My Story:

Three years ago, I noticed my left middle fingernail began turning white instead of its normal healthy pink. I did not know what was going on, but after a few weeks, the entire nail became white and flaky. At first I did not think much of it, but then I started getting regular questions along the lines of “what the heck is wrong with your nail, you freak?” Subsequently, I decided to go to the doctor.

After a short appointment, the doctor told me I had “onychomycosis,” which means nail fungus in regular-person language. He said that I needed to take a medication called Lamisil for two months. That sounded easy enough. But there was a catch: I needed to get a blood test to make sure that my liver could handle the medication.

At that point, since I like my liver, I asked the doctor if I had any other options. I told him I understood the medication was probably more convenient than the other options, but that I would much rather see if I could try a solution that didn’t involve damaging my liver. He told me this was my only option, and that if I did not take the Lamisil, my nail would grow thick and I would get frequent fingernail infections and live with constant fingernail pain. He then wrote me a prescription for Lamisil, using a pen with the Lamisil logo, and I walked out of his office dreading what might happen to my finger if I did not take the drug.

I have never had my own personal hard drive fail.  However, this past year both my roommate and girlfriend had hard drive failures.  In fact, my girlfriend’s hard drive has failed twice in the past year.  In both scenarios, every file was lost.  Pictures, school documents, and more were gone forever.  And because hard drives are not indestructible, this failure could happen to you.  Because of this everyone should prepare for this potential incident with three simple steps.

1. Back up your files regularly

If there are files that you just can’t live without, you should make sure they are backed up.  There are a couple of ways to do this.  You could buy an external hard drive and schedule daily/weekly backups.  You could also burn your files to CDs (or rewriteable CDs). 

My favorite solution, however, is online backups.  Using a program called Mozy (only available for windows currently), my computer backs up my files whenever I am idle.  It’s a free or pay service, depending on how many gigs of files you want backed up.  All you have to do is configure it once, and it becomes automated thereafter.

2. Monitor the status of your hard drive

A new wiki entitled Wikicars has launched. It’s basically a gigantic user-editable encyclopedia focused on cars that you can view for free. It follows along the lines of Wikipedia, but it’s car-centric. Although Wikicars is fairly new, and lots of information still needs to be added, Wikicars definitely looks like it has some promise. Right now it appears it will include information on buying, selling, maintenance, and more.

The reason this is so great is because it can be edited by anyone. As we have seen with the success of Wikipedia, with a few exceptions, this means information is quickly and often accurately assembled. Of course, Wikicars shouldn’t be the only place you do car-related research, but it’s a great place to start.

Changing your own oil is a great way to save money and get a feel for how your car works. I had no idea how to do it until a few months ago when my girlfriend taught me. Stop laughing.

Anywho, the annoying thing about changing the oil is that you have to get under the car. Putting a jack under the car or driving it up onto a ramp is annoying, and taking the plug out of the oil pan almost always yields oil on your arm.

Fortunately, you can buy the Topside Oil Changer for $45 from Amazon. It isn’t really worth it if you have a jack or ramps for your car already, but if you are just thinking about starting to change your own oil and don’t have supplies yet, this is a great way to start.

via kk.org

I just finished listening to the Warren Buffet interviews I posted the other day.  I’ve always heard good things about Warren, about how he’s a really nice guy and all, but after watching the interviews he really struck me as a genuine, cool guy.  Oh, and I guess it’s really awesome that he’s giving billions to charity.  He also gave some pretty useful tips for
investing in the second interview, including a test he uses to determine whether an investment is worthy of his money.

Buffet learned how to invest money from a man named Ben Graham.  Ben Graham practiced what is called “value investing.”  The idea of value investing is to invest in a company when you think that company is undervalued, and wait for the stock market to correct the mispricing.  For instance, if you look at a company’s earnings, debt, growth rate, potential future growth rates, etcetera and determine that it is worth $15 billion when the stock price only implies it is worth $10 billion, then you would purchase the stock.  Buffet says he learned a few key principles from Mr. Graham: