IE9 hardware acceleration bug on Bing.com

Just installed IE9 on my laptop and it seems to be super smooth. Several elements to match Firefox and Chrome, so it's generally an improvement. However, going to Bing.com, I noticed that it fails to render the Oregon waterfalls (Waterfall in Silver Falls, Oregon") video background in correctly.

Disabling hardware acceleration corrected the situation for me. However, I'm curious if others are seeing this issue as well. I'm able to view other videos on the web fine (HTML5 manipulation also seems ok). Not sure if this is a Silverlight issue.

The weirded out page looks as shown above. Original looks like below ("software rendering"):

IE9 hardware accel ("software rendering") settings look like below:

Since the option is enabled, looks like at least IE9 thinks the hardware supports it. Again, not sure if this is a silverlight or IE9 issue.

The Curious Incident of Night and the HP Touchapd

Cross posting my latest blog

The Curious Incident of a Night and the HP Touchpad

Or perhaps I should call it "How HP's board stopped worrying and Started Loving the Bong".

Bing "similar images" fail

Bing has been very impressive with its home page. I find myself checking out Bing.com just to see their daily image. The Bing.com landing page images are generally beautiful and generally very engaging. However, looking past the landing page, the features offered can do interestingly weird things.

Take the image search for example: I love their image interface! I felt it was better than Google's and then Google confirmed my opinion by aping Bing's interface. So, I find myself exploring Bing's image search every so often. Today, they had a really "cute" (ack.. i said it) image of meercats.


Source: Bing.com

Clicking on one of the boxes brought me to the Bing image search page. There amongst several photos of kissing meercats, I spotted an add looking doll. Interestingly it was even labeled "Creepiest Dolls". No kidding. Check it out below:

the zoomed image is below for your viewing pleasure!

Robbin' my head

I am a movie buff. There, I admit.

There are some actors and directors I hold in high-esteem and I expect good enriching entertainment from them, e.g. Ridley Scott's Gladiator starring Russel Crowe was superb. A superlative and engaging yarn about, Maximus, an awe inspiring Roman General wronged by a vain and vengeful despot. Fate lands the wronged warrior in the shoes of a slave warrior and leaves him a man bereft of his rights and individuality, battling as much for his survival as for the entertainment of a savage audience. He claws, guts and chops his way into the hearts of his ruthless, cheering spectators and ascends to command the vox populi and, with their support and of a few patriotic Republic-wanting Senators, rids Rome of the inept tyrant. All this in gritty, dramatic and high-production value, Hollywood style.

Needless to say, when I saw the same director-actor team the helm of another legendary tale, I expected nothing less than "Gladiator magic": Robin Hood "re-imagined", or as per the movie's implicit ambitions: "with the record set straight".

Alas, the movie was all but an entertaining fare. A two hour hodge-podge "origins" yarn of a yeoman archer muddling his way through a nebulous war against a whimsically pusillanimous Prince Phillip of France left me feeling robbed of my time and intellect . The movie certainly stole from me, though I wonder if any were enriched by the looting.

Admittedly, the movie's premise is engaging: that Robin was not a nobleman, but a simple, honest man, one who was as straight as the arrows he shot. The straight shooter was, through a twist of fate, coerced to assume the identity of a knight, Sir Robert Loxley. The newly minted Sir Robert was forced to suffer the indignity of inheriting the vast lands and vassals of Pepper Harrow. Robin's torment is exacerbated when he must bed the knight's wife to keep up the charade of being Sir Robert. Along the way, Robin also learns that he is long lost son of a free-mason who happened to be the original author / instigator of the Magna Carta.

Following these revelations, Sir Robert of Loxley is thrust into an immensely academic debate on the limits of a sovereign's authority over the other feudal barrons, which he wins with aplomb while yelling his thoughts from a hillside while riding down on his trusty steed (which I think happened to be erstwhile King Richard the Lion Heart's horse).

Needless to say, the Sherrif of Nottingham is displeased, and all this confusion leads a British / French double-agent to attack Nottingham and Pepper Harrow. At this point, Lady Marion befriends forest urchins who have been regularly stealing from her estate, and becomes their leader.

Meanwhile Sir Robert Loxley/ Robin of Loxley, a.k.a Longstride, finishes his debate and marches with the entire British army composed of militia from the various Lords and Knights mentioned above and lands on a beach to greet an invading French army. A nonsensical battle ensues, which is briefly interrupted when a horse riding Maid Marion stumbles into the battle field along with a rag-tag guerrilla group of previously mentioned forest urchins riding on ponies.

As is expected, the French are defeated, the Magna Carta is burned, and Robin is declared an outlaw. Robin escapes, naturally, to Sherwood forest and his men make merry.

If your head hurts reading the above, I implore you to not watch the movie. This is exactly what happened. It doesn't make sense when I narrate it, and it didn't make one iota of sense when British knights battled with French troops on a beach in all their medieval gore and glory for no coherent reason.

Why is this not news?

Lindsay Lohan spends thanksgiving with her dad. Eva Langoria divorces Tony Parker. Catholics debate Pope's condom remarks. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows nets $61 Million on opening Friday.

Going by Google's and Bing's news pages, the above are all front-page newsworthy. What isn't, is the attempt by an Oklahoma referendum to ban Sharia Law. Rather it is a referendum to amend Oklahoma's constitution that 70% of the electorate have already voted for favorably. It has, however, since been stayed by a Federal judge.

