Omkumar's blog

Often times when you try to install a software on Windows computer, the software will complain that there is a "pending restart - please restart your computer and proceed with your setup". You will get this error message no matter how many times you try to restart. Solution for this problem: 1. Open Registry Editor by going to Run...> regedit. 2. Traverse to My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager 3. On your right hand side, look for PendingFileRenameOperations key. 4. Right click on this Name and delete it (yes it is safe to do so). 5. Close Registry Editor and continue with your installation.

This is a very interesting article on how China is becoming a rare-earth metal monopoly. "Deng Xiaoping's comment in 1997, where he said that China would be for rare earth metals what the Middle East was to oil, has become a very stark reality." I have a strong belief that China will emerge as a super power in a decade or so. I will continue to follow news articles that talk about China - both sides of the coins and collect them under the label "China".

This snippet is from The Hindu - an interview with Prabhakaran in 1986 about his movement. This is very gruelling... …Could you give us an idea of your personal heroes in revolutionary struggles or liberation movements or in any sphere of life..... people and experiences that have inspired you? And perhaps thereby give us some insight into your own political evolution from the time you were a schoolboy? From my boyhood, the struggle that attracted me most was the Indian freedom struggle. The role of Netaji attracted me very much. I was brought up in an environment of strict discipline from childhood. I was not permitted to mingle freely with outsiders. I used to feel shy of girls. Great store was laid by personal rectitude and discipline. My father set an example through his own personal conduct: He would not even chew betel leaves. I modelled my conduct on his..... he was a government officer, a district land officer. A very straightforward man. People say in our area: “When he walks,

Are you serious? I came across this website Wolfram Alpha which was lauched officially today . It is a computational knowledge engine, claims the website. True. It can compute: math (any equation worded in anyway easily interpretable - do you remember your algebra involving imaginary numbers?) comparisons (between gdps of different countries, temperatures of different cities, usage of two words........ i mean the limit of comparison is sky-bound) plain search (search for a name say, "andrew" and see what you get). locations (like try to find where the International Space Station is) The owner Stephan Wolfram claims this is just the beginning. Do listen to Stephan's introduction about Wolfram Alpha. It is not just a search engine. It is a computation engine. To me it not only searches and gives you results, but also gives you all the relevant search results in a good group of categories. Type a word and it will give you the meaning, usage statistics, etymology and a speci

After watching Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons on theater, me and my friend got off on a movie spree. We heard many talk about this movie, Taken . Earlier, we tried twice at a nearest Red box machine and couldn't get the DVD. Finally on Saturday night, we went to try again and much to our luck a guy was standing in front of us on a line (Can you believe? Yes there is a line now to get Red box movies. Few months ago people wouldn't even notice) waiting to return the movie. I starting bugging this guy and asked him whether he liked it. Though he looked like he was not interested at all for a social chat at 9pm on Saturday night, he just said "It was OK". As much as I cared about his comment, I really wanted him to return the DVD so I can get it. All the copies were taken crazily over the weekend. If Red box has a "Most watched Over the weekend" poll, "Taken" would have taken the spot for this past weekend. Just when the guy in front of us r

I had a chance to go the theater on Saturday while my daughter was taking a nap and my wife taking some quiet time. My friend came over from Marlborough, MA and we planned to go for Saturday matinee show. Since this was the opening weekend, I was under the hype that the theater would be crowded and we wouldn't be able to get tickets. So I booked the tickets online and went off for a 3pm show. First, we were surprised that the theater was almost empty. Second, the lemonade and orange soda that we ordered tasted like plain water mixed with sugar. All things aside, both of us being a great fan of the book and the author Dan Brown, we picked the best back row center seats and waited for the extraordinary novel unravel in front of us on the white giant screen. The movie started off just as it was on the novel. Though yapping is not allowed, we were quietly sharing our experiences about reading that part of the book while the movie went on. I liked all the actors. Ewan McGreggor , is a p

Last Friday I came across this article . Will Bilderberg Group sink the global economy? That was the first time I ever came to know about this group. I was gasped by the level of conspiracy involved in this matter. Can such a group exist at all? If they had done all that happened in history, then do they have the power to "sink our global economy"? It is alarming to know that key figures like the current President of the US, its Vice President (who was a candidate selected by the group), Warren Buffett and many other big businessmen are all part of this invitational group. North American Union Wikipedia has an article about this group and also reveals some pictures about the first Bilderberg group conference. According to both the articles, the 2009 conference took place in Athens, Greece. In the movie "End game", radio host Alex Jones claims that the Group is planning to dissolve United States and other countries in the American region to form a more supra-nationa

