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Article posted on Nov 7

A traceroute down memory lane

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on November 7, 2009, 1:24 am

If you downloaded Red Hat Linux 9 from BitTorrent in April 2003, you probably (partly) have me to thank.

In 2002, I helped build a pair of datacenters in Reno, NV and Raleigh, NC. They were technologically wonderful, built to the same standards as Exodus datacenters. Lots of bandwidth, redundancy everywhere, futuristic security. One of the design principles was that we could take a potential client into a node room and say, "pull any two cables you'd like". With limited exception (downlink Ethernet to individual clients was only single redundancy) we succeeded, but never actually got to show that off. They were great datacenters, but we could barely sell anything, and they mostly went unused until the company's demise in 2004.

So we had massive amounts of bandwidth (by 2002 standards; two 155Mbps OC3s and a 45Mbps DS3 per site, provisioned from an OC12 that could effectively double the bandwidth in the future), and only a dozen clients, if that. I set up a mirror of as many Open Source projects as I could find, but that only ate up about 20Mbps on average.

On March 31, 2003, Red Hat Linux 9 was released. This was the first Red Hat product to be officially offered via BitTorrent. BitTorrent had been released about a year earlier, and was just starting to gain traction. RHL9 was arguably the first major worldwide test of a major software release. So hey, I had all this bandwidth, and there were thousands upon thousands of people downloading RHL9 through BitTorrent. I threw up a seed machine in the Reno datacenter, and watched the slurping begin.

Unfortunately, the official BitTorrent client could only seem to push about 50Mbps of torrent traffic before hitting a wall. So I added another server. And another. And another. And then 4 in Raleigh. All told, I was pushing 400Mbps of traffic across 8 machines and two datacenters into the mesh, and was often seeding at least half of the traffic of that single torrent. I believe that lasted for 3 or 4 weeks.

The company went out of business in 2004 (for non-BitTorrent-related reasons of course), and I was later hired by the company responsible for maintaining and eventually turning down the Reno datacenter. We had our network (and the remaining clients) migrated out of the datacenter by the middle of December, but due to a dispute with the eventual purchaser of the datacenter space, I was told to keep the datacenter "operational" through December 31, 2004. To do so, I left one Linux server running, connected to the only remaining transit (an OC3), and routed our remaining IP space to it, a /20. An entire /20.

So for 2 weeks at the end of 2004, I had a single server, sitting in the middle of a 50,000 square foot world-class datacenter, with a dedicated OC3 running directly to it, and 4096 IPs at my disposal. I actually can't remember what I ended up doing with it, except for putting up a web server with a test page that responded to all IPs. I'm sure it was more profound than that.

(In case you're wondering, Linux, at that time, did NOT like having 4096 sub-interfaces. They would all eventually work, but bootup would take at least 10 minutes. It seemed adding each new interface introduced a higher non-linear delay.)

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Article posted on Oct 27

Commentary: Toyota floor mat recall

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 27, 2009, 12:52 am

Late last month, Toyota announced they would recall 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus cars due to floor mat safety, the largest ever US recall. Action details have not been released yet, but it is known that the recall was prompted by a high-speed crash of a Lexus ES 350 in California because of the accelerator pedal getting stuck full-throttle against the floor mat, killing all four people in the car. It was later determined this occurred because of improper installation of the all-weather floor mats, but how this will relate to the recall is uncertain.

Shortly after the announcement, I decided to do some tests with my own car, a 2009 Toyota Prius with OEM all-weather floor mats. I determined that, when properly installed, the floor mats have almost no chance of budging, leaving plenty of room between the lip of the floor mat and the fully depressed accelerator pedal. The driver side mat is held in place by two hooks embedded into holes in the floor. If the hooks were not installed (they come with floor mat kit, not the car), the mats include rubber spikes that dig into the floor carpet. These spikes will keep the mats in place during sudden jolts, but would tend to drift forward over time (which would happen on many cars before the introduction of hook anchors). However, the Prius has a raised left foot rest that, in its normal position, the mat butts up against, restricting movement. I'm not sure all recalled cars include this root rest, though.

