August 2006 Archives

SelfInvestors

...combines the power of human research, database organization and technical analysis to consistently beat the market. The site is designed to walk you through a top down approach to successful investing - gauging the overall market health, pinpointing industry strength and buying the breakout in the world's fastest growing companies.

*.NET System.IO.Compression and zip files http://blogs.msdn.com/dotnetinterop/archive/2006/04/05/567402.aspx

*Tech crud http://www.gearlog.com/

*ASP.NET development links http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/08/09/August-9th-ASP.NET-Link_2D00_Listing.aspx

*Getting started with Ajax (in ASP.NET) http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/07/27/Atlas-_1C20_How-Do-I_3F001D20_-Video-Series-Begins.aspx

*Presentation disasters http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/work/presentationdisasters.mspx

*Hearing test Test your own hearing using MP3 recorded from 10kHz to 25kHz http://www.ochenk.com/entry.php?id=63

*How to Create and Upload a Ringtone http://www.wikihow.com/Create-and-Upload-a-Ringtone http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Ringtone-from-a-Sound-File-and-Upload-It-to-Your-Cell-Phone http://www.wikihow.com/Obtain-Cheap-Ringtones

*Great card trick http://www.instructables.com/id/EUO2ZWGMX3EQEC14US/?ALLSTEPS

*How to get six-pack abs http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Six-Pack-Abs

*Microsoft XP PowerToys http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx *SyncToy v1 Beta for Windows XP New Microsoft power toy for copying, moving, and synchronizing files and folders. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e0fc1154-c975-4814-9649-cce41af06eb7&displaylang=en

[Visual Studio 2005 Code Snippets]
[C# Script for .NET 2.0 Command-line .NET scripting engine, complete with source code.]
[NUnit 2.2.5]
[10 Free .NET Development Tools]
[Visual Build Professional 6.0]
[NET Reference Bot for MSN Messenger]

[IronPython 1.0 Beta 1]

A milestone release for the official Python for .NET.

[ContourCube 3.0]

.NET OLAP component now integrates with VS2005 $900 site license

[SpreadsheetGear for .NET 1.1]

Excel-compatible calculation engine for .NET

[Anthem.NET]

Anthem.NET is a free, cross-browser AJAX toolkit for the ASP.NET development environment that works with both ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0.

[QIOS.DevSuite 1.0.7.20]

QStatusBar is a multipanel statusbar that can act as a container for other controls QPanel support background images, borders, and gradients QProgressBar allows you to display progressbars in a variety of styles QDockingWindow is similar to a VS.NET ToolWindow, with the addition of gradient and font control QMenu supports all types of menus and allows you to set custom gradients and borders QToolBar is a general toolbar control that is a container for other controls QTabControl is quite possibly the most flexible tab control out there - it lets you put any shape of tabs on any side of the window. QExplorerBar is an implementation of the Windows Explorer bar.

*Real Crime, Fake Justice For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. Almost alone of British government policies, this one has been supremely effective: no Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence. http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_3_oh_to_be.html

*Best juggling with 3 balls - Chris Bliss http://www.sonnyradio.com/chrisbliss.htm

[YouTube link to Simpsons World Cup episode]

[Soccer own goals]
[Amazing soccer tricks]
[Soccer goalkeeper goals]

[Russian parkours]

*Brainiac: Alkali metals in water http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2134266654801392897

*MySpace: The Movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBOfD2JBv0w

[guzer.com -- worst of the web videos]
[Google videos]
[YouTube]

Cool gifts from mightygoods.com

[Playing cards with photos]
[Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House]
[The Four Agreements]
[The Hard Questions]
[The Tingler]
[Titanium Money Clip]
[Scrabble Cuff Links]
[Like a Girl T-Shirt]
[Red Robot Hoodie]
[Blomus Stainless Steel Flask]
[Lindemans Framboise Lambic]
[Dwell Magazine]

Cool websites from Time

[zipcar.com]
[kayak.com]
[zillow.com]
[farecast.com]
[menupages.com]
[superpages.com]
[whitepages.com]

*Daily WTF: Stop reviewing the code http://thedailywtf.com/forums/thread/86202.aspx

*Beverage reviews http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/

*Middle East buddy list http://www.slate.com/features/2006mideast/middleeast.html

*Sanyo PM-8200 USB driver http://people.wwc.edu/staff/nashda/sanyo_usb_driver.zip http://people.wwc.edu/staff/nashda/SpintPCSHelp.htm

[Ring tones on cell phone]
[Convert MP3 to MIDI]
[Jake's weblog, ringtones category]
[Sprint users' forum]

File uploaders

1. [sprintusers.com]
2. [t1mmy.net]
3. [cruz.net]

Data management software

*Microsoft toolkit http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/e/c/8ec3a7d8-05b4-440a-a71e-ca3ee25fe057/rktools.exe

MarshalAs attributes

• http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.interopservices.marshalasattribute_members.aspx
• Using SWIG to generate marshalling code
• Extending python using SWIG

Marshalling types to unmanaged code

• UnmanagedType.LPArray
  A pointer to the first element of a C-style array. When marshaling from managed to unmanaged, the length of the array is determined by the length of the managed array. When marshaling from unmanaged to managed, the length of the array is determined from the MarshalAsAttribute.SizeConst
• UnmanagedType.LPStruct
  A pointer to a C-style structure that you use to marshal managed formatted classes. Valid for platform invoke methods only.

