04/30/2009

Posted by Manish Agrawal

Domain Tip Of The Day:
Traveler’s Check
Check issued by a financial institution which functions as cash but is protected against loss or theft. Traveler’s checks are useful when traveling, especially in case of overseas travel when not all credit and debit cards carried by a person will be accepted. A charge or commission is usually incurred when a person exchanges cash for traveler’s checks, though some issuers provide them free of charge.

Subprime Loan
A loan offered to an individual who does not qualify for a loan at the prime rate due to their credit history. If a lender thinks that there is an above-average risk involved in giving a loan to a certain individual, they will sometimes offer them a subprime loan, which has an interest rate higher than the prime rate. The subprime rate offered by the lender can vary from institution to institution.

Shadow Banking System
System of non-financial institutions that borrow money in the short term and take that money to invest in long-term assets. Shadow banking systems are able to avoid standard banking regulations through the use of credit derivatives. These are also said to be one of the major problems which contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis around 2007-2008.

Floor Limit
Largest credit card a retail merchant may accept without obtaining authorization by the card issuer.

Technical Tip Of The Day: Performance Tuning Tips –

CICS
Use CALLs instead of LINKs in CICS

EXEC CICS LINK
– establishes a new run unit
– sets up environment
– Does CICS table-search
– For all this activities, it executes 1400 machine code instructions

CALL
– It executes around 12 machine code instructions
-Just replacing EXEC CICS LINK with CALL statement on a case study, it was found that
->Internal Transaction Response time improved 23 – 78 %
->Total CPU Time improved 15 – 23 %
->Dynamic storage use improved 11 – 30 %

* CALL used in the study is STATIC CALL . COBOL refered here is VS COBOL II

COBOL
1.If at all possible avoid doing a sort within a COBOL program. COBOL sorts are very inefficient. If you must do a sort in a COBOL program, specifying the FASTSRT compiler option may speed up the sorting process.

2.When performing arithmetic, always use signed numeric fields. COBOL performs faster with signed fields than unsigned fields

3.When writing to variable length blocked sequential files, use the APPLY WRITE-ONLY clause for the file or use the AWO compiler option. This can reduce the number of calls to Data Management Services to handle the I/Os.

4. If you use SEARCH in COBOL, it is better to use SEARCH ALL ( Binary Search)

FILEAID Tips

Freeze Pane

While working in MS Excel we have the option of “freeze Panes”. By this options we can freeze some columns and have other columns scrolling. This feature is helpful in analysis when there are lots of columns(fields) in a file.

In mainframe too, we have similar such facility thru File-Aid.
1.Open the file in File-Aid
2. use VFMT format
3. If you want to freeze columns(fields) 1,2,3, and 6 and have the rest as scrollable issue command HOLD 1-3,6

DO YOU KNOW THESE FACTS ABOUT CHENNAI & TAMIL NADU
Chennai shares the second position as the largest employment generator in India, along with Bombay. The first position is Bangalore.
Chennai generates around 35,000 jobs annually.
Chennai has the highest two-wheeler population in India.
Chennai has the lowest pollution among major cities of India in spite of having over 20 lakh vehicles.
The city is now called the Detroit of India due to its automobile industry producing over 40% of the country’s auto parts and vehicles.
Chennai is India’s fourth largest city and ranks among the fifty most populous cities in the world.
Chennai as ranked First in India in Health facilities by Outlook in 2003.
Chennai was ranked First in India in Education facilities by Outlook in 2003.
Chennai was ranked the second best city to live in by Outlook in 2003.
The Mofussil bus stand at Koyambedu, Chennai is the largest in South Asia.
The only state seen many Chief Ministers from Film Industry or People associated to Film industry. (M.G.R, Jayalalitha, V.N.Janaki, Annadurai, & Karunanidhi. The first three people acted in films, the later two were associated with film industry by story & dialogue writing.)
Chennai is the best place of cinema post-production work in the country according to leading cine industry experts. Because of its cheapness and all modernized technologies, several post-production works for the movies from the Eastern India and also from North-East India are now being done in Chennai.
Madras (Chennai) old facts……….. Gateway of South India . Cultural capital of India .
Marina Beach is the second longest beach in the world, after Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.
Chennai has one of oldest engineering and medical colleges in the world.
Chennai has the second largest cine industry in the country, next only to Bombay.
Chennai is the home of South Indian cinema. There were times when all the post production work in the entire South Indian cine industry was done only at Chennai.
The Vandalur Zoo in Chennai is the First Zoo (1855) in India and one of the largest in South Asia.
The Cancer institute (1920) in Chennai is one of the Oldest in India
The Cooum River running across Chennai was being used for water transportation in its earlier days.
Chennai’s Mount Road or Anna Salai’s original name is GST Road (Grand South Trunk Road)

