I'm currently knee-deep in some performance testing, and I wanted to have fully automated JMeter runs, with attendant fully-automated graphing of the results.
There's lots of results to graph from the systems, but the JMeter log itself is a great source of data.
Only problem is, the best-looking script didn't seem to want to produce the two most important graphs I wanted to see! (aggregate throughput and aggregate users)
The script is here:
http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-jmeter/LogAnalysis?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=jmetergraph.pl
From:
http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta-jmeter/LogAnalysis
All it needed was a small patch though, et voila, I've got the aggregate charts.
Maybe this will save others (http://markmail.org/message/yntlaygfepnpine7) the time?
[mhardy@tkdevvm(192.168.146.130) util]$ diff jmetergraph.pl ~/mike/Desktop/jmetergraph.pl
313,314d312
< $glabels{'entire'} = \%entire;
<
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Accounting error
I'm continually astounded by the general lackadaisical attitude towards accounting error in general society. Some examples:
- governments don't use accrual accounting, yet generate massive future liabilities. Fail!
- historic-cost accounting (the GAAP standard) makes no allowance for appreciation or inflation, a double-fail
There are definitely gray areas in implementing those things, but the benefits should outweigh the costs, and as a manager I definitely want to be aware of accrual effects, appreciation and inflation.
Boring perhaps but it's better than driving businesses (or countries) into the ground...
- governments don't use accrual accounting, yet generate massive future liabilities. Fail!
- historic-cost accounting (the GAAP standard) makes no allowance for appreciation or inflation, a double-fail
There are definitely gray areas in implementing those things, but the benefits should outweigh the costs, and as a manager I definitely want to be aware of accrual effects, appreciation and inflation.
Boring perhaps but it's better than driving businesses (or countries) into the ground...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Berkshire Hathaway goals
Reading through the Berkshire Hathaway annual report (something that is highly recommended - it's not nearly as dry as it sounds) you quickly run in to the operating goals. Honestly, thinking about them out of context, there's not much else you need to do either on a small scale (a 4 person project, a small business, a career, your family, etc) or on the scale they operate in order to be successful:
(1) maintaining Berkshire's Gibraltar-like financial position, which features huge amounts of excess liquidity, near-term obligations that are modest, and dozens of sources of earnings and cash;
(2) widening the "moats" around our operating businesses that give them durable competitive advantages;
(3) acquiring and developing new and varied streams of earnings;
(4) expanding and nurturing the cadre of outstanding operating managers who, over the years, have delivered Berkshire exceptional results.
Substitute credibility or trust for finances for some scenarios, other valuable qualities for others, or obviously keep it finance-related for economic things, but I don't think there's a lot more to it from what I've seen so far.
The devil's in the details implementing this game plan, surely, but I think it's important to realize/remember that the game plan itself is not complicated.
As I read through more of it, some other gems:
- Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.
- Beware geeks bearing formulas (as a geek, I agree)
- Regarding municipal finance: "The gap between
assets and a realistic actuarial valuation of present liabilities is simply staggering."
(1) maintaining Berkshire's Gibraltar-like financial position, which features huge amounts of excess liquidity, near-term obligations that are modest, and dozens of sources of earnings and cash;
(2) widening the "moats" around our operating businesses that give them durable competitive advantages;
(3) acquiring and developing new and varied streams of earnings;
(4) expanding and nurturing the cadre of outstanding operating managers who, over the years, have delivered Berkshire exceptional results.
Substitute credibility or trust for finances for some scenarios, other valuable qualities for others, or obviously keep it finance-related for economic things, but I don't think there's a lot more to it from what I've seen so far.
The devil's in the details implementing this game plan, surely, but I think it's important to realize/remember that the game plan itself is not complicated.
As I read through more of it, some other gems:
- Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.
- Beware geeks bearing formulas (as a geek, I agree)
- Regarding municipal finance: "The gap between
assets and a realistic actuarial valuation of present liabilities is simply staggering."
