I’m certainly one of the book’s “victim”. I changed my mind from taking Medical School in 2005 and thought to rather have my own business.

I’ve heard other authors wrote that Rich Dad Poor Dad is a fiction story that Robert Kiyosaki made up, and said that Robert is actually a liar.

But is it? Did Robert really make up the story about his amazing Rich Dad, and so all of the book content is nothing but a big lie?

I tried to re read the book again after the last time I read it three years ago. For three years I mainly worked as an employee, tried to have a join business with a partner which failed just after two months, and listen to many entrepreneurs about their view about business.

The book still sounds as good as it did three years ago. Better yet, this time I understood better the message that Robert said. So once again, is the Rich Dad Poor Dad a big lie?

Pop Writing

Honestly, Robert is really a good author. He able to make a dull topic such as business and investing into an interesting pop topic for everyone.

Don’t believe it? How many of you actually ever bought a book about investing? If some of you did, how many actually read everything in the book and wanted to reread it again and again?

I believe not so many people did. Why? Because most of the investing book talks about technical terms that really help most people get to sleep reading these books.

Rich Dad Poor Dad book 3 “Guide To Investing” is totally the opposite of most other investing books. I read the book at least twice, and I’m reading it again now. Robert integrates the topic of investing with stories of his conversation with his Rich Dad, making you want to read all the pages in the book.

Sweet and Dangerous as Candies

But… There is always a but in everything right? Especially for things that sound really good, such as the Rich Dad Poor Dad books.

So what’s the catch?

The Rich Dad Poor Dad books are actually dangerous because it creates strong driving force for most people to start businesses, telling that starting business is actually easy, while the books don’t actually teach you anything about the hows.

I’ve seen some people who, with confidence, followed what Robert said and some times later lose their money. These people learn the hard way about business. Sad stories indeed..

So, what’s your point djitz???

Personally, I’m not really sure about the Rich Dad story. I think Robert made up the story in his mind. However, it’s certainly one of the best story I know because it teaches to all common people (me included) about how money actually works (and possibly works) these days.

So he really open the secrets that only few people only know (most are the riches) before. However, his advices in the books must be taken carefully so as not to cause more sad stories.

The problem with most of the review websites is they tend to give high scores on most of the products they tested. I know we should look on the positive side of everything. But when it comes to product review, the negative side is the most determining factor here. So every review that I read mentioned that both cellphones are good. Now, I should trust my instinct, and I hope it’s working…

One problem that I have, my co-worker did not allow me to open the phone package box to see which one looks better. “Ah… allright! I take the Nokia 2610!” I told him.

I chose the Nokia 2601 for two main reasons. First, it has larger screen size and resolution than the Nokia 1600, and everybody love a bigger screen. Second, it is the higher series, it must be better than Nokia 1600 somewhere else beside its screen. And at only around $10 more expensive, the price is still good.

After one month of use, here is my review about the phone:

Features

With this phone, basically you get what you paid for. No more, no less. It’s one of the cheapest Nokia you can get in the market and it performs its job very well as phone that you can use to make or receive call as well sending or receiving messages (SMS, MMS, and Email through GPRS). Although sometimes I wish it has a camera as well… ;p

It has 3 MB internal memory and no expansion memory slot, so don’t expect it to play your MP3 collections though it could play MP3 files.

Price

The market price is around $70-$85 in Indonesia and it’s one of the cheapest Nokia you can find today. I can say that it is a good price. If Nokia lower the price, they might lower the phone quality and features as well, and nobody wanna have a low quality cellphone.

Design

What I truly love from the phone is its cover design. The one I bought is the black version and it simply look elegant and expensive than its actual price. It doesn’t look like a cheap low-end cellphone at all.

Unfortunately, the screen cover has a very reflective surface that makes the screen very hard to read outdoor under the bright sun light. Setting the display contrast lower could help but it is still totally unreadable when the screen light is off during standby mode. It has no problem at all if you use it mostly indoor.

Ease of use

Compared to other phone maker I’ve tried so far, Nokia still top all of them until now and you can expect the same thing with this Nokia 2610. Everything is simple and it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes for me to figure how to do basic operation of the phone. The “Write Messages” layout is quite different from most of the Nokia phone I have seen but it still maintain the simplicity for a quick text messaging use.

Conclusion

It’s been a month since I bought this cellphone and I have no complain about the phone. It is not the kind of entertainment phone that is very common these days where you can take pictures or listen to music and watch videos with your phone. Nokia 2610 is a phone for you who need phone as phone only, make and receive call and messages (SMS, MMS, and Email). I call it a minimalist cellphone.
It might not suitable for you if you spend most of your time outdoor cause its reflective screen cover makes it a poor phone under bright sunlight.