Quotes of the day:
1. Any Good Leader Should Manage His/Her Team By Mind And Lead Them By Heart(Manage By Mind Lead By Heart) – Robin Sharma
2. Everybody Does Thier Own Work But The Happiness And Joy We Give Others By Sharing Some Of Thier Work Is Invaluable Which Is What We Are Forgetting Now A Days – From a Very Inspiring Hindi Movie Bawarchi(Worth Watching)
3.It’s So Simple To Be Happy But It’s Very Difficult To Be Simple – By The Same Movie

04/28/2009

Posted by Arun Kumar Courtalingam

Domain tips of the day

APR:
APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate. APR is a measure of interest paid for credit received (or earned on principal invested) that does not take into account the effect of compounding. Unlike APR, APY or annual percentage yield, does account for compounding. For example, on a loan at a rate of 1% per month, the APR will be 12*1% = 12%, but the APY will be (1+1%)^12–1 = 12.68%. At 2% per month, APR is 24%, and APY is 26.82%. The higher periodic rate and the more periods in a year, the larger the gap between APR and APY. APY is more economically meaningful than APR. Nevertheless, federal law requires banks, credit card issuers, and other consumer finance entities to disclose APR to the borrower. On the other hand, the higher APY figure is always reported rather than APR when depository institutions advertise rates on savings products such as certificates of deposit and money market accounts.

Reverse Mortgage:
A reverse mortgage is a way for senior citizen homeowners to borrow money against the equity in their home without selling the home. Unlike a regular mortgage, the reverse mortgage requires no payment of principal or interest until the borrower dies, no longer owns the home, or does not occupy it as a principle residence for at least 12 months. At that point, the reverse mortgage matures, and must be repaid. In the United States, the home must be owned free and clear or have only a small mortgage balance to be eligible for a reverse mortgage. Everyone on the title must be age 62 or older to obtain a reverse mortgage. The reverse mortgage has no income requirements, and the money is available tax-free, as a lump sum, line of credit, or monthly payment. The FHA is the largest reverse mortgage originator, and Fannie Mae is the best-known private reverse mortgage originator. Detailed information and a loan calculator can be found on the website of the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association.

Private Banking:
Private Banking is a term for banking, investment and other financial services provided by banks to private individuals investing sizable assets. The term “private” refers to the customer service being rendered on a more personal basis than in mass-market retail banking, usually via dedicated bank advisers. It should not be confused with a private bank, which is simply a non-incorporated banking institution.

Technical tips of the day

Mainframe tip:
Using FILEAID we can determine the compile date of a loadlib member.
1. Go to FILE-AID 3.1 option
2. In the Library Utility type in the loadlib dataset name
3. Type ‘A’ next to the member name
4. TDATE is the compile date

Internet explorer tips:
If you want to clear the list of entries that shows up in the drop down list of the address bar,
1.    Go to Tools / Internet Options
2.    Click on the Content tab
3.    Click on the AutoComplete button
4.    Click on Clear Forms
You can have Internet Explorer automatically clear your Temporary Internet Cache files every time you close the program.
1.    Go to Tools / Internet Options
2.    Click on the Advanced button
3.    Scroll down almost to the bottom and check Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed

Few Microsoft Outlook Shortcuts:
Description                                        Key
Send message                                   Ctrl + Enter or Alt + S
Mark a mail as unread                    Ctrl + U
Check names                                     Ctrl + K
Launch Spell checker                      F7
Reply to sender                                Ctrl + R
Reply to all                                          Ctrl + Shift + R
Forward message                            Ctrl + F

Quotes of the day
” Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”
-Albert Einstein

” Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”
-Thomas Edison

Interesting facts
Ø  The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even while the keypad is locked
Ø  The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com
Ø  While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users
Ø  The world’s first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer
Ø  The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20

04/27/2009

Posted by Krishnakumar Rajagopal

Domain Tip of the Day

Reserve Currency
Certain currencies of the world have been used throughout history as a means of international exchange. A currency that is held by many governments and institutions, and used by them to pay off international debts or influence their exchange rates, is known as a reserve currency. For many years, and especially since World War II, the U.S. Dollar has been the most widely used reserve currency, due to its reputation for stability, among other reasons. Many commodities which are used worldwide, such as gold and oil, are priced in U.S. Dollars, making it a good practice for countries to keep dollars on hand to purchase these commodities.

Any currency that is widely recognized and trusted can serve as a reserve currency. The idea of reserve currency has existed in one form or another for centuries. However, the modern international banking system has cemented the need for one much more so than older economic structures. Central banks around the world may hold funds in a variety of currencies in reserve, in addition to their own. They do this mainly to store value, as much as a backup for their own currency as for strategic reasons, should any contingency arise. Any of the foreign currencies used in such a manner could be thought of as a reserve currency.

Traditionally, the U.S. Dollar has been the preferred reserve currency of the world. Roughly two thirds of worldwide currency reserves are held in dollars. More recently, the Euro has seen increased use as a reserve currency. This is perhaps partly because many of the currencies of the countries that now make up the European Union were used as reserve currencies before the Euro was adopted for wide use. Because of the popularity of the Euro, there is considerable debate and speculation as to whether it will eventually replace the Dollar as the world’s most preferred reserve currency.

Demonetization
Demonetization is the process of ceasing to produce and circulate particular forms of currency. This is often the case when it is determined that the currency is not longer in regular use within the country of origin. While the currency is no longer minted or printed, any of the discontinued currency that is presented is still accepted as legal tender.

Going through the process of demonetization may be helpful for a couple of reasons. The most common is the replacement of one form of currency with another. For example, some countries have chosen to replace their smaller banknotes with coins of the same value. Even though the banknotes are no longer printed, merchants can still accept them as legal currency and deposit the worth of the banknote into a bank account. Over time, the banknotes are exchanged for the newer coins and the demonetization process is considered complete.

Another reason for withdrawing currency is to completely revamp the value and type of currencies used within the country. This is often due to matters involving the rate of exchange of currency with other countries. At other times, this wholesale change has been due to a desire to streamline the currency in order to make the use of the money easier for all concerned. In both scenarios, the older coins and notes usually are declared to no longer be legal tender after a certain date. However, the older money can be redeemed for an equivalent amount of the newer forms of currency.

Technical tip of the day
1) Easytrieve to Cobol call can be done just like a normal Cobol to Cobol call. its done as shown in the below example.
(E.g.):CALLPGM is the is the Cobol load module. The Change to the JCL would be to include the STEPLIB to mention the location of the Cobol load.

FILE FILENAME
IN-NAME      1    40 A

L0600-NAME-P                        W  105  A
L0600-NAME       L0600-NAME-P           40  A
L0600-LAST-NAME  L0600-NAME-P     +40   40  A
L0600-FIRST-NAME L0600-NAME-P     +80   25  A

JOB INPUT (FILENAME)

L0600-NAME          = IN-NAME
CALL CALLPGM USING L0600-NAME-P
Display ‘First name is ….’L0600-FIRST-NAME
Display ‘Last name is …..’L0600-LAST-NAME

2) Sort Tip
IFTHEN statements can be used in Syncsort as shown below.

