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bobs, mmoy, buggi re: puts and opportunity cost:
bobs10:
So what's you game plan besides just selling? What are you going to buy that's better and why?
me:
well, after a run up like we've had, it's possible that a money market at 0+% is better than a 10% correction. Not to say that it's *going* to happen, but it could. so goes the uncertainty of the market. Dell would of course be huge, just like it could have been any of the last 5 years
mmoy:
Why don't you buy some puts then?
me:
embarrasingly, my position in AMD (and all securities) is tiny. I've never used puts, and I'm guessing that the costs associated with it would be not worth the transaction costs :-\ I'm truly a small small investor and follow AMD out of a technological interest more than a financial one. But there's a first time for many things, and perhaps this is the time to branch out into unfamiliar territory for me so that it won't be so unfamiliar in the future when i'm working with bigger money.
Buggi - thanks! great to see you again :D
anyone else getting antsy?
so, i got in at $14.99, envious of you $4 folks of course... I'm thinking about maybe letting amd take a breather. It's been quite the run. You know, the whole "you don't go broke taking a profit" ideology.
Or at least maybe let half of it go and keep the other. This sort of run up just seems too much, too quick, for too long.
Hopefully it's not and it keeps running, but i figured I'd let you all know how a person who doesn't follow this stuff as much as he used to feels.
- neye
The roles are reversed. AMD is cruising while Dell is bumping along in the slow lane.
it's weird seeing the dell kiosks in the malls. then again, i haven't spent much time in wisconsin before, so maybe it's a geographical thing that I'm not used to, as opposed to a change in Dell strategy.
you: Ok, it's starting to come back. As I remember it he only posted for a short time, but I can't remember what his emphasis was on.
me: he was an accountant for a fairly large organization, and focused on the quarterly financials.
yeah, i exchanged a couple emails with denver magic a couple weeks before he left RB, and after that... *poof*. no clue where he went.
haven't heard Cthulhu refered to much
but i do get a kick out of the bumper stickers that I see on average once per election cycle:
Vote for Cthulu
(Why settle for the lesser of evils?)
- neye
OT - thanks so much for the response.
it is indeed easy to get wrong answers from google. it's also easy to get right answers. the hard part is telling them apart
neye
OT - kpf - your signature
where's that from? don't see much in google for it.
neye
photoshop dual v single
the cpus shown are kinda old, but it get the point across - duals definitely help in a significant way, at least with processors up through some axps
http://homepage.mac.com/ashby/.Pictures/Interface%20example/PS7Bench_alt4.jpg
neye
update on the server thing
the processor memory board (PMB) is what's being replaced tomorrow, but I don't think that's going to do anything:
In order to get the machined running for the employees today, I had to remove the memory from one to make it a dummy-pmb, and switch out the dummy (and memoryless) PMB with the good one.
within 2 minutes of restarting the machine, I got the same error message. I think I Have a bad connection where that PMB plugs in... why else would 2 different PMBs (not-reusing the memory from the bad to the good) give me the same error message in the event viewer?
this is odd. HP or an agent of theirs is gonna be out here tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes,
neye
well...
whereas I may have not understood the need for such RAS stuff before, at least now I "get it". this ticks me off. Thanks for the info,
neye
Well that's what people look for in a server, fast boot times.
I have no other way to measure performance other than anecdotal evidence.
No, I'm not happy with this machine right now. Just went down hard again and wouldn't reset, so I had to take all the memory out of one of the processor-memory boards and am waiting for a replacement from HP to get back up to full memory. So, it's running, and the users probably won't tell the difference, but it pisses me off.
but sure, if it makes you feel better, keep em coming. Next time an Itanium machine has problems because of bad non-Intel components, I'll take pot-shots at it too. I mean, HP must really suck as a company for sending out bad components. It's a good thing they weren't involved with Itanium at all, or they might have sent out crappy components there, too. Oh, wait, they did, they were called Merceds.
can you tell I'm in a stellar mood this AM?
neye
Our new opteron server - probs so far
1) CD drive is fritzy. Doesn't work after the first 2 days. Getting a replacement from HP
2) Random reboot happened this AM as a bad memory module forced a shutdown (at least, event viewer says it's bad memory, and identifies which stick it is).
