Posted: April 28th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, technology | No Comments »
EMC announced plans to spin off their VMWare division.
I believe that the spin-off is a way for EMC to take some money off of the table. They will continue to own 90% of the company, but they will take advantage of their first-mover status to make some additional money from their product.
This is a really good strategic/financial move for them. It allows them to take advantage of the hot market around virtualization and at the same time reduce their risk exposure in an increasingly competitive/crowded market. Microsoft/Novell/Linux/etc. may take share away from VMWare’s position in the future with competing virtualization technologies.
VMWare stock may have a lot of risk as well and to me it looks suspiciously similar (financially) to the Palm IPO by 3COM. Of course, Palm has a very confusing story and being a value investor, I’m hesitant to touch that stock with a 10 foot pole.
In the end, there are a number of really interesting and new virtualization technologies, many of them Open Source, which will probably win out in the end. Xen and KVM are the two technologies to watch in that space.
Posted: April 27th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology | No Comments »
It is possible to customize your desktop for Macs and Windows. However, it is very difficult to install a different window manager for your operating system. Part of this is because the source code and interfaces into the underlying OS are closed. Maintaining a consistent user interface and experience is very important, so it is unlikely that they would ship with more than window manager even if they were open.
One thing that is cool about Linux is the fact that there are many window managers for the X Window System. In addition to the standard Gnome and KDE desktops, many distributions ship with other window managers, such as FVWM and TWM.
Each window manager has its own philosophy. Some, such as ION and Ratpoison, try to forgo using the mouse at all and make everything accessible from the keyboard. Others, such as Blackbox take a minimalist approach and are extremely lightweight.
I’m sticking to Gnome for now, but it is nice to have choices!
Posted: April 26th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology | No Comments »
I installed Debian 4.0 on an older laptop the other day. I decided to install it without a window manager or a desktop for now. I have to say that I am very impressed.
The actual install process was very quick and painless. The wireless card, which is often the difficult thing to configure, was recognized and configured at boot. I was able to find my way around ifconfig, iwconfig, ifup and ifdown to get onto a secured network. I was also able to download screen very easily, and it has been fun playing around on the command line.
The only task I have done so far is to burn an .iso of some work stuff for our client. There is little or no documentation to be found for mkisofs and wodim (replacement for cdrecord). I had to fiddle around forever to get them to do what I wanted to do.
Which brings me to to my point – it is incredibly useful to have a community around whatever distro you are using. Because a lot of people do not use the command line to burn CDs, there is little or no documentation/help out there. At some point, some developer uses the commands to create a GUI tool to burn a CD, but their knowledge about the actual commands may never be documented online.
Posted: April 23rd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: photography, travel | 1 Comment »
When I was in Paris a few months ago (I can’t believe it was a few months ago!) I made it a point to go check out the two Bourse buildings. The first is called the “Palais Brongniart or Palais de la Bourse” and is on Rue Vivienne.
The other bourse is called the “Bourse du Commerce” and is on Rue de Viarmes. It is a beautiful building. Unfortunately, it was closed when I visited it, otherwise I would have checked out the stained glass dome.
The circular, shallow-domed 18th-century commercial exchange building near Les Halles began life as the Corn Exchange; Victor Hugo waggishly likened it to a jockey’s cap without the peak. Step inside to admire the 1889 stained-glass dome. – link
Here is a picture that shows you the curve of the building and the curve of the adjacent building.
Here is some detail of the facade:
Posted: April 21st, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: bicycling | 1 Comment »
I’m in Minneapolis at the moment, and I figured I’d go for a nice bicycle ride. The great thing about this city is that there are a ton of trails and bicycle paths, many of which have no automobile traffic. I decided to ride the Cedar Lake Trail (.pdf)
Although the Trail isn’t the most scenic here, it is quite long and there are many long stretches where you can get a decent speed and rhythm. This makes it pretty popular among the more dedicated bicyclists. Next time I will check out the Kenilworth trail, which is nearby.
I’ve figured out there are two three types of bicyclists here. There are the spandex-wearing-Lance-wannabes who whiz by on their Kestrel Carbon fiber bikes and vintage 7/11 jerseys. (Hey thanks a lot, a@#hole, for nearly killing me.) There are the pleasant weekend warriors and there are the hipsters on fixies. I probably fall between the last two.
I love my bike!
