For the past few weeks, we have to choose 5 or more stocks, and invest $100,000 in them. We have to keep track of the pricing every tuesday and friday on an excel chart. I only chose 5 and the ones i invested the most in seem to be deflating waaaay too much. Oh well.

Our summative for Info tech was also given to us. Here are the jot notes on starting a small business and the information we needed to know about it.

Registering your business name
-If your business is incorporated, it is already registered; if not, you have to register your business with Ontario.
-There are two ways you can register your business name: online through the official website and by mail or in person.
-The registration costs $60 (or $80 if done by mail) and is only valid for five years.
-Since you cannot use a name for your business that's already taken, by paying a small fee of $12, you can check if it's taken or not.

Taxes
Income tax
-Businesses have to pay taxes on the money they earn to the federal and provincial governments.
-Income taxes are based on how much profit your company makes subtracted by your expensives, for example, things like office rent or maintenance.
-An accountant will be able to help you out with your expenses so that you don't over pay your taxes.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) & Retail Sales Tax (RST)
-6% GST is applied to almost all products and services in Ontario.
-You must register for the GST if your business earns $30,000 annually or provides good that are GST-taxable
-After registration, GST has to be charged on all your customers and sent to CRA so that the option of claiming a GST refund is available for you.
-8% RST is also applied to most productes and services; also applied to prepared foods that cost over $4
-RST must be charged, collected and sent to the Ministry of Finance. You must also be registered with the MoF and have a certificate.
Business records
-You are obligated by the law to keep records and books and if they are related to income tax, they must be held for atleast 6 years.
-An accountant or bookkeeper can help you keep track of your records; accounting software programs are also available for you to use.

Licenses & Zoning
-Businesses need licensing from the federal, provincial, and sometimes the municipal government.
-For example, an operating permit is given so that you have permission to work in a specific location.
-Municipalities have zoning/building rules that your business must follow.
-You must check with your municipal authorities to see if your business works with these rules.

Insurance
-Having an insurance broker can be alot of help.
-They can help you find the risks in your business and tell you what kind of coverage you need and how much it's going to cost.
Renting or buying premises
-You will need to find a place to work out your business if it's not at home.
-There are a few things you must look at before you decide renting a space, for example: how much space you need or security.
-If/when you rent a space for your business, you need to sign a lease with the person who owns it.
-You should discuss what you're paying for and the rules on the area with a lawyer.

Business communications
-Businesses need communications tools, such as a fax maching, a computer and the software you need to make your business easier.
-Making a website is a good idea for your business. The internet allows quick acess to your business and information about it.
-A good website can do things like: advertise your product, or reduce the cost of customer service.

Class Wiki

Today Mr. Case showed us our new class website, or wiki. Wiki is hawaiian for community so basically the website is put together by the people who use it. We can add pictures, articles, blogs and other info and also edit everyone elses info incase they're wrong, but abusing this will get you in trouble. I've added it to the list of links on the right menu. That's pretty much it, we will be updating this wiki till the end of the year, let's see how good it goes. :D

In today's class we talked a bit on an assignment which will be assigned next class. We have to write a one page tutorial on the Microsoft word tip we presented to the class. ...Can't wait for that.
We also partnered up with someone in the I.T class to make our own podcasts. One podcast has to about what we learnt during our chosen week and make a 10 minute podcast about it. We also have to make another podcast on anything we like, how ever long we like. I have no ideas for that yet. The Podcast is going to be recorded and edited in a program called "Audacity." I haven't tried it out yet, but I will soon.

Our new assignment is to find 10 new things we can do on microsoft word and blog about it. This is what I found.
-Multiple Pages Icon - On the print preview page, it lets you see up to six pages at a time.
-Increase/Decrease Indent - Allows you to increase or decrease the amount of space to indent when starting a new line or paragraph.
-Undo Icon - Allows you to select and undo (a) command(s) that has been done from a list.
-Rotate text - This icon can be found in the tables and borders toolbar. It allows you to rotate the text going horizontal, or vertical.
-Insert > Date and time - This command lets you insert the date in any format you like.
-Format > Change case - This command allows you to change the case of the text. (Upper, Lower, Title, Toggle case)
-Format > Background - Changes the background of the page into any color you like.
-Tools > Word Count - Allows you to see how many words, pages paragraphs, etc.. are on the open document.
-View > Toolbars - this tool lets you select or deselect a toolbar you want to have on the page or don't.

Our assignment for friday was to have four paragraphs written about four different podcasts, excluding the one we already wrote on so I chose these:

GameTrailers.com - Sony PS3 Spotlight.

This is a video podcast that reviews games, talks about PS3 news and anyother PS3 related information. I found this podcast on iTunes. I really like this podcast because the reviewers are pretty honest about games and don't make anything sound good unless it really is. The episode I watched reviewed the 'Sonic the Hedgehog' game for the PS3/Xbox360 consoles. The game got a bad rating because the controls really suck and the main story line is pretty corny.

Dane Cook's Tourgasm

This is a mix of a video and audio podcast about Dane Cook. This podcast has parts of Dane's act which are hilarious. It also has interviews and other videos of Dane on his tour. The episode I listened to talked about Dane getting to see someone getting hit by a car. Apparently he really wanted to see this...

Ask A Ninja

This is a funny podcast about a guy dressing up as a ninja and answers some questions that were sent by his watchers. I found this podcast on iTunes. Why I like thi spodcast is because it's an original idea and not copied from somewhere else. The Episode I watched talked about Santa Claus being a ninja. That's how he gets to deliver presents to millions of houses in one night. His Elves aren't really elves, but actually short ninja's who have stains of blood on them. These stains were obtained by killing kids who woke up at night to try and find Santa.

Podcast

A Podcast is a broadcasting of a multimedia file (eg: Video file, audio file) that is available for people to download on a routine. iTunes is normally used for playing Podcasts but there are other way too. A Podcast can be on any topic and is not very hard to make.

One of my favourite Podcasts is the PSP Podcast. Lloyd Hannesson is the host of the PSP Podcast. He owns a website called Portable Gaming Revolution. A new PSP Podcast is published one to thrice a week depending on how much time Llyod has on his schedule. The Podcast reviews PSP games, accesories, and talks about any new news on the PSP. Lloyd gets help from his wife, a few of his friends and members of his forum. They are currently on their 56th Podcast.

Last week, we had to make a webpage using powerpoint and an interactive powerpoint presentation on anything. We learned how to use some features our class may not have know about.
One of the new things I learned is the pack and go feature. It will allow any powerpoint presentation to open on most computers, even if they don't have a powerpoint viewer.
Another thing I learned about are the action buttons. You can use them in many unique ways to direct someone to a specific slide.
Also, you can save a presentation as a webpage. We had to find the logo of all the websites we used and stick them onto a slide. Then we hyperlink them to the website they're from. After that, we can save them as a webpage from File > Save as Webpage.
We should also back up any files that we used into a specific folder just incase we lose the presentation and need to start all over.