Archive for the ‘Real World’ Category
Apr
24
Posted in Business, Real World
Cash money is good. Why? Because it’s tangible. You know exactly how much you’ve got to spend, and you know exactly how much money you don’t have to spend (the latter being much more salient). Cash lets you better appreciate and, likewise, better appropriate your money: when your money consists of a bunch of numbers and dollar signs printed on a small 8″x3″ piece of paper (ala bank statement), you don’t really appreciate what you’ve got.
$50,000 on paper doesn’t look like much. But a stack of $100 bills adding up to $50,000 looks like a hell of a lot. A stack of $1 bills adding up to $50,000 looks like even more. The more your money is divided up in cash, the better you will budget your money. Which is precisely the reason why I keep a fat stack of $1 bills in my wallet at all times. People think I’m cheap, but heck, saving money makes money!
This is not to say that you should always pay in cash. You should try to establish your credit as soon as possible, especially if you’re still a young adult. There are a lot of times in life when you’re going to need some money fronted in order to buy something big (unless, of course, you’ve won the lotto). Buying a house is one such example. You’re going to need good credit to get a good loan. Buying a house is the number one easiest way to make cash, especially right now, at a time when the US housing market is at a low point. As the value of your property increases, you make money. Easy money. I don’t know many people who go around and buy houses (at least in this northern VA, where home prices are at least $1 million) with cash (in the form of a personal check). Establishing good credit will aid you in any situation where you need to take out a loan of any sort.
I do, however, suggest against excessive use of the credit card. The credit card is a weapon of mass fiscal destruction, especially for young adults. When I first got my credit card, I was extremely excited that I could finally go around spending money without having to run to mom/dad for a few more bills. I eventually got slapped in the face with credit card statements in the thousands per month, and have never spent a dime more than necessary since. I only use the AMEX for two main things now: gas and any large expense (needs, not wants). You’d be surprised how much money you’ll end up spending at 7-11 buying misc. things if you pay by credit card, just take a written log for one week (I’m sure this is cliche and has been suggested by hundreds of other people before me, but it really works).
My point is, avoid over-indulgence. Unfortunately, I hang out with friends who lack any sense of reality, fiscally speaking, due to the nature of the area I currently live in. Even over the age of 18, their parents continue to supply them with an unlimited supply of money to be spent however they wish. This is wrong. I am still a few months away from 18, yet I manage every dime I spend. Of course, that’s because I’ve worked hard enough to own and manage my own company, and have my own money to spend, but still, I have self-control and I rarely spend waste my money. I have friends driving around town with 2008 Audi RS4s, MB C63 AMGs, and even a few with Ferraris and various Lamborghinis. But I refuse to evaporate my hard-earned money in such a manner. And that is why I am successful. Not because I make a lot of money, no, I really don’t make that much compared to most entrepreneurs. But I save every penny. I refuse to live like a celebrity, for now. Remember, it’s better to make $100K a year and save $90K of it than make $200K a year and waste $190K of it.
Which is why my wad of fifty $1 bills comes in handy. I still reap the benefits of having a fat wallet, but I don’t suffer the consequences of reckless spending.
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Apr
8
Posted in Real World, Technology
In a surprising chapter of events (or not so surprising, given how perfectly working things tend to fall apart on me all the time), my main desktop’s hard drive crashed on 4/4/08. It was a three-year-old Western Digital 160 GB 8 MB cache IDE hard drive, originally purchased for well over $150. At the time of purchase, it was one of the best available. Of course, it’s obsolete by today’s technology standards, and pretty much one of the only bottlenecks of my otherwise fast system (which I’ll cover shortly). I just never got around to upgrading the drive to something faster or bigger. Too much data, too much software, too much random stuff to potentially lose. Yeah, I could’ve backed everything up on a few DVDs. I could’ve done a lot of things to ease the transition from IDE to SATA. But I don’t like change. And I definitely don’t like surprises.
