Ricky Martin’s Blog

My Adventures around the World in Work and Play

Movember is Over!

So Movember is over, here is how it left me after 30 days of growing the Mo. So I can say we did well as our team at work managed to raise $1570 for the cause. which is pretty good considering we were only 5 people in our team. So till next year movember…. Share [...]

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Movember is Here!

So this is a new thing for me, I had never heard of or participated in Movember till last year, I started at a new company and found that most of my colleagues in the department all had these large moustaches, was interesting to see and then I heard the story behind it. This year [...]

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Support my Friend Tony and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Canada

My Friend Tony is participating in the ride for the cure. you can see from the video below. take a moment and make a small donation if you can. Make a Donation! Share and Enjoy:

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Has Been a While, A lot has Changed!

so to start things off let me first acknowledge the fact that it has been a long time since my last post. And a lot has happened. So first things first I have changed position, and as part of that changed city again. I am now living and working in the (GTA) for those who [...]

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ING Announces New Free Checking Account In Canada

I just received the notice last night in my e-mail announcing that ING Canada is going to be offering a brand new FREE Chequing account. This is similar to what they already offer in the US. This could be huge as they offer all the services which we now pay for as free and included [...]

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July 13th, 2010

Automate your Finances the Canadian Way

Okay so I took the advice I had been reading about automating your finances from I will teach you to be rich and modified them slightly to work with my situation and The Canadian banking/saving systems.

Well as things are different on this side of the border, as with all things there are slightly different ways of doing things. I have direct deposit already set up, which is pretty much standard here in Canada as far as I know from personal experience. Now here is where things change up a little, unlike the US here in Canada you don’t really have any free Checking account options with the banks or credit unions they all charge a fee depending on the amount of transaction you do per month (note there are some banks but as with most things in Canada not available in Quebec).

So What I have done is taken the account we have and opened a second checking account with another bank. The beauty and reasoning behind this is that the other bank has lower fees, and I can have my RRSP deduction done pre-tax without any fee, as where with the “bank A” there would be a fee to do this and the service is much better with bank B.

So at this point this is where we are:

Checking Account with Bank A
Checking Account with Bank B

Now The way things are Set up I opened up an RRSP Account with Bank B. once I have that set up I give that info to my employer and tell them how much I want deducted from my “PRE-TAX” Pay into my RRSP Account (for those in the US this is the same as a 401K).

So for my scenario I am looking at taking 10% of my Gross or “Pre-Tax” Salary and have that deducted and put into my RRSP account. Note: here in Canada it is a little different than in the US as there is a maximum amount you can deposit into your RRSP which is calculated each year when you do your income tax return, but the amount is cumulative, so if you have not used your previous room it carries forward each year.

The Beauty of this is your literally getting free money, because there is no tax taken off the funds so they work for you immediately and at full value. Also I find that the impact to your overall “After-Tax” Salary is not that much, in my case I only see about a 9% difference in the total amount I get after all the deductions are done, but I am saving 16% of my “after tax” salary so in essence I am getting almost 7% extra by saving in my RRSP Account.

So Now for the rest of my system, at Bank A I have a portion of my Salary deposited into this account and this is my fixed expenses that can’t be paid through a Credit Card(to get points) such as rent and some utilities that only take direct payment. so the key here is I know how much my rent is each month and how much the utilities are, this does not fluctuate. I have an amount transferred to cover those bills into this account. and I don’t touch it. I have my cheques written and mail them on the due date for the rent and I have my payment scheduled to be taken from this account on the due dates and this takes care of the expenses and no worries, no headaches. I just check to make sure things have passed as scheduled and the balance is sufficient (usually once a week as my landlord usually takes a while to cash the cheques for some strange reason).

now to Bank B, this is where the rest of my salary gets deposited and this is where the magic happens. So from here I have an automatic transfer to my ING Tax Free Savings Account, now this is something similar to a cash ISA as they have in the UK but in Canada it is relatively new, long story short the Government introduced the (TFSA) In 2008 to Compliment the RRSP and RESP, you can get all the details at www.tfsa.gc.ca now the great thing about TFSA is income earned as well as any withdrawls are tax free.

So I have my transfer into my ING account happens automatically the day after my direct deposit goes in, this happens Bi-weekly.
Next we have the Credit card Payment scheduled I usually schedule 2 payment as I get paid bi-weekly.
then anything left over in this account is spending money.

Now all the other bills I get, which are not that many get handled with the credit card, Cell Phone, Internet, etc..

