Looking at the headlines people are writing about Apple this week is a reminder of the Attention Deficit Disorder on Wall Street. People must make rapid fire decisions so the furthest they’ll usually look back (or zoom out) is a year over year comparison.

I wrote about my thoughts on Apple and Wall Street in this post over at iMore.com and I encourage you to read it and comment.

Sneak peak at the graphic I use to make my point:

A few years ago I completely ditched Microsoft Windows in favour of Apple’s MacOS. It started the day I bought my first Macbook, which at the time wasn’t even a Macbook Pro. It was just the more business-like Black Macbook 2006 model. I paid about $1500 for it, ran BootCamp until I didn’t need Windows anymore, and then eventually bought an iMac and another Macbook Pro. That last computer still serves as my main work computer.

The black Macbook was relegated to a corner of our living room, just off the Kitchen. It was useful for casual web surfing, Netflix, looking up recipes, using Gmail, and stuff like that. The kids used it a lot for Netflix. But it was dying. The battery swelled up, so the computer wouldn’t even sit flat anymore. The DVD drive would hiccup every minute or two, as if the thing was possessed. It was probably costing me more in electricity to run the damn thing than a new Chromebook would cost me to buy.

Finally, the Chromebook landed in Canada. I knew that as a backup machine it would be all I’d need. No, you can’t really install much software on it. But it comes with a great browser (Chrome), a bunch of free Google Drive space, and access to all that the web offers including Google services, of which I’m a big user (documents, spreadsheets, Gmail, Calendar and Contacts).

I had the choice between the Samsung at $269 or the cheaper Acer at $249.  I opted for the Samsung because it has an SSD, which is faster to boot and uses less power.  I do not care about hard drive space on this thing.  It’s primarily for surfing and cloud access.  I ordered mine online at Best Buy using their reservation system. Within a little while I had an email telling me my device was in stock and ready to pick up. I swung by the Downsview store near my house and arrived home to show my wife and kids the new computer.

Here’s what I like about it:

• Extremely light weight.  This thing is about as small as a Macbook Air.  I’m not worried my kids will drop it.
• The battery is insane.  It really does last for the 6.5 hours they say.
• It is cool when you put it on your lap.  I’m writing this while lying down with it propped up on my legs.  No heat.
• It boots up in 10 seconds, as advertised.  I never leave it on because I don’t need to.
• When you raise the lid, it powers on automatically
• The OS is idiot proof.  There is almost nothing to it.
• It connects to virtually any printer with Google Cloud Printing.  This actually works well from a report my friend made to me earlier today.  I haven’t used it yet because I never print.
• The trackpad works just like my Macbook (reversed scrolling), so there is no learning curve.

Things I could pick on:

• It has one of those stupid Canadian multilingual keyboards where the shift key and enter key are in a weird place.  Typing, for me, required some adjustment.  Most Canadian laptops have this issue.  Macbooks don’t.  I love Macbook keyboards.  This one is weird for me, coming from Mac land.
• The processor is pretty weak. I was watching an HD tutorial video hosted on Vimeo and surfing another site at the same time.  When I loaded the other page, the video playback stuttered.  So the Chromebook is really not powerful enough for multitasking.  So what.  At $269 I’m not expecting a miracle.
• The screen is not an in-plane-switching LCD.  You’ll want to look at it head on, not at an angle.  Again, I don’t mind considering this is a backup machine.
• It does not run Skype, but I have since started using Google Hangouts, and noticed that the video quality is as good as Skype.  The webcam on this computer is perfectly fine.

All told, I’m very happy with this thing.  I do not need another Macbook, with a $1000+ price tag as my secondary machine, and as the machine my kids use at home.  This Chromebook is perfect as that second machine.  I’m enjoying using it more than a tablet because it’s just as light, yet has a full keyboard.  If I needed to bring a real computer with me on a trip versus a tablet, but I didn’t need access to all my files, this would be what I’d travel with.

From an investing standpoint, I can only see Chrome OS getting better.  I can only see fewer and fewer reasons to own a Microsoft powered machine.  This trend is not good for Microsoft.  I do not own Microsoft stock and don’t plan to buy any.

If you’re looking for a secondary machine, or something for your kids to use, I think the Chromebook is where you start (and stop) looking.