Posted: April 19th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: technology | No Comments »
As a OpenSUSE user at work, I am often confused by the many options I have for updating my system. With Ubuntu I generally just update using the Gnome Software Updater and it works pretty quickly. Software Updater on OpenSUSE takes about 45 minutes to resolve dependencies and is pretty much unusable.
For a newbie, it is impossible to figure out the difference between RUG, ZMD, Zypper, Smart, Apt4RPM, Software Updater, YAST, Libzypp, etc. However, one of the tech gurus here has recommended that I turn off the updater and use zypper. So, all I do is go to the command line and type “Zypper Update” and it works like magic.
Posted: April 19th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business | No Comments »
Ok, I did buy into E*Trade the other day, and I know it is off 5% or so. Which is funny because it was up about 5% or so since I bought into it.
There is a lot of volatility in the market right now, and I’m expecting all of my holdings to vary pretty substantially over the next two or three months. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised by a correction, because I do not think that the prices reflect reality.
The current drop in price is really related to their drop in FY estimates from $1.55 – $1.75, instead of $1.65 – $1.80. Regardless, I think E*Trade should do well in the next ten years. There will be some consolidation in that market. E*Trade’s leadership team should guide them through. Here’s the positive highlights from their release:
- E-Trade reported a 19% increase in first-quarter net income
- Net income came in at $169.4 million, or 39 cents a share, compared with $142.5 million, or 33 cents a share a year ago
- Grew target accounts by 20% on an annualized basis in the first quarter of 2007
- Total customer assets climbed to a record $201 billion, while $2.4 billion of that went into cash products
- Board approved a $250 million share repurchase plan
Posted: April 17th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: stuff | 3 Comments »
All my close friends know that I am secretly a Diet Coke addict. I have been trying to reduce my intake and switch to sparkling water, but I broke down today when I saw the colorful Diet Coke Plus package at the Wal-Mart Supercenter. Diet Coke Plus is the latest member of the Diet Coke family, and it includes some necessary vitamins and minerals.
Each eight-ounce serving of Diet Coke Plus provides a good source of Niacin (vitamin B3), vitamins B6 and B12, zinc and magnesium (15% Daily Value [DV] for Niacin, B6 and B12, 10% DV for zinc and magnesium). (from press release)
The packaging for the new product is very colorful and beautiful. I’m not sure if that is the right word, but it is very well-designed and it is a little bit natural, a little bit artificial and definitely “tech-y”. It very much reminds me of the marketing for Coca Light in Europe. Judge for yourself…
Ok, and now the hardest part of the review…the taste. If I was subjected to a blind taste test between Diet Coke, Diet Coke Plus, and Diet Pepsi I probably couldn’t tell the difference. So that being said, I have a few comments about this new product. First, it has a milder taste and lacks the “bite” I associate with regular Diet Coke. Because it is smoother, it tastes more like a “feminine” drink to me…sort of like Tab. Perhaps I am imagining it. Another thing about it, there is a really subtle “bitter” aftertaste. Perhaps I am imagining that also.
I’m not sure if I’d switch to it exclusively but I think I could grow to like it. The vitamins and health benefits really wouldn’t factor into my decision when picking a soft drink. But I’m not sure if I’d fit into the right target market for this product. I’m a busy consultant and the most exercise I get everyday is the long walk from the parking lot to my desk. Are they targeting health-conscious females?
Posted: April 17th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business | No Comments »
You may have noticed that I have not posted on technical or business topics lately. The reason for that is because I am working at Wal-Mart in Bentonville, and the work that we are doing here is somewhat confidential. Also, even though I am learning about the Wal-Mart ethos, I do not think it is appropriate for me to share my observations. Lastly, the work that we are doing here is not unusual or groundbreaking.
One thing from a portfolio/business note is that I purchased shares of E*Trade. I bought the because I think they are attractively valued in terms of their growth and because they are a true innovator in their market. This is a weird investment for me because I actually use E*Trade for most of my financial services. I may post an “analytical” note sometime in the future.
Posted: April 15th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
This weekend was a very hectic travel weekend, but I did get to have some fun with Tracey. We went to go see some houses on the South Shore. We took Scooter and Whoopie, Tracey’s two Daschunds, with us. As we were walking along, I saw the recreation of the Mayflower (Mayflower II) that is docked in Plymouth.
