Media Player 11

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/download/download.aspx

Messenger 8.1 beta

http://g.live.com/1rebeta/Mess80_EN

This article indicates there are several problems - could this be because it was rushed out to stop IE7 getting too much of a march?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/28/2115202&from=rss

http://listvine.com/2006/10/25/9-reasons-not-to-upgrade-to-firefox-20/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2427972,00.html

As the article says, Berbick was one of the few fighters to fight both Ali and Tyson, two of the greates heavyweights of all time.

I read a book a few years ago about how the lives of some of the boxers that had fought Tyson had panned out, and Berbick was one of those interviewed

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Round-Triumphs-Tragedies-Fought/dp/0224063812/sr=1-7/qid=1162210274/ref=sr_1_7/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8&s=books

He appeared to believe that the Tyson fight was a fix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXVLhr0eysI

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=5820&more=1

I hope Tyson doesn't go the same way

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/15834293.htm

I read this blog article last night

http://wallstreettechdaily.com/2006/10/25/does-technology-takes-the-out-of-bond-trading/

and the article on the Globe

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061025.RBONDS25/TPStory/Business

about how bond salesmen and traders are making less money due to technology advances. This is inevitable with all asset classes as they mature and I have witnessed this first hand in the CDS market

Originally, CDS spreads were sent out from the sell side to buy side over Bloomberg and it was very hard to work out who was offering what spread due to overload of information until quote parsers were introduced

http://www.creditma.com/

Before this some traders were getting 1000's of emails a day, each containing several quotes with each sell side, with each sell side having proprietary tickers for each entity. Even with these parsers, it was still hard to match entities as there was no uniform way of matching names to reference entities until Markit introduced RED Codes

http://www.markit.com/marketing/

Around 2 years ago, I noticed the first non-integer spreads being quoted - a sure sign that the spreads were tightening.

However, we are still at the point now where without products such as QuoteVision, it is difficult to find out what the market is doing intraday, as Markit spreads are currently end of day (they are currently testing an intra-day quote parser).  The market is still growing for these parsers, although I believe once Markit release their intra-day parser that integrates with their comprehensive reference database, it will be game over for the competition.

There are lots of trading platforms springing up, such as CreditEx

http://www.creditex.com/web/index.html

although these tend to be intra-broker, so don't help the buy side narrow their spreads, and some are index only, so don't allow single name trades.

Article on the B.B.C.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6088630.stm

This is the first housing downturn that I have been old enough to witness so it will be fascinating to see how it pans out. One thing to be expected is for vested interests (and reading the article it would appear that BBC is one - if the U.S. isn;'t experiencing a crash, I'd like to know what it is experiencing!), will be constantly talking up the market. The reasoning given by the realtors is that the market is not crashing because sales are picking up month on month. However, this is partly due to the sales of previous months being revised downwards

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2006/10/september-new-home-sales-1075-million.html

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/10/house_of_pain_t.html

It seems even Alan Greenspan is getting in on the act

"Most of the negatives in housing are probably behind us," Greenspan said. "The fourth quarter should be reasonably good, certainly better than the third quarter."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/26/news/economy/bc.economy.greenspan.reut/?postversion=2006102615

Maybe he feels guilty for causing this bubble and subsequent collapse in the housing market with his super accommodative monetary policy, but if I were someone looking to buy a house, and prices had fallen by 10% in a year, why wouldn't I wait for another year when, if the market follows the same trend, they will be 10% cheaper again?

The 10% number may be an underestimate, as vendors will be adding incentives to try and shift homes without reducing the headline asking price - free furnishings etc.

If this situation were to happen in the U.K, then a new home currently retailing for £550000

http://www.findaproperty.com/displayprop.aspx?edid=00&salerent=0&pid=398896&agentid=00360

would be retailing for £500000 in a years time (assuming the falls were uniform), so not only would you save £50k off the asking price, you would save £7000 on the stamp duty.

http://www.houseweb.co.uk/house/market/sdutycalc.html

and with interest rates soon to be 5%, the "cost" of the house will be 5% less in real terms. Including the incentives the developer would throw in, I would assume a saving of approx 80k in a year!

