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8:30 AM EST, Wednesday, November 7, 2007:

CHECK. CHECK. CHECK. Or why this site was "temporarily unavailable" in recent days. The company that hosts this site is big and stupid, but responsive. I had run out of space. I asked to be switched to a new plan. For reasons known only to them, they switched me to a new server and gave me a new URL number. The way the Web works is that every site has a number. My new one is 66.148.1.165. You can reach by site by putting http://66.148.1.165 in your browser. You should be able to reach it by putting in www.InSearchOfThePerfectInvestment.com and www.TechnologyInvestor.com. For that to happen my webhoster has to tell the dispersed Internet's translation machines -- the ones that figure the words should go to a number. Of course, they didn't. And I forgot to check.... And the rest is egg on my face.

Check. Check. Check. is the most powerful motto to live by. It's amazing how much screws up. And computers have allowed us to screw up in larger and far more creative ways.

If you missed a couple of recent columns, click on previous columns.

Australia yesterday raised its key interest rate to 6.75%. That's much higher than our recently-lowered rate of 4.5%. If you were an institution or a country, would you prefer to earn 4.5% or 6.75% on your money. Now you know why the Aussie dollar has risen by two to the American dollar to nearly par. Yesterday it was 93 cents. All this means, of course, that all the Australian mining stocks I've recommended in the past year are worth much more -- just on Australian dollar appreciation. (The stocks have also risen strongly.) My favorite remains Kagara Zinc (KZL). The American dollar will continue to decline Yesterday oil hit $98. And the two easiest way to play the rising oil price -- OIL and USO -- continue their rise:

Why Apple is worth $200. My friend David Lerner owns and runs TekServe, a NYC store selling and fixing Apple products. Yesterday I dropped by on a friendly visit, fell in love with Apple's latest iPod nano and spent $161 to buy an iPod I absolutely don't need -- since I already have two.

But, this one is darling, tiny, feather light (no hard disk, just flash memory) and will play for 24 hours on a single charge. I bought the 4 gigabyte version., enough for 2,000 songs. If were a sociologist, I'd argue that New Yorkers' tolerance for subway delays has markedly improved now they all wear iPods. Apple's stock remains on a tear.

China practices communism: China now has more than 100 billionaires, second after the U.S., which has 415. Recent China IPOs have done stunningly well. On Tuesday, Alibaba.com, one of China’s biggest Internet companies, had a blockbuster stock offering, raising nearly as much as Google and soared 193% on its first day of trading. On Monday PetroChina, the state-owned energy company debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Its market valuation ran up to more than $1 trillion, topping that of any company in history (including Exxon-Mobil). China Mobile is now the world’s most valuable telecommunications company. The state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which was nearly insolvent a decade ago, is now worth more than Citigroup. The Shanghai Stock Market is up nearly 400% in two years. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is shattering records.The China are increasingly in love with their stock exchanges. For more on China billionaires, check out today's New York Times.

Keep drinks away from your laptop. My friend's wife spilled coffee on her laptop. There are two fixes:

1. Remove the keyboard, dunk it in cold water, let it drive for 24 hours.

2. Replace the keyboards. Best place to buy laptop keyboards (and other parts) Spare Parts Warehouse. If you're gentle, it's real easy to replace a keyboard.

YouTube has a wonderful spoof on subprime mortgages. Click here.

How life has changed:

To Die During Sex
On hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away, Sally visited her Grandmother.

When she asked how her grandpa had died, her gran explained, "He had a heart attack during sex on Sunday morning."

Horrified, Sally suggested that shagging at the age of 94 was surely asking for trouble.

"Oh no," her grandma replied, "we had sex every Sunday morning, in time with the church bells -- in with the dings and out with the dongs."

She paused, and wiped away a tear.

"If it weren't for that damn ice cream van going past, he'd still be alive."

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse, though some look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Michael's business school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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