09.19.07
Posted in business, life, tech at 2:37 am by mridley
I saw this article on VentureBeat that Mint, the online personal finance site, has launched. I have noticed press pieces about Mint off and on but I haven’t followed it closely. The idea is that you input your personal financial account information into the system and it then tracks and graphs your personal finances so you can determine where you’re overspending and where all the money really goes.
I haven’t decided yet if I’m all that keen to enter my personal financial login details into their site. Seems like a big target and one that’s as yet unproven in Internet battle. I may wait until the site has been up for a while without any security breaches.
On the other hand, I really like the idea of applying technology to personal finance. Of course this idea isn’t new; Quicken has been around for ages. What I’d like to see are more sophisticated financial modeling algorithms used by institutional investors and money managers made available in personal financial management packages.
I’m not sure what form that would take, exactly. Perhaps using some kind of Bayesian algorithm to compare financial instrument returns as compared to others available in the marketplace given a comparable principal balance? I’m not sure. But I think that technology has yet to finish revolutionizing personal finance; more is to come.
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09.11.07
Posted in life at 11:08 pm by mridley
I have been looking for employment recently as my last contract came to an end. In the process I have been talking to a number of recruiters. Several of them have commented that they have checked out this site, having seen the domain on my email address.
Of course I write entries here with the knowledge that anyone and everyone may read them, granted very few people actually do. But given the unknown audience and how it may impact me personally and professionally in the future, I try to keep this site fairly uncontroversial.
The problem with that is that it frankly isn’t very interesting and thus doesn’t have many readers. My life today is not all that exciting or scandalous but perhaps I’d have higher readership if I did include more about my personal life; yet given the sometimes high responsibility nature of my career I try to present myself across the board as professionally as possible.
I think the “best” personal blog site is Justin Hall’s old links.net. However even that site has become not much more than a billboard today. For a number of years Justin would write quite interesting accounts of his travels and daily life. It made for a compelling read and ultimately helped bring his name into the public consciousness (or at least the consciousness of the digerati).
Alas I am not willing to be as revealing as he was and from time to time I really do wonder what the point of this site is. Maybe some day I’ll take this site down, but for now I’ll continue with my sporadic and infrequent updates.
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Posted in entertainment at 10:59 pm by mridley
My TiVo informed me today that NBC has made pilots to four of their upcoming fall shows available for free via the TiVo and Amazon Unbox partnership. I have been looking forward to the new Bionic Woman ever since I heard it was picked up. I took the opportunity to watch the commercial free pilot today via TiVo and Amazon Unbox. It didn’t disappoint.
Tags: TiVo, NBC, Amazon, Unbox, Bionic Woman
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