Why should this be news? Why should anyone put down their burrito, ignore their Budweiser, look away from Snookie's antics and pay any attention to what happens in a fly-over state? Why is a mere agreement to never use a specific religious tenet in the jurisprudence of one state of the Union be more important than Kim Kardashian's front or aft cleavage?

This development should be a source of consternation because the referendum is discriminatory. In this day and age, in a Union that pride's itself on having a history of protecting individual Liberty, Equality and Fraternity more than the originators of that phrase, such a development is shocking. As a CYA, the referendum does mention "International" law next to Muslim Sharia law. So the implied meaning is "we mean not just Sharia law, but any law that is not of Oklahoma or the Federal law of the United States of America or Common Law". But that is extant understanding. So what does this referendum achieve that doesn't already exist?

The fact that it, prima facie, doesn't change status quo is all the more reason this referendum should never have been brought to vote. The referendum and its eventual stay by the Federal courts bring to fore at least two very important points of debate: a) the "humanity" of the referendum b) the Constitutionality of the Federal Courts' action

The referendum singles out Sharia law. For a country that has long promulgated a separation of religion and state, as enshrined in the First Amendment to its Constitution, there is no need to specify a specific religion. Why did the authors of the referendum not specify Christianity, Judaism or any other religion? Is it their implicit assertion that Judeo-Christian social law is the "National" law, while everything else, falls under the umbrella of "International"? And Muslim Sharia Law particularly so?
If so, this referendum is dangerous because it nefariously and surreptitiously breaches the separation between religion and state; a separation expounded by John Locke, interpreted by Thomas Jefferson and recognized numerous times by the United States Supreme Court. It violates, usurps and perverts the intention of the hallowed Founding Fathers. It alienates and singles out a specific people for no fault of theirs and for a problem that does not exist. By the same measure, shouldn’t we pass a law that prohibits specifically the rape of pigs by horses? How about forward trading in the share market by Martians for Jovian shell companies managed by residents of Pluto? We certainly wouldn’t want that. Also passing those laws doesn’t hurt anyone or change status quo. And we just want to be safe, you know, just in case. Or, how about specifically banning the consideration of Papal edicts when adjudicating cases in the grand state of Oklahoma? Would that rankle the pious and the patriotic?

Furthermore, some might argue that the Federal court has no jurisdiction in the matter of a State’s constitution. Does that mean if the majority of state vote in favor of an unconscionable or unconstitutional law no Federal entity has the authority to intervene? What if the voters legalized public lynching? It’s definitely not stoning the guilty publicly or the stipulation to wear a burqua as demanded by the Sharia. So we’re good, right? How about denying Jews jobs? If it’s by majority, of course. How about denying Asians citizenship and land ownership because they’re, you know, not White? As long as an opinion is backed by a plebiscite, we’re golden, right?

The above are inhuman. Fortunately for the United States, they are also unconstitutional. They do not need an activist judge to be abrogated, only rational and unbiased humans. But once enacted, they need historical figures to lead revolutions before being repealed and rejected. And ages before the average denizens discard the delusional and derogatory didactics. All the reasons for which the emancipated world despises the martinet interpretation of Sharia law, must, apply to the irrationality and orthodoxy that suppress individuality and expose any individual choice to legalized discrimination. The Oklahoma law qualifies as discrimination and is unconscionable for the same reasons.

The fact that the targets of the law are not Christians and brown should not be conciliation enough. The New World is better than that.

More reading:

• http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/21/1935729/oklahoma-law-taunts-muslims.html
• http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/11/21/general-pope-condoms-reaction_8154928.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews
• https://www.sos.ok.gov/documents/questions/755.pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States
• http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_oklahoma_sharia_ban.html

Conversations at a cafe - the one about stars, the Super Bowl and relationships

Sheetal hated Mark. She hated him because he seemed to always espouse ideals she seldom agreed with. She suspected he did this on purpose, just to spite her. She hated him because he seldom seemed to be driven by rationality and often argued “the implications of being human”, whatever that meant. And, she hated him for always being 10 minutes late. She never understood why, despite knowing him, she still waited and expected him to be on time. Above all, she hated him for that. Today Mark was nearly an hour late. Sheetal was already on her third paper and second cup of Pumpkin Spiced Latte.

“Sheetal, why are you so strung up all the time?”

Startled, Sheetal looked up to see Mark smiling back at her, holding his cup of Mocha.

“What!? When did you get here?”

In a swift, practiced stroke, Mark turns the empty chair around with his left hand while placing his coffee on the table with his right. He removes his shoulder bag and nudges the chair so that its back now touches the two person table Sheetal is seated at, and sits down straddling the chair with his chin resting on his hands on the chair back.

“You were frowning at the paper you were reading. I walked in five minutes ago, but you were totally trying to stare a hole through that paper. You didn’t even notice me, so I thought I’d just get my order before I walk over.”

“No that’s not really true...,” Sheetal begins to protest. She leans forward and looks Mark evenly in the eyes.

“All right Mark. When are you meeting her?”

“What? Who?” Mark questions with a surprised chuckle.

“The girl behind the counter. She’s new here and you found her cute. So you decided to speak to her first instead of letting me know you were here.”

