The Haphazard Blog

It’s been a long time since I really used a Mac. Probably going back to grade school and using it for things like Print Shop, games and talking to other students at other schools over 300 baud modems.

I thought about getting a Power Mac a couple years back around the time Apple switched to Intel chips. The most appealing part of OS X was it was built on a Linux core and that provided a very good foundation. Developers (mostly non-Windows) were using it and really liked it.

My laptop is now over 5 years old and it’s about time to get a newer one. I’ve been waiting for the new MacBook Pros to come out for a while. Rumors are they are coming tomorrow. Without an event planned, I wouldn’t expect to see any major changes. With that in mind, I’d like to see the following in the new 13″ MacBook Pro.

• Higher resolution, 16:9 display instead of 16:10
• RGB LED instead of White LED backlighting
• Blu-Ray drive
• USB 3
• Lighter (< 4 pounds)

The upside to no major redesign is I’d avoid what seems like early adopter problems that plague Apple. Also, I hope they fix their problem with 3rd party SSD drives (although I’d get an Intel one anyway).

All in all, I want a light and silent laptop. If this refresh is crappy, I’ll be giving the Dell Vostro V13 a hard look. I thought I’d see a lot of people try and turn them into Hackintoshes by now. Why hasn’t anyone tried?

I’ve watched the first three F1 races this season and there has been a good mix to this point.

The first race had three new teams (six cars) and some rules changes. They took out KERS (I wish they would’ve kept it as an option) and banned race refueling. I like the safety implications of banning race refueling. I’d complain that it makes all the cars have the same weight throughout the whole race, but I don’t think it really mattered since they went back to a single tire manufacturer. So the race felt somewhat like a parade. It was relatively boring at the front of the field. Most changes in position occurred via pit stop timing or attrition.

The second race was a rain affair. Rain always makes a race interesting. Somehow, the tool Jenson Button managed to win the race with pit strategy. Sebastian Vettel once again was leading the race before he had another problem. That is two races for him. That is the kind of problem that could cost a driver a championship.

Today’s race was the best of them all so far. Two of the top teams (McLaren and Ferrari) royally screwed up qualifying. They started near the back and had to get their way to the front. The driver I’m supporting this year (I seem to pick a team and/or driver to get behind a couple races into the season), Lewis Hamilton, was able to get through the field. He was able to pass guys that no one else could in the beginning of the race. I think this also displayed a huge flaw in the cars. We would see guys like Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso gaining up to two seconds a lap on the guy in front of them, but as soon as they caught them, they were unable to get past them. I feel like they should be able to get by with that kind of advantage. They still have work to do with the aerodynamics and get even more mechanical grip. My other (minor) complaint is that they warned Lewis Hamilton for excessive weaving. There’s no question he was weaving side-to-side, but he was the lead car. The FIA consistently lets people block by weaving with no warning. Hamilton wasn’t making the move in reaction to another car, so I don’t get the complaint.

In the end, Vettel finally got the win that alluded him in the first 2 races. I want to see a race where the fast guys qualify as expected and the race is dry to see if the first race was an aberration, or if that was a preview of what the majority races will bring in 2010. Also, I’m surprised we are 3 races in and there haven’t been any technical controversies.

Through TD Ameritrade I recently was able to gain access to the Investools Investing Foundations course. I’m through about 25% of the course and thought I’d share some thoughts on the course. I only have access to the course materials and trading rooms. I do not have access to any coaching (by choice). So those are really the main areas I can currently review.

First, their stuff is expensive. Talking to them, the Investing Foundation course starts at $300 with no coaching and 6 months of access. The Options courses are over $1,000 and the high probability trading course is over $6,000. You could’ve guessed this since they do not reveal any pricing information on their web site.

I think the materials (course manual, videos, web seminars (they call these trading rooms)) contain good information. So far, it’s all stuff that I had learned from day trading index futures in the past: trading plan, risk vs. reward, psychology of trading. But it is all good information, especially for a new trader or someone who is struggling to trade. The course will teach a lot of things that are important to successful investing and for the struggling investor may help them identify where their struggles are.

For the experienced investor, the investing foundation course would serve as a good refresher (I believe it is included with the purchase of other courses). I’d have to leave the ultimate decision on whether the course is worth the price to the purchaser (we all value money differently). I was certainly taken aback by the pricing when I heard it. We’ll see if this course is able to help get me more active in the markets. Ultimately, my two biggest weaknesses in investing are my risk-averse personality and staying an active investor, not a lack of knowledge/understanding.

I had trouble installing Visual Studio 2010 Professional RC on Windows XP last week. My issue was when I was running the installer, it would start a little bit and then the installation dialog would just exit. Looking at the log files from the installation (located in your user account’s temp folder, usually C:\Documents and Settings\User Account\Local Settings\Temp) didn’t really point to a specific cause.

