That is the question I have been asked by several of my blog readers in the past 6 months or so that I have not spoken about the Money Experiment. Did it work? Did it bomb? Did you scrap it altogether? Today, after a long hiatus from the blogosphere, I’m here to put all those questions that I got flooded with, by those ‘four’ die-hard fans of my blog, to rest. To be honest, I myself cannot tell whether the experiment was a grand success or an utter failure. All I can say is that it did change quite a few things in my life (hear the music playing?). In this post, I am gonna spit out all the details and let you decide how the experiment fared. In fact, many of the changes that came about were not related to money at all. If you’re going through the original post right now, please do ignore the post-script, the daily update never came about (I was busy dude!)

If you look back at the original post I wrote almost a year and a half ago, when I started the experiment, you can easily tell that I had no clear idea where I was going or what I was trying to achieve. It is not that hard to figure that from the way the post was put out right? All I knew was there were a lot of things that were wrong with my finances and I felt I had absolutely no control over them (they were controlling me rather). I was almost broke, with only a few dollars in my bank account and hoards of debt piling on constantly. I was living the American dream! As an immigrant, that was certainly not acceptable, at least by Indian standards.

If you recall, I had organized my experiment into three broad categories with very intelligent names – categories A, B and C! Category A was all about the stuff that I was buying by paying above-sticker price. The sticker price in this case would be the best possible price for a particular product considering all sources available. In short, I was buying things without doing enough research or giving considerable thought. Did that change? It did, to a certain extent at least. I do a reasonable amount of research now before I buy anything. I have several tools now that help me get the best available price for a particular product. I do have to confess that I haven’t stuck to the rule 100 percent of the time. For instance, my mobile phone bill for 2009 was $1340 for the year. That is about $112 per month, just for cell phone service. For that kind of money, I can hire a guy in India who will run over to the other party and deliver my message every time I have something to say. I’m not kidding! Well this has been partly due to my inabilities to keep an eye on my minute usage in addition to ATT’s incompetence. Mostly, ATT’s incompetence I would say.

Another pain-point for me has been the use of cash. As weird as it may sound, but I have used too much cash last year, almost $200 every month. Now I know what you must be thinking; isn’t cash better over credit cards and did you say $200 (loser!)? Yes, cash is better than a credit card! That is, only if you are living on welfare or have a gambling problem and in that case, you wouldn’t have any credit cards anyway. Why is cash bad you ask? Well, first of all it is a pain to go to the ATM to get cash and secondly it is a bigger hassle to keep track of where it went. I, for one, haven’t tracked any of my cash expenses in the past year (or ever). Was it spent on food or was it spent on gas? I’d be happy if it went into the former. On the other hand, if you use a credit card, you can easily import all your transactions into your monthly budget. I don’t get it when people get really worked up when they hear about credit cards. There are no bad credit cards, only bad spenders (and then there is Citibank, of course!). I’d rather use a credit card to get the free points ($$$) and help track my budget online than get slapped with a $39 ‘insufficient funds’ charge by the bank by using a debit card without knowing my balance.

As you can see, there is still some work to be done but I’m ‘working’ on it. However, the biggest change has arrived in my buying habits, which brings us to Category B. Category B items were everything that were turning me into a borderline, compulsive hoarder. Buying craploads of stuff that I did not need in the first place had become my evening job. I’d come home from work and go shopping because I had nothing better to do. A bike that I rode only once, shoes that I wore once (or maybe twice), magazines that went directly to the trash were just a few among a zillion other things that were being bought without thought. Did that change? Oh yeah baby, big time. Now I buy stuff that pays me back. It could be in the form of health, information, entertainment, travel or plain, simple fun. In other words, I seek value now, the way Tom seeks Jerry. No more going to the movies just because it is a Friday and you have no other way to kill time. I’d rather stream a movie over Netflix and stay home cozied up on the couch *wink* *wink*. Instead of going to expensive restaurants just because the wife’s friend posted some crazy pix of her gouging on a 5000 calorie meal on Facebook, I’m happy with my five-dollar-footlong while I watch the birds in the park. See the lifestyle changes that I was talking about earlier?

If you have read so far, then I really admire your patience and I think I just added my fifth reader. *High five!* By now, the question that might be lingering in your mind is ‘what about Cat C?’ or ‘you don’t wanna talk about that debt, do you?’ right? Of course! Who likes to talk about debt anyway? Toadly kiddin! Yes, let’s talk about Cat C! While at it, let’s run the numbers too.

