(stocks) Cisco profits up 29%, stock drops 9%

From the after-hours 1st quarter (Aug-Sept-Oct) financial results 'conference call' on Wednesday, November 07, 2007:

Cisco's [CSCO] 1st quarter [Q1] profit rose 29% ;


to 40 cents a share, or 19% ex a 3-cent tax gain.

Wall St. expected 36 cents.

Revenue rose 17% to $9.55 billion "just ahead of views".

Cisco sees Q2 sales growth of about 16%, just a hair under estimates. U.S. orders were relatively weak.

So how does the stock market react to a profit increase of 19% in 3 months, a revenue increase of 17%, and a company bringing in 9.5 billion dollars of revenue per quarter?

"Shares sank 9% in late trading after falling [an additional] 4% ahead of results from Tuesday's [Nov 6th's] 6 1/2-year high." [$ 34.24]

Talking-heads' explanation "Steady growth was disappointing.",

According to Reuters "Network equipment maker Cisco Systems posted a 37 percent rise in quarterly profit on solid demand from telecoms carriers, but its shares fell 9 percent on concerns about its outlook amid U.S. economic weakness."*

* "Cisco, which makes routers, switches and other equipment, said its fiscal first-quarter profit rose to $2.2 billion, or 35 cents per share, from $1.6 billion, or 26 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue, helped by Cisco's expansion into new products as well as emerging markets, rose 16.7 percent to $9.6 billion for the quarter ended Oct. 27. The company's August forecast was for revenue of $9.45 billion to $9.55 billion.

Analysts on average had forecast revenue of $9.5 billion, according to Reuters Estimates."

"Lives up to expectations,... but delivers a failure to RAISE guidance for growth."

Note: not a failure to raise estimates for profit or revenue, not a estimate of negative growth or loss, not even a lowering of guidance: the stock takes a hit because John Chambers did not raise estimates of 'growth' beyond the current estimate of 16 to 17 % per quarter -- as if you can earn billions AND increase earnings by 64% a year, year after year, forever... how crazy are we?

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other: Banking index posts worst loss in 5 years as Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill hit new lows ... The 'Financials' exchange-traded fund (ETF) 'XLF' is down 5.35% ...

OMG! I bought the wrong video card!

[ posted by Liberty, Monday October 29 2007 ]

According to the folks over at Gamespot.com, today's retail release of the nVidia 8800 GT video card comes with some surprises...

...
(article removed; you snooze, you loose.)
...

your computer might be showing the wrong time today

[submitted by John S., October 28 2007]

A note for our United States readers:

In 2007, Daylight Saving Time (DST) doesn't take effect in the US until the first Sunday in November... this is a change from previous years, in which DST ended the last Sunday in October.

You can double-check the current time at TimeAndDate.com.

"DST ends on Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 2:00 AM local daylight time"

Easily Add A Storage Hard Drive to Your Home Network

[posted by Liberty on 23 October 2007]

The 'NetDisk Enclosure' from xiMeta appears to be an easy and cheap way to add a Hard Drive for network-connected storage. The difference between this product and most 'USB HDD Enclosures' you can buy is that you can plug this one into your network using an Ethernet cable instead of having to have it connected directly to a computer using a USB cable. And unlike some other networked drives, this one provides a device that's (supposedly) 'plug-and-play' (no IP config). And it even supports RAID!

Here's the marketing description (slightly modified by me):

NetDisk Enclosure is a single drive Ethernet/USB 2.0 combination enclosure that allows you to use the internal (3.5" IDE) hard drive of your choice. Each model includes advanced 'NDAS' technology for central, simple and secure network storage -- with no IP configuration or server required!

• 3.5" IDE HD Drive Enclosure
• External network storage for home and office
• Fast Ethernet (100-BaseT \ 802.3u 100Base-TX) and USB 2.0 interface
• RAID 0,1, and JBOD
• Use for backup and/or media storage

http://www.ximeta.com/products/ndenclosure1_en.php

http://www.ximeta.com/products/ndenclosure4_en.php

Buy direct: ($80): https://www.ximeta.com/ecommerce2/

You might be interested in the Linksys "NAS" (Network Attached Storage) product instead... The "Linksys Network Storage System with 2 Bays (NAS200)" will let you put in two drives, supports 802.3u 100Base-TX, and sells for $130 -- but be sure to check out the user reviews at amazon.com before you decide.

Dear Epic Games (Re: Unreal tournament 3)

Too Much Free Time - playing every game because it needs to be done


Dennou Kyuusei Uranai

[by Liberty, October 2007                       [2007-10-23_05:09pm]

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
UT3's release date is November 19, 2007
You can preorder the standard or Collector's Edition now!

(This post is specific to the PC version; but you might want to check out the PS3 version and the XBOX 360 version too.)