But overall, it is still a good phone and I did not regret that I bought it.

I guess this is one of the reason why Unix machines are more stable and fast. They don’t need antivirus that consume much of the PC memory like the one we have in Windows.

I thought that I might migrate to Linux for this reason, but I can’t do that since I still need 90% of the Windows applications that I use now. So I can’t leave Windows just yet, but how can I remove the antivirus without making me in great danger?

So, that’s where the idea comes to find the lightest antivirus, or to be more accurate, what antivirus that consume less PC resources (CPU and Memory)?

I tried googling for that keyword “lightest antivirus” and found several forum discussions that have people’s opinions about their thought about it.

Most of the people said that the lightest antivirus around is Nod32. But I still look around and tested other antivirus as well.

- Nod32 — http://www.eset.com/products/windows.php
- Kaspersky 6 — http://www.kaspersky.com/kaspersky_anti-virus
- AVG Free Edition — http://free.grisoft.com/
- Avast! — http://www.avast.com
- Antivir PersonalEdition Classic — http://www.free-av.com/

AVG Free Edition

If I’m not wrong the AVG supposedly stop supporting their free antivirus at the end of May 2007. But somehow they changed their mind and continue making updates and even new version of AVG Free Edition.

For me, AVG Free Edition is the winner here. It’s light, it has offline update, and it’s FREE! This seems to good to be true (maybe it is..).

Some people mentioned that AVG got some problem detecting new viruses. Well, from my experience with virus outbreak in my workplace, there was a time where AVG didn’t able to heal a new local virus (a Brontok variant), BUT SO DOES THE OTHER PAID ANTIVIRUS. So I guess, the AVG is still better off since it’s free.

Better yet, they have incremental update so you don’t need to download the whole virus database over and over again like McAfee or Norton Antivirus Update.

The antivirus uses less than 8,000 KB memory in total (AVG run several process for the the on-access scan). During drive scanning it uses only around 20,000 KB. Simply put, it uses half of the memory that McAfee uses. Which is cool…

For me this is my choice of lightest antivirus, both for memory and for my pocket.

Nod32

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, many people in the internet forum mentioned that this Nod32 is the best antivirus around. Small memory and CPU usage, plus great heuristic unknown virus detection and advanced options, makes it a great AV… if only I can use it.

The biggest problem that Nod32 has is, the update is only available through direct connection to internet. No offline update like other antivirus provide is available.

Now, that’s no problem for countries where internet connection is abundant and cheap. But for me in Indonesia where it’s still a few years from now, it’s a big problem.

I didn’t able to test the Nod32 in my PC, so I cannot give much comment accept for the offline update that is not available.

Avast! Home Edition Free

Avast! also come with a free version, making it a competitor of AVG in giving free antivirus software.
I tried the avast! Home Edition Free antivirus and it has a very “futuristic” interface, so much so until I had problems finding which button to click to scan all my harddrives.

Like AVG, the memory usage is also very minimal both during active harddrive scan and on-access scan. Nice..

Unfortunately, I don’t find the avast! home edition is intuitively easy to use like the AVG. The interface that is too beautiful also signalize a more resource consumption than the AVG interface that is simple yet user friendly.

The update for avast! is available to be downloaded for offline update, but I can’t found small incremental update like AVG, so it still can’t beat AVG also here.

Kaspersky 6

The website mentioned that the Kaspersky version 6 is already compatible with Windows Vista. But when my friend installed it in his newly bought Vista notebook, it’s far from working. It even had problem during installation.

Someone from a forum mentioned that Kaspersky is running light on memory. Unfortunately when I tested in my PC, it’s simply not. It’s even a little more memory consumptive compared to McAfee Antivirus Enterprise installed. From the task manager memory usage, it took around 22,000 KB while standby, I wonder how many more will it take during scan process.

So, Kaspersky 6 is totally out from lightest antivirus around.

Conclusion

For me the best light antivirus is very clear here. It’s the AVG Free Edition.
And for several reasons: On-Access and Active Scan Memory and CPU Usage, Update, Good Virus Detection, and Price.

Please keep in mind that this review focus mainly on the resource usage of the antivirus during on-access and active scan. So heuristic virus detection, scan time, and support is not considered much.

Some people in the internet forum mentioned that avast! is an also good free antivirus. Well, maybe, but not for me because AVG certainly beat avast in several aspects.

If you have other comment and opinion, please let me know!