Reading Time: < 1 minute Back to software. I installed the VS 2008 couple days ago. Two things worth to note. 1) Install from iso image: initially I burned a DVD from the iso image. During install it could not find couple files, probably because the DVD drive spins too fast. So I used this MagicISO freeware to mount a

Reading Time: < 1 minute S&P 500 index (google Finance), the US bench mark index used by many mutual fund managers, dropped 38.49%. Even the greatest investor guru of our time Warren Buffett could not escape the bear attack, his holding company Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) dropped 32%. (In 2008 S&P 500 index dropped 575.24 points or 38.91%, from 1478.49 to

Reading Time: < 1 minute 1) Pay the Jan mortgage by Dec 31; 2) If you own small business, buy the stuff you need to buy anyway by Dec 31; 3) Sell the losers in your stock portfolio: I mean those true losers that you don’t expect them to come back. Some people sell their losers and buy them back

Reading Time: 2 minutes Some random thoughts on Chinese IPOs: Home Inns, New Oriental, Focus Media (Sina). Home Inns I stayed at Home Inns Zhongshan Park this time. This is a relatively new Home Inns hotel (it was operated as Shanghai Ningxia Hotel before joining the Home Inns family recently). One block away, I saw another Home Inns hotel:

Reading Time: 2 minutes I am back. I came back to St. Louis last night, after a bumpy ride from Shanghai to Chicago, and a delayed flight from Chicago to St. Louis, both due to weather. This morning I went to the Panera bread, and I found they lowered the price of souffles by at least 20 cents. Interesting

Reading Time: < 1 minute Forget about recession, check out the properity in Shanghai 🙂 For more pictures, visit my Shanghai_2008 albumn at yupoo.

Reading Time: 2 minutes Cell phone, or Shou Ji (mobile phone) as being called in China, is a daily necessity in China. Everyone, I mean pretty much everyone from the migrant worker to company CEOs, got a cell phone, because they need to talk to someone. Yesterday, I got into a small incident because I don’t have a cell

Reading Time: 2 minutes I read the Hot Commodities book by Jim Rogers in the trip. I have read the book a few years back when I was much novice to the investing, and I understand Jim is very outspoken and he is very bullish on China. But I did not find his book as exciting as I read

Reading Time: < 1 minute (Update) Yesterday Dec 15 is also a historical day in China/Taiwan relationship: the direct flight, shipping and mail all opened, after almost 60 years of disruption. Expect more mainland travellers to Taiwan, and more Taiwan fruits in China. (Original) Have some interesting stuff to say about the trip. But I could not connect to my

Reading Time: 2 minutes Amid all these financial crisis, I will fly to Shanghai tomorrow: not to rescue the economy but I will get first hand glimpse on China economy. Shanghai is the economy center of China, just like New York is the financial center of the US. The mood in the US is not good. The Big 3