iPhone

How difficult is it to unlock iPhone? The start up screen says it all (Slide to Unlock, LOL).

Seriously though, when you need to utilize a buffer overflow exploit and SSH to replace system files on a cellphone, it's definitely not for the faint hearted. Here is a comprehensive guide on jailbreaking and unlocking iPhone with firmware 1.1.1 on Windows. A word of caution: the guide may not be completely up to date and, needless to say, you're risking voiding your warranty and bricking your iPhone.

it's comforting to know that in most cases, you can set iPhone to recovery mode and restore the default settings (Turn off, hold Home key and plug the USB connector. iTune will deal with the rest).

Grid Computing in .Net

• Alchemi: An open source grid computing framework.
• Idiot's Guide to Grid Computing I (notice that the author is only 13 years old! at that age, I was proud of being able to arrange stars in BASIC...)
• Digipede: a commercial distributed computing solution.
  • Grid and Cluster Computing
  • Distributed Computing with the Digipede Network

CDO Pricing: Binomial Expansion Technique

BET is a relatively simple technique used by Moody's to price and rate CDOs.

• First, the collateral pool is mapped to a hypothetical portfolio of N uncorrelated assets (the diversity score).
• The default probability of assets in the hypothetical portfolio is then calculated with WARF (Weighted Average Rating Factor)
.
• Since the default event of each asset is uncorrelated, the probability of J defaults in the portfolio simply follows binomial distribution: (DS: diversity score. PD: probability of default for each asset)
• With this distribution, the expected loss (EL) for each CDO tranche can now be calculated: (L_j: loss for a given tranche with J defaults)
• The expected loss can now be used to price or rate the CDO tranche by referencing comparable securities (i.e. with similar default probability).

The BET methodology gives a sneak preview of what's deep down in the CDO pricing rabbit hole without getting into the rocket sciences (Monte Carlo, Copula, etc). Here is a good paper that compares the BET with Monte Carlo simulations.

Windows 7

A demo of the next generation Windows kernel, strip naked, codenamed "Windows 7" (Microsoft really needs to put more work in these names. Just a random thought, something along the line of "iWin" might work...).

The OS ran under Virtual PC, and this allowed Traut to show the audience exactly how many resources it was consuming: about 25MB on disk (compare with 14GB for a full Vista install) and 40MB of RAM. The OS booted up in about 20 seconds inside Virtual PC.

Dow down more than 366 points

A nice way to pay tribute to the 1987 crash on its 20^th anniversary.

ClickOnce Resources

• A overview of ClickOnce deployment, which includes some introducation of the System.Deployment APIs.
• ClickOnce and Security by DevelopMentor, explains how ClickOnce applications are launched by the runtime, the role of AppLaunch.exe, dfshim.dll and .application/.appref-ms files and the relationship between ClickOnce and CAS.
• MSDN Walkthrough: Downloading Assemblies on Demand with the ClickOnce Deployment API Using the Designer.

M-LEC

The big boys are putting togather an $80b mega fund, dubbed M-LEC, or Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, to prevent a melt down in asset backed commercial paper market by purchasing assets from troubled SIVs.

JPMorgan is quick to confess that it has no direct exposure in such SIVs. So it's into this only for the "greater good" (read: fees).

About Goldman's blowout quarter

As Goldman's official 10Q filing has come to light, some started to rise questions about its spectacular third quarter earnings.

The focus is on the $2.6b unrealized level 3 trading gains Goldman booked for the quarter, a category that has been called "mark-to-make-believe" by some analysts.

So does Goldman really stand head and shoulders above its peers? Only time will tell.

Certified Scrum Master

Got certified this passed weekend. The training course was taught by Ken Schwaber, the master himself. The case studies were very well organized, the benefit and challenge of implementing Scrum in an organization are cleared delivered to the trainees.

That being said, there is the part of me that doesn't completely agree with the "certification" process. Base on my observation, there are about a third of the trainees either have no clue about Scrum or have only read about it on paper. Another one third implemented some half baked version of Scrum (i.e. Backlog but no daily Scrum meeting, Assigned ScrumMaster but no clear role of product owner, etc). And only the one third left being hardcore Scrum practitioners. Besides, there is really nothing stopping one from have nice chats with people during the two days, enjoy the food and "woof" your way out of the door being "certified". It's hard to believe that all these people can now take the responsibility of being the change proxy for the organization. In my mind, being "certified" implies there is going to be a bar set to be cleared. Well, maybe it's just me...

WPF: Interactive 2D Controls in 3D space

The power of WPF really has no limits. With just a little help, you can place 2D controls (text box, button, you name it...) on to 3D space. The coolest of all, these controls are fully operational!

The source code download contains a couple examples in XAML as good starting points.

What's under the hood.