David J Moore

I haven’t posted for a while but thought I would post a ‘How-To’ on how to increase your browsing speed when using Firefox thanks to ‘Pipelining‘. An HTTP pipelining enabled web browser uses server keepalive signals to create an open socket so that it can receive an uninterrupted stream of packets. Without pipelining, the browser must communicate back and forth with the server to determine whether the last item was received successfully and uses more TCP packets to do so.

To enable pipelining in Firefox is easy:

1. Type ‘about:config’ in the URL bar
2. In the search box type ‘pip’,  ‘network.http.pipelining’ should appear in the list.
3. Hold shift and click on it until it’s value reads ‘true’

Job done! Enjoy the increased speed

I found myself in a particularly nasty place yesterday. I had followed advice given to me by an Apple engineer and either what they told me to enter in terminal was wrong, OR, I mistyped. Either way the result was a iMac that would not boot and gave a kernel panic at every grey boot screen. I tried resetting the PRAM/NVRAM via command-option-P-R, I tried booting from single user mode, booting to safe mode and booting from the DVD to bypass the HDD. None of these worked and all resulted in the kernel panic.

So i call Apple care and the guy there was fantastic and he determines a fried logic board and happily gives me a case number to have it repaired under warranty. Now I have been a Mac user for long enough to know that you don’t (Most of the time) go from working fine to rebooting and having a fried logic board. So I racked my brain and spent hours on Google and I am happy to say I fixed it, and I will share with you what the issue was and how I fixed it in the hope it may help many others in the future.

Now for reasons I won’t delve into I have an EFI Firmware password set on my Mac. I presume if your reading this article your the same. The EFI firmware password essentially stops you doing any of the important key combinations at boot, resetting PRAM/NVRAM, single user mode the whole shebang.  Now this is useful in many many circumstances except when your screwed like I was. Essentially when I thought I was resetting my PRAM and NVRAM I was doing absolutely nothing. If your as screwed as I was and cannot get to a DVD to boot OR you have forgotten your password there is only one way around it.

1. Add or remove a stick of ram. Obviously if you have one stick in, add one and if you have two in remove one.
2. Power on the mac and immediately press and hold command-option-P-R.
3. The system will restart with the ‘bong noise’, allow it to do this 3 times. On the third ‘bong’ you can let go of the keys.
4. The machine will now boot with a cleared password and reset PRAM/NVRAM.
5. You can shut down the machine and replace the original ram configuration.

I hope this helps anyone that was in as much hot water as me! Good luck

Now that it is the new tax year here in the UK, we receive our interest on our cash ISA’s. The Egg Cash ISA is advertised at 6.05% variable. One thing I really missed when I signed up for it was the term ‘variable’. The two things that made me sign up for it was the 6.05% advertised interest and the guarantee to beat the Bank of England base rate for a year. The latter made me instantly think that it would provide me with a decent return, I know better now!

Whilst Egg have not done anything wrong, the point of this article is to be very careful when you sign up for these things and make sure you investigate the interest clearly. Instead of the £181.50 I thought I would get in return (6.05%) I in fact got £126.29 which equates to a 4.21% return. £55.21 less than I thought! You must also remember that if you pay in installments you also won’t see the return you expect, maybe self explanatory but it’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment.

Moral of this story is take your time and read and do calculations, don’t hurry to sign up like I did as for such a small amount of money it can cost you fairly dearly.

Originally uploaded by eenu.

Feel free to visit my latest album of my visit to Bath, UK, this easter. There are some pretty nice shots in there. If you want any of them, the copyright belongs to me so please email me to ask permission at dave ‘at’ davidjmoore.com and I will see what I can do

We are at the end of the tax year here in the UK and as such I have just completed my accounts, and planned the investments for the next financial year. I will be posting about my new investments in a post later this week but I thought I would give you a look at how my net worth has increased since 1st Jan 2008. Through the first few months i curbed my spending, it was far to affected by consumerism. I also created a new savings budget and have cautiously tracked all spending, even the spending of the cash in my pockets

A few of the steps taken were:

1. Planning specific meals and write a shopping list of ingredients needed. Savings of £5-£10 per shop.
2. When I want something, I add it to a list and revisit this list everyday. 9 times out of 10 my impulse to buy has faded within 24hrs and my sensible brain has kicked in telling me I don’t really need the wanted item.
3. I have moved money around to new higher interest accounts.
4. Tracking all money spent in iBank. This includes money i spend out of my pocket which is recorded on my iPhone at the time and entered in iBank when I do my accounts.
5. Sold some old junk on Ebay and some old phones on Envirofone.
6. Received Lots of cashback on my Egg Money Card (Balance paid in full each month).
7. Working from home saving money on food and coffee, compared to students union shop and coffee vending machines.
8. Reinvesting in Zopa. Interest rates beat any UK savings accounts rates.

