I read the SQL 7 and 2000 version several years ago (the 2000 version was very similar to 7)

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/4297.asp

and was interested to see that the new version will be broken down into three sections

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/8564.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9615.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/7436.asp

The first two are written by Itzik Ben-Gan - more details can be found here

http://www.sql.co.il/books/insidetsql2005/

All books will be available in the first half of 2006

http://www.math.uic.edu/~hanson/Finance/M_Page_QF.pdf

http://www.betanews.com/article/Google_Zooms_In_Satellite_Map_Imagery/1138126874

Tried this out for a rural area in Portsmouth on Google Maps and where before you got the message that they didn't have imagery for this zoom level, now you can zoom in another two levels.

Someone also running Messenger v8.0 shared a folder with me and Messenger prompted me if I wanted to use a virus scanner. It uses the virus scanner reviewed a few weeks ago.

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,212b4ad3-ae6b-4d99-8618-b410bd41a60e.aspx

http://safety.live.com/site/en-US/default.htm

You can configure to use other virus scanners

I'm assuming that the virus scanner will be released at the same time (if not before) Messenger 8.0

The following 3 exams are in beta from Feb 13th to March 12th.

• Upgrade MCAD to MCPD Windows Developer

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcpd/windev/

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-552.asp  (promo code 552BTA)

• Upgrade MCSD to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcpd/entapp/

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-553.asp (use promo code BTA553)

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-554.asp (use promo code UPG554)

 

Register via Thomson Prometric

http://securereg3.prometric.com/

or Pearson VUE

http://www.vue.com/ms/

I've just finished Emanuel Derman's autobiography

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471394203/026-8223383-2541264

I bought this book as I was interested to read about someone that was actually working with financial theory in the 80's and 90's on Wall Street. After discussion of his life as a physicist, the remaining half of the book talks about his time on Wall Street. Of particular interest is his discussion on the Black-Scholes model, and the problem with constant volatility and "the smile"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility_smile

A recommended read - his site is good too.

http://www.ederman.com/new/index.html

Other non technical finance books that I recommend are

Liar's poker - discusses life in Salamon in the 80's - home of BSD's

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340767006/qid=1138106679/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/026-8223383-2541264

When Genius Failed - discusses the downfall of LTCM

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841155047/026-8223383-2541264

Both books feature John Meriwether.

Nathan Weinberg has a play with the latest version of IE7 Beta 2

http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/23/internet-explorer-7-beta-2-preview/

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1912228,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

http://www.red-database-security.com/advisory/oracle_cpu_jan_2006.html

82 patches sounds like a high number - seems as though they may be following a trustworthy initiative similar to MS and reviewing the codebase for obvious security holes.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/default.mspx

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4623076.stm

Allegations of fraud from internet firm Livedoor caused the Nikkei to drop almost 3% - so far this week it has lost 6.8%.

What is surprising is that the market shut not because of the index dropping too much, but because volumes were too high - systems should be designed to cope with this.

Logging into one of our numerous third party applications on a client site for the first time, I am presented with the following

Password Requirements:
Your new password cannot be identical to your existing password.
It must contain eight alphanumeric characters.
It should contain at least one numeral but not more than two.
It cannot have a character occur more than twice.

The first statement I agree with, the rest I'm less convinced. Unfortunately, for a lot of users I believe that they will store the password somewhere (piece of paper/spreadsheet) as the password requirements are different for other sites. This negates the perceived security improvement of using a password that passes the above rules.

I assume the reason that they are choosing to make the password so restrictive is to stop someone guessing it, or by using a brute force attack. My solution would be to have a minimum password length (not alphanumeric) and lock out after three attempts.