Credit Card: ~$3200 @ 0pc until 2012. This was primarily spent on appliances that we bought recently. About $1000 from the previous balances is included in this. So yeah most of the CC balances were paid off from 2008. I did get a lot of flak from friends/family for buying appliances using a credit card. I will get to that in a bit.

Bad News: I do have some bad news to report too. It’s not bad bad but I did get an auto loan. Please let me explain before you jump to any conclusions and expunge me from your feed. Remember, I had bought a used Mitsu Montero in 08 that was using more gas than a mini 747 and was breaking more times in a week than a fresh Windows Vista install? Thousands of dollars and a gazillion gallons of petrol later, I decided it was time to bid adieu to the sucker. After months of permutations, combinations and several calculations, I arrived at the Toyota Prius. I was trying to zero-in on something that had the lowest ‘Total Cost to Own‘ and no matter how many models I compared it with, the Prius always came out to be the winner. I had spent about $4000 on the Montero in the first half of 09 compared to $2500 on the Prius in the second half (that includes everything from gas to depreciation mind ya!). Whatever said and done, I do have an auto loan and it is not my best friend. Aah, the bliss of American life. I did get a great deal on the loan though; 3.69%. That way, I could pay off the rest of my loans. I promise you will love me more once you read the following section.

Housing loans: We completely paid off balances on our Bangalore home. Yay! This was a major win financially. If we decide to go back to India in the next few years, we have a dwelling to call home. The other night, I had a dream that we were stuck on a rainy day in Bangalore and we had to spend the night on a sidewalk. Guess that’s not gonna happen now.

Just in case you were getting happy that the post was getting over, I have some news for you; it’s not. We are only half way through. I also have some breaking news for you: just a sec, waiting for the triumphant music to get over….

About three months ago, we closed on a home here in Austin, TX. Double yay! Yes, no kidding. After years of living in flats, apartments, tents and under bridges, we are extremely excited to be first-time homeowners. I’m yet to receive the infamous 8k credit from Uncle Sam which I’m going to diligently apply towards the mortgage. After getting burned in other instruments over the past couple years, my mantra for the next few years (or the rest of my life) is: you buy it only if you can touch it. Since late 08, I have solely concentrated on real estate and gold. Sorry, no intangible assets for me please. The above CC expenses were solely towards appliances like Washer, Dryer and basic move-in expenses like paint, furniture etc.

And the credit card ire from friends and family I was talking about earlier, it was just a matter of choice. Whether I wanted to spend the cash upfront or would I rather pay it off slowly and take care of other expenses first. I had to buy the appliances anyways coz it sucks to lug your laundry to a laundromat in the middle of the night if you do not have a working W/D (believe me, I have done it before). It sucks even more if your wife makes you use your hands to clean those dirty dishes. So my advice, if someone is not charging you interest for something you need badly, take it. Pay off your other high-interest loans or if you’re one of those lucky ones who doesn’t have any, put the cash in a CD or a savings account.

Takeaway: This is all that I have ‘accomplished’ with the Money Experiment in the past 16 months. There have been some major lifestyle changes along the way and there are many that are still in the works. All in all, I have become a little more aware of my overall finances, be it income, spending, investing or saving. Wastage has almost come down to zero which I’m really proud of. Even though income levels have pretty much remained stagnant, I do feel we are leading a better life. All said and done, I’m yet to see the day where I can comfortably say ‘I’m well off’. Hopefully, I will get to see that day. Some day…

6. Dell Inspiron Slim 537ST HTPC Contd…
On Black Friday, last month, I got lucky with a Bing promo that was advertising 25pc cashback on all Dell Home Office stuff and managed to pick up an Inspiron 537ST for about $350.

The specs are as follows

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 (2.33GHz, 4MB)
- 4GB DDR2 SDRAM,800MHZ- 2X2GB DIMM
- ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB
- 640GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive 7200RPM
- 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
- Integrated 5.1 Channel Audio

Not bad for the price paid huh? In fact, a quad core might be a little bit of an overkill for most media today but you never know what will be here in the next few years.

