Apparently, Microsoft does not want us to update through Internet Explorer any longer. I usually update computers at work with Windows Update through IE. I’m not sure when they decided on this or even if there was news about this but here is the screen shot of the message I received. If you look at the address bar there is a “thanks” – huh, thanks for not updating our software MS.
Note: This is done from Windows XP station with IE 6. Have not tested on Vista yet.
Update this!
This moring as I was driving into the parking lot around 8am, I had a strange feeling something was wrong when one of the three entrance was blocked by a security guard. Then, as I parked my car a co-worker, Linda Owens, wave me to come to her. She pointed out the window washers scaffold at the adjacent building with two men on it hanging slanted. One of the men was hanging to dear life by his safety harness. The other man was also holding on also but he was still standing on one corner of the scaffold. Linda had been watching them hang there since 7:30am. Soon, more firefighters came and one of the fire trucks had a huge ladder that went all the way up to the men. The firefighters on the roof top drop a second rope down to the window washers and had them connect it to their safety harness. Slowly they pulled each one up. This is one of those moments that makes you appreciate your own life.
The picture is from my camera phone (Blackberry Curve 8330). If you look close enough you can see two men, one hanging and one on the scaffold. I had a hunch this morning to bring my Nikon D100 but rushed out the door and forgot to grab it. Now, I’m going to bring my DSLR with me everywhere I go.
Update: Link to local news and here’s a pic from Steve Kent’s Nikon D300. Click on the image for full size.
MS Office 2007
Here’s a great deal for anyone with a student email address or knows someone with one. You can get MS Office Ultimate 2007 for a low $60. This is no stip down version either. What’s included is MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, Groove, Publisher, Access, Infopath, and Accounting Express (2008). Grab yours quickly before this deal expire.
On Friday I had this “business” trip to Las Vegas. My company wanted to fly me in for a bit of training and also participate in their annual BBQ. So I booked my ticket on Southwest airlines for a one day trip. I’m not a big fan of Las Vegas. So I flew out Friday morning around 8am and Chris North picked me up from the airport. Nice of him to offer to pick me up. I was just going to get a cab and expense it latter.
There was an early training session on a new help desk ticket system. After that we had our BBQ outside in the parking lot. The ops center was a standalone building and we own the building and the lot. All the hot dogs and hamburgers you could eat. Lots of people came out and enjoy the food and weather. It was surprising good weather. The BBQ came and went and it was only 2pm. There was nothing left for me to do but go back. Unfortunately, I booked my flight at 7pm thinking that they wanted me there all day. My boss said there’s nothing else and if I wanted to get back early I can go ahead, so I did. Chris drove me back to the airport around 3:15. I asked the lady at the ticket booth if I could catch the 4pm fight. She said she cannot book me on that flight since it was already 3:30, but she did reserve me a spot on the flight after that at 4:50. I thanked her and she said if I try I can still make it to the 4pm flight. I sped through security and made it to the gate 3. The attendant there put me on a waiting list but said there was no guarantee I will make on this flight. At 3:55pm, he pulled me back to his stand and printed me a new boarding pass. I couldn’t believe that in less than 45 minutes I was on a plane back to San Diego. Best of all they didn’t charge a dime. Thank you Southwest Airlines.
Update: According to CNN national poll 58% felt that Barack Obama perfomed better and 31% believed John McCain performed better.
Click on the poll below to vote!
There are plenty of calendars out there to chose from. Any major site from Google, MSN, AOL, etc., will provide you with a basic online calendar. Yahoo came out with a new beta Calendar. Not clear why they waited so long to revamp their calendar, better late than never.
I’ve been using the old Yahoo calendar for about a year now and it was pretty basic. You had your different views for day, week, month. The calendar had a little picture at the top corner, probably from Flickr. Very basic stuff, nothing fancy.
The new calendar looks much better. Tabs for the different views, flickr images randomly placed in your calendar. A feature I like is the multiple calendars. I created a calendar for my girlfriend and made it pink, mine is blue. Her events are highlighted in pink and mine are in blue. It makes it easy to read. The thing I like most about the new calendar is the “To Do” list on the right. It is easy to read and easy to add more to the list. So far everything is working great, no glitches. This might be my favorite online Calendar (for now).
This is too funny not to post. Title says it all. I watched it three times and laughed out loud each time.
I can tell you what not to do in a bear market – that is sell. Why should I not sell everything and stop the bleeding? Well, first of all the saying goes “Buy low, sell high”. If you sell in a bear market you are doing the exact opposite, unless you got in long time ago at lower prices. However, I doubt most people are in that situation.
For me now is a time to average down. Averaging down is when I have shares at say $20 and now the stock is down to $10. If I buy the exact same amount of shares then my cost for all my shares of the same company is now $15 ($20+$10 = $30 /2 = $15). This way if the market recovers, which they always do, my stock has to climb back to $15 to break even and $15+ to profit, not $20 as before.
However, I would not recommend this if you don’t have the stomach for it. The stock can go down even further like say bankrupt (WAMU, Lehman). Both WAMU and Lehman Brothers were in the $40+ at the beginning of the year. In those cases you would lose all the money you invested in the company. I only average down if I believe the stock has been pushed down too far and that the stock will recover once the market picks up.
Not many people practice this because how do you put more money into something that is losing money almost everyday. My thoughts are if you believe in the company then you are buying the stock on a discount. When the fears are over the stock should rebound. Timing is almost impossible so it’s best to just buy and wait. Sometimes it could be a year, sometimes more.
If you are new to WordPress, like I am, you might wonder how do I find random WordPress blogs? I like to browse randomly because it gives me a chance to find a blog I might not otherwise find with tags. It’s very simple but I just wanted to point it out in case you didn’t know.
Prosper.com
With the credit market frozen like a huge ice block what are consumers to do if they need a loan. Banks stop lending to anyone including other banks. Credit terms are changing without consumer agreeing to the new terms. I’ve even heard on the radio today that because of the credit market some consumers have seen their rates hike for no reason – even if they have been making timely payments.
If you’re in need of a short term, 3 year, fully amortized loan you might be in luck. Prosper.com allows anyone to post a loan request and let regular people like myself bid on them. The borrower would have to provide personal information like income, ssn, and a full credit report. Lenders, not banks, will able to view a summary of all information and place bids on the loan. A lender can bid on any loan that is still open, even if it’s fully funded, at any rate they want. The more people bid the lower the rates get. The minimum bid on a loan is $50 and up to the full amount of the loan. The average loan rate at Prosper.com is around 8.68%. Not bad if you can’t get a loan anywhere else.
Once the loan is fully funded there is a loan agreement between the borrower and all of the lenders with terms and agreement. Nobody signs the agreement but it is there if it is needed. I have had a few bad loans that did default but the majority is in good standing. The defaulted loan goes to a collection agency. So far, none of the defaulted loan have been recoverd. I’m still working out a method for picking good borrowers.