I was able to get the floor mat in a position where the accelerator was stuck full, but the floor mat was uncomfortably forward. The mat was 4 inches in front of the hooks, and was covering over half of the foot rest.

It's important to note that in the California crash, it has not yet been revealed if the all-weather floor mats were OEM or not, just that they were improperly installed by the dealership. At this point, I'm not sure what could be done to improve the floor mat installation from an engineering perspective, as the hooks seem extremely durable and are unlikely to break off. But remember, NHTSA recalls are not always about fixing engineering problems. It's possible the NHTSA and Toyota just want to get cars back into the dealership to verify that floor mats are properly installed with the retention hooks present. Again, very few details of the recall have been announced yet.

The mats include a warning that you should take very seriously: do NOT install any third party floor mats on top of the existing floor mats. They are designed to stay firmly in place when properly installed, but anything laid on top of it has a much greater risk of slipping.

So that's my thoughts on the floor mats themselves. When properly installed, the floor mats should be safe. However, the California crash brings up another safety aspect: how to recover from an out of control vehicle.

First, let me explain how the Prius works. You get in, hold down the brake pedal, and press the Start button to start the car. The shifter is relatively normal, a multi-directional shifter that allows you to select Reverse, Neutral, Drive, and Engine Brake (uses engine power to help brake down large hills easier). The Prius includes a separate dedicated button for the Brake function, though on other vehicles this is usually integrated into the shifter. To shut down the car, stop movement, and while holding down the brake pedal, press the Power button. You can even do this while in Drive or Neutral, hitting Power while not in motion will automatically engage the brake before shutting down. In addition, if you try to shit to Reverse or Brake while in forward motion (even while accelerating), the vehicle will instead change to Neutral.

As you can see, the driver in the California crash had several options for stopping acceleration. Of course I'm not criticizing his judgment (you can never know how you'll react in an emergency situation), but the first thing you should do in an out of control car is shift to Neutral while braking. This is universal, and should work for any vehicle. In the Prius (and presumably some other Toyota vehicles), you have several other options, but shifting to Neutral while braking should be the first choice. Inexperience with the particular car's shifter may have been a factor in the crash, as it was a loaner car.

And then there's the Start button. I took my Prius out to test and started accelerating. In an emergency, I could see looking at the dash, seeing the Start button and attempting to press that as a first choice. So I did so and... nothing happened. Even in a controlled situation, this actually surprised me. I expected, at the very least, the car would shift to Neutral if the Start button were pressed while accelerating. You can hold the Power button down for a full 5 seconds while the vehicle is on to kill power, but 5 seconds is a lot in an emergency.

If there's one engineer safety change to come out of this, it should be that. At the very least, pressing the Start button while in motion should shift to Neutral. Otherwise, short of more details emerging, I believe this recall is mostly about proper floor mat installation, and not necessarily a defect

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• Tags: floor mats, prius, toyota

Article posted on Oct 26

It's only slower if you consider "time"

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 26, 2009, 10:48 am

FedEx Ground® Is Faster to More Locations Than UPS Ground, or so says the the commercial I saw during baseball last night. I nearly burst out laughing when I heard this. UPS Ground shipments from the Bay Area to Reno (250 miles) regularly arrive overnight, while FedEx will almost always hold the shipment at the destination if it got there "too fast". This morning I came in and a coworker was complaining about how a FedEx Ground shipment shipped today from Dallas to Reno (1900 miles), and FedEx lists it as taking 7 business days. Business, not regular days -- it should arrive next Wednesday.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a UPS fan. My biggest complaint is, incredulously, "The UPS Store" is not considered an authorized UPS shipping center. If you're shipping a package on a UPS account that is worth more than $1000, their web site spits out an form that a driver or authorized shipping center must sign for. "The UPS Store" cannot sign for this, you must instead schedule a pickup or take it to their distribution center.

But it's still better than FedEx.

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Article posted on Oct 26

Schrödinger's Xbox

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 26, 2009, 12:00 am

Two years ago, I bought an Xbox 360. I specifically looked for one with the Falcon motherboard, partially because it was the first to come with HDMI standard, but mostly because it was believed it would be immune to the famous Red Ring of Death. That turned out not to be true, but it did slightly reduce the occurrences.