Noticed this when on Amazon today using IE! IE must be truncating the title (look at text just before "Microsoft Internet Explorer") - works fine in Firefox

There aren't that many books discussing both .NET and Finance

http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10033

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590595645/qid%3D1137504778/026-8223383-2541264

Published March 2006

Not new news, but haven't seen an in-depth explanation before

http://blogs.msdn.com/slavao/archive/2005/11/12/492119.aspx

The original was one of the best books for .NET

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735614229/qid=1137503273/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-8223383-2541264

the new version is out in the next couple of months

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/6522.asp

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735621632/qid=1137503273/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl/026-8223383-2541264

http://www4.imagine-msn.com/minisites/messenger/default.aspx?locale=en-us

From Brad Abrams blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2006/01/16/513018.aspx

Framework 2.0 may install, but MS won't support it.

This is relevant to me, as the team that I work in can't evaluate/migrate Framework 2.0/VS2005 until we know when the client plans on rolling out SP2 to the 1000's of desktop P.C.'s

Had the latest quarterly update of the Action pack delivered. It now includes

• SQL 2005 Standard edition
• Visual Studio 2005 Express edition

You can get this free from here - MS have waived the first year free of $49.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/faq/default.aspx#pricing

• Visual Web Developer

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/

More details can be found here (when they get round to updating it!)

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sales_and_marketing/actionpack/contents.aspx

Article in the Sunday Times yesterday

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-1985641,00.html

This isn't a new development - they were the most shorted back in November

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2769-1879544,00.html

Data Explorers, the company that provides the data, has a graph showing the shorting

http://www.dataexplorers.co.uk/dxl/popups/mfi.html

Another new product to come under the "Live banner", Expo is an "online social marketplace" where you can exchange goods ideas and information. Sign up here (currently U.S. only)

http://imagine-msn.com/minisites/expo/default.aspx 

It's not in beta yet

http://spaces.msn.com/members/teamexpo/

Not really sure whether it will be competing against eBay - I'm assuming MS will offer it free and will get their revenue from advertising.

Watched this over the weekend

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/

and was surprised by how much product placement MS managed to fit in there. One of the holographic fight scenes had an XBox logo visible several times, and later in the film, the characters go into a booth with an "MSN Search" logo on the side - the video is on MSN

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=0b6728a1-b370-4149-9ddd-71122feff10e&p=Entertainment_Movies

Some stills on flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nweinberg/sets/775173/

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx

Actually refreshed over a month ago, but only just noticed

A friend informed me of this site the other day

http://www.pandora.com/

My MP3's batteries are flat and my Fontopia headphones are broken (again) so I decided to give it a go. It is free as long as you are happy with advertisements - otherwise it is $36 dollars a year. You need to be a US citizen to subscribe - this requires you to enter a ZIP code - Wikipedia helped with this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_code

http://www.microsoft.com/office/officelive/default.mspx

I'm surprised by the lack of publicity surrounding this. Whenever a developer tool is released such as VS2005, I am inundated with information. I can't find much regarding Office Live.

http://news.com.com/Gates+Were+entering+live+era+of+software+-+page+2/2100-1016_3-5926237-2.html?tag=st.num

Tools like Outlook Web Access have been available for years (using AJAX before AJAX was invented). There will be 22 applications available - with one, "Mojo", allowing real time collaboration.

http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.co.uk/files/msft-live_mojo.wmv

I was looking at Windows desktop search this morning

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/default.mspx

or if you want the toolbar as well

http://toolbar.msn.com/

Google have released this in the last few days

http://pack.google.com/

The pack includes (I've only looked at the things I will use day to day)

• Mozilla Firefox

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

I use this for aggregating RSS feeds via the Sage plugin.

http://sage.mozdev.org/

RSS isn't natively supported in IE6, although you may be able to use a tool such as

http://rssexplorer.planet-hood.com/

along with a news aggregator.

IE7 will have better support for RSS

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/08/02/446280.aspx

• AdAware SE Personal

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

I used this a while ago before AntiSpyware came out

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=321CD7A2-6A57-4C57-A8BD-DBF62EDA9671&displaylang=en

• Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition

6 month subscription - not sure how much after that. The Microsoft equivalent is still in beta

http://safety.live.com/site/en-US/scanner/wlscEula.htm?safety&/site/en-US/center/howsafe.htm

• Google desktop

This enables you to search for anything on your machine (emails, photos etc) from one place. The link for the MS equivalent (Windows Desktop) is above.