Other than those two glaringly unpleasant aspects, the server is doing really well, coming up in about 1/5 the time that our last server took (uniprocessor 866 P3) running the same processes.
neye
kpf, I agree with most all of that post (eom)
tecate - absolutely
Gamers - that is where you will see it first.
If any of the games I want (fewer and fewer as time goes by - I do miss playing UT with Jason Bourne, Amkeer, and ABurner from the RB boards!) show meaningful gains with a 64 bit change, I'll upgrade my home computer. Until then, my xp 2000+ seems like it will be good enough for a while.
I must say, UT2k4 runs *great* on my A64 laptop (ATI 9600 mobility)... would be interesting to see what, if any, gains it would have gotten if optimized for A64 running on 64bit windows.
neye
critical mass of 64b software
Yup, AMD and Intel will benefit :) I'm not sure about critical mass of software in 2005, I'd bet 2007 myself :) but whenever, it will be good for both companies.
FWIW, in my industry (botique level financial planning, portfolio management, tax prep), I'm not aware of any core applications that are moving to 64 bit, or need to be. I have no idea when/if any of the existing software will move to 64bit, and hardware/software just isn't the hold up in our business practices - if there is a charge for the upgrade, there is no chance we'd do so.
just one person's take on it, I'm sure many others are in the same situation, and many other aren't.
neye
whoa! very cool - works in OE too
Microsoft has their own newsgroup server so you just use their
newsgroup server. I don't even think that you can read it from
public newsgroup servers.
do you mean the msnews.microsoft.com groups? I get those through outlook express (and found them via the web-based newsgroups of the type that you mentioned before on microsoft.com)
just put in the server as listed above, no authentication, and it's good to go. Or are you talking about other ms newsgroups. In anycase, what's the name of the newsgroup?
neye
fair enough
you obviously know more than I do about these, so it sounds like whatever you end up with will probably be a good solution.
g'luck!
neye
sgolds, why integrated firewall?
for $500 - $600 you could get a netscreen 5. Not as cheap as the free integrated one in Server 2k3, but I don't trust firewalls which are part of the same box you're trying to protect, ya know?
Personally, if I really wanted to save some money, I'd at least get a cheapo linksys/dlink ($80 or less) to put in front of the 2k3 server, let it filter out all the junk, and just forward the few ports you really need open (80, 443, 25, 21 probably, unless you're doing some non-standard stuff) to the box. Then use the 2k3 server to deal-with/log all that traffic in whatever way you like.
but... that's just me Not saying that other people here on this board can't answer the question well, but you could probably get a more full answer by asking on the http://www.arstechnica.com open forums in the Win2k/NT forums, where there are a bunch of people that deal with this type of issue all day.
Let us know what you end up doing!
neye
this is going to be a production server (runs all of our main apps and file shares), so downloading a beta on it wouldn't be a very good idea. Gotta keep it licensed for a production server, so no MSDN-type licenses either.
Cost was somewhere around $10K, dual 1.6's, 210GB Useable HD (in RAID 5, so 280 real space), 2GB mem. Ended up costing more than I'd thought it would, but I don't mind because it was still better $/performance than most others in its class.
it's weird though... pricing out an apple xserve actually looks *very* competitive in pure specs terms and price. the disks aren't SCSI, which is the main fall back (other than the fact it doesn't run windows), but if I had the OS X knowledge I needed and didn't need it to host a .Net IIS website, and could have another server do the group policy for the clients, I'd have a long hard look at the apple offerings...
2GB Ram, Dual G5s, 250 GB HD useable (500 GB, mirrored - no RAID 5 withou the xServer-Raid IIRC), Dual GB Ethernet... $5,599. Of course, there are WAY too many caveats for me to think about it for our company, but it's interesting to look at what's on the other side of the fence.
neye
Opteron server arrived today...
... still in the HP box in my server room (which doubles as my de facto office). ashame that I have to use Win2k, but our licensing is such that I can't. woulda been nice to get the free upgrade to the 64 bit version. oh well. will report on setup after next wednesday when it's done,
neye
to add to other SLI comments
when there's a task which is that parallel-izable, why throw a lot of R&D at a teeny market sliver, dealing with heat, power, and memory access issues, when you already have the 3dfx knowledge of SLI to come up with a way that people can incrementally spend money on the product.