If you're wondering if your system is up to it, here's a tip: Bioshock uses the same game engine. So all you have to do is search online for FPS ratings (performance ratings/tests) for Bioshock to get the info you need...
There's a demo available as well, so if you have the time, you could install that and see how it does...

Dear Epic -

According to sources online (why the Press Release or your website doesn't come up in searches is something you might want to look into), the "minimum system requirements" for Unreal Tournament 3 list the following video cards:

[NVIDIA 6200+] or [ATI Radeon 9600+] Video Card

Given the amount of marketing spin and varying degrees of misinformation on the internet, how are most of your potential customers supposed to know what video cards rank _above_ and _below_ these models? It's not like Nvidia and ATI necessarily number their models sequentially. (To add to that, the addition of a single letter or number or symbol to a model number apparently implies large differences in performance -- e.g. [6500 GT] vs [6500 GTS], or e.g. the plus [+] symbol.... )

And what about dual card hardware configurations ("SLI" and "CrossFire")?

Please provide a table of video cards that ranks video cards that meet or exceed this "minimum required" benchmark.

Your customers need to know what components in their price range can reasonably be expected to run your product. And the old days of clear "this card is better than that card" days are long gone...

Links and References

1. > Epic Games guy gives some details
http://www.evga.com/gaming/gaming_news/gn_100.asp

Q. Does Unreal Tournament 3 support EAX? Does it use OpenAL like UT2004?

A. On PC , Unreal Engine 3 uses OpenAL for sound, and takes advantage of the
major 3D sound features available in hardware, or in the OpenAL software driver.

Q. Does Unreal Tournament 3 support HDR rendering with Anti-aliasing?

A. Yes, on Windows Vista. On all PC platforms, we support running with 16-bit-per-component frame buffer (64 bits total).
[But] MSAA anti-aliasing support is only enabled on DirectX 10, because the deferred rendering techniques used by the engine require some capabilities not included in DirectX 9.

2. - UT3 System Score Calculator (only provides a _very_ rough idea, and has no info on how it determines scores):
http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=577457
  (laptop = 13.83 ? ; big blue = 6.001 ?)


Recommended System Requirements*:

2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
1 GBytes of System RAM
NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
Tim Sweeney of Epic Games has confirmed [30] that the best quality of graphics in UT3 (i.e.: MSAA anti-aliasing) will only be available to players of Unreal Tournament 3 if they are Windows Vista users who also have a DirectX 10 graphics card.

*(src=wiki)
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

blogger template update

update to this blog's styling:

Time for a Flash-based ("Solid State") Hard Drive?

from "Solid State Disk Drives Are Here" (SanDisk) by Patrick Schmid & Achim Roos; August 13, 2007 at TomsHardware.com

"The time saved when launching applications such as Windows is reason enough for me to purchase one of these drives for my notebook soon. Indeed, real enthusiasts have no option but to invest in a SSD, because the performance is noticeably better than with any other hardware upgrade. For everyone else, I recommend waiting until these products become more affordable, because $400 for a 32 GB SDD is pretty much the cost of a 1 TB hard drive."

> read more (12 pages)

Recommended site: www.SamsungSSD.com

"
64 MB Solid State Drive -- Learn More About Samsung's New SSD W/No Moving Parts! Official Site."

"Leading PC manufacturers are introducing Samsung SSD-based notebooks in the 4th quarter of 2007.

Check back to see where you can buy models driven by the all-Flash SSD. "
(see also http://www.samsung.com/us/business/semiconductor/ )

One thing I noticed was that Dell started offering some thing they referred to obliquely as "Intel Accelerator" or something like that... as it turns out:

"Samsung's 2.5" SATA, 64 GB solid state drive (SSD) is now available with Dell and Alienware notebooks. Alienware has a 128GB SSD configuration with dual 64GB SSD drives, as well as a 64GB SSD combined with a 200GB drive. Dell is offering the Samsung SSD on its XPS™ M1330 ultra-portable, and expects to use it on additional XPS, as well as Latitude™ corporate notebooks and Dell Precision™ mobile workstations soon. "

A quick check on the Alienware site (now owned by Dell) shows the m5550 laptop is now being offered with new drive choices:

You can get a 120 "GB" SATA "1.5 Gb/s" 7,200 RPM drive with 8MB Cache OR, for
$400 more (!) you can get a 32 "GB" SATA Solid State Drive. 32 GB not enough for you? No worries; for a measly $1,000 more than the 320 BillionByte 7200 rpm drive, you can get the 64 "GB" Solid State Drive. ;-)

Footnotes: "GB" means sizes are actually BB (Billion Bytes). The term "1.5 Gb/s" is way to distinguish SATA types and is not an actual reflection of access speed.

[posted by Liberty Miller, Oct 19 2007]

stocks for week of oct 15 to 19, 2007

October 19th marks the 20 year anniversary of 1987's "Black Monday".

