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Investment banking knowledge for IT professionals June 9, 2007

Posted by James Webster in : finance , add a comment

Update: you might be interested in watching my presentation, “The Why, Who, What, and Where of Financial Markets”.

As an IT professional I have been focused on the domain of capital markets and investment banking for a few years now. I am a very strong believer that many practictioners of IT, particularly software developers, do their careers a disservice by not taking on a greater interest in the business domains in which they work. On the other hand if you are a consultant moving around a range of different business worlds; retail, insurance, investment banking, primary industries; then it can be hard to pick up a deep understanding of any particular vertical.

A colleague had a relatively new book,
Business Knowledge for IT in Investment Banking, on his desk this week. I flipped through it and it looks like a great introduction to the sometimes bizarre world of capital markets. Compared with other similar titles it is brief but importantly it is not intimidating. Promisingly the authors are suggesting that this will be the first book in a series focused on various verticals. In the future might we see Business Knowledge for IT in Retail, Business Knowledge for IT in Insurance or Business Knowledge for IT in Mining? I certainly hope so.

For a greater understanding of finance I also recommend Valdez’s An Introduction to Global Financial Markets. For a more advanced analysis of the behaviour of market participants Harris’ Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners cannot be beaten.

Out with the old, in with the new… June 5, 2007

Posted by James Webster in : gadgets , add a comment

A rare bit of gadget news…

Out with the old, in with the new

I have FINALLY gotten rid of my ancient Nokia 6600 that I purchased four years ago on the last occassion I was living in London. I have just replaced it with a shiny Nokia N95.

I am really impressed so far. In case you have been living under a rock and have completely missed the buzz surrounding this phone the highlights are; GSM and 3G mobile network access, 5 megapixel camera + reasonable quality video, Bluetooth, Series 60 OS (which some people love and some hate… I love it), high-resolution screen AND integrated GPS. Also, it doesn’t have nearly big enough a battery to power all that connected goodness however I have yet to really find that an issue. The only time that I have seriously used the GPS I was in a car driving around Wales and could have used a cigarette-lighter adapter to keep the phone charged up. Check out the reviews by Gizmodo, Engadget or All About Symbian’s 5-part monster.

The only real issue I have with it at the moment is that since I purchased it on plan from T-Mobile, the firmware updates do not appear to be forthcoming as quickly (or indeed, at all?) as they do for the completely unlocked phones… the latest firmware upgrade would fix an issue I am having with connecting to a computer-to-computer WiFi network hosted by my MacBook.

The photo quality is pretty good for a phone and gives compact point-and-shoots a run for their money. Here’s a set of photos I took when Trafalagar Square in London was turned into a village green for a couple of days.

T-Mobile’s Web N Walk plan is great as well… I can finally use my phone to access the Internet wherever I want (subject to 3G network coverage) and not worry about quickly exceeding my download limit; 3Gb of mobile downloads is a pretty generous download allowance for mobile browsing.

The integration with online services such as Flickr and Vox is cool. I have authored a couple of posts on my new Vox blog directly from the phone; take a photo, write some text (admittedly a bit painful) and upload. Done!

It looks like Scoble shares my view that the N95 might be better than the iPhone although, damn, it IS sexy.