Here are a few pointers about the Inspiron that I think I should share with you. I had a hard time getting info on these things before I bought the machine.
- The form-factor of the Slim is about the same as an XBOX-360, a tad wider maybe but overall, fits really well in the entertainment center. The piano black is about the same finish as the PS3 and is highly recommended if the rest of your setup is in black. Check out this video to get an idea about the size.
- The ATI Radeon HD 4350 that this Dell ships with has an HDMI out and it can do 7.1 Audio via LPCM. Here is a great article that explains in detail LPCM Audio via HDMI.
- If you’re thinking a quad-core box would be too noisy for the living room, well you’re in for some great news; the thing is extremely quiet, way quieter than your PS3!
- Is it beefy enough? Can it do 1080p? Well, with a quad core, it could do 2160p if it had its way! Jokes aside, almost all of your media needs will be taken care of; including even video editing and some excellent HD video streaming over the network.

Price paid: $350

That is my Home theater setup for now. I still have a few things on my list to complete the setup:
- Harmony One Universal Remote
- A wireless keyboard with a trackball (Looking at the Dinovo Mini or the IOGear Mini Wireless Keyboard).
- A NAS to put all my media in a single place and RAID it preferably.

All in all, the entire setup has cost me around $3500 (excluding the camcorder) and I should say I’m really pleased with the performance. Not to forget, 1080p with 7.1 surround with 24p all the way.

Happy Holidays and have a great new year!

Here is how my Home Theater setup looks like right now.

Components
- Panasonic 50PZ800U THX-certified 50 inch Plasma Display.
- Pioneer 1019 AH-K Audio-Video Receiver.
- Sony Playstation 3 Game Console/Bluray Player.
- Dell Inspiron Slim 537ST Desktop Computer.
- AT&T U-Verse Cablebox/DVR.
- JBL Northridge EC35 Center Channel Speaker.
- JBL GS500 Front Floor Speakers.
- Onkyo HT540 Rear Surround Speakers.
- Polk Audio PSW-505 Sub-woofer.
- Canon Vixia HF100 HD Camcorder.

Click on the image to enlarge.

This is basically my budget HT setup so far. Since I’m as frugal as I’m an Audio/videophile, in addition to throwing some light on the technical details of each component, I shall elaborate on the bargains that I got as well.

1. The Television
- My first flat panel display was a 42″ Philips Plasma that I bought about 3 years ago. Even though it was a 1080i panel, I absolutely loved the picture (I’m making it sound so bad ). Last year, I finally gave in and decided to go for a 1080p display. After reading raving reviews about the latest and greatest Samsung LCD, I got one home and the very next minute, I started regretting the decision. The blacks were way off when you sat off-axis and the pixelation during fast-moving scenes was driving me nuts. I returned it within a week. After that, I did a couple of months worth of research (without a TV ) and after repeated visits to pretty much every Circuit City/Best Buy/Frys/ in Austin, I pulled the trigger on the Panasonic 50PZ800U. You can check out the CNet Reviews on this display and see why I bought it. It was the first display to be THX-certified and came in a close second to the Pioneer Kuro in terms of black-levels. I am extremely happy with the purchase.
Price Paid: $2200 including taxes.

2. The AV Receiver and Sub-woofer
- This is an interesting story. I bought this receiver about 2 weeks ago and I didn’t know I was getting one until I actually got one. We were at Best Buy to buy a Washer/Dryer set and they were running an offer in the Home Theater department that gave you 36months Interest-Free financing if you spent $1000 or more. We had already spent about $1200 on the W/D set so I was kinda annoyed that we were not getting the same deal as the HT guys. The sales lady told us that we could qualify for the offer if our bill showed at least one item from the HT department. So, we walked into the HT section without knowing what to buy. We looked at the Harmony remotes (on my list for over 2 yrs now ) but found out they were priced almost double. Then I stumbled upon another offer which said if I got a Pioneer receiver along with a Polk Subwoofer, there was a $150 discount on the total. The receiver and the subwoofer were priced pretty competitively (close to Amazon). I checked a few reviews on Amazon.com right there and most reviewers had nothing but great things to say. After a few minutes of ‘discussion’, I got the green light from the wife and within a few minutes, we were out of the door with a 7.1 channel HDMI AV receiver. I was wanting to get one for a long time but just hadn’t done enough research in that direction. Most of the research came after I had brought the thing home and fortunately, it is one of the best ones in the market right now.
Price paid: $600 + tax

