Lateral Drift

It is amazing when searching enough the amount of unique and great opportunities you can find throughout the world.  Some programs are just looking for the right people to sponsor but the ideal candidates never get the message.  It is because of this disconnect that I decided to start what may be a new serial posting on Lateral Drift.  Often while searching the internet for jobs, universities, or just by idle browsing, I will run across some decent finds.  I usually bookmark them so that I may return to the information in the future.

Today’s post is about a university which goes by the acronym KAUST or King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.  This university recently opened its doors in September 2009 and they are eager to attract the world’s best and brightest.  To do this they are giving fellowships to students who meet their qualifications to come and study in their university.  Take a look at the incentives they are giving to those who qualify for the program:

• Full tuition support
• A monthly stipend
• Free housing
• Travel benefit

I got really excited about this interesting fellowship until I read further that it is only available currently to those pursueing advanced studies in fields such as engineering or applied mathematics.  So, it is not something I will likely be able to take advantage of but if any of this has piqued your interest you can learn more about KAUST at http://www.kaust.edu.sa/index.html.

**P.S.  I encourage anyone who has found other interesting websites, jobs, scholarships to please post them in a reply to be shared with others (including myself).

“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

-Sun Tzu – The Art of War

If you have already read my previous post on the car company Tesla then you know how much I love their cars.  I am hoping that they will become the Henry Ford of electric cars and revolutionize an American industry in dire need of a innovative change.  While visiting their site today I just found the newest press release that showed Tesla Roadster owner, Simon Hackett, breaking the electric car distance record with a whopping 313 miles on just one charge!  That is enough to make it almost halfway lengthwise across the state of California.  You can view the press release at their website here.

Today’s words from the wise is slightly more difficult to digest but I think an interesting tidbit of Nietzsche’s arguments regarding the bias or prejudice of philosophers.

“They [philosophers] all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic…;whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or ’suggestion,’ which is generally their heart’s desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event.  They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub ‘truths’”

-Friedrich Nietzsche, A Nietzsche Compendium: Beyond Good and Evil, pg 15-16

I don’t want to restate what I have already posted over at my other site Quintfinance, but if you are interested in learning a little more about what exactly happened with the mortgage crisis please check out Quintfinance, or go directly to the audio I recommend at This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money.

I was introduced to this artist’s video by a friend and was very impressed with his abilities.  He is a local Minnesota artist (my home state), goes by the name of Heatbox, and is solid.  I don’t have too much to say, so enjoy!

I thought I would make a quick post today about a really cool application from Minnesota Public Radio that allows you to make your own US budget and see how it affects the economy and deficit.  It will also give you an estimate for when the country is likely to go bust based on your decisions.  I have been looking at the FAQ and they have done their homework in terms of the modeling and have used sources such as the Congressional Budget Office’s forecasting and budget models.  It’s a fun app and informative as well.  It is a painless way to see how different policy decisions affect the future. Click the graphic below to play.

Having under my belt about a year of job searching experience since graduating with a 4-year degree, I have had a lot of first hand exposure to the opportunities available in the market.  Being a finance student my scenario might be slightly different from others but generally speaking I have found other graduates to be facing similar issues.  So what is the dilemma or trap, for those of you lucky enough to not know about it.  Well, I find the best way to describe it would be in terms of a gap or hole in the hiring of entry level jobs.  I wish to further say that this does not mean necessarily that there are not entry-level jobs available; there are, but that the experience or expectations required for these positions are out of reach for those who have recently graduated, many times, out of reach even for those with internships on their resumes like myself.  For example, you might see an entry level job open up (using a finance position) for an analyst.  This job offers entry-level pay and duties but desires 2+ years of experience in the field.  Worse yet, sometimes they want experience directly related to the position, so even if you had worked in that particular field you would not meet the desired attributes.

Will this gap close?  I am skeptical.  Reason being that there is a glutton of advanced degrees that have found themselves out of work as well in the recent year and because of this they will trump the new graduate in any available position.  This trend is further exacerbated by the large amount of people that because of their inability to find work, have returned to college.  No, it is unlikely it seems to me that entry-level jobs will become prevalent and accessible again until sales pick up and some say that we might not be able to expect the same consumer drive from our market that we once saw.  Instead they have begun to encourage countries like China to become greater consumers to bolster sales and revive the economy.

I wonder to myself what effect this hiring gap might have on companies as in the coming years larger portions of their senior staff retire.  Will their lack of desire to take risks on fresh graduates leave holes in their organization?  It’s a complicated issue, and one which I don’t claim to know the answers.  But for those of you who have faced similar difficulties like me; hang in there.  I know its tough and filling out application after application which include the phrase, “Please no calls”, can be frustrating but what other choice do we have!  Start a company?  Maybe.  I wish I knew the answer.  Best of luck!

It has been a little over a year now since I first decided to create The Quintessential Finance Blog and I have been reflecting on the lessons I have learned from that now mostly dormant blog and my new one which you are at now.  These two blogs have brought varied experiences and pitfalls that come with their characteristics.  QuintFinance being highly specific and this one being more general.  So what have I learned from a year of blogging?

