Imagine, you are private investor and have been downloading share prices from www.marketeye.com and then preparing your own charts. That site has now closed and the only other organization which would supply this information would charge me $10,000 for the privilege whereas marketeye was free!

So runs the most popular query of all. A slew of traders prefer to download stock prices into the spreadsheet program Excel so they can draw their own price charts. Without them they don't have buy and sell signals, and without those, they can't trade.

But why don't they just let specialist software do the work for them? I prefer using software such as Metastock (Equis.com and Paritech.co.uk), the costlier Tradestation, and OmniTrader 2000. All work with both U.S. and U.K. data. Each generates trading signals based on tested criteria and scans stocks according to your own requirements. Whether you choose end of day data or the more expensive intraday real-time data for the above software depends on whether you are a short-term trader. There is no shortcut to visiting websites and trying the software demo disks. Other popular well-regarded software includes Synergy, FairShares, Indexia, and Sharescope.

Whether you only want share price data or need company data too depends on how you pick stocks; whether you examine just price charts or company valuations too. I prefer having both price and company data for the fullest stock picture.

An alternative to software for plotting prices are websites. Consider Advfn which provide charts and plots company data in visual form for easier and quicker analysis.

For U.S. charts visit my favorites, the free, Quote.com, and BigCharts.

Despite the choices for plotting price charts, if you still prefer data you can plot in a spreadsheet program, visit London Stock Exchange, and Paritech.

For U.S. data visit Reuters Data Link. The novice will prefer starting with charting websites, which tend to be cheaper than software, then trying software demos and only finally investing in software.

Another question is: “Is it possible to get data, for example a table/spreadsheet on all companies including their essential fundamentals such as EPS, p/e ratio and profit?” This is a popular query as traders become increasingly weary about the time spent scouring for good stock picks. Imagine a marketbeating annual 10% return with five hours research a week on a $50,000 portfolio. For a higher rate taxpayer, the return is a mere $11 per hour. Of course the return beats the minimum wage. Our trader wants such data to both increase returns and reduce time spent producing those returns. For U.K. fundamental data try ShareScope software and Hemscott . Both are excellent sources of company data and save hours scouring for stocks. The U.S. web-based equivalents are the exceptional Yahoo and Multex.

More experienced traders often ask about trading psychology:

At the beginning of this year I had a string of losses which knocked my confidence. Checking these trades I found I had allowed extraneous emotions to enter the equation resulting in overreacting, for example, to intraday data and getting out of the trade too early and often at a loss. Do you know of any reference material to help one deal more comfortably with trading stress.

Indeed trading psychology is so important that Bill Lipschutz, in The Mind of a Trader, explained it was “the most important factor in trading success.” Other sites about preventing your emotions from sabotaging your trading include Trading On Target, TradeShare.com , and Dr Relax.

Finally, there is a whole category of questions which begin: “I bought [insert name of formerly popular technology stock] at [insert overinflated price] and now it trades at only [insert 0.1% of previous figure]. Is there any hope?”

Despite the dot-com collapse, innovation on investment websites has accelerated. New products to make all aspects of trading and investing simpler, more efficient, and hopefully more profitable are being launched at a faster pace than even in 1999. The problem is, without the huge marketing budgets of 1999-2000 behind the launches, you could easily have missed some of the latest online tools to make investing a whole lot easier. The value of any tool should be measured by one criterion: does it solve a long-standing private investor problem. These next generation tools all do, moving well beyond providing just stock prices, news, simple charting, and company data.

A headhunter I went to last year told me that about 10 per cent of jobs are found from the newspaper, 20 per cent from the Internet and headhunters and the rest through people you know.

Well, there is a lot of garbage and recycling among that 20 per cent. Sometimes I'll look on Workopolis.com and Working.com and see that the same places are always looking for people. Perhaps they have a high turn-over - that's major recycling.

On garbage days I can always count on Craig's List. I'm not the only one who thinks this way because one man posted on Craig's List: "Is it just me, or have the postings on Craig's List become PATHETIC! "Girls with big booty's wanted" "Guys and girls who are ticklish" ‘large woman' No one offers PAY???!! NO ONE?! What kind of postings are these!?"

This guy is right. I usually check the job postings under education, "tv/film/video," "writing" and "talent." A lot of jobs do not pay.

Nina Dhawan, 23, and a student at York University saw a posting on Craig's List for a tour guide under education. It promised to have good pay and flexible hours and that is what she desires. She responded.

When Triplearn.com asked her to describe herself she did. Her response was posted to the Internet under her name instantly. She was the first tour guide from Canada who also lives in Toronto. There are others from the US and the UK. She didn't even know they would post her reply to the job advertisement.

When I contacted Triplearn.com they said they were a "platform between tourists and local tour guide/activities instructors." Application is online, they don't require membership fees and each tour guide manages their own services and rates.

I hope Dhawan does make money but marketing is the key. If no one knows about the site to find tour guides she will not make money. It will become another "McJob." I have a student working as a manager at McDonald's. At least he knows where his paychecks are coming from. Not only can he give service with a smile but smile on paydays. For Dhawan it may become e-volunteering.

