Everything I Plan on Forgetting http://extraram.posterous.com notes and cool things on the stupid stuff i do posterous.com Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:00:00 -0700 Investing For Beginners: Exactly what You Need To Know http://extraram.posterous.com/investing-for-beginners-exactly-what-you-need http://extraram.posterous.com/investing-for-beginners-exactly-what-you-need

If you would like to make some money then you need to invest just what you have. If you are brand-new to the market place there is no need to fret as there are different strategies which makes investing for beginners much simpler. To know the correct types of financial investments to choose you ought to have a target of precisely how much money you might like to make and by when. This will definitely help you narrow down your options.

Know where to get financial investment advice from. Avoid tuning in to rumors about the next best stock from unqualified people. Pick an economic consultant or a person that is economically smart to assistance you. You also need to do your very own research to recognize what is going on in the market.

One relatively new way to invest is in peer to peer networks.  Lending Club review talks about the benefits of peer to peer lending with the biggest player in the business, Lending Club.

Do not invest in a haphazard manner. Have a plan that you will carry out. This will certainly prevent you from getting carried away by the rumors in the market about the most recent warm stocks. A plan will definitely additionally help you recognize what your following action of action is. This will certainly avoid you from getting confused about just what to do.

Just invest money that you can afford to loose. This will definitely provide you a ton of freedom to study on various possibilities. If you can not manage to suffer a loss you will definitely be constantly worried about the economic problems you could possibly enter in case you loose the money. This can easily induce you to make impulsive decisions. You should be ready to loose cash in case a promotion goes awry but this must not be the objective.

Know the costs that you will definitely have to pay to ensure that you really have really good returns. For example if you are making use of a broker recognize precisely how much they will charge you for their services. Funds which have high expenses ought to be stayed clear of as you will certainly not benefit much from them.

Keenly follow the marketplace and recognize precisely how your investments are influenced by several economic, social and also political factors. This is considering that the economic climate fluctuates, and you might need to make changes in your financial investments from time to time to lessen risk. To stay clear of excessive hustle take advantage of numerous home computer programs that have been produced to specifically oversee numerous investment choices.

Investing for beginners is not that hard the moment you recognize the basics of the market and just what to keep an eye on. Take your time as you stand an opportunity of getting more returns from longterm investments instead of short term investments. Beware exactly how you manage your money and just take well determined hazards. Be persistent and do not give up.

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Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:03:00 -0700 Embed A Custom Online Countdown On Your Blog http://extraram.posterous.com/embed-a-custom-online-countdown-on-your-blog http://extraram.posterous.com/embed-a-custom-online-countdown-on-your-blog

Want to add a custom online countdown clock to your website or blog?  I just added a new feature to countdowning.com which gives access to embed code.  Here's the test.

 

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Fri, 22 Jun 2012 09:48:00 -0700 Solo Party Cups Have Built In Measuring! http://extraram.posterous.com/solo-party-cups-have-built-in-measuring http://extraram.posterous.com/solo-party-cups-have-built-in-measuring

Pretty smart!

Solocup

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Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:04:00 -0700 New Instant Store Project http://extraram.posterous.com/new-instant-store-project http://extraram.posterous.com/new-instant-store-project

Hello Andrew,

Yes, you are writing to yourself.  No one else is reading this but you.  Anyway here's the launch of a knew type of store.  

No inventory, No programming, No money handling!

Check them out here:

Strength Training For Women

Infomercial Products HQ

Good Gift Hunting

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Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:25:00 -0700 Create Custom Online Countdown Clock http://extraram.posterous.com/create-custom-online-countdown-clock http://extraram.posterous.com/create-custom-online-countdown-clock

So i'm approaching the big 30 in less than a year.  I gets to thinking about it and I gotta make all my remaining days in my twenty count.  So I built up a quick countdown clock application.  Check it out at http://www.countdowning.com

 

Basically you just set the time you want it to count down to and watch it go.  Link yoru friends, add some fb comments and etc.  It's kinda clool in some ways.  haha i'm old....

