Title and Author: The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read by Daniel R. Solin

Synopsis of Content:

Similar to his prior books in The Smartest Book You’ll Ever Read Solin provides a succinct and short chapters on how to manage your money and plan your finances.

Solin begins with a discussion of the bad things that can happen to us all that will lead to financial problems or even crisis. This section is no doubt influenced by the severe economic recession of the past four years. After that the book covers and basics for smart money management including:

• The importance of managing your money and saving;
• Understanding your financial position through focus on net worth and budgeting;
• The importance of paying off and avoiding debt;
• The pros and cons of investing in your home, or what he calls the Home Dilemma;
• The pros and cons of insurance;
• The pros and cons of the investment industry;
• Avoiding counter-productive investment strategies including day trading and creating a well balanced portfolio for the long term;
• Assessing your risk capacity in light of probably returns;
• Realistic retirement planning;
• Estate planning basics;
• A summary at the end to pull all these things together in one checklist of what to do and not do.

Solin repeats throughout this book many of the lessons he provides in his earlier books, The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read and The Smartest 401k Book You’ll Ever Read however to the extent there is some duplication it is not a bad thing. Much of the hard hitting financial wisdom Solin imparts is worth repeating for one thing and this last book serves as both a great introduction to the more specialized topics in his earlier books and as a means of tying it all together if you’ve already read them.

I recommend this book for several reasons:

If you do not know much about financial planning and managing your money this book provides excellent introductory material to bring anyone up to speed on all the critical areas you need to know.

The book is tightly written and easy to follow. It should be easily understood by nearly anyone.

For those who do have some education in this area the book serves as a great reminder of some basics we all need to remember and brings some simplification to areas that other authors often over complicate.

Solin takes on the major financial institutions including banks, financial advisors, brokerage houses, and the insurance industry – he tells you what you need to know about how these industries put their interest in taking your money first and help you avoid getting fleeced.

Solin also provides the reader with many links to Mint.com articles and other sources for further reading. In fact he highly recommends Mint.com both to manage your finances and for additional information. Not surprisingly Mint.com recommends the book. Solin insists he has no financial arrangement with Mint.com.

Usefulness:

This book is tremendously useful both as a thorough primer on financial planning and management as well as containing some excellent warnings about the pitfalls of placing blind trust in the financial industries. Even those who think they know a lot about finance and planning can benefit from this book.

Readability/Writing Quality:

This book is very readable. It is written in relatively simple English with thorough explanations of the terms used in the financial industry. The chapters are well organized and follow a logical progression. Chapters are very short, many no more than 2 or 3 pages in length and are followed by a crisp summary he calls, “What’s the point?”

Notes on Author:

Daniel Solin is vice president of Index Fund Advisors, a for fee financial advisory company. He is a law school graduate who is also a certified financial planner. He is a regular writer for Huffington Post and USNews.com.

He is author of The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read: Everything You Need to Know About Growing, Spending, and Enjoying Your Money, The Smartest Portfolio You’ll Ever Own: A Do-It-Yourself Breakthrough Strategy, The Smartest 401(k) Book You’ll Ever Read, and The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read. He is also the author of Does Your Broker Owe You Money?

Three Great Ideas You Can Use:

1. Understanding the basics of financial planning and management can be within the grasp of almost anyone and everyone needs to understand these basics. Those who do not educate themselves about the basics are at the mercy of an industry which can exploit them.

2. Long proven financial management and investing principles remain sound and should be followed rather than jumping from one new idea to the next marketed by those who ignore the basics.

3. You must take control over your finances beginning with sound budgeting, planning, and keeping track. Once you’ve done that the next step is to understand what do to and what not to do to save and invest wisely.

Publication Information:

The Smartest Money Book You’ll Ever Read by Daniel R. Solin

Copyright: 2012 by Daniel R. Solin. Published by Penguin Group USA, Inc.

Not long ago, I was discussing the concept of knowledge with someone who had read the encyclopedia, something I myself had once done. Indeed, I also read an interesting book “Know it All” by A.J. Jacobs, it’s fun to read you might want to read it, the author read the encyclopedia and then wrote about his adventure. Funny, since I read, or skimmed through and read the Encyclopedia Britannica, Dictionary and all the “Tell me Why Series” as a kid and teen.

Are you a know-it-all, if not apparently you could be, if you go and read the encyclopedia yourself. How long with this take? Well as a kid it took me 5-6 years, as I read a little at a time. But it’s worth doing, and this experience assisted me in college, as I was able to read the text books prior to the class starting. Of course it really pissed off the teachers when I asked questions about things not yet covered in the class. Ha ha ha, I think I drove them nuts?