3. Sony Playstation 3
I don’t have to talk much about the PS3 do I? Other than being a great gaming console, it is also a superb Bluray player. Even ordinary DVDs look magnificent, thanks to its wonderful upscaling capabilities. I have had the PS3 for a while now and the primary reason for getting one was just the BD player. I started playing games on it only recently and I must say, that’s working out great too It can do excellent Dolby and DTS and at the same time, some awesome 7.1 (Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD) via LPCM. As you can see, my current setup is only a 6.1 and I cannot wait to add another speaker to the mix to make it a true 7.1 configuration.
Price paid : $250 (It was $400 at that time, got it brand new on Craigslist for almost half the price. So, look around.)

4. The Speakers
- I have had my Onkyo system for over 5 years now and honestly, it was pretty much a ‘bachelor’ setup. I was raring to get rid of the system but just hadn’t found the time and energy ($) to get a better one. Last year, I got the JBL GS500s, used from Craigslist. You will be surprised if I tell you how much I paid for the speakers. I got the mammoth front floor ones for $100. Yes, both of them together for $100. After a few months, I added the center channel (EC35) which cost me about $75 (again, used from CL). It was in an almost-new shape and I just fell in love with the gold-plated connectors. The surrounds are from my previous Onkyo HTIB which I had purchased for $400, for the entire set that is (receiver + 6.1). I sold the receiver, the sub and the front speakers for $225. I was left with the surrounds and you could give them a current market value of maybe $50.

5. Canon Vixia HF100 HD Camcorder
Until last year, I was using a Sony Hi-8 DV Tape Camcorder to record most of my home videos. Almost all of the other stuff in the household had gone digital but for the camcorder. After a while, it just felt there was too much work involved in recording videos and then transferring them to a digital format before storing them to a digital medium (SD, HDD etc.). I had almost resigned from using it for over 3 years as I was getting back to stills via my Canon DSLR. Finally, I gave in to the temptation and got myself a 1080p HD-capable Canon. I wanted to future-proof my purchase for at least 4 to 5 years (if not more) and since the Panny supported reading media directly from an SD card, I wanted something that recorded to SD media.
Price Paid: $700 (I will exclude this from the total sum since this is not a mandatory item for an HT setup)

24p
The reason I included the camcorder in this setup was to highlight the fact that it can record in 24p Cinema mode and the Panny 50PZ800U can receive and display 24p signals. If you’re a video-enthusiast, this might be something that would fancy your interest. But wait, there’s more! The PS3 is also capable of playing back media recorded @ 24fps and so is the Pioneer 1019 AH-K AV Receiver. So, your entire setup pretty much can handle 24fps throughout, just like in the movies? Yes, it can! If you’re planning on taking the 24p route with your setup, this would be a configuration you might want to look at.

6. Dell Inspiron Slim 537ST HTPC
Now comes the HTPC, the driver that hosts and streams all of the media to the other components. Ever since my classic XBox started failing on playing HD content, I started toying with the idea of building an HTPC. Previously, I used to stream all of my content via the XBox or my PS3 (thru TVersity) and it worked really great. The only downside was that I had to keep two components ON at all times, the XBox and the desktop that the media resided on. And as I mentioned before, the newer skins and high-bandwidth video formats were a straight no-no for the aging XBox. There were very few choices available in the market for an OEM HTPC, even as of this writing. I wanted something that could handle 1080p video and beyond (it will be here in a year or two, I’m telling ya!), so it had to have a good GPU with an HD output that could deliver 7.1 audio to my receiver. I looked at the ASRock ION 330, the Acer AspireRevo and the newer Dell Zino HD. All of them used something on the lines of an Intel ATOM processor in conjunction with NVidia’s recent ION onboard GPUs and claimed to seamlessly do 1080p. I hadn’t looked at one first hand, so there was no way to tell if they really did. And if at all they do, I have a feeling that it is going to be borderline. Add something advanced like the BD Live and I am sure they will start crapping out. Most of them were selling for somewhere between $300 to $450.