Well, I came home late Friday night expecting to turn on my LCD monitor and see a flood of AIM windows all over my desktop, as common when I leave for a period of time equal to or greater than 2 hours. Instead, I was surprised to find that my desktop was shut down. Yes, the system was OFF. Now for me, that’s a kinda big deal. My uptime has been nearly six months without a single restart or shut down on this particular rig (only restarted once to apply driver updates/BIOS tweaks). I have surge protectors, backup generators, etc, which keep my system protected and running. And I don’t have any applications that auto-update-restart ala Windows Update. So…
A quick detail about the rig: it sports an Intel Pentium 4 561 3.60 GHz running at a whooping 4.65 GHz. It’s been overclocked at that speed for nearly two years non-stop, up 24/7/365. Once upon a time, when I created/owned a phase change setup utilizing R134a HVAC gas, I was capable of overclocking this beast of a CPU to 5.4 GHz STABLE (that’s right folks, Super-PI stable, not just POST). Anyways, my point is, this was a heck of a solid setup I had, and a fast one at that. Considering I haven’t upgraded to any of the Core Duo/Quad mumbo-jumbo yet, I’d say I did a damn good job of keeping up with technology without buying new crap every year. I just tack on a few more MHz and call it a day.
Back to my story. I turned on my system and, much to my dismay, I heard five loud “clunking” sounds coming from my hard drive, followed by pause, followed by another set of clunking sounds, etc. Great. Clunking sounds are the universal “you’re screwed” noise that hard drives make. All jokes aside, the clunking sound I am referring to is the sound of the platters/head hitting each other. Somehow my hard drive managed to commit-suicide, as there was definitely no physical shock to the system.
My options at this point are limited. The only way to salvage the data is to submit it to a 3rd-party hard drive recovery facility, where they charge up-the-a$$ (I’m talking thousands of USD) to retrieve maybe a single Word document. So, that’s not gonna happen. All my 10,000 important emails I had downloaded to Outlook? Gone. Contracts, proposals, hand-coded websites, and hundreds of other Word documents? Gone! Gigabytes upon gigabytes of downloaded music, movies, and games? GONE! I don’t really care for the latter, because to me, the emails and documents, not to mention the many, MANY work-in-progress website projects (which I spent hundreds of man hours on), was an extremely monumental loss.
So here I am now. I’ve learned my lesson. I bought two new 500 GB SATA II drives, which are currently running in RAID 0, but I plan to switch things up to RAID 1 when I get the chance to go into the BIOS and reformat my drives (accidentally set it up as RAID 0 since I was so frustrated). Data loss is terrible, and I hope this never happens to me again. I still have a lot to catch up on. But the blog will go on… I promise…
Image brought you in part by MS Paint. Special thanks to Western Digital for losing my copy PhotoShop CS2.
Oh, and a word of advice. Western Digital’s slogan is “PUT YOUR LIFE ON IT”. Please, don’t put your life on it. Aside from the terrible one-year warranty that came with my last drive, apparently the quality is CRAP. Never have I ever had a hard drive just die like that. Things just don’t go wrong with hard drives unless they’re built crappily in a third-world country like Malaysia. I’m definitely not putting my life on any hard drives anytime soon.
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Apr
2
Posted in Real World
First off, I apologize for disappearing without notice. Some people even thought something could have happened to me (thanks for the caring emails, but I’m A-OK). Been quite busy lately with various Internet projects and startups. School has been very time consuming as well. Nearing the end of the semester, so I’m trying to crank out the best I can to get the grade I need. Anyways, I plan to continue my regular posting schedule as of now. I got a ton of stuff I’d like to share, so sit back, sip on your Red Bull, and get ready for some more of the action-packed life of Robert Afnani (third-person for the win)!
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Feb
22
Posted in Internet, Real World
Just under a month ago, there was a huge battle, of sorts, between me and Langley High School administrators on the legality of creating Internet-based proxies, outside of school time, on private servers. I was accused of being a criminal by assisting students in bypassing the school’s block lists and filters, and was punished on multiple levels for what I did: I had my computer access at school removed, threatened suspension if I didn’t bring down all my proxies, and defamed on a school-wide level.
