A few months ago I posted a review of the financial management site mint.com. In general I gave it a very glowing review because I really liked it. I still do. However, I was turned on to a different site this week that, while not as refined as mint is even more powerful. The funny thing is, when I signed up for mint, mint actually told me about this competing site - but I didn't listen.

The site I'm talking about is Yodlee. Yodlee is kind of a clearinghouse for monetary information. All sorts of transactions pass through their system and, in fact, it is where Mint goes to get all of your data (and, coincidentally, where Mint stores your account credentials). Mint just puts a really nice wrapper on top of what Yodlee offers; except mint doesn't offer everything Yodlee does (yet).

The key part of any of these sites is that they provide me with the ability to see an overarching view of my entire financial situation at a glance. Mint goes about half way to that end; Yodlee gets about 90% of the way. For instance, some of the accounts that I can view in Yodlee that are missing from my mint account are my mortgage, home equity loan, paypal account, 401k plan, and my daughters 529 plans. Yodlee gives me all of those and tons of details about each. In fact, I get more detail about my 401k plan from within Yodlee about my recent activity than I do from my 529 plans website. What's up with that?

Yodlee isn't all sunshine though. Like I said Mint has a nice sugary coating on it that makes it super easy to use and asks very little of the user before you can start gleaning some very useful information. Yodlee's UI isn't nearly as polished and, at first, doesn't seem even remotely as powerful. However, after digging into it for a while today I have gotten it to mimic most of what Mint offered with the added bonus of a much deeper view of my finances. It's great.

Here are some tips if you decide to give Yodlee a try:

1. 
   
2. Define some sub-categories. Mint has some defined out of the box. Yodlee is actually better in this regard because you can define as many categories as you want. With mint you are stuck with the categories they give you. (In mint's defense you can also tag things with all the tags you want, called labels in mint, and you can't do that in Yodlee. However, you can't run any of the graphical reports in mint against tags so I have found little value to that feature).
   
3. Go to the options page and make your default homepage the "Dashboard" It is what gives you the quick look into your current status.
   
4. Import as many accounts as you can think of. They also let you import many of the places you pay bills to. For instance I added in my Dish network account - it is handy for letting me see not just when I spend money but also where it is all going. One thing I do like better about Mint is the ability to graph trends by vendor (such as walmart, kroger, toy-r-us, etc - you can't do that in Yodlee unless you have it in there as an account - that kind of sucks).
   
5. Also on the options page notice you can organize your dashboard a little - By default the right column is MUCH taller than the left so shift things around a bit so you get a good balance.
   
6. After you have imported a bunch of accounts define a custom account group that contains just your primary accounts (checking, savings and that's it). Then setup the transactions module on the dashboard to just show that group. It makes it much easier to focus on your actual cash flow at a glance while still letting you run deep and complex reports
   
7. When you login and go to add an account the first time you will pick a bank, say Bank of America, and then it will put BoA in the left column - but never have asked you for your account info. You aren't really done with the BoA account addition yet - you've just queued up BoA for addition to your account.
   
   After you identify all the institutions you want to add they will be listed in the left column, at that point just go through each (there is an add account link under each) and provide your info and, in no time, you'll have a full composite of your finances.
   

I like Yodlee so much I'm going to be deleting my mint account and, as much as I like mint, that is saying something. I still prefer the UI of mint and I love the charting based on merchant, but in the end I really don't need those as much as I do the deeper insight into my finances. Both are free so the depth of coverage was the deal breaker for me.

#reviews #Geekiness

Ok, so I'm not really a Catholic but my wife and kids are and the Lenten season is upon us. Shannon has to pick something to give up for Lent - I typically people I gave up Catholicism for Lent about 20 years ago - most of the Catholics I know don't find much humor in that. However, now I'm in a bit of a pickle because I kind of want to support Shannon in her sacrifice even if I don't agree with it much.