To be contd…

Last year, I had written about a plastic coffee tumbler that I’d gotten for cheap from the Starbucks store here (opens in a new window). The post received a lot of interest from informed readers like you, especially concerning the presence of any BPA in the tumbler material. After repeated attempts to get that information from the store as well as several other sources, I was not able to provide an answer. Yesterday morning, however, I logged into the site after a long hiatus and found out that one of my blog readers, Kori, had posted a comment about the recycle code on the bottom of the tumbler. I said to myself, D’oh! How could I not look beneath the tumbler! Anyways, this is some really valuable information for most of us who love to transport our coffees along with us everywhere and at the same time, want to know the safest (and cheapest) option out there to do it. Thanks a ton Kori.

After reading Kori’s comment, I decided not to use the Starbucks tumbler anymore and look for something nicer (read safer) elsewhere, within my budget though. I had been wanting to get a stainless steel one for a long time now but most of them run in the $20-$40 price range. Not only is the price a big bummer, but most of them are not that great in the quality department either. To make it worse, the coffee does not stay hot that long, I guess since it is steel. This info was based on my experience with another steel tumbler that I had received as a present from a friend.

Last night, I was doing my weekly errands and had stopped at Costco for some quick grocery shopping. My eyes fell on a set of stainless steel coffee tumblers that were strategically placed at the entrance. Not only was the price attractive (given how badly I look for deals ), I was smitten by the style too. These were tumblers made by a company called Contigo and they were selling for $20 a pair. Yes, that is $10 a pop. The packaging said that the tumbler had an AutoSeal feature to prevent spilling and it kept liquids hot for about 4 hrs and cold for around 12 hrs. I was clearly impressed. I picked up a pair just to give it a try and so far, I have been pleasantly surprised with how good this tumbler actually is.

The build looks very sturdy. Fits in quite snugly in the palm with a pretty tight grip. The lid is very well-built too and it is dishwasher-safe. The lid is completely air-tight which helps it keep the temperature steady for a longer period of time. The lid also has a switch that you use to let the drink out every time you sip on it. Another thing I observed was that the lid has a very cool design right around the opening. Gives a very good feel when you sip on it, letting out the right amount of drink while at the same time, making sure not to burn your tongue. I cleaned the tumbler twice since yesterday and I must tell you, it is extremely easy to clean; both the lid as well as the bottom container. And even though it is steel, it is as light as my previous Starbucks tumbler.

The only gripe I have is that they have only one stainless steel finish available at Costco. On their web site, I did see an additional four colors to pick from. The red one would be pretty cool! But again, the Costco ones are selling for half the price and the stainless steel look isn’t totally terrible. In fact, it looks pretty cool! You do get a choice of colors with the lids. I got the blue and green combo.

Overall, I’m thoroughly impressed with this tumbler and going by its build quality, I’m pretty confident that it’s going to last a lifetime. So go ahead, if you are a Costco member, grab yourself a pair. I’m sure you will enjoy it.

Image courtesy: Contigo.com

For most of you who have been following my Money Meter closely, it might have come as a shocker to see the meter jump from about $1400 last month to over $2000 this month. I’m gonna refrain from building a plot and a climax in this post today and just throw the numbers at you real quick.

$250 – MS Exams

Last month, I registered for two Microsoft exams. Each one of them costs about $125 but I used vouchers from friends and managed to register for both of them for free. Total savings = $250.

$500 – Lease Renewal Special

Two weeks back, when we were driving back our new Prius from San Antonio, we were dog tired and damn hungry too,  so we stopped by Riata Bar and Grill for a quick bite. The waitress in the restaurant looked really familiar. After a good 15 mins of scratching my head, I was finally able to recognize her. She is a neighbor in our apartment complex and I see her every now and then with her dog, thanks to Dash’s aggressive instincts. Khushi and the girl hit it off right away (women!!!). The girl then went on to tell us about a special that was going in our apartment complex. It was for a whopping $500 discount on the first month’s rent if we renewed our lease for 6 months or more. We had recently signed a lease and it was effective only from July 1; so I thought to myself maybe we were eligible for the deal but were never told about it. The very next day I went to the leasing office and haggled with the manager for 20 mins. At the end of it, I came home $500 richer.

$300 on Cable

We got rid of the cable last month since all we were watching on TV was Network TV. It did not make any sense to pay $50 month after month for something that was available for free. We are not gonna have cable for a while now unless they start showing live cricket matches in North America. Total Savings for the next 6 months = $50 X 6 = $300

The next project for haggling is to get my renter referral money from the apartment guys. I referred 2 friends and am eligible for a whopping $800 check. I’m not gonna get the entire $800 since it’s gonna be divided by 3 (Indian style of referral!). Whatever the amount, I don’t like to let go of $$$$ that legitimately belong to me. Especially not to corporations.