But now, I have won it all back. With the help of masses of the Internet, through press on such websites as Digg.com and Fark.com, my school, Langley High School, has given me back everything they’ve taken away from me. My respect, my privileges in school, and most importantly, my right to create whatever I want on the Internet outside of school, without having to fear the government’s hammer cracking down on me.
As previously stated, I did nothing wrong. I, personally, did not use my proxies inside the school network, did not create them during school hours, created them on my own privately owned servers, and did not actively promote my service to others in my school. I was simply accused of doing wrong because other students discovered my proxy, and used it during school hours to access websites such as FaceBook.
With the help of some lawyers, who contacted me after the media caught wind of this abuse of power in FCPS, I managed to work up a case (not on a court level), and successfully settled (in my favor) with the school. I got my rights back. And I’m happy now. Thanks guys and gals, all the support was greatly appreciated (however overwhelming), and it’s thanks to each person that supported the case that brings me to where I am today: free.
Digg: http://digg.com/people/Student_Fights_Back_Against_High_School_s_Web_Restrictions/
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Feb
20
Posted in Real World, Stocks
This morning, I found myself stuck in some serious rush hour traffic, and being in a hurry to reach my destination, I was switching lanes constantly (not driving too aggressively, mind you), attempting to navigate my way into the fastest lane. However, I found the harder I tried to get past the traffic, the more I ended up in a mess, stuck in the lanes that were not moving at all. It just seemed like every time I tried to switch lanes, I was always a “day late, dollar short”. By the time I switched lanes, about ten other cars would have also switched into the lane, ultimately causing me to get stuck in a jammed lane, when the lane I was previously in would suddenly start moving, and the car that was once behind me ended up ten cars ahead of me.
It hit me that driving during the rush hour jam is a lot like trading in the stock market. If you’re trying to squeeze your way into the (at least what seems like) faster lane, you better act quick and decisively, otherwise you’ll be too late and you’ll just end up even more screwed then you were in the “long” lane. Same exact principle applies to day trading. In order to make money off high volume, ‘in the news’ stocks, you better get on the bandwagon before the stock reaches its high for the day, otherwise you’ll end up losing money you could have made had you held onto a less risky, solid growth stock.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and nobody cares if you’re late when your on the road, except yourself. Likewise, if you’re the emotional, indecisive trader in the stock market, nobody is going to try to help you when you start losing your hard-earned cash. Either take the risk boldly and cherish (or suffer) the rewards (or consequences), or don’t get yourself in the sticky web of chaos in the first place.
Well, there’s my rant for the day. Time to jump on some trades, so I don’t end up a dollar short like I was this morning. What does the stock market remind you of?
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Feb
5
Posted in Business, Real World
Utilizing tax write-offs is a great way to essentially make ’something out of nothing’. For business owners and self-employed individuals, which includes owners of Internet-based companies/websites, tax write-offs are the bread and butter of making the most of your hard-earned money. With the US tax season right around the corner, it’s about time you start compiling a list of things to write-off . Whether you use TurboTax software or consult with an H&R Block representative in order to get your taxes done, there are many legitamite ways of pushing your tax dollars to their limits. Though write-off eligibility could vary from person to person, and sometimes depends on which tax bracket you’re a part of, there’s always a way to get some reduction on your taxes. After all, Uncle Sam doesn’t need all your money.
1. Write off a room in your house/apartment - if your place of residence has multiple rooms, dedicate one of the rooms to solely business activities. Doesn’t have to be the master bedroom, even something a little bigger than a walk-in closet will do. You can write off the value of the room (which, when appraised, may be much higher than you might think) as a business expense, and save a few hundred (or maybe even thousand) dollars.