So I'm going to give something up for Lent and, as you might guess, I'm cheating a little. I'm combining the idea of giving something up for Lent with something that, it turns out, will be good for me. I'm giving up Soy. Soy, I recently learned, isn't nearly as healthy as I always thought it was. In fact, it sounds like Soy is pretty darn bad for you.

Sure, I don't eat much Soy - but now I don't see much reason to eat it at all. I typically combined it with chicken in my Moo Moo Mr Cow burrito at Moe's Southwestern Grill. Now, I guess, I'll just get chicken.

So, I'm giving up Soy (and all of it's equivalents like Tofu) - what about you? Join me in giving up Soy.

#Geekiness

I haven't seen the movie The Golden Compass yet but their website has this neat tool that pairs you with some kind of animal spirit called a daemon (pronounced just like demon). In the fantasy world the movie is based on each person is split into a physical form and a spiritual form - their human body is the physical and the animal is their spiritual half. On the website they have a 20 question personality quiz that they use to match you up with a Daemon. My daemon is currently a female lion (daemons are almost always opposite gender to the physical half) named Theonella.

However, it is possible I don't really know myself as well as my friends and family do. So they have this add-on questionaire that you guys can answer to help better identify my daemon. So, if you don't mind please just answer these quick questions and we will see how it ends up. We only have 12 days to further refine my daemon before it is finalized so please just take a moment now to complete it. Thanks

#Movies #FunStuff #General #Geekiness #ThisSite

Just wanted to point folks to a sports blog by a fan who can't make up his mind. Either that or he is just a very honest fan who won't except failure. You make the call.

#Geekiness

I woke up late today - after going out and partying in Lan Kwai Fong (a big expat bar area) - and decided I was going to try to go to some different parts of Hong Kong. Once I was out I really didn't know where to go so I rode the escalator down and wandered to the ferry port and took the ferry over to the Kowloon side - specifically to Tsim Sha Tsui which basically just seemed like another big name brand shopping place. The area was dominated by Gucci, Louis Vitton, and Prada type stores. The Louis Vitton store facade was pretty cool - it looked like a giant suitcase. After wandering around through the stores and mall I found myself in a subway - which is just a big tunnel to walk through - which led me to the Hong Kong Theater and the Hong Kong Space museum.

There was some kind of event going on in the theater so there was a stage setup with different people signing. The singing was in Chinese so while I couldn't understand it it was still pretty cool. At first there were four guy singing in tuxedos. They were like the four tenors but the song didn't sound that serious and one of the four guys had a pretty animated face so you could tell he was having fun singing it. After they finished a single lady took the stage and she sang some really powerful sounding song and she had a very strong soprano voice. It was pretty cool. After listening to her I wandered outside and saw a small wedding party getting their photos taken. The guys tuxedo was a golden kind of color and was pretty neat - it had a very old French look to it. The walkway outside the theater ended up merging into a "Hollywood Walk of Fame" type of place but Hong Kong style. I saw the stars for Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan amongst others then I encountered this big bronze statue of Bruce Lee that was really cool.

I ended up walking a long way down the waterfront before crossing a big street and then wandering around some more before I decided to try and take the subway train (MTR) back under the water to the Island. Once back on the Island I decided to go to the Wan Chai area. I was told there is a red light district there and a bunch of restaurants - but I didn't really see either. it was a very busy area though and it reminded me of different neighborhoods in NY while the area I am in for work reminds me of Manhattan. After wandering around Wan Chai I took the train back to the central area (where I work) and then took the escalator back up to my hotel. I probably walked about 10 miles today and I took just around 160 photos! I put up about 25 on in the photo album

#HongKong #Geekiness

Yesterday was a rough day for me in Hong Kong. To start with I woke up very tired. I think the prior 15.1 hour work day may have taken it's toll on me. However, I got up and did my normal morning routine and, if I do say so myself, was looking really good in this new shirt we bought in NY, and then headed out. It was my first day where I was going to get to the office after 8 - I got here at about 8:10 but I was the third person here. At about 9:30 I was feeling pretty hungry so I headed across the street to Starbucks to buy a scone and a hot cocoa. This was my first mistake of the day.

