Categories
gadgets Life

The missing iPhone

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By now all the people who are into gadgets should have heard about this iPhone Gizmodo gate: this is apple’s next iPhone .

I don’t know about the fate of this Apple engineer, as Gizmodo did not say a word about him/her (Why Apple Couldn’t Get the Lost iPhone Back). I hope he/she won’t get fired for this (assume this whole thing is not an Apple stunt). Because a while ago, if we recall, a young Chinese engineer died from iPhone leak(HuffingtonPost: Sun Danyong, Chinese Engineer, Kills Himself After Losing ‘4G’ iPhone Prototype).

After all, life is much more important than stupid iPhone, if we can put things in perspective.

Categories
Fun

Baby starts smile more

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We are seeing more interaction with our baby, who is about 6 weeks old. Recently her mom talk more to her, and sometimes we can see her response, either smile or making noise. Her smile is very much like her mom’s smile when she was little.

Yesterday we took her to St. Louis Botanical Garden, understandably she slept much of the time. Because the weather is a bit chilly, we wrap her around big blankets, and don’t want to expose her to the cold wind. She got a ride on our newly bought Maclaren triumph stroller. We saw quite a few babies at botanical garden, due to nice weather and family friendliness of the place.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Enroll in Ohio College Advantage 529 Plan and receive $50 bonus

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(Update 08-01-2010) It seems the referral still works. Feel free to use my referral code 2568778, and email me after you enroll. I will send you the $25 Amazon gift card as soon as I receive the referral bonus from Ohio 529 plan.

(Update 06-29-2010) My mistake, there is not limit in terms of the number of referral. But the deadline (to get referral bonus) is still valid, June 30, 2010.

(Update 06-22-2010) 10 Referral used. 2 more remaining. Note the offer expires on June 30, 2010. Send me a note after you enroll, if you like the Amazon gift card 😀

(Update 04-27-2010) First referral bonus received and the $25 Amazon gift card sent. Please note this offer is limit to first 12 accounts opened using my referral code.

CollegeAdvantageReferralBonus2010-04-27 AmazonThankYou2010-04-27

Why should I worry about my kid’s college now? She/he is just 3 years old, it’s 15 years away.
I know I know I know. I am a procrastinator too. A little more than a month ago, my daughter was born. I joked I would worry about her college tuition because I will be near retirement age when she goes to college.

But seriously, from my own 10 years 401K savings experience, “start early, and invest in high quality investments regularly” is the right thing to do. The other day, I found Nightly Business Report (NBR) folks at PBS did a nice job on this topic. They have a series of planning 101: paying for college covers the rising college costs, and how the parents can prepare well before kids going to college, very impressive reports. The only thing left for us, the parents (new or old), is action.

What is 529 Plan?
Obviously you can google and find the answer. Here is some explanation from SavingForCollege.com: A 529 Plan is an education savings plan operated by a state or educational institution designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs. It is named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code which created these types of savings plans in 1996. According to the 529 plan interview at NBR (PBS), the tuition does not have to be college, it can be graduate school or re-training. I think the tax treatment of expenses other than higher education might be different (read more from Wiki and other material if you are interested).

What are the factors when we consider the plans (in-state vs. out of state; can we transfer the money later)?

Continue reading “Enroll in Ohio College Advantage 529 Plan and receive bonus”
Categories
advice and tips

Debating about air travel in May for our baby

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I searched both google and bing.

It looks like it’s safe for our baby as she will be 3 months old (source: Indusladies.com). For new born, it’s almost a no-no (source: about.com). One factor, I saw from about.com and kidsgrowth.com, is the air quality in airplanes and the potential to exposed her to virus. Quote kidsgrowth:

The air in planes is not filtered and recirculates throughout the cabin. All the viruses and other nasty germs circulating through the cabin will increases your infant’s chances of getting an infection.

We also searched Chinese search site baidu.com keywords “新生儿 坐飞机”. And we got similar results, such as this one from pcbaby.

Considering all the risk and inconvenience, we pretty much settled on her not travel, another reason is the travel is non-essential.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance

More tips for 2009 income tax filing

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I received both the federal and state tax refund last week.

Besides using the Turbo Tax from Bank of America site (get 35% off). For State (show me state) filing, I used paper filing, because state filing is usually simply enough, and also the Turbo Tax already gave me the estimate refund amount (so that I can compare my own calculation with it).

One thing to keep in mind, is to use the “fill/calculate” versions of the tax forms, when filling the forms using Adobe Acrobat Reader. That way, when you print, you will have a bar code, which will expedite things according to MO Department of Revenue. One can certainly use Turbo Tax state version too, but I felt it’s just unnecessary. I did used the state version once or twice, and at one time I screwed up (put negative number in income), and the online software did not warn me. Later I had to make amended return. So my lesson there is never trust the computer blindly.

Categories
finance

Better early than late: join college 529 plan

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I was thinking about this for a few days, and I took the plunge today. The kicker is the referral bonus from Ohio College Advantage 529 plan, as I read from my friend theSunsFinancialDiary.