//TBC1005 EXEC PGM=SORT
//*
//SORTIN   DD *
ADCDEFGH1
ADDDEFGH2
ADCDEFGH3
//*
//SORTOUT  DD SYSOUT=*
//SYSOUT   DD SYSOUT=*
//*
//SYSIN    DD *
SORT FIELDS=COPY
INREC FIELDS=(1,3,9,1)
OUTREC IFTHEN=(WHEN=(3,1,CH,EQ,C’C’),OVERLAY=(4:C’CFND’)),
IFTHEN=(WHEN=(3,1,CH,EQ,C’D’),OVERLAY=(4:C’DFND’))

Interesting Facts on Airbus A380
Ø  The A380 is 24.1 metres high – as high as an eight-storey house, 5 giraffes or 14 people standing on top of one another.
Ø  There are 320 miles of cable in an A380
Ø  Each wing of the A380 has an area of 845 square metres, enough standing room for 2,800 people, or parking space for 70 cars.
Ø  The Wright Brothers’ first flight was shorter than the A380’s wingspan.
Ø  It has a range of 8,200 nautical mile which means that it can fly non-stop from New York to Hong Kong.

Interesting Facts on Hitler
Ø  No matter how warm he feels, Hitler will never take off his coat in public
Ø  In 1923, Nazi press secretary Dr. Sedgwick tried to convince Hitler to get rid of his trademark mustache or grow it   normally. Hitler answered: “Do not worry about my mustache. If it is not the fashion now, it will be later because I wear   it!”
Ø  He was vegetarian.
Ø  He had wanted originally to be an artist or architect.

Quote for the day
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
-Albert Einstein

“Disney has the best casting. If he doesn’t like an actor he just tears him up. ”
– Alfred Hitchcock

04/24/2009

Posted by Chidambara Natarajan Gopal

Domain tips of the day –  Buyback:
A companys purchase of its own bonds (at a discount on the open market) or shares on the market. In the case of a share buyback, the company may be motivated to boost its share price and thereby reward existing shareholders.

Float:
Float is duplicate money present in the banking system during the time between a deposit being made in the recipient’s account and the money being deducted from the sender’s account. It makes up the smallest part of the money supply.

Float is most obvious in the time delay between a cheque being written and the funds to cover that cheque being deducted from the payer’s account. Once the recipient of a cheque (the payee) deposits it in their account, their bank immediately credits (increases) the payee’s account, assuming that the payer’s bank will ultimately send the funds to cover the cheque.Until the payer’s bank actually sends the funds, both the payer and the payee have the “same” money in both of their accounts. Once the payee’s bank notifies the payer’s bank (usually by presenting the cheques), the “duplicate” funds will be removed from the payer’s account and the cheques will be considered to have “cleared” the bank.

Technical tips of the day:
Browsing the Mainframe dataset directly from the job.
While viewing a job, Issue ‘ZOOM’ command in the command, place the cursor on the line number in which the dataset to be browsed and press Return key to browse the dataset

Zeke (Job scheduler) tips:
Once you are in a schedule view (viewing the scheduled jobs), the active and failed once can be brought up by issuing command “SORT STATUS” .
Automatic refresh can be setup using command AUTO. We need not press enter to get the scheduler updated. It automatically refreshes every 30 seconds.
To know the last execution details of a job, you use Zeke option 1 (EVENT) and goto OCCURS clause page and issue ACCTG in the command line.
Copy/clone a event using command ‘COPYAL’ from the Event Matser definition page of a job event.
From scheduled view screen if we want to jump to Event master definition, we need not swith back & forth, we could use EMR command.

Different types of Table searches in COBOL.
Sequential Search using the ‘SEARCH’  statement  examines each table entry starting at the beginning
Binary search using the ‘SEARCH ALL’ statement starts looking at the mid-point of the table and works its way toward the argument depending upon if its too high or too low.
A serial search can be used for unsorted tables, while a binary search is only useful if the tables is sorted.

Math tip of the day:
Very often we have to find square of a number.
Say for example finding a squar of 26.
we know Sq(25) = 625. Add 25 & 26 to the sq(25) = 25 + 26 + 625 = 676 which is the square of 26.

