Features I'm looking for in a budget management software

So I've been struggling to actually get a clear picture of my budget recently. It's not like I don't have a general picture, but the details and especially the predictions, will sometimes fail me. I've gone through a few experiences with different software, and I'd like to start by recounting them.

My first try was actually using Google Calendar, which isn't a budget software at all, but it at least let me enter all my regular bill reminders with the precision I wanted and needed (every X day, every second friday of the month or the first monday of every 4 months if I wanted it to!). It didn't import any transactions nor tell me what my balance was. Didn't have budget planning either. But it was ok for reminding me what my steady, revolving bills might be and when they came up.

About a year back I discovered CalendarBudget.com , which felt pretty awesome indeed because not only did it look like Google Calendar, it added almost all the features I wanted Calendar to have in the first place! For a while there I really wished Google would buy CalendarBudget and integrate it into their system... Tough luck. CalendarBudget is actually pretty cheap (a few dollars a month) and I still highly recommend it.

I was, however, wanting a solution that offered *more* than just a calendar view, and at the suggestion of a colleague, tried out Quicken 2009 (the offline version). It all went great at first, I entered my transactions, started bashing away entering all my bill reminders, income reminders, etc etc, trying to plan the wedding... Until I realized that Quicken sucks at realizing that this invoice I was expecting and that I mark as "payed" is precisely the same as the transaction downloaded from my bank with the same amount and the same date! I was extremely irked at its failure to recognized this, and the missing feature of actually telling the software that this was what I needed. A simple right-click would have done the trick... But nope, Quicken sucks. After reading a few reviews online about their business practices, I can honestly say I'm never going to use this software again.

I then tried a few solutions online, googling "alternative to quicken" and finding a few. Amongst the plethora of half-witted solutions that only offer bill reminders or entering every single one of your receipts manually, there were a few gems... though they still failed to meet my expectations.

• Wesabe looked really awesome on the surface, importing my information speedily with the use of a great Firefox plugin that "records" what you do to download your statement, reproducing it on demand. However, you soon realize that it's just a glorified account overview that only excites you with awesome Web2.0 javascript and some pie charts with fancy colors.
• moneyStrands didn't stand much of a chance, at the level of frustration I was at when I found it... And it failed miserably from whatever standards you see it. Strands offers to connect automatically to your bank account as long as you provide the card number, question/answer security and password... But if I am to believe the forums posts I've seen, I'm not the only one for whom it failed on both the accounts I tried. I may return to explore it and try the manual download option, but my philosophy is, if you can't make it right, don't bother!
• Buxfer, though it does the importing easily and the categorizing is pretty good, lacks a lot of the features I want, including projections (it has bill reminders, but no more than Google) and accounts other than debit accounts.

I also tried a few other software, including GNUCash and jGnash... But they all seem so... convoluted, hard to grasp, so "if you don't know how to work this product, then tough luck". It may be me, but as a regular user and someone who knows what he wants, I don't want to have to read through the documentation until I've had my initial setup done and I'm ready for some more advanced stuff. A tutorial/setup is mandatory, in my opinion. Quick at least got that, if nothing else.

So, I've decided to make a little list of features that I feel a personal finance management/planning software or web service should have. When I say Personal, I mean for myself and my soon-to-be spouse, who - as most people do - have the following:
One bank account each, a credit card, a personal loan, and RRSPs. We'll soon have a mortgage, so I'm also taking this as granted (because people with houses have even more reasons to want to manage finances). So here are the features I'd like to see, working correctly and all together, in a financial management software. Show me one (that's affordable!), and you get a cookie:

Accounts:
- Support for Chequing/Savings account
- Support for Credit Card accounts
- Support for Line of Credits
- Support for Loans & Investment accounts (RRSP, Mortgage, Etc)
- Ability to set up complete information for all accounts, including interest rates, interest type (revolving, etc), credit limits (have X left on my Visa, Y left on my line of credit).
- "Individual" accounts and "Joint" accounts, separating my budget from my spouse's if I want to. Personal information (city, country, medical info such as having glasses or regular expenses) could be useful, especially in a "multi-user" environment.

