Dr. Digit 'Splains It All

This week I decided to look at the different Web browsers available for Windows users for viewing the Lansing Star and other web sites. If you have an older computer with an older browser you will need to upgrade to view the Star. I looked at five different browsers, and instead of taking a highly technical approach I looked at features the average reader would like.

A web browser is the software you use to view web pages. Windows comes with Internet Explorer, the infamous browser renowned for its role in the anti-trust suit the Department of Justice brought against Microsoft some years ago. Internet Explorer has survived because it is amazingly good as well as because it is already in Windows when you get it. There are alternatives, though, and they are well worth looking at, especially if you have an older machine and are looking for a more modern, up to date browser.

If you're like many people, you have at least two separate "pools" of investment funds: 1) Your 401(k) or other tax-deferred, employer-sponsored retirement plan, and 2) your taxable brokerage account. Should you invest in both of them in exactly the same way?

Many people do just that. In fact, to fund both their 401(k) plans and their taxable accounts, investors put about 70 percent of their investment dollars in stocks and 30 percent in bonds, according to a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University. Is this a good idea? Not according to the study that claims this type of identical allocation can eat away between 15 percent and 20 percent of the cumulative value of your retirement accounts.

With the devastation that hurricane Katrina wreaked on southern US states, the Red Cross is asking for money, because it gives them the resources to be flexible in their response as conditions change.  Lansing businesswoman Janet Keefe wanted to do something to help.  Her company, The ADminders, sells branded promotional items.

"I wanted to do something more than just send a donation to the Red Cross and my family shared my sentiment.  My promotional products company has provided many clients with fund raising products, so with that in mind I thought of the popular awareness bracelets," says Ms. Keefe.  "I asked my Lansing Middle Schooler his thoughts and he noted that his school held a successful fund raiser last year, selling awareness bracelets for a cancer support program for families."