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Mike 1, Banking Fees 0
Along the same lines as credit card finance charges, I simply refuse to banking fees.
It isn't that I don't think they are justified, it's that I think they are a tax on ignorance and it's less costly to avoid fee-inducing banking situations.
To that end, I just got a "collected funds fee" at the bank, and investigated it. Here's the skinny from my banker:
"Yes, there's a difference between collected and available balance and your analysis is correct. Depending on where the funds are drawn from and if they've been collected is the determining factor. Funds might be available but not collected from the maker bank which means a portion of what is available is technically a loan to the customer and the reason for the fee (I was able to reverse it). Some customers find a balance between savings and checking or attach a line of credit to the operating account as an option to avoid the repeated fee."
So if you deposit checks regularly, you're going to see three balances. "Balance", "Available Balance", and "Collected Balance".
If you want to make sure you get no fees, find the lessor of those three numbers, and treat that as your "fee-free balance".
It's a game of inches...
Cheers
It isn't that I don't think they are justified, it's that I think they are a tax on ignorance and it's less costly to avoid fee-inducing banking situations.
To that end, I just got a "collected funds fee" at the bank, and investigated it. Here's the skinny from my banker:
"Yes, there's a difference between collected and available balance and your analysis is correct. Depending on where the funds are drawn from and if they've been collected is the determining factor. Funds might be available but not collected from the maker bank which means a portion of what is available is technically a loan to the customer and the reason for the fee (I was able to reverse it). Some customers find a balance between savings and checking or attach a line of credit to the operating account as an option to avoid the repeated fee."
So if you deposit checks regularly, you're going to see three balances. "Balance", "Available Balance", and "Collected Balance".
If you want to make sure you get no fees, find the lessor of those three numbers, and treat that as your "fee-free balance".
It's a game of inches...
Cheers
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Credit Card Finance Charge Tidbit
Okay, as some following this blog (if anyone is) may know, I'm not just doing internal server operations at Tacit Knowledge any more, I'm also the CFO, so naturally I do a lot of finance.
In order to want to take on a role like that, and to pursue excellence in it, you've got to have more than a little bit of interest in even the most mundane parts of finance. You have to want to truly understand the full workings of the little things or you've got no chance when the big things confront you.
With that as motivation, I'll mention that for my entire adult life I have engaged in a campaign against credit card finance charges. This may seem pointless, and I'll admit it is - on the "dollar value" side, it is not really worth a lot to achieve a state of "no finance charges ever" because even getting close to that state means there's not enough dollar value left in charges to justify getting to zero. But where's the fun in that? Let's get to zero.
The first thing I learned in this campaign was that the credit card companies use several strategies to make it nearly impossible. The first of these strategies is the non-fixed statement date. In other words, they do not align their statement dates with any fixed calendar day so you can never assume that if you make a full payment by the 1st of the month every month, you won't get a finance charge.
They move the date around every month, so every once in a while, a full statement period will be between and not inclusive of the two 1st dates, and they'll get you. How sneaky! That honestly took me a couple finance charges to figure out, but is easily defeated with a "semi-monthly payment plan" though - just send them two payments a month, on the 1st and 15th. Please note that if you don't have some automated way to make this extremely easy you're wasting your time and it is not worth it. I use Quicken with bill pay, personally.
Okay, so having done that, I thought I'd essentially won the game and needed to move on to other venues to exorcise the daemons of my financial obsessive compulsiveness.
Most of their other strategies revolve around keeping you in debt once you've gotten there, and since that's a problem solved with fiscal discipline (a much larger subject than tactical credit card payment plans) I'm not going to go into it here. You need Suze Orman or a Rich Dad, Poor Dad book, Quicken, and some soul-searching if you're in that situation (highly recommended if you are, though).
Then I just got hit with two finance charges in two consecutive months, and the game was back on. I simply couldn't understand what happened since I sent them more then the previous balance was.