This Intel Ad was forwarded to me by one of my colleagues. Very funny and thoughtful. The "Ajay Bhatt" that they show is not the real inventor. See Intel's real Ajay Bhatt who was the co-inventor of USB here . According to NYTimes , Intel decided to pose actors vs. real inventors in their commercial so that there won't be any argument among employees as to who should be featured. The NYTimes article further says that, the Ad agency - Venables Bell & Partners - helped modify Intel's "we are in your everyday life and the world would stop revolving without Intel" motto to "Sponsors of Tomorrow". I think "Sponsors of tomorrow" is more pleasing than what Intel proposed. Hence the agency came up with ads like how Intel is technology oriented and promoting that. There is even going to be a billboard asking people to text msg answers for "What do you hope to see in the future?". The article is a good read as well.

Given the global economic downturn made me think that I should diversify my piggy bank. So I decided to move some of my savings back to India in case there was a run on the bank in the US. After much research two banks stood out State Bank Of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank . SBI, a public sector bank, being the largest bank in India by deposits and the bank in the world to operate the most branches (As of May 2008, the bank had 21 subsidiaries and 10,186 branches). ICICI Bank is the fastest growing commercial bank with a boat load of customer service equally competing with SBI and was the first to offer banking upto 8pm in the night in India. Traditionally banks close by noon in India. I remember when my mom spent most of her first saturday of a month going to various banks making deposits, paying bills etc. SBI was poor at customer service. It still is poor in my hometown (or so my parents say). Nonetheless I decided to open non-resident accounts in both the banks. Then it hit me what i

BlackRock becomes the go-to firm for Divining Wall Street's Assets First of all, as a risk analyst isn't this too risky to put all eggs in one basket? The reasoning Geithner gave when asked why should we trust BlackRock, is simply, "They come with world class reputation". Well so be it. I guess, and I share Janet's (read the article) comment, that the government should come out with all the details about how the assets were valued and what measures did BlackRock take, even if it is propreitary. We are talking about billions of dollars under government custody now and people's lives and jobs are dependent on these analyses. When asked about transparency of what BlackRock does and who else it works for, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock says he has " to be opaque" about it. Don't we smell a Madoff stink here? When it comes to public tax payer's money being used, one should provide every transparent detail possible. Atleast the government should have

Very Interesting read... The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. T

An innovation to embrace or just Wrong timing? Amazon introduces its new Kindle DX - $489, 9.7" screen - easy to read newspapers, magazines and loads of features. If you compare Kindle DX with its currently available Kindle version, Kindle 2, the main differences are screen size and rotating display (just like IPhone or Blackberry Storm). Plus Amazon says it has native PDF support in DX as opposed to conversion method in Kindle 2. I dont know what the difference is here experience-wise. I am yet to see a Kindle. With the world moving towards more digital paper media, both Kindle 2 and Kindle DX are great innovations. I am sure our world going forward will no longer have hard paper copies (the trees can now thank us) and have digital thin boards which will display live videos and magazine articles (just like in sci-fi movies). But at the same time NYTimes is featuring a twitter-like Survival Strategies recommendations from people around the world and one of the most recommended st

Wow! This is about my city. Following are some of the facts that I didn't know about Stamford. Stamford is also referred as "Wall Street North" UBS built its largest trading floor in North America (I knew this but just adding for pride). RBS did the same starting in 2006 and moved to its headquarters (as far as I can tell, RBS had not occupied this new fancy building yet). General Re (GenRe) corp , which is part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is based here. Unemployment in March '09 is 7% (about 120,000). This is still lower than national average. There was a plan to build a Ritz-Carlton hotel. But later shelved due to economic crisis. Home of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.) and Comcast's Versus sports channel (formerly OLN, Outdoor Life Network - one of my favs). Check out www.versus.com . Movies being shot include "Rachel Getting Married", "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2". NBC is planning to move production of "Jerry Springe

This could be received positively in the market. Apple's ability to come up with a major breakthrough in all their products have proven well in the past. Nothing to be blamed that they want to design their own chips that goes into their products. Apple is making use of the time properly. It is easier to negotiate with high quality chip-designers and other candidates in the chip market as we all know about the current job market. To quote from the article: ...In one sign of the new focus, Apple recently hired Raja Koduri, who was formerly the chief technology officer of the graphics products group at chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Mr. Koduri started at Apple this week, following in the footsteps of Bob Drebin, who had held the same title at AMD and is also now working for Apple... If successful the stocks could soar. AAPL closed today at $125.83. Lets watch.

