Riding the Storm Out by John Bougearel

Riding the Storm Out by John Bougearel
This book is a historical narrative of our current economic disaster caused by the credit and subprime/foreclosure crisis that led to the collapse of the financial system. The story begins with the epic crash on Wall Street, its impact on Main Street and the real economy. I can personally relate to the book as my home’s value continues to decline and my taxes in the US continue to climb; I find myself nodding my head in agreement with the author.

Riding the Storm Out is a good read, written in a very easy to read format and
John Bougearel sets the tone for the book in the very beginning when he states “writing history so close to real time is like painting on canvas it can go on forever and still be a work in progress”, with that said John Bougearel does an excellent job of outlining the issues that got us here and comparing it to the issues that got us into the Great Depression.
I believe it took courage to write this book before the dust has actually settled and we can use modern history to look back at the crisis, but the author seems right on track so far.

I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to know “ How did we get here” and where we might go from here.

MID iRobot - an Android Tablet PC

MID iRobot - an Android Tablet PC

I wanted to buy a Tablet PC, I wasn’t looking for an iPad or even the “iPad killer” that these Chinese tablet PCs are often called (by local sales people).

I was looking for a light weight tablet PC that I could get emails and surf the web on via WiFi, so I would not have to haul around my laptop to client sites, and as typical in Asia out to dinner and/or drinks with the client.

I do not need a million apps or 3G service – I have an iPhone (for Hong Kong) and a Blackberry (for China) for those things. But I wanted to be able to read emails on a larger screen, type on a larger surface and be able to surf the web with multiple windows on a screen that is bigger than that of a smart phone.

So I headed to Shenzhen to check out the consumer electronics stores to see if I could find a reliable inexpensive alternative to the iPad. I did a little home work before I took the journey north.

What I bought: MID iRobot - an Android Tablet PC
It came with a 7 inch display touch screen, a few preinstalled apps (you can get numerous applications from Android Market), imedia, a camera for online video chat, and support for more than 30 languages (including English and Chinese). Some of the basic functions included: Email, Camera, Camcorder, Video & Music Player, Calendar, Calculator, Alarm Clock, Photo Browser, PDF Reader, and Google Maps.

The Negatives: It has a funky “transfer box” which is a device that is needed to use the Ethernet and USB functions, I found it to be not that user friendly and the touch screen isn’t super responsive but is still very workable.

The Positives: It is great for web browsing, email works well, it is easy to set up and operate, it’s easy to switch tasks & apps, its light weight and the price ($ 110).

I upgraded the email client and added a couple other apps from the Android Market.
Did I mention the price? I paid about $110 for it; compare that to the $500 for the base model of the iPad. I found that is also works pretty well from the sofa ha ha ha. Over all I am very happy with my purchase.

The Specifications:
CPU: RK2808a Chipset (ARM9 @ 600 MHz + DSP @ 550 MHz dual-core)
Operating System: Android 1.5
Display: 800×480, 7 inch LCD
Camera: 1.3 Mega pixels
Audio input: built-in microphone
Audio output: 3.5 mm jack, integrated speakers
Networking: 802.11 Wireless b/g
Peripheral Support: USB Host (mouse, keyboard, and they claim others)
Battery: 3000 mAH, it lasts about 2 hours
RAM: 128 MB
Hard Drive: 2 GB
Expansion Memory: microSD up to 16 GB
Supported Video Formats: MKV (H.264 HP)/RMVB/MPEG-4/FLV/MPEG-1/MPEG-2 up to 720p
Supported Audio Formats: MP3, WMA. FLAC, AAC, AC3, OGG, WAV
Supported Picture Formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF
Weight: 332 g

Hot Commodities by Jim Rogers - Review

I read “Hot Commodities” after first reading Jim Rogers’ book a “Bull in China”.
I am a China Market Consultant and I started reading “Hot Commodities” while helping a Futures Brokerage client enter the Greater China Market Place.

On a trip to Singapore I was able to meet with Mr. Rogers not only to get my books signed by him, but to also hear his view on the world of investing and where he thought it was going, I left his home excited to get back to reading his book and also to start studying for the Series 3 License. So with that said, this review might be slightly biased.

I found the book to be a well written easy to read introductory guide to the world of commodity investing. Jim Rogers takes a long term fundamentalist approach to investing, in the book Jim Rogers proves to us that fortunes are made by thinking independently from the crowd, finding opportunities and then making logical investment decisions.

In the book he does a beautiful job at telling us about political and other developments that affect commodities, he uses oil, gold, lead, sugar and coffee as examples.

He also makes some nice parallels with the stock market and commodities market, suggesting that commodities can be a useful diversification in our portfolios.

Over all I would say this book is a must read, the book gives us some great insights from an investing legend.