“Come on, Sheeps. Do you really think of me like that?”

“Yes I do. I know you. So, when are you meeting that girl?”

“Kimberly. Her name is Kimberly and you’ll get a chance to talk to her at Megan’s party tonight.”

“How do you always manage to do that? You ask and no girl ever says no.”

“Ya, I’m James Bond.”

“No seriously. What do you say to these girls that they just go ‘ya okay. I’ll, like, have, like, dinner with you. And, like, then some.’”

“Wow you make them sound so duh. It doesn’t work that way at all.”

“So how does it work?”

“I don’t know why some girls agree to go on a date with me and some don’t. I so wish there was a magic word or line I could say and they’d always agree, but there isn’t. If that were true, I would just call up Scarlet Johanssen and say it over and over again. Okay maybe I’d call Maggie Gyllenhall as well. Oh and Michelle Wong”

“What no Megan Fox?”

“Naah. She’s over-hyped.”

“And if you like Michelle that much, why don’t you just ask her?”

“I did”

“And?”

“And what? It’s not happening.”

“And you’re still harboring feelings for her while you ask other girls out?”

“No not really. Sheeps why am I in the hot seat?”

“Because I want to know. And you were late.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Ya I know. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Well, I asked Michelle out last week.”

“And?”

“And she’s not interested.”

“What did she say?”

“That she’s not interested.”

“Ouch. That’s cold. I always felt she was a little, you know, blunt.”

“No, not really. I think it’s very mature of her, actually. I appreciate her honesty and forthrightness. It’s what I liked about her to begin with. I sometimes wish others would follow her example and say what they think and mean more often. She’s not stupid, you know. I think she just happens to choose being honest and direct more often than others.”

“Listen to you defending her.”

“Not wanting to date me doesn’t make her a bad person, right? And that’s how life is.”

“Like how?”

“You know, the ones you like are not interested in you and the one’s who are interested in you, you don’t like.”

Sheetal cracks up. “Really Mark!”

She puts the paper she was reading in the folder on her lap, closes it, puts it on the table and leans forward. With elbows on the folder and her face cradled between closed palms, she asks “In that case how do you explain people being together at all?”

“Some of it is genuine attraction and compatibility, you know, when you find someone who you instantly gel with. You just seem to get each other even when you disagree. Strongly. “

“And the rest?”

“Biology and economics.”

“Huh? Are you implying that every relationship is some form of prostitution?” Sheetal frowns and nestles a wisp of hair behind her ear.

“No, not at all. I’m referring to the, you know, the prime directive.”

“The What? Is this an obscure Matrix reference? You do know that I never get most of your movie references, right?”

Mark chuckles. “‘God is happiest when His children are at play.’ Or in other words, breed and be happy. At some point both the guy and the gal say ‘you’ll do’.”

Sheetal leans back and crosses her hands. “You mean people just give up and settle for something they think is ‘good enough’.”

“Yep. That’s why it’s called ‘settling down’”. Mark takes a sip of his coffee.

“Not very romantic at all.”

“Not much is.” Mark gulps another sip.

“I think that’s why arranged marriages work in some cultures.”

“What?”

“Your cultural heritage for one still has arranged marriages, right? I think they work because both the guy and the girl come in with the idea of ‘it’s a compromise’ and decide to rough it out.”

Sheetal frowns. “Next you’re going to say that matching Horoscopes is the way to go.”

“Well, at its very basis, the idea is that marriages are successful if the couple has compatible personalities. If you think about it, modern internet dating websites do a similar thing. Aren’t you on one of these sites?”

Sheetal cocks an eyebrow. “Well, Misha made us all sign up just to see who’d bite.”

“And Jim doesn’t mind?” Mark cocks a smile.

“I don’t think he knows and this was before I really met him. And I don’t respond to any emails I get.” Sheetal fires a mild stink eye in Mark’s direction.

“So did you fill out their extensive questionnaire?”

“Well not really. Misha just wanted us to put up pretty pictures and write the bare minimum, so I just breezed through the personality section.”

“So if you were serious, you would take the time to answer all those questions. Right?”

“Ya, I guess.”

“So then they could use that data and come up with a Meyer’s Briggs like personality profile for you. And by you, I mean any one who sings up.”

Sheetal shrugs, “Yes, I guess. And your point is?”

“Well,” Mark gesticulates with a partially close fisted left hand:. his index finger and thumb joining as if trying to pierce something with a sharp pointed needle. “… given a personality profile, these websites will try to find personalities which in their ‘experience’ will best match.”

“And by their ‘experience’,” Sheetal accentuates with air quotes, “you mean the research they performed across several long lasting, happy couples.”

“Exactly!”

“So what’s wrong with that?”

“Well nothing per se. But, it does beg the question of what guarantee they have that personalities really govern, at least to a statistical significance, the success or failure of a relationship.”

“Honestly Mark! How can someone stay married if they can’t even get along with their spouse?”

“Compromise. It could be for a number of reasons, the least of which could be social standing, support for a child, possible future fortune or even asylum or citizenship.”

“I can’t believe that everyone who answered that they were happy had one of these ulterior motives.”

“No not everyone, but it still is very possible, right?”

“Let’s say so for the sake of the argument. I want to see where you’re going with this.”

