Now, onto the show – I watched the Mark Bittman interview.  I’m not really their target demographic which is why the “set” probably wasn’t what I expected.  I can’t really take it to them for that though, it’s what I would consider a pretty standard set for interview format shows.  Overall, the episode seemed pretty “early stage” to me in that Samantha didn’t feel totally at ease, maybe even a little nervous.  Maybe it was the new setting but some of that may have been Mark who, in my opinion, seemed a bit snarky.  I think he’s earned a little of that right and I still think he’s a very interesting man.  Anyways, I look forward to future episodes as they just off the jitters and I can’t wait to see what kind of guests they can swing.  Knowing the little I do about Gary I’m sure they won’t disappoint.

In closing, I think it’s great idea that has real potential and it’s a bold move into a new demographic for Gary.  I want to see how it plays out but like I said earlier, he’s conquered wine and is making a play to expand his media empire.  For that my friends, you have to respect him.  As Gary would put it, he’s hustlin’ and you can’t get down on someone for that!  Keep up the great work Gary and I look forward to the other stuff you plan on bringing us.

So, in 2008 I…

• Flew 70,000 miles (let’s not discuss how many canceled/delayed flights)
• Traveled through 10 airports (RIC, CLT, IAD, PHL, ORD, SEA, BDL, SFO, BOS, DFW)
• Stayed 123 nights in hotels
• Rented 38 cars (comment still holds true about Aveo – I like the Mazda 6)
• Visited 8 states (WA, NC, MA, CT, CA, IL, TX, PA) other than VA
• I also stayed in a corporate apartment for 15 nights of 2008

It looks like my travel for 2009 will be quite a bit less.  I’ve taken a project that will have me only a couple hours drive from home.

GrandCentral Certificate Expires

January appears to be a rough month for the internet behemoth.  Last January, around the same time (January 23rd actually), someone at Google failed to renew the Google.de domain which brought it down for several hours after someone else registered it.

Not sure what an Equity-Indexed Annuity is?  Check out this description from the Securities and Exchange Commission:

An equity-indexed annuity is a special type of contract between you and an insurance company. During the accumulation period – when you make either a lump sum payment or a series of payments – the insurance company credits you with a return that is based on changes in an equity index, such as the S&P 500 Composite Stock Price Index. The insurance company typically guarantees a minimum return. Guaranteed minimum return rates vary. After the accumulation period, the insurance company will make periodic payments to you under the terms of your contract, unless you choose to receive your contract value in a lump sum.

Now that we’ve got that taken care of let’s get into things.  We’re going to be splitting our investment dollars between a Certificate of Deposit (CD) and a stock market index fund.  I’ll leave the fund decision up to you but you want to make sure it’s low cost.  Keep in mind that purchasing through your IRA gives you the benefit of a tax break.

For all three scenarios, we’ll assume that we have a 10-year investment timeline with an initial investment amount of $10,000.

After some searching around the internet I found a 10-year Capital One CD that was yielding 4.25%.  Not a bad rate given the current economic climate but see my note below – toward the end of the post.  For the index fund portion of our investment we’re going to assume an annual 6% return.  I know last years tremendous losses may have you laughing at that assumption but keep in mind we’re investing long-term and investors typically make back the bulk of their bear market losses in the first year of a bull market.  I’m no economist, but I don’t see the current financial crisis lasting through our 10-year example.

Scenario 1:

We’re risk averse and want to insure that we have, at the very least, our initial $10,000 when we’re done.  For those of you that are reading along at home, this is the same scenario that Money walks through.  I’m just using more recent yields and including a couple additional scenarios.

Here’s our game plan – invest $6,600 in the CD and $3,400 in our index fund.  To determine how much we need to invest in our CD today to guarantee our target minimum is met we run a present-value calculation.  Money recommends the calculators at moneychimp.com which I hadn’t used before today but they’re actually pretty good (here’s a direct link – bypass homepage).

In 10 years, provided the index fund we chose hasn’t lost 100% we’ll have somewhere north of the $10,000 we started with.  If the fund doesn’t increase or decrease at all we’ll have roughly $13,400 (CD + initial index fund value) and if it achieves the 6% annual return we assumed we’ll have about $16,000.  It doesn’t make us the next Warren Buffett but not bad for minimizing our potential loss.

Scenario 2:

In this scenario we’re going to continue with the risk averse theme but make sure we earn something for our time.  We want a guaranteed payout of $12,000.  We have to have some growth otherwise it’s just not worth the effort.

The higher guarantee means that we have to put more in our CD which means less in our index fund.  Less money at a higher yield (6% versus 4.25%) means lower potential on the upside.  I think you may be surprised how little the difference is though.  Here are the numbers…

Stash $7,950 in our CD and toss the remaining $2,050 into the index fund.

If our fund loses everything we still walk away with $12,000 in 10 years.  If the fund doesn’t do anything we’re going to get $14,050 back which is a few hundred more bucks than in the previous scenario.  However, as I said earlier, we’ve got less money earning a potentially higher yield.  This means our potential take away if our 6% annual return is met is $15,650…a few hundred bucks less than in the Scenario 1.