2. Write off all electronic devices that you need - heck, buy yourself a new top-of-the-line computer every year. Want that new 22″ LCD monitor? Buy it! How about a new PDA or iPhone? Buy it! As long as you can prove to the IRS that at least a portion of it is used for business work, you can write off a respective portion of your taxes (although you may need to capitalize it and depreciate it over time, but essentially, it’s a write-off).
3. Write off a new car - depending on where you live, you could buy or lease a new car and save a chunk of money. Though this mainly applies to people who have more than $30K a year in taxes, you could, using a tax loophole, buy a new luxury SUV that weighs over 6,000 pounds and write-off $30K of its value in the first year (might want to check with your H&R Block adviser on this one). Thinking about leasing? Well you could lease a new 2008 Mercedes C-Class and write-off a major portion of the lease if the car is ‘mainly used as a business car’. Might want to keep the mileage low though, for auditing reasons (wink).
4. Write off gas - use your car to goto Kinkos and make copies of advertising contracts? How about driving to BestBuy to buy that new computer you’re planning on writing off? Well yes, you can write off all the gas that it takes you to get from your home to your destination and back, as long as the destination has something to do with your company’s interest.
5. Write off the food you eat - taking a trip to StarBucks to talk to a prospective client or business partner? Write-off the Grande White Chocolate Mocha as a business expense. Taking fellow staff to dinner at a up-scale restaurant? Write it off (all though you can only write off 50% max of business food expenses)!
6. Write off your server(s) - obviously if you are running an Internet-based company, you’re going to need to have some sort of hosting/servers. Make sure to mention that as a business expense, I mean, what else could you be using a dedicated server for?
7. Write off your donations - care about a particular cause? Want to look philanthropic without losing your shirt? When donating to various causes, whether it be the Ronald McDonald House foundation or the Salvation Army, feel free to write-off all the donation amount from your taxes. Kill two birds with one stone (or save two birds by donating to the PETA)!
And finally, a word for the wise: save ALL receipts and keep detailed logs of all purchases you made that relate to your business. IRS will screw you if you don’t have proof of purchase/usage. And this list is by no means complete; there are many, many more ways of making use of your tax dollars more efficiently if you own a company, just do some more research (or hire the tax guy, and make sure he knows you want to get the write-offs you deserve)!
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Feb
1
Posted in Internet, Real World
Well, it’s kinda early in the morning to make a blog post, and I gotta run, but I awoke to 300 emails (200 from WordPress CMS informing me of unapproved comments, and another 100 from individuals supporting my case). Seems like my last blog post regarding FCPS’s crackdown on my proxy has sparked quite a debate (predominately one-sided, in my favor) online regarding student rights. I’d like to take a second to thank visitors from Fark.com for providing me with a blast of support and publicity regarding this issue.
Most everyone is suggesting I contact a lawyer and sue for libel/slander/rights. I will attempt to contact the various student rights organizations (ACLU, FIRE, EFF) and see if they can give me a hand in this. I will also try to acquire a copy of the email that was sent to nearly all the staff in the school and I will post it publicly when I get a chance to do so.
Here’s a part of the FCPS Student Rights And Responsibilities which seems to be of interest to the handful that believe FCPS does have some say:
“FCPS information systems are operated for the mutual benefit of all users. The use of the FCPS network is a privilege, not a right. Users should not do, or attempt to do, anything that might disrupt the operation of the network or equipment and/or interfere with the learning of other students or work of other FCPS employees. The FCPS network is connected to the Internet, a network of networks, which enables people to interact with millions of networks and computers. All access to the FCPS network shall be preapproved by the principal or program manager. The school or office may restrict or terminate any user’s access, without prior notice, if such action is deemed necessary to maintain computing availability and security for other users of the systems. Other disciplinary action may be imposed as stated in the Fairfax County Public Schools Student Responsibilities and Rights (SR&R) document. FCPS implements Internet filtering on all FCPS sites in accordance with the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act. Schools will continually educate students on personal safety practices and effective techniques for identifying and evaluating information and its sources.”
and
“• Help maintain the integrity of the school information system. Deliberate tampering or experimentation is not allowed; this includes the use of FCPS network and resources to illicitly access, tamper with, or experiment with systems outside FCPS.”