“The point I’m making is that no one really knows what works and what doesn’t. Personality profiles are merely an attempt to quantify the success of a given relationship. Who’s to say that the profiles most opposed won’t come together and live happily ever after?”

“So you’re going to say horoscopes are also such an attempt? A projection from the domain of relationships into the dimensions of a personality profile and finally on to the real number line as a percentage of goodness of a match?”

“Wow Sheetal. Leave it to you to come up with a mathematical definition of everything. You do know that you sound super scary when you do that, right? Next thing I know you’ll be spouting equations with Greek letters and curly braces on the napkins.”

“Are you calling me a geek?”

“Only as a badge of honor. I swear. But, yes, essentially Hororscopes could be looked upon as such a mapping. And they needn’t also be that different from personality profiles.”

“You’re saying there is a correlation between a person’s date and time of birth and their behavior. And hence, there’s a correlation between the position of the planets and stars and the stability of a relationship.”

“Exactly!” Mark snaps his fingers on both hands. “What if there is a statistically significant correlation between behaviors and astrological charts? More so, what if there is a stronger and more direct correlation between astrological patterns and successful relationships, independently of behaviors?”

“Mark, you do know that line of reasoning is specious at best? Going by your logic, I could pin the success of relationships on how tall grass grows every year. Or how close the Boston Redsox come to winning the World Series each year. Just because we can propose a metric does not mean it really applies.”

“But people have been doing this for ages and it seems to work out! Look at the success rate of Asian Indian marriages versus those out here in the Western world. The US is infamous for having a divorce rate of 50 percent. Nearly half the marriages in the entire country end in divorce. That’s no better than a coin flip. Wouldn’t it make sense to go with something that can better those odds?”

“Sure. I mean everyone wants a ‘lived happily ever after’ tag line. But that doesn’t mean you put your unquestioning faith in a dubious predictor.”

“But if it betters the odds, how can it be more dubious that not using anything?”

“There is a certain stock market predictor that postulates that the Market will go up if an NFC team wins the Super Bowl and will go down if an AFC team wins. The Super Bowl Stock market predictor has upwards of an 80% success rate in the past 40 years. Those are some impressive odds wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, but you won’t find me betting my money on that.”

“And why’s that, Mark?” Sheetal asks with a smile.

“Because, I don’t see a relation between how a football team performs and what the stock market does.”

“Even though there’s a high proven correlation and past record of performance?” Sheetal giggles.

“Yes, we all know correlation is not causation. Stop making fun.”

“And yet, so many people watch Punxsutawney Phil come out every winter to let them know if the winter is going to last another six weeks by looking at his shadow or not.”

Mark laughs. “Yeah, I always found Ground Hog Day supremely idiotic. Loved Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell in the movie though.”

“And yet every year millions participate in the same ritual.”

“But it’s not like everyone believes in it. Most just do it as a reason to party. It’s a joke and everyone knows it.”

“Sadly that’s not the case with Horoscopes and other modes of divination.”

“Yes my dear, not everyone is as smart and rational as you. It is a fairly human failing to want a apprehensible explanation of why things happen. And more so to protect one’s self from painful future experiences.”

“And to save myself from another painful experience, I have to leave now. I have to stop by the Library and then I’m picking Jim up from the airport. And then we have to be at Megan’s to meet you and Kimberly!”

“Just be gentle when you meet me with her.” Mark catches Kimberly looking at him, and waves at her and cracks a smile.

“Oh look, she’s been checking you out. That’s a good sign.” Sheetal giggles and waves out to Kim, who now looks puzzled.

“Alright, get out of here. I’ll see you at Megan’s. Hopefully, you haven’t scared Kimberly away.”

How to blow more money

As a sequel to my previous blog about investing or blowing your money, here's an investment strategy that I have been roughly following:

“First, identify the quantity of cash to be put to work -- example: 20%. Second, break the trade into digestible chunks -- example: break it into four parts, 5% each. Third, implement the first trade today -- example: invest 5% into equities today. Fourth, set a date for implementing the second trade -- example: two months from today invest the second 5%. Fifth, implement third and forth segments if market pullbacks occur -- example: invest the remaining 10% of the cash on market pullbacks. And sixth, after the date of the second trade occurs, return to step one with the remaining cash -- example: two months from today, if the market never provides the opportunity to buy on a pullback, break the remaining 10% up into three to four parts and follow a strategy similar to the one utilized for investing the first 10%."

Source: Riverfront Investment Group’s strategy for committing new capital to stocks
Link: http://www.minyanville.com/articles/rich-bull-market-risk-emotion-positions-stocks/index/a/24583/p/1

My personal strategy veers from this a little bit. I keep researching stocks so that I am prepared to act when the date rolls around. Also, during my research should I come across a security that really appeals to me, I will pull the gun and trade prior to the defined date. If not, (and for the most part) we're back on the systematic investment tracks.

Palm's Pre-eminent device

Image source: http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/index.html

Prologue

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to lose my faithful Sprint clam-shell phone. I had come to like the LG Muziq as a no-nonsense functional device. Yes, it could play mp3s, browse the web and take pictures. It also sported a loud enough speaker phone and ran on Sprint's reliable and fast CDMA network. But, it definitely lacked the spunk of the iPhone or any other smartphone for that matter. It had a GPS chip built in, which I never used in the two years that I owned it. It had an address book that I never completely filled, but for that matter, never did rely on entirely either. But, I still liked it because it was a work horse and worked as a very reliable communication device. My Dear LG Muziq (VX 570), rest in peace, wherever you are.