Transactions:
- Import standard bank formats (Quicken, Money, CSV, etc) or, even better, just like Wesabe does: Have me log on once, record the motions, and then do it on request, automatically.
- Transaction categories and sub-categories, with rules to sort them automatically.
- Transaction planning, monthly/weekly/bi-weekly/yearly bills with truly complete methods for choosing when the transaction occurs (stuff like "it's going to pass on Friday if the date's a weekend" or "this transaction will be on the First and the Last Wednesday of each month". Yes, we have a transaction like that!)
- Variable amount bills with proper "guessing" of what the next amount should be (average/mean) after a few of them.
- Bayesian detection of "similar" entries (if I enter a planned transaction and download my statement from the bank that shows that transaction as passed, don't put it twice like Quicken does!). Using amount and +- days, with "unsure" one shown in an easy to manage list with drop-down ordered by possible percentage of transaction match.
- Creating automatic transaction planning from past transaction (Right-Click, "This is a recurring transaction")
- "Merging" or "Overwriting" transactions that may have passed that filter (or as an alternative) with drag&drop detection.
- "IOUs", a feature that I've seen in one of the online interfaces (one that was lacking features I think) is a nice addition. No interests, just reminders of what people owe you and what you owe them. Linked to transactions of course.

Budget Planning
- Fancy-Smanshy pie-charts and graphs to show which areas are spent in the most.
- "Wallets" or "Envelopes", one of the favored (and traditional) methods of budgeting.
- "Scenarios" - didn't see this anywhere but I'd definitely buy a product that did this: Create a "copy" of the whole database and let me play with it as I wish. Create a fictional mortgage with payments here and there, change my income, win the lottery, etc. Then, clear the whole thing and return to the current reality. This would help people with "what if" scenarios... I lose my job, or we buy a house, a new car, get a kid or a dog... Anything.
- Reports: All the information you need is in the database, so it's relatively trivial to show it in a report (spendings by time, categories, in/out graphs, etc).

Interface/Visual
- A complete, easy to use initial setup screen with steps for each of the necessary information to get you started: Accounts, Recurring Transactions, Credits, Loans, Personal Information.
- You can't get anywhere without using something like a jQuery UI framework that just works well. Base your interface on Google, Wesabe, Windows 7 (awesome!) if you have to, but make it look good.
- Spend that few extra hours/days/weeks tweaking performances so that it's not only fancy, it's also blazing fast.
- Drag & Drop interface, click&change, right-click menus, whatever it takes to make the job easier and the interface intuitive.
- Autocomplete - a must whenever it's fit to use.

Things that I don't need (and that I'm sure, most people won't need either):
- Support for multiple currency: If you're dealing with multiple currencies, you need more than a "personal" budget software. You're out of scope, buddy.
- Stock Prices, Exchange Rate, PortFolio: See above. Out of scope of a personal software for the masses.
- Cheque Writing or automatic bill payment: I don't think I'm really as lazy as to want my software to pay my bills for me. It's not a good way to teach people how to manage their money.
- Tax Filing/Tax Return: There are plenty of software for this, out of scope again.
- "Payees" are overrated. I'm not a business, I don't pay people, I pay bills. Don't give me payees crap.


So.... After all of this, who's up for the challenge? If you have more ideas and features you'd like to see in a personal finance management software, post in the comments!

Edit:
In the end, I went back to CalendarBudget.com because, even though it also lacks some of the features, it has the ones that just make me like it! I strongly suggest trying it out.

CSV2MDB in VBScript

Thought I would share the following VBScript, which can be used to automate the transfer of a CSV to an MDB database automatically (columns need to be hardcoded however).