About six months later, I had my first failure. It wasn't an RRoD though. Instead, the wireless controller interface stopped working correctly. I could power on the Xbox with the controller, but it would then refuse to pair with the console. I even used the event as an excuse to buy a second controller, but that one would not work either. It was specific to wireless, since my wired Guitar Hero controller worked fine. It was particularly annoying since I had just arrived home with a copy of GTA4, and had to go right back to Best Buy to get the controller. Searching for help was useless (most "solutions" were "lol u just need 2 pair the controller"), so I called Microsoft support, they took it back and repaired it.

Some time after that (most likely after the warranty expired), the DVD-ROM drive would just stop recognizing games. This time, some searching revealed a "fix". While the console is powered off, but with a game inserted, jam a thin piece of cardboard into the top of the slot and move it around. Supposedly this gets the drive's laser assembly to realign itself. This will occur every few weeks, and I keep around, appropriately enough, the box that held a bottle of Zantec near the Xbox for just such an occasion.

Last week, the console would start freezing about 5-10 minutes into a game. No RRoD, just freezing. I followed all of the recommendations on this KB article, but nothing worked. One of the last suggestions I followed was to make sure it was well ventilated (in my case by moving it to the middle of the living room), but even that did not work. I started looking at my options, and resigned myself to buying a replacement. (It was either spend $100 to "repair" and get back another Falcon, or spend $200 on a replacement "Jasper", which is actually supposed to be a lot less prone to failure.)

Before heading back to Best Buy, I decide to give it one last shot, still in the middle of my living room. This time it worked fine. I concluded that it did not like being on top of my Dish DVR (which puts out some heat, but not an excessive amount) and moved it to another shelf.

This weekend, I got the same issue. 5-10 minutes and it froze, even though it had room around it, and didn't feel that hot. I moved it to the middle of the living room, it started working again, but eventually started freezing even standing up in the middle of the living room. Then it started occurring faster, sometimes only a few minutes into a game. Again, no RRoD in sight, but it otherwise had all the symptoms of an RRoD.

Once again, I resigned myself to buying a replacement, but it was after hours on a Saturday. As a last ditch effort, I tried the "towel trick" -- wrapping it in a towel and essentially letting it bake. This is usually employed to "fix" an RRoD, but in my case, I had little else to try (and if it induced an RRoD, hey, even better; Microsoft has a 3 year warranty specifically on RRoDs). After starting that, the freezing was greatly accelerated. At one point I could get it to freeze before the splash screen was even done loading. No RRoDs, though I did notice audio and video static over the HDMI connection shortly before each freeze.

After some time, it stopped freezing while wrapped, but still had video static on various parts of the display. I left it at the home menu for about half an hour. At one point I looked up and the static was gone. The console was still red hot and desperately trying to blow heat out, but it was running and had no static. I removed the towel, put in a game, and have been able to play ever since. Though, perhaps mockingly, the first time I played on Sunday, I had to employ the cardboard to the tray.

By the way, if you pay for electronics on a credit card, keep the receipt. Many credit card companies such as American Express will offer an extended warranty for one year beyond the manufacturer's warranty. It didn't work out for me because, funny enough, I had bought the Xbox 360 exactly 2 years and 2 days ago. Also, I didn't have the receipt, but I may have been able to work around that if I was still in warranty.

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Article posted on Oct 21

Review: DiscSox media organizer

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 21, 2009, 12:42 am

I long ago gave up on keeping DVD packaging around, instead keeping everything in CD binders. However, I've been starting to amass a decent number of Blu-ray, HD-DVD, Xbox 360 and Wii games in full DVD keep cases. (Well, the HD-DVD collection is no longer growing.) I didn't really want to go to CD binders on those, but recently I came across DiscSox media sleeves. They're disc sleeves, but they also allow you to keep everything but the keep case: multiple discs, covers, manuals and note cards. They lay nearly flat, and take up between 1/4 and 1/3 the height of a normal DVD keep case.

