Black belt - 6

This Wednesday, I was promoted to the 6th kyu (level) in Bujinkan grading system.  This translates to a green belt with three black stripes in our color code.  Two more promotions and I will be wearing a brown belt.

Actually, it is my goal for this year to get to a brown belt.  It might be challenging to get there by the end of the year, but I will put in an extra session a week of practicing on my own to speed up my progress. 

It is good to have challenging goals!  It is even better to achieve them!!!

Mail forwarders / Shipping items to Australia

I have noticed a big difference between the digital world (information shared over the Internet) and physical world.  In the digital world, we read or hear about new products that are available anywhere in the world.  Our physical world is limited with where we live, what stores are available, and what products distributors are interested in bringing into the country.

Because of this disconnect between the digital and physical worlds, we are left wanting to buy things that are not necessarily available to us where we live.  Which is where online shopping comes in.  You can buy from anywhere in the world and have it shipped to you.  Sometimes, that is.  What happens most of the times is that the web site will not accept your credit card because you are out of the country or they don't offer good deals for international clients.

Now you understand the need for mail forwarders.  A mail forwarder is a company which will assign you a US/UK or any other country address (depends on the forwarder).  Then, when a parcel arrives to your "new" US address, they will forward the parcel to your Australian address.

Why would you do something like this?  For example, I am looking to buy a phone from Best Buy in the US.  The phone is available at Best Buy for US$530, while it is available here for roughly US$750.  I cannot go to Best Buy's US web site to order the phone, as they don't ship to international addresses.  What I CAN do is go to Best Buy and ship to my mail forwarding address.

There are a lot of different mail forwarding companies out there, but the main things to look for are: their shipping prices and their handling fees.  After investigating several companies, I would recommend comGateway, MyAmericanShipper and Shipito.

I like comGateway as they provide you with an address in Oregon from the start.  This helps greatly if you order from US electronics stores, as Oregon does not have state sales tax.  If you go through Shipito and use their CA address, you will end up paying 8.25% in state tax alone.  Comgateway does not require you to pay a monthly service fee, but it will only ship items through DHL.  Picture of the package as well as the scan of the packing slip are also available to you.

MyAmericanShipper seems to offer easy, no-fee forwarding of parcels, including consolidation of packages.  One problem with their service is that the address is in Florida, where the state tax is 6%, so some online orders will incur this cost.  They charge no fees.  I think they make money off of the shipping charges.  Even still, the shipping charges look reasonable compared to other good forwarders.  Unfortunately, it is not possible to get your mail forwarded.

Shipito has a lot more account options, but the main difference boils down to larger selection of shipping options where you get a super cheap option to send through USPS.  Be mindful that it will take a LONG time if you choose the slowest USPS option (up to 5 weeks).  With Shipito you also get to write your own customs declaration, which may be advantageous in certain cases.

There is another, easier option for purchasing items from the USA.  You can go through www.priceusa.com.au and get them to buy the item for you.  They will then ship it directly to you.  The fee charged by PriceUSA is about 5% of the total item cost, including all USA and international shipping charges.  For certain situations, this may turn out to be the best alternative for buying that special item from the USA.

Funny Name of the Week - Yanderra

This week's funny city/town name of the week is:

Yanderra

Canadian tax rules for non-residents

This is the second year that I am dealing with Canadian taxes while living in Australia.  If you think it is hard to figure out income tax laws when you live and work in one country, try moving country half-way during a tax year.  You discover a whole new level of income tax hell!

I believe that I have figured out a lot of things about filing Canadian taxes as a non-resident.  In the course of my research, I thought that a lot of other people may benefit from this information.  By posting it in a public forum like this, I hope to help others who are in the same situation (ie. Canadian with an RRSP account, shares, or property in Canada but living outside of Canada).

Different types of income and assets will require different type of filing/handling the tax.  I have obtained the following information by calling Canada Revenue Agency's International Tax Services Office number +1-613-952-3741 and talking to their rep.