Sprint Service contract

Well, now that I had lost a phone, the good folks at Sprint were only to helpful to sell me another one. Luckily, my contract was expiring in a week's time and I was eligible for Sprint's $150 rebate on a new phone and plan. I didn't have any insurance on my Muziq, so getting a similar replacement was not a cheap option.

I had been following the buzz on the Pre for a while, so decided to go take a closer look. My prior experience with it hadn't been as compelling: I had managed to freeze the UI when I ran several applications. To be fair, I was looking at a device in a Sprint booth setup at a company fair and there were tons (> 20) of apps open when that happened. Even then, it did recover after freezing for about a minute (we were all engineers and all very patient technophiles).

So this time, since I needed a phone anyway, I decided to splurge for the Pre. A word of caution to others with wallet friendly plans: you will need to sign up for a $69.99 or $99.99 per month all inclusive data plan. With my Muziq, I was already paying extra for night and weekend minutes from 7 ($5) and the Sprint vision plan ($15) and unlimited messaging ($5) on top of my flexible plan ($29.99). So for me, getting 450 minutes, unlimited messaging, unlimited data, NFL mobile, Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, Mobile Facebook, Mobile Youtube and a cool phone for $20 more / month made absolute sense.

The device cost me $350 upfront with $150 mail-in rebate ($200 + taxes). I hear now the price has dropped to $150 (+ taxes)! If you buy the Pre in the State of Broke, and by that I mean California, your taxes are generally higher. I'm not sure if they've instituted a disposal fee on cell phones yet, but ya, the taxes are higher.

So plan costs aside, there are several other features of the Pre that make a whole lot of economic and ergonomic sense to me. And these in a large portion balance out other costs typically associated with cell phones.

Physical attraction

I'm all charged up

First and foremost: I have always bemoaned the lack of standardized chargers for cellphones. These are additional devices one needs to purchase and add to the hidden cost of owning cellphones. Manufacturers and networks perhaps considered this a cozy form of "lock-in" but it ends up being just inconvenient. Even Apple, make that especially Apple, products suffer from this. BUT NOT THE PALM PRE!! Much to my surprise, it came with a sleek looking travel charger! And the best of all, the charger on the Pre is a standard MICRO-USB port (not a mini-USB port typically found on your digital cameras. Micro-USB is newer standard with a smaller connection form factor)!

Which means replacing Palm Pre's chargers are cheap! This also means that I instantly have a Car charger since my Car USB adapter now becomes a car charger! This in of itself can save you upwards of $10 (depending on how savvy you are with EBay!). I remember having to shell out $30 for my Samsung phones while travelling. But I won't get bitten like that any more!

Also, connecting your Pre to your computer is a cinch and doesn't require expensive and non-standard cables. Again, money saved. If you have one of the newer cars that provide USB ports for mp3 playback, you not only have a charger, but also a built-in player interface!

No longer do I feel trapped and at the mercy of difficult to procure connectors and chargers. No longer do I need to lug around dozens of different little black wires, adapters and connectors. THANK YOU PALM, FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!

And the joy doesn't stop there. The Pre comes with a pair of standard 3.5mm bud-headphones. While these are, as several websites will attest, not the very best earphones money can buy, they are definitely very functional and comfortable. And they are also, I can't emphasize this enough, standard. If you want, you can easily hook up your expensive noise-cancellation headphones without any problems. Such wasn't the case with most of my previous cell-phones and makes the Pre's design in my eyes very thoughtful and convenient.

Hold me

The device itself is fairly compact and glossy. Several have described it as "plasticky", but I found the device sturdy and useful. Several online reviews have described the slide-out keyboard as "razor sharp", but I found no truth in those assertions. The slide out keyboard feels robust and easy to grip. It does not, however, slide very well with one hand, and typically using the Pre is a two-handed operation. DO NOT OPERATE THE PRE WHILE DRIVING (I haven't tried this, but am willing to bet that it is difficult, especially if you password lock your phone. Btw, I highly recommend password locking for reasons highlighted later).

The keys maybe small, but are easy to use. I have neither very large hands, nor are my fingers stylus sized. I am able to use both my thumbs for typing and the full QWERTY keyboard is definitely much easier to use than the poke-and-correct soft-keyboard on the iPhone. The "shift" and "caps lock" keys work a little differently than their regular full-sized counterparts. The "shift" key is an orange key on the Pre and selects alternate characters or numbers. It, however, does not toggle between upper and lower case letters. That's where the "caps lock" key, denoted by a bold up-arrow, comes in.

Both the orange "shift" key and the up-arrow "caps lock" keys are by default one-shot, i.e. pressing them once invokes their functions for the immediately subsequent key press. E.g. if you press the up arrow key and typed the letters h, y, p, o the text would appear as "Hypo". To make the shift key "stick", press it twice. Press it once more to return to default mode.

Pre's key interface is very intuitive and very well done. Pressing the shift key once causes a blue circle to show up under the cursor indicating that the next character entered will the alternate text. When a character is entered, the circle disappears indicating a return to default mode. When the shift key is pressed twice, a black circle appears indicating that the shift key is "stuck". All text entered while the black circle is shown will be the alternate characters on the keypad. Pressing the shift key once more causes the circle to go away, indicating a return to default. A similar tack is followed with the "caps lock" key. However, instead of a filled circle, an arrow (filled blue for one-shot and filled black when "stuck") appears.