How this works..
(n+1)^2 = n^2 + 2n + 1
Example:
(25 + 1)^2 = 25^2 + 2 . 25 + 1
= 25^2 + 25 + 25 + 1
=  25^2 + 25 + 26

Erroneous usage in English:
“Return back” – This is frequently used in our day to day life.
Ex:          They returned back to Chennai – Incorrect (Using Return & back together is redundant)
They returned to Chennai – Correct
They came back to Chennai – Correct

Inspirational quotes of the day
“Dheivathaan agadheninum, muyaRchi than
mei varutha kooli tharum”
Meaning:  What if fate (or God) wills its failure and the object is not attained, the effort pays its own reward.
-Thiruvalluvar

People sometimes throw stones at you and you convert them into milestones”
– Sachin Tendulkar

The only way of finding a solution is to fight back, to move, to run, and to control that pressure.
– Rafael Nadal

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
– Barack Obama

Philosophical quotes:
“Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.”
– Marlon Brando

Money is a strange business. People who haven’t got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.
-Ayrton Senna

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
-Socrates

Interesting facts:
Tamil Nadu is the only  state seen many Chief Ministers from Film Industry or People associated to Film industry. (M.G.R, Jayalalitha, V.N.Janaki, Annadurai & Karunanidhi. The first three people acted in films, the later two were associated with film industry by story & dialogue writing)

The Vandalur Zoo in Chennai is the First Zoo (1855) in India and one of the largest in South Asia.

04/23/2009

Posted by Vignesh Poovan

Technical Tip of the Day – Sort
How can I replace all the low-values in a file to spaces??
Use ALTSEQ CODE .
Here’s an example of how you could change all low values (X’00’) to spaces (X’40’), in an FB
data set with an LRECL of 80:
ALTSEQ CODE=(0040)
OUTREC FIELDS=(1,80,TRAN=ALTSEQ)

FILE-AID
The Easiest way to locate bad data is thru File-Aid’s FIND command.
1.OPEN the file in FILE-AID (in either browse or edit mode)
2.XREF with COPYBOOK.
3.Use FMT mode
4.Then issue ,
F /field-name INVALID
or
F /field-number INVALID
The control will take you to the first invalid data record for the given field.
e.g.,
The FILE has 3 fields namely NAME,AGE,COUNTRY.
If you want to find the invalid data in the age field, then issue
F /2 INVALID

Domain Tip of the Day – FDI / Foreign Direct Investment
FDI stands for Foreign Direct Investment, a component of a country’s national financial accounts. Foreign direct investment is investment of foreign assets into domestic structures, equipment, and organizations. It does not include foreign investment into the stock markets. Foreign direct investment is thought to be more useful to a country than investments in the equity of its companies because equity investments are potentially “hot money” which can leave at the first sign of trouble, whereas FDI is durable and generally useful whether things go well or badly.

Motivational Tip for the day:
Learn from the waves not to fall, but to rise after every fall.

Interesting facts:
Woodpecker scalps, porpoise teeth and giraffe tails have all been used as money.
The first alarm clock could only ring at 4 a.m.
A group of officers is called a mess but wonder what, a group of frogs is called an army.

Quote for the day:
Live so that your friend can defend you, but never have to.

04/21/2009

Posted by Durga Devi Nehru

Domain Tip – Money laundering:
Money laundering, at its simplest, is the act of making money that comes from Source A look like it comes from Source B. In practice, criminals are trying to disguise the origins of money obtained through illegal activities so it looks like it was obtained from legal sources. Otherwise, they can’t use the money because it would connect them to the criminal activity, and law-enforcement officials would seize it.

The basic money laundering process has three steps:

Placement – At this stage, the launderer inserts the dirty money into a legitimate financial institution. This is often in the form of cash bank deposits. This is the riskiest stage of the laundering process because large amounts of cash are pretty conspicuous, and banks are required to report high-value transactions.