It might not be of any use to much people, but it's out there now :)

'Option Explicit
Dim strConnection, conn, strConnection2, conn2, objResultsCSV, objResultSQL, strSQL
'
' Open connection to the CSV
strConnection = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\data\;Extended Properties=""text;HDR=YES;FMT=CSVDelimited"""
Set conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open strConnection
'
' Do Query on the CSV
Set objResultsCSV = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
strSQL = "SELECT * FROM test.csv"
objResultsCSV.open strSQL, conn, 3,3
'
' Open connection to the MDB
strConnection2 = "PROVIDER=MSDASQL;DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=C:\data\Test.mdb;UID=admin;PWD=;"
Set conn2 = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn2.Open strConnection2
'
' Loop through each line of the CSV
Do Until objResultsCSV.EOF
' Insert SQL
strSQL = "INSERT INTO example (Column1, Column2, Column3, Column4) VALUES ('" & objResultsCSV(0) & "','" & objResultsCSV(1) & "','" & objResultsCSV(2) & "','" & objResultsCSV(3) & "');"
conn2.execute strSQL
objResultsCSV.MoveNext
Loop
'
'Close Connections
objResultsCSV.Close
Set objResultsCSV = Nothing
conn.Close
Set conn = Nothing
conn2.Close
Set conn2 = Nothing

Smoke-Free :)

I'm selling my nintendo DS, if anyone is interested

I've decided to get rid of my Nintendo DS console... Here are the details (pictures are available on my Flickr account):

Price: $200 (Non-negociable)
Payment: I will only accept CASH, PayPal. I cannot accept a personal check, nor a direct credit card.

For sale, Original Grey/Silver DS (this is NOT a DS Lite or a DSI), purchased within 1 week of launch date. In great condition (light use, see photos), and comes with the following games:

Nintendo DS Games:

• Metroid Prime: First Hunt (DEMO, not full game!)
• WarioWare: Touched (Minigames)
  
• Mario Kart DS (Racing)
  
• Lunar DS (RPG)

Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) Games:

• Yu-Gi-Oh: Worldwide Edition (Card Trading Game)
  
• Legend of Zelda: Link To The Past - Four Swords (Adventure/RPG)
• Metroid: Fusion (Side-Scroll shooting game)

Also included in package:

• ALL original boxes, manuals and extra material (except wrappings)
• DS Charger
• Small Carying case (not shown in picture, forgot to snap it), enough for the DS and a few games.

What is NOT included in this package (e.g. what's wrong with it): I have lost both stylus for the DS, was using retracted pens most of the time to play with it, or the small plastic thingy on the security strap. This portable console is also not modded in any way (though it can be, being the original version), physically or otherwise.

Reason for sale: I am not using this game console enough and, having bought a Wii, will probably use it even less now.

LISFM (Linus Is Not For Me)

Once again, I gave Linux a chance...

[Previously on Linux Woes:

I've tried a few times to install Linux on my system - from the old RedHat 5, to Debian, Mandrake and Ubuntu, and every time there was something that just wouldn't work or was too complexe to function easily. I remember trying to run Karaoke on my linux box, only to find that there was no CDG software that worked with a GUI, and that my dual screen setup just couldn't frakin' work properly. Each time, I reinstalled Windows within a few days. Today, nothing changed a bit]

Once again, I used a livecd from a very popular distribution (Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu with some extra - nice - tools). I tried it out, was happy about the first glance at the system, and installed it (after, of course, backing up all important data to a secondary drive).

One small issues popped up during installation itself, the automatic partitioner wouldn't detect I had 20gigs free at the start of my drive and insisted on either wiping out my 150gb drive (with 100gb of data on it!) or resizing the end of my secondary partition and installing in that 10gb - leaving the 20gb free completely untouched. I manually partionned, no biggy. It was only the start.

One thing to understand is, I believe I am part of what I call the Linux "Middle Class". Linux applies very well to computer illiterates (the "Low Class"), because the interface is now very simple, installing software is automated and effective, and files downloaded (other than Windows software) generally opens up without a hitch. That was the case for me, Linux Mint opened divx files, mp3s, word documents and such very easily.

