Entreprengineering

How to use the System File Checker in Windows 7 and Windows Vista

2012-10-04T15:05:00.003+10:00

About System File Checker

Sometimes, you wonder why your Windows computer doesn't cooperate and loads in a way that scares you. You might also get a message saying "Error loading XXXXX.DLL," or an icon becomes so arrogant it won't do a single thing even if you click it a million times. Can you related to this? Frustrating indeed.

I haved moved the original post to a more appropriate blog called
The How to Helpdesk - http://how-to-helpdesk.blogspot.com.au/.

Please visit and see topics about windows utilities, tips, and tutorials.

Best Anti-Malware Defense for your PC? - A Review of Comodo Internet Security Complete 2012

2012-10-01T00:57:00.001+10:00

After being plunged into the world of information security, I became more serious about my choice of free anti-malware programs. Yes, I am kinda thrifty (or cheap if you want to call me that).

I have moved the original post to a more appropriate blog called:

Cyber Security Reviews - http://cybersecurity-reviews.blogspot.com.au/.

I found Entreprengineering to be a bit chaotic as it represents all my random thoughts. But since most readers prefer to look for specialized topics, I have a created different blogs to suite their needs. Cyber Security Reviews will focus more on cyber security topics (security news, tips, books reviews, software reviews, etc...)

A Look at CertifyDumps:A Home for Successful Certification Training

2012-09-24T17:04:00.004+10:00

Looking for sample CCNA exam questions/answers? CertifyDumps might be the answer to your problem. I haven't tried them yet, but they have sample exams from different vendors like Cisco, SAP, VMware, etc..

Can someone out there give some inputs on the quality of materials that they have?

Below is taken from their website.

Certify Dumps is the best resource available online today for IT Professionals who wish to get certified instantaneously by achieving their desired IT certifications from different Certification vendors. Here at Certifydumps, we offer exclusive IT Certification Training Tools including Practice Questions & Answers with Explanations and Study Guides. Our advanced training tools are optimized for bringing you fastest success rate in any IT Certification Exams.
With thousands of satisfied clients, Certify Dumps is your ultimate Training resource for every major vendor and their Certification Exams. We stay ahead of the crowd with the latest and most accurate Questions and Answers. You can use our study guides anywhere you want for reference or for a comprehensive Certification preparation.

Below is a link to their website.

Cerify Dumps: A Home for Successful Certification Training

Book Review: The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws

2012-09-24T16:51:00.000+10:00

I just read the Dafydd Stuttard's 2nd edition of The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and Exploiting Security Flaws. I've read many book on penetration testing. But this one takes the lead as far as securing your web applications go.

I have moved the original post to a more appropriate blog called:
Cyber Security Reviews - http://cybersecurity-reviews.blogspot.com.au/.

Microsoft Disrupts the Emerging Nitol Botnet

2012-09-14T10:47:00.001+10:00

Way to go Microsoft! Good job.

Microsoft has yet again stopped another botnet from spreading. This time, it's Nitol. It's the second botnet stopped in the last six months.

Check out the link to the Official Microsoft Blog.

Paranoia and Security

2012-04-23T19:58:00.003+10:00

With all the havoc and mayhem happening in cyberspace these days, what do people still think of security? Is it still feasible/achievable? Should we still even care about it? Should we change our attitude towards security?

One quote strikes me and I'll share it below:

"The only system which is truly secure is one which is switched off and unplugged, locked in a titanium lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker, and is surrounded by nerve gas and very highly paid armed guards. Even then, I wouldn't stake my life on it."

-- Gene Spafford, Director, Computer Operations, Audit, and Security Technology (COAST) Project, Purdue University

I don't think Mr. Spafford was really saying that security is unattainable. Well, maybe he was. But the message is to take security seriously and not to be complacent at all. Security professionals, especially the ones protecting the perimeter, should have a healthy dash of paranoia sprinkled on their psyche.

Kompozer

2012-04-19T20:59:00.000+10:00

Do you wan to create and edit web pages like they are office documents? Then look no further... Kompozetr offers the ease of use which you need to start creating and editing web pages immediately.

One can download Kompozer here. Another window will open after you click this.You will see that it is a free and open source software, so please feel free to support the project. This will really help the developers to create better versions of this tool.

Below is a series of video tutorials in YouTube.

Have fun and start creating your first website!