Sometimes the old-fashioned approach to job hunting on the Internet can be the best way. The field of education and journalism where I work I have a chance to meet and speak to great people. Often I have to wait a long time to get work. Things take time to publish. Things take time to go on-air. People are busy and take time responding. It's not easy come, easy go. Compared to a site like Elance.com where freelancers have to pay to get jobs - I'd rather keeping working at the right job or gig to come along. Plus do a lot of wishing, hoping, praying and saving in between.

The new technology can bring fast results in job searching. Some employers have the right idea with it. They take their time and carefully review the applications to make sure they are hiring someone who will work hard or do the job well. Or, the applicant is referred by someone the employer trusts.

That guy complaining about Craig's List jobs was right about a lot of Internet jobs. Hopefully for Dhawan it won't be easy come and easy go with Triplearn.com. It all comes down to networking. Get out there in this big city and meet people - sometimes online is good for that too.

1. We have to admit that people will continue uploading copyrighted content and there's no way to stop them. It's just impossible to sort through all of the videos and even if the guys at youtube somehow did it, there are plenty of other sites that will host them.
2. Now we have to admit that youtube profiting from other peoples' videos is wrong. Viacom, Fox, or any other company (even a homemade project) deserves to be paid for their work. It's stealing money from the people who made the videos. Let's face it, you're not going to pay for an arctic monkeys music video from itunes when you can see it for free on youtube (I'm just as guilty as you are).
3. Maybe people don't want exposure. You know, it may sound crazy, but it's still their right. Suppose someone wanted a small business and not some crazy internet phenomenon. Whether it can bring them more profit or not, it's not our choice to decide.

Now that that's out of the way, my proposed solution:

Force Youtube to pay companies like Viacom based on how many hits their content gets. I realize this raises more questions like "How much should youtube pay per hit? Should companies like Viacom then be able to tell youtube how to advertise on its videos pages? And how does this solve the problem of people who just don't want more exposure?"

Well, i thought about this for a while. Then i saw the "channels" page on Youtube which got me thinking "what if they had (for example) an NBC channel? Then NBC could control the ads on their own channel." Other videos would remain the same but company channels would have different control of ads. The regular text ads could stay up and still benefit youtube, but during the video there would be NBC ads benefiting NBC. A win-win i think.

I still haven't thought of anything to help people who don't want exposure. I guess you could still report your videos to youtube that you don't want up there, but that's about all i can think of. Hopefully that won't be much of a problem.

Note: While i was writing this article, I hadn't heard of the Youtube Partner Program. After looking into it, it sounds like a great idea. What they really need to do is expand on that idea and incorporate big time companies like Viacom (with their own channels like i talked about earlier). I think that would be the best solution and I'm glad Youtube at least took a step towards ending the conflict. We may see a world where all the world's videos are on one site and no one is angry about it. Someday.

Who?

Who, within our organization or community can help deal with the problem? Don't neglect anyone at any level of the organization or in any part of the community. Who should take the lead in addressing the problem or challenge? Who should be the main "helpers" for the lead person? Who can we bring in from outside the community?

What?

What is the problem exactly? You must be able to state the problem in very specific terms or you will not find a good solution. Be sure the problem you propose to solve is really a problem and is not merely a symptom of the real problem. Do this by asking "why" when presented with a statement of the problem. Ask why this "problem" is a problem. You will probably find a deeper problem? Ask if this is really the root of the problem.

These are some other "What?" questions to ask yourself:

1. What would happen if we ignored the problem?
2. What resources (e.g., talents, natural resources, expertise, or money) do we have?
3. What resources do we need to acquire?

Where?

Where can we go for assistance in addressing our problem or challenge? Keep in mind that there are many consultants, professional associations, books, and online resources that may be useful.

Asking "Where?" questions can also help us to focus our efforts more effectively? We should ask where our resources could best be used to solve a problem or meet a challenge?

When?

There are two related questions we can ask about a problem or challenge. When should we turn our attention to this problem? In other words, what priority should this problem have? Another question you should ask about any problem regards the effects of ignoring the problem? If ignoring a problem seems imprudent then the problem should have a high priority.

The next question is about the time frame for solving the problem. In other words, ask yourself when you should take action. If the deadline for a grant application that you would need to solve the problem is approaching, then the problem needs to be acted upon soon! Is there some other impending event or deadline that is relevant to solving the problem.

Why?

Not all problems are equally important! Ask yourself why it is even worthwhile to invest time and energy in this particular problem. Is it really a problem? Might it go away on its own? Can you tolerate the continued existence of the problem while still functioning normally? The resources spent on a minor problem might be better spent on something that will truly improve the community.

"Why?" can also be asked to get at the root of a problem. When first presented with a problem we often ask why the thing is happening. "Why are our sales dropping?" "Why are there so many defective products produced on this shift?" The idea is to go farther and, on finding a first answer, to ask more questions. Then ask "Why?" one or two more times, enough to get to the real source of the problem.

How?

How much time and effort does solving this problem really deserve? How will we benefit from solving this problem? How can we select a solution or option or strategy? You should pick the criteria for evaluating your options before generating the options. This short-circuits our tendency to choose intuitively then rationalize our choice.

Personal Applications:

The specific questions in this article are aimed at organizations or groups with problems to solve or opportunities to pursue. The questions could also work in one's personal life, whether the issue involves relationships, career planning, investing, or planning a part-time business venture.