You have likely all seen these little grid type bar codes floating around more and more lately and have probably wondered what they are. They are called QRCodes and have been popular in Japan for quite some time as a way for businesses to market products, websites, or provide coupons to their customers. They are gaining more popularity here in the US and it will not be long before they are in restaurants, online and in other locations that we consumers hang out.

How to Decifer

They are deciphered by the use of mobile phones with a camera and, obviously a QR Scanner app. Simply open the app and point the camera at the code and it will take you to the desired location. It s pretty straight forward.

So about that code to the left…scan it to see what I wish I was doing right now.

Has anyone else seen these around?

There is an annual conference called the TED Conference that I have been following and talking about from time to time. It is a conference that happens every year where people from all over the world come and talk about technology and business. They talk about how to use our skills and industries to make a positive impact on the planet and human civilization.

This last Thursday night (February 5) they hosted their annual conference in California and for the first time part of it was also broadcast to a bunch of movies theaters around the country and over the web in real time. It was their “What I Wish For The World” segment. Every year they have nominations for people that are making huge changes in the world and they get a chance to get up and share their ideas with everyone.

In a talk by Sylvia Earl, one of the 2009 TED Prize Winners, she spoke about how the ocean is vital to human existence and how we need to protect it. During her talk, she showed some of the new features in Google Earth. If you haven’t seen it or played around with it, you need to download it and just take a look. I will promise you will be hooked.

Some of the cool things about it is the ability to travel the world and explore places you would not otherwise visit. It is actual satellite pictures of the earth that you can zoom into from outer space all the way down to a street view.

Not only can you see street view, but in the latest release you can go underwater. You have the ability to see the ocean floor and move along it as if you were walking on the bottom of the ocean.

One thing they do not have yet is any type of life under the ocean. I imagine that one day they will have a layer that would display certain types of fish and wildlife that are in a particular region, but that is not there yet.

They have also implemented their street view technology so you can simulate walking along the roads. This is a little weird but way cool. I can see how people could have mixed emotions about this feature. I think it is awesome and could prove to be a super valuable tool, but some people may feel it is an invasion of their privacy.

I am making some videos on how to do a few things in Google Earth, but keep getting sidetracked playing around with it. While I am working on that, here are some screen shots of some of the cool things you can find.

#1 – Washington DC – Capitol Hill, Library of Congress and the Supreme Court

#2 – New York City

#3 -  Our Old House

#4 – Agua Azul – A 360 View

#5 – Portuguese Flags

#6 – Underwater in Hawaii

#7 & 8 – One of the features that I didn’t talk about was the ability that you have to explore Mars (and soon other planets as well) and other parts of the solar system. You can zoom in pretty far and see where certain craters are and other bits of information. All very interesting.

Well, I hope that you have as much fun with this as I am. It is going to be really interesting to see what future enhancements they can make to the program.

I am playing with my blog and will be making a number of updates in the next week or so. If you log on one day and it is broken, it will only be a temporary problem (hopefully).

I am testing some functions and placement of a few things, some that you will see and some you will not. If everything goes as planned, then there will be no problems. But since when do website updates always go as planned?

One of the main things that will change here is the address. You will always be able to get to it by simply typing in http://brandonhansen.com.  If you are subscribed to it in a reader (ie: google reader) then you may need to change the address and take off the .wordpress extension. It will probably change to brandonhansen.com/blog.

Anyways, playing with websites is really fun and I get bored of my sites easily. Every once in a while I want to change it up and I have an itch to make some big changes. If there is anything that you like about any changes, or anything that you hate, let me know. Input is appreciated.

Why is it that my wife is mostly right when we disagree about something, even if it is something totally lame? Tonight she said something pretty simple, but also truthful. She was picking a design for her blog and was really concerned about the layout and design of the site. I told her to look around at a few others and she did. When she looked at mine, she said that it was very boring and that your blog should reflect who you are. She said that because I am pretty creative, I should not have a lame blog.

I just rolled my eyes and said “whatever”, but knew that she was right, again even if I didn’t want to admit it. So I found this current template which is more about who I am (I think), at least until she tells me otherwise.

I have a few changes to my websites.

Check them out and see what the changes are and how you can benefit from what we have to offer.

www.BrandonHansen.com

www.MySchoolPlans.com

www.AskBrandonHansen.com

The last couple weeks I have been really trying to set up the business to be consistent from one piece of marketing to another and from one point of contact to another. This weekend I have made good improvements towards developing a consistent look for what I am trying to do.

I got the initial draft of my website, www.brandonhansen.com. Like I said, initially it looks okay and I am somewhat pleased with it. There are many improvements that I need to make to it, but it is a start. A lot of the text needs to be updated and the pictures need work, but for the most part the template and look of the site are on the right track.

The main part of my website will focus on the college funding practice and will be in developing that message. I think that I am on the right track and that it will provide the message that I am looking for in the website. Some of the main points are the newsletter sign up, the registration for the workshops and what I am calling the weekly hot tip, which will be a quick message each week designed to helping consumers make wise decisions about a vast array of financial topics. It is going to be a preview for what I hope to turn into pod casts in the near future.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the start of everything. I am looking forward to the next 12 months or so. Big things are coming, keep in touch.

I was led to backpackit.com last week by my brother in law and am not sure if I want to get too dependent on it quite yet. I have been using a traditional, paper planner that I always have accessible with notes, to do’s and all that jazz and am trying to see the value in swiiching over to something online. I can see why it is cool, but does it replace what I am currently using, or just add another dimension?

If anyone has any thoughts, I am all ears.

Last September Money Magazine ran an article about 4 of the top internet stocks and their advice on the coming months.

One
of the nice things about getting your advice from a magazine (or the TV
shows, radio shows or litany of other media outlets) is that you get it
without the pressure of the salesman. Free advice, right.

Its a small price to pay for bad advice but a big loss if you followed their advice.

I
have been following their ?advice? for a while. I actually have the
magazine covers of one of their most popular editions they come out
with each year where they give their best mutual funds of the year
prediction. Over the period of February 1992 to February 1999, they
recommended 64 total funds to buy. What the recommended one year rarely
made the list the next year and if you followed their advice then you
would have actually lost money. What you would want to do is buy the
funds the year before they recommended them. Mutual Funds make money
when investors buy the shares. Investors buy the shares when they are
told to buy Money Magazine (in theory). Money Magazine is supported in
large part by mutual funds and it seems that if a mutual fund wants
people to invest in their funds, a good place to go is Money Magazine.
So more money goes to advertising and other contributions to the
magazine.

The fact of the matter is that Money Magazine makes
their money buy selling magazines and advertising space, not by giving
investment advice. Please be careful when taking their advice.

The same argument can be made with stocks.

So
back to the article from September. They recommend that you avoid
Google and Yahoo stocks and buy eBay and Amazon. They make what appears
to be good arguments in both cases. What is the end result?

First their recommendations:

eBay stock on 9/1/04 – $43.81
eBay stock on 1/6/06 – $45.88
Annual Rate of Return – 3.5%

Amazon stock on 9/1/04 – $38.24
Amazon stock on 1/6/06 – $47.65
Annual Rate of Return – 16.6%

Both not terrible choices, but nothing spectacular. At least you didn?t loose money like some.

Now the stocks to avoid.

Yahoo stock on 9/1/04 – $29.01
Yahoo stock on 1/6/06 – $41.53
Annual Rate of Return – 27.2%

Google Stock on 9/1/04 – $100.25
Google Stock on 1/6/06 – $451.24
Annual Rate of Return – 118.3%

Enough said.

Thanks Money Magazine for another piece of great investment advice.