June 28th, 2012Top Story A Geek's Guide to Budgeting Hobbies By Thorin Klosowski A professor once told me his trick to happiness: treat your hobby like a career, but more important. Those of us who eat up all types of hobbies—from comics to video games to DIY projects—know that a good hobby can be one of the most enriching parts of life, but they can also require a lot of time and money. Here's how to better budget that time and money. All work and no play isn't good for anyone. A good work-life balance hinges on getting in the time to do what's important to you. If you don't already, it's time to start treating your hobbies with the same respect you give your career (although a hobby can also help your career, in certain cases). That means budgeting your time and your finances to accommodate your variety of interests. Budget Your Hobby Time You probably have a hard enough time keeping up with your day to day, but finding time for hobbies is just as important as getting your errands done. The first step is to prioritize your hobbies so you know what's really important. Organize and Prioritize Your Hobbies If you're anything like me, you have a bunch of different interests and hobbies. Staying engaged and keeping track of everything is incredibly difficult. One day I might feel the need to read several books on Civil War history, and three weeks later I'll spend my free time playing with an Arduino project. Personally, I'm a fan of single-tasking hobbies. Doing so means I dedicate a good amount of my mindshare to each hobby. Once every couple of months I take a look at each hobby or project I want to do and organize them in a prioritized list. The list is based around what I already know about myself. In the summer months, for instance, I read a lot, so I stack a bunch of books at the top of the list. I also try to learn one new skill each summer (this summer is about learning to draw more than a stick figure), so that sits near the top as well. The goal is to dedicate your attention to one main hobby project at a time. As frugal living blog The Simple Dollar points out, it's cheaper and more fruitful to concentrate on one or two things at once. You can mix up several hobbies, but if you really want to enjoy yourself I find it's best to concentrate on one at a time. Create a Project or Entertainment To-Do List You probably already use a to-do list to keep track of all your important work tasks and errands. Use the same idea for your hobbies. I use a list separate from my work to-do's, but you can integrate all your to-dos together and use the categories or labels setting to keep them separate. Here's what I do: I write down a list with media release dates I'm interested in (movies, games, books, etc). Then, I fill in the gaps with start dates for other hobby projects. It's that simple. The benefit is twofold: I always have something productive to do with myself instead, and I have a to-do list to keep me on track. Yours will differ, but the premise is the same: make a to-do list and calendar and stick to it. Budget Time Every Day, No Excuses You have your to-do lists, but how about actually finding the time to do them? One suggestion that comes from Make Magazine editor Mark Frauenfelder is pretty simple: dedicate 15 minutes a day. Frauenfelder explains: What if I gave myself 15 minutes a day to get away from the computer and work on a project? And I think almost anybody can give himself 15 minutes a day. But it really adds up and after a month or so, that's a considerable amount of hours that you've been able to devote making things. You can apply this to nearly any hobby you can do in your own house. Learning guitar? Dedicate at least 15 minutes to it. Reading a book? Playing a video game? Drawing a comic strip? 15 minutes daily—no excuses. For hobbies that require longer stints of time, focus on what you can do during those short 15 minutes to practice or prepare. This obviously can't work for everything, but it works for a good chunk of hobbies. You can also take The Information Diet author Clay Johnson's advice and schedule in your media (in this case also a hobby) just like you would a meeting. You might find that when you put that time on your calendar you're more likely to do it instead of wasting time elsewhere. Photo by Iain. Give Yourself Mini-Hobby Vacations Taking a vacation to go fishing isn't a new idea, but it's worth noting that you should do it for other hobbies as well. Going somewhere on vacation is awesome, but taking a day here and there to work on a hobby exclusively is a great stress reliever as well. Plus, too many of you are leaving your vacation time on the table. Use that leftover time to take a long weekend and dedicate your full attention to a hobby. Feeling the need for some binge TV series watching? Take a day off and enjoy it. No checking work email and no catching up on errands. Hide your phone if you have to. Do whatever it takes to put yourself in the vacation mentality. Budget Your Finances Hobbies typically have the unique characteristic of being easy to plan expenses around because they're all about preparation. In effect, budgeting for a hobby is all about forward thinking. The good news? You've already done most of the work above with your to-do list. Now all you have to do is make sure you have the money. The Initial Dip: Don't Overspend Some hobbies are expensive up front, others are cheap, and others have costs that build up over time. The trick with budgeting for a hobby is all about patience. Getting started with photography? That $5,000 DSLR camera won't make you a better photographer. Instead, take it slow and ease into it. Plan to spend small amounts of money as you dip your toe in and make bigger investments later. Frugal living blog The Simple Dollar sums the idea up nicely: When you're chasing something as nebulous as "having all the good stuff," there's constantly something more to buy to sate your hobby. The idea is that you start with enough to get you going, and then supplement what you need along the way. When you plan out projects ahead of time you have plenty of time to prepare the money, learn to work with what you have, and decide if expenses are worth the extra cost. Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. Use Your To-Do List as a Budget Tool Remember that to-do list you created above? That's the perfect foundation for a budget as well. Not only did you pick the days and months your hobby requires your attention, you probably also now have a mental list of items you'll be buying at the same time. You essentially created a handy, year-long calendar of hobby purchases. It's time to start budgeting for them. To do so you can use any budgeting technique or software you like. We're fans of Mint for its ease of use and its goal setting options, but you can budget any way you prefer. For example. Let's say on your hobby to-do list is "record music in October." Ask yourself what you need to accomplish this. Do you need new cables? New music gear? Tally up the list, check out some basic prices, and come up with a sum total. When you're done, divide that total by how many months you have until your start date and save a little money every month. Some hobbies make this easy by operating in seasons. Summer is known for blockbuster movies, fall and winter are dominated by video games, and sports stick to their respective seasons pretty strictly. For everything else, use your best judgement to find a good start date. If you're looking to upgrade certain gear for a hobby, don't forget to check out our guide to the best time to purchase anything in 2012 for ideas on when you'll get it the cheapest. Also, don't forget that you can always find good deals, whether it's shopping on Craigslist, or elsewhere online. Depending on the type of career or job you have, you're either defined by what you do from nine to five, or what you do the rest of the time. Maybe you're lucky and it's both. If your hobbies define you as much as my professor once implied, then they're worth fighting for the time to appreciate them. How about you? Do you find yourself out of time and money for hobbies after life gets in the way? Share your tricks for budgeting and managing in the comments.

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June 28th, 2012Top Story The Best Bike Lock By Mario Aguilar Click to view Leave a bicycle locked up on the street, and a pro with the right tool can spring it faster than you can buy a Slurpee. We're not bike thieves—not even close—and we were able to slice through cheap locks with $20 bolt cutters and a hacksaw, on our first try. So we wanted to see how much a quality U-lock increases the odds that your ride will still be there when you get back. We put four popular brands of locks against those hand tools, and the bike thieves' weapon of choice—a cordless angle grinder. In the end, we found some locks that can buy you a few extra seconds of security. But the results conclusively proved one thing: Your bike is never really safe outside. Testing Methodology These four mid-range locks (~$50 street price) are large enough to fit around a bicycle frame, a wheel and a parking meter. All of these manufacturers make locks that are more expensive and heavier, but we chose these for their affordability, convenience, and for the fact that these are the locks we see people using all over NYC. They're made of hardened steel and outfitted with complex locking mechanisms. Beyond the security of the locks, we looked at cost, weight, and how well the locks mount to your bike. The hand tools in our test included the $20 bolt cutters and the hacksaw mentioned above, the latter of which had a fresh, tense blade ready for each new lock. We went to work with each of those for five minutes and measured the results. (We tried out a Sawzall, which did the same level of damage as the hacksaw, just more quickly.) For our primary power tool, we used a the cheapest angle grinder we could find—a Ryobi 18-volt lithium-ion tool—which cost $40 for the tool, and totaled just under $100 with a battery. We fitted it with new Bosch-branded 4 1/2-inch-diameter, 7/8-inch thick cutoff wheels. With a little practice, let's just say, we didn't need the full five minutes to measure the damage. And remember, we're inept. For a pro, a bike locked up on the street must look like free money. Lay out $100 for a power tool, and you could just go get a new bike. Any bike you want. Again and again. And these four locks are usually all that's there to stop you. Fourth Place: Blackburn Leavenworth This Blackburn Leavenworth's unusual hexagonal design is coated in thick rubber, which protects your bike, but that's where this lock's advantages disappear. It's heavy, considering it's the smallest lock we tested, and the shackle's angles make it trickier to squeeze onto a tight post. Furthermore, the keyhole is finicky and often requires some shaking and banging for the key to turn. The mounting