I’ve just spent a couple of days switching to another hosting company. I probably wouldn’t have bothered changing if I didn’t get an email all of a sudden that my hosting fee will increase threefold. Turns out my old hosting company sold the business to iWeb which then promptly issued me a new invoice (later cancelled). Turns out they did send an email, titled migrating servers but without timeline, without giving any options and with no details about the new servers, logins, etc. I just saw my site was down all of a sudden. When I called iWeb the tech support although very polite had no idea what was going on, why the site was down, where my account and data is. They asked me to change NS at the registrar and just wait. I was then sent login details which worked briefly and then just sopped. In short it was a big mess, at the end I got an email that my site actually hasn’t been migrated yet and is still on the old servers. By then I’ve already had enough of iWeb and just moved to a new hosting company called stablehost.com so far so good and hopefully it will stay that way. I also cut down the cost of the hosting from $13 a month (I know.. pricey, legacy plan which I didn’t bother changing) to a really low cost of $2.56 ($7.7 quarterly). It’s a really basic plan (enough for my needs) which explains why it’s so cheap, one of the cheapest cpanel hosting I could find, but also because of the coupon / discount promotion they’re having at webhostingtalk.com

Anyway, it’s not that I update the site much (ever?) anymore but some posts still attract traffic so people are still finding some useful tidbits here and I also get traders contacting me via the site which is nice so I’m keeping it alive for now. And make sure my backups are good, I had the wordpress db emailed to me automatically every day, a bit overkill, but helps when you need it.

Tags: backup, blog, cheap, cpanel, hosting company, iweb, servers, tech support, webhosting, wordpress

Did a bit of geekery work this morning. My wife got the HTC Legendplus this cool accessoryover the weekend and joined the Android family, she totally digs it. I also noticed that since I got my device the Android Market has grown significantly and now has a ton of cool new apps.

Anyways, playing with the Legend prompted me to finally take care of the nagging message I’ve been getting on my Nexus that told me there’s a system update for my device. I haven’t updated my phone in a while. I was running the first Froyo build (FRF50) that I installed just as it came out but since then there’ve been a few more updates, more official ones. I’m not sure why I got the OTA (over the air) notification for the update as I rooted the device and I’m running a custom recovery (RA) and I read it wasn’t supposed to go out to such devices. Also when I clicked the OTA message there was nothing to install.. but it kept coming back. So I got the FRF91 full update zip plus the root zip and flashed them both (skipping FRF83, FRF85B as I already had Froyo radio from the FRF50). All was done via the nice RA recovery just booting in bootloader, scrolling to the zip file, clicking on it and waiting. Oh yes, I did do a full Nandroid backup beforehand just in case.
Everything installed fine, the first boot after flashing a new ROM takes a while, a few minutes instead of 30 seconds, and those minutes look pretty long :-) but as long as you’re not flashing a new radio component the risk of bricking the device is very low, so I’m told (do at your own risk blah blah). The first few minutes after everything booted up things looked slow and I was starting to get worried. I know it takes a while for it to settle in, I didn’t do a wipe or anything just installed on top, so all my apps and data are still there and I’m guessing it re-populates and checks some db’s with this stuff, but still slowing down is not nice. It took another reboot and everything is now even snappier than before the update. Good update from Google as I always.

Back to the HTC Legend, since it’s a HTC device rather than a Google one it had the HTC Sense on it, I was really impressed with it. Lots of small improvements and UI polishing over the stock Android that my Nexus is running. It has more eye candy, kindda like iPhone type of usability tweaks for the Android. I would not hesitate to get a HTC with Sense, such as the HTC Desire, as my next phone in the future. In fact I liked the HTC keyboard so much that I looked it up online and apparently I’m not the only one liking it as some good folks in the community extracted the APK’s and made them available for other Android users. I already had a couple of different keyboards installed so I’ve got the Sense one as well now which will probably see the most use. I could get the full Sense UI installed on the Nexus as I saw it’s available and was done but I think I’ll just pick and choose the components I like instead of changing the whole thing. Might be too much bloat getting the full UI.

