Excel-lent!

As part of blogging for OffAssist, I've had to learn lots of accounting and numbers-related stuff I would never pay attention to otherwise.

Which has actually proven handy with the tax stuff going all crazy the last couple years (phone rebates, stimulus checks). For once I actually know what's going on and get to explain it to my husband :-)

As part of learning more about things accounting, I signed up for the accountingweb newsletters. Earlier this week I got a link to this article in my inbox. Basically, people are using Excel, in some cases in what must be some incredibly complicated in-going formulas, to create charts representing song titles or lyrics.

Now, I don't do a lot of charting myself, but I do a fair amount of desktop publishing graphics, so I had to go check out the Flickr group, here. Be warned, they also have comments attached, and sometimes the language is a little, well... Don't let your kids see it without checking it out for yourself first. How work-safe it is depends on how tolerant your boss is, no adult images, just adult language upon occasion.

Have a giggle - some of them are brilliant, others merely okay and many I didn't get at all.

This one is my personal favorite, probably because it was the first one I got. Of course, you have to be a They Might Be Giants fan, or you'll probably be unfamiliar with the song...

Nvidia vs. The World

I don't know how many of you follow computer hardware news, but recently there have been quite a few shake ups and changes in the computer hardware marketplace. A few years ago, video card manufacturer Nvidia decided to start making its own motherboard chipsets. This put them on the outs with the CPU manufacturer Intel, but made them a natural choice for an alliance with AMD.

However, earlier this year, AMD purchased ATI. ATI has long been the 2nd place player in the video card market. So now that AMD has ATI to support, it has dropped the Nvidia partnership. Add to this that Intel has announced plans to ramp up its own video card division and return video processing back to the CPU "Where it belongs". Where does all of this leave Nvidia?

So far, Nvidia has been coping fairly well. By turning to the motherboard manufacturers themselves, they have still retained support in the marketplace. However the days of get an AMD AND Nvidia SLI compatible motherboard seem over. This cuts the effective market for Nvidia video cards effectively in half.

Both Nvidia and ATI have "Top Secret" products in development planned for release at the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how this story evolves over time and what affect it will have on pricing and availability of products in the marketplace.

New York Wants More!

I first read about New York's "Amazon Tax" in April, when it was still waiting to become law. Now that it has, the online retail giant is fighting back.

Check out the first article at Gizmodo. It's old enough now that it has TONS of interesting reader comments, too.

Then check out the update at Ars Technica.

This is a bad, bad thing. As a service professional providing intangible intellectual property (writing and editing) most of what I do is not subject to Texas sales tax. If I have to worry about New York (or any other state) wanting me to collect taxes on their behalf, well, it'd be bad. Numbers are already not my forte and you're going to make me keep track of MORE?!?

*sigh*

Just to satisfy my inner conspiracy theorist, does anyone know if there are any major small business accounting software firms based in New York? I am sure widespread adoption of this type of law would be a boon to them!

PS -

Did everyone else out there that you are supposed to report online purchases to the IRS on your taxes? Dude! Turbo Tax so does not have that in their taxes-for-the-befuddled questionnaire!

OffAssist's May Newsletter

OffAssist's May 2008 newsletter is up and can be found HERE. You can always SIGN UP or view the ARCHIVES.

Since I don't usually post to the blog when it's published, I thought I would. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Dy Larson, who forgot to mention all the blogging she does for me as well. I will admit that computer geek, business and accounting news isn't exactly the most exciting thing in the world, but she makes it less painful for my little blog :)

So there. Thank YOU, Dy. You rock.

:)

Internet Ad Takeover!

According to an article last month in Editor and Publisher, Internet advertising is set to out pace both newspaper and television advertising in the UK by 2009. All I have is the topix.net blurb to refer to, since, well, OA was a wee bit busy 'round April 13th... lol.

I have to say as a lover of the printed word, this news disconcerts me. I don't read the paper, I admit it, but I think it is important. The idea that we might be all electronic one day is disturbing -- I like the feel of paper in my hands and, let's face it, advertising is what supports papers...

We're Baaaack...

The server upgrade went surprisingly well after a few initial hiccups on the first day and we are up and running! Woo hoo!

If you are one of the people who was having problems with the server, remember, Tom, our IT genius, really likes brownies :-)

Down, Doobie Doo, Down Down

Our servers, that is.

The OffAssist QuickBooks and file servers will be down this weekend, from Friday evening until Monday morning. We will be moving to a new server software during this time. We have done some initial testing and it appears that it will take care of the printing issues some of you are experiencing when using Vista - and in some instances, XP.

Within the next two months we will also be upgrading the QuickBooks version on the server. We're holding off until we can make sure the new server software is going to work well. We will, of course, let our clients know before we do this.

It should be pretty seamless for you guys, and the changes minimal.

If you have something you need to do, please get it done before Friday afternoon. We will be unable to easily access files during the upgrade.

As always, we appreciate your patience during this upgrade and rest assured that complete backups are kept and will be made once more before the upgrade happens.

If you have problems, please call the tech support line at 512-339-2255 or email tom@offassist.com.

The coffee area is stocked and we will all avoid looking the IT guy directly in the eyes for the next few days *laugh*

PS - I've heard he likes brownies, if you want to offer your support ;-)

Microsoft Going the Way of the Megalosaurus?

If you are, like many of us, not a fan of MacroSoft (you know who I mean!), then this recent Linux Journal blog post may intrigue you as much as it did me.

There's no denying the Big Company is having a bad year. The Europeans picked on them and fined them a bunch and Vista is, frankly, a disaster.

I remember the fuss over 95, because it was such a change from 3.11 (gee, my geek is showing!), and again from 95 to 2000 (uhnother mistake!), but it was nothing like the antipathy generated by Vista. I wonder if we're just all a little braver now that open-source has become so much more user-friendly for those of us who are not programmers and need easy-to-use GUI. Heh... GUI. I just like to say it, typing it isn't as much fun.

More from the IVAA Summit

Stephanie Frank presenting

From the IVAA Summit

Candy is at the IVAA Summit this week, so she is sending all of us that couldn't go some pictures to entice us for next year!


Dave lieberman is speaking... Very funny guy.


Tawnya Sutherland talks at the summit.


Award to Candy for being Slave Driver of the year! Gratz Candy!


Close up so we can "ooh" over the inscription. Wait! Whats that behind the trophy? Ah-ha! Looks like a pink handball...thought you guys were "working"???