I'm sure this is no surprise to some of you but for those that did not know it, I'll mention another subtle trick they play on you. If you *ever* take advantage of the ability to defer payment, as I did two months ago, you will obviously incur a finance charge. I'm not against that, I will pay to rent cash sometimes, and that month I did so.
But what you've done is you have established a new class of balance in your account - a "revolving balance". It's important to realize that this class of balance is treated very differently from "new charges" because now when you send payments in - even two a month! even more than all new charges! - all of the payments will be applied to "new charges" *first*, and only the excess will apply to the revolving balance.
Sneaky again! In this way, you may find yourself making multiple payments a month, for *more* than the sum of your new charges every month, and still owe a finance charge every month as they charge you to float whatever is left of the revolving bit from the past. Seems unfair to me, but hey, they're in the cartel of payment processing networks and I'm not, so I don't get a vote. I do have a new compensating strategy though, and will restate my "never get a finance charge" rules like so:
- make two payments a month, on the 1st and 15th, for whatever the balance is on those days
- if you ever establish a "revolving balance", make sure to establish a credit balance with the account with the next payment - compensating for any charges you may incur between your sending the semi-monthly payment that would otherwise make you run a balance
Now I think I've "got" them. We'll see.
Some will argue I should quit fussing and use the "AutoPay" option, but then if you actually wanted to rent cash for a month, you'd have to pick up the phone to do it or they'd pull the full balance from your checking account anyway. So that option gives you a low score on the "ability to control" things scale. My phone calls to Citibank to get the finance charges waived while I learn these lessons :-) average around 15 minutes, so as a solution design with AutoPay I'd be losing money on the opportunity cost of my hourly billable time.
This concludes your obsessively compulsive finance lesson for the day.
Cheers!
In order to want to take on a role like that, and to pursue excellence in it, you've got to have more than a little bit of interest in even the most mundane parts of finance. You have to want to truly understand the full workings of the little things or you've got no chance when the big things confront you.
With that as motivation, I'll mention that for my entire adult life I have engaged in a campaign against credit card finance charges. This may seem pointless, and I'll admit it is - on the "dollar value" side, it is not really worth a lot to achieve a state of "no finance charges ever" because even getting close to that state means there's not enough dollar value left in charges to justify getting to zero. But where's the fun in that? Let's get to zero.
The first thing I learned in this campaign was that the credit card companies use several strategies to make it nearly impossible. The first of these strategies is the non-fixed statement date. In other words, they do not align their statement dates with any fixed calendar day so you can never assume that if you make a full payment by the 1st of the month every month, you won't get a finance charge.
They move the date around every month, so every once in a while, a full statement period will be between and not inclusive of the two 1st dates, and they'll get you. How sneaky! That honestly took me a couple finance charges to figure out, but is easily defeated with a "semi-monthly payment plan" though - just send them two payments a month, on the 1st and 15th. Please note that if you don't have some automated way to make this extremely easy you're wasting your time and it is not worth it. I use Quicken with bill pay, personally.
Okay, so having done that, I thought I'd essentially won the game and needed to move on to other venues to exorcise the daemons of my financial obsessive compulsiveness.
Most of their other strategies revolve around keeping you in debt once you've gotten there, and since that's a problem solved with fiscal discipline (a much larger subject than tactical credit card payment plans) I'm not going to go into it here. You need Suze Orman or a Rich Dad, Poor Dad book, Quicken, and some soul-searching if you're in that situation (highly recommended if you are, though).
Then I just got hit with two finance charges in two consecutive months, and the game was back on. I simply couldn't understand what happened since I sent them more then the previous balance was.
I'm sure this is no surprise to some of you but for those that did not know it, I'll mention another subtle trick they play on you. If you *ever* take advantage of the ability to defer payment, as I did two months ago, you will obviously incur a finance charge. I'm not against that, I will pay to rent cash sometimes, and that month I did so.
