Cheap Computer

Closing bell: Private equity deals boost Nasdaq, Dow

2007-01-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

Closing bell: Private equity deals boost Nasdaq, Dow

Wall Street roared back Monday, erasing its losses of last week after private-equity buyout deals involving companies such as Four Seasons Hotels and OSI Restaurant Partners revived investors' belief that stocks still have room to run.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index advanced 35.16, or 1.5 percent, to 2,365.95.

Silicon Valley's biggest tech stocks by market value were higher. Cisco Systems, Google, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Apple Computer, eBay, Yahoo, Gilead Sciences and Applied Materials all advanced.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 119.51, or 1 percent, to 12,105.55. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 15.48, or 1.1 percent, at 1,379.78.

``Apparently there are a lot of entrepreneurial buyers who still find the stock market cheap and there is an enormous amount of money in their hands that can be used to buy companies,'' said Michael Metz, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer.

Monday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International ...

2006-12-19T23:15:00.000-08:00

Monday Newspaper Review - Irish Business News and International ...

The Irish Independent reports that over the past five years as punters have followed canny investors into the residential property, much of the smart money moved into commercial property.

The figures speak for themselves. In 2000, Irish investors bought commercial property to the value of 2bn. By last year that had risen to 9bn, and this year it will be surprising if the Irish appetite for commercial property does not exceed 11bn.

With so much money chasing a relatively finite resource, yields in the Irish market plummeted and investors moved first to the UK and then further afield, seeking not only better returns but a more diversified portfolio of assets.

This year it is expected that Irish commercial property investors will pile 3bn into assets in Ireland, but will spend 5bn in the UK market, about 1.5bn in other European countries and around 0.5bn in the US.

Two million per day to travel over Thanksgiving

2006-12-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

Two million per day to travel over Thanksgiving

Brace yourself. The Air Transport Association (ATA) projects that more than two million passengers per day will travel during the coming 12-day Thanksgiving crush. That's a total of some 25 million folks.

ATA says November 17 through 28 will be busiest. This nation's airlines expect a three percent rise over last year's figures. What does that mean to you?

Airplanes should be more than 80 percent full over the holiday. Look for them to be fullest on Sunday, November 26, and Monday, November 27. Those should be the holiday's two busiest days.

Cheap Firewall or PBX appliance for $93

2006-11-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

Cheap Firewall or PBX appliance for $93

With all the great open source appliance software available for free such as Asterisk PBX or IPCop/Copfilter, it doesn't do you much good if you don't have a box to run it on. You can certainly use an old and noisy desktop computer or even build a cheap computer yourself, but rarely will you find something sleek and silent like an old or refurbished Dell OptiPlex PC. Dell is very good at keeping their machines silent. With all the testing and building I've done, I can tell you it isn't easy or cheap to build something small and silent.

Since I'm looking for a cheap appliance for Asterisk and IPCop/Copfilter, it's just my luck to see this deal on a refurbished Dell OptiPlex PC. You'll note that the listed price is $47.91 but I've added the $12.95 for the memory bump to 256 MB and the $31.95 FedEx ground shipping to come up with a rounded up $93 figure for the title of this blog so I don't deceive anyone about the price. This is a 700 MHz Celeron which is plenty fast for building your own VoIP server with Asterisk and your own gateway level antivirus scanning system using IPCop and Copfilter. Some of you may have noticed how much I despise desktop antivirus solutions because they pose their own security risks and slow you down like crazy and this is the perfect cure for anyone who hates a slow PC. Gateway level protection protects all your PCs at the same time and it caches websites which accelerates Windows Update like crazy.

A $99 PC by Christmas?

2006-11-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

A $99 PC by Christmas?

PCs will get ever-cheaper for the holidays as sellers try to clear shelves for Vista-run machines, but consumers might not bite.
November 4, 2006

Prices for pre-Vista computers are expected to fall ever-lower for the holidays, but analysts were divided Friday on whether cuts will encourage holiday sales. According to Current Analysis analyst Samir Bhavnani, 70 percent of notebook sales for the holiday quarter will be under $1000, compared to 22 percent for the same quarter in 2003. Of desktops, 50 percent will sell for less than $500, compared to 28 percent in 2003. And â€œless than $500" means way, way less. Mr. Bhavnani said desktops could dip to $99. Since the Windows Vista operating system won't be available for consumers until January, the thinking goes, they'll be willing to purchase a dirt-cheap machine beforehand and upgrade later.