 

If I were Microsoft I would be getting concerned. Although there is nothing here that stands out over it's MS equivalent, the fact that you can download it as one coherent package is more than Microsoft are able to offer at the moment. If I were MS, I would be pushing "Windows Live" more, and placing all these offering under the "Live" banner.

http://www.live.com/

I will be downloading Windows desktop search this evening to discover how efficient it is.

Amazon are giving away a USB2.0 adapter when you buy a Netgear wireless router.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/560102/026-8223383-2541264

This is the best selling wireless router (4.5 star average rating) on Amazon although the GT version is newer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006M5UQG/qid=1136986696/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_3_2/026-8223383-2541264

This event is being held in London on the 6th Feb 2006. Registration cost £69 and all attendees get free Microsoft Software Package which includes SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition and BizTalk Server 2006 Beta.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/roadshows/sqlservereurope/index.cfm?action=dynamic&v=5008&p=5043&code

Note that the website doesn't mention the software but the newsletter does

Google announced the other day that they are launching a downloadable video service

http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39155442,00.htm

I think this idea is the way forward -  I believe rental using DVD's by post is a flawed idea, as the supplier only has a finite supply of discs. For example, of my top 10 DVD's on Amazon's rental list, only 4 are available. Some DVD's have been showing a long wait for months. Perhaps this is a problem with Amazon, but I think the ability to download films on demand is a good idea.

There are a few problems

• Broadband speed - this is increasing, but typical users may not want to wait for a ~700 Meg film to download - streaming may be a solution to this
• Picture quality - Can a good enough picture quality be offered while keeping file sizes down. Improved decoding technology may make this easier
• Piracy - Is there a 100% method to prevent copying downloaded content.

Discovered this while reading a blog the other day

http://www.flytecomm.com/cgi-bin/trackflight

This product is aimed at the U.S. market - I guess the U.K. equivalent is

http://www.airtext.co.uk/

I had need for this kind of service at Christmas - I had to pick someone up from Heathrow - if I'd known that the flight was delayed I could've stayed watching the rugby for another hour.

An article in The Times this morning drew my attention

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9063-1974207,00.html

A junior CDO trader has been suspended for overstating his position by £30mm. It would be interesting

a). To see what type of CDO he was trading

b). To learn how he got away with it for 2 months - how did he circumnavigate the risk and P+L procedures.

http://www.skype.com/products/skype/windows/

MS are doing some webcasts for the financial sector on 13-17th 2006

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/msdndotnetunwrapped.mspx

http://www.financialdevelopers.com/

Business justification for upgrading to SQL 2005 from SQL 2000

http://www.financialdevelopers.com/assets/The%20Business%20Value%20of%20Upgrading%20to%20SQL%20Server%202005.pdf

NASDAQ using SQL 2005

http://members.microsoft.com/CustomerEvidence/Search/EvidenceDetails.aspx?EvidenceID=13793&LanguageID=1

http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_result_detail.asp?id=105112801

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/48886/48886.html

This hasn't been publicised much, and MS still list the previous value on their site - although this 1,082,203 tpmC result no longer appears on TPC for some reason.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/tpcc.mspx

These kind of results are irrelevant to all but the few companies that demand this much power. Of more interest to most is the price/performance results - SQL is the only entrant with a sub dollar per transaction result.

http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_price_perf_results.asp?resulttype=noncluster

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4586308.stm

I reckon that the CDS traders have already priced this in, so will be interested to see how the U.S. markets react when they open

Following on from my original post and my attempt to have a go at downloading OneCare

