September 1st, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Astute followers of my Twitter feed know that a few weeks ago I purchased the MiFi® 2200 mobile hotspot card from Virgin Mobile. (Alas, it’s still in the box waiting to be activated.)
When I bought the MiFi card, Virgin Mobile had four different price points for its data plans. Plans were along the lines of:
- $10 for 100MB which expired in 10 days
- $20 for 250MB, 30 day expiration
- $40 for 600MB, 30 day expiration
- $60 for 1GB, 30 day expiration
But as of August 26, Virgin Mobile cut two of its plans and now offers two simple options:
- The same $10, 100MB, 10 day expiration
- A new, $40 unlimited data plan with a 30 day expiration
The unlimited data plan is a huge deal. But don’t take my word for it. David Pogue, technology columnist for the New York Times provided his review of the MiFi device and its unlimited data plan.
Also, if you’d like feedback on the MiFi device from a practicing financial advisor, read this blog post from Curtis A. Smith, CFP® on Morningstar Advisor.
And yes, soon I will break the package open and activate my MiFi…
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June 20th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Black Diamond Performance Reporting of Jacksonville, Fla. just announced that it is releasing an enhanced portfolio management and reporting platform called BlueSky.
To read the press release from Black Diamond, click the following link: http://www.blackdiamondreporting.com/whoweare/press
BlueSky is a web-based platform that enhances standard portfolio management and performance reporting features by adding an array of customizable options. BlueSky users can now configure the appearance and settings of their home page under the SkyViews feature.
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Posted in Portfolio Management Software, Technology | No Comments »
June 14th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Back in the day, I convinced ByAllAccounts to allow me to configure its account aggregation service for dbCAMS+ portfolio management software from FCSI, Inc.
At the time, the ByAllAccounts-to-dbCAMS connection wasn’t 100% official as there were some behind-the-scenes issues with data relationships and configuration concerns. Also, dbCAMS users had to pay an annual fee to FCSI in order to use ByAllAccounts’ aggregation, and that fee was on top of the normal fees charged by ByAllAccounts.
Nevertheless, I demonstrated my engineering aptitude and ability to troubleshoot good enough to convince ByAllAccounts to allow me to use their service with CAMS. It was a good decision on their part as it led to a few new contracts for ByAllAccounts as I demonstrated my success to other CAMS users.
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Posted in Portfolio Management Software, Technology | No Comments »
June 11th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Update: It’s Wednesday June 16 and still no NetX360 app for iPad in the App Store. According to this Investment Advisor article, advisors were shown a beta app of NetX360 on the iPad at last week’s Pershing Insite event.
According to a PRNewswire article, Pershing announced that it has introduced a version of NetX360™ that is compatible with the Apple® iPad™.
Click here to view BNY Mellon’s Pershing Unit Introduces NetX360™ for iPad™ from PRNewswire.
While Pershing may have introduced the iPad-compatible app, I cannot find the app in the App Store as of this writing. The iPhone-compatible app is available, but not the version enhanced for the iPad.
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June 10th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
My June column for Morningstar Advisor is now available!
This month I tackle the issue of the constant back-and-forth messaging in which advisors often engage to schedule meetings with clients and colleagues. There is a better way!
Click here to read “A Simpler Way to Schedule Meetings” at Morningstar Advisor.
Posted in Software, Technology | No Comments »
May 10th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Update: Brooke Southall and his team at RIABiz posted an article today discussing the partnership in more detail. Read it by clicking here.
Another custodian has formed a partnership to increase its technology offerings to affiliated advisers.
Shareholders Service Group (SSG) of San Diego, Calif. announced today that it is partnering with Black Diamond Performance Reporting of Jacksonville, Fla. to deliver its industry leading, web-based portfolio management and reporting system through the SSG platform.
Click here to view the press release for the Black Diamond and SSG partnership (Yahoo! News).
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April 19th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Two weeks ago I posted a review of the ways I see advisers using iPads in their practices. One of the drawbacks I highlighted was the lack of a native file explorer to easily locate, edit, and save files stored on the device.
I mentioned three apps that can be used to circumvent this drawback (GoodReader, Dropbox, and SugarSync), each with its own pros and cons.
Today, the folks at SugarSync released an update to its iPad app to enable users to perform basic file editing and synchronization with its SugarSync cloud document storage service.
Unfortunately, I still find document synchronization on the iPad, even with the SugarSync update, to be a convoluted process.
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Posted in Technology | 4 Comments »
April 6th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
I’ve had my Apple iPad for about 72 hours and am ready to post my overall reaction to the product and specifically address how I believe financial advisers and wealth managers can use the device in their practice.
The Executive Summary
- What: Apple iPad Wifi 16GB
- Pros: Elegant design, sleek & attractive, easy touch interface with nearly no learning curve, 10+ hour battery life
- Cons: (Besides the 13 referenced below) No native file explorer, editing existing documents is a convoluted process.
- Takeaway: The iPad can compliment a paperless office, enhance meetings with clients, and provide a single source to access print and online media if you’re willing to work within the limitations of existing apps.
The Review for Financial Advisers & Wealth Managers
What you won’t find in this review are the general statements about the iPad’s cool features (like iBooks, pinch-zooming, etc.) and the drawbacks (no multitasking, no USB ports, etc.) of the device. Instead, you’ll find my take on how I believe advisers and wealth managers can use the new tablet computer to enhance their daily lives.
If you still feel like you need the basic pros and cons overview of the device, here are two links, one in favor of the iPad’s potential to change computing, and one painstakingly detailed on the drawbacks of the device.
With that out of the way, let’s explore the ways I see advisers using the iPad.
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Posted in Technology | 11 Comments »
March 23rd, 2010 Bill Winterberg
I’ve made several mentions on FPPad about Socialware, an emerging provider of social media archive and policy enforcement tools, but I’ve yet to include a full feature of their services.
Today, Socialware announced several new initiatives to better serve the market of individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The full announcement can be viewed on the Socialware blog.
What do these changes mean to advisers?
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Posted in Compliance, Technology | 2 Comments »
March 10th, 2010 Bill Winterberg
Thanks go to rileybeebs on Twitter for bringing a simple-yet-effective OCR conversion tool from WiseTREND to my attention.
WiseTREND is an organization that, according to its website:
…provides a set of specific industry-tested Solutions, as well as customizable Software applications for OCR, Document Conversion and Data Capture projects.
I’ve written on FPPad before (Improve Your Paperless Document Searches) about applying OCR to each and every document captured with a scanner. Doing so allows document management and search programs to look inside documents and match keywords entered in a search query.
Adopting intelligent search for documents means no more wasted time digging though seemingly endless trees of subfolders on a company server in an attempt to find one elusive document that ended up being misfiled when it was captured in the first place.
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