedly? May be as a bonus from your employer or from a tax refund or the amount which you thought that you won't get back. Most of the time, our immediate reaction would be spend the money. Again we can attribute this to our human nature, if we do not have a plan in place, we normally spend for a lovely day.

I don't say that you should not spend; instead, all that am saying is to have a plan and then think about how much you want to spend on what. In case if you get an unexpected 5000 bucks, I would suggest the following ideas for you.

1) Top up your emergency fund. If you have not started your emergency fund, or just started recently, this 5000 rupees will do a very good contribution. What is an emergency fund? Generally, the total amount of money required for your and your dependents survival for a time period of 3 - 6 months is considered as an emergency fund. It is necessary that you build your emergency fund along with your investments. Put your emergency fund in a savings account that yields best of interests in the market.

2) Subscribe for a good financial magazine. Financial literacy is more important for every individual in-order to live a decent life in this information era. Investing in your own financial knowledge will pay off very well in the long run.

3) Pay off your credit card debts. If you have credit card debts with interests, pay them off first. Paying interest for your credit card debt will be the worst sin you can force yourself to do.

4) Consult an investment analyst to plan your investments. Early investment is the key to a successful and wealthy retirement. A person who starts his investment by the age of 25 will have a substantial difference in the wealth accumulated when compared to someone who started off at an age of 35.

5) Join a gym. If you are not a member of a gym already, think about joining a gym. Your physical fitness has direct correlation with your mental acumen as well as your financial fitness. Note of caution: If you don't behave yourself, gym will be an instrument which sucks your money in.

6) Invest for your career. See if you can learn something new in your career domain. Register for a technological training or if you are an avid reader, you can invest in books.

7) Give a good service to your vehicle. If you have your own vehicle, a good service on time will save you a lot of trouble and maintenance costs.

8) Upgrade your house-hold appliances. You can use this money to fix the problematic appliances in your house or upgrade to a more energy efficient utilities.

9) Invest a part of it in mutual fund and forget about it. All you need is a thousand rupees to invest in any of the available top rated funds.

10) Use it for the greater good. Last but not least, you can be a philanthropist at last. Since, you hadn't planned anything for this unexpected money, use it to provide a meal for kids in an orphanage or use it to plant trees in your community.

So, What are you going to do when you have your unexpected Rs. 5000?

Posted by VK at 9:46 AM Comments

How much you earn is not really important. What's more important is, how much you are able to save? People, all over the world earn money in one of the four ways.

1) By working for someone
2) By providing services
3) From their business
4) From their investment

These four categories of revenue generation is present always, even in the industrial age. When we moved out of industrial age to information age, many a things got changed. One important change is the way people looked at their money. In the industrial age, people from the first two category had very less means for investments if they wanted to build wealth. And the major notion was to save money, rather than invest and build wealth. But, in this information age with a global economy, there are umpteen number of tools available for investment.

People from the last two categories - business men and investors, are already well educated financially. Otherwise, there is no way they could be successful. By financial education I doesn't mean a doctorate or a degree from a highly acclaimed university. All you need to know is basic financial instruments and mainly, one should learn to read financial statements and numbers. People who make money by working for someone or by providing services to others are in a real need of financial literacy in the current scenario. Simply saving money in your bank account will not do any good. Though your money is secured, it is hardly working for you. You have to get out of thesaving mode and start investing your money. Your money should work for you. It should generate more revenue. And there are a lot of financial vehicles available to do that. In India, you can invest your money in,

1) Equities,
2) Mutual Fund,
3) Government bonds,
4) Gold funds,
5) Retirement plans
6) Post-Office saving schemes,
7) Real estate etc.,

Every investment instrument has lots and lots of providers. You should be able to pick up the good ones and financial education will really help your brain to see what your eyes cannot see. It will help you to differentiate facts from opinions. Its your hard earned money and I'm sure, you will not prefer a blind date with it.

Well, do not hesitate to invest in yourself. Spend enough time and if needed, necessary money to train and equip yourself with knowledge. Your financial knowledge will pay you off very well in the long run.

Posted by VK at 9:51 AM Comments