User 305589

Apple vs. Microsoft: Apple's OS Wins Hands Down

oh yeah?
that old apple 7 OS certainly cannot and will not support the modern hard- and software. This is just biased crap, what you have told here. it's fine that you like AAPL's stuff and that you hate mr. softie's - i have no issue with that. But making bold claims that do not hold water and then sell this as facts is a different matter.
btw, I have had no problems with win xp and even vista, which i installed 3 months ago, doesn't suck as much as i had feared. Though I will certainly replace it with windows 7 as soon as the latter runs stable and with the necessary device drivers issued for my pc.

i really don't get it why people make a religion out of - OS software. Aren't there already enough religious wars fought allover the planet?

Google Drops a Nuclear Bomb on Microsoft. And It's Made of Chrome.

I couldn't care less. And I am amused and a tad worried by the jubilation expressed by quite a number of people about how happy they are that Google will now attempt to wipe out MSFT on the OS battlefield. They better look carefully what they wish for!
For all the hate against MSFT, Google isn't any better, quite the opposite. Their privacy protection is nonexistant. they are the biggest data collectors and spys on the internet. No rules, no regulations. I will never ever install any google software on any of my PCs, notebooks or handys. They offer a terrific search engine and Google earth is a nice application, fine - but that's about it. I will not work on office documents via the web - how could I be sure that the data and information will not end up at places where i don't want them to be?
All the people who - often correctly - criticise Mr Softie today should learn to look at Google not as a smart innovator but as a company that increasingly tries to establish a giant hegemony over all that is web/handy and communications-related. Windows might be annoying at times. Google surely could become a real threat to freedom and privacy much sooner than most people think.
All the google admirers are now free to downthumb my post.

Google Chrome: Redefining the Operating System

I couldn't care less. For all the hate against MSFT, Google isn't any better, quite the opposite. Their privacy protection is nonexistant. they are the biggest data collectors and spys on the internet. No rules, no regulations. I will never ever install any google software on any of my PCs, notebooks or handys. They offer a terrific search engine and Google earth is a nice application, fine - but that's about it. I will not work on office documents via the web - how could I be sure that the data and information will not end up at places where i don't want them to be? The solution: the good ol' PC/notebook with a hard drive/usb drives. no web storage or office via internet.
All the people who - often correctly - critisize Mr Softie today should learn to look at Google not as a smart innovator but as a company that increasingly tries to establish a giant hegemony over all that is web/handy and communications-related. Windows might be annoying at times. Google surely could become a real threat to freedom and privacy much sooner than most people think.
All the google admirers are now free to downthumb my post.

Option Spreads With Large Upside and Limited Downside

hm, let me get this straight: you talk of 'large upside and limited downside' - yet when looking at your vertical call spreads that you suggest, you have an upside of 108-150% and a downside of - 100%(!!)
I am myself doing a variety of vertical call spreads as well as calendar spreads, but frankly, your suggested trades look more like a gamble.
Your strike prices are so precariously close to each other and at the same time mostly out of the money and pretty near to expiration. For instance, the SPY calls with 92 strike have only a slightly higher probability of expiring in the money than have the 93s. It's basically a coin toss, imho.

I do like call spreads, though, but I use them either with long term options for stocks that are grossly undervalued imo, and then I go quite deep out of the money for 3.1 or 4:1 upside/downside.
Or I may target stocks which I consider to be a t rock bottom valuations with very little downside left and then chose calls that are in the money while selling calls at or slightly out of the money.

The Bull Run Begins This Week

'the good news economist' ? so bad news get irgored or re-interpreted?
the nickname alone does display a pretty strong directional bias, and a strong directional bias is the last thing I want to see with an economist, market observer or whatever.
you want my take on the 'shrugging off bad news' thing? well, the market is not holding up in the face of bad news. it has discounted THESE bad news and is now waiting whether they will keep coming in Q1 and q2 or whether they will improve. If they keep coming and get worse, the market will tank, no matter who speaks and however rhetorically perfect and what stimulus is announced.

Is the Microsoft Empire Cracking?

just another article extrapolating early trends that may as well be random variations. msft is still the largest, most successful, cash rich software company of the world. period. i 'd say, 99.999% of the world#s corporations would love to have mr. softie's problems. there have been cracks in msft#s empire before - and it is still standing. the comparisons by some scommentators with GM are not even ridiculous, they are laughably stupid and reflect wishes, not analysis.
from a stock investor's point of view, msft is a steal, the company could easily buy itself at current prices - now, what multi-billion dollar company in the world can say that about itself?
regarding linux: people getting computer-illiterate at an increasing pace. you need fail-safe, plug-n-play, easy-to-operate stuff. not linux, that needs sophisticated knowledge of hardware and software, that needs someone to configure and set it up. it will remain a niche until it gets as easily to handle like Windows or Mac OS. Very likely, it will never get there because it does not pay off to anyone to bring linux there. talk about a monopoly keeping competition at bay.

and to the office-via-web folks: I would never ever wirte my word documents or excel sheets aned calculations on some web-based software. first, you have a problem when the connection breaks down. second, and more important, you never know who will have access to your data. corporations won't do that. I won't do either. it's a niche product and will remain one.