Currently reading...

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Wallstrip Eye Candy

I just found out about this site today and previewed some of their clips. Today's clip is particularly funny. It helps tremendously that the interviewer is appealing - hello, eye candy - and amusing.

Enjoy, I know I did!

Being a Coghead

So I signed up to be a beta user of this site. I must say that they've come up with an eloquent application. The business problem most users, whether a home user or corporate user, have is creating applications to that meet their business requirements but no having the technical know-how to get this done. Well Coghead has nailed a solution right on the head for this problem. They've created a marketplace for users to submit widgets that other users can apply in building their custom application. As a web application software engineer this makes me think that if our industry doesn't really get their act together and start providing solutions to our business customers in a more efficient manner then it might be time to really search as to what we are doing wrong.

I suggest everyone check it out and definitely take advantage of what they are offering as opposed to "re-engineering the wheel" and creating an application that can be found on Coghead for pennies on the dollar.

Instant Bull

Just read a Biz Week article about this site. Seems like streamlined method to get a holistic view about the happenings from the the trader brethren.

Check it out. Let me know what you all think!

Motley Cramer

Cadre or charlatan...you decide.

Video link

ISE sentiment

Markets today worldwide were up pretty big. Recovery from last week already taking place? ISE Sentiment* tracking towards bull territory but we're not out of the bear country yet. Thanks to MaoXian for pointing this metric out to me as I've always used the CBOE sentiment gauge.


* For those unfamiliar with the ISE sentiment it's call/put rather then CBOE put/call calculation. Take the inverse of the ISE to normalize.

Current market sentiment

Scary if you're in the current market. Cash is king at times like this. Sidelines is always a good place to be with the ^VIX climbing higher and the CBOE pointing to bearish sentiment over the past two weeks. The market has advanced incredibly since the summer and this correction is healthy.

Eminently social

Just finished reading an article in this month's Fast Company titled "The Myth About Creation Myths" (sorry, the link to the article is for paying members only). It discusses the misconceptions that callow entrepreneurs have about the iconic entrepreneurs of the 20th and early 21st century. Though we've all heard of the stories of two young brazen adults fresh out of college starting a company in a garage to see it grow to a corporate juggernaut this is an anomaly and certainly not the norm. Of interest for anyone that is thinking of starting up an idea is that a study of venture capital backed companies found that over 90% of these companies were based off of the founders previous experience. Though we all enjoy a good story of a company's genesis being born out of garage, that's all it is, a story to pique our interest. Companies are born inside other companies. Apple was started by two founders that had previous experiences working for Atari and HP. YouTube was started by expatriates of PayPal. The list goes on. Learn from the success of others that have walked down this path and get a job first!