Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Google Toolbar 5 Beta  Google toolbar is out with a new version 5 in beta. While I find myself using Firefox more often than before everyday, I’m still on Internet Explorer the majority of the time, perhaps due to force of habit, or the fact that some sites display better on IE. I have refused to upgrade IE 7 however. Version 6 runs just fine for me. Ironically, what keeps IE a viable browser for me is Google toolbar. There are plenty of useful and time-saving utilities in the toolbar from quick access to Google search to spell checking, to auto-filling forms. The new toolbar is similar to the last version, but there is one feature that I stumbled on by accident that really made this version worth the upgrade. The toolbar hooks itself into the search function (Edit-Find…Ctrl+F) of IE and displays a Firefox-style search bar at the bottom of the page with similar functionality as that of Firefox. The web page document is searched and the first match is highlighted as the search term is being typed. It's a giant improvement over IE's stodgy pop-up search box. I'm not sure if the Beta version is available for Firefox yet, but if you want to try the toolbar out on IE, pick it up here: http://toolbar.google.com/T5/ google,google toolbar,internet explorer,Firefox,ie Labels: google, web <Google Toolbar 5 Beta> // posted by rh 0 comments Thursday, April 24, 2008 Religious Contextual Ads  Sometimes contextual ads can reveal interesting facts about a site and its visitors. For some time I have noticed that Google Adsense has been displaying a certain banner for a site targeting Muslims seeking marriage partners. Personally I don't mind religious ads on my site. It's all about business. I consider myself an agnostic (as in, I can not with certainty prove or disprove the existence of god or the validity of any religion,) but I have a liberal view towards faith. People should be free to choose whatever creed works for them as long as they don't force it on others. I don't know what algorithm Google employs in targeting Adsense ads, but I must assume they strive to maximize click-through rates. It's possible that many of my site's visitors are Muslims (or Moslems, as Persians pronounce it), or perhaps my middle-eastern last name, Hashemian, triggers these banners. My bet is on the latter. To the algorithm, I'm just an unknown visitor from the U.S. who happens to be visiting the site. At any rate, there must be some religious profiling at work here. I haven't seen any Christian or Jewish or Hindu-oriented ads on my site. Certainly I haven't seen anything for matching Agnostics or Atheists. If the site helps two Muslims find each other and become a couple, that's cool with me. But if the marriage produces a male child (or female, for that matter,) I only hope they resist the temptation to have their child genitally mutilated, or in euphemistic term, circumcised. islam,agnosticism,atheism,marriage,dating,circumcision,persia,iran,adsense Labels: adsense, religion, social <Religious Contextual Ads> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, April 22, 2008 Yahoo Beats, Microsoft Next  As I had expected, Yahoo reported good earnings, but nothing spectacular. The stock has received a slight dent in after-hours, most likely the effect of selling into the good news. Chances are, barring any big news, it'll stay relatively flat tomorrow. The question still is whether Yahoo can maintain the earnings going forward. I believe most people don't have much faith in that. One quarter is hardly an indication of a trend. The bigger question, however, is the status of Microsoft's offer. A better indication might arrive on Thursday when Microsoft reports its own quarterly earnings. Even with Vista's slow uptake, my feeling is that it will show healthy earnings. Microsoft has a long history of under-promising and over-delivering on earnings. The weak dollar will probably help its bottom-line considerably as well. Many U.S. companies have gotten a boost from the weak dollar, offsetting their weaker domestic intake with higher overseas revenues. While many believe that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo is inevitable, there is still plenty of twists and turns left in this saga, including piercing the defenses of some heavy-weights such as Google, News Corp., and Time Warner, who would want to see this takeover derailed. microsoft,yahoo,google,earnings,weak dollar,vista Labels: financial, google, Microsoft, yahoo <Yahoo Beats, Microsoft Next> // posted by rh 0 comments Monday, April 21, 2008 Yahoo's Earnings  Yahoo is slated to report its earning tomorrow after the market close. If it can pull off what Google did last week, the stock should rise to about $35. Then again, that was Google and there was plenty of pent-up demand from buyers. The stock had been pounded so bad that there was nowhere for it to go but up. The good earnings news only gave it the additional momentum it needed to explode way up. Yahoo's stock probably won't see a 20% rise on Wednesday no matter how good its earnings. Given Yahoo's snobby attitude towards Microsoft's advances, one has to surmise that it's feeling pretty comfortable with its earnings. A good report will validate its position in resisting Microsoft and holding out for a higher offer while giving it much bigger bargaining power. On the flip side, if the earnings are dowdy, little doubt will remain that Microsoft would prevail in its takeover efforts. It's ironic, but I'm sure Google is rooting for Yahoo to report stellar earnings and fend off Microsoft. I've already seen Yahoo ads on Google's network and Yahoo is probably getting a good deal on these. If early indications have any value, my bet is on Yahoo reporting decent earnings. If nothing, that would be another signal of strength in the Internet market. Of course, if I were so sure, I would have picked up a few call options myself, which I haven't. The May 08, $30 call strikes saw plenty of activity today. No doubt, more of the same tomorrow. Then again a lot of it could be from traders protecting