losses

Stockwatch is a very basic way to view and monitor your stock values. With a setup that is incredibly simple to navigate and provides just the essential numbers, this is a great tool for beginning stock traders.

We had no trouble with the program's interface, since it was built with Excel and is basically a well-designed spreadsheet. At no point in running this program did we feel like we needed any guidance. We enjoyed the simplicity of Stockwatch; it contained simply a tab for Current stocks and one for Sold stocks. The program smartly included a box to fill … Read more

Updated 8:57 a.m. PDT with information from the conference call.

Despite improvements in its network reliability and customer service, Sprint Nextel is still losing high-value customers as the company reported a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter of 2009.

The company reported a loss of $384 million, or 13 cents a share, compared with a loss of $344 million, or 12 cents a share, during the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue also fell about 10 percent to $8.14 billion. Analysts had expected a loss of 2 cents a share on revenue of $8.13 billion, according … Read more

Mealformation is a multifunction food tracker that allows users to create meal plans, track their food intake, and analyze their nutrition. Overall it is a solid program, although some aspects of it could be more intuitive or better explained.

The interface is fairly straightforward, with various functions--personal profile, a food database, a recipe database, and so on--organized in tabs. The thing that threw us about the program is that it's never made clear what content is included and what content has to be user-generated. It turns out that the program does contain a fairly large database of foods, meaning … Read more

Eating tends to be a social thing. Dropping the pounds that result from such sociability, however, is mostly a solitary experience, requiring lonely denial in the kitchen and often lonelier miles on the footpath or bike trail. Small wonder, then, that most attempts to lose weight fail.

It doesn't have to be this way, of course, and an application I've been using on my iPhone suggests a way to open-source the weight-loss experience, making dropping pounds a social, fun experience.

CNET recently profiled several weight-loss applications for the computer, some of which have a social element to them.

It's a good list, but my favorite application by far in this category is Lose It!, a free app for the iPhone.

Lose It! makes it easy to track calories, monitor exercise, and track progress toward weight-loss goals. Because my iPhone is always with me, Lose It! follows me around, too, reminding me how much that bar of chocolate is going to cost me in terms of gym time, facilitating rational calorie intake/burn.

Where Lose It! fails, as do all of these weight-loss applications, is in making this process truly social.

Fixing this would give FitNow, the developer of Lose It!, a serious revenue model that would turn a seemingly universal human desire to look/feel better into a great way to make money.

Here are a few ideas for the FitNow team, several of which Bryce Roberts, a good friend and fellow Lose It! junkie (in fact, it was Bryce's example that got me using the application), offered up while we were mountain biking last week (so that we could gorge on high-calorie foods later in the day :-):… Read more

Memorial Day is fast approaching, and we're all thinking about our plans for the summer. For those of us planning beach trips, it's time for the body to come out of winter hibernation.

Earlier this year, we looked at services that give you exercising tips. But good exercise, as experts say, isn't everything behind a great beach bod. Eating well is another major component.

Below is a roundup of tools that help you track your calorie intake and exercise routines, as well as help you find support from others who are working toward the same goal.

A Calorie Counter Tracking your calorie intake is important. That's why A Calorie Counter is a useful tool. It enables you to search the USDA Food Nutrition database for anything you've eaten throughout the day. Once you find what you're looking for in the results, it reveals nutritional facts and a box that lets you change your serving size. When you update your serving size, the nutritional fact image changes to show you exactly how many calories you consumed. I was happy with the size of the database, and changing your serving size takes seconds.

BuddySlim.com BuddySlim operates on the belief that trying to lose weight alone is too difficult. Because of that, it enables folks who are trying to lose weight to form communities around their common goals and inspire each other to keep exercising. The site lets you search for others by diet, exercise, goals, location, or gender. Once you find a "buddy," you can keep in touch through a free e-mail account the site provides, as well as blogs and forums. The tool itself features a weight tracker so you (and others) can monitor your progress. But the real value of BuddySlim is its active, engaging community.

The Daily Plate The Daily Plate is primarily a calorie counter. But it does quite a bit more. The site lets you track how many calories you've burned by exercising throughout the day. You can set up weight goals and track your progress toward them with charts and graphs. Although I was happy with The Daily Plate, I wasn't overly pleased with its calorie tracking. It's not nearly as useful as A Calorie Counter.

DietTV.com This site provides an end-to-end healthy lifestyle service with calorie tracking. But one of its best features is the option to create a workout regimen. It asks you for your current weight, finds out what your ideal weight would be, determines what kind of exercises you'd like to do, and creates a full-body workout.

I was able to create a regimen that included 60 minutes of exercise, four days a week, on an elliptical machine, supplemented by weight exercises to build muscle mass. It was a fantastic tool. I also liked that DietTV lets you join a support group. Since forcing yourself to work out can be difficult at times, joining the various support groups on DietTV could help you stay motivated. Each group lets you upload your weight, include photos of your progress, and communicate with others. It's a great system that more of these tools should have.… Read more

Considering all the horror stories we hear about photos hosted on Facebook and people, you know, losing their jobs over them, maybe this isn't such a bad thing: The social network acknowledged in a blog post on Sunday evening that 10 percent to 15 percent of the billions of photos it hosts were affected by a storage problem, replaced by a question mark.

But they aren't permanently gone, the post by engineer Evan Priestley insisted. "We've already repaired about one-third of affected photos and expect to complete repairs on another third tonight," he explained. "… Read more

As layoffs continue apace, a survey released on Monday shows what many companies fear--exiting workers are taking a lot more with them than just their personal plants and paperweights.

Of about 950 people who said they had lost or left their jobs during the last 12 months, nearly 60 percent admitted to taking confidential company information with them, including customer contact lists and other data that could potentially end up in the hands of a competitor for the employee's next job stint.

"I don't think these people see themselves as being thieves or as stealing," said … Read more

Here's something we haven't seen before: a headset designed to lessen the damaging effect loud music and gaming can potentially have on the ears. Able Planet introduced the PS500MM gaming headset back in December of 2008, claiming that the device's onboard "Link Audio" technology will soften the blow to your eardrums.

Basically the technology is supposed to prevent the user from having to raise the volume in order to drown out background noise. Interestingly enough, it was first developed for those with mild to severe hearing loss. AblePlanet claims it's patented Link Audio technology … Read more

Applied Materials warned Monday of a first-quarter loss. One of the biggest charges cited was doubtful accounts, as customers failed to pay up.

The largest maker of chip production equipment said that it expects a net loss in the range of 9 cents to 11 cents per share for its first fiscal quarter, which ended January 25. It pointed to a restructuring charge of approximately $133 million (or 6 cents per share) associated with a cost reduction program announced on November 12, 2008, as the largest charge. At that time, Applied said it would cut 1,800 jobs, or about … Read more