When you want a new phone

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Boost Mobile. All opinions are 100% mine.

Smartphones today are everywhere. If you don't have one yet, most likely it's because you feel that the payment plans are too expensive (and they really are, considering that those contracts hook you in). But to be honest, having a Blackberry can be truly convenient and the best of times. It's undeniable.

I tend to avoid paying on contract though, because 1) I'm stuck for 2-3 years with them, 2) Their contract options are always horrible and meant to scam my money away.

Which is why I liked the pay-as-you-go options.

And now, Boost Mobile is offering that kind of flexibility, with well-known smartphone brands like the BlackBerry and i1! What's more, they let you pay online, in-person, or via phone.

If you want, you could use automatic billing as well. But it's really flexible, and you don't have to be on contract.

The fact is, these days I find myself checking over my social networking sites all the time for updates, and not just for personal use. The phones that Re-Boost offers, are all social in nature, and can provide for my Facebook access needs.

With their options, you can even have unlimited access to Facebook for one price per month. You really have to commend the flexibility that Boost Mobile is offering. It's a simple activation process, you have many payment options, you get great phones to use, and you can also sign up for extras.

What's not to like?

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The great HTML5 and Flash/Silverlight Misunderstanding

When HTML 5's basic functions became widely known and started to be seriously developed to be the successor to HTML 4, Silverlight and Flash have become less and less relevant.

Or so many commentators on the blogosphere would have you believe.

This is simply untrue. When we get to the heart of the issue, we can see that the main arguments for the decreasing relevance of Flash/Silverlight err on the side of irrelevancy themselves.

The misunderstanding stems from a basic lack of knowledge in the industry. I've heard statements that go like this:

"HTML 5 will support video and various other media, so there will no longer be a need for extra plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight."

So let me ask you then, what kind of things have you seen Flash or Silverlight be used for on the web? Is it just for showing video? Of course not. Yes HTML 5 does support video, but Flash and Silverlight both offer so much more than that.

For the people that have believed in the FUD, I really don't think I need to get into the specifics of just how much more advanced Silverlight and Flash (more specifically, Flex) is. Do you seriously believe that 2 simple tags can negate all the uses for advanced coding on RIA platforms? That's completely ridiculous.

Even today, even if we're just talking about simple video streaming, HTML 5 is still not the best option. You hear it from the YouTube team, that it's simpler to do their stuff with Flash. You can think of the quality of streaming and the advanced streaming functionality that comes with Silverlight.

HTML 5 and Silverlight/Flash are not comparable. And don't even get me started on the business applications that cannot be created by HTML 5. That's a whole other playing field that HTML 5 can't even being to touch, and is always ignored by the FUD anyways.

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Grilling the Perfect Steak

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of henderson bas. All opinions are 100% mine.

When I think of experts on cooking, one of the names that pops out is Chef Michael. He often has some excellent tutorials available for you at the clubhouse website.

Have you ever wondered why your own cooking just couldn't measure up, even if you did exactly what the recipe said to do? Well the fact is, there are secrets to cooking exceptional food, just like there are secrets for a whole lot of things. These are the small tricks that true experts of the trade will understand and know.

If you want to learn them, Chef Michael has excellent videos describing how to make the best gourmet gravy, healthy seafood, homemade jam in under 30 minutes, and also things such as marinating BBQ and grilling the perfect steak.

On top of that, recently, La Serious Griller Contest, was running, and you had the chance to win (if you are a Canadian resident) $300 in gear from Canadian Tire, or a deluxe La Grille Barbecue Seasoning Pack.


If you entered, then you had an excellent opportunity to brush up your skills, learn some more, and win some cool prizes. So why wait any longer? Head over to the website I provided you with above, and check out those videos to learn some great tricks of the trade. Then, if the contest is still open, enter that too and have the chance to win that $300 Canadian Tire gift card, or the Barbecue Seasoning Pack. Don't miss your chance now before it's too late!

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Can Buying Followers Really Work on Twitter?

Lately, CNET News reported that people familiar with Twitter's future plans say that Twitter could be considering another way to make money, basically allowing the buying of followers.

The idea is supposed to be based on creating some sort of extra account designation that is meant to increase follower counts. The business model is currently unknown.

As I understand it, Twitter already has the ability to add specific accounts to suggested accounts for new Twitter accounts. In reality, this practice has yielded little value for the suggested accounts.

A business wants followers that are interested in their products, so that they can make more sales. Just having a plain old follower doesn't really do much, and often times buying followers amounts to this. Allowing the buying of Twitter followers at first glance would seem rather useless.

However, the way it is implemented could actually make it useful. If specific accounts are given yet another designation, it is possible that newer customers would trust certain business twitter accounts more. While I can see this as being helpful to smaller businesses that aren't as well known, it seems useless for large businesses that already have a strong brand presence. After all, active Twitter users tend to keep up with the world, and they probably would have a general idea of which names are big in a particular industry (and if they don't, it would be easy to search up).

It would be interesting to see how this one plays out, although I don't particularly see it as being a major revenue generator in the future.

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Make Movies easily with Moviestorm

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Moviestorm. All opinions are 100% mine.

Are you tired of using Windows Movie Maker? Or maybe you're on a Mac and are tired of iMovie. Either way, you can easily make cool movies for free using this new product at Moviestorm. This is a great new way to make movies easily.

If you head over to moviestorm.com, you'll see a random website. Now, I was asked to review that website, but I believe there was a mistake somewhere, because the actual website is moviestorm.co.uk. Thus, I will be reviewing moviestorm.co.uk because that's where the product is.
Anyways, at this website you can find several things. Clearly, you can see the Free Download section, which allows you to download the software and start making movies easily. You'll need to sign up first of course, but it's free. Their website says that it's free for the basic set up and basic stuff, but for certain features you'll have to pay (how could they survive otherwise?).

Also, you might also notice that the title is "Moviestorm.beta" so clearly, this product is still in the early stages, and their website probably so as well.

Now, if I were to create a movie, I'd make a movie about this website and how easy it is to make movies with this software. It'd be all about a person who finds that he needs to make a movie, but simply does not like Windows Movie Maker, and does not use a Mac. However, he can't pay for anything either as he is very poor. So we have a person desperate for making good movies, and voila: Moviestorm.co.uk saves the day.

In fact, I might also be inclined to make an instructions movie, but that's already been done for me. So check it out:




On second thought, there would appear to be some technical difficulties. I've embedded the video above, as you might be able to see in the source code of this page, but it doesn't seem to be showing up unfortunately. If you do see it, great! On the hand, if you cannot, that's too bad. Just head over to their website instead.

Now, one last thing: You don't need any moviemaking experience or animation experience to use this product. So anyone could use it, even you.

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Google vs Microsoft Part 2: The Business Model Flaw

In part 1, we discussed why Google stock was not a good bet in terms of only some basic financial calculations and ratios. Today, we will discuss a fundamental business model flaw in Google.

The only reason one might consider investing in Google at this point is if it can somehow offer incredible growth and earnings, but this is unlikely. Considering that their executives are not confident, that should be reason enough to believe that Google will not grow much more. However, there is also a flaw in their business model, which will lead to their eventual downfall.
The raging war between Google and Microsoft for domination of the world is hot as ever, but though for a while Microsoft appeared to be down, Google cannot win this war. Both companies boast an enormous product array, investing in many different areas in technology on both the consumer and enterprise end. Most of Google’s offerings are touted to the consumer, but Microsoft is generally more profitable on the enterprise end. However, that does not mean either of them want to lose any potential profits, and so they compete heavily on both sides. Then let us take a look at some of their core products and why Microsoft will ultimately be the victor.
Google predominantly is a search engine. They may have a lot of different products, but their revenue comes almost exclusively from the search ad business and Google Adsense/Adwords. In fact, most of their other products either make negligible amounts or plainly lose money: YouTube, Blogger, Gmail, Google Apps, and Google Earth, to list some of the widely known (they have many more unprofitable products). Google Apps is the only one that may have some potential for future earnings, but faces the formidable Microsoft Office monopoly. The only part of it that is appealing is the low-cost and some of the cloud features offered. Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft is soon to host Web versions of Office, and will soon offer cloud counterparts for Office as well. All of these products that Google has can only be sustained simply because the search engine ad business makes so much money; compared with Microsoft which makes money through a variety of products: Windows, Office, Server, and Xbox. There is also another crucial difference: Google makes money only from ads, while Microsoft makes money by selling products and services.

Such is the flaw in the business model of Google, and ultimately, it is not good if Microsoft begins to take ANY of Google's search engine share.

If you'd like to see the earlier post on the Google the tech company stock vs Microsoft in part 1, then just click the link.

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Everything together: The LG Chocolate Touch

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.

Today, there are many phones out there. But few of them can do everything for you.
Imagine a phone that could call, send text, go online, use social media, take pictures or video, a built-in mp3 player with 1 GB of dedicated storage and Dolby Mobile technology for crystal-clear sound quality, a microSD(HC) slot, and 3.2MP Camera/Recorder–quality pictures and videos, with image editor. It sounds like it can do anything. Then also add in some touch screen and a few other features:

-Rhythmical Beat that vibrates the handset to the beat of the music
-One-touch Social Network Message Key for easy use of Mobile Blogging
-Mobile Media – top-notch text, picture, video, and voice messaging, including Visual Voicemail

What more can you ask for?

A phone like this does everything you would need. If I had this phone, I would no longer need my mp3 player, or my camera (except for situations where extremely high quality is a necessity), and I could also get rid of my current phone which does not even have touch screen.

