What's up with AAPL!?!

It gapped up $2.75, $2.93, $3.29, $3.64, $3.83... pause for breath ... $4.01.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! $4.37.

Market's been open for about 25 minutes or so.

$4.69

Wait 20 minutes... $6.80

$7.15.

Update, 12-05-04: I'm out!

The stock started heading for the moon when a Piper Jaffrey analyst said the stock could go to $100 -- when the stock was currently trading at $50. A while later someone else raised their target to $75 and the rise continued, but over the last week others have been downgrading, from "buy" to "hold," and suggesting that people take profits while they can ("here, let me throw a bucket of water on your fire," bastards!).

The stock's been falling and lost $5 a share last week so I bailed while the bailing was good. I was going to put in a stop at $65 on Thursday but never placed the order, when I checked the price on Friday for the first time it was already below that, so out I went.

Final score: $18.08 per share, or 40.5%. Short-term capital gains taxes be damned! It beats that fraction of a percent interest the savings account pays.

Presented for your in-home, lifesaving needs:

Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator

a cautionary tale

This morning I woke up to the distant refrain of a beeping UPS. The power was out long enough for the battery to be *almost* completely drained, such that waking up the monitor in order to shut down the computer killed the whole system instantly -- which saved me countless seconds over having to do a proper shutdown. Ahem.

Eventually the power came back on and I didn't have to resort to an illegal kitchen fire to cook breakfast, or alternately, figure out how to generate microwaves by rubbing two sticks together really fast.

Anyhow, the point is that the UPS software didn't shut down the computer. Using my finely honed computer detective skills I discovered the following reasons why the software didn't work.

(1) The PowerKey beta software expired on September 1st
(2) It's an APC UPS which doesn't use PowerKey software
(3) The APC PowerChute software was not installed on the current boot drive
(4) The KeySpan driver software was not installed either

So, to summarize, the expired beta software for the wrong UPS failed to shutdown the computer because the USB serial port driver wasn't installed.

Q.E.D.

I didn't clear out my Yahoo! portfolio tracker after I sold my last batch of Apple stock, for a loss, many moons ago. This meant that for the last few months the visions of non-existent gains have been taunting me whenever I loaded my "My Yahoo!" page -- and in the last month especially AAPL has really been going gangbusters.

That mid-October price surge pushed me over the edge so I bought some Apple stock once again. Now the gains are no longer fictitious! Up $8.93 per share (20%) in the last 16 days.

That's pretty freakin' sweet.

The decision to upgrade my car stereo was completely independent of any (unrealized) gains in the market, btw. I'm waffling between Crutchfield (full-retail price, but painless) or any number of fly-by-night(?) outfits that charge 30% less. In other words, $350 versus $500 for a Pioneer DEH-P8600MP with the auto-magical, AutoEQ.

So, AutoEQ? -- it's like this... the head unit has a microphone input, and mic. You plug the mic into ... wait for it ... the mic input and place the mic near your listening position. The receiver plays some calibration tones and learns (1) the frequency response of your speakers, and (b) the exact placement of the speakers relative to the listening position. With the frequency response curve it should be able to compensate and produce very flat output. With the speaker placement it should be able to put the music right inside your head.

That receiver, and some new speakers, will be a huge improvement over the OEM gutless head unit and P.O.S. paper speakers.

Now, if I decide to go the full price route online I could just as well buy it in town at full price and get free installation. Problem is that I tend to dislike the installers that I've run across so far. I've got a boycott running against Ultimate Electronics because of the last two installs I got there, and the guy at Circuit City that did my last install didn't hook up the freakin' dimmer wire so at night you could see my stereo from orbit.

I've already installed the factory "subwoofer," alarm system, auto-dimming mirror w/compass, _and_ cargo net, so I may as well install the stereo too. Car's only got 4,000 miles on it and I've dismantled 1/2 of the interior twice already... might as well do it again and take the doors off too. I just want to get the right OEM wiring harness for the head unit so I don't have to dick with it.

AAPL update, 3 days later: after a couple of ups and downs AAPL closed at $54.72 on Friday. Which would be a gain of $10.15 a share.

Had a truly impressive string of spam comment attempts tonight. Stupid f*ckers. They're dealing with the Spam Gauntlet, baby!