On The Web

It took me some digging to figure out how to install and set up the ClearCase client for Eclipse. So, I'm putting it here for ease of reference.

1. Install the ClearCase client (the plugin will not work without the client)
2. Create a view
3. Get the ClearCase plugin
4. Unzip the zip file into the Eclipse directory and restart Eclipse
5. Clearcase should be a menu item now
6. Right click on a project and select "Team/Associate with clearcase"
7. Configure settings "Preferences>Team>Clearcase". (I had restart Eclipse for the settings to take effect)

Links:
Instructions

China $586 billion stimulus
DHL cuts 9,500 jobs in US
Government increases AIG bailout to $150 billion
Circuit City files for bankruptcy
Dow down 73 on Mon
AmEx becomes a bank
Dow down 176 on Tues
Paulson says troubled assets will not be purchased
Dow down 411 on Wed
Germany enters recession
Economic group says developed world in recession
Jobless claims hit 25-year high
Dow up 552 on Thu
Eurozone enters first recession
Sun to cut up to 6,000 workers, 18 pct of staff
Freddie loses $25.3B in Q3
Dow down 337 on Fri
Gift cards now backed by FDIC

Finally, a keyboard macro recorder for Eclipse. (Shouldn't something like this be standard in an IDE?) To install, just put the jar files into the Eclipse dropins directory and restart. Then the macro buttons will show up in the toolbar.

1. GM Oct. sales fall nearly half; Ford drops 30 pct
2. Manufacturing crashes to 26-year low in October
3. Dow up 305 on Tues
4. Dow down 486 on Wed
5. Longer-term jobless benefits hit 25-year high
6. European Central Bank lowers interest rate .5 points to 3.25%
7. Bank of England lowers interest rate 1.5 points to 3%
8. Dow down 443 on Thu
9. Unemployment climbs to 6.5%
10. GM, Ford losses worse than expected, burning cash
11. Dow up 248 on Fri

The internet connection has been real slow on my Acer Aspire One. This thread explained why. It only happens when it's running off of the battery. The wireless driver by default runs slower to save power when not plugged in.

To fix it:

To turn it off, right click my computer > properties > hardware tab > device manager... then find your wireless adapter in the list under Network Adapters, right click > properties > advanced tab. Select Power Save Mode from the list on the left and select Off from the drop down on the right. Press OK and close device manager.

Finally, a browser for the Pocket PC (Windows Mobile) that supports Flash - Skyfire. It was able to show videos decently from YouTube and Metacafe, even with the relatively slow EVDO.

While I'm on the subject, I'd really love to get an iPhone or Google G1, but there's one dealbreaker with them both. Neither supports tethering. Now that I can watch flash videos from my PPC, there's now less reason to envy the iPhone.

I just bought an Acer Aspire One. It's got a great combination of features for a subnotebook. It has 1 Gig RAM, a 140 Gig HD and a 5 hour battery life. And all for $407.

I had bought it from ZipZoomFly. I had never bought anything from them before, so I was a little bit hesitant. But they were the only one that had it in blue. However, seeing that they had good feedback, I went for it. At the end, the entire transaction was smooth and shipping was even free.

Only thing missing with the Aspire is a CD drive, but that's standard for subnotebooks. But, for some reason it has WinDVD preinstalled on it. One small negative point is the fan noise. It's not that loud, but once I installed this, it shut down the fan and now it's completely silent. Now the fan will only come on when it reaches a certain temperature. Like all subnotebooks, the keyboard is small and does take some getting used to. The keypad buttons are on the sides, which is OK with me, but I think it takes too much pressure to depress them. Another nice thing is that it runs XP instead of Vista. It uses the Atom processor and I haven't seen any problems running stuff on it. And everything worked perfectly out of the box.

Overall, I love this thing. And you can't beat its feature/price ratio.

1. Daimler to suspend production for one month
2. Dow lost 203 on Mon
3. Dow jumps 880 on Tue
4. Consumer confidence index fell to 38
5. Fed Cuts Key Rate by a Half-Point
6. Dow down 74 on Wed
7. IMF may need to "print money" as crisis spreads
8. Dow up 189 on Thu
9. Economy shrinks -.3% GDP in 3Q
10. Dow up 144 on Fri
11. GMAC seeks bailout as talk of GM, Chrysler merger continues

Yesterday, the Fed dropped the Federal funds rate to 1%. In effect, it's like lowering your credit card interest rate in the hopes that you'll spend more money. However, dropping the interest rate won't do anything. Why do I say this? First off, it's already dropped it 8 times since last year and it hasn't done anything. But more fundamentally, there is nothing more to drive our debt driven society. Since 1980, the interest rate has been on a downward trend. This has caused increased lending and asset bubbles. But, now there are no more places where the consumer can tap more borrowed money. Credit cards have saturated the public. Home equity loans are practically gone. Brokerage margin accounts are lowered with stock prices falling. Corporations have to pay a higher premium for loans and the Commercial Paper market has dried out. The only thing left holding everything up is the Treasury borrowing money from foreigners. And so only the Treasury can bail out all these failing institutions. And nothing will be done for the consumers. Ultimately, the end of musical chairs will come, and the American taxpayers will be left holding the bag.

1. Dow climbs 413 on Mon
2. Dow drops 231 on Tue
3. Fed makes new move to help bust credit logjam
4. More store closings
5. Kerkorian sells Ford holdings - loses more than $600 million
6. Wachovia reports $23.9B loss for 3Q
7. Mass layoffs highest since 9/11
8. Dow drops 514 on Wed
9. Goldman Sachs lays off 32,500
10. US foreclosure filings up 71 percent in 3Q
11. CP shrinks by 4.1%
12. GM to Make Deeper Employee Cuts
13. Dow up 172 on Thu
14. Banks borrow record amount from Fed
15. US Futures Halted on Friday
16. Naked selling of Treasuries
17. Dow down 312 on Fri
18. Alpha Bank & Trust Closes
19. VIX spikes to 89
20. PNC Financial uses bailout money to buy National City for $5.2 Billion
21. The whole system is contracting