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Tags: accessory, android, Android Apps, app, backup, FRF91, froyo, froyo for htc legend, froyo legend, google, Google Phone, HTC Desire, HTC Legend, htc legend froyo, htc legend froyo update, HTC Sense, iphone, legend froyo, Legend froyo update, nexus, Nexus One, OTA, ra recovery, Update, Upgrade

I’ve been asked by JD to write about what tools I use for trading so here’s a quick run down of some trading resources fellow traders may find useful.  Since I started with trading in 2000 I’ve used dozens, if not more, of tools such as charting and graphs applications, intraday data feeds, indicators, stocks scanners and screeners with and without strategy automation, intraday market gauges and barometers, spreadsheets, brokers (both direct access and online web-based ones), you name it most likely I’ve used it as some point. So the following is a snapshot of what I’m actually using at the moment. I try to keep things simple and basic, the less clutter and the lower the costs the better.

1. Charting – primarily QuoteTracker with IQFeed but also TradeStation and Amibroker occastionally. I was a very avid user of QCharts, unfortunately with the move to eSignal the application got screwed and became unusable. The amount of problems reported on the eSignal QCharts forum would embarrass any self-respecting company.

2. Broker – Almost exclusively InteractiveBrokers. The execution is great, the platform is rock solid, the commissions are low, the issues are rare, order types variety is awesome, access to international markets, currencies, futures, you name it. What’s there not to like? No charting, a bit of a learning curve for newbies, customer service is a frequent complaint, I don’t have very memorable negative CS experience in the past 4+ years I’ve been with them (which is probably quite telling in itself).

3. Scanners – a must have for day traders – I used primarily IB’s TWS scanners and Trade-Ideas.

4. Position sizing – A simple excel spreadsheet I made which calculates for me how much I should buy/short based on my risk level, entry and exit.

5. Trading Journal – I use Stocktickr to record my trades, it’s a great tool and much better in terms of features and analysis capability than the limited functionality I had before this came about when I was using an excel spreadsheet.

6. I also use Stockfetcher for testing out news ideas as well as TradeStation and Amibroker for more systematic backtesting.

7. Everything runs on my MacBook Pro running Win XP over Bootcamp with just the 15″ screen. I used dual screens back in 2005 for a couple of months but never felt I really needed it. If I had a second internet connection I’d probably run a second computer with its own monitor just as backup + for other non-trading related internet usage and music. I also use the excellent Logitech Cordless Trackman which is a wrist saver (during the week I live inside the computer).

What I never used and don’t see myself using: Trading rooms subscription, alerts services, newsletters, paid indicators (I use just EMA5 for stocks), paid guru consultation / training services, anything costing more than a 2 digits US$ amount (except for must have data service). I did buy, and sometimes still do, many many books on trading, some were excellent but most not very useful.

What else? I think that’s about it. Those are the tools that work best for me, at this point in time, that doesn’t mean they’re the best for others or that I won’t change something. At the end of the day you have to make sure whatever you use supports your trading style and objectives.

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Tags: Amibroker, Analysis, automation, backup, Broker, Charting, computer, day trading tools, equity curve, eSignal, execution, internet, intraday, Intraday scanner, intraday trading tools, MacBook, online, order, Position, qcharts, Scanners, stocks trading, strategy, Tools, TradeStation, trading, TWS

A nice new feature has just been included in the latest release of IB’s TWS. I’ve always wanted to find out how to backup my settings. So far I’ve just backedup the whole directory. There is now an option (not activated by default) to save your settings into IB’s server so it’s always available no matter where you run the application from. Cool.

TWS Notes for 874

Customers who log into TWS can now elect to save their settings to our IB server so that they are saved and accessible regardless of the computer you use to log in.. This feature can be used with both our browser version that you log into from the website, and from the standalone version which you download and start from your computer. These settings, such as new pages, font changes, modified columns added market data and other customizations, will then appear the next time you log into TWS even if you’re working from a different computer. To ensure that your settings are saved, make sure you check the Store settings on server checkbox on the File menu. This is NOT checked by default.

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Tags: backup, different computer, IB, interactive brokers, interactivebrokers, Settings, standalone version, store settings, TWS