The "High Class" are the linux geeks which are comfortable with every aspect of their system, from the Kernel to the conf files, from the Terminal command line to Compiz. Linux is also awesome for them because, on the contrary of Windows, they can customize every single thing in their computer, modify the code to their need if they are so inclined, and have the choice between all the distros and x interfaces - even building it from scratch if they know how.

The "Middle Class" on the other hand, which I'm part of, can very easily install Linux on their computers from a LiveCD or installation CD. They know how to customize their system up to a certain extent, have specific software they need and want and can generally install it - even if it means installing extra compilers and libs... But only as long as there are proper instructions and solutions on google to the errors that pop up when it fails. MCs do not like to edit dozens and hunderds of lines of codes to make things work, but they are fine with using a single line of code from a website to install something once.

So, some more specific examples of what I, as an MC, had issues with. First and foremost, as with every other try with Linux I've had, graphics are always a huge hurdle. Granted, Mint was great when I installed it at first. Everything up to Compiz worked fine, the 3D cube desktop and the fancy effects were snappy and beautiful. But Mint insisted on annoying me with the fact that there was a custom drive (ATI) for my video card, and that I could activate it with a single click of a button - which I did. However, each time I did that I would logoff and my monitor would go "Out of Range". The only way to fix it was to boot in recovery mode, and have linux "attempt to fix my graphics", which it did by installing the default graphics server and disabling ALL of the compiz effects which I like so much. And of course, there was no way I'd boot into terminal to edit the xorg.conf or whatever, just to manually specify my screen's maximum resolution and refresh rate. I did resolve this finally, by activating VNC (Remote Desktop), connecting from my work laptop and manually re-ajusting the resolution to something more acceptable and supported by my screen.

I wanted to install TED (Torrent Episode Downloader) on Linux also, because my computer's main purpose is to accept my remote connections for stuff I don't want to be on my home computer (mostly tv shows, movies, music, etc). The problem is that TED is a java application and even though it "supports" linux, starting it requires - each time - a 50-character command in terminal with about 5 different --options and the typing of the file name. Most of the TED interface is written for Windows anyway, with things like "start in system tray".

The last drop was, as usual, because I wanted to do something a bit more special that the masses, but didn't want to learn a new programming language just to make it happen - I wanted a system-wide equalizer on my computer, because my speaker subwoofer doesn't have Bass control and I need to lower it when playing music. I hate having to use specific software to play my music because even the default media player (totem) doesn't offer these functions. My sound card's Windows drivers give me an equalizer that applies to the whole system, and some audio equalizers are available in Windows if your sound card doesn't support it... But Linux? Forget about it. You need to activate a custom sound server (PulseAudio), edit conf files, download and install plugins, and the best of all is that the most common tutorial for this (called, PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support in Ubuntu"), while it shows you how to install the requirements (it's a whole page of commands!) doesn't even tell you how to use the equalizer. And it's no wonder - in order to change the settings, you have to manually edit a conf file with lines on how to modify each of the sound frequencies, save the file, and then restart the sound server.

Yes, you read correctly. There's no GUI, and no real-time ajustments. You change a text file with a bunch of numbers in it, save it, and then restart the sound server through the command line. This assumes that you understand how sound frequencies work, that you know the exact structure the text file needs (thankfully, someone was helpful enough to tell me, he's the only one http://amot.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/pulseaudio-upgrade-woes-and-a-solution/ ), and that you don't need to ever change it again.

So, the conclusion of all of this?
LISFM. Linux Is Not For Me.

Tutorial: Multilingual mojoPortal website

mojoPortal is a free ASP.Net portal with multiple database support, and is extremely user-friendly and fast (comparatively to other ASP.Net portals).