• S&P has lost 3.7% since record close on October 9


• Dow has lost 4.2% since record close on October 9


• S&P 500 down for fourth time in 5 sessions (trading days)


• Dow's current losing streak is longest in over two months


• Stocks for today have worst weekly performance (overall drop) since late July


• QID (an EFT that trades at the inverse of the daily performance of the NASDAQ-100 index) is up 4.90% for the day.

My Watchlist:

• SanDisk got hit hard today: Close= $42.71 Loss= -$7.60 Percentage Loss= -15.11%
  
  Shares of Sandisk Corp. dropped Friday after the flash memory drive maker said third-quarter profit fell 18 percent as a result of acquisition charges.


• CSCO : down -3.61 %


• ORCL


• QQQQ


• MRVL


• NVDA : down -5.37 % , but still UP for the week (+5% since Monday, was up almost 10% yesterday)


• SPY  : down -2.62 %


• EMC :


• AAPL

 

mover notes (from business week.com)

3M Co. (MMM) posts third quarter EPS of $1.32, vs. $1.18 a year ago, on 5.4% sales rise. It raises $5.40-$5.60 2007 EPS guidance to $5.54-$5.62, which includes estimated full year 2007 net gain of $0.60-$0.65 per share, due to special items.

Honeywell International (HON) posts third quarter EPS of $0.81, vs. $0.66 a year ago, on 9.8% sales rise. It raises 2007 sales guidance by $300 million to $34.2 billion, EPS guidance to $3.14-$3.16, free cash flow to $3.0 billion.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) posts $0.71 third quarter loss per share, vs. $0.27 EPS a year ago, as narrowed year-over-year gross margin, higher R&D and acquisitions costs offset 23% revenue rise. S&P reiterates hold.

Google (GOOG) reports third quarter EPS (GAAP basis) of $3.38, vs. $2.36 a year ago. Excluding one-time items, EPS was $3.91. Revenue rose 57% to $4.23 billion. The report was better than analysts expected.

SanDisk (SNDK) posts third quarter EPS (non-GAAP) of $0.54, vs. $0.61 a year ago, despite a 38% revenue. rise. It says prices will likely decline "moderately more" in the fourth quarter than in third quarter. It says it may not be able to meet 100% of the strong demand it sees through the fourth quarter holiday season. S&P says while third quarter EPS was below its estimate, upgrades to buy from hold.

NEW YORK, October 19 (newratings.com) - Analysts at Robert W Baird maintain their "neutral" rating on SanDisk Corporation (SNDK.NAS), while raising their estimates for the company. The target price has been reduced from $58 to $52. [Price close for 10/19: $42.71 ; 52-week high: $62.05 ] Likely range: $47 (+10%) to $52.97 (+23.8%)

...

Continue to hold EMC? Purchased @ $19.41; currently $22.38; gain of 15.3% (+$920) ...

---

Windows tip of the day: You may know that [Ctrl]+[Z] is "Undo" ... but did you know that [Ctrl]+[Y] is "Redo" (un-do your last un-do)?

• for most Macs: Undo = CMD+[Z]


• for Windows [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Z] also does redo, because it is the alternate (Shift key) form of [Ctrl]+[Z].


• likewise, for Macs the Redo key combination is CMD+[Shift]+[Z].

rfe: Microsoft Windows Xp > System Restore Utility

Request for Enhancement: Microsoft Windows XP > System Restore utility > Renamed folder list

For some reason, the System Restore utility, when displaying the list of renamed files and folders, does not let the user save the data. You cannot select the text for copying (Ctrl-C), and the list appears in a small box that can not be resized. Any log that may be available is hidden (not indicated) from the user.

Request: Add a button on the System Restore "Renamed Files/Folders" window for [Save ] with the following help text displayed:

"A copy of this list will be saved to your desktop as 'System Restore Renamed Files Log.txt'"

----

Help for System Restore Renamed Folders

"Renamed folders list

In some rare instances, System Restore retores a folder during the restoration process that has the same name as an existing folder. To avoid writing over the existing folder, System Restore renames the folder by adding a numeric suffix to the name.

This screen lists the folders that have been renamed in the process of restoration and their locations on your hard disk. If you would like to record this information, you better grab a pencil and a piece of paper and get writing..."

unfortunate display of incompetence

General Ricardo Sanchez (retired) states "There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetence in strategic leadership among our national leaders."

more >> Sanchez Says Iraq Is A 'Nightmare'

---

from 'opinion by Jack Kelly' (news.yahoo.com):

The Bush administration began the Iraq war with a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic" war plan, and never has devised a comprehensive national strategy to fight the war, retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said in a speech to military journalists last week.

The result is that Iraq is a "nightmare" where the best we can do is stave off defeat, LtGen. Sanchez said. The troop surge, he said, "is a desperate attempt by an administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war."