If you remember, when we started the Green Project^ in early November of last year, I had pledged that I was going to ‘drive a better car’. During that time, I had the 2005 Honda CRV and a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero. In May of 2008, when I bought the Montero, little did I know that it had the carbon footprint the size of an 800-pound gorilla. I felt helpless. I really wanted to get rid of it but I had just bought it and that too for a dirt-cheap price of $4800. And I must say, I’m not as green as I’m frugal. I continued to use the Montero sparingly, bringing out the CRV as much as I could. However, things turned a little ugly after a few months. The Montero, as old as it was, started giving up on me. At first, it was the minor stuff like the battery etc. Then, major breakage set in. I ended up spending a good $2000 on it within two months. I didn’t mind much about the extra expenses since I had bought it at such a bargain price.

While this was happening, I’d completely forgotten about something else that was playing a big role in my auto expenses every month. Even though I seldom used the Montero, my monthly auto expenses remained high. After a few hours of dissecting my expenses on auto, I realized the culprit was Gas aka Petrol (for my non-US readers). Without my knowledge, I had been spending close to $150/month on filling up this gas guzzler’s tummy. Yes, it was averaging about 16mpg, standing true to its name, an 800-pound gorilla, with a big appetite of course! This was inspite of me using the CRV more than the Montero. Maybe it was averaging even less than 16mpg, who knows! I still didn’t mind it. I thought maybe if I just stopped using this sucker completely, I will not have to worry about all this. I and Khushi started to co-ordinate our trips so that we used only the ‘better car’. We were not ready for a new car yet (check out my Money Experiment^).

Last April, however, things changed for the worse. One fine evening, when we were coming back from Sun Harvest, the damn thing refused to boot. After repeated attempts to revive it, the thing did not budge one bit. We had done a good bit of shopping and had to call a friend to pick us (and our groceries) up. We left the car that night in the parking lot and the next day, my insurance guys eventually towed it to a shop. The shop guy calls me the next day and says the alternator has gone bad. Usually, one would suspect the battery to go bad when a car doesn’t start. But I had replaced the battery only a few months before. Didn’t make sense! Well, it so happened that the bad alternator had caused the almost new battery to fail too (due to an overcharge). The estimate came out to be $650. That was the day when I decided enough was enough. It did not make any sense owning a 10 year old vehicle that I was spending top dollar on, month after month when I could get something nicer for the same amount (post coming up in the Money Experiment on this). In a year, I had spent about $2700 in repairs, about $1000 extra on fuel and another $2000 in depreciation totaling to $5700 for 13 months or about $440 per month.

Last week, we finally pulled the trigger on a new Prius. I traded in the Mitsubishi Monstero (happily so) and welcomed the green machine to our family. So far, I have been enjoying the 48mpg. Will report more and add pix shortly.

This might come in as a big surprise to most of my blog readers. You might wonder, of all things, how can one stay cool, on a frikking IM client? After all, GTalk is nothing but another internet messaging tool like the rest of them out there (Yoohoo, Windows not-so-live etc.) right? Well, you might want to think again. GTalk is different and I’m going to teach you a few cool tricks on GTalk that could make you uber-cool from uber-boring in a jiffy! Ready? Let’s do this.

1. Pick a badass username

This is where all the coolness begins. You ain’t nothing in the G-world if you don’t have a sick username. Don’t pick boring names like reachme12345, emailtime90210 or fungirl2005. I personally knew fungirl2005. It wasn’t fun anymore creating an account every year!  Try something cooler. Something that tells everyone out there how awesome you are. I remember having IDs like LonerInAustin, TostitoLover and KittiesRock.  If you’re a guy, go with names like LifeIsABeach, DramaKing or LoveMahCouch. If you are a chica, something like HeartSugahDad, BootieMama or DonutGal would be the best choices. Never ever use your real name. Believe me, I have gotten into trouble many a times coz of that. I must also mention that zip codes are a straight no-no (makes it easier to locate you).