Since I've run into a few speed bumps while installing and configuring mojoPortal for use in a multilingual environment, I've decided to share my experience and what I have done to make it work with the help of multiple, complicated searches on google and the mojoPortal website. This tutorial will help you create a multilingual site that is linked together (users will be the same across all languages), but where the content is separate.

First of all, I'm assuming that you've already got mojoPortal running on your server and that it is fully functional. I'll also assume that you have already configured a main site, selected a skin, etc. Those basics are easy to figure out, and if you haven't - RTFM is your answer.

I'm using the 2.2.9.2 SQLite release of mojoPortal, but I'm assuming that this guide should be valid for at least a few releases before and after this particular one - if it isn't, please advise me and I'll make appropriate changes.

Step 1: Create a Child site

1. Logon to your site and go into the Administration, then Site Settings
2. Next to your site title, click on the drop-down and select "New Site"
3. The page loads again with a new site configuration, enter your new site name and click Save at the bottom.

Step 2: Make the site related

1. Using a file manager (from your hosting or using FTP), open the Web.config file in a text editor.
2. Change the following line
   <add key="UseRelatedSiteMode" value="false">
   to the following:
   <add key="UseRelatedSiteMode" value="true">
3. Save the file (but don't close it) and go to step 3

Step 3: Force localization (language)

1. Still in Web.config, locate the following line:
   <add key="UseCultureOverride" value="false">
   Change it to:
   <add key="UseCultureOverride" value="true">
2. Under this line add the following:
   <add key="site1culture" value="en-US">
   <add key="site2culture" value="fr-CA">
3. Modify "en-US" and "fr-CA" to the languages you want.
   
4. Save, but don't close yet, Web.config
   

Step 4: Create a sub-folder for your language(s)

1. Because websites are more easily accessible using something like http://mywebsite.com/fr/ instead of something like "siteid=2", we need to first tell Web.config to support this.
2. Locate this line:
   <add key="UseFoldersInsteadOfHostnamesForMultipleSites" value="false">
   And change it to:
   <add key="UseFoldersInsteadOfHostnamesForMultipleSites" value="true">
3. Create a folder under your /www (or /wwwroot/) folder, and create a text file named "Default.aspx" under this folder (just an empty file, no content)
4. Save and close (finally!) Web.config
   

Step 5: Add your content - tips and tricks

• This setup completely separate the content between languages, so you will have to re-create all your pages, content, layout, etc. It can take a while to get used to the replication, but it's the best way technically and organizational-wise.
• This guide doesn't cover (yet?) how to create language links on the top, or how (if) it's possible to link directly to the same page in another language. I will be working on that next. One hurdle in doing this is that even if you detect what page you're on right now, that page name will most likely not be the same in different languages (unless you manually set the page names, which is a possibility).
  

References:

• http://www.mojoportal.com/localization.aspx
• http://www.mojoportal.com/muliplesites.aspx
  
• http://www.mojoportal.com/multiplesitesbasedonfoldernames.aspx
• http://www.mojoportal.com/Forums/Thread.aspx?pageid=5&mid=34&ItemID=8&thread=1055

Selling the car and living without it.

This post was also made on the CalendarBudget forums (CalendarBudget is an online google-like calendar that lets you enter all your expenses and incomes into a nice graphical interface that will visually help you plan for your budget and future! Don't forget to enter that you were refered by eslachance@gmail.com please!)

If, like me, you have a car that you are not using to go to work (I take the Train and subway in the morning) but rather only take it for groceries and family visits and such, then I might have an idea for you.

My car is a Ford Focus 2002, and because I had a bad credit when I rented it (16.25% interest on 4 years!) and I'm a "new" driver, my total costs just for the car and insurance is $330.00. Add to that the gas (around $80 a month) and various/varying maintenance costs, I guesstimate my total monthly cost of this car is just about $500.

That is, obviously, a lot of money to be throwing away on something I only use on the weekends, and I've been looking to sell the car at a price just high enough to cover the rest of the car loan and be done with it. But what would we now use for groceries and trips?

