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  • Car Lease Versus Buy: Lease Beats Buy & Why

    Why do I favor car leasing? I have a few reasons why leasing is right for me. I will admit that leasing isn’t for everybody. We don’t all have the stomach for it. Some folks think leasing is like flushing your money down the toilet. I disagree. Here are a few reasons why. Some math. Some emotion.

    (1) Fixed Cost. Leasing turns your car into a fixed cost. You know, as opposed to a variable cost. A moving target. What makes the target move? See number two.

    (2) Maintenance. I won’t go into details but based on my past experience this is key. At the end of the lease you get to hand the keys and all that looming (inevitable) maintenance cost over to the dealer (right before stuff starts to break down.)

    (3) New Car Smell. Drive a new car every 36 months. Enough said.

    (4) It’s a Rental. If something minor happens, a ding here and there, you get to relax and say, “Don’t worry about that. It’s a rental”.

    (5) Flexibility. One example: My wife has worked from home for the past 6 years. When I started working from home we realized we only needed one car. We kept the Jetta and turned in the Volvo when the lease ran out. No hassle of having to sell a used car.

    (6) Making Car Salesmen Cry. I know there are good honest trustworthy car salesmen out there (I can even name two offhand). Then there are the others. At some point I began to treat the car leasing experience like war. It gets ugly folks. The result? I compared notes with a friend of mine a few years back. Turned out I was paying less to lease two cars than he was to buy his one. To top if off, my two cars had, combined, three times the MSRP. No exaggeration.

    In conclusion, I know exactly how much I’m going to be paying to drive my new car. All the while enjoying a great sense of flexibility and freedom, accompanied by a feeling, that is, the less things that I own means the less things that own me. That is, as they say, priceless.

  • Getting Redundant: Saving Yourself From Computer Failure

    Know anybody that’s had their computer crash? Did they lose any of their valuables? Pictures, music, financial records? It’s a painful experience yet for most of us the answer is “Oh, my, god, YES.” The bad news is if you own a computer the question is not IF it will fail but WHEN it will fail. So what to do? Get redundant.

    Huhh? Okay, I’ll make this simple. Answer the question “How important is my data?”. Now, look for your answer below. Your redundancy solution will follow including approximate cost.

    (1) My Data Isn’t Important. Solution: Do nothing. Cost? Free (but is it really?)

    (2) My Data Is Sort of Important. Solution: Backup only your critical data once a week / month on a portable hard drive you picked up on the cheap at Best Buy. Cost? Less than $100 (which in turn represents how much you value your data.)

    (3) My Data is Important to Me. Solution: Setup Time Machine to automatically backup versions of all important files on your computer. Now that sounds fancy! How do I implement this fanciness? If you have a Mac it’s easy.

    First, I suggest you buy a highly rated external hard drive that has at least two to three times the storage space as your computer. If you buy something like the G-Drive, it’s plug and play for the Mac so you just plug it in, open the Time Machine settings on your Mac.

    Time Machine

    Before you turn Time Machine on select your new external hard drive by clicking Select Disk.

    Select Disk

    Choose your new hard drive from the list and click Use for Backup. Turn Time Machine to ON. That’s it. You’re set! Time Machine automatically saves up-to-date copies of everything on your Mac. This includes all of your photos, music, videos, documents, applications, and settings. If you ever have the need, you can easily go back in time to recover anything. Cost? Depends on the hard drive you buy. The G-Drive is around $160 but it’s one of the best. However, you can get by much cheaper. The Time Machine application comes with your Mac so it’s free.

    Windows user? Like I said, my personal computer is a Mac. Therefore, I have implemented a Mac based solution. Windows users can set this up in much the same way but will need to use different software. Do a Google Search for “Time Machine for Windows” or check out Genie9 which looks pretty slick. Additional Cost: $40.

    (4) My Data is VERY important to me. Solution: Implement everything in number three and consider including one or more of the following.

    Bonus Solution No. 1: Use an online backup service such as Backblaze. I give credit to a friend of mine for doing the research and recommending this service to me. Cost? For $5 a month I can have a secure hassle free backup of all my data. Come fire. Come flood. I’m backed up.