The Hot Cocoa must have been loaded with sugar because my body almost instantly became unhappy. My stomach was cramping up and, just what I didn't need in hot and humid Hong Kong - I started to sweat. Sure, you may be thinking why did I order a hot drink in hot Hong Kong - well chocolate sounded good and I'm a sucker for chocolate sometimes. Anyway I just soldiered on and ignored my bodies complaints until lunch time. I figured I could get something solid to eat and everything would be fine. I asked my local manger for a recommended place for lunch and he suggested a joint called "Cosmos" - some kind of "healthy food" place. They have these take out "box" lunches that are sitting in a fridge and that they will heat up for you. I picked a chicken and brown rice combo and was lured in by the big menu board behind the cashier hawking their smoothies. I really like smoothies so I ordered the 4-fruit smooth; strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and banana. Mistake number 2!

My stomach was in fits at this point so I decided to head into a little pharmacy that sat between my building and Cosmos to get some [[loperamide]]. Now, cosmos gives you a really nice bag for "take away" orders. Its got a cardboard bottom and nice rope handle. Inside there rested my box lunch (in a cardboard box) and my drink in a plastic cup with a plastic bubble lid that was sealed shut. The cup was actually in a cardboard thing-a-ma-jig that helped keep it from falling over in the bag - a pretty nice setup really - except that as I entered the pharmacy the cup fell over in my bag anyway. It only spilled a little - a few drops really before I saved it and stood it back up. Then I just carried the bag at an incline so the cup couldn't fall again. With my immodium in hand I headed back to my desk to eat and treat myself.

The food was pretty good and the smoothie was nice too. I threw the trash away and then addressed my keyboard only to spot, out of the corner of my eye, a big red splotch right in the middle of my new shirt. A shirt I was really admiring earlier in the day because it was cut so much better than the rest of my shirts. Dammit, now it had a big red stain! Some of that spill from when the drink was in my bag had crept down the cup and fallen on my shirt. Too top it off my stomach still felt like crap. So back downstairs I went to the pharmacy in hopes I could find a stain stick. Of course I have both immodium and a stain stick back at my hotel room and the pharmacy didn't have a stain stick. My room is about 30 minutes away and at this point I was feeling so sleepy I thought if I went there I would just go back to bed - not a good option. So, instead I headed upstairs and asked if there was somewhere nearby that might sell a stain stick. My manager sent me down the road to a small grocery store.

Grocery stores here are small - it's part of the nature of the beast that is Hong Kong - space is limited and the only stores that are huge are big name brands like Versaci or something - not grocery stores. So of course the Park and Pack I was in didn't have anything even remotely like a stain stick. However, there was an older French lady shopping there who was kind enough to tell me about a nicer grocery over at the International Finance Center (IFC) called city super. I was there! Except I didn't really know how to get to the IFC - but how hard could it be, it's the tallest building in Hong Kong.

As it turns out it is pretty hard. You can't see the tallest building through all of the other tall but not tallest buildings. However, I'd been there twice - both times while I was working so all I had to do was backtrack to my office and follow the path we had taken the on the prior two trips. Good idea in theory but in practice I had to have actually paid attention to the path we had taken on those two trips. The thing is I have been in constant catch-up mode in learning about all the technologies I have to work with since I got here - and on the trips over to the IFC I've been talking to the other team members about various topics - focusing on their answers and not on the path we took. So, basically, I had no idea how to get to the IFC.

That didn't stop me from trying though. A neat feature of Hong Kong is, because it is so hot, humid and rainy, you can get from one part of the central area to another without ever going outside. That is basically how we had gotten to the IFC before. You enter one building and then just cross over streets into others via overpasses. I had a basic idea of how our trip to the IFC started but before long I was in a huge square building with a one or two major entry points at each corner. I was pretty sure I didn't have to go to a different floor but I had no idea which cardinal direction to travel in let alone which of the exits at each corner I should take so I just started going down each to see if any felt familiar. The problem was none of them did. Finally, some Australian guy walked by and I asked him where to go to get to the IFC. At that point I was in the exact opposite corner from where I needed to be. He told me to just follow the signs to the "Airport Express" and I couldn't miss the IFC and sure enough he was right. About ten minutes later I was at the entrance to the IFC.