I'll bet that 2x as many people at least are willing to spend $400 now and $150 later on to get to a SLI system than are willing to spend $700 now for a dual card.
my feelings only, no data to back them up.
neye
AMD and business wins.
other than that one nForce model from HPQ which has been around forever, are there other Tier1 US business desktops? Any business laptops?
neye
Golf - personal use only
refresh my memory, is your use highvalue corporate or personal?
I refuse to use any wireless in my office, because, as is evidenced here, I don't know enough about the security of it to make it reasonably safe!
But... as the initial topic came up, it was about regular home users (such as myself) not having a way to be secure using the current 802.11 schemes.
If it takes a 20 character (give or take) passphrase, I don't think that the point is invalidated.
neye
Golfblum, google disagrees:
wpa hasn't been cracked afaik.
http://www.tinypeap.com/page8.html
it even has the binary. That's the first hit on googe with the serch terms:
wpa crack
Why does the ssid not matter? do scanners pick them up whether or not the SSID is broadcast? I don't really know the ins and outs of the security system... I guess I just figured it's at least slightly better not to be seen by windows's built in wireless config tool than not to be seen.
neye
comb, about 802.11n and headers...
from the little that I cared to read (I'm not technically curious enough to wade through a foreign topic), it seems that reduction of headers (redundant ones?) is one of the methods being used to increase useable bandwidth. guess we'll see how it really turns out, but if the 802.11i standard addresses security for real, I don't care if I'm stuck back at b's 11Mbps.
I can plug in the RJ45 if I really need speed computer to computer, otherwise it's not as if I'm gonna be telling a difference just surfing the net. Sure, some cable is faster than a full T, but so is 802.11b (theoretically! - as you point out, it's probably much less for useable traffic)
neye
Klaus - 802.11n
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n#802.11n
looks like speed and longer range are the primary improvements.
In fact, looks like they are explicitly *not* redoing security:
This is expressed in the task group's charter by requiring that 802.11n be written relative to a baseline specification incorporating 802.11 and all of its amendments, both completed and in progress. Thus, the allowed changes will be enhancements: No existing functionality will be subtracted. In addition, only those existing mechanisms that pertain in some way to higher throughput will be altered. Other mechanisms, such as the security framework built up in 802.11i, are out of scope.
different article, sorry I have the info in my clipboard, but closed down the page... something at eetimes I think.
neye
bobs, 802.11
as long as security keeps sucking in 802.11 land, I'll never think of it as a finished product.
use wep! mac filter! disable ssid broad cast! use wpa!
do all of those things, and still a fairly easy crack, and most likely much easier for those that don't care.
I live in an apartment and just last night found and started surfing on some neighbor's wifi. first time I'd done that. that's plain irresponsible (not of the consumer, well, him too, but of the) of the manufacturers/standardsbody/whoever that kit is shipped in such a way that it's an opt-out to share your connection with everyone in the world instead of an opt-in to doing so.
/rant
neye
bobs, Chris, thanks so much for the stop loss info (eom)
bobs, hailmary - sorry for showing my ignorance...
... but you write:
You dangle that big cherry in front of those guys and they're going to take a byte out of it.
so the specialist (person or computer or both?) can actually forsee the stock movement in some cases before it gets there? s/he can see the stops in and can essentially tell that they can blow through the stops consecutively?
that seems so wrong to me - not that you are wrong, but that the system shouldn't work that way. I guess I need to read up what a specialist does to understand the mechanics of trading better.
rlweitz - If there are enough of us dropping in stop/loss orders in the $19-$20 range, it might be enough incentive for the big boys to pull back on the reigns and collect our share before reengaging the warp drive
well... 2 thoughts..
1) you are looking another move deeper in the chess game than I am. Of course what you wrote makes sense if the big boys can predict the smaller investors psyche/trends based on past occurrences and take advantage of it as you suggest. So, nice to see someone take that line of thinking farther than I had
2) you assume that the big boys control enough shares and are willing to flip them based on limited data. Not that that's an incorrect assumption, just one that I don't know enough about big investment firms to confirm/deny.
neye
Jules, I for one am hoping IPF doesn't die out...
... heck, probably the worst thing for AMD is for INTC to say h3ll with Itanium, and focus all of its 64 bit efforts on Xeon64EMT (whatever the technical term is these days). Once INTC decides that IPF shouldn't be getting exclusive RAS support, it will once again have a decided mindshare advantage over AMD in the x86 server space. after all, they're INTC, and they know corporate needs (true or not, probably true IMO, it's the perception).