But what you've done is you have established a new class of balance in your account - a "revolving balance". It's important to realize that this class of balance is treated very differently from "new charges" because now when you send payments in - even two a month! even more than all new charges! - all of the payments will be applied to "new charges" *first*, and only the excess will apply to the revolving balance.
Sneaky again! In this way, you may find yourself making multiple payments a month, for *more* than the sum of your new charges every month, and still owe a finance charge every month as they charge you to float whatever is left of the revolving bit from the past. Seems unfair to me, but hey, they're in the cartel of payment processing networks and I'm not, so I don't get a vote. I do have a new compensating strategy though, and will restate my "never get a finance charge" rules like so:
- make two payments a month, on the 1st and 15th, for whatever the balance is on those days
- if you ever establish a "revolving balance", make sure to establish a credit balance with the account with the next payment - compensating for any charges you may incur between your sending the semi-monthly payment that would otherwise make you run a balance
Now I think I've "got" them. We'll see.
Some will argue I should quit fussing and use the "AutoPay" option, but then if you actually wanted to rent cash for a month, you'd have to pick up the phone to do it or they'd pull the full balance from your checking account anyway. So that option gives you a low score on the "ability to control" things scale. My phone calls to Citibank to get the finance charges waived while I learn these lessons :-) average around 15 minutes, so as a solution design with AutoPay I'd be losing money on the opportunity cost of my hourly billable time.
This concludes your obsessively compulsive finance lesson for the day.
Cheers!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
New Macbook Pros underwhelming
Only new features I was able to discern:
- larger hard drive
- faster RAM (but limited to 4GB according to them, and there are no 1x4GB 1067MHz parts that I'm aware of)
- stiffer chassis
All the other stuff looked not-that-interesting
I'm especially bummed that they upped the speed of the RAM since that means our new 6GB strategy won't work as there are no parts, and they didn't introduce a 17" one that I can see.
But they're heavier at least!
3rd Gen and 4th Gen 17" MBPs are still the best bet for us I think, with 6GB in them.
Any one else have thoughts?
This is possibly material as we have enough people now that hardware refresh is always going on, so we're always potentially in the market for a laptop or two.
- larger hard drive
- faster RAM (but limited to 4GB according to them, and there are no 1x4GB 1067MHz parts that I'm aware of)
- stiffer chassis
All the other stuff looked not-that-interesting
I'm especially bummed that they upped the speed of the RAM since that means our new 6GB strategy won't work as there are no parts, and they didn't introduce a 17" one that I can see.
But they're heavier at least!
3rd Gen and 4th Gen 17" MBPs are still the best bet for us I think, with 6GB in them.
Any one else have thoughts?
This is possibly material as we have enough people now that hardware refresh is always going on, so we're always potentially in the market for a laptop or two.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bose QuietComfort2 headphones are quite nice
This post is a bit of shilling.
First let me say that I know the QuietComfort2 headphones are nice because I've had a pair for around three years. I work with them on frequently, I travel with them all the time, I use the heck out of them basically and they're much loved.
But they broke on a recent trip, and that reminded me of another feature I like about them: support. Bose replaced them for me (3 year old headphones!!) with a new pair for $50 ($50!!). If you haven't bought them because they cost a lot (and they *do* cost a lot) you should know that you're going to get a set of headphones that will last and last, and if they don't, you'll be able to get a new pair without taking out a loan
First let me say that I know the QuietComfort2 headphones are nice because I've had a pair for around three years. I work with them on frequently, I travel with them all the time, I use the heck out of them basically and they're much loved.
But they broke on a recent trip, and that reminded me of another feature I like about them: support. Bose replaced them for me (3 year old headphones!!) with a new pair for $50 ($50!!). If you haven't bought them because they cost a lot (and they *do* cost a lot) you should know that you're going to get a set of headphones that will last and last, and if they don't, you'll be able to get a new pair without taking out a loan
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