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How To Properly Manage Your Computer Files

Keeping your computer files organized is a nightmare in today’s wired world. Imagine spending hours and hours looking for a file on a messed folder is quite a chore. Maybe you should consider arranging your files appropriately so you can access it easily whenever and wherever you need it. You might want to check these tips to make an organized file from chaos. Here are some ways on how to properly manage your computer files.

Recycle Bin

Many of us computer users save unnecessary files, and we end up having loads of repetitive and nonsense documents. Cleaning up the storage is one way of organizing your computer files since there is no point in saving unwanted files. In doing so, you might discover how many times you add up to your computer’s storage in stowing three copies of the same file under one file name. To give you an idea, here are some great duplicate file finders that may help you to clean up those drives and make space for new needed files. Many individuals try using tools like Tidyup 5, Duplicate Sweeper, Anti-duplicate to locate the same file efficiently. Delete those copies that only consume some space.

Group Your Files

When we do a project or file, what we usually end up doing is saving it wherever the screen tells us to store. We often find piles of different files in one folder like those documents you typed, images you saved, videos, and kinds of music you downloaded that gives such pain in the eyes seeing compilations of different types of data. Consider making a folder for each category, make one for your documents, add another folder for all your downloaded videos, another one for your songs to be streamed, another one for your saved images. In doing so, you can easily navigate and access your files without confusion and hassle.

Use the Right Name

Laziness makes us impulsive in naming the file, and we often save things with names like letter1, asdf, letter2, docs2. It is our common mistake when we store something. Doing this causes such hassle when we need the documents, and we have to open each file to view what’s in it, cut off the laziness and start naming your file according to its description and purpose. For instance, you can use the exact words that describe the file, like bills, and proposals you can scout what you are looking for without having to open each improperly named file. Saves time and gets rid of the mess.

Use Storage Providers

One way to keep access to all your organized files is by using storage providers where you can back up your files and manage it from different devices anytime. Try using OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, and the like to sync and backup your files safely and securely. These services provide multiple data storage that can be very efficient for those who keep a stockpile. These services also have a strong search ability that will make your life easier by just typing file type, keywords, and more.

Arranging and cleaning up those computer messes may take some time to do so. However, you will thank yourself in the future for having such a clean pile of records and accessible data that will save time and make your computer look pleasingly organized.

Brimming with oil

Across much of the U.S. Facilities in the Midwest are about 70 percent full, while the East Coast is at about 85 percent capacity. This has some analysts beginning to wonder if the U.S. has enough room to store all its oil. Ed Morse, the global head of commodities research at Citigroup, raised that concern on Feb. 23 at an oil symposium hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “The fact of the matter is, we’re running out of storage capacity in the U.S.,” he said.

If oil supplies do overwhelm the ability to store them, the U.S. will likely cut back on imports and finally slow down the pace of its own production, since there won’t be anywhere to put excess supply. Prices could also fall, perhaps by a lot. Morse and his team of analysts at Citigroup have predicted that sometime this spring, as tanks reach their limits, oil prices will again nosedive, potentially all the way to $20 a barrel. With no place to store crude, producers and trading companies would likely have to sell their oil to refineries at discounted prices, which could finally persuade producers to stop pumping.

Oil investors appear to be coming around to the notion that a lack of storage capacity could lead to another price crash. In the futures market, hedge funds have spent the past few weeks cutting their bets that oil prices will rise. Instead, they’ve built up a record short position, increasing their wagers that prices will fall. During a March 11 interview on CNBC, Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn said he’s concerned the U.S. is running out of storage, particularly as refineries enter their seasonal maintenance period, to prepare for the summer driving season. Around this time they usually cut the amount of crude they buy. Cohn said prices could go as low as $30 a barrel.

The math on this can be a bit tricky. The U.S. Department of Energy measures oil storage capacity twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. As of September 2014, the U.S. had 521 million barrels of working capacity, up from 500 million in 2013. That includes the space inside tank farms and on-site at refineries. It doesn’t, however, include the amount of oil that can be stored in pipelines or storage tanks near oil wells; nor does it include the amount of capacity in tankers off the coast, in transit from Alaska, or on trains. Of the 449 million barrels of total crude stocks, about 327 million are stored in tank farms or on-site at refineries.

According to data from the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. is using about 63 percent of its storage capacity, up from 48 percent a year ago. “We have more space than some people tend to believe,” says Andy Lipow, an energy consultant in Houston. The most recent estimate of storage capacity also doesn’t include tanks built since September in North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas, he says.