Quite simply, rental services like Budget and Enterprise offer vehicles that can cost around $50 for a 24-hour period with unlimited mileage. Enough for larger groceries, shopping, visiting parents, etc. Even with the cost of filling up the gas tank, a lot of money is to be saved. On alternate weekends, either smaller groceries or having things delivered (at what, $5?) makes this a very good way of saving money.

If you live in an area that does offer "proper" public transit systems that can take you to work in less than an hour (train is even better, just sit down, read a book or watch a movie on a DVD player or laptop... that's the life!) then this is definitely something to consider to be cutting costs!

Forcing the "minorities" - why?

I've been throwing around some thoughts in my head lately about how people view racism and minorities in the world, and I finally found some example that I could base myself on and stem from to give a better picture of my thoughts (it doesn't always come out right).

The basis of the thought is that Racism isn't about giving priorities TO the minorities anymore than it is about denying it to them. If you want to indicate to the people around you that you're against racism, you don't need to go out of your way to show it - all you need to do, in essence, is to just ignore the skin color, language (to a certain extent) and religion of others around you, and that's enough.

Things that really bother me is when it seems that we, as a society, are obligated to force minorities into our groups in order to be socially acceptable. A blatant example is reality shows and talent shows (canadian idol for example), who always seem to have what I call the minority "tokens". Each year, you'll notice that there is at least one "token black" and most likely one "token asian" that will be selected by the jury to be part of the "winners". I'm not saying that these people don't have talents because that would be a lie. What I'm saying is that if we were to completely ignore the fact that these individuals are black or asian to start with, maybe they wouldn't have been part of the selection and someone else would have been. Or maybe there would be 3 or 4 black individuals in the selection for all we know - but it's almost always only 1, no more, no less. That has got to be by design.

Another example is when the management of any company "notices" that the visible minorities are underrepresented when compared to the national average in their organisation. Management generally calls these "shortfalls", as if they had failed to meet their quotas of "token minorities" and something has to be done about it to become socially accepted. Again this isn't saying that we should not have black people as employees, far from that. The thing is, it just shouldn't be counted at all, one way or another. If anyone, regardless of their origins, qualifies for any position then by all means give them that position. If they don't qualify, then they just don't. If your management feels the need to sort their candidates by "normal" and "visible minorities" because they absolutely want to hire at least one of each of the minorities to get their tokens... That becomes a social problem just as much as sorting them to get rid of them.

The problem doesn't only apply to visible minorities either - this can be said as much vehemently about women in social groups and workplaces, where large companies get criticized for the lack of women in mid and higher management groups. Yes, some of them are all about the big boys not wanting any women in their ranks, but that's only a minority of them. It is my opinion that in most of these cases, it's just because the women in those companies just don't have the necessary qualifications (though they would most likely deny it).

I hope this post eventually shocks someone enough for them to reconsider using affirmative action and racial quotas in their hiring (or acceptance) policies, because that was my goal.

Not that anyone reads this, anyway.

Ways of producing electricity

If you're a physicist, I suggest you turn back right now. I'm not, and I don't have much more knowledge than the masses about thermodynamics and physics in general, so this won't sound very interesting to you. As always I'm using my blog as a random thought generator and I decided that after my little post about new technologies, I'd continue in that general area and talk about ways of generating electricity (or "energy").

Up to very recently, I had always thought that there were really only 2 ways of creating electricity: Turning a dynamo, and solar power. You might start to say "wait, there's nuclear, wind power, hydroelectricity"... But all of those - all that are in use today outside laboratories at least, are all just the same: you use some sort of naturally-occurring force to turn a turbine which gives you electricity - it's all about kinetic energy (except solar, obviously).