Touch Me

The Pre comes with Copy + Paste functionality, though I am yet to entirely master this. Perhaps some manual somewhere describes how best to do this, but I generally need a couple of attempts to get the cursor where I really want it to be. I tap twice in text to move the cursor to a particular location. To select text, I tap twice and drag my finger. This isn't usually very easy and I sorely miss arrow keys. Once text is selected, I copy / cut / paste using the Edit menu at the top left of the app in question. This works, but don't expect to rely on this mechanism for any amount of serious editing. For things like Facebook and Twitter status updates, you are much better off simply using the backspace and retyping. Perhaps if someone has a better technique, I am willing to learn! so let me know!!

Watch those hands

The Pre, being a very smooth glossy black plastic device, is a natural fingerprint magnet. However, Palm very thoughtfully provided a stylish black and orange chamois cover that not only protects the device from scratches but also helps keep it clean. I've seen iPhone users squeal and ohh-and-ahh over my Pre and its brilliant skin to no end!

NOTE: you will NOT be able to make your Pre look tacky by using some form of swaddling skin over it. Doing so will probably hinder the slide-out keyboard. You are better off using the cover Palm provided or buying something similar. It is the very convenient and functional on the whole.

Update: 09/17/2009

It's not just a physical thing

It's all about who you know

If you have changed phones as many times as I have, either due to expiration of your contract or through an untimely loss to the vicissitudes of the Universe, then you have most likely suffered the pain of losing all your contact information. You have probably also learned quickly the value of frequent backups, but have consistently run into the problem of synchronizing your new device with all your contact information. You also probably ended up having the same persons contact information in several different entries and formats. Well, at least I did.

The good thing was that because I had wireless backup on my plan already, all my contacts were neatly backed-up on Sprint's cloud. However, getting these on to my new Palm wasn't as I had expected. I expected that I would sign up for the wireless backup plan with the Pre and viola all my contacts would be loaded in to it again. Bada bing, bada boom. Errrnnnn!!!

The Pre is incompatible with Sprint's wireless backup service! And before you can curse out "retards" at Sprint, I'd ask you to breathe deeply and reconsider. Despite the fact that the Sprint salesperson told me this after I had already purchased the Pre, I have to hand it to Sprint's call-in customer service. They guided me to a download assistant app that can transfer my contacts from Outlook to my Pre profile / device. However, this too wasn't exactly what I was looking for, since the transfer is ONE WAY, i.e. I could get contacts on to the Pre / Palm's profile, but then I would have locked myself in.

Again, though, Palm surprised me. Instead of pulling an Apple / BMW on me and cruelly locking me to some horrendous closed interface, I had the option of using Palm’s Synergy. The moment I entered my Gmail and Facebook account information, it automagically pulled in and merged contacts! I now had people I’d never previously managed to add to my phone contacts, all in one place!

Getting the numbers in from my Sprint Wireless backup became ridiculously painless too: I exported all my contact info from the Sprint Website to a CSV (comma-separated values text) file. Next, I imported this into my Gmail contacts and before I could blink, the Pre had literally wirelessly synced all the new numbers as well!

Synergy isn’t panacea though: several of my contacts were repeated in Gmail and appeared so on the Palm as well. But Google’s Contacts management interface is fairly functional and merging similar contacts is relatively painless. Again, as you update your Gmail contacts, the Pre syncs almost instantaneously. I’m not entirely sure if there’s a push protocol underneath it all or if Pre polls that often.

The Pre also pulls in profile photos from Gmail contacts, so if your contacts have set a profile picture, it shows up on the Pre’s address book, and also when your friends call. Which I found super neat.

Sidebar: not sure if this opens up a security hole / malicious code execution exploit of some sort, e.g. if some of your contacts use a specially crafted JPEG. If this really a concern, one must wonder what kind of people you’ve been chatting with :)

Overall, it took me about 5 minutes to go from “I don’t have anyone’s contact information because I just lost my phone” to “Dude, how many freaking email addresses do you really have?” And “Babe, that’s a sweet profile pic!”

Talk to me

I long resisted the iPhone because of the lack of a physical keypad. I still fear that having a cracked screen will make the phone entirely useless during an emergency. Laugh all you want, but I have been through such an incident: the screen on my clam-shell was cracked, but I could still dial the number using the keypad. And I love the fact that with the Pre it is still possible to call someone using just the slide-out keyboard.

Calling people is easy on the Pre. You can either use the touch keypad, or the slide-out keyboard, which has the phone keypad highlighted in orange over the letters of the English alphabet.

Remember the Orange “shift” key? You don’t have to use it when dialing! The Pre searches through your contacts to determine if you are entering someone’s name or typing in a number and all options are shown in a easily scrollable, selectable list. If typing numbers, you can simply hit the “Enter” key after you are done typing the number and Pre starts dialing. Sweet. I typically prefer the keypad for calling people, but have found the on-screen keyboard fairly functional as well.