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,c9a54c03-762d-4237-98b7-2101f90d9236.aspx

http://www1.imagine-msn.com/minisites/onecare/Default.aspx?locale=en-us

I discovered that it wasn't the fact that I wasn't in the US that prevented me from downloading it but that my machines at home both run on 2003 Server (I refuse to use XP). The next best alternative I could find was the Windows Live safety centre.

http://safety.live.com/site/en-US/default.htm

I ran this on my laptop and after about an hour got the following result

I was interested that I was being told that I had viruses on my machine as after some research discovered that they were "low risk" (according to the MS website) spyware type viruses and I would've expected MS AntiSpyware to have picked these up (I'm assuming that AntiSpyware will be integrated in due course). The app wasn't able to remove these viruses so I removed them manually.

The performance section effectively runs a defrag and network safety tells me which ports are open.

I wonder how this product will be marketed. I can't see it being to tightly integrated with the OS for fear of another IE or Media Player court case(s).

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/01/05/416980.aspx

Mike Nash explains why MS deviated from the normal monthly cycle. This patch wasn't due until the normal monthly cycle date - 10th Jan.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-001.mspx

If this fix works, and there are no problems introduced, considering the amount of testing required to make sure the fix doesn't affect any versions of any MS software, I reckon it's not a bad response timewise.

I've been with Zen for the last few years on the £24.99/512kb/uncapped download package for a few years now.

http://www.zenbroadband.com/ADSL.aspx?page=277

I was tempted to switch to Freedom2Surf - they offer 2MB uncapped download for the same price

http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/homeuser.php

Furthermore, they appear to be offering more 8Mbps LLU trials, with up to 768kb/s upload.

http://www.freedom2surf.net/adsl/press.php?release=31

than Zen, who limit themselves to Rochdale.

However, on looking on their respective support forums

http://forum.zensupport.co.uk/

http://www.freedom2support.net/forums/

it seemed that there were more unhappy campers on F2S than Zen, with people concerned that F2S are now owned by Pipex.

According to ADSLGuide, Zen appear to consistently outperform F2S, which in turn outperforms Pipex

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp?f2s=ON&pipex=ON&zen=ON&cmp_action=Compare

 In the end I upgraded to the Zen 2Meg package. It may be £10/month more, but worth it for the peace of mind.

Paul Wilmott's "Introduction to Quantitative Finance" was one of the first finance books that I read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471498629/qid=1136302597/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-8223383-2541264

This drew me to the Wilmott forum

http://www.wilmott.com/index.cfm

and also the CQF course

http://www.7city.com/CQF/index.cfm?ccs=181

There are a total of 24 sessions, four per module. The total cost for the course is £10k + VAT. This appears to be reasonable value, and the fact that you are shelling out a large amount of money would make you ensure that you took in as much information as you could.

An alternative approach is to go via a University and do a part time Msc or something similar

• Kings college

http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/research/finmath/MSc.html

http://www.mth.kcl.ac.uk/research/finmath/practical.html

• Imperial

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/cpd/mathfin/

I am going to research the CQF further any potentially enroll in the Autumn course

http://www.philweber.com/2006/01/02.htm#a148

Seems like MS are trying to ramp up rollout of VS2005 and VSTS.

We are currently using VS2003 and Clearcase and my client, although VS2005 and VSTS are being reviewed to see what benefits are available. I have talked before about buying VS2005 through my company via an MSDN subscription, but I couldn't justify paying for VSTS.

I heard about this one sometime last week and didn't think much of it until reading Motley Fool today

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=9740717&sort=whole#9741509

For someone to post a message on a financial bulletin board means that people are getting pretty worried.

I personally wouldn't install a third party fix, I'd. Reading on the MS Security response centre blog, they make the valid point that unless you click on a link in a dodgy email that then takes you to a dodgy site, then you don't have a problem.

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2005/12/30/416694.aspx

The fix will hopefully be out on the 10th

Reading the advisory, they state that OneCare is now in beta, although it appears to be only for US customers at the moment

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/912840.mspx

I will attempt to download tonight and have a play.