Wikiam

VMware IPO

VMware is about to go IPO. So if you have extra money money laying around, then it might be wise to buy some of its stocks.

I think they will be offering it around $24/share.

VMware is currently making 41 millions dollars profit per quarter, so it’s doing extremely good. Meaning that its stocks will appreciate a lot right after the IPO.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

I was watching this show called “Are you smarter than a 5th grader?” on TV last night. The kind of questions they ask on this show is so trivial. They are like child play compared to Jeopardy.

Anyway, for the $500,000 question: “Name the country that is also a continent”. I laughed a little after they showed this question. My sister who was also watching the show kept on asking how can she become a contestant. What a lame half a million dollars question. Any 5th grader can tell you the answer in less than a second.

And guess what, the contestant did not have know it. She’s a blond hair lady in her 30’s. She ended up giving up and walked away with whatever she won. She had to admit that she was not smarter than a 5th grader. How humiliating.

By the way, if you’re still curious, the answer is Australia, that island/continent nation southeast of Asia.

S2000 hotness

Today as I was driving back to Davis, I saw a silver Honda S2000 with its top down. The little roadster looked so hot under the bright sunlight. And guess what, the driver was a girl with another girl in the passenger seat, and they were real lookers too.

S2000 is already a beautiful car and being driven by a hot chick undoubtedly amplified its sexiness exponentially.

So irresistible…

Credit Cards Cancelled

Today I closed about 8 credit cards that I have.

I had so many that I never used. So there was no reason to keep them.

Goodbye Chase, goodbye Citicard, goodbye Bank of America.

Next month I should be able to close the remaining credit cards that I have after paying them off completely.

Owing 20,000 dollars in credit card bill is not fun at all.

I want to buy pham.com domain name

I really want to buy pham.com domain name.

The person who owns it right now isn’t using it for anything. I’ve been trying to contact him but he has not responded to me.

I’m willing to pay as much as 5,000 dollars to obtain it.

To me, having http://trung.pham.com pointing to my home page is priceless.

Work with Google

A good friend of mine said the next best thing to working for Google is to work with Google.

I guess he does have a point. If you can’t beat them then just join them.

Anyhow, I thank you, Google, for providing me the opportunity to work with you.

September: Mating Season?

The month is June. And there are a lot of birthday celeberations taking place during this time of the year.

June, the Baby Season.

A simple math tells us that these babies were conceived around September, 9 months ago.

September, the Mating Season.

Why is September the mating season? Perhaps this is when the older kids go back to school and the parents have more alone time? Just a guess.

Send text message to any cell phone.

Easy way to send text message to your friend’s cell phone.

The following network carriers are known to work: Alltel, Cingular, Sprint PCS, Nextel, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, Cellular South, CellularOne, Centennial Wireless, Cincinnati Bell, Edge Wireless, Metro PCS, nTelos, SouthernLINC Wireless, SunCom, Unicel, Boost Mobile, Helio, Qwest Wireless, Virgin Mobile Canada, Virgin Mobile USA.

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The smartest investment

What is the smartest way to invest your money?

Pay off your credit cards!!!

Seriously, before you can even start thinking about investing your money elsewhere, pay off off your bills. Credit cards charge you over 15% in interest, this is a whole lot more than any investment will give you. Putting your money in a saving account will only return 5% a year. Putting it in a safe mutual funds will average you around 10%. Investing it stocks might even give you a negative return.

So the smartest investment that you can make is just to pay off your credit cards or any outstanding bill.

But there is an exception. Suppose if you have a student loan, but the interest is only at 3%, then you do NOT want to pay it off. In this case paying it off will be a big waste of money. Instead, put your extra money elsewhere like a saving account. You will actually be making money by delaying paying off your student loan. Since the saving account will give you back 5% which results in a 2% net gain after accounting the interest from the student loan.

So be wise, pay off high interest bills, but don’t pay off low interest loans.

Incorporate to avoid tax

Income tax sucks.

Best way to avoid it or minimize it is just to set up a dummy coporation.

With a corporation under your name, you can deduct all kind of expensives like car lease, cell phone bill, insurance bill, etc. And maybe even deduct your house mortgage. Effectively you will be reducing your taxable income next to nothing, therefore you will only have to pay very little income tax. For example, if your corporation made $100,000 in net profit, and you managed to creatively write off $80,000 in expensives, then in the end, you will only have to pay income tax on $20,000 instead of the original $100,000.

Setting up a corporation is dead simple. You might need to pay about $500/year in administration fee, but this is little compared to tax money it will help you save.

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