As predicted, the issue of unlimited campaign spending by corporations and special interest groups has certainly hit the fan – and there are major articles everywhere in the press about the ruling: Local TV stations Expect a landslide of new political ads Reactions in Washington Post’s Voices blog Indiana Crusader bent on destroying Campaign Finance […]
This One Has Legs: Supremes Allow Unlimited Campaign Spending II Read More »
Most government financial and economic data is free; but that is the last of the good news. I thought when the Obama administration took over that some of its Web 2.0 savvy and great UI presentation would be carried over to the delivery of public data Unfortunately, no sign of improvements. Here is the table
The major problems confronting the Republican party is their tired policies of fear plus lack of inclusion for Blacks, Hispanics and other growing middle-class segments. But the key problem is the lack of leadership as no replacement has emerged since the Obama victory. Even worse, into the leadership void has come such ultra conservative and
Watching the Congressional Financial Crisis Commission hearing under Congressman Peter Angelides the past two days has been as enthralling as watching screeching chalk writing on a blackboard. It is so discordant. This is Kabuki Theater where all the players know their roles and the only question is who will break form or slip up. The
Wall Street Banksters Disqualify Themselves Deliberately Read More »
CES 2010 – the Consumer Electronics Show which has replaced COMDEX [R.I.P.] as the Las Vegas IT place to be for the electronic gadget Hosers Test. It is so big, well attended by the suppliers plus reviewers, and there is so much to see and absorb across the hottest arena in IT, mobile electronic devices
CES 2010 Nugget: Sierra Wireless/Sprint Overdrive Read More »
If you are like me, just pining for an eReader that is robust, light, strong, with huge storage, great + economical Wifi connections, and is not linked to Amazon only for books and other media resources – then thank CES 2010 for just hosting a pan full of promising eReader nuggets. In fact, the missing
CES 2010 Nuggets: Amazon Kindle has lots of Competition++ Read More »
I have been spending no small amount of time praising the NYTimes for adapting quickly to the digital onslaught. The Times currently leads the US major news media with very intelligent use of JavaScript and other components/ mashables in its online edition. As well the company has produced what I expect to be a fixture
NYTimes Takes Friendly Fire From Own Writer Read More »
Motley Fool asks the question here and the evidence is compelling that IE is on a downtrend. Here is what Tim Beyer, The Foolish writer has to say: StatCounter, an analytics firm, says that Firefox’s share of the browser market now stands at 32.06%, up almost seven percentage points from last November. Internet Explorer’s share
Motley Fool Asks – Is Microsoft IE Browser Doomed? Read More »
Takethe5th is now available in 25 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Hebrew, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portugese, Spanish, Swedish, Welsh and Yiddish among others. And I say among others because Google has added two new languages in the past few weeks. So you can enjoy a touch of excellence in your native
Takethe5th Available in 25 Languages! Read More »
From the beginning of computing, hardware costs have dominated and shaped the nature of the business. The following $100 WalMart price check for a 1 Terabyte drive says that is no more. And of course Moore and Kurzweil have been telling us this for at least a decade. So maybe Microsoft is right – software
Walmart: “1 Terabyte Drive for $100” Read More »
The numbers and graphs tell the story on a Lost Generation. But I have a Japanese friend who lived during the 1990’s. The scene and situation are not pretty as the numbers and article fail to convey all of the the psychological impact. This is one of the best articles in an issue which has
Business Week’s Lost Generation Read More »
Google is making its Translation Service available for free as part of its Google API. See for example the Google Translation in upper left sidebar to switch to your language. Meanwhile the API is versatile because it auto-detects the language and then translates it for you: Paris Le Monde newspaper Hamburg’s Die Zeit newspaper Buenos
Google Translations Read More »
For the last 10 years, Google’s display of search results has seen a slow, gradual [some would say glacial] movement. Yes there have been improvements – the display of search results with similar and then cached options allowing for different views of the search results. Or users could resort to Advanced Search – but Advanced
Google Responds to Microsoft Bing Read More »
The reaction to Google’s Chrome Frame has been most interesting. Often the IT trade press is very circumspect about commenting on Microsoft because Microsoft may be a major advertiser. But the commentary has been very wide about the implications of Google’s Chrome Frame on Redmonds software development [especially Web programs]. It reminds this reviewer of
Microsoft at the Tipping Point ? Read More »
Update: Google is chroming Microsoft once again. IE9 is not out yet with its many HTML5 enhancements. But Microsoft is going to do nothing for the legion of IE8, IE7, and IE6 users. So Google has created the Google CanvasExplorer, a JavaScript that enables HTML5 on all those soon-to-be older versions of IE. But they
Microsoft Chromed by Google Read More »