LtGen. Sanchez, who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq from June, 2003 to June, 2004, is the highest ranking Iraq war veteran to publicly criticize the war, so his comments were newsworthy, despite being long on adjectives and short on specifics.

only the first 60k hybrids qualify for tax credit (ClipMark)

[posted by Lyberty, September 2007; clipped from automobiles.honda.com ]

Clipmarks user Liberty has sent you a clip...

only the first 60k hybrids qualify for tax credit (thanks g. bush)

Liberty's Message:

Test of sending a clipmark from clipmarks.com

 clipped from automobiles.honda.com

How to claim an Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit* Customers who purchase a new 2005, 2006, or 2007 Honda hybrid vehicle on or after January 1, 2006, may be eligible for federal tax credits associated with the Energy Policy Act of 2005. To learn more about how you may qualify for tax breaks under the new energy bill, please consult your tax advisor or visit www.irs.gov. Honda Models Eligible for Federal Tax Credit: Credit Amount 2007 Honda Civic: Hybrid CVT Model Year 2007............................ $ 2,100 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid CVT ....................................................$ 2,100 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid (SULEV) MT 5 ....................................... $ 1,700 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid (SULEV) CVT ........................................ $ 1,700 2005 Honda Insight CVT .......................................................... $ 1,450 2006 Honda Insight CVT .......................................................... $ 1,450 2007 Honda Accord Hybrid AT Model Year 2007.......................... . $ 1,300 2007 Honda Accord Hybrid Navi AT Model Year 2007 .................. . $ 1,300 2006 Honda Accord Hybrid AT ................................................... $ 1,300 2006 Honda Accord Hybrid AT (without updated control calibration) —$ 650 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid AT ...................................................  $ 650 Please note that this tax credit replaces the tax deductions that were available prior to January 1, 2006. Vehicles purchased before January 1, 2006, are not eligible for this credit. In order to qualify for the hybrid tax credit You must purchase and take delivery of a qualifying vehicle on or after January 1, 2006. The vehicle must be new (used vehicles do not qualify). You must purchase the vehicle (lessees do not qualify for the credit) You must purchase the vehicle with the intention of using it, not reselling it. You must have proof of the vehicle's purchase and delivery date. Limitations to the tax credit In addition to the above rules, there are also some limitations to the hybrid tax credit. Honda encourages consumers to contact the IRS ( www.irs.gov) or a tax advisor about the credit, as various limitations may apply. 1. As stated in the chart above, the tax credit for the 2006 Accord Hybrid is $1,300 with updated control calibration software and $650 without the updated software. Honda is sending a letter to owners of Accord Hybrid models without the latest control calibration software recommending that they visit a dealer for a free software update as soon as possible this year to improve their mileage and their potential tax credit. 2. The IRS has created a phase-out schedule based on calendar quarters, beginning in whichever quarter a manufacturer sells its 60,000th qualifying vehicle. Honda hybrid vehicles purchased during Calendar Year 2006 should qualify for the full tax credit described in the chart above. For Calendar Year 2007, Honda expects to surpass the 60,000 hybrid sales mark, at which time the tax credit will be reduced. If you'd like details of the phase-out, see www.irs.gov. References/Links Please see the following for more information: "Honda Announces Tax Credits for Hybrids" "Seven Honda Vehicles Certified for New Energy Tax Credit" "Tax Form 8910: Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit (.pdf)" *Information provided is for general informational purposes and does not constitute tax advice. For details on the deduction, consumers should check with their tax advisors or the IRS Web site at www.irs.gov.

Get Clipmarks

[NOTE] website style - a page (with tabs) detailing one media item

[ posted by LibertyMill on Sept. 18 2007 ]

{how do you apply a tag to GMail? Is it just Folders?}

( bookmark for Tuesday, 2007 Sept 18) :  website style: media page

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/feast_of_love/

Nice style for a summary page of a media item (e.g. Movie, Game, DVD Disk, Album, etc.


{ what is the derivation of the word "ALBUM"? }

Answer: "albus" meaning "white (tablet)" also meaning "a blank", "a collection"

Latin , neut. of albus "white" : cf. F. album. Cf. Alb.]

Album \Al"bum\, n. [L., neut. of albus white: cf. F. album. Cf. Alb.]

1. (Rom. Antiq.) A white tablet on which anything was inscribed, as a list of names, etc. [1913 Webster]

2. A register for visitors' names; a visitors' book. [1913 Webster]

3. A blank book, in which to insert autographs, sketches, memorial writing of friends, photographs, etc. [1913 Webster]

---------------------------

{bookmark} interesting HTML: a fake dialog window that is actually a floating window on the webpage:

http://www.babylon.com/affiliates/landing/index.php?id=10588&WT.srch=1&gclid=CPn7yd6Pzo4CFQqgYgodGWcqBg