    Bonus Solution No. 2: Backup offsite. Backblaze is easy and online, and thus, offsite. However, if your data is mission critical I suggest backing up to an external hard drive once a week / month and carrying the drive to an different secure location. Offsite = not at your house or office or wherever your primary data source is located. Cost? The cost of another (I suggest identical) hard drive and your time transporting it offsite (maybe to a friend’s house).

    Bonus Solution No. 3: Whenever I upload new pictures I save them to my local drive but I also save a copy to my HP Media Server. I call the local copy Livework and the server copy Rawdata. I picked up this naming convention and much of the inspiration for this project from Chase Jarvis. Cost? Servers aren’t cheap.

    Is this overkill? Perhaps. I also have more insurance than I probably need. Unless of course I need it.

  • How I Love Thee iPhone. Let Me Count the Ways

    I just spent thirty minutes writing to a friend who asked me my thoughts on the iPhone. I thought I’d post an edited version here. Yes, I am very very very biased. It’s okay to take what I write here with a measure of “yeah, he’s a fanboy”.

    ……

    (1) Sexy & Apps. First, let’s start with this. I love the iPhone. It’s sexy. I could leave it at that. (Of course I won’t.) Then there are the apps. I use a lot of free apps and some of the paid apps as well. I wrote a story about each of the apps I have on the first two screens of my phone here and here if you’d like to see my favorites).

    (2) The Interface. I’ve seen the droid interface, the hardware, and while it’s okay, especially if you’ve never used an iPhone, once you’ve used the Retina Display (super high resolution screen on the iPhone 4) the others are all just toast. They look like a kid’s toy by comparison. At least the ones I’ve seen.

    (3) The Camera. There are some guys out there doing some really amazing things all in phone; meaning they take the picture and edit it in phone using the camera apps (I have several but today I find I prefer the native camera app). To see some of one guys work go to http://jeremycowart.com/#951743/iPhone. Of course Jeremy is a genius but still.

    (4) Resale Value. Lastly, I sold my 3G for $200 a few weeks earlier after I upgraded. Same price as I paid for the 4. To top that, I bought my wife an iPhone 4 a few weeks later for the same standard $200 price tag and then turned around and sold here 3GS for just a few dollars shy of $400. No joke.

  • Roy’s Hawaiian & Happy Hour

    Linda and I go to Lifetime Fitness in Tempe, AZ on Saturdays and Sundays. We lounge at home in the mornings and head into town at some point between noon and one o’clock. When we’re done it’s usually time for dinner.

    One of our favorite dinner spots is Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion. It’s fantastic. The downside? Roy’s is a little pricey. Until now. They’ve started a new happy hour special where all of their $10 cocktails, wines, and appetizers are now $5. Entrees are still the same price, but now when we go, we play the appetizer game and instead of getting out of there for somewhere north of $120 we escape for around half of that.

    Tell me if any of these make you hungry: Crunchy Golden Lobster Potstickers, Lobster California Roll (both with real, not fake, lobster), Tempura Crusted Spicy Ahi Roll, Salt and Pepper Crisped Calamari, Szechuan Grilled Beef Tenderloin Skewers, and Wagyu Beef Sliders. Anybody hungry?

    Tell me if any of these make you thirsty: Pineapple Ginger Mojito, Pomegranate Patron Mojito, Lemon Grass Sake-Tini, Elderflower Martini, Roy’ Island Mai Tai, Basil Cucumber Collins, Citrus Ginger Splash, Simply Perfect Margarita, Cucumber Cilantro Margarita, Fred and Ginger, Dragonberry Punch, Passionfruit Sangria, and Lychee Caiprihina. Anybody thirsty?

    Happy hour at our local Roy’s in Chandler, AZ is in the bar area only between 4:30 PM and 6:30 PM. Say hello to Ana, Cory and Matt behind the bar if you do happen to drop by. TJ is the bar and dining room manager. Mahalo!

  • Making an Olympic Commitment

    I’ve finally gone and done it. Yes, I had this on my to do list for 2010 but alas I never pulled the trigger. Two weeks ago I went ahead and did the only thing I know that will ensure I keep my resolution in 2011. I signed up. For what you ask?

    Race: The 6th Annual Bartlett Lake Olympic Triathlon
    Date: October 2, 2011
    Distances: 1500 Meter Swim [Open Water], 24.8 Mile Bike, 6.2 Mile Run

    Anybody want to go with?