And in Addition to this I have an automatic purchase plan for my RRSP Account to buy different funds on a monthly basis. so this gives me the benefits of spreading out my investments and making smaller purchases of the funds I am interested in as usually the minimum purchase is anywhere between $500-1000, but with the Automatic purchase plan the minimum monthly purchase amount is $100.

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June 22nd, 2010

World Cup Fever, who do you go for and how are you keeping up

photo by rapidgamer03.
Well as I mentioned in my earlier post Boxee Beta and apple TV I have not had cable or Satellite service since moving back to Canada which will be almost a year now. The only stumbling block I have found as well as many others is when it comes to live sports there is a bit of snag depending on the sport you follow. how do I get around this for the world cup? Well there is a great article over at lifehacker that list where you can find all the streaming online for the world cup.

Well luckily CBC in Canada is streaming all the games live online, and the quality is great, the only issue I have is doesn’t quite work with my apple TV unfortunately. But as always there is a solution.

I use my Laptop which has an HDMI out port and I hook it up to my flat screen with an HDMI cable, and problem solved.

This solution works great, and I used the same setup during the Olympics which were broadcast by CTV in a similar fashion.

And if you have a problem with the sound of the vuvuzela’s you can follow this link to an engineer who created a filter for it, I have not had a chance to try it out.

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June 14th, 2010

Travelling and Using a Cell Phone to Keep in Touch, How To Do It Right

As Many North American’s it can be hard to travel and not bring along your cell phone, or Mobile phone, regardless of what you call it most people have become attached to their cell phones and it is a center for all their communication needs.

And as a result if you bring it with you anywhere outside of your home country it may end of being very expensive to use it. We have all heard the stories of the poor tourist who brought along his/her phone only to find out when they got home they had a huge bill with roaming charges and long distance fees, that sometimes can easily get into the hundreds and/or thousands of dollars if you are not careful.

Now the first thing you need to do is get a GSM phone that has at least 3 bands but preferably 4 bands that would be labeled as a “world phone”, this is key as most of the rest of the world works with the GSM standard and only now is North America starting to move over more to it. In Canada GSM providers would be mainly Rogers, Fido, and Telus, Bell is starting to switch over and there are some other local carriers, and in the US it is mainly AT&T and T-Mobile that offer you GSM.
The next thing is to get it unlocked, depending on your phone and carrier you can either do this for free or very cheap, but depending on the Brand and Model some can’t be unlocked. It also depends on what you will be doing with your phone, if your just making calls, you don’t need anything fancy, but if you are a die hard techie with a smart phone things can get more difficult. \
Now This is the most important thing, unless you absolutely need a number active before you arrive in your destination, Buy your SIM Card when you get there, usually you can find a shop in the airport as soon as you walk out or they might even have a vending machine, if not most providers have shops in most towns and in Europe many of the grocery stores even have their own brand of pay as you go SIM cards. And Whatever you do don’t buy the one’s offered in the travel Magazines or on the plane’s duty free in flight catalog, usually they are overpriced and bad service quality.

From my experience usually you can get the SIM card for free when you purchase airtime at the same time from the provider in the country your visiting, otherwise you can get it very cheap. the alternative is you can usually find a package on e-bay where you can get a SIM card in advance sometimes with airtime but usually without, you still need to call to set up an account once you are in the destination country. So save yourself the time, money and hassle as if you buy it once you arrive you still have to provide some information but usually minimal and they usually charge you on e-bay for a card you could get for free.

I have done this myself in Italy, UK, as well as Canada and the USA, and works like a charm every time.

amazon wireless

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June 11th, 2010

How I eliminated my Credit Card Fees and made Some Money on top of It

Well As I mentioned in my other post “How 15 minutes saved me $151.90” I did a similar scenario with the credit Card Company as well and managed to save on my annual fees as Ramit Sethi Mentions in his book I Will Teach You To Be Rich .

Well to give you a bit of history, I recently opened up a credit card, and I decided to go for one with points rewards partly because they had a promotion which when matched with my recent bank account opening which I talk about in the post “Automating your finances the Canadian way”, was a great deal you get 15000 rewards points for opening the bank account as well as another 15000 for opening the credit card. So the points can be used for travel or merchandise, for travel 15000 points is equal to a short haul flight. So not too bad, plus there are additional perks with the card as additional travel insurance, trip interruption insurance and Medical travel insurance that are included, in addition to your standard warranty extensions etc…

So after signing up, I get the card and I check out the statement and I see a charge right off the bat for $120 for initial card annual fee, and then another $50 for Secondary card annual fee, then further down I see a credit of $35 for being a bank customer.