Running out of room inside the nation’s storage tanks might be the only way to keep companies from pumping more oil. “These producers have kept chugging away when they should have been shutting down,” says Dominick Chirichella, co-president of the Energy Management Institute, a New York-based advisory group. “At some point, the fact that supply is outstripping demand has to have its moment of truth.”

Source: Bloomberg

Canada moves gold of Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden to unknown location

In just three months, on November 30, the Swiss will vote in a federal referendum on the future of the country’s gold reserves.

The referendum has arisen through a popular initiative called ‘Save our Swiss gold initiative’. In Switzerland, citizens can propose changes to the Swiss constitution through a mechanism called a popular initiative, even if parliament is against the proposal.

The ‘Save Our Swiss Gold’ initiative is set to highlight the important issue of sovereign gold reserves and who has possession and controls them. It may lead to an important debate about each country’s national patrimony and their gold reserves.

The ‘Save Our Swiss Gold’ initiative is proposing the following:
– rules to prevent the Swiss National Bank (SNB) selling any more of the country’s gold reserves
– to direct that the SNB must keep a minimum of 20% of its reserves in gold, and
– to require that all Swiss gold must be stored in Switzerland.

This would require repatriation of Swiss gold since some of the Swiss gold reserves are stored abroad.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) are against the proposal but were forced last year, in reaction to the popular campaign, to reveal the storage locations of the Swiss gold.

In April 2013, Thomas Jordan, SNB President, confirmed that 70% of Switzerland’s gold is in Switzerland, 20% is at the Bank of England, and 10% is stored with the Bank of Canada, and that this mix of holdings had been in place for more than a decade.

Since the Swiss hold a total of 1,040 tonnes of gold reserves, this would mean that there are 104 tonnes of Swiss gold at the Bank of Canada and 208 tonnes in the Bank of England. Jordan’s explanation of the foreign gold storage was that it provided “adequate regional diversification and good market access”.

Since the Bank of England specialises in the custody of gold on behalf of numerous foreign central banks, it’s not surprising then that the SNB stores gold at the Bank of England.

What is surprising is that the SNB still holds gold at the Bank of Canada, since the Bank of Canada is a legacy custodian of other countries’ gold and appears to have stopped storing other nations sovereign gold in recent years.

When the Bank of Canada was asked earlier this year as to how many foreign central banks it acts as gold custodian for, it confirmed that it currently acts as gold custodian for only four foreign central banks, but that due to confidentiality, it was unable to disclose the identity of the national account holders.

However, its known from other sources that both the Netherlands and Sweden also hold some of their gold reserves at the Bank of Canada.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds 1,536 metric tons of German gold, nearly half of Berlin’s reserves.
This enormous hoard of gold is stored in the fifth subfloor of the bank’s building on Liberty Street, 25 meters
80 feet) below street level, and 15 meters below sea level. Or is it? The Germans want to know and
want it back, as do the Swiss and other nations.

The Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, has stated previously that most of its gold reserves are held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Canada, with less than 10% stored in the bank’s own headquarters in Amsterdam.

The Swedish Riksbank has also stated recently that its gold is stored in a number of foreign locations, such as the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England but also the Bank of Canada.

The identity of the 4th foreign central that stores gold at the Bank of Canada is unclear, but it may be the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve, since both banks historically held gold accounts with the Bank of Canada.

Given that Canada sold nearly all of its own substantial gold holdings a number of years ago, it seems like an anomaly that the Bank of Canada in Ottawa is still holding gold on behalf of other countries. Most countries that had held gold in Ottawa repatriated it long ago.

Citizens of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden should be concerned that some of their nation’s gold is in custody with a bank that is no longer a specialist in gold custody and that did not even see fit to maintain its own gold reserves.

They should also be concerned about the secrecy and lack of transparency regarding their gold, especially given that the Bank of Canada’s remaining custody gold has recently been moved to an unknown destination.

The Bank of Canada’s headquarters on Wellington Street in Ottawa is currently undergoing an extensive multi-year renovation which required the Bank to vacate the building last year, and empty it’s entire contents, including the gold stored in the subterranean vault.

Whatever gold was still in the vault, that runs from Wellington Street on one side of the building out as far as Sparks Street on the other side, has now been relocated elsewhere.

Where the gold has been moved to is unknown since the Bank of Canada won’t comment.