Here comes Dell's answer to Apple's MacBook Air - Dell Adamo (Latin for "To Fall in love with"). - Sleek look and sturdy design. - Edge-to-Edge glass monitor -very cool. They claim the lcd has an inbuilt 1.3 MP web cam. Wonder where that is installed as it looks completely glass. - Keyboard with Backlit keys - for a long time i was wondering when they would come up with backlit keys. Often times you have to turn off all the lights while working with your laptop in your bedroom. This will come in handy. I dont like the protrusion on the bag. Takes me to the older versions of the laptops. Dont know if Dell would have a good market given that Apple had already released Air and it is kinda too late. But price-wise it might be attractive. Here is a detailed review by Walt Mossberg of WSJ.

This is cool. The PRM case studies have become shorter to be more relevant and not exhaustive for students. This is much easier for my preparation. Here is the letter I got from the exam manager... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: PRMIA Member Services [mailto:support@prmia.org] Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:21 PM To: Enkannathan, Omkumar Subject: IMPORTANT – Changes to PRM and Associate PRM Case Studies Dear Omkumar, Please be aware that four of the case studies used by both the PRM and the Associate PRM exam material have been changed. These are the case studies for LTCM, Riggs Bank, National Australia Bank and Barings. The previous case studies were very long and disproportionate to the number of relevant exam questions. We have replaced these four with shorter versions in order to make studying easier. Please note that no exam questions have changed and that the answers to all questions are contained in the new material. St

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To those who follow stock markets and trying to stay optimistic: * Consumer confidence slightly stronger than expected - This doesn't matter at all. Home purchases are only *slightly* increasing. Cyclical is catching up. Retail the same. In a broad perspective, this doesn't help revive the big economic slump we are already in. * "Bear Market Still far from bottom" - David Tice, chief Portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated Investors Inc., talked with Bloomberg's Carol Massor yesterday about the outlook of the stock market. His view is bearish atleast upto mid 2010. The most alarming statement of his is that "We think we can get to 400 on the S&P , which is 55, 60 percent decline [from where we are now]". That is just pretty shocking. * More bailouts - Liaquat Ahamed, hedge-fund advisor and historian, says more bailouts are coming and this time Geithner won't be able to ask for taxpayers' money. Debt holders may try to safeguard the

This is an interesting Book Library website to share your thoughts on books that you read. Check out my book shelf

Yet another sci-fi but this time the aliens try to save our planet. My rating: *** (3 stars)

But why? Isn't this too much intervention of government on private sector? Clearly there is a cover-up. Can't we learn already from the Japanese in the early 90s. Some interesting quotes from the article... [BofA Chairman] Mr. Lewis has told investigators for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that in December Mr. Paulson threatened him not to cancel a deal to buy Merrill Lynch. BofA had discovered billions of dollars in undisclosed Merrill losses, and Mr. Lewis was considering invoking his rights under a material adverse condition clause to kill the merger. But Washington decided that America's financial system couldn't withstand a Merrill failure, and that BofA had to risk its own solvency to save it. So then-Treasury Secretary Paulson, who says he was acting at the direction of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, told Mr. Lewis that the feds would fire him and his board if they didn't complete the deal And we talk about freedom!

I dont know if this is strange but I am trying to understand why a pandemic such as Swine Flu could affect the markets. Ok, I understand Livestocks getting hit because businesses dealing with porks can be affected. The import of Pork meat from Mexico may be hindered and export companies and mass-production companies may see some hindrance (still this news is to premature to react upon). However, WHO came out and said that it is safe to eat the meat as the strain of the virus cannot survive normal cooking temperature. But why Mexican Peso - that you lost confidence on holding this currency because the country could devalue its currency? What is the reasoning behind this? Why Airlines - because their revenue will be affected? how? People dont want to travel to Mexico? People who already booked tickets to Mexico are either going to travel with caution or loose their ticket (or take up on insurance ). May be you will not book tickets to Mexico, US etc. So it will affect future bookings, d

Hi All, I am here to express my views on things that I come across in my life. I had been using a more private blog in the past. I want to try out something public. About me... I started my career as a software developer (Microsoft) concentrating on developing Financial systems (mainly Risk Management). The domain is very interesting and I learn new stuff everyday. Of course, what times of history can be more appealing than the current economic conditions. Also an avid book reader..