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The last time I pitted these two against each other, people seemed more annoyed with Rogers. In the earlier round, Bell seemed to be the more irritating of the two.

It’s clear that both big communications companies have lots of critics. It’s clear that both have problems managing their customer service.

Today, Rogers and Bell are waging a price war, forcing customers to think twice about which company to use for which part of their telecom needs. I believe you should use their feud to your own advantage.

Bargain for the best deals you can get. Find the retention or loyalty departments, who have the power to give you incentives to make you stay. Threaten to leave if you can’t get what you want. ..read more

The Internet is full of good advice about how to lead a healthy, balanced work/home life:

Leo Bauboa of Zen Habits built his Technorati 100 blog on one hour a day, leaving plenty of time for a day job and a family.

Tim Brownson reshuffles our priorities?so we realize what’s important to accomplish and what’s not important to worry about.

Merlin Mann of 43folders shows us how merely admitting what we don’t like about ourselves and our life leads to a vast menu of options for fixing it.

Penelope Trunk demonstrates that

Today, the federal government unveiled the new task force on financial literacy, promised in the January budget. I thought the choice of members said a lot.

The chair, Don Stewart, heads a life insurance company. The vice-chair is with BMO Nesbitt Burns, an investment dealer. Only two of the 11 others named to the task force can be called consumer advocates, Pat Foran of CTV and Laurie Campbell of Credit Canada.

Makes me wonder what will come out of this exercise. There’s a consensus that Canada needs to teach children about money management when they’re in school. That’s helpful, but not enough.

Financial literacy is being watered down and becoming a motherhood issue, one that all the big institutions can support. It’s about when to introduce courses in ..read more

I teach investing at the University of Toronto’s school of continuing education. My courses are short, four weeks (or eight hours), and to keep the discussion going, I started a club.

Our group is part of the Canadian Moneysavers network of share clubs. This means we don’t invest money together, but talk about how to do it.

We started last September and meet monthly at a Toronto community centre. This week, we invited Gaelen Morphet of CIBC Global Asset management to talk about how she picks stocks as a value investor.

Her presentation was terrific, both practical and insightful. She talked about how the stock market may not snap back as expected, since so many companies are putting out big equity issues and diluting their shares. TransCanada Corp. ..read more

Dear Joel,

I regret to inform you that I must decline your invitation to be a featured guest blogger for Joel On Software.

I realize this will come as a shock, especially given my well-documented need for attention.

The fact is, I don’t care how many thousands of readers you have, how many millions of dollars of software you sell, or how many minor celebrities worship you. ?At the end of the day, you appear in a little window in an RSS reader. You fill in a template consisting of a cute story tenuously connected to a dramatic point, inspiring wanna-bes to commiserate and laugh with indignation at the stupidity of others.?

While they’ve been laughing, I’ve wondering whether you practice what you preach. You admonish programmers who don’t ..read more