http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39253949,00.htm

I can't see how this will be enforced - it seems as unlikely as

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1418165.stm

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6041804.html?part=rss&tag=6041804&subj=news

I have been satisifed with MS server products since Windows 2000 server and now use 2003 Server on all my machines. The argument that MS products don't scale has long gone. 

• 3rd best non-clustered TPC-C score

http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp?resulttype=noncluster&version=5&currencyID=0

• Support for up to 1TB of RAM

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/ipf/enterprise.mspx

http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Stories.aspx?&StoryID=8C6C0A89-A9B7-4BD0-9CE2-11830FA31E15&SectionID=F3B76EF0-7991-4389-B72E-D07EB5AA1CEE

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb06/02-14MOCMobilePR.mspx

This looks very interesting - I'm looking forward to seeing how much the software will cost to run this

This went very smoothly. After backing everything up, I uninstalled the framework and SQL 2005 beta 2. Installing SQL 2005 installs the 2.0 framework by default, The only 2 gotchas were

allowing the extension for the correct version of .NET

setting ASP.NET to run under the correct version. Windows 2003 comes with Framework 1.1 installed as standard and I don't believe you can "officially" uninstall it.

http://www.topix.net/content/krd/14496815494907807422

I firmly believe in the mechanical investing approach and believe that taking the human element out of the decision making enhances returns. Modern computers offer the ability to crunch massive amounts of data, and although past performance doesn't predict future returns, I think this is the future for simple asset types such as equities.

 I use Validea to tell me which shares I should be holding.

http://www.validea.com/home/home.asp

• Retake offer on selected exams

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/offers/2ndchance/thankyou/default.asp

• Three free beta exams available

Exam 71-547 Pro - Designing and Developing Web-based Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework (promo code: PRO547)
Exam 71-548 Pro - Designing and Developing Windows-based Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework (promo code: BTA548) 
Exam 71-549 Pro - Designing and Developing Enterprise Applications by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework (promo code: 549BTA)

This follows on from some exams released for beta recently (552-554)

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,8f62f25d-6d3c-4cdc-b73b-3ae7cbf3b72b.aspx

• Three exams are Live

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-528.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-431.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-441.asp

 

I am probably doing the CQF this year, so will leave the MS upgrades until next year.

DV01 is the sensitivity to a shift in the curve of 1 bp

Assuming the spread and interest rate curves are reasonably flat, the formula is

DV01=(1-exp(-(r+h)*t))/(r+h)

where h (hazard rate)=(spread/(1-recovery))*365/360

Taking GM

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,a5cd0517-0d1c-41e6-9bfc-f379327afb93.aspx

Term = 5

Spread = 1440bp

Interest rate = 4.6%

http://www.treas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/debt-management/interest-rate/yield.html

Recovery Rate = 39%

This gives a DV01 of 2.66. Multiply this value by a typical contract of 10mm gives us a value of 2666 ($/£/Euros)

DV01.zip (1.58 KB)

References

Credit Derivatives by Geoff Chaplin (Page 90) - link below

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/047002416X/qid=1140112811/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-0058056-7028455

http://www.wilmottmag.com/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=18242

I was adjusting a calculation for day-count convention and discovered

decimal dateAdjust = 365/360

does not equal

decimal dateAdjust = 365.0/360.0

Explanation here

http://sleeksoft.co.uk/public/techblog/articles/20050107_1.html

It reminded me of my VB days, when dividing by "\" is different from "/", and how rounding could sometimes give unexpected results

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=225330

On another note, I appreciate that a decimal type is a lot slower than a double but for accuracy I would've expected Math.Exp to take/return a decimal rather than a double.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/mivica/creatingapdffromastoredprocedure.asp

http://officelive.microsoft.com/

Apparently only available for U.S. at the moment (yawn).

One interesting fact is that it would appear that you can register a domain name for free. A .com usually costs around £12/year  - I guess MS will attempt to encourage people to upgrade to the paid for service to subsidise this.

For a limited promotional period from the launch of Visual Studio 2005 until June 30th 2006, current subscribers to the following products are eligible to upgrade their existing Visual Studio Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription at renewal pricing.

Customers who qualify for the Step-up price include current subscribers to:

Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers MSDN Premium Subscription

Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects MSDN Premium Subscription

Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers MSDN Premium Subscription

MSDN Universal

Customers with less than two months left to run on their subscription should renew directly into Visual Studio Team Suite with MSDN Premium using the separate renewal box. The retail Step-Up box is available to existing Retail and MSDN Direct customers only. Volume Licensing customers in EA, Select, or Open Value programs may Step-Up to Suite through those programs. Please contact your reseller for details.

Taken from following link

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/howtobuy/renewal/#step

There appears to be a problem for developers that require the architecture tools. The only solution is to pay for the full Team Suite.

If you don't already have an MSDN license that allows you to upgrade, it's going to hurt!

http://www.sleepycat.com/

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060209_810527.htm

As the second article states, on first impressions, this doesn't appear to make much sense.