 

As a demo I created a slap countdown 

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Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:14:00 -0700 Can't make everyone happy http://extraram.posterous.com/cant-make-everyone-happy http://extraram.posterous.com/cant-make-everyone-happy

I was listening to adele today on youtube, which I frequently do.  

Anyways it has like a billion views and like a million likes and of course... about 2061 DISLIKES.  And then there's always the one comment with someone saying "How can 2061 people dislike this?"

So the lesson I'm trying to remember here is you just can't make everyone happy.  There are going to be people who hate for the sake of hating.  Don't let it get you down and don't let it prevent you from trying something cuz someone is hating it.  You should probably stop doing it at the point where more than 50% of the people are disliking you rather than liking you.  On a deeper note, different people have different weight on this scale.  

Anyway I just hope to affect people in a positive way than a negative way and to me that's success.

 

Nerd Notes:

At the time of this writing, 194,563 likes, 2,621 dislikes.  Which means that 1.32921535% of americans are just plain haters.

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Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:58:00 -0700 Wow, I didn't realize I could care less http://extraram.posterous.com/wow-i-didnt-realize-i-could-care-less http://extraram.posterous.com/wow-i-didnt-realize-i-could-care-less

The irony, I'm gonna write about something because it is something so useless that i had to write about it.

Who wore it better?  Aww, i'll admit this is somewhat of a guity pleasure of mine to judge rich, beautiful celebs in my otherwise non beautiful women seeing world.

http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/a-line/fashion-faceoff-kristen-bell-vs-anna-paquin...?#omg-comments-wrapper

But this has to be the stupidest one of them all, Kristen Bell vs Anna Paquin.  Not because of the women involved, but the dresses are not even the SAME! and THEY wore it "within 2 months of each other" which equals TWO MONTHS!!!  AM I take CRAZY PILLS, cuz these dresses are not the same it was 2 months apart and Kristen Bell OBVIOUSLY wore it better as she won it with 70% of 68000 VOTES.  

 

Goodness, this is both comical and hopeful to me.  if people read and vote on such worthless content, maybe I'll be able to make a website that will get as many visit.

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Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:52:00 -0700 Dog people and Cat people http://extraram.posterous.com/dog-people-and-cat-people http://extraram.posterous.com/dog-people-and-cat-people

I have this theory about cat people vs dog people and what kinda people prefer what kind of animal.  This does not apply to every cat or dog person.  In fact if you have outdoor dogs and cats, I feel like this doesn't really apply.

Dogs are very social creatures and require a lot of care and attention.  The trade off is that they love you unconditionally, they want to be with you all the time, and are happy when you are around.  I would argue even though a dog is a lot of work, you are getting more from your dog than what the dog gets from you.  I think selfish people like dogs, because of the unconditional love and loyalty a dog brings.

Cats for the most part are very independent.  All you do is put out food and clean the litter box.  This may seem like not a lot of work, but the cat is getting more from you then you from it.  A cat plays with you when it wants to, let's you pet it if it wants to, and generally calls the shots.  So even though a cat is less work to take care, you are the caretaker and not the cat.  

So even though the cat is less work, it requires a caretaker willing to give more than they receive. With the dog, the caretaker gets more than what they put in.  So dog people i believe are generally more selfish people and cat people are generally more independent.  I do think this dependency does make owners in general more closer with their dogs.  Whether that's a good thing depends on the person.

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Tue, 17 May 2011 14:10:00 -0700 What I Learned from a Home Inspector http://extraram.posterous.com/what-i-learned-from-a-home-inspector http://extraram.posterous.com/what-i-learned-from-a-home-inspector

So lately, I've been considering that huge leap up the adulthood ladder: purchasing my first home.  Lucky for me, I wasn't going into this young dumb and blind.  I've put down some loot on my sister's property acquisitions, and as a result, got a peak into intermittent parts of the process, especially the hard parts.  But truth be told, my sister did most of the legwork, and nothing beats direct experience like, well, direct experience.  