Layering – Layering involves sending the money through various financial transactions to change its form and make it difficult to follow. Layering may consist of several bank-to-bank transfers, wire transfers between different accounts in different names in different countries, making deposits and withdrawals to continually vary the amount of money in the accounts, changing the money’s currency, and purchasing high-value items (boats, houses, cars, diamonds) to change the form of the money. This is the most complex step in any laundering scheme, and it’s all about making the original dirty money as hard to trace as possible.

Integration – At the integration stage, the money re-enters the mainstream economy in legitimate-looking form — it appears to come from a legal transaction. This may involve a final bank transfer into the account of a local business in which the launderer is “investing” in exchange for a cut of the profits, the sale of a yacht bought during the layering stage or the purchase of a $10 million screwdriver from a company owned by the launderer. At this point, the criminal can use the money without getting caught. It’s very difficult to catch a launderer during the integration stage if there is no documentation during the previous stages.

Technical Tip – JCL

To specify dummy VSAM dataset in a JCL

Code AMP=’AMORG’ . This parameter tells the OS to treat the file as VSAM file.
//NOVSAMIO DD DUMMY,AMP=’AMORG’

SORT

To prevent the job from abending when the VSAM is empty ,
Pass the parameter, VSAMEMT=YES for the SORT utility.

i.e,
//STEP3 EXEC PGM=SORT,PARM=’VSAMEMT=YES’
//*
//SYSOUT DD SYSOUT=*
//SORTIN DD DSN=VSAM.DSN
// DISP=SHR
//SORTOUT DD DSN=FLATFILE.DSN
// DISP=SHR
//SYSIN DD *
SORT FIELDS=COPY
/*

Interesting Facts about JP Morgan:
John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), the most powerful American banker of his time, helped build a credit bridge between Europe and America and financially rescued the United States government twice.
In 1901, he formed the United States Steel Corporation, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.

Quotes of the day:
Courage is saying, “Maybe what I’m doing isn’t working; maybe I should try something else.”
Dont be afraid of pressure. pressure is what turns a lump of coal into a diamond!

Interesting Facts:
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Men’s shirts have the buttons on the right, but women’s shirts have the buttons on the left…
Guinness Book Of Records holds the record for being the book most stolen from Public Libraries.

Joke of the day:
The most dangerous position in which to sleep is with your feet on your office desk

Happy B’day!

April is a month when most of the animals that hibernate come out of their burrows. The birds fly back northward or they settle down to have their families. The bees and butterflies begin to gather nectar from the first flowers of the season. In some parts of the world, it’s planting time. In other parts, it’s the harvest season. It is the month when children and grown-ups play jokes on one another. Easter which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ happens in April.

And moreover this is the month when our fellow colleagues were born..

Kalaivani Velusamy	7-Apr
Karthick Kumar Ponnusamy	9-Apr
Hemanth Prabhu	10-Apr
Neena Susan Mani	11-Apr
Lakshmanakumar Loganathan	12-Apr
Sundharavalli Palaniappan	13-Apr
Mohammad Rabbani Rameez	14-Apr
Sheik Manzoor Mohamed	16-Apr
Claudia Sophie Israel	16-Apr
Menaka Santhanam	22-Apr
Lakshmi Yalamanchili	23-Apr
Ramya Rengarajan	27-Apr
Divya Komatineni	27-Apr
Mohan Raj S	27-Apr

Happy Birthday everyone! 🙂

04/19/2009

Posted by Ann Mary Anthony

Domain Tip:

Swiss Banks:
James Bond enters a Swiss bank in Spain and is frisked before he can meet with the banker. In the “Da Vinci Code,” a triangular-shaped key activates a robotic arm that pulls a safety deposit box from the wall in a Swiss bank in Paris to ultimately reveal the secret to Christianity. The funny thing is neither of these scenes would actually happen in a real Swiss bank. There is no such robotic system and, while Swiss banks do have security, they don’t search their clients before letting them access accounts. Most of us have formed ideas about what Swiss bank accounts are and how they work based on scenes like these that we’ve seen in the movies, read in books, or maybe even heard in the news. In other words, most of us have a distorted or mostly unrealistic view of what it really means to have the prestigious Swiss bank account.