What benefits will you get if you read the encyclopedia, well you’ll be able to have higher level conversations about history, civilizations and industry than you normally would. You will be able to grasp concepts faster too. It should make you a faster and better reader and it will help you in the formation of thoughts when you go to write something. The thing I like about it is that you can have fun telling people that you did it, but it might also give you away as a nerd? Ha ha ha. Think on this.

There is more reading material in today’s world than what we could have imagined say 50 years back. Every day new things keep adding and we keep wondering if we will ever be able to read all of them. It may not be practical to read all of them in one life time but we can hope to read all our favorites by mastering speed reading technique.  The average reading speed is about 200-400 words a minute. Speed readers can read at much higher speeds. If you go by theory, a person can read as fast as he thinks. There are people who claim to read at 25,000 words a minute!

Lot of study and research has been done to identify what makes some people read faster. Speed reading is just a technique which combines various methods to help you read faster. There are various reasons why one cannot read faster than a certain speed. The most common reason is that people tend to read aloud. The speed at which speech can be delivered is about 400 words per minute and if you happen to be reading out aloud chances are that you reading speed is determined by your speed delivery speed. In order that you reading speed improve, as a first step you need to break away from this habit.

Sub-vocalization is a phenomenon which you imbibe when you start learning to read as a child. The best away to eliminate this habit is to be conscious about it while you read. Put an effort to ensure that you do not read out the words aloud. Aloud does not necessarily have the literal meaning here, it could also be that you are reading it out in your mind. Even that can slow down the reading speed.

Train yourself to read as fast as you think. Reading should be like watching a video where you do not repeat the words. You just see and understand what the video is trying to communicate. Reading should be like seeing and understanding rather than hearing the words and understanding. It will take some time and practice from your part to completely eliminate this habit. But once you are successful in acquiring the habit of reading by seeing, your reading speed will increase tremendously.

Another habit which slows your reading speed is rereading. Many a times we tend to go back to the text that is already read. This could be because of limited vocabulary or limited concentration. Make an effort to stop rereading. Vocabulary will increase over a period of time as you read more and more. To improve concentration, start off with reading in a solitary place. Slowly keep improving your concentration by using some help like an earplug. As you get involved in the reading, your concentration will automatically improve. It is not always necessary that you read all words to grasp the meaning of the sentence. There will be certain keywords which will convey the complete meaning.

Speed reading techniques are very simple and can be mastered with some practice and self discipline.

Microsoft Exchange Server is designed to write all the database transactions to certain log files and commit them later whenever the system allows. The transactions also exist in system memory, but get lost in the event of crash. If the Exchange Server undergoes unexpected crash, these transaction logs serve as the crucial recovery method. For this reason, the transaction lof files should be kept on a reliable system. The log file header contains information like file signature, base name, creation time, checkpoint etc. At times, your Exchange Server indicates as it is unable to read this information. These are critical situations that may compel you to restore the data from an online backup or perform hard recovery for your databases. However, it is highly recommended that you try to move Exchange mailboxes on another server or use an Exchange Recovery product to repair the database.

To exemplify, consider a situation when you receive the below error with your Exchange Server database:

“Unable to read the log file header.”

The error is logged as event 412 in application event log. The ESE error code that displays in Description section of this event gives detailed information of the root cause.

Cause

As the error suggests, it occurs when Exchange database engine cannot read the file header. This indicates that log file has a mismatching signature, has corrupted header information or is corrupt. You can deduce the exact cause by the ESE error code the event shows:

1. Jet_errLog fileCorrupt or error -501: The header of the log file is corrupt
2. Jet_errBadLogSignature or error -530: The log files signature mismatch. The log file signature ensures the correct replaying of log files set and is included in each database header. The error occurs when they mismatch.
3. Jet_errDiskIO or error -1022: A disk I/O issue for requested page in transaction log or database. Generally, -1022 error occurs because of severe database corruption. For a log file, the cause is corruption of log file header.

Solution

You need to use any of the below procedures:

1. Check for the last online backup and restore
2. In case of valid backup unavailability, you can run eseutil /p command and later isinteg – fix command. It is a hard command and data loss is likely as will delete database pages. Thus, for your production database, it is recommended to use another MicrosoftExchange Recovery method like moving the mailboxes to other database or using an Exchange Recovery software.

It is often said that literature contains the best things that have been thought and said in the world. It is the mirror of life and it deals with everything related to our life. There are many benefits of reading literature. The study of literature improves our sensibility and provides us with a certain depth of perception. It consoles and braces us up in our hours of gloom, stimulates and ennobles our morality. It helps us widen our outlook and develop our personality. As a matter of fact, it has diverse benefits. It has academic benefits, cognitive benefits, social benefits and emotional benefits.

