Procured my new DELL Notebook - the Vostro 1200 (mini notebook)

I finally received my DELL Vostro in 7-days flat since ordering it last Friday. I am a true DELL fan and as you would find on earlier posts have read up every book and article on DELL’s strategy of Direct sales to consumers/businesses and the Direct model. I admire Michael DELL’s guts to take on the established players such as IBM, Lenovo, HP etc. who used to go through distribution channels. All my systems on the last 3 years have been DELL branded - my DELL Inspiron 6000 that I bought from Texas in 2005, my DELL Vostro desktop that I bought in 2007 or my latest acquisition - my DELL Vostro 1200 mini notebook!

A re-look at consulting

I did some look n feel changes to my blog appearance because I was tired of the old design. I also changed the tagline from “The economic rationale of the 21st century” to “Consulting|Technology|International business” as this is what we want this blog to serve in future posts.

A year later — a sneak preview / status of the Devanahalli airport and Bangalore real estate sector

We are still stuck there though things are looking better this year. Though real estate activity in and around Devanahalli area has heated up (the government has raised the guidance value per acre to almost Rs. 7 crores in main Devanahalli township) but any large projects are yet to see the light of the day. There is a huge water shortage in Devanahalli - its basically barren land and our guide from L&T had told us the same thing last year too. So, things have not improved on that. But, if Dubai can improve by building an Oasis in the middle of a desert, our politicians can tear a leaf out of the Dubai story and make Devanahalli better indeed.

McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen emerges unscathed after a 240 kmph accident!

It appears every season, Formula 1 just gets more safer. While it is still a very risky sport (given the speeds involved), McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen managed to suffer just a minor headache and a stiff neck after what appears to be a McLaren confirmed 140 kmph impact with the tyre wall. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit as you would expect (given he experienced a 29G - 29 times his own body weight impact). The HANS device also played its part. HANS is acronym for Head and neck support device that became mandatory in 2006 for all F1 cars.

But the carbon fiber monocoque of the F1 car stood true to its testimony as track medical team and marshals quickly and safely removed him from the car, shifted him to the track medical center and to the waiting helicopter as Heikki gave a thumbs up sign to indicate he was ok. It brings grim memories of what we saw on 1st May 1994 during the infamous Ayrton Senna death in a Williams car at Imola, Italy.

The F1 car of 2008 is probably the most safest vehicle to drive on the road with the stringent FIA safety standards laid down. Robert Kubica should know better. He escaped a near fatal crash in 2007 June at Montreal, Canada when hardly anything remained on his BMW.

I salute the safety of the modern F1 car!

Ecofinglobe.com and its statistics from an year ago

I was chancing to look upon my blog’s readership and it has skyrocketed in last few months. To give you an idea of how much the readership for http://www.ecofin.wordpress.com has gone up by, Alexa rating has shown a consistent rise in my webpage ranking (it currently stands at 755139 worldwide and its India ranking is better at 58137. Furthermore, my year old blog stats shows my blog to have averaged 9999 hits way in May 2007. The current count stands at 77791.

Above means nothing if people don’t read posts. Simple page views/hits serve no value absolutely. The most important indicator that indicates the health status of a blog is its post:comment ratio. My blog’s average post:comment ratio is at about 1:2. This means, for every post I put up, I get double the # of comments. This ratio was about 2:1 last year at about the same time and it had not even reached breakeven. So, it is a satisfaction that my blog is a success in terms of these critical metrics.

Thank you, all for making this blog readable! Its only my readers who can turnaround this blog and I hope to keep you as repeat readers so the value of this blog is enhanced further!

Keep visiting back - you know where to look for me: http://www.ecofinglobe.com!

Rising inflation/tax rates/purchasing power parity

I chose three distinct topics for this post because all these are affecting those living in India one way or the other:

Book review — Harvard business review — Finding and keeping the best people

Makes sense for me to read this since this is something I need to do at work day in and day out.

Will post a detailed review once done.

Impact of commuting on productivity - travelonomics!

I travel 75 kms to work daily. This also involves something like 2 hours one-way travel in a crowded unplanned urban expansion prone city such as Bangalore. The former metric does not sound like much to anyone living outside India (say the United States, Europe, Australia etc.) but the latter figure when correlated to the former does sound alarming.

Derivatives, the sub prime mess, US recession, Bear Stearns bailout by the Fed/JPMChase

 We know this story so we will not repeat this again: JP Morgan Chase set to acquire Bear Stearns for a paltry $2 a share - based on the transaction price of March 14th 2008!

http://www.bearstearns.com/sitewide/our_firm/press_releases/content.htm?d=03_16a_2008

http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=299805&ReleaseType=Current

You can refer to the following article to get the update from the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) on Bear Stearns - NYSE: BSC(http://www.bearstearns.com/) and its survival thanks to the revival package of the Fed and JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120580966534444395.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

Another delay in the Devanahalli International airport opening!

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/a-visit-to-the-devanhalli-international-airport/ 

It looks like even without a formal Government, the administration in Karnataka is equally laggard when it comes to taking quick decisions.

This airport project has again been delayed by another 1-month (the earlier date given was end of March 2008). Moreover, there has been enough hue and cry on whether to keep the HAL airport catering to needs of domestic travel since the Devanahalli International airport is not yet well connected from the city center with the typical delays that are entrenced in any Indian social sector project.