Swiss bank accounts aren’t just for millionaires, criminals or government officials trying to hide ill-gotten wealth, or celebrities protecting their assets from former spouses. They’re available to anyone and lots of average people have Swiss bank accounts. People who live in countries with unstable governments and banks in particular often turn to Swiss banks because of their security and privacy.
But let’s face it, most of us really just want to be able to say, “Oh, I’ll wire the money from my Swiss bank account

Your relationship with your Swiss bank can be compared to doctor/patient confidentiality or the private information you might share with an attorney. Swiss law forbids bankers to disclose the existence of your account or any other information about it without your consent In Switzerland, if a banker divulges information about a bank account without permission, he can face up to six months in prison and a fine of up to 50,000 Swiss francs.

Privacy is a big deal if you have money you don’t want other people to know about, and unless you’re a criminal it’s highly unlikely anyone can ever find out about your account. For example, doctors who might be sued for malpractice might have money in a Swiss account to prevent them being totally wiped out in the event of lawsuit. Unethical, yes, but it happens.

The Swiss franc is considered one of the world’s premier currencies with virtually zero inflation and has been historically backed by at least 40 percent gold reserves. Swiss banks are also known to have very sophisticated investment services and Internet banking.

Technical Tip:

Internet Explorer Tips:
Quick Search IE :
In the URL address bar, type ? then your topic or keyword
This will go to your default search engine and return search results on your topic.

Select visited web site addresses:
Select the F4 function key.
This will show a listing of sites you have visited for selection.

Stop flashing images IE :
If a website you are viewing has annoying flashing images, wait for the page to load select the Esc button.

Quick jump to Web Site IE :
Type just the Internet domain name in the URL Address bar and press CTRL & ENTER keys.
This will fill in ‘www’ as the machine name and TLD ‘.com’
Try it – type ‘google’ on your address bar and press CTRL & ENTER

Interesting Facts about JP Morgan:
–  JP Morgan kept a very close eye on expenses. From a young age he kept detailed records of even the smallest expenses, including postage and the entrance fees for museums. While generous, he   never forgot the bottom line: one anecdote records that in beckoning a waiter to order a beer he said, “When Morgan drinks, everybody drinks.”  When everybody had had a beer and Morgan had finished his, he placed a dime upon the table, saying, “When Morgan pays, everybody pays.”

–  An event spanning the 19th century exemplifies the long and rich histories of our heritage companies, JPMorgan Chase and Bank One:

Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr, were leading statesmen with very different political agendas.  However, they worked together for passage of the charter to establish JPMorgan Chase’s earliest predecessor, The Manhattan Company. Unknown to Hamilton, Burr had maneuvered a provision within the charter that would allow the Manhattan Company to be involved in banking operations.  The establishment of the Bank of The Manhattan Company – later to become Chase Manhattan Bank – represented the end of the Hamilton’s banking monopoly in New York City and was a serious blow to his business and political interests.

The antagonism between the two men continued over the years until Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel.

Hamilton borrowed a pair of pistols from his brother-in-law. On the morning of July 11, 1804, the rivals and their seconds sailed across the Hudson from Manhattan to the dueling grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey. The men fired and Burr was unharmed. Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day. Burr was accused of murder, but the charges were either dismissed or resulted in acquittal.

JPMorgan Chase still owns the guns, along with several replicas. The originals are on display on an executive floor at the company’s New York headquarters.

Inspirational Quotes:
– Face your past without regrets, handle your present with confidence and prepare for the future without fear. Life is short so forgive quickly, believe slowly, love truly and laugh uncontrollably!
– Learn from the mistakes of others instead of making them all on your own.

Calvin & Hobbes Quotes:
– That’s the difference between me and the rest of the world – Happiness isn’t good enough for me! I demand euphoria!
– Theres never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
– To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.

Joke of the day:
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

04/16/2009

Posted by Christalins Metanayagam

Mainframe tip
The best way to count the number of records in a VSAM File.
1.Choose FILE-AID Option 3.8
2. At the prompt of ….ENTER NEXT FUNCTION OR END , enter TALLY
3. U will get the record count
4. Type END to exit.