So I call up customer service and this is how it goes:
CSR: “Hello how can I help you today Mr. Martin?”

ME: “Well, I see i have been charged an annual fee for both my card and my wife’s, I would like to have that fee removed?”

CSR: ” Let me see what I can do about that for you, please hold”

After About 5 minutes, Agent comes back on the line.

CSR: ” Sir, sorry for the delay, There should not be a problem to get that removed for you, I am just waiting on a Supervisor to approve the request. Can I call you back shortly with an update?”

Now, normally I don’t like to wait for a callback from any service provider when I am making a request but as I keep notes on all my call with companies, I take note of the CSR name and the time.

CSR:” I should have an update within the hour for you”

ME: “okay.”

I was at work, so I had a few meetings and some project work which took me just over the hour. so I had a chance and had not received a call from anyone yet so I called back.

NEW CSR:” Hi Mr. Martin, how can I help you?”

ME: ” well I had called earlier, and spoken to your colleague, who mentioned he would get back to me in an hour with an udpate on my request to get some fees removed”

Now, I have found in my experience it is always better to explain exactly what your looking for, like that there is nothing left to interpretation by the CSR.

NEW CSR:” well let me take a look at your account Mr. Martin.”

NEW CSR:” I see those charges were removed about 10 minutes ago, Perhaps the agent has not had a chance to call you back yet as he may be on the phone with another client.”

ME: “Oh, Perfect. No worries, just wanted to make sure it was taken care of.”

NEW CSR:” is there anything else I can help you with today?”

ME:” No, that’s it.”

Just as a side note I did get a voicemail about 5 minutes after hanging up from the original CSR saying to call back and ask for the notes on my account and I would see the charges were removed.

So Just to Recap I had the following charges credited back to me on my credit Card:

Annual Fee $120
Annual Fee for second Card $50
$35 Credit for Existing Bank Customer

Grand Total of $205 in Savings. $170 Fees Refunded + Additional $35 Credit for being a bank Customer. Not too bad for one day.

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June 9th, 2010

How 15 Minutes Saved Me $151.90

OK you might say $151.90 is not a big deal. But I have been reading regularly the post from Ramit Sethi over at I will teach you to be Rich and he makes a great case to try and negotiate on everything you can. So I have been getting things in order on the financial front like he mentions in his book I Will Teach You To Be Rich .

Today on my lunch break I saved $151.90 on my internet service at home. To give you a bit of the details I received a letter from the internet company saying that the plan I am on right now will be going up as they are improving their services so the promotion I am on is ending and it would go up $1.05 but that for $1 more than what I am paying now I can get an upgrade to the ultimate high speed which is 3 times faster than what I have right now. So to contact them and they can upgrade my service. So here is how it played out:

Customer Service: “Thanks For Calling how can I help you today?”

ME: “I got a letter saying that my service was going up but I could upgrade the service for a $1 more per month?”

Customer Service:” Yes that is correct, if you like we can make this upgrade and I can give you 1 month free if you agree today?”

ME: ” you sure there is nothing else you can do on the price? I can get similar service with your competitor for a cheaper price?”

Customer Service:” Sorry that is the best I can do, let me transfer you to our Customer satisfaction group and see if they can help you?”

ME: “Sure”

Customer Satisfaction: ” Hi Mr. Martin, I understand that you received an offer from our competitor at a lower price for a similar Service?”

ME: ” That is correct, I wanted to see if you could do any better on the price?”

Customer Satisfaction: “Well Mr. Martin I can offer you the upgraded service, and give you 2 months free Plus an Additional $20 Credit, that would bring down the cost for you overall, would that work?”

ME: “Sure that would work”

Customer Satisfaction:” Okay let me set that up for you and schedule your installation for the upgrade”

So as you can see, it only took me about 15 minutes and I managed to get an upgrade while still saving money.

I also did the same with my Credit Card last week. Which I will tell you about in another post.

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April 22nd, 2010

San Francisco Travel Pictures

As I mentioned many times one of the things we (my wife and I) enjoy is traveling. So this is a little late going up but our latest trip was to San Francisco, this was our first trip to the city. we had been to San Diego which is a little further south in California but never to San Francisco. the trip came at a great time as the weather in Montreal has been cold and snowy for a good part of the winter, and this being our first Canadian winter back since being in the UK and Arizona we were looking forward to a break from sub-zero temperatures.

we had a late flight out of Montreal into San Francisco with a connection in Toronto with Air Canada. the flight was surprisingly full considering it was a Friday afternoon/evening Flight.

