More desktops please for Silver Gen

The Infocomm Development Authority Singapore must be applauded for launching the Silver Gen PC Specials initiative, where a selected range of personal computers is offered to senior citizens at exclusive prices and bundled with value-added products.

However, most of the offers by the three approved vendors are for notebooks and laptops; two of them offer just one type of desktop each.

Senior citizens would prefer to buy desktops because of the affordability and ease of use with bigger keyboards and screens. A wider range of desktops should be offered to make the initiative a success.

Letter from Ivan Chew

Every Profession needs  SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS, CERTIFICATIONS to achieve PROFICIENCY.

PRE-REQUISITE  is  PROFESSIONAL  EDUCATION  beyond  ACADEMIC  EDUCATION.

In Every Profession,  nOt  EVERYONE  SUCCEEDS.

The REALITY is  there must be FAILURES.

SOMEBODY  must  FAIL  in  FREE  MARKET  COMPETITION.

INVESTING AND TRADING are ZERO-SUM GAMES.

WINNER  TAKES  ALL.

wIthOUT  FAiLURES,  there  Is  nO  SUCCESS.

LEARNING  frOm  FAILURE(S)  is  the  ULTIMATE  EDUCATION.

LEARNING  frOM  OTHERS'  FAILURES  is  the  BEST  EDUCATION.

In  HARVARD,  it  is  known  as  CASE  STUDY.

CASE  STUDY  made  HARVARD  MBA  World  Renouned  Previously

iPunter      ( Date: 14-Aug-2010 10:55) Posted: Trading for a living may sound attractive to many professional people thinking of doing just that...     But the reality is one (most) would have to be very lucky to be still living after trading*.           hehehe...   (*For the purpose of this post trading includes investing)

Sovereign Citizens — a 21st Century counter culture

Study estimates up to 300,000 Americans defy federal, state laws

COLUMBUS, Ohio — They call themselves sovereign citizens, U.S. residents who declare themselves above state and federal laws. Many don’t register children’s births, carry driver’s licenses or recognize the court system.

Some peddle schemes that use fictional legal loopholes to eliminate debt and avoid foreclosures.

A few such believers are violent: Two police officers in Arkansas died in a shootout in May after stopping an Ohio sovereign citizen and his son.

As many as 300,000 people identify as sovereign citizens, the Southern Poverty Law Center found in a study to be published Thursday that was obtained by The Associated Press. Hate group monitors say their numbers have increased thanks to the recession, the foreclosure crisis, the growth of the Internet and the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

Jay LaPrete / AP

James T. McBride

Adherents expect the current American system of government to end one way or another.

“I’m the Patrick Henry of the 21st century. I’m here to regain our freedom,” James McBride said in a jailhouse interview. “I’m going to, or die trying.”

'Straw man' belief
At the heart of their belief system: The government creates a secret identity for each citizen at birth, a “straw man,” that controls an account at the U.S. Treasury used as collateral for foreign debt. File enough documents at the right offices and the money in those accounts can be used to pay off debt or make purchases worth thousands of dollars.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38668124/ns/us_news-life/

1. Pick a viewing spot far away from city lights, where the skies are likely to be clear and wide-open. Higher elevations are usually better than lower elevations, and you don't want to be surrounded by trees, buildings or other obstacles to viewing.
2. For help in site selection, you can check out the Clear Sky Chart website, which provides weather conditions for skywatching ... and links to popular viewing locations on a state-by-state basis. Your local astronomy club can also point you in the right direction. This year, some events for amateur astronomers are timed to take advantage of the Perseids - for example, star parties in California's Mojave Desert, in Michigan, in Oregon and Washington state.
3. Bring a blanket or a chaise lounge to lie back on. Have layers of clothing available in case the air turns chilly at night. Bring snacks or drinks. Bring a flashlight so you can find your way through the dark. Bring a music player or radio if you need a diversion. And bring your friends. Meteor-watching sets a great mood for chatting about cosmic issues, or meditating on the wonders of the heavens.
4. Don't give up too quickly. Give your eyes plenty of time to get accustomed to the dark. Although the meteors appear to emanate from the radiant in Perseus, don't focus exclusively on that point. "The closer the meteor is to the radiant, the shorter the trail is," Cooke explained. "I always tell people to look straight up, because that way, they'll catch plenty of meteors far enough from the radiant to see a trail."
5. The later you can stay up, the better. "It's a late-night shower," Cooke said. You could start seeing Perseids at around 9:30 p.m., and those "Earth-grazers" tend to leave the longest, most impressive trails. But the show doesn't get good until after midnight, and the peak usually comes just before morning twilight begins.
6. To get a better sense of what to expect at which time, use NASA's Fluxtimator. When you click in the right coordinates for meteor shower, date, location and viewing conditions, the Java-based calculator charts what the estimated meteor flux will be at different times.
7. If you're totally clouded out, you can try listening to the meteors. NASA's Perseid Web page includes a video feed that shows what Cooke's cameras are seeing, accompanied by a soundtrack of radio blips created by the meteor streaks. Cooke said it's also possible to hear the radio blips by tuning your FM radio to a station so distant that all you can hear is the hiss of a carrier wave. "When a meteor passes, you'll hear a blip kind of like a sonar blip," Cooke said. Here's a spooky audio file that gives you an idea what the radio echoes sound like.
8. The meteors aren't the only game in town: Saturn, Mars and Venus form a striking planetary triangle in western skies just after sunset, and the International Space Station is visible from many North American locations just before sunrise. Impress your friends by telling them that the bright star near the zenith at around 11 p.m. is Vega (made famous by the "Contact" movie). and that the bright "star" in the southeast is the planet Jupiter. If you're far enough north (or south), you might even see an aurora.
9. If you want to share your meteor sightings with the world via Twitter - and find out where the sightings are sizzling - the MeteorWatch website is the place for you.
10. Even if you miss the meteor shower completely, you can click through SpaceWeather.com's meteor gallery and catch up on the highlights. And you can start making plans for the Leonid meteor shower (peaking Nov. 17-18, unfortunately during a nearly full moon) as well as the Geminid meteor shower (peaking Dec. 13-14).