My thoughts regarding this:
1. I did not attempt to disrupt the learning environment and/or network/equipment of the school. They could have easily just blocked my proxy (which, they have done so now, after the accusation) and called it a day. It’s not my responsibility to make sure students don’t access proxies while in class. Hell, this is what the IT dept. is paid to do, right?
2. I did not make the proxy while on school grounds, did not use any FCPS equipment to put the proxy online, and did not take any measures promote my proxy as a means for accessing denied sites in school. I simply put a website up on my private server in my free time at home, and told two friends about it (outside of school). They told a few others, who told some other students, who told the whole school, not me.
A few people have also suggested that though I am right, I am a “brat” for making such a monumental case out of this. Please do keep in mind that I did not try to instigate this case in any way; I did not tell people about the proxy while in class (until I was accused by the administration), I actually did not setup the proxy to bypass filters in school, and I may fail out of one of my tech classes because of my restricted computer access. Not to mention I now get looks walking down the hallway.
Speaking of looks, yesterday I went to the library to print out an essay for one my classes. As I sat down and used my friend’s account to access my email and print out the essay, a librarian, who definitely does not know my name/information (as I rarely go to the library, pft), walked over and asked me what my name was. I responded “Robert” and she told me I had to get off the computers now and leave the library. True story. No idea how she knew who I was, I wonder if my “mugshot” was included as an attachment to the mass email. You never know.
Many people have requested contact information for my school/school system (here is the website). As much as I am frustrated over this case, I really don’t want to disturb the personal lives of the administrators and IT staff of the school, and will not name names publicly, as I am almost done with high school anyways and I don’t need any reason to not graduate. Feel free to help me by expressing your discontent with the decisions of the administrators, but please, no threats and no drama.
When I was pulled into the office and accused, I made sure to let the administrator know that I will get the masses of the Internet to support me on this. “Go ahead and do that”, she said, with a smug grin. Thank you all for making this fight for rights and respect easier.
More updates soon.
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Jan
31
Posted in Internet, Real World
Yeah, yeah. I make websites. Once upon a time, I ran a huge network of over 50 proxy websites. They were cool and all, but eventually they absorbed a ton of server usage and, since there really wasn’t much of a ROI given that I couldn’t find an ad network that could fulfill the “should-be-doing-work-rather-than-browsing-blocked-websites” demographic, I wasn’t making sufficient money. The CTR with Adsense was hopeless, not to mention that each proxy, one by one, started getting blocked by the big guys. By ‘big guys’ I mean Websense and rest of the shit ton of “Network Security” softwares. So there really was no light at the end of the tunnel, and I shut them all down.
Anyways, just a few weeks ago, I made a new proxy. A private proxy, nothing of commercial value, but one that I, along with a small group of friends, would personally use. It was called “Afnani’s Moo Proxy”, and was located at robertafnani.com/moo/ (now offline, but if you really care you can check it out at robertafnani.com/mooold/).
Before long, a lot of people in my school, and even other schools in the area caught wind of it, and basically everyone at Langley HS started using it. How could I tell, you ask? Well, it’s kinda obvious with Awstats shows only a few unique IP addresses accessing the site, yet a shit ton of pageloads and gigabytes upon gigabytes of bandwidth usage. Great. I made a proxy on my domain name and now its the shit everyone’s talking about. I must be a badass now.
This is when everything starts to go raw. Just the other day, I was pulled into an administrator’s office (whose name shall be undisclosed), and slapped in the face with a possible suspension. I am accused of violating my rights as a student, and intentionally attempting to disturb the learning environment of students in my school.
I was accused of breaking the law. Of providing a means for students to do illegal activities in school. And I got all the blame. Supposedly, if students were reading instructions, and I quote, on “how to make a bomb”, I’m the one who should be facing criminal prosecution, as I’m the one who provided all the means for retrieving the information.