The first two floors of the IFC are a big mall full of fancy name brand clothes and shoes. Name brands here aren't "Levi's" or "Nike" they are "Prada" and "Tiffany". Somewhere in this mix was the City Super that, hopefully, had my stain stick. The floor layout is sort of circular so I just picked a direction and started walking - of course, from my entry point I picked the "wrong" direction as I had to walk nearly 3/4 of the circle before I reached the store. Not to be anti-climatic or anything but they did have a Tide to Go pen which took the stain out of my shirt without a problem.

Now all I had to do was find my way back. Not a big deal until I got back to the square that caused me all of the problems in the first place. By this point my stomach was in agony and I had no idea which way to go. However, I knew I was in the Central part of Hong Kong so I just headed to the Central Building and sure enough it got me close enough where I could find my way and I started to recognize parts of the hallways as somewhere I had been before that day. Eventually I made it back to the office. However I only stayed until 6:30 because I wanted to do 2 things that night; 1. go back to the IFC and make sure I could complete the trip without difficulty because that is where the traders for my Client work and where I may have to go by myself for work at some point and 2. Eat an early dinner and get some sleep.

The IFC trip at this point was a no brainer. So I completed it and then headed up the escalators to the part of town called "SoHo" for dinner. Most of the restaurants there are European and feature pretty similar meals. I wandered around for a bit looking for one that seemed a little better, saw a Lotus (car) for the first time, before settling on "Boca" because there were more people there and I thought it would be nice to hear voices. However, I had to wait about 15 minutes for a table and then, after I ordered, I found out it would take 30 minutes for them to make my meal - clearly I had picked the wrong place. My meal finally arrived and it was huge - way too much food. So I ate about 1/4 of it and then waited patiently to catch the eye of a waitress so I could get my check. Eventually I did and I left $350HKD (or honkies!) lighter. By the time I made it back to my hotel room it was 10:30. So much for going to bed early.

Fortunately, I slept well and I woke up today feeling much better - both my energy and my stomach.

#HongKong #Work #MyLife #Geekiness #Travel

Some of the people who find my blog ask about Ryan and his songs. He tried to stop singing and writing songs about six months ago but the lure of sports songs was too strong for him and he is back. He has put all of his videos back up on youtube and has even put up a couple new ones already. So if you have been wanting to hear ryan's songs go over to his website at RyanParkerSongs.com and give them a listen.

Here is his newest video, Blame it on a Bengal, which makes fun of all the criminal trouble the Cincinnati Bengals have had

#Geekiness

This past weekend Joe, my friend Jason, his friend Gabe, and myself ventured slightly north to Columbus Oh for the first annual Rock on the Range concert. The show featured over ten bands on two separate stages and the estimated crowd was around 30,000 people. It was a great show full of much more than just music.

Our adventure started off in once we arrived at our hotel and found a cab to take us to the show. We elected to take a cab, as opposed to me driving us over to the stadium so we could all drink without any of us having to worry about being the designated driver. The cab driver was open to suggestions on getting us to the stadium as quickly as possible and, moments after Gabe suggested he use the "shoulder" the cabbie jumped into it and took the shoulder to the next available exit (traffic was pretty much stopped on the freeway). He then zipped up the off-ramp, skipped through the intersection, back down the onramp and back into the shoulder to the next exit (our destination). The total trip lasted about 5 minutes. As a frame of reference the trip back, in a much more sedate fashion, took closer to 10 minutes without traffic.

