[UPDATE] Oh my God!!! It actually worked. I was so suspicious of this offer. The BA Software website was pretty dodgy. It didn't display correctly in Firefox and the grammar was very bad. The email didn't arrive after the promised 48 hours with my download links and activation key so I assumed it was a con. Then this morning I found an email only 24 hours late with the links and my activation key. I downloaded the software to a safe place then ran two different virus scans over it to make sure that it was OK before installing it. It all went to plan, but then I had to enter my activation key. This is where I thought it would fail, but even that worked. The last stage was to activate the key online via the Adobe Photoshop website. I wondered if they were sending everyone the same key, but no, even that worked! I now have a fully functioning legal and activated copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3 Version 10 (the latest version) for absolutely nothing. That's  over $800 of value for nix!

The people over at BA Software are offering free software downloads to promote their website. In return for allowing me to download my own fully licensed copy of Photoshop I have to write a story on Tasweb promoting this offer (it's a great offer - done!) linking back to them (here is the link guys), I have to subscribe to email updates from their website (done!) and I have to "Stumble" the article on their website advertising this promotion (also done!). Now I just have to wait for an email with my download link and license key. If you have your own website or blog then you should jump on board and give this a go as Photoshop (and the other software they are giving away) is all worth real money (over US$600) so this really is "something for nothing".

Well here we go. It's been a very up and down year. At one point I was actually up 39% on my initial investment. I finished the financial year up 16% on where I was twelve months ago. I have to be pretty happy with that given that it's twice as much as what I would have received if I had left the same amount of money sitting in the bank. I have to be even happier given that in the same time the Australian Stock market has declined by almost 17% and has seen it's worse single year decline since 1982! To make a 16% return out of a market that made an overall loss of 17% is OK I think. The worse part is that I have lost "heaps" over the past month. Six out the past eight weeks have seen losses for me totaling almost $3000. To date I haven't mentioned figures, but I don't see any reason why I should continue to keep them secret. None of the figures I will quote are exact, but they are near enough! I started with $25000 and so far I have turned that into $31000. If I had left it in the bank it would be worth about $27000, so that's an extra $4000 in my pocket (so to speak). I'm not taking any of the money out, I'm re investing it back into the market so at the moment I have about $30000 in shares and about $1000 in cash. I also hold quite a few Telstra shares that I received years ago, but I'm not including them as they are a long term investment as opposed to the short term trading I'm talking about here. Below is my updated graph showing my portfolio's performance since I started in April 2007. It also shows the equivalent cash rate and the Australian All Ordinaries. I have also added a little graph to the top left hand side of the front page. This graph will update automagically every Friday evening with the current value of my portfolio (cash and shares), so come back every now and then to check on my progress.

The walk into town from the Regatta Grounds this morning was awesome. One of the best. I don't really know what made it so good. Maybe it was the fact that it was only 3 degrees, the mountain was covered in snow, I had a really enjoyable game of tennis last night (I lost two of my three matches, but really enjoyed all three games), Dave Noonan was doing a really funny crazy call on SeaFM, there was no wind and not a cloud  in the sky. The sun was out and it was just beautiful. You just can't beat Hobart in winter (on a good day!).

I know I promised a share update, but I haven't done my books yet so it will have to wait until the weekend. Unfortunately the news has not been all good. The market has gone a bit mental of late, but more of that later.