One problem I have encountered when reading blogs through my web browser is that it takes a lot of time just to check whether one of your favorite bloggers has posted new content or not. Those among us with tight schedules will also find that sometimes, there’s just not enough time to check all their favorite sites for updates. It is doubly frustrating when after you reach your favorite blog, you find that the latest entry is the one you read 2 weeks ago. It makes you wish that you could opt to be informed when new content is introduced to the site so you can visit it. The fact is, this is actually possible using web syndication (the most common type of syndication is a web feed).Let me show you how I use initially a browser (I use Mozilla Firefox) and a feed reader (Mozilla Thunderbird) to keep track of my favorite sites’ updates with web feeds.

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I first became aware of the importance of making and saving money while reading The Dough Roller, a member of the M-Network. On each M-Network member’s site is an entry regarding the best and worst financial decisions each of them has made.

Fortunately, my personal financial situation is decent. I make a decent income (for an engineer coming from a third-world country, that is) and am not up to my neck in any form of debt, credit card or otherwise. It does not take much, however, to see that there are still many ways on which I can improve on my handling of my financial situation. Listing down the best and worst financial decisions I have ever made will force me to reflect on each decision and allow me to change for the better.

Without a doubt, the worst financial decision I have ever made in my life was to start smoking. In truth, I am not a big spender. Not that I wouldn’t like to be one, I just cannot afford it. The few brand name items I own are made up of a few items of clothing (most of which were gifts and hand-me-downs) and sports shoes (I don’t want to get injured while playing). However, this has allowed me to delude myself that my smoking was costing me next to nothing. The fact is that I was spending a lot of money on cigarettes! It has taken me several years to realize that smoking, aside from being a huge turn-off and being bad for my health has actually been suctioning away an enormous part of my income. In Europe, a pack of Marlboros a day turned it into a €6/day habit for the better part of a month. Singapore saw me shell out SG$12 a day to feed my addiction. For the past three years, I have been shelling out ¥320 a day in Japan for that nasty bit of nicotine. I am not even going to mention the eight or so years in my home country, where I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, without fail. This is a habit I am determined to kick, and come 2008, it is my goal to be absolutely smoke-free.

The best financial decision of my life was to start investing in my future. Taking a bit of my income each year and investing it in something small will eventually allow me to live a life of security, if not luxury, when I grow old. So far I am 3 years into a 5 year insurance payment plan and have been investing US$1000 a year in some mid-range interest savings accounts for the past two years. I aim to increase this amount every year. I also invested on my own domain (on which this blog is written), which I, as an IT professional, am hoping to turn into a bit of passive income. Currently I am looking for a way to enter into some low-risk, long term investments for the future. My current options include purchase of rentable real estate in my hometown, as well as investing in total index funds for the stock market. I’m not making much, but hopefully, someday, I’ll get there.

You know what this is all about, right?

In software development, developers attempting to learn a new language usually write a “Hello World” program - a simple program that simply prints the words “Hello world!” on the computer screen (or web browser if it’s web-based) - just to get a feel of the basic usage for the programming language.

So to everybody who’s tried it… here goes: Hello world!

Perhaps, to show that this is the start of a brand new blog…