I watched the live stream of the Facebook Home announcement yesterday. Pretty cool stuff. Reading through the comments people made about it reminds me of an important investing lesson. Good investors don’t look at their own particular use of a product to judge it. Often times it is the people to talk about investing, but don’t really invest,who talk smack about a product based on their own personal use. They’re unable to zoom out and see the forest through the trees.

Take Facebook Home. I don’t really use Facebook much. A lot of people don’t. But over a billion people DO use it on a monthly basis, and 680 million use it on mobiles. Who gives a crap whether I use it or not. Nobody. So making a call on Facebook’s business based on your own personal habits is just plain stupid. Avoid the mistake.

Kevin at CrackBerry asked me to write up a piece on my thoughts, as far as FB Home affects BlackBerry. So I wrote this piece. In short, I don’t see Facebook Home affecting smartphone sales much, so I don’t see it affecting BlackBerry one way or the other.

Here’s why: The coolest feature of FB Home is the “Chat Heads” feature. It’s really cool. Very well implemented. Looks beautiful. I’d love to see BBM or Twitter use the same capability on my Z10. And I know enough about the design of the QNX OS to say that it’s a no brainer for BlackBerry to implement something like that. I also know that if Facebook could implement it on Android, then Google could design similar features into the Android OS to accommodate a “Chat Head” like experience for any messaging app. I’m sure Apple can do the same.

Having apps float on top of other apps has been par for the course in PC-land forever. Chat Heads just implements it on mobile. Cool, but not a game changer.

Facebook was smart to do it. They will benefit from increased engagement among people who install Facebook Home, or buy a phone with it pre-installed. They may grow their audience faster too. That’s good business. But I doubt it will matter in the Smartphone wars.

As to whether it makes Facebook a more attractive stock? Stay tuned. I’ll write about it next week.

Back in November I completed the process of porting our home phone number from Rogers over to an independent VoIP provider called VoIP.ms. I highly recommend them and I have all of my business and home numbers with them now. If you read the post I wrote about leaving Rogers for good, then you might also remember how I was looking forward to banning telemarketer calls by using this system.

Well, I implemented the telemarketer ban in December and it’s been flawless ever since. Not a single telemarketer call.

Here’s what I did. VoIP.ms allows you to setup something called an IVR, or integrated voice response. This is just a fancy name for those phone systems that say: “Press 1 for sales, press 2 for support, blah blah”

In my case I set my home phone number to be automatically answered on the first ring. It’s answered by a recording that says, “Hi you’ve reached us at home. If you are a human press 1. If you are a telemarketer, don’t bother”.

Friends and family know the drill. They just press 1 and the system automatically forwards the call to our phone line, and our phone rings at home. People who are calling for legitimate business purposes, such as our bank, or the University where I did my MBA, who wants to update its records … they get through. They don’t consider themselves telemarketers. But everyone else? Everyone who actually IS a telemarketer? They don’t bother.

Dealing with telemarketers used to be fun, until it wasn’t anymore

I used to enjoy telemarketer calls. The Air Duct Cleaning Company called almost every single day. Sometimes 3 times a day. I’d always thank them for calling and explain how I never got to finish reading Peter, the other sales guy, my short story. I’d offer to keep reading from where I last left off. No matter what the objection, I’d start “reading” a made up story with a brilliantly insane storyline. I can still remember the accented interjections, “Sir … sir … no this isn’t about that. This is about air duct cleaning!”

They’d give up and hang up, but they’d always call back.

But soon enough I started getting too many calls from machines. The machine calls you. You answer. All to often their system would screw up and just hang up. Nobody to mess with. No fun.

It interrupted me enough that I just didn’t care for it anymore. Hence the blocking.

The no call list never seemed to help. So I took it into my own hands with simple technology. I am a huge fan of VoIP.ms now. Not only is it saving me plenty of cash (my home landline costs about $7/month including all minutes of use), but I have way better features at my disposal.

Between VoIP.ms, TekSavvy cable Internet service and Unblock-US to access US media streaming in Canada, I’m loving it.

Over the last several years I’ve become much more educated about what food I eat.  One of the biggest turning points for me was reading the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which my buddy Ryan gave to me as a gift a while ago.  I read it on vacation and couldn’t think about food the same way since.   I highly recommend you get the book and read it.  If you are a science geek like me, you’ll appreciate all the explanation and research that went into it.  But my wife isn’t a geek like me at all – she’s the normal one in the family.  She loved it too.