His goal is achievable subjected He/She has not held any single insurance product! Just take my word!

‘I want to have $1 million and a condo by 35’

Shawn Bock, 28,

financial services manager

He plans to marry by 30, get an industry certificate and become a director in his company by 31, and have $1 million in his bank account and a condominium apartment by the age of 35.

“I don’t want to stay where I am,” said the 28-year-old financial services manager, who is just a tenth of the way to his goal of $1 million, and believes he can get there by saving more than half his pay and investing prudently.

“I don’t speculate in stocks or take too much risk. I go for the long-term horizon; I accumulate bit by bit. I don’t enter and exit the market just to make that extra 3 per cent,” said Mr Bock, he lives with his parents. Like him, they work in Prudential.

Life could have taken a very different path for the biomedical science graduate, who once considered a career in life science.

The change of heart was because he realised that “to get any kind of meaningful career in life science ... it’s very limited by paper qualifications”.

An alternative presented itself when he was 21: His father offered him a shot at being a part-time consultant.

He enjoyed the business so much that “when I graduated, I didn’t think twice about joining full-time”. He added: “I enjoy talking to people. If you’re in life science, you talk to the test tube.” He is now aiming to complete the Chartered Financial Consultants programme in three years’ time.

But don’t get Mr Bock wrong.

Success, he believes, is not just measured by the size of one’s bank balance. “I want to be able to enjoy my work, enjoy quality family life and have my leisure time.”

He added: “I think once I hit a certain level of earnings or savings, I want to do something meaningful, and help people.” He says he wants to help the elderly by adopting a

charity and volunteering his time.

For now, with his sights on his more immediate goals, Mr Bock works longer hours, often going to office by 8.30am and rarely getting home before 11pm. His weekends are just as packed — with client meetings, badminton, church, dates with his girlfriend and spending time with his family.Not many people can say they have a roadmap of their life, but Shawn Bock knows where he wants to go and how to get there.

MICHELLE KWARA

‘I aim to start a hedge fund by the time I graduate’

Wong Jian Hui, 24, business undergraduate

W

The self-proclaimed “typical guy” made his first $100,000 in stock profits at the age of 21 and paid for his first sports car (a Mazda RX8) in full when he was just 23. Mr Wong now has dreams of starting his own hedge fund.

The former Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) boy has his dad to thank for exposing him to the world of investing at the age of 18: On many a night, he watched his father check stock prices on television. To date, the young man’s largest one-off gain stands at a whopping $120,000.

Still, despite being half a millionaire, Mr Wong, a first-year student at the Singapore

Management University, insists he doesn’t over-indulge. “I can wear Chinamade clothes; I’m not spoilt.

Sometimes I don’t even want to drive into the CBD because the parking is so expensive. There was once I parked for two hours, and the fee came up to $9. I was like, are you insane? I can do better things with $9.”

Better things such as starting a business.

The young entrepreneur also gets passive income from a tuition centre he set up five years ago.

“My dad told me to draw him up a decent proposal for the business and he’d give me the money, as long as I came back with more (money).”

Mr Wong bases his investment decisions on world events and technical analysis, studying stock charts and taking note of prices and movements over the years. But to those who see dabbling in stocks as a quick way to get rich, he says:

Forget it.

“Stocks are high-risk, high-return. Don’t try it if you don’t know how, or hope to be a millionaire overnight. If you want that, you should go and buy Toto — just don’t count on the stock market because it’s not going to happen,” he said.

While he volunteers with the annual Boys Brigade Sharity Gift Box project, Mr Wong says big-money philanthropy isn’t quite his thing.

“I agree I could do better because the donations I make are hardly anything to shout about ... I feel that when it comes to charity, it’s not all about the money. If you make an impact, that’s more important and more worth it.”

ith about half a million in his bank account and plans to lock in another half before graduation, business undergraduate Wong Jian Hui isn’t your average 24-year-old.ERIKA FOO