I remember when I was younger, I thought that nuclear energy was harvested by turning the actual radiation directly into energy through some method I didn't understand. When I learned that it consisted of creating heat, boiling water, and using the steam to turn a turbine, I was crushed and realized how stupidly primitive our energy creation methods really are - imagine, using the awesome power of nuclear reaction - radioactive waste and all - just to heat up water! Later, I kept hoping that someone, somewhere would come up with the real solution, of harvesting the actual reaction into energy directly.

Today, it seems that my earlier thoughts and later hopes are finally turning into reality. This is precisely what prompted this post. So I will outline here the truly different methods I have found of generating electricity.

Kinetic/Electromagnetic
This is all about spinning a "dynamo" to convert mechanical energy (generally rotation) into electricity by use of magnets (this is where I say "I told you so". The specifics are too complex for me to me). This encompasses more than you think. Hydroelectricity uses water pressure to spin its turbines, wind power does the same with, well, wind. Nuclear energy is used to boil water into steam which, again, turns a turbine. Some fossil-fuel power plants do the same (boil water) while others burn the fuel in generators like your car engine. Even hydrogen fuel cells are the same, burning hydrogen and oxygen and producing water (cleaner, but still the same). Finally, bioreactors use energy stores in biomass (human and animal waste, plants) to create methanol that, you guessed it, is burned to turn an electrical motor.

Solar Energy
This is the first energy alternative to "turning a rod" that has been in use in larger scale. Solar power relies on the sun's radiation to "excite" electrons in the panels which become energy (again, layman's terms). Solar power is free, renewable, but not very efficient (around 10% efficiency, they say, though 10% of what I have no idea) and very dependent on weather conditions.

Thermal Energy
The first time I ever heard about this was when visiting a home depot, as odd as that might sound. I was watching a display for a slow combustion wood stove and on top of it was a small piece of metal with a fan attached to it, with two wires going from the fan motor to metal parts underneath - with no other electronics visible. A clerk told me that it "simply" used the heat from the stove to turn the fan, needing no battery or other energy source... It didn't sink in at the time (took several day of sub-conscious though to realize) that this was another source of electricity. A bit of research shows me that it's called (obviously) thermoelectricity and is created through thermogenerators. Oddly enough, this seems to be only slightly less effective than solar power (5-10%) and I'm surprised we don't hear about it very often. After seeing that fan on the stove I started to imagine all sorts of uses for it, from the heat generated by house roofs to something bigger - using earth's own magma heat to produce massive energy. It looks like we're not there yet, though I hope research is coming along that will soon give us something viable.

Radioisotope thermoelectric generator
Ah, finally, the shining moment of this post. A relatively recent New Scientist article (march 2008) says that it's now possible to use nanomaterials to turn radioactivity directly into electricity. Though according to them (and wikipedia) this has been used in the past, mostly for space probes and satellites. This is my dream come true. As far as I can understand it, you basically place radioactive material inside a capsule of nanomaterial, plug in the wires, and bingo, you have a battery that will last just as long as the radiation does!

Do you know of any other meants of electrical generation i've missed? Please comment on it!

People who mix religion with technology...

I know I just posted (actually I wrote that other post yesterday and just re-edited it before posting today) but I just had to point this out specifically. Googling "future technologies" gave me this as a second result (I think):

http://www.futuretg.com/

These guys call themselves the "Future Technology Company" or "Future Technology Group", whatever however they want to put it. Take a look at the link - that page is full of religious references like "The First Sacred Ray: The God Will" and "Discover the secret of the seven vowels"... But they mix that in with "How Google uses electronic books" and "Download GWBasic for Windows" and say how their company is behind "ProveIT" which helped clear the Y2K bug!

I mean, for frak's sake, if you're going to sound like you're providing information about technology and software, and you're religion, do you really think posting things like "You see, this Universe, as well as all of Creation ..." and "You all long to live in a world of Love and Light .." will give you any credibility?

Do it on your own time, start a religious-loving-freak blog with tips on how to connect to non-existing and fictional gods, but keep it off your goddamned (ooh, pun) techno-oriented website!

I mean, come ON!