Archive for August, 2007

The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) is the first graduate program in the U.S. to require a PowerPoint presentation be submitted as part of the application process.

Many schools have been encouraging additional application material that takes advantage of new technology, everything from online applications to, well, PowerPoint presentations, but the Chicago GSB is the first to require it of applicants.

Presentations are limited to four slides (eh? what the heck are they gonna learn about someone in FOUR slides?) with no video or web links.

I did a bit of digging on the Chicago GSB site and could not find any reference to this requirement on their sparse application info site, so I’m relying on what I found on accountingweb.

VAs in the Chicago area might want to check this out – a whole new market for those skilled in presentation creation.

says Kevin Larson (no relation that I know of), a researcher at Microsoft.

Check out the full accountingweb article here.

I don’t know how newsworthy it is, but, well, how often am I going to get to type something like, “… kittens are the wave of the future,”? It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Enjoy & have a great weekend!

Today seemed like a good day to post this, since we were just talking about Excel yesterday…

Apparently errors are almost inevitable in spreadsheets, and those who research spreadsheet errors (I am dying to ask if these people have a hobby, but then I remember I read grammar books for fun) have wildly varying opinions on the problem, ranging from It’s bad to think to Spreadsheet error correction and audit cost more than the original error.

Having seen some of those error rates and their numeric impact, I have a hard time with the latter.

However, since I am not a statistician or a true numbers gal, if you want the real scoop, start with the accountingweb article I read, then you can move on to the research page for the gentleman quoted in the article. If that confuses you as much as it does me, check out the last link to Louise Pryor’s blog. She breaks it down in a way that makes the whole error issue a little more comprehensible.

Spreadsheet error research: Wasted time worse than mistakes

Ray Panko’s SSR (spreadsheet research) Site

Louise Pryor on Spreadsheet Error Rates

A July 23rd ComputerWorld article warns against opening those Excel attachments from unknown senders. No, it’s not a virus alert, it’s Spam–and not the tasty kind in a can!

As spam filters get better and better, spammers get more and more devious.

First it was the move from misspelling text to avoid keyword filters to images, to avoid any type of content-oriented filtering.

Then spam moved into zip files and I got mail with things like “facts.zip” attached.

In the last couple of months–based solely on the contents of my junkmail box–spam has been hiding in pdf attachments with pseudo-convincing file names like “check-794216998.pdf”.

Now CommTouch, an enterprise spam detection software company, tells us the word for spam is Excel. As in Excel (.xls) attachments. The .xls schtick is especially popular with the stock scam spammers, according to CommTouch.

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I have to ask, though. The Internet has been around for a while now. Do people REALLY still click on files sent from unfamiliar names or email addresses?

Maybe not.

The 21-year-old college student who caught Barry Bonds record-breaking home run ball may be in for a world of trouble with the IRS.

Tax lawyers fall squarely around the issue, some going with the common sense approach that, although the ball is estimated to be worth over $500,000 at auction, the ball is not income until it is sold.

Others claim the ball is taxable immediately, the same way treasure found diving in U.S. coastal waters is.

Still others claim that it is both immediately taxable (for approximately $210,000 in taxes based on estimated worth of $600,000) and subject to long-term capital gain taxes if the young fan waits more than a year to sell his prize.

Then there’s the question of how to determine the initial investment value of a ball the man caught for free…

For more on this silly (yet scary, and the IRS is refusing to comment thus far) tax question, check out the articles below:

WSJ Law Blog: Barry Bonds’ Ball

WSJ Journal Online: The Big Catch Could Have a Big Catch

TheStar.com: Mets fan could face big tax bill for snagging Bonds’ ball

KITV Honolulu: Fan Might Not Sell Bonds’ Historic Ball

I have someone I work with on a very regular basis and we have a running joke because someone once insisted that she send back all of the paperclips they sent to her on some documents. It’s like some weird twisted joke we have going on… when she last sent me some stuff, she put a note telling me she wanted hers back (haha). So, you know what I did right? I kept the envelope, the paperclips AND the rubber band she used and carefully packaged them back up and mailed the little suckers back to her…

I got this in my email… I laughed so hard I cried…

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Dear Candy,

Thank GOD you sent those paperclips back to me. I have been unable to work without them and it has really hindered my work efficiency to not have junior, elsa, carlos and all the other little guys back on my desk.