That's 50 DiscSox sleeves (25 Blu-ray/HD-DVD, 25 Wii/Xbox 360) containing 78 discs, and nearly all of the packaging that came with the original media. The cover is folded so that the entire front cover and spine are visible on the front of the sleeve, and is slid inside so the back cover is visible on the back. If the cover is printed on both sides, the front inside cover is visible on the inside of the sleeve, but the back inside cover is hidden. Manuals and other inside material can be slid inside the front cover, and are kept relatively secure.

There are two protective cloth sleeves (the special cloth you see in CD binders) inside for holding discs. One disc can be a dual-sided disc, as the inner sleeve has cloth on both sides. You can actually fit up to four discs in a single DiscSox sleeve with a little creativity. A third disc can be placed behind the rear cover, as there is protective cloth there, but it will slide around a bit. I had a few sets of four discs, and used a regular dual-sided cloth sleeve for the third and fourth discs, and simply inserted that sleeve behind the rear cover of the DiscSox sleeve.

Here is an Xbox 360 game, complete with manual, in its DiscSox sleeve, both closed an open, with its original keep case for size comparison. The DiscSox sleeve is a little wider than a keep case, the same height, and of course much thinner. Most of my sleeves have a little bump from the spines, as each one has spent all of its life wrapped around a keep case. However, I'm anticipating they'll further flatten out as they settle.

The manufacturer claims you can fit 66 sleeves in one of its trays, but as you can see above, I fit 50 mixed-media sleeves in there, and it would be tight adding any more. But again, that includes all materials from the original keep cases. (For example, first-party Wii games tend to come with massive manuals.)

Overall I'm very happy with this system, but there are a few drawbacks. The discs are loaded in from the right side, so it's possible a disc could slide out while carrying a sleeve. This is a vendor-specific solution, so once you're committed to this solution, you better hope they stay in business. Also, the sleeves are (slightly) wider than any other type of case out there, so you're limited in third party storage options. (You may be able to use them in cases designed for CD jewel cases, as they're only a few millimeters wider than a horizontal jewel case.) They're also rather expensive; a kit containing 50 sleeves, a metal tray and some dividers is $52 + shipping. (They sell cheaper plastic trays, but don't look very good in my opinion. The metal tray, on the other hand, looks nice and has a very good build quality.)

How much space have I saved?

That pretty much speaks for itself. The stack would be much higher if it weren't for the TV series sets that are rather tightly compacted. (The DiscSox sleeves are still less than half the height of even the most compacted TV series box set.)

One thing I am incredibly impressed with is their customer service. I emailed their sales address to ask a question on a Sunday evening. (I wanted to buy a kit containing both a "Game Pro" 25-pack and a "HiDef Pro" 25-pack, but their site only lets you build kits containing two 25-packs of the same type). Vanessa from GameSox replied within an hour, on a Sunday night, and explained I could build a kit with either type, and to just say I wanted one of each in the order notes. She even emailed me after I placed the order to warn that I had ordered HiDef Pro dividers, and that I should switch to the taller Game Pro dividers so they would be visible between the games as well as the HiDef media.

I ordered on Sunday night, they shipped out on Monday, and it arrived on Tuesday. (They shipped out of the Bay Area, which almost always arrives overnight to Reno.)

Unfortunately the order wasn't perfect. 3 of the 25 HiDef Pro sleeves did not contain a middle cloth divider and could only hold one disc. I wasn't mad, as I had plenty of single-disc movies to use them with, but I still emailed Vanessa to let them know to look out for that. She immediately replied that they were sending out 3 replacement sleeves to me, even though I explained the situation and didn't require replacements. Again, excellent customer service.

By the way, I may have only used this system for Wii/Xbox 360 and Blu-ray/HD-DVD media, but it will work for regular DVDs, PS2 and PS3 games as well. In fact, even though they have multiple SKUs for different systems, they only seem to have two types of sleeves for modern systems (under the "Pro" line): DVD/Wii/360/PS2, and Blu-ray/HD-DVD/PS3.

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Article posted on Oct 16

Mission accomplished

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 16, 2009, 12:21 am

In 2000, I got my first credit card, a Capital One card with a $300 limit. Ever since then I have been in credit card debt. 2½ years ago, I was $15,000 in credit card debt and had virtually no savings. 1 year ago, I wasn't doing much better. This year, for a new years resolution, I vowed to get out of credit card debt.