Scenario 3:

Last one, I promise!

We’re young, we know it and we’ve got plenty of time to make up some losses so we’re more willing to take on some risk.  Let’s say we’re willing to take a potential loss of $2,000 in search of a higher payday.

In order to guarantee our $8,000 we throw $5,300 in our CD and $4,700 in our index fund.

We now have $8,000 guaranteed but we’re in an index fund so the chance of it losing 100% is slim.  If our fund doesn’t do jack over the next 10 years we’ll come clean with around $12,700.  But, if our index fund returns 6% like we’re hoping, we take $16,400 straight to the bank (read: to another investment opportunity).

It’s only a few hundred bucks more than our previous examples so is it worth the added risk?  Well, that’s up to you and your personal investment style.  Investments by nature are risky but they’re a necessary evil if you want to build that nest-egg.  You should sit down with your financial advisor and decide what works best for your situation.  On a somewhat related rant, I’m against all financial advisor’s unless they charge a flat fee – typically hourly.  I think advisor’s that make commission on sales is a recipe for disaster.

One thing to keep in mind is that the CDs I discuss in this post are fixed yields which means if interest rates go up, you’re stuck earning a 4.25% yield until maturity.  There are techniques you can employ such as staggering CD purchases but they carry risks of their own.  For example, rates could go down which means future CD purchases could drop you below your target guaranteed minimum.  They do have some benefits though, if interest rates go up you could achieve a higher guaranteed minimum and it also allows you to maintain a certain threshold of liquidity.

I couldn’t find the article on Money’s website but I’ll try to keep my eyes peeled so that I can link to it.  If you happen to have the February issue on hand…it’s on page 35.  It really was a very interesting article.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and offer no warranty – implicit or explicit – to the investment approaches or thoughts outlined in this, or any other post on NathanHJones.com.  I am simply expanding on thoughts, experimenting with numbers and generally thinking outloud.

The Setup:

For the purposes of this post, I’ve created a generic ’sales’ address and an address for a fake employee – Johnny.  Johnny is so good, I want my big-dollar product leads going straight to him for quick conversion.  Every sales organization is structured differently, but we’re working under the assumption that our sales reps are product and territory based.  Our high-dollar product lines are the XY9500 and the YZ9900.  Johnny handles sales for MD, DC, VA, TN, NC, SC and GA.

The Approach:

GMail has a very advanced set of search operators built-in that happen to work with filters when included in the ‘Has The Words:’ text box during filter creation.  We’re going to create a set of filters in the ’sales’ inbox that will forward matching emails to the appropriate sales rep, label the message as ‘forwarded’ and then archive it.  Labeling and archiving the email keeps the inbox clean so that the generic address ‘manager’ only has to review and react to those messages that our logic doesn’t recognize.

The Execution:

Here is an email from a potential customer that found us on the web.  They’re interested in setting up a contract to purchase 100 of our XY9500 products.

Dear Sales Team:

My name is Phil and I’m the purchaser for Acme Associates based in Washington, DC.  We are in the market for 100 of your XY9500 products and would like to speak with a sales associate to obtain some additional information.

The best way to get in touch with me is via email or at 123-123-1234.

Thank you,

Phil

Acme Associates

Washington, DC 12345

For the state determination we’re relying on the fact that people use a full signature with the address.  You could also include area/zip code in an ‘or’ condition.  You can create another filter for just products that goes to an individual to distribute accordingly or to a distribution list of all the reps that handle that product.  Google Apps allows you to easily create distribution lists.

Within the ’sales’ email account enter the ’settings’ and create a new filter.  We’re going to leave everything but the ‘Has the words:’ field blank.  If you’re using a web form to capture the data you may be able to use the ’subject’ field but I think it’s a little more robust and easier to maintain if it’s all in one field.  One of the more important aspects of the operators to understand is that parenthesis “( )” equate to ‘AND’ and brackets “{ }” equate to ‘OR’.

The filter rule we’re going to use is: “({XY9500 YZ9900} {MD DC VA TN NC SC GA})”  This means that the email has to contain both a product of XY9500 or YZ9900 and a state of MD, DC, VA, TN, NC, SC or GA.  If it passes our filter, we’ll send it to Johnny, mark it as ‘forwarded’ and archive the email.  You could expand the list of states to include area codes since most people include at least one phone number in their signature.

Step 1

Step 2

Once you come up with a filter you want to use, test it by emailing yourself a few emails and entering the filter in the search field.  You know your customers best and if the email is caught (either included or excluded) as you expected then you should be good to go.  Here are a couple screenshots of the search – one note, the search feature will highlight pieces of the email that fit your criteria.

Search results from Sales inbox

Email with highlighted search results

The Debrief:

While this is in no way an exhaustive list of the advanced search operators, I think it is a good introduction and should get you started.  From a maintenance perspective, it would be best to create one filter per employee (sales person, PR agent, etc) so that in the unlikely event that they leave, you only need to adjust the forwarding email in one label to the interim employee.

If your website uses a contact form that potential customers fill out you have a little more opportunity for drilling into the data.  If you know how the data will be formatted when it hits your inbox that allows you to create more advanced filters and get things to exactly the right employee.  Maybe, your contact form has a ‘budget’ field with preset amounts and anything over a certain dollar figure gets sent to an urgent-response team.  There are so many applications for the search operators that spending some time to familiarize yourself with them will pay off in the long run.

One thing to experiment with is the ‘exclusion’ operator.  If you include the “-” symbol before one of your clauses it excludes items that meet that statement.  For example, if your filter criteria was “({XY9500 YZ9900} -{MD DC VA TN NC SC GA})” and you used the email above, your search results would return 0 results because it contains ‘DC’.

Don’t forget to have the office manager login and check those inboxes and forward those leads to the appropriate person.

If you have some other ideas that you use to make things easier, let me know in the comments.

Chrome got rid of the ‘fat’ around the browser giving me the tools/options I use the most and increasing my viewing area.  Another great feature is the fact that each tab runs independently so if one crashes it doesn’t destroy your entire browser session.  Just that one tab!  One thing I do wish they had though, ALT+F+C/X to close a tab.  However, that’s a discussion for another day.

Anyways, I’ve been using Chrome extensively the last few weeks and was disappointed when I discovered that there doesn’t appear to be any built-in XML/RSS rendering support.  I already use Google Reader so I’m not looking for an IE approach (feed in the browser – I don’t even use the browser), but something similar to Firefox would be nice if I happen to land on a page that is XML/RSS.  Not only does it not offer a way for me to subscribe to the document, it just displays raw text.  Here are some screenshots for comparison.

I’m disappointed but I’ll continue use Chrome.  It just makes it more difficult to subscribe to things than it was with Firefox.

RSS feed in Google Chrome

RSS feed in Firefox

RSS feed in IE7

ThemeForest Deposit Hack Shutdown

I must give them credit for at least modifying the pre-set amounts on the deposit page – now they’re in increments of $10 instead of $20.  Sadly, the lowest amount still starts at $20 and doesn’t really keep you from wasting, say, $8 on that $12 theme you want to purchase.  Keep in mind though, allegedly, if you email customer service they’ll extend your forfeit period beyond the stated one year.

I ran through the hack for a several different amounts but it appears everything is down.  Looks like a little validations before submitting to PayPal goes a long way.

In my comments I noted that I’d probably be back when I need another theme…I’m going to go ahead and retract that until this process is fixed.

Mint.com announced Friday that users of it’s free online money management suite can now create completely customized categories for tracking and reporting on spending habits.  Mint is a great tool (although admittingly, I haven’t set up all my accounts with the service) and they continue to roll out features that their users request making it more relevant to their needs.

Mint continues to make themselves more relevant to users everyday lives and ease the process of properly tracking their personal finances.  In the wake of the global economic disaster it becomes even more important to understand exactly where you stand financially and Mint aims to help.

Mint employs what I call a hybrid approach to expense tracking – users categorize and then tag expenses.  This gives users a very granular view of how money is spent.  My restaurant tabs could be either personal or business which may also be reimbursable.  It’s like the ‘folders’ of Microsoft Outlook meets the ‘labels’ of Google’s Gmail – the ultimate organization approach.  Now users can create their own categories if they don’t find a suitable one from the standard Mint list.

Categories can be created under any of the standard Mint ‘parent’ categories.  Here’s a shot of me making a custom category to for expenses related to this blog.  There isn’t really a good ‘parent’ for this so I placed it under ‘uncategorized’ for now.

The only problem I have with the customizable categories is that they had to be placed under existing ‘parent’ categories.  At least I couldn’t figure out how to create a new ‘parent’.  While this obviously isn’t a deal-breaker, it would still be nice for situations where there isn’t a suitable ‘parent’ already.  I’d like to see one where I could create my ‘NathanHJones.com’ category that is a little more appropriate than ‘uncategorized’.

All-in-all, I like the idea of customizable categories and thanks go out to the Mint.com team for constantly enhancing the application.

I guess for those few (maybe there is actually a lot) that have problems with drunk-mailing this could be a good fix but I’d much prefer Gmail spend the time to come up with ‘mailbox rules’ similar to Outlook.  Before people start screaming, yes, I know you can use Outlook with Gmail but I don’t want to have to use it.  With rules, I can easily setup a 1 minute delay on outbound emails.  This allows me to catch that last sentence or add that last recipient that may have slipped my mind as I clicked ’send’.

You can configure the settings on the ‘general’ tab after enabling the feature.  It’s a pretty quick configuration and let’s you tell Google when your preferred drinking times are and allows you to make it as easy or as difficult as you want.

As I found while I was testing, once you ‘pass the test’ once you can send as many emails as you want without being prompted to take the quiz again.  Apparently, you have to logout and then login again to re-prompt the ‘Mail Goggles’.  At least I had to logout, even when I tried sending messages to a different address.  Maybe it only asks you to verify once every set amount of time?!?

Verdict: Leave this one disabled.

Settings:

Gmail Adds Mail Goggles - Settings

Easy: 

Gmail Mail Goggles Easy Settings

Difficult: 

Gmail Mail Goggles Difficult Settings