Navigating IVRS (interactive voice response systems, e.g. the automated menu that greets when you call your bank) using the Pre is easy as well: move the device away from your ear and the screen lights up with the keypad shown. Again, I prefer using the slide out keyboard, but the keypad is very useful. To add another person to an ongoing conversation, you tap the “person with a plus sign” icon on the bottom right.

Answering phones when your phone is locked is thoughtfully done as well. You don’t need to enter your password for picking up a call: simply slide the lock icon and you can talk. Use any other feature, however, requires you to unlock the phone. This is a minor inconvenience compared to typical clamshell phones, but is unavoidable.

Sup YouTwitFace!

The Pre comes preloaded with Facebook, and Youtube apps, which are generally very functional. There are Twitter apps available in the Pre app catalog, but I haven’t downloaded it yet, since I’m not a huge Twitter user. I know, I know, I’m one of those who didn’t participate in Iran’s failed revolution. Nor am I one who ardently follows Ashton Kutcher. Or CNN for that matter.

I think the iPhone Facebook app is a little more functional though: on the Pre, while you can update your status and read feeds about other people’s statuses, you can “share” or respond to someone’s published status / photos. I found that mildly annoying, but the problem is easily resolved using the Pre’s web-browser. But still, if someone from Facebook reads this, I hope it moves them enough to update their app for the Pre!

Which brings us to Pre’s web-browser. It is awesome. I’ve used the iPhone browser and felt the Pre’s browser to be just as good, if not better. It supports the same auto orientation (from landscape to portrait and back) depending on the orientation of the phone. It also responds to the de facto standard two finger zoom-shrink and one finger pan / focus controls.

Where the h3$$ am I?

The Pre also comes with two mapping / navigation applications: Sprint Navigator and Google Maps. Both display your current location on a map, though Google Maps is a 2D display. Also, it doesn’t provide any turn by turn directions. Sprint Navigator, on the other hand, does, and with street names! The Pre is well on its way to replacing my Garmin since I never need update maps. I haven’t used Sprint Navigator in no-network conditions though, so am not sure if it is reliant on assisted modes or can function standalone.

Compared to the Garmin though, the Navigator appears a little brusque and chatty at times. When starting up in parking lot, the Garmin typically starts off with “Please drive to highlighted route”. Most GPS devices tend to be similar in this regard because they lack orientation / trajectory when still. However, Sprint Navigator starts with the rather unhelpful “You are now off-track.” To which my response typically is “Gee thanks, Captain Obvious!” Also when going along really long roads, Sprint Navigator often says things like “Drive 2.2 miles to (sic) Continue to…” [LongRoad], which is a little jarring.

HOWEVER, given the fact that it is FREE (and by that I mean, already paid for and at a price that brings so many other features), it is totally worth it. I haven’t used Google Maps or my Garmin once after discovering Sprint Navigator.
The Pre has only one speaker and while it is not as loud as the Garmin, it is very usable and functional in a closed car. It is almost impossible to use in a convertible with the top down, but then so is the Garmin, and as I imagine, any other device that does not hook into the car’s audio system.

My car doesn’t have Bluetooth, so I’m not sure if the Sprint Navigator can use that. If it can, it would be at par with several newer standalone GPS devices.

Call-quality on the speakerphone is generally very good. I found the speaker louder than my previous phone and none of the people I spoke to over the speakerphone complained of echoes or low sound.

In your face!

The Pre comes with a point-and-shoot 3 MP camera. It, interestingly, also supports a surprisingly bright LED flash. The picture quality is fair, but definitely not a match for anything Canon ever produced. While iPhone owners told me it was better than theirs, I do not appreciate the fact that it suffers from the same “soft-key” problem of the iPhone: you have to tap the screen to take a picture. This renders self-portraits and impromptu arm’s length group captures impossible. I preferred the dedicated key and the “vanity screen” of my clamshell. The Pre does give a polished surface on the back, which some (e.g. women obsessed with their lips?) may find helpful.

But here’s the most important part: the pics captured on your Pre can be immediately as attachments, or uploaded to your Facebook profile or shared via MMS. Take that iPhone! You can ofcourse browse them on the phone with the same intuitive flick and swish and zoom and pan gestures. And as expected, the photos auto-orient themselves depending on how you shot them and how you view them.

Coming soon:

NFL MOBILE
USB media sync
BATTERY LIFE
SPRINT NETWORK and service
Built-in WiFi vs. EVDO / 1x data

Epilogue

While there are a few things I'd like to see Palm improve in the next generation of the Pre, I am very satisfied with Pre and Sprint's service. I have seen my iPhone owning friends go ga-ga over the Pre and I have never suffered any dropped calls or the slow network issues. The features and accessories are very thoughtfully designed and make this device exceedingly easy to use and supremely functional. I have, thus far, no qualms in encouraging you to switch to the Pre and Sprint should you find yourself in the market for a new phone / plan. FWIW, I’m not a Palm or Sprint shareholder as of this writing :)

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How to blow money

As we all get wiser, there are different things we profess to have learnt. In my case, some of my professions seem to inspire curiosity in others. Which brings us to the topic at hand: investing in equities (aka stocks). Here's my spiel:

Know why you want to invest because all investment comes with a measure of risk. Understand how much risk you can tolerate as a person and invest accordingly. this may sound counter-intuitive, but the last thing you want to do is buy a ton of stocks with aggressive enthusiasm and foolish optimism, then get queasy when your stocks take a dive and sell them in a knee jerk reaction ("buy high sell low" is not something you want to do).

if anything, slow down your decisions to buy / sell till you think you understand what you are doing. I personally find making a spreadsheet with relevant numbers and rationale and research before I decide to buy or pass on a security as a very good way of naturally slowing down the decisions. At the same time, it helps me build a strong case to backup my decision. If I know why I took that decision I can learn from the result: if it ends up well, I know I have hit on a method that seems to work. If not, I can analyze to see where I went wrong, what data / knowledge I lacked that could have averted my loss. Noting down when the security was bought and sold also helps in tax accounting.