Notes on Understanding TCP SYN Flooding Attacks

2012-02-01T00:47:00.000+11:00

The basis of the SYN flooding attack lies in the flaw of how the 3-way handshake initiates. The 3-way handshake is initiated at the start of a TCP connection. The third packet which completes the handshake, confirms the source's ability to receive packets at the IP address it used.

The key to success in this DoS attack is the Transmission Control Block (TCB). The TCB is a data set of structures in operations systems that holds all the information about a connection. Each TCB > 280 bytes, and can exceed 1300 bytes in other operating systems. After the first part of the 3-way hand-shake is finished, the connection is only half-open. TheIt is very important to note is that the TCB is already allocated based on reception of the SYN packet— before the connection is fully established.

A flood of incoming SYN requests can cause the allocation of so many TCBs such that a host's kernel memory becomes exhausted. Although there is a backlog mechanism in most operating systems, this can easily be filled up. Thus, new requests cannot be served until some TCBs can be freed up from the half open connection state.

Since TCP protocol is designed for reliability, the target host tends to wait for a long time with the half-open connections, until the 3-way handshake is completed.

More on this article right here from Cisco.

1st Semester Performance

2011-03-21T08:03:00.000+11:00

Finally got all my grades! So far, so good... I got all 1's!!! =)

The following are subjects which I personally feel deserve some particular attention:

Most challenging subjects - gave me a really hard time like all of my classmates:

Network Planning
Service Provisioning
Data Center Computing

Most interesting ones - these are areas which really grab my attention and curiosity:

Network Planning
Telecom and Internet Platforms
IP Security in Heterogeneous Networks
Linux Networks

Subjects I need to drill deeper in:
IP Security in Heterogenous Networks
Data Center Computing

As I went through the first semester, I looked at all my strengths and my interests. I think I would like to be in IT security. In cyberspace, heroes and villains also exist. And they will always be in a struggle, trying to outdo each other. Hence, I'm going to focus my thesis around the area of Web Applications security.

Prerequisites? Programming could be one. I guess it's time that I learn another language here in Austria aside from German.

End of My First Semester

2011-01-31T02:30:00.000+11:00

Finally, my first semester ended! After4 months of struggle, pain, torture, peace and quiet arrive to give me a chance to recuperate my fighting spirit and gain back my energies. The semester didn't quite end all glorious and triumphant for me. Instead it ended rather quite painfully.

The load balancing exam hit my glass house with a solid brick and sent me crashing back to reality. All the 1's I earned so far, gave me a false sense of accomplishment and a consequential feeling of confidence. But this last exam just ripped my lovely cheerful painting to tiny little pieces. Looking back, it should have been easy. But I guess when you don't really use the Big IP software, 40 minutes of practical exam could be torture.

Although one final exam remains, I don't have to go all the way to school. This one will be about network planning and telecommunications platforms. This was like having the CCNA course compressed to just about 6 3-hour sessions, and this already includes laboratory work.

My instructor thinks it won't be an easy exam, and so do all of my colleagues. I won't be taking my chances on this one.

Let's see:

Command Line Interface;

Setting up console, telnet, and enable passwords for Router and Switches;

Setting up ip addresses for interfaces;

Static routing;

Dynamic routing;

VLANs and intra-vlan-routing;

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF);

Both versions of RIP;

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP);

Domain Name System (DNS);

Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP);

Subnetting;

Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR)/ Supernetting;

Variable Length Subnet Mask (VLSM);

Access Control Lists (ACL);

and Dijkstra algorith.

Looks like it's gonna be tough...

But what would Hanzo do?

Lookout for Lookout

2010-12-30T18:26:00.001+11:00

Lookout raises $19.5 million for smartphone security

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Motivational Posters to Keep Us Going!!!

2010-12-03T18:41:00.000+11:00

Revealing Facebook Stalkers?!?

2010-12-01T11:06:00.001+11:00

No, you can't see who viewed you on Facebook

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Some Notes on Using Crossover or Straight-through Ethernet Cables

2010-11-29T21:37:00.000+11:00

UTP Cables for 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX - Just to make it easier for me to remember how cabling works specifically for Crossover and Straight-through I've decided to jot down a few notes for quick reference...