What precipitated the interest in leaving the rent market?  With what I learned about financing and some of the asking prices being bandied about my neighborhood, I'm starting to figure out that some of the newer places literally have lower monthly mortgage rates than my current rent, assuming I put down a good part of my savings into the down payment.  Armed with this knowledge, my itch just grew, so I went to my sister for advice.  

As it turns out, my sister had a secret weapon in her Los Angeles area home inspector, Mr. James Kim of Apple Property Inspections.  For the first 2 months, I went on a property browsing rampage, sort of learning along the way what I was looking for.  I boiled my choices down to 3 viable selections: a condo in Santa Monica, a duplex in West Los Angeles, and a 2.5 bedroom home in Studio City.  It was time to have Mr. Kim take a look.  

So Mr. Kim found many positives and negatives in all 3 properties, any of which I wouldn't even think or have the expertise to look for.  In the condo, he found a sinking foundation line, which was of not immediate issue, but would require an expensive fix 5-10 years down the line.  No wonder the price was so good!  The duplex was an older property, and he found troubling signs of possible mold and insect damage in a crevice I didn't even think could physically exist in that home.  Lastly, he took one look at the newly remodeled Studio City home, literally knew the construction company to be reputable, and gave me an engineer's tour of the house, explaining exactly why he thought the contractor did everything right.  

I felt like Goldilocks when that 3rd property got Mr. Kim's inspection.  Alas, I was handily outbid for that Studio City property... and now I suspect they must have hired Mr. Kim as well!  

Anyhow, unless you're bidding on the same home as me, I highly recommend a James Kim home inspection.  It's rare when I get great service so I like to acknowledge it when I get the chance.  Check out his website and qualifications (he's a real civil engineer!) on his official website: www.homebyjames.com, and send me your thanks in the comments!

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Mon, 16 May 2011 16:17:00 -0700 Launching my new website dineries.com http://extraram.posterous.com/launching-my-new-website-dineriescom http://extraram.posterous.com/launching-my-new-website-dineriescom

A lot of my posts for the forseeable future will probably be related to technical aspects of creating dineries.com

Dineries is a restaurant menu website which I just launched last month.  Hopefully with continual work it will bloom into a full fledged restaurant guide site.  As of now I only have select cities in California, but we plan on expanding soon.

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Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:13:00 -0700 can't start mysql with bind address http://extraram.posterous.com/cant-start-mysql-with-bind-address http://extraram.posterous.com/cant-start-mysql-with-bind-address

Wow what a nightmare.  I'm trying to grant remote mysql access on my ec2 instance.  So I go though the steps

  1. edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf and change the bind-addess to my server ip
  2. create a new user in mysql, grant privileges and flush privileges
  3. open up mysql port on ec2 console security tab
  4. ok time to restart mysql now with /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Got the error message:

Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8) utility, e.g. service mysql restart

Ok no problem let's try the new way with 'service mysql restart'

and it hangs..........  Two hours later i'm hating computers.  Ok but here's the trick.

 

In short here's the answer.  The amazon gives out elastic ips and this is what i put as my bind-address back in step one.  Apparently this is not the right address and they don't propery give me an error message to tell me this.  type ifconfig, get the private ip address and set it there.  Voila.  There ya go.

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Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:00:00 -0700 My ubuntu new server checklist http://extraram.posterous.com/my-ubuntu-new-server-checklist http://extraram.posterous.com/my-ubuntu-new-server-checklist

Ok so I setup a new ubuntu server every once in a while and I have a hard time figuring everything out.  So here's my checklist of the stuff I end up painstakingly look up to do over and over again.