With all of those applications running on the same system, it becomes much easier to do things in life. I won't have to carry around a bunch of devices to do various things. It becomes easy to access whatever I need quickly and go to the same device every time.
Now there's a phone that can do just that.

The LG Chocolate Touch.

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Google vs Microsoft Part 1: Stocks

One of the hottest names in the tech industry, Google (GOOG) seems to be taking the world by storm, bringing all sorts of new products such as Google Wave, Chrome OS, and even their own phone. But is it really what it seems to be? Google’s strongest competitor is none other than the world’s 7th most profitable company: Microsoft (MSFT). 7th? That doesn’t seem TOO high does it? Well actually, it is, because the top 6 are all oil and gas companies and we all know how much of an energy demand we have right now. Microsoft is clearly a potent competitor to Google, and the reality is Microsoft is the future of the technology world.

Before we discuss the merits of Microsoft, let us simply tackle the fundamental problems with Google stock and their business.

Valued at $590 currently, this is far beyond their pre-recession values. That’s astounding, and the only reason it is like this is because of the perceived potential for growth. However, their percentage return on equity is only at 16%. Return on equity is simply the amount of earnings they have expressed as a percentage of total shareholder value in the company (which is assets minus liability). Compare that with Microsoft: an incredible 36%. In fact, Warren Buffet, the world’s most famous investor by far is known to only invest in companies with ROEs at least above 20%. That makes Google seem like a weak candidate. In addition, their operating and profit margins and return on assets are all lower than Microsoft’s. What’s more, it is clear that even insiders at Google have no confidence in their company. The amount of Google stock owned by insiders is less than 0.5%. The amount of MSFT stock owned by insiders is over 10%. Plus, Google Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who sit on the company’s board of directors do not hold any Google stock. That’s right, they hold 0 Google stock. They have no faith in their own company. Neither does the Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There is no real reason to invest in a stock that does not have the confidence of its executives. Google stock is simply not compelling.

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Transfer photos wirelessly from your Camera with a simple chip

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Eye-Fi. All opinions are 100% mine.

I tend to be one of those people that have lots of photos from all sorts of places, but they're mostly all stored on my computer. I occasionally upload some photos to my favourite photo sharing sites like Flickr or Facebook, but it's only occasionally because I'm just too lazy to get the loads of photos I take every time I go somewhere all uploaded. It takes too long, and it's a hassle to even transfer the photos from the camera to my computer, what with missing USB cables and the like.

But it seems there's a solution out there to all that. Enter the Eye-Fi, which is an SD memory card that has *get this*, built-in wifi capabilities!

Whenever I had to upload photos before, I've always had to dig around for the USB cable or card reader, and many times I simply left the photos on the camera because I was too lazy to get it uploaded. But then, my cousins keep asking me where the heck are some pictures of that wonderful vacation you talked about? And I have to upload it then. So now, with the Eye-Fi, I wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of the old way of uploading photos. I can just WIRELESSLY connect the camera with my computer, or even directly with Flickr/Facebook. That will save an incredible amount of time, and I can finally upload my pictures right away, so my cousins won't have to bug me all the time.

Now, if you want to know exactly how it works, I've embedded a video of just that right below here. So check it out:



Of course, maybe you don't have the time to see the video. In that case, allow me to summarize some of the features of the Eye-Fi.
Eye-Fi is a wireless SD memory card with up to 4GB of memory PLUS built-in Wi-Fi. To use it, just turn on your camera!

It can automatically backup your pictures and automatically organize (by date) them on your computer.

Not only that, it can send the photos directly to sites like Facebook/Flickr, as long as you have an SDHC capable camera and a wireless router.

Now doesn't that sound like a great way to save time and share your photos? Maybe you can even get one for your friends this holiday season!

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Google stock shortcomings

Currently, Google is heralded as a great tech company with the power to revolutionize many things. However, their stock is not necessarily a good option right now.

One of the important metrics in determining the strength of a business is the Return on Equity percentage. This is simply the amount of earnings per year as a percentage of the total amount of value in the company (anything of value minus all debts). Higher percentages equate to a more profitable business and capable management.

Google has an ROE of merely 16%, while Microsoft has an incredible 36%. This shows that MSFT’s management is far superior, and that they have a business that makes a lot more money for less . Generally, companies with low ROEs (less than 20%) are mediocre and many will phase out or lose money eventually.

Now, there’s a reason that management seems to perform badly at Google, and that’s because they have no confidence and no commitment to their company. Plus, Google Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who sit on the company’s board of directors do not hold any Google stock. Neither does the Google CEO Eric Schmidt. [Source: Yahoo! Finance]. When a management does not hold any stock in their company, they have no reason to make the company better because their money is not at stake. With Google, only 0.5% of their stock is held by insiders at the company, so no employees of Google really have a reason to make Google better.

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