The RESP Book, by Mike Holman @MoneySmartsBlog

Back in November the Young And Thrifty blog had a review of The RESP Book, by Mike Holman and a contest to win a copy. And I WON!!!

And now, thanks to the reality that my car is dead (well almost, sometimes it's feeling a bit better, but really it's quite ill) I'm commuting by train so I have lots of time to read and I finished the book within a few days. I've also come away with a page full of to-do's to make sure my kid's RESP is done right!

The RESP Book is subtitled The Complete Guide to Registered Education Savings Plans for Canadians and I think this book will remain the RESP bible for quite some time to come, probably until there are major changes in the RESP rules since it is such a complete and thorough review of RESP's.

There's two things I love about this book: it contains all the information you need to set up and maintain an RESP; and it was self-published (i.e.: when you order the book they print you a copy, that's got major geek appeal).

Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Message Continuity, powered by Postini

Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Message Continuity, powered by Postini This sounds to me like step one of a three step process:

One - get people to integrate their Microsoft Exchange servers, which represent the overwhelming majority of corporate e-mail/calendar/contact servers in use (I arrive at this scientific conclusion because every company I have ever worked for has used Microsoft Exchange).

Two - get the employees to see how easy and fun it is to access all their e-mails and appointments via Gmail in web browser from any computer, tablet, or mobile phone rather than firing up their laptop, connecting to the VPN, and opening Outlook just to find your co-worker's phone number or confirm if a meeting was 9am or 11am. Employees will even start doing this when they're in the office since even Internet Explorer loads faster than Outlook these days.

Three - get the companies to switch over entirely to Google Apps, at least for their e-mail, now that no one is bothering to open Outlook at all ever!

Of course the selling point is the money the company will save by mitigating outages from maintenance and failures. And it's oh so magnanimous of Google to be taking the continuity of our business to heart. But lets be realistic, the real objective here is to squish the king of e-mail - Microsoft Exchange/Outlook - like a bug hitting the wind shield of a Bugatti going 200 MPH!

Cross-posted on 2FatDads at Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Message Continuity, powered by Postini

Mint comes to Canada, will Canada come to Mint?

Mint has been a favourite destination for people trying to manage their finances; and it's now available to Canadians!  Well, if you didn't mind getting American ads you could always use the original Mint site as a lot of Canadian institutions were available.  If you haven't tried Mint already then it's definitely worth investing the time to try it out and see how much it can do for you.

On the other hand, if you're a Canuck who's already tried Mint then try to pretend that Canada Mint doesn't exist!  It will save you a lot of pain and frustration (and time spent on Mint's Get Satisfaction forum).