We arrived into San Francisco around 10:30 PM local time, by the time we got our bags and got to the hotel it was almost 11:30PM. We checked in with the family to let them know we arrived safe and sound and then we decided we better get to bed.

The hotel I found from hotels.com as it was one of the cheapest in the area and offered a kitchenette which we like as it gives us options instead of having to eat out for every meal. here are some pictures from the hotel room to give you an idea what it looks like.

As you can see nicely laid out place, my only complaint was you hear a lot of noise from the street below especially if you have the windows open, which we did as at night it was a little warm, and there is no A/C but realistically we didn’t mind as we were getting away from the winter back in Montreal. Other than that it is convenient we walked several times down to the pier from the hotel, navigating the steep streets but it was a great exercise.

We also took advantage of the CityPass booklet which we found for the price was a great value. it gave you Access to 5 attractions in the city as well as a 7 day MUNI and Cable Car Pass, the Aquarium of the Bay, a one hour cruise with Blue and Gold Cruise of the bay, The California Academy of Sciences, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Exploratorium or the De Young Museum which is what we chose as they had the king Tut exhibit there.

We tried to do about one attraction per day, we did the Aquarium and the cruise on the same day as it was raining when we got to the pier so we did the aquarium which was very nice.

As you can see from The shots above it is a great opportunity to see some interesting animals up close. then when we finished the weather was a bit nicer and the sun was starting to come out so we decided to take a chance and do the cruise.

With the cruise you get right up close to Alcatraz, I found for me that was good enough, I couldn’t justify paying almost $40 per person to do a tour of Alcatraz.

It also Brings you right under the Golden Gate Bridge and you get a great view from both sides of the bridge as well you get to see San Francisco from a nice distance. The only thing we found was after sitting outside on the boat with the wind we were frozen after about 30 minutes, and the water can be a bit rough.

As you can see you get pretty close, for an up close view of the Bridge I recommend walking it. We were brave and walked from our hotel all the way to the pier, along it and across the bridge and then back to the pier where we decide to take a Cable car back to the hotel. Total of the trip was about 10 Miles, which we did in about 4 hours at a normal pace while stopping along to take pictures, grab a bite to eat, etc…

you cant miss Pier 39, there are all kinds of souvenir shops and other great little spots there as well, lots of restaurants as well, with an emphasis on seafood as you can imagine.

Another great attraction at Pier 39 is the sea Lions and the Aquarium, and boat tours are right there as well.

This really was a fun trip and I can’t wait for our next adventure.

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April 20th, 2010

Nagios and Network Monitoring

My first introduction to Nagios was about 5 years ago while working on a large deployment project in Phoenix for the airport. We had initially been using what’s up gold to monitor devices. But this had been set up by our predecessors and no one from their group who was working on site had the expertise to configure or up date the system. So as most things we let it be until we found out from a contractor working for the airport as a network admin was using this tool called Nagios to monitor all the devices on the network, including our own.

He graciously offered to build us our own for a fee. And at the time the division I was working for had a limited budget and several other factors hindered the acquisition via this means. But I was asked to look into and see what options I could come up with.

I quickly found several documents, websites and forums related to this until then unheard of product. I managed to pick up a few books and download some packages.

I built the first Nagios “server” using an old Dell SX270 small form factor PC. With that first attempt we tried out a few configurations. And the results were great we managed to monitor equipment that with the previous was not possible. And the biggest selling point was we were getting notified of failures before the client or anyone else was even aware there was a problem.

So with that initial system I set up 400+ devices and over 4000 services to be monitored for the Phoenix sky harbor airport (PHX).

Because of the great success we had. The division I was working for wanted to try and implement it at other airports that we serviced as a value added service. So the next pilot site was BWI Baltimore airport. This site was one of the smaller installations but it was frequently used as a demo site given it’s proximity to the main office in Maryland.

I also found this tool being used by the on site staff in Milan and Linate airports in Italy While I was working on site there supporting them.

I left the division shortly after to work in the UK. Last I heard this model did not pan out as the budgets for most projects were so tight they could not bear the additional cost, even though the could benefit from the service.

I became the subject matter expert and provided training to the staff responsible for supporting it as well created specific documentation for each site.

It turns out to be a very popular product and I have been involved with many top level organizations that use it and value staff that has the skills to work with it, as it does take some special understanding to optimize it uses and bring value to the organizations that use it.