It is universally admitted that reading literature is delightful. It gives readers immense pleasure. Young students read different kinds of literary works basically for pleasure. Good literature helps them develop a reading habit and this habit has a positive impact on the academic studies also. By reading it students get exposed to the authentic use of language which ultimately contributes to the development of their writing skill also. Students can enrich their vocabulary by reading it also.

A literary text does not have one meaning only. It often has a surface meaning and an underlying connotative meaning. In order to understand a text fully a reader has to delve deeper into it. A text can be interpreted in different ways. This develops the thinking capacity of the students. Readers of literature enjoy a greater ability to think and reason about the world than other people.

Another benefit of reading literature is the social benefit. A reader lives in a particular society. He can be influenced by some negative aspects of the society. But in literature they come to know about many characters coming from different social classes, races and ethnic groups.

The next benefit of reading literature is the emotional benefit. Literature is the subject of liberal education and its chief object is to develop human personality. It is supposed to bring about a harmonious development of the human mind to create a balanced personality. Reading literature can expand readers’ emotional range. Good literature can help readers to get rid of bad emotions like anger, heartache and loss. It can also help readers develop positive emotions like love and sympathy for others. It gives readers an opportunity to grapple with and process strong emotions in a safe setting without feeling overwhelmed by those emotions.

So, it can be said that reading literature is not pleasure only. It has both an entertainment value and a utilitarian value.

Do you have a dream to play a musical instrument, sing or write songs? Learning how to read music is a critical skill set that you will need to be a successful musician. Some compare it to being literate. I would agree with that assessment.

Believe it or not learning how to read music can be surprisingly easy and fun. You just need to have a little motivation, a good plan and some encouragement as you learn.

For over forty years I have been involved in music, most of those years earning an income, though meager at times, as a musician. I have taught literally hundreds of students. Some who were very young students and, surprisingly, some who were quite elderly.

The Sad Story

Many years ago I became acquainted with a very talented saxophonist. He was quite young at the time and he could virtually play anything he heard without the aid of written music. At the time I remember thinking "What an awesome gift"! I still feel that way today.

You can imagine my surprise when I found out Tom (not his real name) had no clue how to read music.

Toms burning desire was to become a professional musician. He had all he needed to become a highly successful musician with the exception that he could not read any music.

All of his musical friends told him that being able to read music was a critical skill that he needed to develop in order to achieve his musical dream. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

Tom didn't think that advice was so reasonable and he totally rejected the ideal. That was many years ago and you have probably guessed the outcome. To date he cannot read music nor has he ever made any serious effort to learn. He has yet to achieve anything close to his dream and potential.

In Texas we have a saying that goes like this, "With that kind of attitude you could ruin an anvil"

Toms' story is disappointing and sad. But the real tragedy was his attitude about learning. I later found out that he had great difficulty learning in traditional ways.

The Good News

As a teacher I have thought many times with the resources we now have available online for specialized learning, Tom could easily have been motivated to learn the musical skills necessary to achieve his musical dreams.

This article is an introduction to a series of articles I'll be writing on "Learning how to read music".

My goal is to make the process of learning to read music a user friendly experience without compromising the necessary fundamentals that are needed to successfully read music.

Next time I will be writing about some musical basics:

• Time
• Rhythm
• Notation

It takes dedication and steadfastness to be a fast reader and assimilator. Every average student has a lot to read and comprehend. In order to cover up your work load for the semester or academic session and have a good grade in your exams, you need to abide by the rules and techniques you will learn after reading this article.

To equally help yourself read faster, you can equally acquire reading software that will help you to practice any technique you must have leant online or offline about reading faster and comprehension.

The best way to succeed is for you to always remember the gains of reading faster and understanding. This will help to motivate you towards building your reading abilities.

Knowing how to read faster and comprehension is not only good for students alone, researchers, office workers, lecturers, etc need to know the skills of fast reading because it will help in making your work finish on time and you will also have more time for family and friends.

WAYS TO READ FASTER AND COMPREHEND MORE

STOP WORD VOCALIZATION

Some people vocalize words as they read along. Vocalization slows down your reading speed. Research has proven that vocalization retards the assimilation capabilities of your brain. So, if your still in the category of readers that are still vocalizing, stop it right away.

IDENTIFY YOUR SPEED.

Identifying your reading speed will definitely help you to know how you have progressed in your endeavor to read faster. Therefore, take write ups with specified word count and try to know your speed via quantity of words read per hour.