Ethernet straight-through cable connects using the following combinations:

Switch to Router
Switch to PC or Server
Switch to WAP (Ethernet interface)
Switch to LAN Networked printer
Hub to PC or Server
Hub to Router
Hub to WAP (Ethernet interface)
Hub to LAN Networked printer

Ethernet crossover cable connects the following:

PC to PC, Server to Server, PC to Server
Hub to Hub
Switch to Switch
Switch to Hub
Router to Router
Router to PC, Server
Router to WAP (Ethernet interface)
Router to LAN Networked printer
PC or Server to LAN Networked printer
PC or Server to WAP (Ethernet interface)

LAN Networked printer to WAP (Ethernet interface)
WAP (Ethernet Interface) to WAP (Ethernet interface)

It may also help to think of it using the following tables :

Devices That Transmit on pins 1,2 and Receive on 3,6

PC, Servers
Routers
WAPs (Ethernet interface)
LAN Networked printers

Devices That Transmit on pins 3,6 and Receive on 1,2

Hubs
Switches

A device connected to another device using the same pin assignments must use a crossover cable, otherwise use a straight-through cable.

A simpler way:

Crossover Cable
Switch-Switch
Switch-Hub
Hub-Hub
Router-Router
PC-Router
PC-PC

Straight-Through Cable
Router-Switch
PC-Switch
Server-Switch
PC-Hub
Server-Hub

Why Facebook Wants Your E-Mail

2010-11-29T20:52:00.003+11:00

Why Facebook Wants Your E-Mail

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My First Week in my Telecommunications and Internet Technologies Class

2010-09-18T23:11:00.000+10:00

I never thought I'd say this, but my first week wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I have a few things against me:

The instructors had a "European" English accent, the kind that girls in the US probably think is cute. I find it hard to understand them, given that I grew up watching Hollywood.films. I bet it wasn't easy for my American classmate as well, who by the way, is from Kansas. Yes, think of Dorothy and Toto. Howdy pardner!
I was the only one with a non-IT background. The rest of my classmates graduated from Internet Technologies, Computer Networking, Electrical Engineering, etc... courses. When it was my time to introduce myself, I managed to blurt out that I graduated with a Chemical Engineering Degree and have no background in IT. I did say that I have a very strong interest in learning about telecommunications and internet technologies. That managed to draw some looks that seems to say"Huh?! Are you sure you want to be here?!"
Hunger. The moment I leave work, I have to move it and get going. I have an hour to get to class.It turned out that my classmates don't seem to mind not eating. I can't do that. Food is my fuel. It gives me energy for physical and mental work. Our class is from 6pm to 9pm, and it seems like we have nor breaks. I need to eat something while I commute to class. A sandwich... maybe a nice juicy burger. There is just no other way to do it if I want to arrive in class on time.

These are a few of those things. It seems I have a lot of catching up to do....

So let's go! (in Zohan accent)

My IT Battleplan

2010-09-16T16:30:00.000+10:00

In every war, there should always be a battle plan. As quoted from the Art of War by Sun Tzu:

"Hence the saying:  The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead;

the good general cultivates his resources."

I'm no soldier. Just an Entreprengineer. I have limited time on my hands, but

I want to live a balanced life. Man is afterall, multi-dimensional. Therefore, I

have no to make use of plans and force myself to execute them as violently as I can.

 Let me see:

Learn new CMS. I decided it will have to be Joomla! for now.

Get a degree in Telecommunications and Internet Technology.

Study Internetworking via Cisco's CCNA (Cisco Certified Networking Associate).
Get myself CCNA certified (Thanks to Dennis and Arnold for introducing me to this wonderful company)

Get a Windows certification of something. Maybe a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE).

I hope to finish all these in 2-3 years through professional and educational institutions. I already enrolled myself in a specialized university here in Vienna which thankfully teach in English (I imagine myself to be totally devastated, defeated, and broken if these courses were taught in German. I can speak Deutsch but just a little. I frankly sound like a preschooler, but it get me by for now.

Hmm... so far the plans looks all good from here. The question remains if I am really built for this. Let's see if the Entreprengineer can make it in IT. 

How do I start Trading Stocks?

2010-09-01T21:31:00.000+10:00

This is a question I always get from everyone I know who's interested in learning about stock trading in the Philippines. I'll share what I know about the Phil Stock Market and how to trade it.

I've actually began my adventure from learning about financial planning before trying to master stock trading. I have to insist that everyone learn this first. It will lay down your financial foundation and protect you from your inner greed. Everyone has one.That's also the reason why not many succeed in stock trading.