Filing taxes for the type of income:
Dividends
-tax withdrawn at source, thus no need to file and claim taxes

RRSP withdrawals, including LIRA and pension fund withdrawals
-tax withdrawn at source, thus no need to file and claim taxes

Rental Income
-file Section 216 for any rental income
-need to file NR6 before the beginning of each tax year to minimize tax withholdings

Capital gain on sale of shares
-no need to file taxes for a capital gain on disposition of shares
-may need to claim the capital gain in country of residence

Capital gain on sale of property
-file T2062 (Request for a certificate of compliance) with a payment  for 25% of the capital gain and you should get a Certificate of Compliance issued within 90 days
-your lawyer or real estate agent will withhold 25% of the sale price of the property as collateral to ensure you do pay your tax obligations
-when you receive your Certificate of Compliance, present it to your  lawyer to get the rest of the funds back
-file taxes at the end of the year (Non-resident tax return) and claim your capital gain as, depending on your income, you may get some money back from your capital gain taxes

Avoiding scams on the Internet

During my quest for an inexpensive mobile phone, I stumbled on a post advertising a Samsung Nexus S phone for $300.  As this phone is currently available for $530 at Best Buy in the USA, I immediately suspected the post and the listed price.

I decided to investigate further and emailed the person in question at

♫

jamie.gadgets@gmail.com.  I received a quick reply saying that the current price is $300 plus $50 for shipping.  They can mail me the package as soon as I send them a payment through Western Union.  ALARM BELLS immediately went off.  NEVER, EVER send money to people on the Internet through Western Union.  It is not traceable and you cannot get the money back if anything goes wrong.

I emailed him back asking him for a phone number just so that I can inquire about a few product details.  The email that I received back looked like this:

OK SIR.

+447529070035 or you probably give us your number so that we can call you

We will await your call sir

Regards

That email sounded very suspect, as no English speaker would send you an email like that. I decided to investigate this Jamie character further.  Few Google searches later, I discovered that Jamie operates under multiple email aliases: jamiegadgets01@hotmail.com, jamie.gadgets@consultant.com.  He has posts all over the Internet advertising various expensive mobile phones.  

Soon enough I found a web site where he is supposedly selling these phones from http://www.jamiegadgets.com.  The web site even sells IPads, for $210 nonetheless! This is when I thought to myself, "If it is too good to be true, it probably is not true."

The last thing I decided to check was the registration details for jamiegadgets.com.  I used a domain lookup web site to find who is really behind the web site and this is what I've found:

FERNANDO DEFEO ()
   0000000000
   Fax:
   rua cardeal stepinac, num 490, APto 401, Residence
   None
   belo horizonte, None 31170-220
   BR

So, we have a guy from Brazil, using a web site in the USA, and multiple email addresses on gmail and hotmail, to peddle high priced electronic devices.  There are no reviews of his site on the Internet, but you can find plenty of postings listing his ads on various suspect sites.  This type of advertising is often used by spammers and scammers.

The final piece of information that sealed my decision that this site is most likely a scam is the registration date of the web site.  The web site was registered in December of 2010.  If you go to the web site and click on the AboutUs link, you will find text saying that he has been in business since 2001.  What took him so long to put up a web site?

It looks like I'll have to do my phone shopping on Ebay.  I have been able to find some good deals there but you have to watch out for scams even there.  Maybe I should write a post about safe shopping on Ebay.  First, must find an Android phone!

Buying a mobile phone from overseas

I am in the market for a new mobile phone (cell phones).  IPhone is out of the question as I don't like the closed and restrictive environment in which Apple likes to operate.  Windows 7 is too little, too late from a company who had a decent phone operating system and had neglected it for several years.  Microsoft has stopped innovating long time ago.

That leaves Android.  Google has kept updating and improving Android, and is committed to being an important player in the smart phone market.  I expect Google to keep updating Android fairly frequently, making sure to keep the operating system current and relevant.  Kind of the opposite of Microsoft.

As such, I am looking for a phone that will run Android.  That leaves me with a large selection to chose from.  HTC, Samsung, Motorola, LG and SonyEricsson make the majority of Android phones that are available in the market.

Buying phones, as well as anything else, in Australia is a bit more expensive than shopping anywhere else.  I am considering buying a phone from the USA or the UK and getting the phone shipped to me.  Not all phones are available for purchase in Australia, so being able to buy a phone overseas helps keep the price affordable.

Before I decide to import a phone into Australia, I need to confirm that the phone will work on the local frequencies.  All mobile phones in the world work on either GSM or CDMA systems for voice.  Majority of the networks in the world run on GSM, but not all phones are designed for it.  Australia runs only GSM networks, so I have to look for a GSM phone.