2. Update your first and last name

A lot of people somehow miss this very basic feature of GTalk. What happens then is, you end up displaying your username to the world and believe me, a lot of us have weird usernames (like the boring ones above). A friend of mine had a username  ’touch_dear’. Now that should get you popular with the ladies huh? His idea behind that ID was, he wanted people to keep in touch with him and also wanted to let them know that they were very dear to him or something like that; you get the drift. So, your first step should be to update your account information. Choose a name that sends a strong message out. I remember having google accounts with names like The Real MacGruber, Furious Loner, Burrito Lovah and Schitt Happins. You will not believe me if I tell you how many friends I have made using those names.

3. Get a cool profile picture

This is extremely important if you want all your friends to talk about you in the G-world. In fact, more important than your username or your first or last name. Like they say, a picture is worth a 1000 blah blah blahs. This is your true identity and you should choose a picture that tells everyone what a beautiful person you are, both inside and out. However, it is also important that it connects well with your username. A few ideas to help you pick one easily.

GUYS

GALS

4. Choose a cool status message/icon

If you never thought about this, now is your chance! Twitter made a fortune just by letting people tell other people what they did every minute of their ‘exciting’ lives. And there are a lot of people out there who are really interested in everything you do, right from what shaving cream you use to chop your beard to how many packs of Frito Lay’s you consume in a day. People who care about you more than you care about yourself. For starters, check out Gul Panag’s Twitter page. Now, I care about her and I seriously wanna know what she ate for lunch, if she drinks diet or regular coke, what is she planning to have for dinner, what does (not) she wear at night, what time does she wake up, how many times does she flush her toilet and a lot of other such important stuff. You might laugh at me if I tell you that the status message is the new status symbol. But trust me coz I’m always right. Another one of my fav five Twitterers is Mallika Sherawat. Her account name stands at MallikaLA. Why the LA? She opened her Twitter account in LA dummy! One of the tweets from the sweet seductress was “yes, sir! M indeed veg and proud of it! how do u think I maintain this body figure?“. Now how would I know if she was a vegetarian or not if it were not for her status message? And how would I know whether that was indeed the real reason behind her ‘body figure’ ? So, respect the status. Everybody wants to know what kinda underwear you’re wearing right now. And don’t forget to set it to ‘Busy’ with the red ‘talk to my hand‘ icon. People can be in their underwear and still be busy!

5. Always ‘leave the conversation’

Oh ho ho. I just can’t wait to reveal this G-secret to you. This neat trick can catapult your life in tha G-world overnight. You can thank me later for giving you such valuable piece of advice. When I was new to GTalk, I was like you; naive, innocent and gullible. Then, one fine day, I stumbled upon this cool trick that, all of a sudden, made me look like Antonio Banderas. Eager to know how I did it? Here it goes.

Say you’re talking to a contact on your G-list. He/she types something at you. You type back. And then, immediately, you hit the ‘X’ button on the top. Yes, you close the window. GTalk has this cool little feature that, whenever someone closes their chat window, tells the other person that ‘XYZ has left the conversation‘. That XYZ is you. It is like walking out of a meeting room full of people, without giving two hoots about the rest. Feel it? Feel the energy, the power now? It’s like telling the other person, ‘I have said what I had to, you can go take a hike now.‘  Try it out and let me know the results. You will be a changed man (alright, woman too), I promise.

There are a lot more tricks that I can teach you, however, for that you will need to be at least moderately good at these five. I have put endless hours behind GTalk and it has taken me years to master these techniques. With a lot of practice and hard work, I’m confident that you will be as good as me someday. If you need help with any of the above tricks, please do not hesitate to contact me at LonerInAustin[AT]yahoo.com.

Last week, owing to several issues that I had been having with AT&T, I finally decided to bid adieu to their UVerse TV service. I had been with Time Warner for a long long time and I just loved their service. Then, AT&T came out with an enticing offer (rebates etc!); so I bit the bullet and ordered their UVerse service. I had heard really good reviews from my friends about their revolutionary new TV service which let you record four programmes at the same time among many other things (help us with laundry, dishes etc.). Even though I never had to record four shows at the same time, my biggest frustration came from their HD broadcast. It looked worse than SD. Time Warner’s HD was hands-down a thousand times better than ATT HD. HD was not the only thing that made me pull the plug on ATT though.

