So my wife and I have been in the process of looking for homes for the last 3-4 months.  We found one that we liked, and are now a few days away from closing, but we learned a few things along the way, and I thought that perhaps some other first time home buyers might benefit from it. Step 1: Get a real estate agent that you trust. Sellers pay a percentage of the sale [...]

I’ve been trying to find a local electronics recycler because all my old computer junk is just taking up too much space. When you get new electronics and toys, you’ve got to get rid of some of the old ones. This process made me realize just how many gadgets I’ve got. Here’s the current inventory that’s not on the recycle list: iPod Touch (current favorite) Macbook Pro (close second) AppleTV Mac Mini Dell 2407WFP 5th [...]

I’m fond of telling my wife that computers only do what you tell them to, but twice in the last week, my work laptop proved me wrong. Last week, the wireless device suddenly disappeared. It wasn’t in the Device Manager, it wasn’t in my Network Connections Properties window, it wasn’t anywhere. I didn’t tell it to disappear. A few days later, it came back, but had lost it’s driver, so I had to go to [...]

And neither am I =) I don’t get mail like this on my Gmail account, but every once someone like Mr. Patrick K. Chan, Chief Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Hang Seng Ltd. Bank in Honk Kong makes it past my Hotmail spam filter. I realize that phishing is serious business and some of the scams are quite convincing, but this one was just laughable. Any email that starts like this is [...]

I think I found the Get Rich Slowly blog through the Google Reader recommendations, but regardless of how I found it, I like the way this guy thinks. My father and my father-in-law have very different philosophies on money and how to spend it, but my risk averse nature means that I tend to play conservative when it comes to spending thousands of dollars at a time. Alison and I are saving money to buy [...]