I was recommended the following books, and i think i was very fortunate that i did read these before doing anything else:

* Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
* Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis. This book is HUGE and BORING. I haven't been able to get through it all, but reading the Intelligent Investor gave me a good highlight of what to expect. So now I use this as an ecyclopedia to brush up on analyzing a particular financial statement and occassionally as a sleep aid.
* Peter Stanyer, Guide to Investment strategy. This is so much info that I actually understood what this book was saying a couple of months after i thought i was done reading it. i went back to its pages when i started hearing about CDOs, CLOs, mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, etc. all related to the credit crisis of last year. This book actually highlighted the risks with each of these categories, and to me, presaged the mess we're in.


I like these books because they try to keep the "mumbo-jumbo" like 200-day and 50-day moving averages and "trend patterns" (e.g. "higher highs higher lows", "high P/E at the bottom", "following the smart money") out of the investment. To me those "patterns" represent speculation because you don't really know why the market just did what it did, but you still go along with it because it's done so on a few occasions in the past. To me that logic is like "Mr. X went crazy last Tuesday when it was a full moon. Today is Tuesday and a full moon, so expect Mr. X to go loony today." (Sidebar: the words "lunatic" and "loony" are based on such beliefs. I kid you not. I'm sure goddess Luna looses it every time someone abuses her name thus. Maybe she does have that effect on people).

For "inspirational" reading, I like Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. He has several others along the same lines, but none actually teach you much about investing in stocks. They talk about investment in general and how he got smart and rich investing in real estate and running his own business. Strictly bed-time reading to inspire you to want to invest, according to me.

If you have already read these and are ready to start doing homework, here's my current strategy (remember to do your own due diligence. don't "invest" just because someone you know "thinks it's a great idea"):

I look for companies with:

* Low Price to Book ratios. I like them if they're under 1. There were several of these around March 9, but are disappearing fast as the market rallies. Apparently Buffet recommends sticking to those with P/B ratios below 2.5x.
* High current ratio (CR) and quick ratio (QR). These are related to how much cold hard cash companies have on had compared to their liabilities. The higher the better. I definitely stick to above 1.5x.
* Low Debt. Also sometimes "long term debt to equity". The lower the better. if it's 0, it's got my attention, but i definitely like it to be less than 0.5x.
* Low P/E. The above estimate the value and soundness of a company. but it's stock price can move independently. P/B and P/E are my measures of "how far away from sanity" the stock prices have drifted. if the p/e is lower than the average historical p/e for the company, it's got my attention, but then i'm really scouring news releases to find out why the market thinks the price should be this low. is it because there are clouds on the horizon (lawsuits, loss of business patents, strong competition, rising costs etc.) or the market has just forgotten about this stock. I prefer it when it's the latter :)
* Dividends: i like it if the company has a strong track record of paying dividends on time. if they're increasing, even better.


that's about my current level of understanding. Each day I learn something new, and constantly look out for learning anything that scares me about the stocks i've already bought.

To make this interesting, feel free to send me your picks and i can tell you my opinion on those.

The Internet is a wonderful thing

So, I'm sitting at home, having lunch on a Sunday afternoon when I catch a screening of "A Beautiful Mind". Right around the scene where John Nash is "arrested" by Dr. Rosenberg, I noticed a face in the extras in the scene I had never noticed before... It was only a fleeting glimpse and I swore to myself that I saw Bryce Dallas Howard. Given the fact that it was directed by her father Ron "Opie" Howard, and his propensity for casting his family in minor roles in his films, I was reasonably sure. But, I wanted to be sure. So I Imdb-ed "A Beautiful Mind", "Bryce Dallas Howard" and found no link... "Bing and Google are your friends"... after a persistent search of keyterms and scouring through websites, i stumbled upon confirmation at this website!

Image source: http://bryce-howard.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=2059&fullsize=1

Pakistan suffers India's cancer

It is fortunate that Pakistan is beginning to realize the true malevolence of fanatical terrorism. It is equally, if not more so, unfortunate that the realization comes at a large human cost.

There have been several political and social events of note in Pakistan, that point to increasing strife with the Taliban and consequent loss of peace, property and, sadly, life.

This is only the latest http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/asia/10peshawar.html

Some might be tempted to describe the situation with any of the following adages and phrases:

• "What you sow is what you reap"
• "have a taste of your own medicine"
• "playing with fire"
• "evil begets evil"
• "We told you so"

I would disagree. Schadenfreude is hardly the apt response: an unstable Pakistan is really bad for India. Pakistan should realize that it is being consumed by a cancer and needs help. India must be proactive and seize the opportunity to aid Pakistan in eliminating fanatical radicals. Pakistan must ask for and accept the assistance offered by India.