Once near the concert he dropped us off and we walked the last 1/4 mile to the entry. At this point we had to wait in line for a bit while they bar-code scanned everyones tickets. Once we were in the gates we noticed 2 large gaggles of people circled around some stadium employees. We weren't sure what was going on until we were told that they were giving out wristbands that you needed to have if you wanted to go down on the field during the concert. We wanted to so we made a weak attempt at getting into the gaggles. They were tightly packed with people who weren't giving up space easily. I decided to walk around a bit and see if I could find a better option. I couldn't so I came back and found that Joe was about 1/2 way through the crowd in one of the groups. I handed him my ticket and those of Jason and Gabe's so he could get a band for each of us. He finally got to the band-hand-out-guy but he wouldn't give Joe more than one band. It turns out once he gives out a band he has to mark your ticket so you can't get another band. He marked two of the tickets Joe had (his and Jason's) but only gave him the one band. So Joe tore off his band and gave it to Jason then Joe jumped back into the mix to get his band back. Meanwhile Gabe and I went into the other clutch and worked our way through and eventually got wrist bands. Joe ended up getting his fixed as well so we were set to go. From there we bought some beer and headed to the infield to watch Breaking Benjamin get things started.

Breaking Benjamin, just like every other band we heard that day, sounded great live; I didn't expect them all to sound so good so I was pretty stoked they sounded so good. We were about 100 feet from the stage and there were a bunch of people crowd surfing which inspired Joe to do the same. He jumped up and floated to the stage where he was warned by security to not do it again. Joe didn't listen and did it again. He was warned again. So he did it again and this time was kicked out of the concert. The first two times he went he left his wallet with me but, fortunately for him, he had his wallet with him on trip three. He was able to scrape together enough money to buy another ticket from a scalper. Sadly, they also took his wristband when they kicked him out.

After Breaking Benjamin we went to the second stage to see "Puddle of Mudd" who also rocked. While at the second stage Jason's wristband fell off and he lost it in the crowd. Now we were down to just Gabe and I with wrist bands. However, we were lucky and found a sympathetic guard who let them both on the field with just their marked tickets. From there we jammed to the sounds of Buck Cherry, Papa Roach, Hinder, Evanescense, Three Days Grace, Velvet Revolver, and Chevelle.

Later, as darkness began to descend Joe found himself crowd surfing again and after three more trips through the air he was kicked out again. This time he was destitute so he found a fence to jump and managed to sneak his way back in onto the field. He agreed to stop crowd surfing at that point.

The final three bands scheduled for the night were, in order, Velvet Revolver, Evanescense, and ZZ Top. Joe really likes Velvet Revolver and I really wanted to see Evanescense however, by the time Evanescense was done we were all pretty tired (we had been there jamming, screaming, drinking, and partying for about 10 hours) we decided to cut out before ZZ Top's set. Just before we went to leave security came charging through and gang tackled/drug/fought a guy out of the area. A few minutes later, as we were exiting, we saw that same guy laying on his stomach, his hands cuffed, his feet similarly bound, and both sets of handcuffs connected behind his back - he was hogtied and pissed. Clearly he had resisted a bit too much.

All in all the concert was fantastic. We were surrounded by fun loving people who, on average, were far calmer and less violent, than I have experienced at other rock concerts. We got to witness a few ladies flashing the crowd (a rock concert staple), a few people getting arrested, a lot of clouds of noxious smoke, and 10 bands who really knew how to rock. It was great and if all goes as planned we will be going back next year.

#Geekiness

I have held off posting this until today because I didn't want to infuse the post with venom. It probably won't work.

Last week I went to BW3 (Buffalo, Wings, and Weck) a chain of greasy food restaurants that specializes in Buffalo Chicken Wings. They have over 10 different spices and flavors of wings; however they are all really, really greasy and my stomach doesn't tolerate them very well so when I go I always order their "Jerk Chicken Sandwich" a kind of spicy sandwich done in a Caribbean style. BW3 is always kind of slow and one of us always has a problem with our order but this last trip was kind of special in the ranks of "bad trips". Their website is http://www.bw3.com - I won't link to them because their website throws annoying audio at you.

