In Search of the Perfect Investment

Time to get out of gold, for now. The chart looks awful.

The mess in techs. First, know that all pain (and stupidity) is self-inflicted. RIMM is dieing a fast death, its management failed to listen. And its stock is plummeting. But it’s presently too hard to short, since it’s up for sale and some schmuck may pay $20 a share (about $10.5 billion). That’s not beyond the idiocy of Intel which has yet to make a profit on any acquisition it’s ever made.

And then there are the retail store retailers — Radio Shack and Best Buy. These guys are are completely dead in the water. If you don’t believe me, go visit one of their stores and see if there’s anything you want (except batteries at Radio Shack).

Then there’s DELL, giving desperation a whole new meaning. Once it had a great stategy — just in time manufacturing of cheap, reliable PCs — sold over the phone and on the Internet, with lots of regular, direct mail, printed catalogs. But demand has dropped. DELL laptops are boring. And it totally ignored the new growth of smartphones and tablets. Michael Dell now has a new idea. He’s going to be the next IBM. He’s going to be BIG in computer services. Ask yourself how’ is a  hardware box assembler  going to convert itself into a touchee feelee services provider? One way is to spend a reputed $1 billion for service provider, Wyse.My techie friend emails me this morning, “Wyse promotes the “virtual client.”  That was the “NetPC”, the thin client, the network computer, the NC.  More reincarnations than an Indian monkey.  A BILLION dollars?  Good grief.  Can’t we start some stupid business so Dell can buy it? “

I’m short DELL, and Radio Shack. I was short RIMM, but covered it when they announced they were up for sale. But RIMM is now way over-valued — $6.8 billion at last night’s $13 close. I think I’ll go back to shorting them. I can see RIMM  at $8 in the not too distant future.

Yahoo is well on the way to finish. They missed too many opportunities. When was the last time you visited Yahoo?

Sundry computer and phone tips:

+ Dropbox is useful if someone wants to send you a big file — one your email can’t handle —  like a movie or a bunch of photos from your daughter’s wedding. Dropbox will give you free storage to 2 gigs. You can buy more storage, but it’s pricey. For backup, I continue to prefer external USB hard drives, like those from Apricorn For Dropbox, click here.

+ ViaSat’s satellite broadband service called Exede is useful in the boonies — where you can’t get any other service. Exede has its prons and cons. You can get it. It’s fast for straight downloads. But it’s poor for Google searching and gaming that require constant interaction. Read a hands-on review of Exede here. When you read the review, you realize just how stupid ViaSat’s marketing strategy is. Stupid will severely limit any benefit to ViaSat’s stock. Its symbol is VSAT. Waste of time. And I like the service.

+ If you’re still running Windows XP and want to get rid of those annoying popup messages, go into regedit. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced. Create a new DWORD value with the name EnableBalloonTips. Make sure its value is 0 (zero). Reboot.

+ 10 Gadgets I Use Every Single Day (And You Should Too!) From Business Insider. My only argument is the Brompton folding bike. Dahon makes a much better, lighter bike. For the list, click here.

+ You can now buy the new $799 Canon G1X. It’s an impressive upgrade of Canon’s G9, G10, G11, G1 series. But it’s larger and clunkier — major negatives. Read a review here.

+ It’s major “innovation” time in the telephone business. Every supplier is making up new fees. They often blame their new fees on someone else, e.g. the FCC. It’s time for everyone to look at their phone bills. Check what your landlines are costing  and what they’re charging for your long distance “plan.” You’ll be horrified. Drop landlines. Go VoiP. Find a cheap long distance provider. Use Skype. There are a million alternatives to being ripped off by your local stupid landline company. Fairpoint is the worst.

Don’t you just love the IRS? They just wrote me saying I hadn’t filed my 2010 return. If I had filed it (Da!), would I kindly send me a signed and dated copy. What is wrong with their filing system? This is not the first year they’ve lost my return. Unreal.

Gives new meaning to “I’m from the government. And I’m here to help you.”

Harry Newton who has come down with the most God-awful cold. It must be a cold ’cause it feels better when I feed it a bagel with cream cheese. Aren’t you meant to feed a cold and starve a fever? Or is it the other way round?

A sad day, The printer who printed my first magazine just closed down its key and huge Easton, PA plant. As my old and endearing sales rep, Rich Kubik, writes, “100 years and loads of good memories.  I will be in the plant till the end of April and that’s it !!  I can’t believe it, I knew one of the plants had to close because of the decline in magazine printing, but I never thought it would be Easton.  Our proximity to the major cities made it an ideal location for daily and weekly magazines and also they owned the facility outright which I thought would make it harder.”

I remember when I started my first magazine. Rick organized that I could pay my first bill in 60 days — after I  had been paid by our advertisers (assuming I’d sell some advertisers.) We started the magazine without any upfront capital, no money-raising, niente money and Rich had faith in us. It paid off for Rich. He ended up printing all our magazines — about ten in total. We never went anywhere else. Thank you, Rich. I’m truly sorry about Easton’s closing. We’ll have lunch soon and talk about the good, old days. Rich, I love you. You are the best salesman I’ve enjoyed being sold by.