Let's begin by reviewing the basics. I have an article on this somewhere on this blog. Oh well, let me

1. Insurance - Protect the goose which lays the golden eggs. No goose, no golden eggs. Of course, that goose is you. When the unforeseeable happens, you should also be ready for the defense. We all die, we all can have accidents. No one is exempted. Only immortals don't die. You should prepare for this just in case.

2. Debt management - To maximize growth, eliminate negative interest-bearing instruments first. Debt. You can't grow a 20% annual interest investment with a 36% yearly interest of debt. Eliminate debt. Otherwise, the negative interest on your credit card will just eat up whatever you earn from investments.

3. Emergency fund - This should be 6 months to one year of living expenses (depends on where you are). In the Philippines, we compute it to be 6 months. How does this work? When you get laid off or if your business loses money, you still have some money to recover from such a disaster. It will cover your expenses while you look for a new job or start a new business. It will also cover other "emergencies" like medical expenses when necessary. This way, you don't have to apply for more debt or touch your investments.

4. Investments - mutual funds, ITF's, stocks, etc... This is mostly done after you have covered the first three.
So please keep these in mind before going into stocks.

Here are useful news resoureces.

For news (they serve as catalysts):

http://business.inquirer.net/ - and other local business news sites are ok.

For international news, I use the following:

http://www.bloomberg.com/
http://www.cnbc.com/
http://www.thestreet.com/

International events have an impact on investor/trader sentiments, and can be used as signal for entry/exit points while trading.

There are two major philosophies in trading. Technical and Fundamental analysis. Technical analysts follow price movements, chart patterns, etc... to determine valid entry and exit points while trading. Fundamental analysts need to know what caused these price movements and gauge if the current stock price is cheap or expensive based on business fundamentals. One of the most famous and successful user of fundamental analysis is Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men. He's known to have built his wealth purely from investing in stocks.

If you want to learn technical analysis check out these links I found on the web.

http://www.informedtrades.com/trades.php?page=school
http://www.swing-trade-stocks.com/
http://thepatternsite.com/

There are more but these are the coolest ones.

For the Philippine Stock Exchange and PSE graphs:
http://www.pse.com.ph/

There's even a cool Pinoy Community with seasoned traders, brokers, or fund managers willing to help out.
You can check from the Online Trading and Brokerage Feedback Topics for advice on which
companies you can use.

http://financemanila.net/ - the forum is where most of the veteran traders hang out

http://www.traderspizza.com - another nice forum with its own gurus as well.

http://tsupitero.com/selection.htm - the broker (you can find his profile on this page too) he hangs out at financemanila.net as well

I only use BPI Trade but they said COL is better (they have their own graphs and tools). I might shift to COL as soon as I get back to the Philippines. If you want to open a BPI Trade account, ask the nearest BPI near you on how to open one.

Below is Citiseconline's website.

https://www.citiseconline.com/

Of course we can then chat, and share trades and learn which are possibly good ones or not.

Good luck on your trading!

Content Management System

2010-08-26T21:32:00.000+10:00

I have been recently tasked at work to make a website for the company I work for. And to be honest, I had zero experience in making a website from scratch. The only thing I knew was to make blogs from Blogger, Wordpress, and Multiply.

Luckily for me, I found out that Wordpress has CMS (Content Management System), which is also offered by Joomla and Drupal. And to top it off, all three are open-source, which is a fancy term for being free. BTW, I am sure there are others out there but these three came out on top.

In case you don't know what CMS means, Webopedia has the definition as follows:

Abbreviated as CMS, a content management system, also called a Web management system is software or a group or suite of applications and tools that enable an organization to seamlessly create, edit, review and publish electronic text. Many content management systems offer a Web-based GUI, enabling publishers to access the CMS online using only a Web browser. Also, a CMS designed for Web publishing will provide options and features to index and search documents and also specify keywords and other metadata for search engine crawlers.

Some advantages cited in using CMS are as follows:

Increased control over the web site
Improved speed to market in terms of content changes
Lower cost per page
Decreased total cost of maintaining the website

In short, CMS just made my life easier. Although I still need to learn a few HTML and CSS commands, I can now design and create a real website with almost no knowledge of both HTML and CSS. Yup you heard me right. A real live customized website.

Quotes from Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

2010-07-27T22:21:00.003+10:00

I did precisely the wrong thing. The cotton showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out. Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a losing game. Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a profit.

If all I have is ten dollars and I risk it, I am much braver than when I risk a million if I have another million salted away.

