Internet Explorer 9 was released to Web (RTW) March 14th, 2011. Here are some things you'll like about IE 9:

Development: IE 9 will focus on the HTML5 standard. It's the most standards based browser that Microsoft has ever shipped. But standards compliance, while eagerly awaited, comes at a cost. Some websites will not fully support the new browser, so these sites will need to be upgraded to work on IE9.

Be warned that Internet Explorer 9 is not available to Windows Xp users.

Speed: It's as fast or faster than other browsers and vastly faster than Internet Explorer 8.

Dynamic Content: Content, until now mostly static, will integrate high-quality video, interactive features and generally slicker interfaces.

Interface: This interface is exceptionally clean and sparce, much like Chrome. The focus is on the web site and not on the browser.

The Verdict: IE9 is big step forward for Microsoft — not to mention for the Internet. It's extremely stable for a beta and developers shouldn't hesitate to download it.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has told industry analysts that the software giant is working in cooperation with device manufacturers to develop a customized version of Windows 7 for tablets. Although Apple has created an entirely new tablet market without Microsoft's participation, Ballmer noted that much the same thing happened with netbooks.

Microsoft went from having no Windows penetration on netbooks in the early days to seeing Windows become "the guiding piece of software" in a market subsegment that now accounts for 15 percent or so of all PCs shipped worldwide, Ballmer observed.

"Just like we had to make things happen on netbooks, we've got to make things happen with Windows 7 on slates" in cooperation with Microsoft's hardware partners, Ballmer said. "We are in the process of doing that as we speak." Ballmer had promised a Windows 7 slate computer by Christmas 2010, but alas, it didn't happen.

There's a tendency of many real estate investors to rely on "rules of thumb" for valuation in spite of the attendent problems that go with it. But I was surprised to hear a fund manager (while watching CNBC) talk about his use of the "PEG RATIO" for valuing stock prices. Even more astonishing was how widely used the ratio is — even by well regarded money managers such as Peter Lynch, the former manager of the wildly successful Fidelity Magellan Fund.

The Peg Ratio is a relationship of a company's Price Earnings Ratio to it's expected growth rate. Specifically, it's defined as:

(Stock Price/Earnings) / percent growth in earnings
which is simply: PE ratio / percentage growth in earnings

A lower ratio is "better" (cheaper) and a higher ratio is "worse" (expensive). A ratio of 1 is said to be fairly priced.

The PEG ratio is strictly a rule of thumb and has no accepted underlying mathematical basis. In fact you can see the units of the ratio don't make any sense. In addition, you can see the how the ratio breaks down at the extremes. For example, as a company's growth in earnings approach 0, its fair price also approaches zero, which is of course nonsense. For this reason, the ratio is generally only applied to so-called growth companies (those growing earnings significantly faster than the market).

Call me silly, but I just don't get it. But then again, Peter Lynch is a gazillionaire — and I'm not!

The U.S. economy grew at a 1.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2010, 2.6% in the third quarter and 2.8% in the fourth quarter. The 2010 GDP has now been adjusted to 3.1% for the year. The trend is good but it doesn't feel like a recovery.

The loss of 8.4 million jobs caused by the recession, which ended in June 2009, continues to dog the economy with consumer confidence and consumer spending hitting lows. In addition, the housing market is still very weak and foreclosures continue at a record pace.

On a positive note, corporate profits are good and the stock market has regained much of its losses. However, this has not resulted in a significant increase in jobs.

Below is a chart looking at the growth in GDP for the last few years.

What's the Fed (Federal Reserve Board of which Ben Bernanke is the Chairman) going to do with regard to interest rates? Nothing for the foreseeable future. Here's the current Federal Funds Rate.