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Investing With A Robot (Who Is Really A Person)
Much like banking I had my investments at Royal Bank of Canada in the form of mutual funds. These were medium-high fee (1.7% MER) with decent but not great return. I knew there were better options out there so I started looking. …
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Banking in Orange
After improving my currency exchange situation I moved on to tweaking how I do banking and investing. I’ve held my assets at and done my banking with Royal Bank of Canada for many years. They’ve treated me well, extended me credit when I needed it, and I’ve learnt how to work within their online banking system. They are also the only bank within Canada that has a branch within the US. This branch is used exclusively for clearing transactions and allows me to receive direct deposit payments from US companies. A direct deposit done on a Wednesday appears on Thursday or Friday. It works great. This means I can never truly get away from Royal Bank of Canada completely but I can make my life a bit easier. …
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CAD/USD Currency Exchange
Over the past 10+ years I’ve done consulting primarily for US based companies. This has resulted in me being paid in US currency. This is both good and bad. The US dollar has gone up and down, but has mostly remained in a state where exchanging has yielded more Canadian dollars. Throughout the past few months I’ve been tweaking, changing, and fine-tuning my financial situation in an effort to both automate and maximize it. This has included re-evaluating banking packages, automating things so stuff is moved and paid automatically, changing future investments to have lower fees, everything. One part I looked at early on was my currency exchange. …
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The Office Of A Remote Employee
I was originally going to title this post “My Home Office” but after thinking about it this doesn’t really fit how I work. I work from many different places depending on my mood. Let’s start out, though, with my office. …
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Air Canada Rouge: Budget airline, indeed.
I travel. I won’t say I travel a lot, I won’t say I travel a little. I travel just enough. It’s gotten to the point where I can navigate some airports in my sleep (and arguably have). It’s also gotten to the point (I’ve just noticed this recently) where the Air Canada staff at the local airport remember me enough to know I don’t speak french. This means over time I’ve experienced a few different airlines. …
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Keeping Data Under Your Control
Over the past few months I’ve been slowly moving into a mindset of keeping my data under my control when possible. When I talk about data I’m not just referring to my files. Through our adventures on the internet we create a fingerprint on various services. From your browser to your searching. I’ve slowly been changing what I use to try to reduce this. There is no way to eliminate it ultimately. …
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Broadcasting From Asterisk
Each year I set up a conference bridge for the Asterisk Developer Conference. This is done to allow participants who are unable to attend the conference to still hear what is going on and provide input. In the past I have also provided an audio stream using Icecast and the app_ices application. This year will be slightly different. …
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How I Use Google Mail On Multiple Devices
This is a quick post about how I use GMail from multiple devices without pulling my hair out.
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Review: The iBasso DX50 vs. Fiio X3 - Fight!
####Intro: So the following is a guest post by the infamous Tux889 (William). I’ve invited him to write a review of the two DAPs I recently acquired. He tested them both for me with all of his equipment and bit of mine. I’m not responsible for anything he writes, #JustSaying. …
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WebRTC: My thoughts and opinions
This blog post serves as my personal opinion about WebRTC and does not reflect any company I have done business with or am doing business with currently.
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