Never Buy a Cat
There is no need to buy a cat - ever.If you want a cat, get one from the SPCA. In Singapore you can also go to the Cat Welfare Society or better still, visit Phyllis' place: Paw Pledge. She is housing over 300 cats rescued from around the island. A number of the cats she houses are listed here.
If you like cats but don't feel you can give a home to one right now, then do this:
1. Visit Paw Pledge and spend an hour playing with the cats who love the affection
2. Give Phyllis a donation towards upkeep
Phyllis' Cattery
Paw Pledge
210D Ponggol 17th Avenue
9734 8329
View Larger Map
Digital Photo Frames Snob Warning
I recently picked up a digital photo frame on an impulse. A guy in my office has one that looks pretty good so I grabbed one at the checkout counter of the computer place where I was buying a new external hard drive.I like the concept but the one I got really sucks. It constantly displays a clock in one corner (there is no way to turn this off), the picture quality is low, the shortest view setting is 5 seconds per picture... and the setup manual is wrong. I had to figure out how to program the thing myself because the manual must be for an old configuration. CRAPOLA.
Off I went to find a better frame. Looking at the Amazon reviews made me none the wiser so I thought I'd try All Experts again. Unfortunately the expert I asked declined to answer on account of the fact she was not familiar with these frames. She also suggested that this technology was an insult to her work as a professional. Pullease. I mean we're all looking at this stuff on a screen - right? Get off it lady. If I can find technology that makes my pictures more accessible, say at the office, then why the hell not?
I haven't found the definitive answer to my question which is: what is the best digital frame for high resolution images?
But there are a few places worth checking out: Gizmodo, PictureSnob (guess what inspired that search?!) and some good basic advice is given by Consumer Reports.
So far my searches have lead me to this Philips 6.5" model and its 8" cousin. They supposedly have the best picture quality. Unfortunately, the software is reported to be completely idiotic and in order to get it working it will take hours of tinkering.
Labels: digital, frame, gadgets, photography
Blogger Captcha
Is it me, or has the Blogger captcha for blog posts gone wonky? I have to retry the captcha 2-3 times before it accepts my entry these days. And I know I'm putting the right letters in. I've had friends verify this.It's borked.
I wonder if Blogger will notice when the number of people asking to have the captcha removed starts to increase.
Network Safety and Monitoring
The quest continues. How do you make your machine safe on an open network?Well I actually got an answer from Commander Chris Wagoner over at All Experts:
All you really need to have is a good firewall, a good virus software, and one or two malware programs. I use AVG Anti-virus Pro, Spy Bot Search and Destroy (free), AdAware 2007 (free), and Tiny Personal Firewall. And I run them religiously every week...I run the same freeware apps so I seem to be on the right track. Plus I run PeerGuardian2 which is for people who are paranoid but still want to use Bittorrent.
He also put me on to software than can watch the activity on my network. There are a few recommended apps out there, top ones seem to be Wireshark and NetworkProbe. Wireshark is probably better but it's very geeky requires more exertise than NetworkProbe which has a nice graphical user interface. Watching Wireshark is a bit like watching The Matrix data stream by.
For more network montiroing apps - check out this link.
Hiding Your Computer from Ping
As part of my quest to figure out how to run an open home network safely, I've come across this useful tidbit worth passing on:The Sygate Firewall (amongst others) has a vulnerability.
My IT put me on to this (this is a funny guy who is Chinese but speaks with a Russian accent because he comes from some far off province on the Russian border).
Your computer should be invisible to "pings" (messages from cyberspace which essentially say "knock, knock - are you there?"). Everyone should ensure that their firewall stops responses to these signals. In this way, your computer will remain invisible to sniffers.
For Sygate, this vulnerability is easily corrected as follows:
Click Tools, Advanced Rules and click the Add button. At Rule Description you enter ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol). The Action has to be Block this traffic. At the tab Ports and Protocols you select ICMP from the combo box, and then the Select All button. Furthermore change the Traffic Direction in Incoming and click OK. - source
Bond Stuff: New Issue Shorts
File this post under "sharing expertise few people want."As I'm in a position where I have to train a new recruit to understand the business I'm in, I figured why not post about the most basic topics as there may be others out there who want to now...
When a company (aka "Issuer") issues a new bond, typically the bank arranging the deal will sell more bonds than the company issues. For instance if the company issues $500m in bonds, the lead manager may distribute (sell) $525m in bonds thus creating a short position for themselves.
Why?
Because invariably, some of the buyers of the new bond are "flippers." This means they buy the bond and then sell immediately for a small profit. New deals are usually priced just a bit above the secondary market price (this is called the new issue premium). Whereas most investors take a longer term view, some guys just buy and flip. Banks try not to sell to these guys in the first place, but if you have a massive order book and sales people saying "please give this guy some he's a great client" it's hard to not sell to a few flippers.
The bond arranger is typically responsible for ensuring bond price stability of the new bond (for a few weeks at least) and also to make a market in those bonds.
So knowing some guys will be selling soon after the launch, the bank creates a short position for themselves and over the next few weeks buy back bonds to return to a flat position. If they didn't do this, when bonds were being sold, they'd either have to take a long position or fail to make a market. Of course it's possibly that there will be so much secondary market demand you don't have to worry about this, but a guy making a market on a new trade will not count on that.
The risk of course is if the bond rallies, the price climbs and now you lose money on the short (you have to buy at a higher price to get back to flat). If the bond price goes down you will make money on your short but as the whole exercises is to ensure price stability, you are actively working to stop this.
The gains and losses on this activity are market risk and they are a cost that most issuers are unaware of. They pay their bank a fee to arrange the bond but most don't realise that the bank will run a market risk on the deal.
So it is quite possible for a bank to lose money overall on a bond transaction because the fees from the issuer do not cover the market loss on the secondary trading activities.
Bond houses try to avoid this by setting the right fee but as competition in this space is so tight, it is not always possible to avoid a loss, particularly in good markets.