Of course, I tried to argue my way out of it. Proxies are perfectly legal to create. I can do whatever the hell I want outside of school, especially if it involves my job, which takes part mostly on the Internet.
Much to my dismay, however, apparently I have no rights at FCPS schools. I asked the administrator and the tech guy (who, if I may add, is a great guy, and not the one at fault here) to point out on the Student Network Access Agreement what policy/rule I violated. They refused to, because there was no law that made what I did ‘illegal’. I wasn’t hacking the network, I wasn’t dickin’ around with the hardware; I made a damn website, and no where on the entire agreement does it say anything about not being able to make websites outside of school.
Being the one with lower hand, I had to submit to their will, so as to not get into any more trouble. In the end, my computer account at school was banned, but the verbal abuse and harassment to me was worse. Hell, I was pulled out of class during my final exam for the first semester of Philosophy, so who knows what grade I’m going to be getting on that test. And I was facing a possible suspension from the school premises for doing this.
I’m the little man in this situation: my school thinks they have all the power in the world, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I am now forced to take all my proxies offline, otherwise I face “repeat network abuse” and will get in a LOT of trouble (recommendation for expulsion, anyone?).
Langley High School has no right to do this. Suppose “robertafnani.com” wasn’t the domain for this proxy. I’m damn sure the IT guys wouldn’t WHOIS the proxy and attempt to arrest/accuse the owner of commiting a crime. I feel as though I am discriminated against, and that my school’s actions against me were unjust. They’re abusing their power and if I can’t get any help from the press, then there’s no stopping this administration.
Worst part is that now I’m tagged as being a ‘computer hacker’ and a ‘potential threat’ to the school system. A mass email was sent out from the administrator who accused me of this to all the teachers, administrators, librarians, etc in the entire school, which basically says I’m a criminal and I need to be watched when getting within a 10-foot radius of a computer.
I find it unfair that Fairfax County Public Schools feels they can impose this kind of totalitarianism on me, I’m now a criminal for making proxies. For making a website. A legal website. On my private server. Outside of school. Great.
God help me.
Digg: http://digg.com/people/High_School_It_s_ILLEGAL_To_Make_Websites
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Jan
30
Posted in Real World
So, it’s 2008, and about a month into it at that. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to re-start my blog. Yes, it has periodically come and gone for just over three years now. I tend to spread myself too thin on too many projects at once, which tends to either lead me to extreme procrastination or failure in abandoned projects. Might as well let the truth be told; there’s no use in hiding my personality when this is now the… fifth grand re-opening of this blog. Yeah, I’m unreliable.
But now, over the course of the three years that have passed, I have also learned a hell of a lot. And now that I feel I can assign the proper dedication needed to maintain the blog, I figured it’s about time.
For those who don’t know me, my name is Robert Afnani. I make websites. I run a few small companies. I make various sorts of wild investments, from stocks to condos, to spur-of-the-moment startups. I am very proud of my last name, Afnani. Most of my friends and co-workers don’t even pay attention to the fact that my first name is Robert. I’m just known as Afnani, which is cool in my book. I am also what some would consider young, especially considering the markets, niches, and careers I delve into.
I love technology, Internet, high-end watches, and most of all, making money. I like taking risks, but only if the potential reward is really worth it. I’ve been practicing Tae Kwon Do for around 10 years now, and rank as a 3rd degree black belt. I’ve also been playing violin for 8 years, and am good at it. I take pleasure in hanging out with friends and having a good time on weekends.
Anyways, there’s my quick rundown. I expect to post something thoughtful at least once a day, and plan to post something stupid most of the time. But if you listen to my advice and weed out the crap, maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about the web. I may be young, but I’ve been in the industry for now over five years, so I do know quite a lot about advertising, branding, web development, investments, marketing, etc. I have lots of room to learn, and hopefully this blog will help me organize my thoughts and build on my name. If nothing else, at least I have a place to vent and people to share my success with.
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