  1. Create New User
    • sudo useradd -d /home/NEWUSER -m NEWUSER (the d flag is to set the home directory and the m flag is to create the directory)
  2. Change Password
    • sudo passwd testuser
  3. Add User to admin group OR do #4
    • usermod -g admin NEWUSER
  4. Give Sudo Access in /etc/sudoers (the first is no password asked for sudo, and the 2nd asks for password to sudo)
    • user1  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL 
    • user2  ALL=(ALL) ALL
  5. Enable Bash Script on new user
    • Go to /etc/passwd and change line to something like this: user1:x:1001:1001::/home/user1:/bin/bash
  6. SSH disconnecting?  Well, keep the connection alive.
    • Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config
    • Add line TCPKeepAlive yes
  7. Bash rc stuff
    • Edit ~/.bashrc
    • grep auto-coloring: export GREP_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
    • rails env: export RAILS_ENV=staging

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Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:10:00 -0800 Tsunami in Emeryville! http://extraram.posterous.com/tsunami-in-emeryville http://extraram.posterous.com/tsunami-in-emeryville

So you kno that 8.8 earthquake that hit the eastern coast of japan today?  Well, it caused a tsunami in emeryville, ca where I live!

 

Kinda weak, but also amazing that it traveled all this way from japan.  I hope my shits ok...

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Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:57:00 -0800 Everything I don't want to kno about freeBSD http://extraram.posterous.com/everything-i-dont-want-to-kno-about-freebsd http://extraram.posterous.com/everything-i-dont-want-to-kno-about-freebsd

Ok, so for the most part I develop on mac and run my apps on ubuntu.

But I have this older project I'm maintaining on a freeBSD distro.  So I had to do some stuff on it.  Here's the log of stuff I did

  1. Update Ports.  I guess this is the debian apt-get eqivalent of freebsd
  2. Uninstall lighttpd
  3. Reinstall lighttpd

# portsnap fetch # portsnap update # cd /usr/ports/www/lighttpd # make deinstall # make reinstall

That didn't fix my problem, but had to figure this out anyway. Also the machine was monitoring lighttpd with supervise unable for me to shut down the service. If i try to stop/kill lighttpd, supervise fires it up again to my annoyance. On my machine there is a /service folder with symlinks to other folders. I had to remove the symlink from the /service folder and run a svc -dx /path/to/where/symlink/links/to

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Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:57:00 -0800 Rails: View SQL queries in the console http://extraram.posterous.com/rails-view-sql-queries-in-the-console http://extraram.posterous.com/rails-view-sql-queries-in-the-console

So you see the queries in your rails server log as you are playing with your app, but what about when you are testing in console?  I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but this does the trick.  Just start up your rails console and type this line in. 

ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)

Look at the awesomeness.

script/console Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.10) >> ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT) => #<Logger:0x103332350 @formatter=nil, @level=0, @default_formatter=#<Logger::Formatter:0x103332300 @datetime_format=nil>, @progname=nil, @logdev=#<Logger::LogDevice:0x1033322b0 @filename=nil, @mutex=#<Logger::LogDevice::LogDeviceMutex:0x103332260 @mon_entering_queue=[], @mon_count=0, @mon_owner=nil, @mon_waiting_queue=[]>, @dev=#<IO:0x100177ba8>, @shift_size=nil, @shift_age=nil>> >> Campaign.find :first   SQL (0.2ms)   SET NAMES 'utf8'   SQL (0.1ms)   SET SQL_AUTO_IS_NULL=0   Campaign Load (0.4ms)   SELECT * FROM `campaigns` LIMIT 1   Campaign Columns (9.6ms)   SHOW FIELDS FROM `campaigns`

On the topic on viewing queries, a cool rails 3 tip is the .to_sql method

rails c Loading development environment (Rails 3.0.5) ruby-1.9.2-p136 :001 > ExtractionLink.where(:status => 'new').order('name').to_sql  => "SELECT `extraction_links`.* FROM `extraction_links` WHERE `extraction_links`.`status` = 'new' ORDER BY name"

 

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Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:24:52 -0800 Hello Blogging World (try number like 302) http://extraram.posterous.com/hello-blogging-world-try-number-like-302 http://extraram.posterous.com/hello-blogging-world-try-number-like-302

Hello blog world filled a bunch of crap.  Time for me to once again try to start blogging.  This site is primarily for me to log everything I learn, because I've been learning a lot and forgetting a lot.  If I put it here, at least I know where to find it.  As a positive side effect, i may be able to help some people with my very random collection of information I plan on posting about.  Here we go!

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