As to investment choice, I picked the Vanguard Winsor II (which I got to know from my 401k plan), because its relative out performance over S&P 500. But the investment choice probably is not as important as “start early” (snowball or compound interest effect). Similar things can be said for state tax deduction from 529 plan contribution.

In case you are interested, please use my number 2568778 as referral code when you open account at Ohio 529 Plan, that way you will get the $25 bonus, and I will also receive some bonus money (provided you open and fund at least $25 to the account, by June 30, 2010). A rare win-win situation in the financial world 😀

(Update) PBS NBR Paying for college: the 529 plan. It also suggests “open an account as soon as the baby is born”. Another interesting thing is, 529 can be used for graduate school and re-training.

(Update 2) Comparing the fund options between Missouri 529 (MOST) and Ohio College Advantage plan, it seems to me Show Me State does not have much to show on this. Here is Morningstar’s best and worst 529 plans. One thing to note is while Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan is among the best, Ohio Putnam CollegeAdvantage (broker-sold) is among the worst. So keep this in mind: a state could have multiple plans. Choose the winner, not the loser.

(Update 3) I wrote the 529 plan in more detail at stlplace, and I will give additional $25 to those who use my reference code 2568778. So the total bonus for you will be $50.

(Update 4: 6-17-2010) I found this Kiplinger’s Find the Best 529 Plan to be interesting. One interesting point I noticed is the Show Me State (Missouri) offers state tax credit/deduction for any plan. In other words, we got lucky that we don’t have to enroll in the Missouri plan (which is not that good in my personal opinion), while get the same tax benefits. You can read the tax benefits of 529 plan at savingforcollege.com.

Categories
Fun

Little face, big face

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These days because we paid much attention to our new born baby, both my wife and I did not have much time to look at each other carefully. This leads to an interesting point: both of us felt our faces are so big compared to our baby’s little face. 😀

Guess that’s all relative. When I first met my wife 3.5 years ago, I felt her face is small and lovely at the time. Now of course all the attention are reserved for our baby. But I think it’s would be good we reserve some time for us.

Categories
advice and tips

Diapers, diapers, diapers

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One of the main job for daddies is to change diapers. From my limited observations ladies are usually more sensitive to smells than men. I mean they don’t like that smell. For me smell is not a big problem. My only worry is sometimes during the change, when the new diaper has not been in place, she pees again (messed up the wrapping clothes etc.). In one case, when we just got back from hospital, she did both pee and poo, right on my T-shirt. After that, I am more cautious.

Another reason dads do this diaper thing more often, is they are more fearless. My wife is a little worried hurting the baby, not that I am not worried, but I learned the process quickly in hospital. Much faster then the “new parenting” class at St . John’s with the faked baby 😀

Last but not least, the cost of diaper. This thing is expensive, initially we bought some from wal-mart, but soon I realized that we need to buy bulk at Sam’s club or Costco. I just did that yesterday. Nice thing a friend who have the baby experience sent us a large box of diapers. Very thoughtful gifts indeed 🙂

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Stocks

Joined Bank of America Keep the Change Program

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(Update 05-07-2010) I just found out some more details on how it works. Per BoA’s FAQ of the Keep the Change Program, “The matching funds will be credited annually to your savings account. This will take place within 8 weeks after the month of your enrollment anniversary for the Keep the Change® savings service.”

(Update 04-04-2010) I found US Bank “Start” saving program also to be interesting. I may join them after I “kept” enough changes from BoA in the initial 90 days.

(Original) I heard about it for a long time, today I took the plumage: I went to the local BoA branch and opened a Savings account, and because I already have checking account and check card with them, I enrolled into the Keep the Change program. Quote BoA:

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We’ll match your Keep the Change savings for the first 3 months, to the penny. After that, we’ll continue matching 5% a year. The maximum total match is $250 per year.
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So it looks like the offer is less generous than the old one, where they match penny by penny until hit annual limit ($300?). In other words, there is no 3 month sweeten deal, then 5% match thing. It’s more like I missed the hot deal 🙁

But look at another way, I need the Savings account regardless, the Keep the Change is just ice on cake.

Categories
Software development

Some corrections to Hibernate tutorial

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Hibernate logo
I was referring to the First application at Hibernate (Jboss) offical documentation. I found some problems when doing the exercise: just want to share some of my findings so others may benefit.

1) dependency version missing: there are already some some discussions on the Hibernate discussion forum, such as this one and that one. I followed the first one: added the version numbers as suggested and the problem went away.

2) jdbc driver can not be found, the fix is to

mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=hsqldb -DartifactId=hsqldb -Dversion=1.8.1.2 -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/your/hsqldb.jar

in my case (mac) this is /Users/major_xu/Downloads/hsqldb/lib/hsqldb.jar

I saw discussion on this one, too, the suggestion is to “add classpath for hsqldb.jar”. But I don’t know how to do it in maven command line.

3) misc: there are a lot other corrections:

Continue reading “Some corrections to Hibernate tutorial”