Of course, this won't happen in the U.K. as it is different here because.... (insert reason here - examples include low interest rates, high employment, stable economy, shortage of affordable housing)

There are lots of informative U.S. based blogs -

• Boston Bubble

http://www.bostonbubble.com/

• Interest rate round up

http://interestrateroundup.blogspot.com/

• Paper Money

http://paper-money.blogspot.com/

• Accrued interest

http://accruedint.blogspot.com/

• Calculated risk

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/

• The Big Picture

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

and our very own U.K. website

• House Price Crash (not the most neutral of site but never a dull moment!)

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/

Its that time of year again when the Broadgate Circle is turned into an ice rink.

http://www.broadgateice.co.uk/admission.htm

Broadgate is lucky enough to have it's own star skater, Dave Curtis

http://www.davecurtis.net/skating.html

and many has been the occasion where I have sat transfixed as he has glided several inches into the air

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,59-2416788,00.html

Lectured by Satyajit Das

http://www.euromoneytraining.com/default.asp?Page=16&cc=44&productid=4043&SearchStr=

this course talks about CDS, CDO and Structured Credit. Das is the author of two books I recently read

• Credit Derivatives: CDOs and Structured Credit Products:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Credit-Derivatives-CDOs-Structured-Products/dp/0470821590/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

and

• Traders Guns and Money

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,aeb31b5c-de3b-4d09-9a5c-00673d202154.aspx

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=42563

Very biased towards Java (banks do write real time trading applications in .NET - my client is one of them), but worth listening to as it gives a good idea of what tools are being used in banks i.e. Tibco Rendezvous, and what the Java equivalent is for the .NET stuff we do.

Also worth reading the comments in the thread afterwards. One of the things discussed is "in memory" databases -

http://www.oracle.com/timesten/index.html

Oracle have TimesTen, but I can't find anything being developed over at Microsoft.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Good review/comparison of IE7 from a Firefox user

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/24/1836218&from=rss

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=916287

Nothing new, but it appears that this may solve some of the problems with SP4. I became aware of it after it was recommended by Tony Rogerson

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/tonyrogerson/

We are looking at getting SQL 2005 running rather than upgrade from SQL 2000 SP3 to the above hotfix

For a while a friend of mine had been saying how big some of the pizzas were at Al Fornos in Wimbledon, and how the large pizza would be an incredible challenge

Now while I cannot compete with the IFOCE competitors,

http://www.ifoce.com/

I consider myself a reasonable gannet. However, one cannot compete successfully without adequate preparation, so the evening before I went to The Big Easy

http://www.bigeasy.uk.com/v1/index.html

for a 24oz T Bone steak. This was not the biggest on the menu, the 32oz is - I had this last time but preferred the 24oz and felt it would be adequate preparation for the upcoming challenge. Although this size of steak sounds large, it pales into insignificance when compared to Denny's beer barrel pub in Pennsylvania

http://www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com/

http://www.dennysbeerbarrelpub.com/menu2.htm

I believe that I could do the Pub Challenger and Pub Super Challenger, but beyond this would be pushing things.

The pizza arrived, and it looked pretty substantial

although it had a thin base, so wasn't (quite) as intimidating as it looks in the picture. My strategy was to eat in a brisk fashion before I started to feel signs of fullness, and it wasn't until I had around a quarter left that I started to find the going arduous. However, I wasn't to be defeated, and after around 20 minutes emerged victorious

As with all competitions, there are winners and losers. One of those unable to complete the challenge had been too busy enjoying wine and had let his preparation slip

The wine shown in the picture is Angus the Bull 2002 vintage

http://www.angusthebull.com/reviews/

and I ordered from Jascotts

http://www.jascots.co.uk/start.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=adbsVAhN68TM&refer=us

Markit page here (can't work out how to find spread - different layout to CDS)

http://www.markit.com/magnoliaPublic/affiliations/abx

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/upgrade/default.mspx

To upgrade you need to take 2 exams

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-553.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-554.asp

Transcenders are available

http://www.transcender.com/product.aspx?product_id=Cert-70-553CSHP&Search=1

http://www.transcender.com/product.aspx?product_id=Cert-70-554VB&Search=1

although they seem more expensive than I remember

Oh dear

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6062084.stm?ls

To me, TVR will no longer be perceived as a British sports car manufacturer - and this will harm sales even more

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,0c60983c-b0ce-4de9-869e-5c0104ba6d7d.aspx

This exhibition starts in a few days time with over 100 games to play.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/gameon/

I'm extremely tempted to go but need to work out what time of the week will be the most empty.