I do however see that little Penelope did not make it back to me – was this because she was a favorite of yours? I know that she is really irresistible being pink and all but I do miss her so please send her on her way home.

Now that most of my paperclips are back home, hopefully the staples will quiet down. They have been demanding a pay increase since I have been using their services more and more without the paperclips. They are Union you know and they have incited the tape dispensers to join in with them so I am in a bit of a predicament. The paperclips, who are Italians, are the head honchos around here so I am sure that they will put the staples and tape dispensers back in their place.

Shhhh I need to go the binder clips are starting to revolt as they got used to being in the paperclips holder by themselves and aren’t taking the intrusion kindly.

In a bold move, computer manufacturer Everex and retail mega-giant WalMart have combined forces to put an economy PC with full productivity software in the hands of students and small businesses for the low retail price of $299.

How?

OpenOffice, of course.

The retailer–okay, I have to take a moment to say I strenuously object to this company’s employment practices and am trying to avoid using their name again–is pushing the PCs (monitor NOT included) as part of their back-to-school sales campaign.

For the Earth lovers among us, the computer also features an energy efficient VIA C7-D processor. I know absolutely nothing about computer energy efficiency, maybe Tom will chime in here. I can tell you that the E-Commerce News article I read made it sound like a good thing.

To be honest, this is one someone forwarded to me that I only have a surface understanding of, so I’ll tell you what I gleaned and link back to the source for you inquiring mind types.

Basically, there seem to be two possible methods of financial accountability, GAAP (general accepted accounting practices) which is used in the U.S. and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) an international standard.

The SEC is asking constituents their opinion of allowing companies to report using IFRS rather than GAAP. The FASB has had a project in the works to eliminate the differences between the two systems for several years and some are concerned that allowing companies the option to choose may endanger that project.

I readily admit, not being a CFO or much of a numbers person, that on the surface I can’t see a downside to switching to an international standard. More and more businesses are operating internationally, from mega-companies like Coke and McDonald’s who have been international for decades, to the VA writing this post who has clients in the US and abroad. If companies want to do business outside the US, and, especially, if they want to seek international financial backing, wouldn’t it make the most sense to use an accounting system understood by investors anywhere on the globe? Am I oversimplifying?

To get the non-Dy version of the scoop, check out the source article I read on CFO.com. The SEC will be taking for approximately the next three months–more details and links at the source.

You can read all the nitty-gritty details in the Newsvine article here.

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How fast is that? I mean, 40 gigabits-per-second! I didn’t even know gigabits was a word. Download a full-length movie in TWO SECONDS?

I wonder if this is the wave of the future? Doesn’t telephone already use fiber-optic cabling? Could uber-Internet be in the cards for the rest of us? I hope so!

Failing that, I wonder if I can adopt that Swedish woman’s son and get him to put one of those fiber-optic connections in my house? It’d make downloading the episodes of “LOST” I missed last season a lot less tedious.

Information Week passed on some disturbing information about the IRS earlier this week. According to the IRS Inspector General, approximately 60% of all IRS employees failed a social engineering security test.

Employees, including managers and contractors, were called by someone pretending to be technical support who told them an issue with the computers could be solved by changing their password to one recommended by the caller. Of 102 people contacted, 61% did what the caller asked.

These are people with access to taxpayer’s sensitive information blindly giving away the farm–well, maybe just the network, but you get my meaning. This type of call is basically the verbal equivalent of those phishing emails we all get purporting to be from eBay or PayPal. IRS employees could have been handing over access to 14 year-old hackers for all the attention they paid.

The IRS has indicated they will be beefing up employee security training–only 8 of the 102 people called reported the call to their administrator to verify proper procedure–for all.

Now if only the IRS can find some of the 490 computers, also filled with sensitive data, they lost between 2003-2006.

For the full skinny, check out the Inspector General’s 22 page report here.