I’ve got friends, of course, but my business has always been the same – a one-man affair. That is why I have always played a lone hand.

What beat me was not having brains enough to stick to my own game – that is, to play the market only when I was satisfied that precedents favoured my play. There is the plain fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is also the Wall Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No man can have adequate reasons for buying or selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge to make his play an intelligent play.

It happened just as I figured. The traders hammered the stocks in which they figured would uncover the most stops, and sure enough, prices slid off.

For one thing, the automatic closing out of your trade when the margin reached the exhaustion point was the best kind of stop-loss order.

The game taught me the game. And it didn’t spare me rod while teaching.

If somebody had told me my method would not work I nevertheless would have tried it out to make sure for myself, for when I am wrong only one thing convinces me of it, and that is, to lose money. And I am only right when I make money. That is speculating.

I knew of course, there must be a limit to the advances and an end to the crazy buying of A.O.T.-Any Old Thing-and I got bearish. But every time I sold I lost money, and if it hadn’t been that I ran darn quick I would have lost a lot more.

Early that fall I not only was cleaned out again but I was so sick of the game I could no longer beat that I decided to leave New York and try something else some other place. I had been trading since my fourteenth year. I had made my first thousand dollars when I was a kid at fifteen, and my first ten thousand before I was twenty one. I had made and lost a ten thousand stake more than once. In New York I had made thousands and lost them. I got up to fifty thousand and two days later that went. I had no other business and knew no other game. After several years I was back where I began. No-worse, for I had acquired habits and a style of living that required money; though that part didn’t bother me as much as being wrong so consistently.

There were times when my plans went wrong and my stocks did not run true to form, but did the opposite of what they should have done if they had kept up their regard for precedent. But they did not hit me very hard – they couldn’t, with my shoestring margins. My relations with my brokers were friendly enough. Their accounts and records did not always agree with mine, and the differences uniformly happened to be against me. Curious coincidence-not! But I fought for my own and usually won in the end. They always had the hope of getting from me what I had taken from them. They regarded my winnings as temporary loans, I think.

Don’t misunderstand me. I never allowed pleasure to interfere with business. When I lost it was always because I was wrong and not because I was suffering from dissipation or excesses. There were never any shattered nerves or rum-shaken limbs to spoil my game. I couldn’t afford anything that kept me from feeling physically and mentally fit. Even now I am usually in bed by ten. As a young man I never kept late hours, because I could not do business properly on insufficient sleep.

For instance, I had been bullish from the very start of a bull market, and I had backed my opinion by buying stocks. An advance followed, as I had clearly foreseen. So far, all very well. But what else did I do? Why, I listened to the elder statesmen and curbed my youthful impetuousness. I made up my mind to be wise carefully, conservatively. Everybody knew that the way to do that was to take profits and buy back your stocks on reactions. And that is precisely what I did, or rather what I tried to do; for I often took profits and waited for a reaction that never came. And I saw my stock go kitting up ten points more and I sitting there with my four-point profit safe in my conservative pocket. They say you never go broke taking profits. No, you don’t. But neither do you grow rich taking a four-point profit in a bull market.

I think it was a long step forward in my trading education when I realised at last that when old Mr Partridge kept on telling other customers, “Well, you know this is a bull market!” he really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements-that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.

The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight. Old Turkey was dead right in doing and saying what he did. He had not only the courage of his convictions but also the intelligence and patience to sit tight.

Disregarding the big swing and trying to jump in and out was fatal to me. Nobody can catch all the fluctuations. In a bull market the game is to buy and hold until you believe the bull market is near its end.

Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling.

Suppose he buys his first hundred, and that promptly shows him a loss. Why should he go to work and get more stock? He ought to see at once that he is in the wrong; at least temporarily.

The Union Pacific incident in Saratoga in the summer of 1906 made me more independent than ever of tips and talk – that is, of the opinions, surmises and suspicions of other people, however friendly or however able they might be personally. Events, not vanity, proved for me that I could read the tape more accurately than most of the people about me. I also was better equipped than the average customer of Harding Brothers in that I was utterly free from speculative prejudices. The bear side doesn’t appeal any more than the bull side, or vice versa. My one steadfast prejudice is against being wrong.

When I am long of stocks it is because my reading of conditions has made me bullish. But you find many people, reputed to be intelligent, who are bullish because they have stocks. I do not allow my possessions – or my prepossessions either – to do any thinking for me. That is why I repeat that I never argue with the tape.