We’re well down the road to MASSIVELY changing our diets as a result of what we’ve been learning about the food industry.  Hint:  Most things you consider “food” are not even close.

Anyway, I’m investing in Whole Foods, the grocery store that started back in 1980 under the vision of John Mackey.  He’s still the co-CEO of the company!  Talk about consistent leadership.

I’m not buying stock just because I like the idea of eating healthy.  It’s’ actually an amazingly profitable and growing business too.  The EPS growth has outpaced revenue growth consistently and there is a TON of growth potential left.  They’ve got about 345 stores right now and they are targeting 1000 stores. They opened 10 stores last quarter alone, so it’s going to take a while for them to reach this goal.  But the growth trajectory is obvious.  People care more and more about what they put in their mouth (or feed their family).  Whole Foods is a great business serving this market of health-conscious consumers.

Judging from the fact that there is only one Whole Foods store in Toronto (and 2 more in the GTA), there is a LOT of opportunity for them to open more stores.

The stock price isn’t cheap by P/E.  It’s in the mid 30s.  But that doesn’t bother me.  It has always been expensive, and it has always shown strong growth.  The trend is still young.  They have a LOT of time to grow into their P/E.

I wrote about this in a bit more detail over at The Globe and Mail for the Strategy Lab project.  Go check it out.

A few months ago I wrote about enjoyment of US streaming media services. I had to pay $5 per month to get access to a special service that makes it all possible, but it’s been fantastic.  The service is called Unblock US, and it works perfectly.  I first heard about it from a friend who was using it for US access to the most popular Streaming Internet service for flix and TV shows.  There’s my not-so-subtle reference.

I drove home that night, from his house in Kitchener, and immediately signed up for the 7-day free trial.  I loved that these guys didn’t ask for a credit card or any other financial info.  They just let you test drive the service, knowing you’ll sign up to keep enjoying it.

Anyway, I thought I’d update you on my thoughts around streaming media and cord cutting.

• Hulu and US network website streaming work perfectly.  I have not signed up to Hulu+ yet but I’m seriously considering it since it will make some TV show watching easier for us.  My wife is a much bigger TV watcher than I am, but I still like to watch a few shows when I’m not sitting in front of this computer.
• Netflix is still the best choice for kids TV anywhere.  My kids love watching the same stuff over and over again.  Thankfully they know when to take breaks and get outside.  But Netflix is amazing, and even for adults while there aren’t a ton of new movies, the content library is so vast you can stay busy for a long time.  There are also some really fantastic TV series that you probably never watched before.  Great stuff that is a few years old … but awesome.
• If we download any content we can easily stream it to our TV using PLEX media server.  I have the PLEX app installed on two Apple TV boxes and also on an iPad and two Playbooks.  So it’s pretty solid.
• We do not watch sports.  We’d rather go out and PLAY sports.  Cord cutting isn’t a great option for sports TV enthusiasts.
• As for news – I learned by reading the Four Hour Work Week (back in 2007) that most news does not add value to your life.  It sucks your time away and tends to focus on negativity.  I don’t need it.  I get my news from websites, or from talking to people.

Overall, cutting the cord has been a fantastic plus for my family.  Less TV time for the kids because it isn’t constantly broadcast.  Less TV time for me because I just can’t be bothered most of the time.  My wife still watches everything she really cares about, given that her list of shows is larger than mine.

I recommend trying out Unblock US if you want to access HULU and other services.  It’s working flawlessly for us.  Try them out.  See what you think.   Maybe you’ll cut the cord too.

Most of the time the existence of the web is awesome. It puts people on a level playing field. It’s easy for any Joe Public to write something and get an audience.

But when the uneducated write about financial topics and express their ignorance to everyone else, it isn’t helpful. Case in point, an author at Seeking Alpha wrote an article just recently talking about how BlackBerry’s Z10 will have higher gross margin than Apple’s iPhones.

The analysis was totally out to lunch because it assumed that BOM cost = product cost (sorry, not even close). It also assumed that retail off-contract price = BlackBerry’s ASP (again, sorry this is way wrong).