Today, I made a final $914.34 payment, and with that, I have eliminated nearly a decade of credit card debt.

I did it.

Even better, in the process I have managed to grow my savings from almost nothing to nearly $5,000. And now that I have no credit card debt, I can grow that savings even faster.

How did I do it? There is a wealth of information available available on the web for getting out of debt. Here's a few of the methods I used to help with my goals.

1. Figure out where you are now. I had been using Quicken off and on for years. The problem would be when I wouldn't update it for a few days. Days would turn into weeks, weeks into months, and before long I just wouldn't know where I was at financially. At that point I would pretty much stick my head in the sand. Because I didn't know how much money I had on hand, I would start putting various purchases on a credit card. It was a nasty cycle.

   Like an alcoholic needs to admit he has a problem before he can turn his life around, a debtor needs to know how badly he is in debt before he can reverse this debt.

2. Track everything. Get Quicken, or some other financial software. Enter all of your accounts, and enter as much history as you can. Get as many accounts set up for online download as you can. Enter daily expenses daily. Set up recurring payment reminders. All of them. Even the ones you may be embarrassed to yourself about. You can (and will) start changing your spending habits later. The important thing right now is to know where you are now. If you miss a couple days, do not give up.

3. Make goals that fit your current situation. Now that you know where you are, you can start to do something about it. Even if you can only pay $50 toward your debt, you'll at least know you're putting $50 toward your debt. Figure out how long it will take to pay off your debt at that rate. In my case, I was already putting $720 per month toward credit card debt. (The meaning of that number is long since lost, but at least it's a number). That sounds like a lot (and is!), but because I had such bad financial practices, a lot of that was going right back on the cards in the form of new debt. I wouldn't actually recommend making a budget at this point, just make goals and tailor each action you make toward those goals.

4. Do not give up. Yes, I've said it twice already, but it really needs to be reinforced. Do not fear your finances. Do not stick you head in the sand. Be obsessive. It seems one of my hobbies these days is playing with various reports in Quicken, and that "hobby" has really helped me toward my goal.

5. Build up savings. You're not going to like hearing this, but you'll need an emergency fund on top of paying off debt. In fact, it's better to have debt and savings than no debt but no savings, especially in these times. How much really depends on your situation. Make sure a minimum fixed portion of your income goes to savings. Any savings you find beyond that is simply a bonus.

   Also remember, a lot of these tips will actually deal more with savings and less with reducing debt, but most of them can be suited for either. Do you take that $20 per month you saved from lowering your insurance payment and apply it to reducing debt, or increasing savings? It will really depend on your individual situation.

6. Make your savings less accessible. A big problem with holding on to savings was my primary savings account was at the same bank as my checking account. Whenever I would slip into a situation where I did not know the status of my finances, I would do two things: start using credit cards, and dip into savings. The temptation is far too great when the word "savings" is right next to the word "checking" on that ATM menu.

   Today, there are plenty of Internet banks to put your money in. Many include no fees, and nearly all charge nothing to get your money to them. I recommend Ally Bank and Capital One Bank through experience, and ING Direct through reputation. They offer accounts with no fees, allow for automated pull transfers from my (Wells Fargo) checking account, and offer decent interest rates. Capital One offers an ATM card as part of its money market savings account, but I did not accept it. See, when it takes 3 days to transfer funds back from these banks to your checking account, you are much less likely to even consider it.

   I still keep a couple hundred dollars in my Wells Fargo savings account for potential short term emergencies. It's just enough to cover things for a few days in case I needed to transfer funds from Ally or Capital One for larger emergencies. And of course since I now know the status of my finances at all times, I don't dip into those short term emergency funds.

   Also, keep in mind that Regulation D places a limit of six withdrawals per month on online transfers, so be careful when transferring from a savings account to a savings account. Checking to savings is unlimited, which is why I prefer having my entire paycheck direct deposited into my checking account, then using automated transfers to go to their final destinations.

7. Build a safety net into your checking account. I went into this in more detail in a previous blog post, but reduce the perceived balance of your checking account by a few hundred dollars. This will make it less likely that you will need to dig into savings, go to a credit card, or, worst of worst, go to a payday loan place due to irregularities from month to month. Once you do this, tell your bank to cancel overdraft protection on your account if they offer an opt-out, as this service can often do more harm than good.

