Wednesday, February 28. 2007
Colorado Software Summit 2007 - Call for papers
Colorado Software Summit has put out the call for papers for their 2007 conference. I've spoken at this conference many times in the past and make a point of attending even when I'm not speaking there. I can't speak highly enough of this conference.Saturday, February 24. 2007
Spam trackbacks
It used to be that I would get the occasional spam trackback to this blog. They were a nuisance but they happened infrequently enough that I'd just delete them and carry on. Recently, the number of spam trackbacks have increased exponentially and I can't keep up with them anymore. In the last 24 hours alone, I've received about six thousand spam trackbacks.
Trackbacks are now officially useless to me. I've put in a change to the blog code that will hopefully disable all incoming trackbacks. I haven't received any new ones in the twenty minutes or so since I put this change in place so I'm hopeful that this works.
Trackbacks are now officially useless to me. I've put in a change to the blog code that will hopefully disable all incoming trackbacks. I haven't received any new ones in the twenty minutes or so since I put this change in place so I'm hopeful that this works.
Sunday, February 18. 2007
Real Estate Wealth Expo
The Real Estate Wealth Expo is coming to Toronto on March 24 and 25. They have a whole slew of speakers including Tony Robbins, Donald Trump, George Foreman and David Bach and many others.
I'd go to this just to hear Tony Robbins speak. Having all these other speakers as well makes this a must-see event.
I'd go to this just to hear Tony Robbins speak. Having all these other speakers as well makes this a must-see event.
Sunday, February 11. 2007
Cashflow for Kids
Bernard Ng asks...
I have not played the Cashflow Game before but have tried with another similiar financial board game. I felt that before playing the game, one need to at least know some fundamental principles of wealth building and investment to play the game well. For Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow 101, the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book will establish this knowledge. But I was wondering for the kids edition of the cashflow, do the kids need to understand the same principles (passive income etc) in order to play the game?
The kids game has simplified the concepts enough that the kids pick up the basics really quickly.
I introduced my seven year old niece to Cash Flow for Kids yesterday and she picked up the basics with no problem. She now understands that there are two kinds of income (active and passive) and that one is better than the other. She understands that fewer expenses is better than more expenses.
This was her first exposure to money concepts and after an hour of playing, she was really starting to grasp a lot of the concepts. She also had an incredible time - she didn't want the game to end. I think we'll all be playing again today
Naturally, there must be someone to teach the concepts to the kids as they're playing. The rulebook isn't so simple that the kids can pick it up entirely by themselves. Having said that, the game makes it really easy for me to teach the kids about finances.
Cashflow (in or out) is represented as physical tokens that the kids put on their gameboards. Passive income, for example, is represented as green circles. The bigger the circle, the more money it's worth so the $10 circle is smallest and the $1000 circle is the biggest. Older kids can follow the actual money values written on the circles while the younger kids just understand that bigger circles are better than smaller circles.
Active income is represented by blue triangles and expenses are red squares. This gives everything a visual and tactile feel that the kids can easily understand. As with the adult games, you win by having more passive income than expenses. Because all the cashflow is represented by tokens, it's easy to see when you have more green circles than red squares. This kids just love this.
Saturday, February 10. 2007
Taxing internet services
If you sell services or products to a global market, you have to charge different taxes depending where your customers are located. I'm working on a new company that will provide services through a web presence so I'm looking into the rules to see what taxes we will have to charge our customers.
Until recently, the rule for Canada's Goods and Services Tax (GST) was that I would have to charge it for any customer who is located inside Canada and that I would not have to charge it for customers located outside Canada. This seems fairly consistent with other tax rules elsewhere.
According to this latest ruling however, it seems that I will have to charge GST for any customer, no matter where they are located.
Until recently, the rule for Canada's Goods and Services Tax (GST) was that I would have to charge it for any customer who is located inside Canada and that I would not have to charge it for customers located outside Canada. This seems fairly consistent with other tax rules elsewhere.
According to this latest ruling however, it seems that I will have to charge GST for any customer, no matter where they are located.
Canadian Web sites that don't charge GST to subscribers outside of Canada are in violation of the Excise Tax Act, according to the Canada Revenue Agency.
In a recent case, Dawn's Place v. R 2006 FCA 349, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) ruled against Dawn's Place, an adult-oriented Web site, for failing to collect GST from non-residents for fees earned in 2001. Dawn's Place had won its case before the Tax Court of Canada on the premise that the money it was making for supplying digital content to those outside of Canada should be "zero rated," under the GST, which means it falls under a clause in the Excise Act that relates to the supply of intellectual property.
In a recent case, Dawn's Place v. R 2006 FCA 349, the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) ruled against Dawn's Place, an adult-oriented Web site, for failing to collect GST from non-residents for fees earned in 2001. Dawn's Place had won its case before the Tax Court of Canada on the premise that the money it was making for supplying digital content to those outside of Canada should be "zero rated," under the GST, which means it falls under a clause in the Excise Act that relates to the supply of intellectual property.
Tuesday, February 6. 2007
Returning war medals
The Hamilton Spectator had an article yesterday about a man who buys up old war medals and reunites them with the families of the soldiers who had earned them. In this article, he was turning to the public to find the family of Corporal Harold Arthur Livingston so that he could return some World War I medals he had found on ebay.
What makes this particularly interesting to me is that Harold Livingston was my grandfather.
There was apparently so much response to this article that they followed up with another article today that gives more details about my grandfather.
What makes this particularly interesting to me is that Harold Livingston was my grandfather.
There was apparently so much response to this article that they followed up with another article today that gives more details about my grandfather.
About me
Email: mbowler
@GargoyleSoftware.com
Mobile: (289) 385-0120
Skype: mikebowler-soc
My businesses
- I'm a distributor for Send Out Cards, which is a phenomenal way for businesses to improve customer retention and increase profits. It's also a great way for individuals to create an extra source of revenue. I use it both ways and can't recommend it highly enough.
- I'm the founder of Gargoyle Software Inc, a Canadian company focused on improving the software development process. We offer consulting around Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) and technologies such as Ruby on Rails and Java.
[More...]. - I'm one of the founders of EasyBrandingTools.com
My other blogs:
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Open source projects I started:
- HtmlUnit a project to simulate a web browser for testing
- GSBase which contains lots of common pieces for UI's and testing and ...
Recommend me at:
