Categories
401k and Personal Finance iPhone app

Submitted 2nd iPhone iOS app collegeFund ~ college savings calculator

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(Update 10-26-2010) I forgot to mention that app is available at iTunes App store since Oct 5. The product support page is at uudaddy. Sorry for my omission 🙂

(Original) I submit the collegeFund app 3 days ago. This app is similar to the myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator, it helps parents (and other family members who are willing to help) to calculate the kid’s college savings fund vs. the retirement fund in the retirement calculator.

I got this idea more than a year ago when a close friend who is sending kid to college. I can felt financial burden of the father, while I can also fully appreciate the kid’s decision to go to a well known college instead of the college his dad and yours truly both went (btw, the job prospect of our alma mater was very good).

This March, our daughter was born, I was hoping I don’t have to be put into such as tough spot when my kid starts college (btw, her father will have to seriously think about the retirement plans then). Hence, I opened the Ohio 529 plan a month after her birth, and started to put away the money we received from family. Meanwhile, I set an automatic monthly deposit for her account.

CF_currentSaving0_age0_annual5000

Anyway, I wish this is a beginning for parents, grand parents, uncles, aunties etc. to plan for their kids’ college education. Now let’s hope the app gets approved soon 🙂

Categories
Stocks

Barnes and Noble: a declining book selling empire?

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I started writing this post a while ago, after I bought Barnes Noble nook (e-reader), and Barnes Noble stock (NYSE:BKS). BN recently changed its brand of e-reader app on Android from BN to nook (it already use nook on iPhone and iPad), so nook is more than an e-reader, it’s at the center of BN’s digital book.

What’s up with Barnes and Noble stock
Stock was under heavy selling pressure, after announcing price cut of Nook e-reader, and fiscal 2010 Q4 result (2011 Q1 and full year outlook), before the announcement of potential “taking private” and Ron Burkle (its second largest shareholder) proxy fight. The stock bounced from as low as about $12 to $17 in couple months since the announcement.

But the fundamental problem facing the company: transition from traditional book to ebook is too high a mountain for BN to climb. Back in “printed book” days, BN can use its scale to get better rate from publishers and commercial real estate companies, beating a lot of mom and pop stores on the way. Now physical stores become a liability. Compared to Amazon (kindle) and more recent Apple (iPad), nook is not standing out (both hardware and software, read this Mossberg review on 3 e-reader apps for iPad), and can not win from scale, even presence at BN book store does not overcome Amazon Kindle’s TV commercial and Target store presence. Target is going to carry iPad soon. BN does have presence at Best Buy, but Kindle is coming to Best Buy soon.

Burkle criticized BN founder and largest shareholder Riggio almost anything (Riggio did the same to Burkle). At the dispute is the recent transaction of BN buying College bookseller (valuation discussion below). Valuation aside, I think Riggio is trying to salvage his empire by banded the retail stores with more stable business – college book store. College book stores are perceived as more stable because students have to buy textbooks. As long as college enrollment does not decline (this usually holds as nowadays college degree is necessary for most white collar jobs). The only thing is here digitization is happening too. BN does have some initiative, Amazon Kindle DX was trying to make a dent here (was not successful), but Apple iPad is posing a serious player. This is causing more problem for BN.

So who should you vote in the Proxy fight? As I said earlier both sides accuse the other side as totally moron. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I don’t think Burkle has a magic bullet here, and I don’t think Riggio really understand this facebook era. I can see Kindle has a facebook page, and BN has a facebook page, but NO facebook page for nook. WOW. Notice BN does not air commercial on TV as well (this is more understandable because they don’t have deep pocket as Amazon and Apple). But NO free facebook page (for marketing and brand awareness). Something is broken in the BN management.

more readings at WSJ.

College bookseller buy valuation

Continue reading “Barnes and Noble: a declining book selling empire?”
Categories
gadgets iPhone app

My first week impression of iPhone 4

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Graphics is very sharp
This can be demonstrated by the Netflix app. I installed it the first night right after I got home. Watched a movie, the graphics quality is very very good.

Installed apps
Besides Netflix and other usual stuff (google, twitter, facebook, linkedIn), I also installed NFL Score, Public Radio Tuner (a bit disappointed on this one, not multitasking enabled, so I can not read email and listen to the radio at the same time), Yahoo, iBooks, myWireless (AT&T), WSJ and VTT (Virtual Table Tennis) Lite.

fstream: this little program allows me to listen to Chinese radios via Stream, and it is multitasking enabled (can run in background). The only caveat is it eats the data limit in 2gb data plan fast, more later.

Weakness
Battery: per Apple iPhone battery page
“iPhone 4 offers up to 7 hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours of talk time on 2G, 6 hours of Internet use on 3G, 10 hours of Internet use on Wi-Fi, 10 hours of video playback, or 40 hours of audio playback on a full charge at original capacity. In addition, iPhone 4 features up to 300 hours of standby time.”

This is about right, as I had to charge my iPhone 4 in the afternoon couple times (early in the week) as I was listening to the Internet radio.

So so speaker-phone? I had this feeling when I talked to my friend this evening.

AT&T Data plan
I picked the common 2gb plan. 2gb is a bit tight for me, I used 425 mega bytes as of day 3. Why? Because I was using this fstream app listening to Chinese radio stations. It’s cool, but it’s also a data hogger: for 64 k per second stream, it’s using about 25 mb in one hour per SuperUser. For the time being, I am using the following approach to relieve the data usage.

Continue reading “My first week impression of iPhone 4”
Categories
iPhone app

Why I created myNestEgg retirement calculator app?

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More Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app

1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).

2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.

3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.

I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.

Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.