8. Reduce expenses. Cancel your cable and apply it to your debt/savings. Cancel that MMO you never play any more. Stop going to Starbucks. There is usually plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick from. Each time you receive a lump sum (say, a gift or a rebate), deposit it in savings. When you save recurring monthly costs through reducing expenses, set up automatic transfers to your savings. Most brick-and-mortar banks allow an unlimited number of transfers out of checking, and most Internet banks allow an unlimited number of transfers into savings, so it works well.

   In my case, I have a monthly $40 "Savings (Rent)" transfer from the money I saved when I re-signed my apartment lease, a bi-monthly $22 "Savings (Stim)" from the stimulus tax cut earlier this year, and so on. The trick is to have the transfers begin the same day your paycheck is deposited, so you never consider spending that money.

9. Increase income. If you are a waged employee and can work extra hours, do so. Ask for a raise. Take a second job or leave for a job with a higher salary. Do some side work. Of course, the current economy makes many of these things difficult, but remember, this isn't a list of instructions, just possible avenues you can explore. And remember, maintain a balance in life. Don't work 80 hours per week if it'll make you miserable, even if it will pay your debt off faster.

10. Adjust your federal tax withholdings. For the longest time, I was claiming 0 on my W-4, and I imagine many people are the same, claiming 0 or 1. Essentially, I was having a large extra amount taken out of each paycheck, and was getting it back in one lump sum in April. If, like me, you are a single taxpayer without much complication in your tax setup (standard deduction, etc), you can switch your withholding from 0 to 2. You will get back more with each paycheck, and will only owe or get back less than $20 come April 15.

    Now, it should come as no surprise that my next suggestion is to figure out how much extra you are getting back per paycheck, and set up an automatic transfer of that money into your savings. Remember, with a higher withholding (lower number), you are giving an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam. If you decrease your withholding (increased number) and faithfully transfer that to savings, you can start earning interest on it. Today's interest rates may be lousy, but 1.5% is still better than what you were earning before.

11. Sweep your savings. So now you should have a primary savings account with a small immediate emergency fund, and an Internet bank with more of your savings. Your local account, sadly, most likely has a horribly low interest rate. (As of this writing, my Wells Fargo savings account earns 0.06% APY. Sigh.) But you are regularly depositing savings into it. At this point, you should start sweeping it into the less accessible and higher-earning Internet bank account when you hit a certain balance.

    Personally, I always want to have at least $300 in my primary savings account, but when it hits $500, I sweep the difference into an Internet bank. Again, remember that Regulation D limits this to six online withdrawals per month, so I would only check up on this monthly.

12. Sell some stuff. Go around the house and look for things you don't need. Put them on Craigslist. Make some extra cash. Again, don't sell off your happiness, but do re-evaluate what does make you happy.

13. Don't buy new stuff. It's as simple as that. You see that new TV over there? That 40" LCD? Don't buy that. Many people have expensive hobbies, myself included, and while everybody likes to be entertained, it is important to curb impulses.

14. Consolidate your debt. Go to your bank and ask about a secured or unsecured loan. This is the best option for consolidating your debt. If your car is paid off, that can be used as base collateral, but you may even be able to get an unsecured consolidation loan if you have good credit.

    If this does not work, think about balance transfers between cards, but be VERY careful. Many balance transfers include up-front fees and promotional rates. A 0% APR for 1 year is useless if you cannot guarantee yourself that you will pay it off in that time. The reason is that if you go 1 year + 1 day without paying it off, the card company will often backdate interest for the entire amount, at a high rate. $0 in interest could turn into $500 in interest quite literally overnight. But if, for example, you could get a 5.99% APR transfer for the lifetime of the balance with, say, a 1% transfer fee, I would consider that good enough to transfer all balances into one account. There is a science to this, but unfortunately I have yet to find a good balance transfer calculator that can take multiple cards with multiple existing APRs and convert them into a single balance with a single APR and a transfer fee, and compare that to simply not transferring balances.

