Icesave and the Icelandic Banks - What Happens Now?
October 13, 2008
Iceland’s biggest bank “Landsbanki” had a UK arm named “Icesave” which hit the news over the last year for offering great interest rates on savings of over 6%. So tempting was it in fact, that over 300,000 people took them up on it, including some local UK council’s and myself too. Even today, a UK hospital has announced it invested £7.5m in Icesave. A few weeks ago, Icesave were actually declared default in the UK - in a nutshell - kaputt.
So, what happens now?
Well, first thing is that the government has guaranteed everyones money in this bank so no one will have lost any of their cash and savings. Good news. Second thing is a question of timing and process and when the money will be returned and how. Currently we have to all wait until they announce a plan and timescale. Our feeling is that we will all receive a letter in the post announcing this in more detail in the coming month and hopefully should see funds returned before christmas.
Latest Updates on Icesave and the Icelandic Banks
Popularity: 9% [?]
The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
January 14, 2008
A decent easy-to-understand guide to investing, offering practical advice for a wide variety of ages and net worth status’. Just grassroots investment suggestions and wisdom.
See the The Bogleheads Guide to Investing on Smoop.
Popularity: 58% [?]
Save money with free security software for PC and Mac.
April 13, 2007
Why pay for things when the same quality of software can be downloaded and installed for free…
Antivirus (PC)
Protects your PC from any unwanted viruses and trojan horses which may try to infect your computer and cause a speed slowdown or loss of files. The best free antivirus package available right now is AVG Anti-Virus.The Apple Mac does not need any anti-virus software (don’t be fulled by Norton telling you that you do) as OS X provides all the protection you need.
Cost: £0.
Firewall
This stops unwanted instructions or access to your computer or network by nasty hackers. Imagine your internet traffic as a stream of cars in the road, and a firewall filters good and bad traffic depending on a set of rules to protect the public! The best free antivirus software for the PC right now is ZoneAlarmThe Apple Mac has a free firewall built in, which you can switch on through System Preferences -> Sharing -> Firewall.
Cost: £0.
Spyware Filter
Spyware can be anything from a hidden cookie on your machine that tracks a site you have been to, right down to something nasty like a key-logger that tracks everything you type and sends the information to a hacker somewhere in the world. Either way, you want to make sure you have a clean computer at all times! The free and most popular anti-spyware software for the PC right is Lavasoft Ad-AwareAgain, with the Apple Mac there is no need to install any anti-spyware software. Do you see a trend forming?
Cost: £0.
Spam Blocker
Spam is really infuriating and has only got worse over the last few years! A free spam filter uses special algorithms to automatically block unwanted spam and either instantly delete it or move it into a special Spam folder for you to review. It’s really a necessity to have one installed these days. A great little piece of email spam filter software for the PC, compatible with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express is Spamfighter StandardWith the Apple Mac, there is a built in spam filter in Mail.App, although Rich Genie has found that SpamSieve is a much more powerful solution.
Cost: £0.
Pop-Up Blocker
Finally, this can save you a lot of annoyance and time by automatically stopping those little annoying pop-up windows appearing with adverts in them as you browse the web. Google has offered a built in free pop-up blocker for many years now, along with some other nice features, through it’s Google Toolbar (Internet Explorer), and Google Toolbar (firefox)With the Apple Mac, the firefox version is the way to go.
Cost: £0.
So, in summary how does Rich Genie save money with free security software for PC and Mac?
Easy, Rich Genie installs avg antivirus, zonealarm, adaware, spamfighter (on his PC) and spamsieve (mac), and google pop-up blocker. Takes 1 hour of work and costs £0.
Poor Genie on the other hand buys Norton Internet Security package for £49.99 and takes him 2 hours+ to install.
Popularity: 100% [?]






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