Companies, stocks and SWOT

I have been involved in investing at low level (money wise)  for few year now. The great crash of 2008 presented a good opportunity to get in - so I took it investing mainly in hardware based tech companies including ARM, IMG, Nvidia, AMD and later Rambus and a few others. I shall be offering my thoughts in the form of a SWOT analysis  on some of the companies I have invested in.


AMD

Strengths	Weaknesses
ATI graphics Currently the most well-rounded x86 integrated CPU solution	Management Software support Internal processes - which causes many product delays and missed cycles and generally poor execution
Opportunities	Threats
Trim management at all levels -  and streamline processes Integrate more functionality into CPU (Sound, Disk Controllers, Memory)  - further reducing system costs	Themselves ARM Intel Nvidia

APPLE

Strengths	Weaknesses
Brand Loyalty Solid Platforms Integrated platforms	Genuine Creativity Enterprise penetration Focus on the consumer - cool today gone tomorrow Development tools in comparison to Microsoft % of OS PC market in comparison to MS
Opportunities	Threats
Refocus on applying the ‘It just works’ philosophy to other areas instead of the iphone 100 Buy a big software player - i.e. Adobe Make PC more competitive - add more value through features Balance the style to substance ratio Get more platform developers on board - offer discounts and provide better tools to students.	Android MS Themselves

HTML form to XML in javascript

getFormXml = function(form, xmltablename) {
var rowsIndex;
var xmltable = '';
var xmlrow = '';

for (i = 0; i < form.length; i++) {
var cells = form[i];

if (cells.name != '')
{
//Additional checks could be entered here for check boxes and
//other form components
xmlrow = xmlrow + '<' + cells.name + '>'
+ cells.value + '</' + cells.name + '>';
}  
if (xmlrow != null)
{
xmltable = xmltable + xmlrow;
}
xmlrow = ''; 
}
if (xmltable != null)
xmltable = '<' + xmltablename + '>' + xmltable + '</'+ xmltablename + '>';
return (xmltable);
}


Return the XML representation of the form variable.

Preparation and Processes

Most (if not all) activities involve 2 stages - Preparation and then Execution. For any activity to be executed effectively and in a timely manner , preparation is key. Lets take the example of the activity of preparing to go work in the morning. If you need to iron your shirt or find your socks then you will be much slower than if you had those things prepared. You will also will be more frustrated. Cooking is another example where the preparation of your ingredients and tools before hand is vital for a satisfactory result. There many, many other such examples.

In a company setting preparation usually resolves around getting the right information and mobilizing the right people. From the information perspective data can be stored in many locations. The more spread out the information the longer it will take to prepare the data and the less accurate the information will be. It is therefore vital that data is organised and accessible to everyone to meet repeatable requirements. I highlight repeatable because one-off activities many require additional new preparation. But most activities in a given industry are repeatable. Skilled management are able to recognise those repeatable patterns and  define strategies to streamline and optimise Preparation.

JdbcXmlService - Context driven shopping cart demo

A second example of the flexibility and power of  the jdbxXmlservice API. This simple JavaScript based shopping-cart demo communicates with the JMS jdbcXmlservice via the activemq script adaptor. Each product has a xquery based rule associated with it, which determines the product to display and in what order - based on the product selected. In the example shown, selecting a computer would activate a rule to display all the complementary products.such as a monitor and sound card.

More details will be added later.