Obviously the thing to do was to be bullish in a bull market and bearish in a bear market.

… I came to learn that even when one is properly bearish at the very beginning of a bear market it is not well to begin selling in bulk until there is no danger of the engine back-firing.
Of course, if a man is both wise and lucky, he will not make the same mistake twice. But he will make any one of ten thousand brothers or cousins of the original. The Mistake family is so large that there is always one of them around when you want to see what you can do in the fool-play line.

Losing money is the least of my troubles. A loss never troubles me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong – not taking the loss – that is what does the damage to the pocket book and to the soul.

“I can’t sleep” answered the nervous one.
“Why not?” asked the friend.
“I am carrying so much cotton that I can’t sleep thinking about. It is wearing me out. What can I do?”
“Sell down to the sleeping point”, answered the friend.

He will risk half his fortune in the stock market with less reflection that he devotes to the selection of a medium-priced automobile.

It sounds very easy to say that all you have to do is to watch the tape, establish your resistance points and be ready to trade along the line of least resistance as soon as you have determined it. But in actual practice a man has to guard against many things, and most of all against himself – that is, against human nature.

A speculator must concern himself with making money out of the market and not with insisting that the tape must agree with him. Never argue with it or ask for reasons or explanations.

He should accumulate his line on the way up. Let him buy one-fifth of his full line. If that does not show him a profit he must not increase his holdings because he has obviously begun wrong; he is wrong temporarily and there is no profit in being wrong at any time.

Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to.

That was the only one case. There isn’t a man on Wall Street who has not lost money trying to make the market pay for an automobile or a bracelet or a motor boat or a painting.

More than once in the past I had run up a shoe-string in to hundreds of thousands. Sooner or later the market would offer me an opportunity.

The game does not change and neither does human nature.

After I paid off my debts in full I put a pretty fair amount in to annuities. I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be strapped and uncomfortable and minus a stake ever again.

Among the hazards of speculation the happening of the unexpected – I might even say of the unexpectable – ranks high.

I started my buying operations in the winter of 1917. I took quite a lot of coffee. The market however, did nothing to speak of. It continued inactive and as for the price, it did not go up as I had expected. The outcome of it all was that I simply carried my line to no purpose for nine long months.
I trade on my own information and follow my own methods.

He was utterly fearless but never reckless. He could, and did, turn on a twinkling if he found he was wrong.

At the same time I realise that the best of all tipsters, the most persuasive of all salesmen, is the tape.

The speculator’s deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statue books in the world and all the rule books on all the Exchanges of the earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.

On Pat Hearne – He made money in stocks, and that made people ask him for advice. He would never give any. If they asked him point-blank for his opinion about the wisdom of their commitments he used a favourite race-track maxim of his: “You can’t tell till you bet.” He traded in our office. He would buy one hundred shares of some active stock and when, or if, it went up 1 percent, he would buy another hundred. On another points advance, another hundred shares; and so on. He used to say that he wasn’t playing the game to make money for others and therefore would put in a stop-loss order one point below the price of his last purchase. When the price kept going up he simply moved up his stop with it. On a 1 percent reaction he was stopped out. He declared he did not see any sense in losing more than one point, whether it came out of his original margin or out of his paper profits.
“You know, a professional gambler is not looking for long shots, but for sure money. Of course, long shots are fine when they come in. In the stock market Pat wasn’t after tips or playing to catch twenty-points-a-week advances, but sure money in sufficient quantity to provide him with a good sense of living. Of all the thousands of outsiders I have run across in Wall Street, Pat Hearne was the only one who saw in stock speculation merely a game of chance like faro or roulette, but nevertheless had the sense to stick to a relatively sound betting method.
“After Pat Hearne’s death one of our customers who had always traded with Pat and used his system made over a hundred thousand dollars in Luckawana. Then he switched over to some other stock and because he had made a big stake he thought he need not stick to Pat’s way. When a reaction came, instead of cutting his losses he let them run – as though they were profits. Of course every cent went. When he finally quit he owed us several thousand dollars.

And he was right. I sometimes think that speculation must be an unnatural sort of business, because I find that the average speculator has arrayed against his own nature. The weaknesses that all men are prone to are fatal to success in speculation – usually those very weaknesses that make him likable to his fellows or that he himself particularly guards against in those other ventures of his where they are not nearly so dangerous as when he is trading in commodities or stocks.