I wrote a rant at CrackBerry. For those of you interested in what else goes into gross margin analysis you may be interested to read the post here.

I know I give the financial industry a hard time because of its intense short term focus. But in the case of sell side analysts knowing how to model financials versus the amateur writers who publish to anonymous-friendly sites like SA … sorry. The analysts will win every time. They actually understand financial statements.

Yesterday I listened in on Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, speaking at the Goldman Conference in San Francisco. I thought he did a great job, and I thought the questions asked by Goldman hit on the most important areas. Well done by everyone.

I wrote up a summary of the most important points at iMore.com and you can read the post by clicking here.

This week I was at the big BlackBerry 10 launch in Toronto with a few of the CrackBerry team members. No question – there wasn’t much in the way of news since most of it had already leaked or been released by BlackBerry in the way of demos.

The biggest “news” people talked about in the media (and in social media) was the “delayed” launch of the BlackBerry Z10 in the US market. It’s coming in March.

This has already caused a lot of the bad-math types to say it’s not going to be here for two months. Because apparently if you take today and add two months, that’s March (no sorry, that’s called APRIL).

It’s also caused something I find even more hilarious. People bashing the idea of a BlackBerry commercial because nobody will be able to run out and buy the phone yet.

I tweeted about this already, but it’s worth a quick blog post while I wait for my coffee to brew …

If a major Hollywood studio released a new movie trailer at the Super Bowl, would people immediately hit up Twitter and start bitching about how dumb it was to advertise a movie that you couldn’t go see yet?

Of course not.

Oh, and for the guy who replied telling me that he disagreed with my analogy because a movie is not the same a consumer? You’re mapping the analogy across incorrectly. The comparison is between a movie and an ITEM YOU BUY. And the psychological principal of anticipation is the same. The customer, in both cases, is you.

Yesterday Sierra Wireless announced that it was selling its AirCard business to NETGEAR. Sierra keeps its embedded module business, as well as intelligent routers and gateways, plus its machine to machine (M2M) business.

I’m a shareholder of Sierra Wireless, and it is also a holding in my Strategy Lab growth portfolio. In fact, the reason I invested in Sierra is purely because of the M2M business. I explained this in a Globe article which you can find by clicking here.

Here’s an excerpt:

Last year, there were roughly 110 million cellular-connected M2M connections in the world. ABI Research, a New York-based follower of technology trends, thinks we’ll see more than 365 million by 2016. That’s small relative to the mobile phone market, but the growth rate is still a very healthy 27 per cent.

Sierra Wireless happens to be the No. 1 vendor for embedded wireless modules used in the M2M market. In 2011, its market share (by revenue) was over 34 per cent, according to ABI.

When I was a sell side analyst I covered this stock for over a decade. I met the current CEO (Jason Cohenour) when he headed up the company’s sales organization. He’s proven himself to be a great CEO with incredible talent for integrating acquisitions. I remember having a frank discussion with him, a few years ago, in San Diego, at the CTIA Wireless trade show. I expressed my doubts that they’d have a sustainable future in USB modems. He seemed to agree with my concerns, but encourage me to realize that the lights weren’t going out on this business tomorrow. The Chinese competitors were strong, but Sierra had excellent products and customer relationships.

He was right. The business continued doing very well. Yet they still had a very limited number of customers buying USB AirCards. And that’s why I’m so pleased to see them selling the business – and to a wonderful buyer. NETGEAR is known for making high quality consumer computing-related gear. I think the AirCard business has found the perfect home.

Sierra Wireless walks away with about $100 million in cash, after paying for expenses and tax on the deal. Is that a good number?

Yesterday (until the stock was halted), the market cap of SWIR was $274 million. The business holds $60 million in cash and has no debt. Enterprise value is therefore $214 million.

The business they just sold to NETGEAR represents $247 million in sales last year, while the assets they keep generated $397 million.

So they’ve sold 38% of total revenue and brought in 47% of their enterprise value. Considering I see the divested asset as the (previously) biggest risk to earnings in the next couple of years (potential of being crushed by Huawei and ZTE, for example), I think this is a brilliant deal.

The Sierra Wireless “heart” is now all about M2M. In fact I’d argue it has been for years. They’ve just made it official.

Well done guys.