What has happened since? Most people have no idea! The aftermath has been anticlimactic to say the least.

As Baidu, one of the biggest beneficiary of Google’s proposed withdraw from China, was downgraded this week by UBS. I decided to do a few quick searches to get an update. Apparently Google reverted its search engine in China to censored results days after the megaton announcement, a move that definitely pleased the Chinese officials, but received little coverage from Western media. The discussion between Google and China is still ongoing, and delays to Google’s official withdrawal only means Baidu cannot reap the benefits, yet……

Was Google all smoke and mirrors, or has the situation grown beyond their original expectations? Only time will tell.

This transition is designed for people to get used to the new formatting, without moving away from the root symbols that option traders are already familiar with (an argument I don’t quite agree with, I think ultimately we’re more familiar with the underlying stock symbol). Starting in March, the new OSI will kick in, featuring the underlying symbol followed by the series key.

How has this transition affected your options trading? Chime in.

For our latest website, we’re obviously going to adhere to the latest in W3C standards. By following these guidelines, you are almost assured to have websites that look, and function uniformly across all browsers.

Except for Microsoft Browsers. Which just happen to be the dominant browser out there.

Of the browser from Microsoft, IE6 is notoriously difficult to deal with. PNG transparency, not there. There are often times when you think you have made the perfect design, only to find that the page looks completely different in IE6. To make matters worse, when you finally fix things for IE6, sometimes IE7 or IE8 would break, for no apparent reason.

That’s why Google has announced that it will stop supporting IE6 at the end of this month for their feature rich web applications, such as Google Documents. I do believe that with this change, the products from Google will come faster and run more stable than now.

What does this mean for us? Firstrade encounters the same issues as Google when we are design webpages, so we’re definitely hoping Google’s actions will lead IE6 users to upgrade to newer browsers. In the meantime, rest assured that our site will continue to support IE6 and all the other popular browsers out there.

For example, only the most experienced options investor can see APVGK and immediately know that this is an Apple July 2010 $155 call. In the new format, it’ll be displayed “AAPL July 2010 $155 Call”, and entered through a series of drop-down fields. One glance and you immediately know what the option represents.

Of course, you can still select the option through option chains, which function just as before, except without the 5 character symbols.

The changes will take place in two phases. In phase 1, the “root symbol” will remain unchanged: APV for Apple, GOP for Google, etc, followed by the “July 2010 $155 Call” information. This is so the investors can get used to the new date and strike price format. In phase 2, the “root symbol” will go away and be replaced by the “underlying symbol”, which is the stock/ETF symbol we are familiar with today.

Phase 1 will take place this coming weekend, Jan 22nd. Phase 2 will happen in stages, based on the first letter of the underlying symbol. For more information on Firstrade and OSI, please click here.

Firstrade Mobile is available free to all Firstrade customers. Try it out, and feel free to leave us feedback or comments here on the blog.

First I asked for a show of hands to see who has a data plan, a few hands came up. Then I asked who has an iPhone, some hands came up.

Then I asked, who has a data plan, but no iPhone? Silence.

I remember back in the early 2000s, T-Mobile tried so hard to sell me a data plan. However it simply was not justifiable. “You can check your local weather” wasn’t too exciting. How things have changed.

Time for me to find a few phones to test out our system.

Okay, it’s not really little. In fact this is going to change how investors deal with options trading on a daily basis. Currently, options symbols are somewhat cryptic, one cannot know the strike price and expiration date just by looking at symbols. With the new setup, all the options will be descriptive, VERY descriptive. Option symbols are going from the current 3-5 character setup to 21 charaters!

We’ll provide more details regarding OSI and how Firstrade plans to adapt to the new standard. In the meantime, please take a look at details of this change by visiting http://www.optionsclearing.com/initiatives/symbology/

Back when the iPhone was released, now over 2 years ago, those with iPhones were part of the unique, or shall I say “cool” crowd. The same could be said 5 years ago in US colleges, when those who owned laptops with the glowing Apple logo really stood out. Nowadays, in some colleges, those without a Macbook are actually the minority.

Today, over half of the IT team at Firstrade has iPhones of various incarnation. I still remember launch day 2007 when everyone looked in awe and envy when a college camped out successfully and brought it in.

My goal today, however, is not to praise the iPhone. Instead I want to talk about what the iPhone did for the mobile space. By making data-driven services easy and accessible to the everyday folks, cellular phones have moved beyond calls and texting. Cell phones today are expected to check email, get maps, find reviews, etc. Believe it or not the technology has been around for over 10 years, but Apple made it easy, just as it did the personal computer back in the 80s.

This brings us to our new mobile trading platform. While the Apple smart phone is the dominant smart phone in the US today, in many other countries Microsoft and Nokia’s Symbian-based devices still have a large group of loyal users. At Firstrade, we want to make sure that every smart phone platform, and every data-capable cell phone can enjoy the benefits of trading online, with a fast and intuitive interface. In the next few weeks we’ll be releasing the Firstrade Mobility website, and I think everyone’ll be quite happy with it.

Next step, apps. That’s another post for another day.

For decades, the morning commute was a time to read the newspaper and get a head start on knowing what’s going on in the world. Nowadays, all the information dispatched to your mobile phone is personalized, customized content. With it, you can get a head-start on not just the day’s current events, but also your own tasks and duties.

That got me thinking. What more can we achieve during the morning drive outside of email, twitter and facebook? As Firstrade continues to improve its personalized site and services, how we position future mobile applications so that it improves the user’s productivity will be very important.

If you drive, please stick to the radio.

To make it up to you guys, the October newsletter will be packed with more exciting tidbits about the upcoming beta. We are closely monitoring the blogs, Twitter and Facebook for your feedback, and you will not be disappointed when we launch this