The next thing to watch out for are the frequencies that GSM phones operate on.  Here in Australia, the three major companies that run mobile networks are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.  I will most likely be using my phone on the Optus network, but it would be good if my phone would support the other two networks in case I need to switch providers.
I need to check operating frequencies for all three networks.  At the same time, I need to confirm which frequencies they use for voice calls and which frequencies are used for data.

Technology	Telstra	OPTUS	Vodafone
2G	900/1800 MHz	900/1800 MHz	900/1800 MHz
3G	850/2100 MHz	900/2100 MHz	2100 MHz

Judging from the information above, I my new mobile phone should support GSM 900/1800 MHz for voice service, and at least 900/2100 MHz for 3G.  Telstra is the only one currently using 850 MHz for 3G service.

Reference: Mobile World Live

Funny Name of the Week - Blackbutt

This week's funny city/town name of the week is:

Blackbutt

Cyclone update and some ideas about improving fuel efficiency

First, the cyclone Yasi has passed through Queensland causing a lot less damage than expected.  It was most fortunate that Yasi had struck on the sparsely populated stretch of land between Cairns and Towsnville.  Everyone's impression of the cyclone is that it could have been much worse if Yasi had hit the coast a little bit to the north or south.  The biggest casualty of the cyclone were banana plantations.  It looks like we'll be paying $6/kilo of bananas for the next couple of months.

I came across a very interesting article about fuel usage and efficiency.  The author of the article tried to determine the type of car fuel that would be the cheapest to use.  He compared E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline), E10 (90% gasoline, 10% ethanol) and 98 octane premium gasoline.  Based on current prices, E10 was the cheapest fuel to use, while E85 came out to be the most expensive.

This comparison is only valid for current fuel prices.  Any pricing changes would requiring some recalculation to determine which of these fuels is most cost effective.  The interesting part about the article is that it gives you a true, empirical result of how different fuels behave when put under the same test.  E85 just does not have enough energy in it to be able to effectively move you from A to B as well as gasoline can.

It is amazing to note that after more than a hundred years of using gasoline as a fuel, humanity has still not come up with a fuel that is more cost effective and easier to use than gasoline!

Did you know that 1 litre of gasoline contains 9.6 kWh of energy?  The internal combustion engine is only 20% efficient, which means that 80% of the possible energy in that gasoline you pay for is never utilized.  I think we could save a lot of 'oil-shortage' issues by improving the engine.

As I write this post, I am starting to wonder if anyone out there has thought of a way to make the current car engine more efficient.  Thank you, Google.

According to Mohit Sanguri, there are numerous ways to improve the efficiency of today's car engines.  Anything from twin spark plugs, turbochargers, direct fuel injection, variable injection timing and variable valve timing.  Many of these enhancements need to be mandated for all cars on the road.  Increasing the efficiency of all car engines would result in a decrease in pollution, as cars would need to less fuel.

Are there any radical new car engine designs that improve the fuel efficiency?  As a matter of fact, I was able to find two such new designs.  Cargine Engineering has developed a camless engine which is smaller and lighter than current engines but has higher efficiency as the energy loss to a cam shaft is eliminated.  An MIT Sloan Automotive Laboratory researcher talks about a small engine that will have equivalent power to a current SUV engine.

I am not saying that one of these engines is the answer, but we have a lot of people doing research on alternative fuels, why not spend more time on alternative, more-efficient engines with the same fuel.  I still believe that a plain-old internal combustion engine, combined with a small electrical motor which uses breaking and solar energy to recharge itself (type of a hybrid car), is what needs to be mandated as the minimum efficiency engine as of 2016.  Force the industry to come up with something useful and efficient, as opposed to having the car industry spend all its money and talent on styling and marketing the cars.

Cyclone Yasi - category 5!

In less than 24 hours, a category 5 Cyclone Yasi is going to hit northern part of Queensland. 

This means that affected areas will experience winds over 25 km/h with gusts up to 400 km/h.  Cairns and Townsville (cities of 150,000 and 180,000 residents, respectively) are going to be affected the most.

Cyclone Yasi is the biggest cyclone to hit Australia in decades.  Queensland is being tortured by the weather this year, as only a few weeks ago a lot of the state was flooded for days.

The picture below is about a day old but is shows the shear size of the impending disaster.