I can't see the appeal of open source databases -  MS SQL offers all I need, and is free in basic form

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/default.aspx

With this version, there is no governor (unlike 2000), and it can support 1GB RAM and 4GB database size

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

All these security offerings from MS are getting confusing. This used to be Anti-Spyware Beta 1 and was bought from Giant a few years ago. I have been running this for a while on my Windows 2003 machine, but found that it didn't pick up some things that the free MS virus scanner did.

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

As OneCare isn't available for Win 2003 I will continue to use Defender with frequent online scans until I get my hands on Microsoft Client protection - I have signed up for the beta.

Global Gaming Techologies have launched a new exchange that allows you to compare Betfair and BetDaq prices.

http://www.sharecast.com/cgi-bin/sharecast/story.cgi?story_id=620652

This would appear to be a reasonably straightforward idea to implement - I wish I'd thought of it first. If GGT offer an API, it may be cheaper than subscribing to Betfair and BetDaq individually.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1925504,00.asp

in response to

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts/default.mspx

I'm surprised that the Linux side rose to the MS bait

I always knew this to be true, but didn't realise until after I'd read the Fischer Black book that it had a name

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SiegelsParadox.html

I personally don't read the Gruniad (as Private Eye calls it) but saw this the other day. I too am amazed that the product is still used - I guess people are still scared of MS/Outlook security.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1705106,00.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/EntLib2.asp

Must confess that I never used the version for 1.1 as I couldn't see a reason to move on from the Data Access Application Blocks.

I found this picture the other day showing how London house prices have changed between 1988 and 1995.

These figures don't take into account inflation - the following links show inflation levels for those time periods. I'd estimate that taking inflation into account, the falls in some areas were around 55-60% - ouch!

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/economic_trends/HICP_Historical_Estimates.pdf

http://www.safalra.com/other/ukinflation.html

http://eh.net/hmit/ukcompare/result.php?year_late=1988&use%5B%5D=CPI&use%5B%5D=DEFIND&use%5B%5D=WAGE&use%5B%5D=GDPCP&use%5B%5D=GDPC&typeamount=100&amount=100&year_source=1988&year_result=1995

Of course, it is different this time, but if I had a place on the right hand side of the map, I may be getting nervous.

$50 per annum, $19.95 if you sign up in April. This license covers up to 3 P.C's

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb06/02-07OneCarePricingPR.mspx

It's a shame that you have to pay extra for this service rather than get it as part of the O/S, but I guess MS have been burnt so many times in the past (IE, Media Player) for bundling services with the OS, they felt they had to charge

http://www.techspot.com/news/20278-vistas-onecare-not-to-include-antivirus-says-microsoft.html

At present, this is only on offer to US XP users.

Norton offer protection for £45, so I expect MS to undercut this when it becomes available in the UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000B69T1O/qid=1139470510/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/026-0058056-7028455

Following on from my discussion on active vs. Mechanical trading, I found the following on Wilmott

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID881105_code191081.pdf?abstractid=881105&mirid=1

Note that this is taking into account fees.

This has been around for the last couple of versions of Excel, but I only discovered it recently. I am converting a trading spreadsheet into a "proper" app, and it has been invaluable in working out what information is used where.

http://www.nickhodge.co.uk/gui/toolsmenu/formulaaudit.htm

This only works on some graphics cards, and I discovered it by accident on my Dell laptop

Ctrl+Alt+Arrow key rotates the screen.

This book detailed Black's advanced thinking and how his ideas were rejected by the economic community at the time. Of particular interest to me was his discovery that a typical active fund doesn't beat a passive tracker, and that value (low beta) shares outperform growth shares over the long run. This was back in the 70's, yet active funds are still very popular today.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471457329/qid=1139387144/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-0058056-7028455

25% less code - new features include

• ASP.NET membership provider
• Master pages
• Generics

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/bdasamppet4.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E54BF6FF-026B-43A4-ADE4-A690388F310E&displaylang=en

Furthermore, it appears that MS may have listened to complaints about the proposed pricing structure

http://weblogs.asp.net/rmclaws/archive/2005/05/12/406635.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/subscriptions/chart/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/products/subscriptions/transition/default.aspx

Looks pretty interesting and good value, but is taking place in Newport for some reason.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/architecture/architectinsight/default.mspx

I looked at this a while ago

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,ee7d3f3a-bef3-4a84-bf29-f0067aa3ad3e.aspx

and wondered whether there were still arbitrage opportunities to be had - I concluded that it was unlikely.

I had a back of 2.96 outstanding on Scotland for the upcoming game against Wales. The bet was taking a while to get matches as it was greater then was being offered by the layers. I checked back and noticed that the lay side was at 100.1% - an arbitrage opportunity. Now obviously, the margins here are tiny, but it surprised me that the book stayed like that for about a minute, until an automated application (I assume) placed three lays. I would've expected the automated apps to either ignore the bet altogether as the margin was so small, or to place bets instantly. I guess it takes a while to iterate through all open books.

Maybe there are still opportunities out there