Categories
iPhone app

Why I created myNestEgg retirement calculator app?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

More Q&A about myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator app

1. Why do you create yet another retirement calculator app?
I understand there are quite a few retirement calculators in the App store. Some are free, others are not free. MyNestEgg belongs to the latter category. My goal here, as I said the the product description, is to provide a simple and easy to use to calculator retirement savings/income. It shows the “saving progress” and “income ratio” which combined give the user an idea about where she/he is in terms of saving, and what income level to expect when she/he retires. Also the input data is saved on your iPhone, so as the user runs this app from time to time, she/he can get an idea about how the retirement savings account does over the time (so that she/he can act accordingly).

2. Does it support language other than English?
The app use English only at this time. However, as I explained in the support page, the user can adjust the “regional format” to get the local currency.

3. I don’t have iPhone, so…
The app can be run on iOS 3.1.2 or later powered devices, which includes iPod Touch and iPad besides iPhone.

I saw some useful web based calculator, such as this one created by FINRA. One limitation is they don’t save the data, so you may want to write down the results (or better yet save to Google Docs) after doing calculation.

Also, I am consider porting (creating) the app for Android, if there are enough interest to justify my effort.

Categories
gadgets

Bought iPhone 4 today

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I bought my long anticipated iPhone 4 today, at local Apple store. The buying process is fairly straight forward, because I switched from T-mobile (have been with them for almost 6 years!), I need to bring the account number because I was going to port the number. The Apple sales rep used an iPhone app for the whole process, from input the data, to slide my credit card. Obviously his iPhone has card reader.

Why I bought iPhone 4?
I was a bit late to the iPhone revolution. I was not a believer at the beginning (Summer 2007, see my post iParty). But slowly I realized this iPhone app thing is going to be big, that’s why I bought iPhone 3g (refurb) at Dec 2008, and bought macbook in Jan 2009, starting learning iPhone app dev (I was working on CFA level one in year 2008). This year the No. 1 priority is our new baby. Yesterday (Sept 17, 2010) my first iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator was approved in iTune store. I certainly hope that’s just a beginning of my iPhone app development. Besides using for app dev, I think the new iPhone photo and video capability will be handy to record the growth of our baby.

The apps I am going to get
I was using my wife’s 3g (iOS 3.1.2) before getting iPhone 4. One app I plan to install is Netflix viewer (it requires iOS 3.1.3 or later). I already installed Public Radio Player app (I was using Nokia 5800 before iPhone 4, and I am a big NPR fan).

Odds and Ends
Free case: everyone knows the iPhone 4 antenna gate, and thus the iPhone 4 case program. Guess what, there is an app for that. After looking for “free case reviews”appadvice; macWorld; iLounge on the web, I decided to go with the flow: the Speck PixelSkin HD.

AT&T, T-mobile: I have been with T-mobile for almost 6 years, and for most part I am happy with them. Interestingly, I was AT&T (Cingular) before switching to T-mobile, now I am back. I am not too worried about the signal strength of AT&T amid all the stories about AT&T dropping calls.

No more fights on iPhone: my wife joked I will no longer fight for her iPhone as I got my own. I told her mine got Netflix, and now she is going to fight for mine 😀

Categories
401k and Personal Finance iPhone app

Announcing iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator

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(Update Oct-22-2010) The version 1.1 was released yesterday Oct 21, 2010. This link is the same. Release notes is attached at the iTune store description as well.

(Original) iTune store link here.

myNestEgg_iTune_store_2010-09-17

Product support page here.

What is it (myNestEgg)?
myNestEgg is a retirement (savings/income) calculator iPhone app. It runs on iOS 3.1.2 or later.

How much does it cost?
99 cents in the US (Apple tier 1 price, CA$0.99 GB£0.59 EU0.79 € AU$1.19 NZ$1.29 etc.)

Any special promotion for new product launch?
Yes, you can. If you can find a significant bug or suggest a meaningful feature, you can email me at , and I will give you the refund (via Paypal). And if you like, I can send you the Ad hoc version of my future products for free as long as you send me the feedback (note you will need to send me the UDID of your device for the Ad hoc version).

Categories
iPhone app

Announcing iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator

Reading Time: < 1 minute

iTune store link here.

myNestEgg_iTune_store_2010-09-17

Product support page here.

What is it (myNestEgg)?
myNestEgg is a retirement (savings/income) calculator iPhone app. It runs on iOS 3.1.2 or later.

How much does it cost?
99 cents in the US (Apple tier 1 price, CA$0.99 GB£0.59 EU0.79 € AU$1.19 NZ$1.29 etc.)

Any special promotion for new product launch?

Continue reading “Announcing iPhone app myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator”
Categories
401k and Personal Finance iPhone app

Looking for a few good reviewers and bloggers for iPhone app

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I am looking for a few good reviewers and bloggers for my 1st iPhone app, myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator. Here are a few basic requirements for the reviewer/blogger:

1) An iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad device with iOS 3.1.2 or above.

2) Has an iPhone app review site or a personal finance blog web site. More importantly, are willing to try out my app and write independent reviews.

How to get the app?
The app is at “Wait for review” stage. I can build ad hoc version of the app and send it to you (about 500k). Email me if you are interested. My email address is .

What you will get besides the app?
Well, I can not promise anything significant because they will affect your opinion. But I can come up with something appropriate later after seeing the review.

Categories
iPhone app

Looking for a few good reviewers and bloggers for iPhone app

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I am looking for a few good reviewers and bloggers for my 1st iPhone app, myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator. Here are a few basic requirements for the reviewer/blogger:

1) An iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad device with iOS 3.1.2 or above.

2) Has an iPhone app review site or a personal finance blog web site. More importantly, are willing to try out my app and write independent reviews.

How to get the app?
The app is at “Wait for review” stage. I can build ad hoc version of the app and send it to you (about 500k). Email me if you are interested. My email address is .