Monday, September 29, 2008

Shopping Season 08: Endgame Begins!

The Grand Finale: Bear (B) vs Bulls (W) Championship of the Decade!

W: Chidambaram goes to town with "DECOUPLING"
B. Indian Inflation soars to double digits

W: Indian Markets Hit 21K
B: Seriously Deepening Credit Crisis Emerges through thick Clouds

W: Indian Real-estate market continues to clock a 50%-80% growth rate
B. Indian Rupee Starts with Super Slide

W: Indian FIN-MIN announces a 70K Crore Farmer Loan Waiver
B. US Economic Crisis Grips the American Financial System

W: India gets' entry into the Global Nuclear Club
B. Indian Economic Growth Forecast Downgraded to 7.2% for FY09 & 6.X% for FY10

W: Reserve Bank garners praises from WB & other states for its' exemplary role in fore-seeing economic crisis.
B: Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill lynch, Washington Mutual, Wachovia, AIG, B & B & Fortis disappear from the world in their true sense.

W: Crude hits the sub-$100 mark twice
B: Indian stock markets apes the road show currently going around the world to hit a new bottom for 2008

W: US Congress approves $700 Billion package, in an hope to control the storm.
B: US Congress sprays the $700 Billion package with monumental clauses.

Those were the moves so far, and in this game of chess, the end-game is approaching faster than anyone can visualize. There is only ONE outcome, a draw or a stalemate were ruled out way back, now from here on, its' winner takes all.

A few developments that will catalyse the end in Indian Context will be:
1. The Indian Shopping Season begins tommorrow, and you can almost taste the sense of thrill in the air, Honda City launches its' brand new edition, Real Estate in Mumbai finally relents, Malls, Traders, Brokers who were busy preparing for war during pitupaksha will finally begin their stampede from tommorrow. Diwali 08, has to see a strong buying season for the end-game to go in the favour of the bulls.
2. Crude has shown signs of relenting and possibly settling steadfastlily below $100, this will give the government a possible hope of doing election politics and bring down fuel prices, another crucial factor for the bulls.
3. Mutual Fund houses have been holding the Indian markets from a steep dive, but if the buying season's demand on liquidity leads to redemption pressure, it will be a major boost for the bears, they will have won 50% of their battle.
4. The US bailout is entering rough waters, especially given the fact that US faces elections soon, things can take a bad turn very quickly in the US, WE KNOW THAT FOR SURE!
5. Real-estate developers are facing a serious credit-crunch, if they start defaulting, then it'll possibly be the begining of an Indian Sub-Prime, rather an India Super-Prime Mortgage Crisis.
6. Reserve Bank of India is not lending support to the rupee even at 47:1, it possibly means they have read the writing on the wall, worst is yet to come. (Why do I see the bears dancing with joy?)

I can ramble on and on, bottom line, bring out your pop-corn and start embracing news - whatever it means to you - because, times will never get more exciting again in this lifetime.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Goodbye IE, its' Firefox+Chrome for me...

Blogging this via Chrome, it a genuine piece of brilliance that can only come from Google. The interface is clean and extremely intelligent, you can almost feel the amount of thought that has been poured into it, by folks who have a long history of producing brilliant internet apps.

Firefox has its place in the sun, rather it'll dominate my net-browsing sessions for a simple reason: addons. Nothing beats Firefox, not right now.

Makes me wonder what IE really has to offer?

Monday, September 01, 2008

XPS Finally Arrives

XPS 1530 is now part of my prized earthly possesions. The purpose of which is to help me stay put in this fast changing tech environment. My old PC, although still a worthy workhorse, was finding itself w/o support increasingly these days.

The goods and the bad about my new XPS,
Good
1. Its' Cool, Happening and very very powerful.
2. Vista is a toy so far, lets' see with Visual Studio and Eclipse running side-by-side...would be worth finding out.
3. Only game I tried was FSX, and it didnt perform very well, its' not a huge jump in terms of graphics performance...I've seen the things it had to offer.
4. Vista is paid for...and I am really patting myself for it. Besides the good looks, its' a real 21-st century OS, it almost feels like theres' a small little technician whos' able to guess what's wrong or where I can find some help. Beat that those so-called Linux "mainstream" OSes, you are still way outside the planetary system.
N. Cant remember the number in this list, doing this through a gadget?

Hell, I'll end this emotional outburst, and get back with a better review when I find some time.