The public ought always to keep in mind the elementals of stock trading. When a stock is going up no elaborate explanation is needed as to why it is going up. It takes continuous buying to make a stock keep going up. As long as it does so, with only small and natural reactions from time to time, it is a pretty safe proposition to trail with it.

But if after a long steady rise a stock turns and gradually begins to go down, with only occasionally small rallies, it is obvious that the line of least resistance has changed from upward to downward. Such being the case why should anyone ask for explanations? There are probably very good reasons why it should go down…

Fourteen Steps in Making Analytical Decisions

2010-07-27T22:21:00.001+10:00

Whenever I am faced with too many alternatives and feel lost about what I'm supposed to do, I turn to this book by Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman called Smart Moves. It's filled with tons and tons of lessons on management.

1. Perform a situation analysis. - Check for trends and conditions. Identify what is exactly giving rise to the need for a decision.

2. Determine the decision objective. - What are the why's? What do you hope to gain?

3. Quantify expected results. - If you make the decision, what new conditions will arise and ask if those are desirable for you. You must try to evaluate the quality of a decision with a quantified target.

4. Identify available information. - Garbage in, garbage out. The quality of your decision is as good as the quality of information going into that decision.

5. Identify other resources. - Which are available? Which can you generate more of if necessary? Where will you look and by when?

6. Establish decision requirements. - What are the conditions that must be met before you can make a decision?

7. Determine desirable features. - If decision requirements are the "musts" ; desirable features are the "wants."

8. Rate desirable features. - Not all wants have the same level of importance.

9. Generate alternatives. - What are other available choices?

10. Test alternatives. - Measure each alternative against your list of requirements and reject those that don't meet your requirements.

11. Evaluate alternatives. - Compare desirable features of the remaining alternatives and give each alternative a comparative rating on each feature.

12. Compare alternatives. - Generate a total score for each remaining alternative and compare. Multiply the rating earned by one alternative for each feature by the weight assigned to that feature in step 8. Like for a rating of 1 to 10, you assign 5 to a feature (like sturdiness, or even supervisory resposibilities) which you might have assigned a weight of 30% (5 x 0.30). Do this for each feature on each alternative. Then compare total scores for each alternative. The highest score becomes a tentative choice.

13. Test the tentative choice for consequences. - What will happen in the short, mid, and long term for this decision?

14. Make the final decision. - If it passes step 13, implement it. If not, proceed to the next highest scoring alternative.

Return to step 1 if you haven't found a suitable choice, begin the whole thing again and make sure you don't miss anything.

7 Most Effective Exercises Slideshow

2010-07-27T22:20:00.003+10:00

Here's nice link from Webmd.com:

Click Here

These exercises deliver results, given that one pays close attention to form.

1. Walking - No equipment necessary. Start at 5 to 10 minutes then increase it to 30 minutes per session. Increase your speed and level of incline as you go about challenging yourself.

2. Interval Training - It always challenges your body if you vary the intensity of your activity. Push the tempo for a minute then simmer down between 2 to 10 minutes.

3. Squats - Works on multiple muscle groups at the same time (gluts, quads, and hamstrings).

4. Lunges - Also works out multiple muscle groups like squats, plus it helps improve balance.

5. Push-ups - Strengthens the shoulders, chest. core muscles, and triceps.

6. Abdominal crunches - Strengthens your core muscles.

7. Bent-over Rows - Benefits the lower, mid, and upper back.

Rules of Business from a Strip Club Owner

2010-07-27T22:20:00.001+10:00

Alan Markovitz owns a new Penthouse Club in Philadelphia, and even spent 5 million dollars just for adornments. He also revolutionized the compensation model that instead of paying his models, they pay him a fixed fee nightly and get to keep everything extra they made.

He has the following rules to guide him:

Wisely choose your business partners.
Never stand still - keep innovating, upgrading, inventing, expanding...
"If you sleep with your help, you might need help."
Believe that you can manage through any crisis.
Look for extra ways to turn the buck.
Experiment and try new ideas.

Here's a link to the original write-up in CNBC.

How to Fight Aging

2010-07-27T22:19:00.001+10:00

Here is from one of my favorite sites Webmd:

1. Produce - Fruits and vegetables especially blueberries and leafy greens like spinach. Berries are full of vitamin C and anti-oxidants, keeping your skin smooth while protecting your cells cancer, heart disease, and diabetes to Alzheimer's, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Dark leafy greens. These veggies are prime sources of lutein and zeaxanthin, plant pigments that protect your eyes from the harmful effects of ultraviolet light and they are rich in vitamin K which helps reduce boneloss.