I thought my recent posting on the dithering by President Obama was a zinger – its gotten the least hits of all my recent posts. It appears that the Republican Screeching against the President has now made any criticism or doubts as PI-Politically Incorrect.So imagine the response that Bill Maher is getting for his Huffington
President Obama – Attacks from the Left Read More »
Google is up to its innovation tricks, proving once again that it is master of Web 2.0 Interface Innovations with Sidewiki – a post-a-comment on any Web page system [and its a Wiki no less]. Google once again is proving that it is taking Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Twitter and the Web 2.0 horde seriously. Facebook
Google Shakes the Web Again: Sidewiki Read More »
NYTimes guest columnist Stanley Fish has hit the nail pretty well on the head with his article, The ObamaShow. In effect, on a day that finds President Obama working like a whirling dervish from an appearance on the Dave Letterman show to next day UN General Assembly presentation it appears Obama is everywhere. But more
The Obama Only Show Read More »
The NYTimes Financial Market information services is proof that the old lady can hiphop with the best in the Web 2.0 world including Google. In our two previous postings, the NYTimes showed how novel use of the Tabs , Charts and Thumbnail widgets could a)provide a novel and Google-beating Markets Overview and b) some of
NYTimes Gives Google a Real Run for the Money 3 – Stock Screeners Read More »
Our previous review of the NYTimes Markets found it to be well ahead of the competition [including Google, Microsoft Money, Reuters, SEC’s Edgar and others] in providing broad [and free] Markets data in a comprehensive yet concise essential summaries. But this is only the broad Markets data. This review will look at the fundamental stock
NYTimes Gives Google a Real Run for the Money 2 – Stock Charts + Fundamentals Read More »
Taketh5th has been featuring articles about the high caliber of Google’s free stock and financial information services. Well almost stealthily the NYTimes has really polished its equivalent stock and financial services such that All the News Fit to print appears to be giving Google a real run for its money. Go to the NYTimes Markets
NYTimes Gives Google a Real Run for the Money 1 – Market Overview Read More »
Adobe has a wonderful online text editor Acrobat Buzzword available here and see below: So why would it be introducing a second online editor, called Adobe Story? Story appears to have only one additional feature – the ability to share documents among editors while missing a lot of the features associated with Adobe and Buzzword
Adobe Story? “I am sticking to it …” Read More »
Reading is getting to be a battleground. First there is the continuing bickering over Google Books and did Google spread enough green love among book publishers, libraries and magazine/newspapers? Now there also is shaping up to be pretty serious brawl for e-Book device of choice. WSJ Marketwatch’s Therese Poletti has supplied a fight card among
Give Microsoft executives full credit – they are nothing if not consistent. Everything turns on Windows being the preferred platform for all their software and applications. And this has had dire consequences for Web applications, tools and their developers. In short, Microsoft is consistently shorting the Web: 1)Microsoft’s infamous five year freeze on improvements to
Microsoft Shorts the Web Read More »
Apple is getting a stranglehold on the evolution of computing devices, particulary for consumers. iPod + iTunes dominates the media playing world. iPhone + iAppStore dominate the phone plus highly portable app and messaging world. But Apple missed the boat despite a huge technology leads on the PC desktop and laptop world back in the
Apple Snow Leopard : Second Take Read More »
Google has been putting together some fine tools for manipulating and displaying stock results. Taketh5th readers were alerted to the quality of the Google Finance Stock display and associated stock data at the beggining of this year. Now Google Finance has added a Stock Screener that is the cats meow. The only limitation is the
Google Finance: New Stock Screener Read More »
As a Web surfer one can think of some of the social networking sites with some trepidation – sort of a popularity contest in the Cloud. Judge your Flickr friends by the quality of their comments more than the number of their image postings. Facebook – look for Friends that investigate whats up in your
Business Week’s Business Exchange Read More »
As one can well imagine throughout the Financial Fiasco, letting the Financial community handle your investments has become both financially risky and intellectually stressing. So I am now doing do-it-yourself investing. Thus I am responsible for tuning and diversifying the portfolio with returns and risks managed to longer term goals. And being a Web developer
Do It Yourself Investing: Google Finance Read More »
This tool, ValueCruncher, is a personal favorite because from business school days I have always liked to do simple what-if analysis based on my best assumptions for the growth in earnings and revenues for a company. I know – this is like NPV-Net Present Value analysis – subject to highly variable assumptions. But that is
Do It Yourself Investing: ValueCruncher Read More »
This is the second tutorial on free financial investment tools which have proved to be very useful in doing financial analysis and portfolio tuning or rebalancings. One of the most important tasks these days is to constantly assess your portfolio for what may be better replacement investments. In order to do this investors must screen
Do It Yourself Investing: Morningstar Stock Screener Read More »