I was able to install it by using the following command from within the setup folder at the command prompt:

setup /q /full

This ran the installation from the background, but be warned, it will cause your machine to automatically exit applications and reboot. In my case, my machine rebooted twice and after the second time, it was about 30-45 minutes before the installer was done (I could only tell by monitoring the task manager and the setup.exe process along with the constant creation of msiexec.exe processes). Unfortunately, Visual Studio would crash constantly (with no error) when I moused over the Toolbox.

Finally, I came across something on the MSDN boards. I wasn’t having the problem the person who posted the question was having, but this took care of my problem. I also suspect if I did this first, I would’ve been able to use the installer normally. The solution is to disable handwriting support. Since I don’t have a tablet, I didn’t need it (I don’t know why it was enabled in the first place).

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Choose Regional and Language Options
3. Go to the Languages tab
4. Click the Details… button in the Text services and input languages pane
5. Under Installed services under the Settings tab, Remove Handwriting Recognition
6. Click OK
7. Click OK

As I was getting the link to the RC when writing this article I saw there was an important note posted on the site:

Important Note: If you use IntelliSense on a device with UIA 3.0 (e.g., Tablet PC, touch display, some 3rd party applications), be sure to download these two hot fixes before using the RC (KB980610 and KB980920).

Installing those may also prevent the errors while maintaining handwriting recognition support if you need, but I’m not sure. I ignored those downloads at the time because I don’t have a tablet.

We’re right near the halfway mark for the final season of Lost and it seems like more mysteries have been added compared to how many have been solved. It makes me wonder if there is enough time to wrap up all the big mysteries.

I don’t think there will be an answer to the meaning of the numbers. They were used in so many contexts, they now just seem like numbers. Jacob’s numbering system for the candidates based on the placement of the lighthouse mirror? In a previous post I had wondered where was Kate. She had a number (51) assigned to her at the lighthouse. It doesn’t make much sense right now.

In the first couple of seasons, there were only flash backs. They seemed to show how many of the plane crash survivors had either unknowingly crossed paths or had some type of unknown relationship. Now in these alternate reality flashes, they seem to be running into each other and having their lives intersect. Does this mean they were destined to cross paths? Maybe the point is that some things are pre-destined, but how people get there allows for choice. It could explain why it’s hard to figure out if it is free will or destiny or who is good/evil between Jacob and not-Locke.

I thought the series would end with an explanation about why all those people were brought to the island and how they were connected. But I can’t make much sense of these new flashes. Some characters seem no different, while others seem to be living pretty different lives. What is the purpose of showing a what-if  Oceanic 815 landed? Does that mean both happened? Either could’ve happened? Is there an event that prevents it?

I thought I could kind of figure this whole thing out as it winds down, but I’m pretty much where I’ve been for the whole series. Just sitting back and waiting for answers. A couple more months and I guess we’ll have all of the answers we’re going to get.

Onto another show that just came back, FlashForward. ABC did a good job bringing this show back from a nearly 4-month hiatus. They had a special to recap what happened with the main characters and then aired a 2-hour episode. They gave us a lot of new information and filled in some blanks. We now know who suspect zero is, who (sort of) caused the blackout and the role of Lloyd in amplifying it. Oddly, neither Lloyd or Simon were asked about their captors. If any sketches were made, it would’ve been pretty simple to link Simon to his “uncle”.

With some of those questions answered, I think the next big thing is the events people saw when they blacked out and seeing how far Simon can get in figuring out who was behind the blackout and why they need him. It will be interesting to see if the flashes are destined or become self-fulfilling prophecies.

I don’t know what I did to myself, but even resting until Wednesday wasn’t enough. I rode for about 6 minutes in manual mode at the slowest speed and could feel the pain in my left upper pectoral towards my shoulder. I really thought I felt fine before deciding to ride it.

I started to take Ibuprofen at that point and it is all I managed to do. I’m going to give it another day or two and try again. If I still have pain, I may need to go see the doctor.

This week I started to have some pain in my left ribs and upper left pectoral muscle. I really felt it right after riding it Friday which makes me think I hurt it before Friday and aggravated a lot on Friday.

On Thursday I had bumped the speed up to the 3rd level for the whole 15 minutes. I think this the likely culprit. I guess I simply wasn’t ready for it. I was hoping to get the speed up higher so that I could eventually get to the 5th speed level and use the preprogrammed routines at a speed higher than the lowest.  I likely jumped the gun.

So I did not ride it this weekend and will see how I feel tomorrow. I still want to try the stir-ups again as well.

My plan is to update this blog with my progress for the next two weeks and then post updates when I have new information to share. If anyone has any questions for me, feel free to submit a comment or contact me (contact info is at the bottom of every page).