I am Currently working on a project to implement a new server at my current employer to focus only on Production systems monitoring and alerting. I will keep you updated on the progress or if you have an interest in using it in your organization whatever size please feel free to contact me at info@rickymartinblog.com.

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April 17th, 2010

Windows Server 2008 and service accounts for Scheduled Tasks

while trying to migrate a scheduled task from a windows server 2003 machine to a 2008 server ran into a little issue. for some reason when I would create the task and try to change the user account to use, it would allow me to browse the network and select the account but when I try to save the task it would come up with the error “the specified account name is not valid”.

I was stumped for a few minutes, I searched on the net quickly and found a few articles talking about creating a task and then exporting it and modifying XML, or KB articles about hot fixes that correct this. So for the hell of it I tried to create the task without changing the user account. low and behold when I went to save it I got a prompt for user name and password. Where at that point I put in the User Account I wanted with the correct password. And it all saved with no errors. and the Task has all the correct settings and even shows the correct user account in the properties. Hope this might save some time for any other admins that run across this.

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April 15th, 2010

Utorrent better than Vuze(Azureus)

Well as you may have read in my other post boxee-beta-and-the-apple-tv, I am an avid user of torrents and appleTV to watch them using Boxee. and recently I switched from Vuze to Utorrent as my bit torrent client as a result of the functionality enhancements. it is great given the fact that unlike many of the US ISP’s in Canada as is the same in most of Europe from my experience you are capped on bandwidth and if you go over your allotted amount you are charged. this is where I really like Utorrent in the fact you can schedule times to restrict for downloads as well as limit uploads and stop traffic altogether. There is even an option to track bandwidth and limit uTorrent if you exceed the threshold you configure.

All these great goodies that come with this simple to use tool. and now there is an article that shows that the download speed has been tested and is 16% faster overall than Vuze. you can read the post here at torrentfreak .

The Post gives the details about the study that was performed, and a link to the actual paper produced by the researchers.

you can download Utorrent from here.

and Vuze from here.

if you would like to compare for yourself.

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April 10th, 2010

Housing, Buy vs Rent? the eternal question!

Well as many people in Montreal are getting into the season of Apartment Hunting now as this is the time when you either need to renew your lease or start looking for a new place.

After living in many places around the world over the last few years it is a curious ritual, that I have not seen repeated in other places we have lived. Basically for those who are not familiar for some reason in Montreal most leases are done for July 1st usually for 1 year, July 1 in Canada is a Federal Holiday, “Canada Day” so basically everyone is off that day for the most part, and it is known as moving day for anyone who has to change apartments.

We kind of missed all the “fun” as we came back to Montreal in the beginning of June last year, and started to look almost immediately, at that point the available units were not many as we were cutting very close to the July 1st deadline as most people need to give notice 3 months before the end of the lease, if they are staying or leaving. And many usually secure a place as soon as possible. We actually got lucky as a friend of ours knew someone who had an apartment available, we looked at it and a few others and decided to take it as the price was right and the area and the apartment itself were not too bad and satisfied the immediate needs.

Now we come to today, and we are looking at things and could use a bigger place, after looking in the area we found a few places that we liked, that met the size and neighborhood we were looking for but we could not justify paying almost double of what we pay right now for just 1 extra room?

So now comes the eternal question, Buy vs rent

We have owned a house before, and it made sense at the time as the payments were a little more than the rent we were paying previously, but we had much more space, basically we went from 1000 sqft. 2 bedroom apartment in a complex to a 2100 sqft. house with a double garage, yard and no one above or below us, for about $500 more than what we were paying in rent.

now here is the dilemma we face now, we can always rent a bigger nicer place, but that $ amount will go up, and unfortunately no matter how you look at it you are paying part if not all of someone else’s mortgage.

Now we have decided to stay in our current apartment and see what we can do as far as buying a place, as fortunately Montreal hasn’t suffered the same fate with the housing market as most of the USA. Prices here have been stable or rising over the last few years, and the mortgage market is nothing like in the USA either, it is a lot harder to get a mortgage here than in the USA.

we figured if we can find an income property that we can live in and rent out an apartment that can cover some of the mortgage would be an ideal solution and this would also fall in line with many our “old World” Family values that we constantly get reminded of whenever possible.

Now the challenge is to get enough set aside to be able to put a down payment on something that we would like.

One step at a time….that’s the only way to look at it, you don’t what might be down the road…

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