2. Protein - Muscle mass which is a key component in boosting your metabolism can be maintained by getting enough protein from skinless chicken and turkey breast, lean beef and pork, eggs, beans, dairy, and seafood. Calcium also cannot build bone without enough protein.

3. Omega-3-Rich Fish - If you don't like fish, omega-3 can also be found in walnuts and flaxseed. They fight chronic inflammation while improving mood and attitude among healthy people.

4. Whole Grains - Found in whole wheat, oats, and brown rice, bread, cereal, and others made from them. They fight against diabetes, heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, high blood pressure, and gum disease due to the vitamins, minerals, plant chemicals, and fiber that work together and promote health.

5. Exercise - It maintains muscle mass, boosts metabolism, and keeps your heart and lungs strong. The recommendation? 30 minutes or more of moderate aerobic activity 5 days a week plus twice a week of strength training to maintain your muscle mass.

6. Red Wine and Other Drinks - Red wine has resveratrol, which is a potent antioxidant, inflammation damper, and artery protector. Limit yourself to one glass per day. Coffee fights type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and heart disease. Tea can lower heart attacks, strengthen your immune system, protect tooth enamel, and help fight memory loss.

7. Nuts and Dark Chocolate - Suggested as "snack" items. Nuts have protein and keeps you full which helps you eat less later on. 20% of its fat and calories don't absorbed by the body. Fi you're craving for something sweet, try Dark Chocolate have anti-oxidants.

How to Choose Mutual Funds

2010-07-27T22:18:00.003+10:00

Mutual funds! How do you choose among the many options? Can you just pick them up from shelves in a store, read their labels, and put them in your basket of investments? Probably not. But in a way, you can.

I have compiled below what I have read so far about how to choose mutual funds. These come from different sources and I have weeded out what I think do not apply to to the Philippine market. Compared to learning the stock market behavior, this topic is relatively easier to absorb. So read on...

1. Read up. Keep learning. Read my blogs or any material that can carry past what you're learning here. Knowledge is power. And knowing is half the battle.

2. Settle on a suitable asset allocation. After you drew up your battle plan for investing (determined your risk tolerance, growth strategies, etc...), purchase your funds according to this strategy. It would come out pretty useless if you would just ignore this plan wouldn't it?

3. Discover the many research tools that are readily at hand. Ok we have books, magazines, newspapers, the internet. Everything is there. Look for fund performance, rankings, etc...

4. Check on no-load. These so-called loads, only mean commissions. There is one no load mutual fund I know in the Philippines and that is the Prosperity Money Market Fund. Performance-wise though, I see no growth there. 3.88% on the 3 Yr. Investment Return makes almost no difference to a time-deposit.

5. Look for funds with low annual expenses. You really have to check this out. This could be eating up your profits. Please make sure your fund performs well enough to cover the expenses and outperform the index fund over a long period of time.

6. Look for fund managers who have been in place for at least 5 years. Managed funds are run by people not computers, and you have to know who these people are. When the top stock picker leaves, so does the talent that goes with him/her. Or make sure the team left is well-trained by these investment wizards. Team-managed funds are normally managed by a real shot caller. This person must be identified at all costs. Hehe. Stick with funds whose lead managers are specifically identified.

7. Look for superior prior performance. Previous good records aren't predictive themselves. But this is an indication that the manager is good. Your quarry is always the manager not a particular fund.

8. Compare the fund with its peer group. The fund should outperform its peer group as well as a general market average.

9. Check for consistency of investment style. Style is defined by the kind of stocks or investments it invests in. You want them consistent. What they say in the prospectus should always be what they should do in the real world.

10. Consider the Fund's Size. It's size should be congruent with its investment goals. Managers sometimes announce that they're going to close their funds. That's no time to buy. It simply means the fund has attracted more new money than it can handle, which means performance might fall off.

11. Check the fund's performance in down markets. Some funds drop further than the general market average, then spring back - growth funds. Others go down less but may not turn up fast - value funds. Are you daring? Conservative? Choose the funds that makes you happier.

12. Check the minimum investment. Here in the Philippines. Some start at Php 500. Others at Php 10,000. Choose your pick. Be practical. What can you realistically afford? Additional investments you want to purchase can then vary per fund.

That wraps it up for now.