There were six of us, I was fourth in line. The two few guys ordered salads with chicken breast chunks on them while the third ordered a plate of wings. I ordered the Jerk Chicken Sandwich as always. The next two guys ordered something, I don't remember what. We sat down to wait for our food and slowly but surely each guys food came out - except mine. All five guys were eating and we were all chatting having a good time while I waited on my sandwich. 10 minutes passed and no Sandwich. 15 passed so I went up to the cashier and asked her to check on it - make sure the order didn't get lost in the lunch hour rush. I heard her talking to the guy in the kitchen and clearly heard her say, "You burnt it?" then they went back to talking. A few seconds later she came out and told me it was just about to be finished they just had to take it off the grill,the bun was already prepped. I said cool and sat back down. Another five minutes passed and by now everyone else was done. I didn't want to wait anymore so I went back to the cashier and told her I wanted to cancel my order and she said I had to wait for the manager. Fine, no problem I said, and I stood to the side and waited a couple minutes, the kitchen manager came out looking tired and in no mood to deal with me and then my experience with BW3 went from bad to worse.

He looked at me, and said, "It's your fault, you shouldn't have ordered chicken." I said, "What? My Fault? This is a chicken restaurant isn't it? You do cook chicken here don't you?" I went from impatient to angry in about 2 seconds. The Jerk Chicken Sandwich consists of a standard, non breaded, chicken breast. The same kind that was chopped up all over the other 2 guys' salads. What problem could there have been making my sandwich? I asked the manager this and he said "well we don't keep these things pre-cooked, when you order them they are frozen and we have to cook them from there." "It takes over 20 minutes?" I asked. I said I had been there about 30 minutes and didn't think it should take so long, I mean all five guys I came with had ordered, had their food prepared, and they had eaten it. He told me I was wrong I hadn't been there 30 minutes then walked away from me (I still didn't have a refund). I said "what? Now I'm hungry and a Liar?" He didn't reply. Instead he went into the kitchen and came back out 10-20 seconds later and told me my order ticket said 12:10 (it was then 12:35) - So I said, "Ok, 25 minutes, big deal, I want my money back." So, he got another manager to get my refund for me and he went back to the kitchen without saying anything else to me.

The second manager processed my refund, handed me my receipt, and told me to keep a hold of it in case the charge showed up. That was it. No apology for my wasted lunch break or for the bad service. Just here's your receipt keep a hold of it in case we messed up again.

I already didn't care much for BW3's food - but now I can guarantee that I will never go to any BW3 anywhere again. All they have managed to do is push me (and my family) away as customers. My co-workers, when I am with them, won't go back to BW3 again (and who knows, maybe they won't go even if I'm not there). We go out to eat everyday. It's crazy to think BW3, in Huntington WV can afford to just throw customers away. This isn't NYC where people can throw away customers forever and never run out of new customers. This is a small town and I will be, and have been, telling everyone I know about the horrid customer service at BW3.

Finally, even though they don't deserve it, here is a tip for BW3. Don't blame your customers when you can't cook a simple chicken breast. Don't call them liars, and finally, apologize when you screw up.

#Commentary #Geekiness

I am testing out a new feature on the website that aggregates my entire publicly available online presence into one page (updated hourly). It is called a "lifestream" and so far I have it including all of my contributions to this blog, my tech blog, flickr, picasaweb, newsvine, digg, del.icio.us, ma.gnolia.com, netflix, last.fm, and probably a couple of other places I can't think of right now.

It's pretty cool though I do have some reservations about leaving it up there; most importantly one of privacy. While all of this information is already out there in the public domain it isn't normally collated into one easy to read resource. Perhaps it will make it extra easy for someone to 'steal' my identity? I'm not sure. Anyway it may be a temporary thing; but for the time being it is kind of neat to see how it all ties in together.

#MyLife #Geekiness #ThisSite