    So a lot of this will be gut instinct, unless you sit down and do a lot of math. If you do consolidate debt into a single credit card, it is important that you NEVER use it for purchases after that point. Credit card companies will apply payments to your lowest interest balances first, and even a single purchase on that card can accrue astronomical interest because it won't be paid off until the end.

15. Stop using your credit cards. I hate to admit, but this is one point where I did not follow my own advice. I had all of my credit card debt on one card, but I also used another card for online purchases and recurring payments like my cellphone bill. This card, an American Express "Clear" card, earns 1% cash back (in the form of a gift card), but I made sure that I paid off the balance monthly. Multiple times per month, usually. That is the important distinction: I never actually added new credit card debt this year, though I did continue using a card. However, this requires huge discipline, which some people cannot handle. But it all comes back to keeping your finances organized. Once you know exactly where your finances are, that discipline comes easy.

16. Cancel your credit cards. This is a tricky one. If you have 20 credit cards and can consolidate them, by all means, do so and cancel many of them. Cancel all that you can if you cannot avoid the temptation of new credit card debt. If you can't consolidate, pay off one at a time, and cancel each one after it is paid off. Of course, your credit score will take a dip because of this, but you'll be better off in the long run. I would recommend holding on to your first credit card, if that is your oldest source of credit, though. The reason is if you cancel that, your credit score will take a massive dive. Length of credit history is one of the major factors in determining your credit worthiness.

    Personally, I had four major credit cards. I cancelled one, leaving me with the Amex for rewards (that, again, is used and paid off monthly), a Chase card (that had the debt), and a Capital One card, which was my first piece of credit history. I occasionally put purchases on it and immediately paid them off (most often because some places don't take Amex) to keep the account from going into disuse.

17. Monitor your credit report. While technically not required to pay off debt, you still should always be aware of what is on your credit reports. Go to annualcreditreport.com, which lets you get a free yearly credit report from each of the three credit agencies. The only gotcha here is they will try to upsell you, but the credit reports themselves are free. In addition, I'd recommend Equifax, which has a range of credit subscription services, and usually has sales (for example, buy 3 get 1 free credit reports + score, which is good for checking quarterly).

    I also recommend Credit Karma. It's a free service that lets you pull your score that they calculate based on your credit report, as often as you like. The upside is it's free, but the downside is you just get a score; you can't actually see the credit report they pull. Still, it's useful data.

18. Read, constantly. There are a lot of good personal finance sites out there. My favorites are Get Rich Slowly and Consumerism Commentary. Both feature an amazing amount of personal finance tips and information.

    One thing I will recommend you not do is buy personal finance books. I've read a few, and I'm not a fan. It seems like they all take a few core concepts (most of which I've already introduced here) and spread them out to fill a minimum page count. Those two sites I mentioned above have given me more information than I have through finance books.

    If you still would rather go the book route, I would recommend your local library, not your local bookstore.

19. And above all else, don't listen to a word I say. Or more accurately, don't treat my words as golden. There are many, many views on finance out there, and almost all of them conflict with each other. Some would call me crazy for not advocating starting out with a budget, for example. These tips worked for me, and I hope they work for you, but you must weigh the options and figure out your best plan for eliminating debt.

    Be wary of anybody who has a "system" for getting out of debt. I read a book that, presumably with a straight face, said, "This book is all you need. Follow it and you will get out of debt." I immediately put down the book. I'm sure it had some useful information, but that passage was the equivalent of a used car salesman. The only sure fire solution to debt is education. Learn as much as you can from as many sources as you can.

20. One more thing... Celebrate! When you reach your goal, throw a party. Tell everyone you know. Make a copy of your final check and frame it. This is definitely one of the best days of my life. I had been in credit card debt for nearly a decade, and this is a massive weight off my shoulders. The best part was opening Quicken this morning and seeing "$0.00" next to each credit card balance, where there used to be red numbers.

Note that I kept saying "credit card debt". I still have a $16,000 car loan, but now that I am out of credit card debt, I have a lot more options open to pay off that loan. The original plan, after eliminating credit card debt, was to split the former $720 payment. $360 would go to savings, and $360 to extra principal on the car loan. I'm starting to question that distribution (I'm thinking of leaning more toward savings), but I've got a month to figure out a plan before it goes into effect.