There is also a video games guide book being released

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Video-Games-Guide-Matt-Fox/dp/0752226258/ref=sr_11_1/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

ACT Brumbies No. 8 has finger amputated to maximize his chances for next year's World Cup

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=rugbyNews&storyID=2006-10-17T015421Z_01_SP107358_RTRIDST_0_SPORT-RUGBY-AUSTRALIA-FINGER.XML&WTmodLoc=Rugby+Union-C1-Headline-1

Colin McRae was considering this a few years ago

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2002/03/20/story25094.asp

After my fourth pair of Sony Fontopia headphones expiring

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00008XYJL/ref=pd_rvi_gw_3/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

(they have a typical life expectancy of 10 months - see reviews), I decided to try another manufacturer that offered durability as well as quality sound. I wanted to stick with the "in ear" style as I believe this gives the best sound quality. My first choice was the Sennheiser CX300's - offered with a 2 year guarantee compared with Sony's 12 months.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000E6G9RI/ref=pd_rvi_gw_2/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

but these were not in stock at Amazon (they had some in stock with their selling partners, but I try to avoid paying postage - selling partners don't offer free super saver delivery). Richer Sounds wouldn't price match and were offering them for £40.

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,e598b062-10df-42f5-bea4-4a24eedadd76.aspx

In the end I plumped for the Creative Labs EP-630's (also with 2 year warranty)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0009G6FQI/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

Note that Amazon have always been very good with their returns policy and will also refund the postage when I send the headphones back

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx

But ignore the dodgy emails

http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/008427.html

One of the options after installing was enabling ClearType for Internet Explorer

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartypeInfo.mspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/03/524367.aspx

Cleartype tuner is here (applies to XP rather than browser)

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

UPDATE: It appears that there may be a vulnerability!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/19/ie7_first_bug/

http://secunia.com/advisories/22477/

I used to enjoy visiting Richer Sounds when they used to stick some good kit at reasonable prices - my first purchase there were some TDL RTL 3 speaker 10 years ago. However, over the years they have stopped offering as much quality kit so I don't go in as much as I used to. However, my Sony Fontopia headphones have broken, so I thought I would pop in there to see if they could price match on a pair of Sennheisers, retailing on Amazon from £21

as I didn't want to wait. Richer sounds have a price guarantee on their site

http://www.richersounds.com/information.php?cda=static&cst=pricebeat

so when I saw the Sennheisers at £40 in Richer

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SENN-CX300

I assumed they would match the Amazon offer, but this wasn't to be. They mumbled something about not matching Amazon, so instead I ordered another pair from Amazon

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,c4a4ddde-5f37-4f59-999a-57b48ddf9400.aspx

http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio

There is a list of all available betas

https://connect.microsoft.com/availableconnections.aspx

For those that are ahead of the curve

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=109340

Similar to the credit derivative link

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,87315086-469d-4d8e-894c-9d0793c93fc3.aspx

I thought I would add a list off Credit derivative books that I own - this will be a work in progress (the list will be in chronological order of when I purchased them from Amazon).

For the books I use frequently I have added or will add a review, and I will link to them from here.

• The Credit Default Swap Basis: Moorad Choudry

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Credit-Default-Swap-Basis/dp/1576602362/sr=8-1/qid=1160645606/ref=sr_1_1/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8&s=books

• Applied Derivatives: Markets, Valuation, Risk Management: Robert E Whaley

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Applied-Derivatives-Markets-Valuation-Management/dp/0471786322/sr=8-4/qid=1160635158/ref=sr_1_4/202-5458939-5705418?ie=UTF8&s=books

• Structured Credit Products: Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Securitisation: Moorad Choudhry