LEARN HOW TO FOCUS.

Focusing on the content and subject matter you are reading will help you understand it faster. Therefore, stop thinking about unnecessary things like the romance date you had the previous day, financial problems, family problems and other things that will distract you from what you are doing at that particular time. It has been proven that most people do not understand or assimilate what they are reading just because of unnecessary distraction.

To also increase your ability to focus, you have to go to a quiet environment to read. Most especially if you have a great volume of work to do.

HAVE A GOAL.

You should have a goal on the quantity of material you need to read per day. Set a goal you are sure to achieve per day and try to increase the goal as time goes on. Within a short time, you will identify that your reading speed has increased.

LEARN READING SUMMARIZATION.

This technique should be applied when you have really improved in your speed of reading and comprehension. And you should also apply this technique when reading a material that is so large. Reading summarization is reading the topics and sub topics of pages, paragraphs and chapters.

Some authors call this technique skim reading. You just scan key words ad try to determine the contents through experience.

GROUP READING

Do not read words one after the other, rather read the words by groups. It’s all about training yourself to be reading words in groups. Once you start it, you will see how easy it is.

The strategies stated in this article should be applied mildly when you are reading complex materials. Such materials are mathematics and engineering and other professional materials. You have to try and understand the what the complex material is all about because you will be solving some problems.

The online book reading is a great way to enhance and increase your knowledge in ‘zero time’ as with just a single click of your mouse, you can get what you want! Build a habit of reading from your laptop or iPhone to enjoy more online book reading.

The world is becoming more and more digital and you can grab all important stuff with just a hand movement or a simple mouse ‘click.’ The traditional method of learning gives way to fresh technology in recent decade or so. No doubt, the importance of paperback printed books is still there, but the newer digital technology revolutionized the reading and learning processes for common users. Let us see a few simple tips to learn online with just one click.

1. Search on Google with the keyword,’online libraries.’

2. Be sure to download PDFs software, usually acrobat or any other PDFs reader of your choice. Well, most of the online libraries offer PDFs format books for both downloading and reading online.

3. There is another option to read in ‘text’ as a Word document. However, I strongly recommend the PDFs format.

4. Once you download the book of your choice, you can also adjust the zoom settings in the PDFs reader.

5. Read as much as you can for as long as you wish!

6. Lastly, you must have the ultimate fun with this online digital book reading.

It is vital to know that plenty of websites are offering free online book reading. Try clicking as many links as you can. One other aspect is the extensive knowledge, which is shared online. You can find books in different languages and an option to read in your own language. For example, if there is a book in Russian, a classic masterpiece, you can easily convert it into your own language through online choice of language. Most probably, it will be found in English. Obviously, other languages are also there for a much thorough study.

The real fun lies in reading books freely. You have to pay nothing, no time wastage, just a click and your books are downloaded or you can read online. If you are using apple or android technology, you can easily add them or bookmark them in your bookshelf. The available books include Greek literature, English literature and of course World literature. There is another option for downloading academic books, study guides, assignments and other relevant study material. There are other search engines like Yahoo or Bing to try your luck as well, besides Google.

Over the four years since I first read this book, I have recommended Ender’s Game to nearly a dozen people, and no one who has read it has been disappointed. No matter your age or taste in books, you’ll find something to like in Orson Scott Card’s classic.

10 Reasons to Read Ender’s Game

1. Read the Book Before Seeing the Movie

The movie adaptation of Ender’s Game is set to open on November 1, 2013. As any slightly-uppity critic will tell you, you want to read the book before you see the movie.

2. Consider This Your Intro to Science Fiction

Even though good science fiction is one of my favorite genres, I don’t recommend sci-fi to almost anyone. I recognize that it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Ender, however, is not your typical sci-fi novel. When she married me, Rachel had a very negative opinion of science fiction, and I can’t say that’s changed just yet. But she greatly appreciated Ender’s Game and plans to read the sequels some day.

Even if you don’t love science fiction, you’ll appreciate Orson Scott Card’s masterful writing, and the characters will keep you intrigued throughout.

3. This Book is Far More Than Young Adult Lit

Before “young adult” existed as a genre, Card popularized the child hero. Now, adolescent protagonists like Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen are seen as the norm; think about it – how many enormously-popular best sellers have adult main characters?

As a predecessor to young adult lit, Ender’s Game does not suffer from the genre’s weaknesses. Its characters are more realistic than most in the genre, and the writing does not pander to the uneducated. This is a book about children, but it is written for adults.