My second biggest gripe with ATT was their customer service. Even though they have hundreds of corporate stores across the country and a handful in Austin too, there is no help available whatsoever from any of their stores. The stores are only to signup new customers and from there on, you are pretty much on your own. It takes a good 20-30 mins to get through their 800 number and their ‘offices’ are open only during regular business hours. In other words, you cannot call their 800 number after 6 o clock? What is this, the 70s? When we signed up for the service at one of their stores, the sales guy had told us he would get us a rebate of $300. That was too good an offer to refuse, so we signed up. Three months went by and there was no sign of any rebate. After trying a zillion times to get through to their customer service, I finally received my rebates, for $150. And that, after almost about five months. Their excuse was they did not have my apt # in their database! I wonder how those bills would arrive month after month, promptly, at the right apt #? Hmm! Time Warner, on the other hand, has a local access number and worst case scenario, you can just go to their local office and get your grievance addressed.

Even after ending my relationship with Uverse, my problems did not stop. This happened when I had to return their equipment. They have an ‘arrangement’ with UPS where in you need to find a UPS store and drop in all the equipment there. I had no issues with that. It’s no different than go to a local ATT store right? In fact, the UPS guy was quite nice to us. However, what frustrated me was that ATT did NOT require me to return any cables or the remote control. The UPS guy outright refused to ship the cables and remote back to ATT. According to ATT, the cables and the remote control are ‘yours to keep’. I’m sure ATT is trying to reduce UPS costs but do they really think it costs them less to manufacture another remote than to just ship it back? So, essentially, every AT&T customer in America ends up with a few hundred feet of telephone cable and a remote control for a cable box for good! After this ‘incident’(for the lack of a better word), I do not think we will be doing any new business with AT&T. I have wireless service with them but I have to stick with it just because I love my iPhone too much. I’m just waiting for my contract to get over at this point.

The Time Warner service got installed last week and I’m really glad to see some good quality HD broadcast now. Not to mention, TW is charging me $80 a month against $110 that ATT used to charge us. Total savings for the next 6 months that I plan to keep TW, 6X$30 = $180.

Last year, I had built a desktop for myself. I got some of the best components out there and assembled a high-end quad-core desktop for my home-office. I shall post some pix soon. It was based on Jeff Atwood and Scott Hanselman’s desktop rigs. It is an awesome setup! However, after just about a year, my 24 inch monitor gave up. It was out of warranty by one week and Westinghouse did not entertain my request for a courtesy service (a rant post is coming your way pretty soon). Another thing that had never worked from day one was the NVIDIA 8600GTS video card that I had so excitedly added to the mix. I tried everything I could possibly try to fix it but to no avail. So finally I decided I was going to get a new card. However, I wanted to make sure that it was the card and not the motherboard that was faulty.

I went to Frys and got a 9400GT (512MB @ 550MHz). The damn thing worked like a charm on the very first attempt. I was thoroughly impressed with its performance even though it has a lower clock speed than the 8600GTS (550 Vs 700). But again I’m not a gamer so you’re asking the wrong person when it comes to video cards! By the way, this post is about the moolah that I saved on this card rather than my geek skills’ show off I got the card for $86.59 with taxes etc. A couple of weeks later I stumbled upon the same 9400GT but with 1GB memory on Buy.com that was selling for $65.10 shipping included. I promptly ordered the card and it arrived within 2 days. Yesterday, I went back to Frys, returned the card and said thank you very much. Just now I found that the card I bought on Buy.com has a $15 cashback as well!.

Total savings : $21.49 + $15 = $36.49. Sweet!

Even though we didn’t take it to the level of extremity that I mentioned above (furniture? c’mon!), we thought we could do better. Eventually, late last year, we got ourselves a recycle bin. We looked around many stores for something specific for recycling and the ones we found weren’t any different from regular trash bins. We wanted something that we could use to dump stuff like bottles, paper, plastic etc.; anything that can be recycled. But I wanted something bigger so that we did not have to make half a mile trips to the community recycle bins everyday. Also, I wanted something that could be transported easily. A regular trash can is a b1tch to carry around. Something more horizontal was what I was looking for. So, I thought why not use something like a laundry basket? They are pretty sturdy and are extremely easy to haul down a flight of stairs right? I ended up getting a medium-sized Rubbermaid laundry basket that looks something like this.

It did not cost me more than $5. Compare that to the regular trash bins of identical size at $20. It’s highly transportable and quite easy to clean too. Try it out, it’s been working out really well for us.