Matlab (core) will go up to $2.2k US in January. MathWorks gets you with the core and all the linked toolboxes. For the computational finance case, that adds up to an additional $7.6k US plus about 18% of the total price for the annual software maintenance service. It is too bad MathWorks...
Have your pst's, or your location where you download your email, in an encrypted partition that is password protected. Win7 ultimate has Bitdefender, and open source Truecrypt are some options.
Got some snail-mail adverts from generictrade.com. Anyone have any feedback on this broker, especially if it is really true about no minimum balance and $0.59 commissions? Thanks...