As long as IPF drags out as a contender, some of the higher-end support has to be left out of EMT64.
Really, who among the amd longs wasn't a bit worried when INTC publicized that it was doing EMT64? Sure, there's silver linings along the lines of "now MS *has* to do windows" and "now it's legitimized", but I really see a souped up EMT64 chip as a stronger competitor to Opteron in its target market than Itanium is.
take that FWIW (pro'lly not much),
neye
rlweitz - stop loss
I'm thinking about $19.50, but haven't put the order in yet.
Similarly, if it hits and I sell, I'm thinking a limit at around $13 on the downside to buy and another at $22 on the upside to buy. trading between $13 and (now) $18 is all within range, and I don't have enough shares or sanity to make trading in there trying to time things to be valuable.
But, if it gets below the previous $12.50 / $13.00 range, since i believe AMD has good long term outlook, I'll get back in feeling comfortable I won't be missing too much more basis reduction. Similarly, if it stops at $19.50, but comes back and breaks $22, I'll feel ok riding the rest of whatever rally is left.
but, I'm an admitted novice. Anyone please feel free to guide me to a better solution.
neye
thanks much jj (eom)
spit, glad that you're getting somewhere...
those hidden folders are where the IE temporary files are kept. And yes, for the people that I know that insist on using systemworks, they've pointed at problems with the delete-protection aspect of it slowing things down and otherwise mucking up the system. I can't make this claim from first hand knowledge though, as I've always avoided that.
as far as antivirus subscriptions, by using avg from http://www.grisoft.com (personal edition), you get your updates automatically with no $$$ subscription, and it will scan every night.
again, good luck with that machine,
neye
spit - defrags in Win98
ok, that makes a lot more sense now. do a ctrl+alt+del to bring up the task manager, and kill pretty much everything except explorer and systray. Then run the defrag. should go better that way. Also, starting in safe mode and defragging should help out.
neye
blue is correct, esp on one point...
as long as you're seen as the "rescuer", the machine is never going to be safe. Speaking as someone who's run 12 years combined between 3 PCs with a total of 0 virus incidents and 1 spyware incident, it's actually really easy to stay virus free, but you have to have the right mindset:
1) it's ok to use non microsoft products: use firefox or another non-IE browser. IE 6 with XP SP2 is actually pretty darn good for this, but only available on XP I think, so the Win2k machine should be running an alternate browser.
2) it's ok to use a free virus checker like AVG, which *does* have an e-mail portion (I only use webmail, so I can't vouch for how well the e-mail protection works for a real client though).
3) you must have a firewall. XP SP2 built in is fine. a hardware firewall is better.
4) let things like spybot and adaware run proactively, and do full scans on schedules.
Yeah, it sounds like a lot, but in reality, almost all of this is updated automatically, so after the 1 hour of setup, it's pretty darn easy to be 1% vulnerable instead of 90% vulnerable.
oh, and #5) it's ok to use a mac or linux (SuSE Personal 9.1 was AWESOMELY EASY to install, detected all hardware automatically, comes with open office and firefox). If there's no reason to be tied to windows, definitely consider which alternatives *may* be right for the individual situation.
neye
spit, don't panic (too much)
first, for A/V, download the personal version of AVG from grisoft ( http://www.grisoft.com )
next, d/l a copy of ad-aware from lavasoft.de
get a copy of spybot search and destroy from ... not sure, google it.
get a copy of "hijack this" (that one is harder to use, but awesome at taking care of browser issues).
Burn them to a CD, start in safe mode (hit f8 repeatedly as the computer is starting up), install them from the CD, run them in safe mode, run them again after a restart into normal mode...
actually, come to think of it, AVG might only install in normal mode, so do that before rebooting into safe mode.
after doing those things, if the problem ain't fixed... yeah, start worrying a little about doing the reinstall
neye
WLD - guess I'm different
i don't want to use a keyboard and a mouse to play music (or watch tv or dvds or ...) - i want to use a remote.
I'd *love* to be able to use a mouse/kboard on a dumbed-down OS to control my TV/VCR/DVD-burner/DVR/Stereo...
Especially with a familiar interface, based off of MacOS, Windows, KDE, JDE, I don't care - just something that's more intuitive then all the random button sequences on a remote.
but that's just me.