Archive for September, 2007

Well, you might want to wait. If you have upgraded in the last 2 years, chances are a few tweaks and some “cleaning” can keep your old computers limping along another year or so. Why wait?

AMD has just announced the release of their Quad Core CPU’s.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33762/135/

What does this mean for you? It means that the pricing of the “old” Dual Core technology CPU’s are going to be plummeting over the next year as AMD and retailers try to clear inventory. Probably the best time to buy will be around this time next year. Even better, closer to the 2008 Xmas holidays.

Now if only they had released this LAST month before I bought my top end Dual Core system…

Really, I just don’t know what to say.

Check out the article for yourself, about Cary Malchow of Muncie, Indiana. In a gesture of protest at rising property taxes, he paid his tax bill, all $12K + of it, in person. In coins and one-dollar bills.

There’s another article here, detailing how his protest cost his county because employees were kept late counting the cash (overtime) while under guard by sheriff’s deputies (security costs) and could not make the nightly deposit (an estimated $1100 lost in interest-for that ONE day!).

Okay, so I can think of lots of things TO say, but I think I’ll hold my tongue. I own a home in one of the most expensive (property tax-wise) places to do so. And I pay those taxes happily in lieu of a state income tax.

It is tempting to start saving change for the IRS, though. Have you SEEN the self-employment tax rate?

That seems to be the message corporate America is sending, at least at the managerial and executive levels.

A recent AP article shines a light on the efforts companies are making to retain executives, particularly women, who take time off for family reasons. Programs vary from scaling work levels up or down based on home-life needs to mentoring employees on extended leave and inviting them to come back for networking events.

Employee turnover is one of the most expensive budget items for any business. The higher up the chain of command the employee is, the more expensive they are to replace. Some of the programs described in the article sounded pretty expensive to me; I can only imagine how costly turnover is if these programs are the money-saving alternative.

Which is not to say I’m not glad to see it. I just wish it extended down the career ladder, too. In the meantime I think I’ll keep working for myself. That way I know the boss will approve my time off

Many of us learned computing in the days of DOS, when there was no mouse and if you didn’t know the keys to do something you were in trouble (think WordPerfect 5.0)!

With the advent of GUIs (do I really need to explain this one?) the mouse became a dominant force in how we interact with our computers and software. This is great for the web surfing, but leaves a bit to be desired when working with large documents or spreadsheets.

Here to save us from scroll-wheel induced carpal tunnel is a great article from CFO.com on 10 keyboard shortcuts for Excel. I know I added it to my bookmarks.

Candy, like me, is a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. Her response to this article was, “Cool! I’m a keyboard junkie and Excel always makes me crazy with all the clicking clicking clicking!“

Who hasn’t heard of Wikipedia, the giant Internet-based, user-generated encyclopedia?

If you’ve spent any time looking up information at Wikipedia you probably understand how it works. It is a giant interactive forum where anyone can log in and create or edit entries; basically a giant collaborative project.

When was the last time you had to work on a collaborative project? How long did it take just to find a time when everyone could get together? Longer than you wanted it to, probably.

Wikis allow for real-time online collaboration. Many of them include features that allow users to track changes to the collaborative areas, determine who made a change and when, and, if necessary, restore to an earlier version.

The corporate world, home of bloated meeting schedules and frequent lack of productivity on collaborative projects, is coming to see the sense of wikis, according to this recent accountingweb article.

Another great use for wikis is in academics, from junior high to doctoral programs. Some wikis we here at OffAssist like are Google Docs and Spreadsheets and the wiki feature of Backpack found at backpackit.com.

Candy says, “One of my corporate clients uses a wiki – I LOVE it – it keeps us all up to date on what’s going on and houses all those pesky questions that people ask over and over and over .”

The first I heard of the issue of digital rights and royalties for Internet radio was this article from internetnews.com.

A lot of it went over my head. I’ve gotten pretty knowledgeable about written work rights in the last couple of years for obvious reasons, but music and movie rights issues go right over my head.

This article reminded me a lot of the whole Napster-Metallica (and others, I just like picking on Lars Ulrich) debacle, but seems to be lower key. I didn’t know streaming audio webcasters had to pay royalties.

Does that mean regular radio stations have to, too? I always thought it was the artists pleading to the stations to play their work (think That Thing You Do or DreamGirls), not expecting to paid when their music is played.