short stock positions. stocks,options,yahoo,google,microsoft,earnings Labels: business-finance, google, Microsoft, yahoo <Yahoo's Earnings> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Bank Service Agreement  Every time I receive a new service agreement from a bank or a credit card company I know they've devised a new way to profit from the consumers. Remember when many credit card companies shortened the payment cycles (grace periods) from a full month to three weeks or less. That was their ingenious way to snare more consumers into their penalty list, charge them extra interest, and jack up their interest rates. Or another time when they changed their dispute policies by curtailing consumers' right to lawsuits, replacing it with arbitration. No doubt their hand-picked arbitrators would always side with the banks, forcing consumers into unjust settlements. Here's another Service Agreement I received recently addressing online payments: We may delay or cancel a request to transfer or charge money back to the Pay From or other account at our discretion including if the payment: Looks suspicious or fraudulent Appears to have incorrect amount or recipient information Seems to duplicate another payment Of course this is spun to appear as if the bank is attempting to protect its clients against fraud. But what it's really saying is that the bank has given itself arbitrary and broad powers to do as it pleases, including charging fees, if it the transaction doesn't seem right, based on its own vague definition. Look at the verbs used: "Looks", "Appears", "Seems". What kind of rules are these? I mean why even bother with a service agreement? They should just replace all that with a terse statement like: "We will charge you whenever, however, and whatever amount we feel like. Have a nice day." service agreements,banks,credit cards,online banking Labels: credit cards, customer service <Bank Service Agreement> // posted by rh 0 comments Sunday, April 06, 2008 Political Contextual Advertising  When a site like this one makes the decision to put up advertising from ad networks such as Google Adsense, it loses some capacity to make a quick first impression. Years ago when the fears of Indian outsourcing was at its peak and people in the U.S. were terrified of job losses, a company put up a Web site in defense of the American workers. When the company decided to monetize the site via Adsense, it was horrified to find out that most of the ads were touting outsourcing to countries such as India and Philippines. In other words the contextual ads were conveying a message opposite of the site's intended one and some users faced with those ads probably regarded the site as pro-outsourcing. The image to the right is exactly about the same issue. Here is an ad by John McCain that has been coming up on this site for a few days now. It's quite possible that visitors to this site, upon seeing the ad, infer that this site is about politics or it's even pro-Republican. Yes, I am interested in politics, no, I'm not pro-Republican (certainly not in its neo-con incarnation), and right now I don't really have a strong opinion about McCain or any other potential candidates. I do consider most politicians as greedy hypocrites and I may indulge in a rare pro-liberal banter in my blog, but this site as a whole is politically neutral. Anyone from any camp is welcome here, yet I wonder how many visitors, seeing this ad, would actually make that distinction. mccain,politics,republicans,democrats,politicians,adsense Labels: adsense, politics <Political Contextual Advertising> // posted by rh 1 comments Thursday, April 03, 2008 Tax Spam Season  You know the income tax filing deadline (April 15th) is nearing when tax-prep companies rev up their spam engines. This one from H&R Block is offering half-off their regular prices. Obviously trying to push through a few more sales before the filing season is over and they are back in the lull period. I'm sure I'll get a few more of these unbeatable deals right up to April 15th. Thanks, but no thanks guys. This year I used TaxAct and it had a great price right from the start, free. *Note: My endorsement of TaxAct is completely unsolicited. I just liked the product and the fact that it cost nothing. income tax,taxes,taxcut,taxact,irs Labels: business-finance, tax <Tax Spam Season> // posted by rh 0 comments Tuesday, April 01, 2008 Citibank Online Banking?  If it was an April fool's joke, surely many people didn't find it amusing. While the stock market was rocketing up today, Citibank's online banking site was down and out, stranding thousands of their customers. We're not talking about a short outage, this was an all day near blackout. What astounds me is that there was no admission and no warnings on the site indicating the problem. It was as if everything was running smoothly. Could it be that the people in charge didn't even know about the problem for hours, or perhaps they were too arrogant or too cowardly to admit the issue and warn their customers? Meanwhile many people who have come to rely on Citibank's online banking, no less at the encouragement of the bank itself, were shut out without any means of conducting their businesses. I can understand that computers and Web sites go on the fritz sometimes. That's what redundancy and failover is for. Short of poor planning, Citibank could have at least had the decency to notify its customers of the outage and suggest alternatives. Instead it decided to bury its head in the sand and not even promptly respond to customer inquiries. Online banking should no longer be considered a luxury, it's a necessity to many people. This is not a site about the latest escapades of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. It's an integral part of many people's daily lives. With all the problems that's facing financial institutions these days, this is a sure way for a bank to send its customers rushing for the exit doors. citibank,online banking Labels: business-finance, web <Citibank Online Banking?> // posted by rh 0 comments

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