bracket attaches easily to your bike with a hex key, but the lock rattles a lot while you're on the road, and it slides around on your bike's frame. Oh, and it's hardly better than the cheap off-brand locks we cut—despite being the thickest of the bunch. The bolt cutters only made some dents, but we were able to cut nearly all the way through the lock with the hacksaw in just five minutes. It didn't even last a minute against the angle grinder. View Full Photo Gallery » Blackburn Leavenworth Specs • Weight: 44 ounces • Thickness: 16mm • Price: $43 (Amazon) • Gizrank: 2 Third Place: Abus Sinero 43 Abus makes some of the most intense—and expensive—locks on the market. Sinero is one of its more modest products, and it was the slimmest and lightest we tested. The Sinero's mounting bracket is a pain—it's trickier than most to attach to your bike, and you've got to actually lock in to the mount, which is awkward and time-consuming. Despite being just 12mm thick, it's tough. Hand tools did nothing but slice the soft protective coating, not even making a mark on the steel. But against the angle grinder, the Sinero held up for a minute and a half. After the lock was cut, it lost the integrity of its shape, and we were able to easily pull it free from the bars it was locked to. View Full Photo Gallery » Abus Sinero 43 Specs • Weight: 38 ounces • Thickness: 12mm • Price: $50 (Amazon) • Gizrank: 3 Second Place: Kryptonite Evolution Series 4 Standard Kryptonite locks are very popular, and they have a reputation for security. We just wish the company's mounting bracket was better—it's tricky to install and use without ever being secure against the bike's frame. It attaches to your bike with a one-way sliding tab, which clicks tight, and then you clamp it down with an included hex key. Still, the lock wavers left and right while you ride. We ended up abandoning the bracket altogether. But at least the lock's finish doesn't scratch your bike when it's threaded under the brake cables. And, when opening and closing it, the key turns smoothly in its hole. Bolt cutters did no damage to the Evolution, and the hacksaw just skated harmlessly along the surface of the steel. The angle grinder, on the other hand, sliced through it in two minutes. Still, we had it locked up tightly, and even after the lock had been cut, it required some effort to spring the bike free. View Full Photo Gallery » Kryptonite Evolution Series 4 Standard Specs • Weight: 60 ounces • Thickness: 14mm • Price: $53 (Amazon) Gizrank: 3.5 Bestmodo: OnGuard Pitbull STD Despite its fat locking mechanism, the OnGuard Pitbull STD is a breeze to use. The lock clicks into a sturdy, secure mounting bracket that doesn't bounce around while you're riding. Added bonus: you can change the direction of the mount with a screw driver, so you can attach the lock to your bike in whatever way is comfortable ways. The key slides in smoothly without any jerking around. Security-wise, this lock is basically identical to the Kryptonite. It's invincible against hand tools. But it didn't last two minutes against the angle grinder. Look, nothing stood up against the angle grinder. And we're not talking about a 2100-watt Milwaukee metal shop tool—we used the cheapest damn angle grinder we could find. This lock, like the Kryptonite, was also tough to spring free once it had been cut. But a little wrestling got it off, and, presumably, your bike would've ridden off with it. And this was the best of the bunch! View Full Photo Gallery » OnGuard Specs • Weight: 48 ounces • Thickness: 14mm • Price: $55 (MSRP) • Gizrank: 4 Coming soon: We discuss the results of our test with an anonymous NYC bike thief. Video by Michael Hession

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This Is Why Google Unveiled A Tablet Yesterday

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		Tech Science Entertainment Wall Street Markets Strategy Sports Lifestyle Politics Law International Video Latest Thursday, June 28, 2012 This Is Why Google Unveiled A Tablet Yesterday This chart comes from Business Insider Intelligence, a new research and and analysis service focused on the mobile and Internet industries. Sign up for a free trial here. Google unveiled its first tablet yesterday, the Nexus 7, manufactured by Asus. While tablet shipments have exploded in the past few years, Android tablets haven't fared so well. Google needed to wade into the market to give Android tablets a jump start. At the least, it hopes to give other Android manufacturers' efforts a boost, but if the Nexus 7 becomes a hit on its own then all the better. Read » Also On SAI Today: How A Caltech Ph.D. Turned Airbnb Into A Billion-Dollar Travel Magazine Check Out General Assembly's New Sun-Filled, 2,000 Square-Foot London Campus Google Just Declared War On These 12 Products DreamIt Ventures Nabs VC Karen Griffith Gryga As Managing Director Advertisement CHART OF THE DAY: One Of The Most Amazing Things About The iPhone's First Five Years CHART OF THE DAY: The App Economy Is ~$3.5 Billion Visual Learner? Get SAI's Chart Of The Day Share this: Facebook Twitter Digg Reddit StumbleUpon LinkedIn The email address for your subscription is: dwyld.kwu.jobhuntportal11@blogger.com Change Your Email Address | Unsubscribe | Subscribe | Subscribe to the SAI RSS Feed Business Insider. 257 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010 Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

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