Can you make money blogging?

Of course it is possible, now, is it likely, not really.  I monetized my finance blog shortly after I started it and have so far earned only $2.30 total over the last year, and considering Google Ads only lets you withdraw amounts over $100, I have in essence earned $0 so far.  What you need to become a high earning site is traffic and lots of it.  If you can get loyal readers who keep coming back to your site, even better.

How to get traffic

I cannot claim to be a guru in this area but I do know what has made significant traffic boosts for my sites.  I think the number one thing you can do is post and post frequently.  Ideally as many times a week as you possibly can.  This works because for one you want to be able to be picked up by search engines in as many different ways as possible.  It also keeps people returning to your site because they know that it is constantly being updated.  My lack of earning is likely in a large part due to my failure to post regularly.  It is also important to post about topics that will be useful to people.  I don’t know too many people who read blogs about what someone does in their daily life and I would bet that formula only works for famous people.  Making posts that are bookmark worthy is the goal.

Its hard to post all the time!

There it is.  I went into QuintFinance thinking I could easily write a blog or two a day.  How naive I was!  It was hard.  At first, it doesn’t seem to taxing but when you are a niche blog and only writing about one theme the well of ideas becomes empty quick.  To reinvigorate the creative juices, I had to constantly be reading the news, magazines, and books to keep up with fresh ideas.  It did also help that I was studying finance at the university.  In general, I think the number one thing to consider when first starting up your blog (if you plan to monetize it) is how do you plan on keeping blog posts going?

Was it fun?

Yes! In fact, for this site, I made a private goal of how many people a day I would need before even considering to monetize it.  I just like blogging.  You will also learn or refresh your memory on html and start to understand how this whole web business works ie using hosts, marketing, adsense. So, if making money is your goal, good luck, but if you just want to try out blogging for fun, I highly encourage you to do so, without any expectations of profit it can be a rewarding experience.

Apparently, the big release date for Windows 7 (retail) has come and gone. Me, I didn’t even notice. I decided this year to take the plunge and install Ubuntu, a Linux based operating system. I would not consider myself a computer geek and Ubuntu isn’t just for the tech savvy either. It really is a great operating system, and once you have learned how to navigate the new interface, in many ways it is much simpler and more user friendly then windows.  Below I have included an account of my experience thus far with the OS.

Why I switched

The straw that broke the camels back for me was a mouse clicking mistake I made on Facebook that led to a computer virus which was a nightmare to get rid of.  But really, I think I was preparing myself for a switch long before this.  I had originally bought my laptop back in 2008 and because of the atrocities of Microsoft’s Vista system decided to downgrade to XP Pro.  My first irritant:  no free Word, Excel, nothing.  I had to shell out another $200+ dollars to buy their software.  Then there is the ever so annoying popups of virus protectors and updates that seem to become increasingly present.  It just all became too much to take and I switched, and am I happy?  Yes, although I have a couple qualms here is what I think.

Cost

Free!  Here is the link to download: http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download

System requirements

Windows 7 recommends 2GB of ram for the 64 bit version and 20GB of free space (sounds like a lot of junk).  Why, oh, why do I need 2GB of ram just to run my operating system.  Maybe there is a technical reason that I am unaware of but it just sounds ludicrous.  What are Ubuntus stated requirements?  According to the Ubuntu help forums, for the best graphical results (yes, you can get by with less) you only need 384 MB of ram and 8 GB of memory.  It’s nice to know that with a 100GB hard-drive, only 8GB instead of 20GB isn’t being taken from me.

Looks

Take a peek at a screenshot I took just before I wrote this sentence.

Looks like a normal interface right?  I hope the picture will quickly dispel the common belief that it is a operating system where all you see is code.  It’s simply not true, and while the ability to still do all commands through code is available, I haven’t had to do it once yet.  The presentation you see above is also the standard default and spicing up yours wouldn’t be much effort.

Ease of Use

Time for some honesty.  It is easy to use BUT that said you still have to learn how to use a new operating system.  There will be a learning curve.  I have used Windows since its inception and learning how to tweak with it has taken me 1000’s of hours of use.  It is sometimes the smaller things that take a bit of playing around to uncover.  Do not be intimidated by using Ubuntu but realize it will take a little time to get used to.

Issues

I have come across a few problems while using Ubuntu but most are likely fixable since it is a modifiable OS.  The first was trying to install a program that was designed for Windows.  Solution:  you can install a program for Ubuntu that imitates Windows and allows you to run them like normal.  The other problems I am having still are a lag in deleting characters in typing which can be annoying and may or may not have a fix but I haven’t searched yet.  Another problem was the sensitivity of my mouse pad in Ubuntu.  Solution: I simply turned my laptop mouse pad off because I use an external mouse.

Conclusion

A new version, Ubuntu 9.10 is about to be released tomorrow and if you have gotten fed up with windows this new version might be a good time to hop on the preverbial bandwaggon.