Domain tip
How does a creditor (Bank) decide whether to lend to a customer for a new car or a home mortgage?
The creditor may examine past credit history of the borrower to evaluate the credit worthiness. A credit scoring system is used by the creditor to give  points for each factor that the creditor considers important.
Credit bureaus collects, stores, and reports the relevant identifying and credit information of customers.
Credit bureaus are “clearinghouses” for information about borrowers and how these borrowers handle their financial responsibilities.
Credit bureaus establish and maintain “credit files” on consumers who apply to creditors for or use individual or joint credit.
The core of Credit Information is the past  payment history of the Borrower.
CIBIL – (launched in 2004) India’s first credit information bureau.
Credit Bureaus are known as Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) in US.

Terminologies used in credit bureau
Credit file — All the information about a particular customer in the records of a credit bureau.
Credit rating —  A customer’s relative credit-worthiness based on information from the credit report, credit application, and interviews.
Credit report —  A written, oral, or other communication from a credit bureau to a creditor, employer, or insurer concerning a customer’s credit history.

Interesting Facts
–  A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours
–  A jellyfish is 95 percent water
–  Dolphins sleep with one eye open
–  Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
–  The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.
– It takes a lobster approximately seven years to grow to be one pound.

Quote of the day
“If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles”.
—  Benjamin Franklin

04/15/2009

Posted by Chaitanya Datir

Technical Tip – MAINFRAMES

TIP # 1
Alternate to SuperCE Option(3.13) is to use the macro COMPARE . Use this when you there is less difference between the two files.

1.Open a DSN in EDIT or VIEW Mode
2. On the Command line , issue COMP ‘YOUR.SECOND.COMPARISON.DSN’
3. If you want only the changes to be listed, issue COMP  ‘YOUR.SECOND.COMPARISON.DSN’ EXC

TIP # 2
While Browsing Internet, we have some cool option called address autocomplete we have same option in mainframes

1.go to ISPF 3.4 ,
2. enter KEYS in the command line,KEYS window will popup
3. set any key to AUTOTYPE, save and exit
4. now type any Dataset partially and press the assigned PFkey!!

Note: It will not retrieve GDGs and VSAM files.

TIP # 3
Usually the PDS or PS bears the ID of the creator or the ID of the person who modified it recently.But is it possible to change these ID values without leaving trace of one. Yes its possible! In the command area against the member name or PS name, by giving ?G?. Dialog box will pop up allowing you to change the ID values.

Domain Tip:

Some information about the BSE
Following are the general guidelines for selection of for a firm to be listed in the top 30 for the constituents in SENSEX are as follows .
1.     Listed History:  The scrip should have a listing history of at least 3 months at BSE. Exception may be considered if full market capitalization of a newly listed company ranks among top 10 in the list of BSE universe. In case, a company is listed on account of merger/ demerger/ amalgamation, minimum listing history would not be required.

2.     Trading Frequency:  The scrip should have been traded on each and every trading day in the last three months at BSE. Exceptions can be made for extreme reasons like scrip suspension etc.

3.     Final Rank:  The scrip should figure in the top 100 companies listed by final rank. The final rank is arrived at by assigning 75% weightage to the rank on the basis of three-month average full market capitalization and 25% weightage to the liquidity rank based on three-month average daily turnover & three-month average impact cost.

4.     Market Capitalization Weightage: The weightage of each scrip in SENSEX based on three-month average free-float market capitalization should be at least 0.5% of the Index.

5.     Industry/Sector Representation:  Scrip selection would generally take into account a balanced representation of the listed companies in the universe of BSE.

6.     Track Record:  In the opinion of the BSE Index Committee, the company should have an acceptable track record.

Interesting Fact:
American Express billed their Platinum Card as extremely exclusive and it had an annual fee of $250 ($484.84 in 2006 dollars). Today, the extremely exclusive card for American Express is their black Centurion card with a $2,500 annual fee! (and requirement to spend $250,000 a year)

Quote for the day:
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.