*Article on minimum wage http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/060808-sowell-minimum-wage.php

Alexander Elder's trading books for purchase online

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Update 2008-08-06: Alexander Elder also has a service called Spike Spectators' Group which allows investors and traders to subscribe to other traders' stock picks:

Traders often ask: 'How do you find stocks to trade?' Many pros spend hours each week scanning databases, looking for attractive candidates. This is similar to mining - tunneling through thick layers of useless rock to find a relatively small quantity of rich ore.

This homework is essential for successful trading, but it takes a great deal of time and energy. Now, for a relatively small fee, you can have rich ore delivered to you. You can have a steady flow of intelligent picks from a group of professional and semi-professional traders, each of whom spends hours looking for stocks and most of whom trade their own and their colleagues' picks. Now, instead of looking for stocks, you can review more than a dozen attractive picks each week to see which of them work best with your own trading system.

$50 three week trial / $390 per quarter / $1170 per year

*CMD.EXE parameter syntax http://www.ss64.com/ntsyntax/parameters.html

*Affordable video / DVD mastering Software A friend of mine recommended Muvee Autoproducer [1]. If you want to get more technical about it, doom9 [2] has some good guides [3]. [1] http://www.muvee.com/website/ap5.php [2] http://www.doom9.org/ [3] http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvdauthoring.htm

*Fake popularity with popularitydialer.com http://popularitydialer.com/ *Search for copies of HTML pages on the web http://copyscape.com/ *Excel applications http://www.asap-utilities.com/index.php?page=p_ho.php? *Restoration/restore deleted files http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20060713_recover_deleted_files.html

*Wintellect articles http://www.wintellect.com/Articles.aspx

Technical topics

• Concurrent processing (deadlocks, semaphores, mutexes, race conditions.etc)
• Compilation (e.g tell me how one works)
• Memory management (garbage collection, dynamic memory allocation.etc)
• Language comparisons (e.g Java vs. C#)
• Data structures (e.g what data structure would be most appropriate for .)
• Algorithms (e.g. searching.etc)
• Databases
• Object orientation (polymorphism, encapsulation, inheritance, overloading..etc)
• IPC (tcp/ip, udp, shared mem)

I ask questions based on what the candidate can tell me in detail about the work they have done. I always get them to tell me "how" they did a project, and to avoid lingering on "what" it did. Once the architecture is revealed, I ask questions about it - like "Why did you do it that way when it would have been better to do it some other way (giving an alternative)?". I always ask the candidate to sell themselves on 2 or 3 pieces of work which most closely represent how able they are as a programmer. Then I ask them to justify it. It's normally pretty clear in a short space of time whether they are a serious programmer or just a hobbyist working on the peripherals of someone elses work. The main problem is getting to stop telling me what the application does and focus on how they solved the problem.

*Where there's a will there's an A http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000987.php

*URLs for durable websites http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2004/01/12/shinyurl

*Willpower http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19460829-12332,00.html

*Essential Songs Of The 1940s Look this up ont eh web. Sheet music? Lyrics for sure.

Jonathan Hoenig is the Managing Member of a private investment partnership. A former floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, Hoenig's first book, Greed is Good: The Capitalist Pig Guide to Investing was published by HarperCollins. He is a frequent commentator in the financial press, and has written for publications including The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Maxim and Smartmoney.com. Hoenig has been featured in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jonathan was recently named one of The Chicago Sun-Times "Thirty Under Thirty" and Crain's "Forty Under Forty." He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago.

[Chicago-based hedge fund]
[SmartMoney story]

NasdaqTrader's selection process

I receive more emails and comments about this topic then almost anything else, so I decided to lay a bunch of it out. This is the basics of my stock picking process below.

• What is the trend of the market, is it up, down, or sideways. Always determine that first. Learned from the great Jesse Livermore
• What are the strongest sectors or weakest depending on the trend of the markets. When you are trying to decide what stocks to be in during bull phases or bear phases go where the action is.
• Once you identify the best target sectors now drill down and find the best stocks. This is where the charts come into play. Look for the best looking charts in a strong or weak sector depending on market conditions. Now for the really good stuff, I will list the keys to finding the silver bullet in stocks.

1. Moving averages. The first thing I look at is the simple moving averages. I use a few different time frames for this. I do this to identify if the stock is trending with the market/sector or against it. Is the stock strong i.e. above the 50/200 sma.
2. I then look for trendline patterns. Is the stock above major trendlines or below it. Is there any pattern that I can easily see.
3. Volume patterns is next
4. Stochastic patterns for entry and exit points
5. I love stocks with small floats. Supply will out strip demand when things go your way
6. If I am looking to go long short interest on the stock is vital. Short interest is fuel
7. Market psychology

I am only touching on this stuff briefly but I hope it gives my readers some insight into what I do when looking for stocks. Good luck trading.

*Stock screener http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/stockscreener/?adv=articles&advtype=stockscreen_screener

*Make a color copy of your passport http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001308.php