The upcoming Swiss gold referendum will be very interesting and will highlight and focus minds on why the SNB vigorously defends the need to keep some of its gold reserves in Canada, especially given that the Ottawa gold is now on the move.

Owning allocated and segregated physical coins and bars is best in Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich, investors say.

Banks make millions out of breaking metals storage rules

LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Banks and trading houses have found a way to beat the ravages of economic downturn, storing millions of tonnes of metal with a business model that outsmarts new rules put in place following widespread concern about their practices.

As of April 1 this year, new London Metal Exchange regulations mandate that warehouses which hold over 900,000 tonnes of metal must release a minimum 3,000 tonnes a day, up from 1,500 previously.

On that date, however, investment bank Goldman Sachs and commodity trader Glencore plan to hike rents for storing aluminium at their respective warehouses in Detroit and Vlissingen, Netherlands by around 10 percent, according to an LME announcement in December.

Detroit, and more recently Vlissingen, have long incited anger from clients forced to pay daily rent for metal stuck in queues of around a year, while the warehouses drip feed their stock out at the lowest possible rate.

The new rules were expected to dent queues. But with warehouses able to hike rents in response, it is little wonder players like JP Morgan want to expand their storage hubs in Rotterdam and Chicago.

“From April you will see there will be a lot more (metal) coming out, this is now compulsory. The compensation for that is a very nice one, because the outcharges and the rents are so much higher,” said a warehouse source.

Both Goldman and Glencore declined to comment, or give the latest profit forecast for their warehousing units, though Glencore previously revealed its warehousing unit made a $31 million profit in 2010.

That was in a year when the company had only owned its lucrative LME-listed Vlissingen warehouses for three months, and some industry participants believe warehousing will be a money spinner this year again, despite new LME rules.

“It seems as though the warehousing companies are saying to the LME if you want metal out more quickly you are damaging our business model and we’ll have to take action to compensate for that,” said Natixis analyst Nic Brown.

Chris Evans, LME head of business development said: “When the discussions of the load out rate were underway last year we said that if we increase the rate there is likely to be an increase in costs and this is what we seeing now.”

LME data shows that as of Feb. 2, Detroit warehouses – 80 percent Goldman-owned – held 1.36 million tonnes of aluminium. At a new rent of 45 cents per tonne per day, the warehouses could generate $612,000 a day in rental revenue alone.

An exact figure cannot be calculated because many clients negotiate lower rental rates, but banks remain hungry for more business, with commodities heavywieght Barclays having recently bought a stake in UK-based warehouse Erus Metals.

“Don’t feel sorry for the warehouses, they’re making huge money and will make even more money now rents have gone up. Doubling the load out rate to 3,000 tonnes a day was woefully inadequate,” said an industry source.

CONSUMER LOSS

Such views regularly receive cheer from aluminium consumers, the big losers in warehousing, who find themselves being out-bid by bankers and trading houses when trying to buy metal from producers.

Because the business models of bank-owned warehouses are built on getting in as much metal as they can for as long as possible, they have to pay incentives to attract metal in.

This incentive in turn pushes up the premium a consumer must pay a producer in order for them not to deliver metal to a warehouse. The bizarre market dynamic has prompted some to question the LME’s purported role as a market of last resort.

“It’s a market of first resort and its brought the LME into disrepute,” said the industry source. “What’s the point of having a prompt date when you can’t get the metal out till 2013?”

Premiums for western duty-paid aluminium on the spot market in Rotterdam are at around $165-190 a tonne , almost triple the $40-60 premium for Grade A copper – a metal which unlike aluminium, is in chronic short supply and which should, all things being equal, be drawing in a much higher premium.

All things are not equal, however, not in the aluminium market. Global consumption might be less than production, but global demand from banks and trading houses more than makes up the difference.

“There’s a real supply chain threat to the business, metal is available (it’s) just not accessible,” said Nick Madden, chief procurement officer for Atlanta-based Novelis, the world’s biggest maker of rolled aluminium products.

“The warehouses continue to offer incentives, which we firmly believe props up the premium.”

But the last word from Britain’s Office of Fair Trading was that it will not investigate activities of large dealers in LME warehouses, while the LME for its part holds it cannot intervene in a free marketplace.

At a recent briefing, LME Chief Executive Martin Abbott said: “It’s not our job to change the market, it’s our job to reflect the market and fact that there are queues is an accurate reflection of too much cheap money chasing hard commodities.”