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Structured-Credit-Products-Derivatives-Securitisation/dp/0470821191/sr=1-2/qid=1160635434/ref=sr_1_2/202-5458939-5705418?ie=UTF8&s=books

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,254c5d7e-fb73-4d19-9fe3-815c14d2955b.aspx

• Credit Derivatives: CDOs and Structured Credit Products: Satyajit Das

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Credit-Derivatives-CDOs-Structured-Products/dp/0470821590/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,254c5d7e-fb73-4d19-9fe3-815c14d2955b.aspx

• The Credit Market Handbook: Advanced Modeling Issues: H. Gifford Fong

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471778621/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

• Active Credit Portfolio Management: A Practical Guide to Credit Risk Management Strategies: Jochen Felsenheimer

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3527501983/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,c4fa6029-44b9-4ba6-bb69-b6e0236f1e5a.aspx

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,20de1cad-79af-41b0-a513-48298b5d1d77.aspx

Review: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,f4c74c59-c315-4f07-a5c4-67a5928d10b7.aspx

• Credit Derivatives and Synthetic Structures: A Guide to Instruments and Applications: Janet M. Tavakoli

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/047141266X/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

• Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization: Janet M. Tavakoli

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471462209/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

• An Introduction to Credit Risk Modeling

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/158488326X/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

• Credit Derivatives: Risk Management, Trading and Investing

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/047002416X/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,254c5d7e-fb73-4d19-9fe3-815c14d2955b.aspx

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,291085b3-206f-4248-9688-20dafb3b6ef8.aspx

Referenced: http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,5c54efd9-9b42-480a-bb1a-01386a2c9d48.aspx

• Credit Derivatives: Application, Pricing, and Risk Management: Gunter Meissner

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1405126760/026-8787779-9446068?%5Fencoding=UTF8

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

Includes SBS 2003 R2. Thurrott gives a good explanation of the changes

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/sbs2003r2.asp

Probably not a compelling upgrade for me. Of more interest is the fact that the full version of XP Professional is no longer offered - only the upgrade version.

http://www.nogeekleftbehind.com/2006/10/09/bittersweet-october-2006-actionpack-update/

I posted on this a while ago

http://www.noelwatson.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,ebf24a79-0a89-4c6a-8f64-ecf03e23caa9.aspx

I've decided to get one - the range of my current router is insufficient so I hope this is better - if not I will keep it as a backup

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000TZ8Z8/ref=amb_link_29463265_3/026-8787779-9446068

Been out for a few weeks now - will attempt an upgrade in the next few weeks

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DasBlog19Released.aspx

UPDATE: Site now running on 1.9.6264.0

I've been reading Part 2 of the Ben-Gan SQL 2005 books

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-SQL-Server-2005-Programming/dp/0735621977/sr=8-2/qid=1160398841/ref=sr_1_2/026-8787779-9446068?ie=UTF8&s=books

and in one of the chapters he discussed temporary tables

vs. table variables

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305977

Ever since table variables were introduced in SQL 2000 I have used them by default rather than temporary tables. This decision was made after team members at the company I was working with at the time had experienced blocking when using temporary tables within transactions in SQL 7.0. Their solution was to use "permanent"  temp tables with the connections SPID as part of the primary key. When they migrated to SQL 2000, they couldn't replace permanent temp tables with table variables as the data was required by more than one procedure in the same transaction (the stored procedures were very granular to avoid using syntax such as "WHERE @ip_Paramter1 IS NULL OR Field1 = @ip_Parameter1). However, for vast majority of the work I have done subsequently I have used table variables.

In his book, Ben-Gan made the interesting point that statistics are not kept for table variables so the execution plan may be less than optimal. I thought I would test this for the longest running stored procedure in the application I am currently working on.

If I had been using SQL 2000 client tools, it would've been more difficult to compare result, however, SQL 2005 makes it very easy -

Notes:

• Inserts, deletes and updates are shown as zero as NOCOUNT was on
• The temporary table holds around 500 rows and is updated 5 times
• I am running against a SQL 2000 server
• The first four tests are for the table variable and the last four for temporary tables

So, for my test, table variables are faster than temporary tables, but the book taught me that you must constantly challenge your preconceptions with technology advancing as quickly as it does.