(NB: This just happened to be my 800th blog post. Wow. It started out with a paragraph and a 5-point bullet list, but has expanded to a 3000-word essay. Maybe I should write a book.)

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Article posted on Oct 14

xkcd: volume 0

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 14, 2009, 12:18 pm

I received my signed copy of xkcd: volume 0 yesterday. It contains lots of tidbits, commentary, sketches and a bunch of puzzles. (I still haven't figured out the page numbering scheme. It looks to be base 3, but certain numbers are missing from the series.) My biggest complaint is, for the price, I assumed it would be hardcover. It's not, but the production quality is nonetheless very, very excellent.

A few months ago, Randall came to myself and a few others, looking for ideas for a title. Here's what was thrown around:

• xkcd'); DROP TABLE Library;--
• xkcd: volume 0 (This one was obviously chosen.)
• xkcd: Think of subtitle before going to print -R
• xkcd: volume 2
• xkcd: ☃ (Randall liked this, "if only because it would annoy database operators".)

So that was the general theme: confuse the users, annoy the indexers, or at best, destroy Amazon's database. I approve.

The current title leads to the next title logically being xkcd: volume 1, which will create some fun confusion ("xkcd: volume 1 is coming out soon!" "Wait, isn't there already an xkcd book?"), but I wanted to take the anarchy to the next level. xkcd: volume 3 should work well for the second book.

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Article posted on Oct 11

Wells Fargo ATMs

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 11, 2009, 7:55 pm

Earlier this year, Wells Fargo rolled out a new generation of ATMs. Previously, to make cash or check deposits, you put the bills and checks into a supplied envelope, told the ATM how much you were depositing, then inserted the envelope. These new ATMs will accept loose stacks of bills and checks.

Last month I made a cash deposit. I put the stack of bills into the slot, it scanned each one, and (correctly) counted the total value of the cash. It was nice, but I was only mildly impressed. Bill scanning technology has been around for a long time and is pretty refined.

Today I deposited a check. (That doesn't happen often anymore, so it had been awhile.) Again, I pressed the "deposit" button the screen and inserted the check. It scanned the check, figured out the check number and amount, and verified the amount to me. It even printed a small version of the scanned image on the receipt, with the check's bank account number removed from the image. Okay, now I'm impressed.

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Article posted on Oct 11

The very best 1995 has to offer.

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 11, 2009, 3:26 pm

Here's a list of the many wonderful things you cannot do with your auto loan on bankofamerica.com:

• Make a payment online. [1]
• Set up an automated payment schedule. [2]
• View detailed statement information, including principal+interest for your last payment.
• Retrieve statements from previous months.
• Switch to paperless billing.

And if you would like any of these services kindly not offered by bankofamerica.com, simply do not call 800-345-1248 any time, day or night, as they keep banker hours.

[1] You may make a single payment on, ironically named, myeasypayment.com. This site requires you to fill in all information about your loan account and payment information, in excruciating detail (thank god for Firefox saved forms), manually, each time. Imagine having to fill out a loan application each time you wanted to make a payment.
[2] There is a link that says "Request Automatic Payments setup", which takes you to myeasypayment.com, which does not let you set up automatic payments.

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Article posted on Oct 10

Chef fo0bar presents: Baked stuffed shrimp

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on October 10, 2009, 11:55 pm

Here's another one from the family cookbook. The shrimp is great, but I've got to say that the cracker mixture is where it's at. I could simply munch on that if I had to.

Ingredients:
* 1 lb shrimp, peeled and de-veined (cooked is fine)
* 8 oz (2 sticks) Ritz crackers
* 12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter
* 2 tbsp lemon juice
* 4 tbsp white wine
* 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
* 2 tbsp chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the butter, lemon juice, wine, worcestershire sauce, and parsley together. Crumble the crackers in a large work bowl, integrate the wet ingredients, and mix half of the shrimp in. Layer the rest of the shrimp on a 8x8" pan, and distribute the cracker mixture on top of the shrimp bed. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

If, like me, you do not go through enough white wine to use a little in cooking, I've found that 2 tbsp gin works equally well.

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