4. This Book Has an Enormous Depth of Thought

Speaking of this book as a contrast to most young adult lit, how many young adult novels have spawned dozens of books and essays analyzing the philosophical, military, and life lessons in their pages? Ender’s Game has that distinction, with Ender’s World the latest in a series of books analyzing Card’s masterpiece.

In Ender’s World, well-known authors and thinkers take the reader in-depth into how Ender’s Game influenced their thinking. The authors who credit Card with influencing their development include military commanders, television producers, and best-selling writers. That diversity speaks to how much Ender’s Game has to offer in terms of food for thought.

5. You Will Return to this Book Time and Again

Believe me, as soon as you finish this book, you’ll begin to consider reading it again. This story is that good, and your first reading won’t be enough. The common experience of Ender readers is a deep itch to reread this book, and often on more than one occasion.

6. Reading This Book Will Open a Whole New Series to You

If you end up liking Ender’s Game, you will be happy to learn that nearly a dozen sequels are out there. In my study, I have an entire shelf devoted to Orson Scott Card’s novels, and there are still times when visiting book stores that I find new books or collections of his essays. Unlike series that begin and end far too quickly, Ender’s Game is the beginning of a substantially-long series.

7. This Story is a Great Metaphor for Life

This point is a topic for another post, but Ender’s Game is a story that serves as a perfect analogy for so many aspects of life. I don’t think Card wrote this book to be a metaphor for anything, but nearly everyone can see parts of their life reflected in the story. After you’ve read Ender, you’ll find your mind returning to it time and again.

8. This is a Great Conversation Starter

As I mentioned above, Ender’s Game is a story that appeals across ages, sexes, and backgrounds. So whenever the topic of books comes up in conversation, you’ll be amazed at how many people know and love this book. I place Ender on a short list of books I think everyone should read for cultural literacy if no other reason.

9. Check Out the Amazon Rating

In case you doubt me, take a look at the user ratings on Amazon. At the time of this writing, Ender’s Game has 3,868 reviews on Amazon, and 2,976 of those are 5-star ratings. Overall, the book enjoys a 4.6-star rating – an astounding average. (For a comparison, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has a 4.7 rating.)

10. Everyone Likes a Good Novel

No matter how rarely you read and no matter how little free time you have, you can always find a few minutes where a quick fiction story is a welcome treat. Whether it’s waiting for a doctor’s appointment or those few minutes before you fall asleep at night, you can always find time to read.

Even if you’re not persuaded by all nine other reasons, read Ender’s Game for fun. Read it for pleasure. Take this book on your next vacation, or read it during your lunch break to feel like you’re on vacation. You’ll thank me.

So there you have it, my 10 reasons to read Ender’s Game. What would you add to my list?

Reading is a basic skill that most people in the world are proficient at. It is a skill that is taught when very young, and can be enjoyed all lifelong. Most people develop this skill and usually peak somewhere in their teen years. Then there are those who realize how important this skill is and take it to a much higher level.

Why do some people love to read and others don’t? Some people may read a book a month, or even 1-2 books a week, and others may not even read 5 books a year. Why the disparity? Reading gives you the best value and is the most enjoyable form of entertainment. It helps keep the mind young and nimble, while being able to learn and be entertained all at the same time.

In today’s world there are many things to preoccupy our time. Many people, especially kids, spend far too much time on the computer. Kids age 8-18 spend on average 44.5 hours per week on the computer. To put it in perspective, most adults don’t work that many hours a week. The person will become what the mind dwells upon. I am sure the majority of the time kids spend online is not on educational sites that help develop the mind. Some of these places are dark places to go, and others are just games used to entertain and pass the time.

Life is too short, let’s fill our minds with knowledge, education, and history. There are so many books available, on various subjects, that there is no reason not to spend time reading. Reading some of the best books ever written can affect your life tremendously, and conversely, reading books not worth reading can affect you in a poor way. How many self-help books does the average person read in a year? When you listen to some of the most successful people in the world share how they spend their time, they will tell you about the books that they read. As they say, “If you want to be successful, do what successful people do.”

If you are a successful executive or business owner, you probably already read your fair share of books. Most of the people reading this article probably enjoy reading and read whenever they can. Reading affects the mind and how one thinks. It affects the body as well as the brain. It could have a calming effect, as well as an exciting, exhilarating result. It could help sprout ideas, as well as making one think and really use the mind. It is probably the number one activity, besides walking, that everyone should be encouraged to do to live a long and healthy life.

Don’t stop at one book and say that is it for a while, but be encouraged to read more and more. In fact after reading a good book, that is when it is best to start on another one. Many people read two, three, or more books at once. If you want more out of life, read more books. If you really want much more out of life, read really good books, the best books you can find. There are many to choose from.