Well it would appear that all the steps I have taken have paid off, in just three months my net worth has increased by 57.91%!!!

This is set to drop evenly until the end of the year as I will effectively be unemployed until November but the old plan will be recreated when I start earning again so it shouldn’t fall to much.

How has your net worth done so far in 2008?

Just a quick post to wish Apple Inc a very happy 32nd birthday!

Born on April 1st 1976, Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone. (Part of Text Courtesy of Apple)

For the tax year 2008/2009 there are no longer two types of ISA, the mini and the maxi. From April 6th 2008 ISA’s will come in a single flavour with new allowances. You will be able to invest in a cash ISA will allow and increased deposit from £3,000 per year to £3,600. This allows you to then Invest upto £3,600 in a Shares ISA (£7,200 in total)

However, you don’t have to invest like that, the above figures are maximums so you could invest £1000 in the cash part and £6,200 in a stocks and shares ISA with a different provider.

So what about PEP’s? Well all PEP’s will be converted to stocks and shares ISA’s automatically.

Early in April I will post with my new ISA plans for 2008 as I have a few ideas up my sleeve

How are you finding the return on your stocks and share ISA’s?

Many people I know do nothing more with their money that leave it in their current accounts (checking, for the americans). These accounts may as well not give you any interest as its so appallingly low! The more savvy people move money into a savings account which in the UK average between 5 and 6.5%. So what should you do if you have filled you tax free ISA allowance for the current tax year yet you want a greater return than a high street savings account?

ZOPA. (Available in the UK and USA)

Simply put Zopa is members of the public lending to members of the public, easily, simply and securely via the Zopa website. This cuts out the greedy banks and brings in the new phenomena known as social lending.

To lend on Zopa is a simple as signing up, paying in your money and then deciding on what ‘markets’ you want to lend too. You decide how long you want to lend for (1 to 5 years) and also which market you want to lend to where the different markets reflect the perceived reliability of the people you lending to. For example, borrowers in the A market will have a better credit than those in the C market. However, you can typically lend at a higher rate of interest to those in the C market.

Typically my money in Zopa is lent out at a rate of 8% for 24 months, certainly much better than the high street rate of 6.5% that I have.  After 6 months and only £100 in Zopa I have made about £4 interest which includes interest from the people I have lent to and also interest on the money that is currently not lent out in my Zopa account. That is pretty good by anyones standards and now that I have used it for 6 months and got used to it and know there is little risk to my investment from defaulters I am going to invest more of my money in Zopa.

As a final note i’d also recommend Zopa for people that need a loan as you will typically get the loan a few percent less than you would in the high street.

Do any of you use Zopa?

I thought I would just give a brief update on my first 8 days as an ‘early riser’. Well, it’s going ok. I wouldn’t call myself an early riser but I am certainly getting up earlier, not sleeping until I am actually tired and forcing myself up at the same time each day.

The natural body clock is starting to kick in now and I am waking before the alarm. It’s still not perfect, I still feel like crap in the morning and I still need to rise earlier but I am planning on reducing the waking time by 30 minutes every week.

Keep posted on how its going over the next weeks and whether I can make my 5am rising time by day 30! Subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss a thing.

How do you make sure your up early everyday?

So the main thing on my mind is are there two types of people, morning and night time people? I certainly believe I am a night time person. I tend to work better at night and I’m more productive though this is not fitting in well with my life. I’m in my mid 20’s and still at University I rarely go to bed before midnight, and I almost always sleep in late. I usually don’t start waking until around noon.

There are times when I do rise early and I can’t help but notice that i feel more productive and get more things done when I do. I also noticed a significant feeling of well-being due to this increased productivity and extra time. I therefore tried to be an early riser everyday. I’d set my alarm clock for 6am and guess what?

……………I’d wake at noon, not even remembering the alarm clock going off!

There appears to be two schools of thought on sleep. Firstly (and as my doctor has recommended) going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. The issues with this were that I really don’t feel tired at the same time every night. When i was doing this I was having to use sleeping tablets and I was waking at 4am! This method did not work at all. The second method is to go to bed when you feel tired and get up when your body wakes….. is this not what I was doing before? I think i have already proven that this is not a good technique. My sleeping pattern slipped and I was back to being nocturnal.So to the question, how am I going to become an early riser? Combine the two methods!

My waking time will be fixed rigidly but my sleeping time will be governed by when my body says its time to sleep. Eventually my body will make me go to bed earlier or later depending on how tired it is. It will know when as it will know when I wake up and know that this time is fixed and will not change. I’m going to keep a log for the next 30 days to let you all know how it progresses.