Works-ing for Free?

Yep. In an effort to appease the many, many people who think Microsoft needs to make productivity software more affordable, Works 9.0 will be available on new systems soon, for free.

As long as you don't mind ads in the corner. Or a software package that hooks itself up to the web to update the ad content. Is it just me or do most of us spend money on software every year to STOP programs on our computer that access the Internet and download ads to our systems?

For the retail price of $40 you can get a key to make this ad-supported Works ad-free. Or download the trial version of Office 2007 (for free - but only for a limited time).

Frankly, I've always thought of Works as substandard software - just enough functionality to tick a girl off and not enough to allow you to really get any work done. For my money-or lack thereof-I'll take OpenOffice any day!

Surface Computing

I know a lot of people have seen this, but it has recently come into the news once again. What is it? Microsofts latest "super gadget" the Surface Computer.

Surface computing is straight out of science fiction. Remember in the movie "Deja Vu" they had that nifty screen that covered an entire wall? They could walk up to it and interact with it, even multiple people at a time? Well, that is part of the theory behind the surface computer.

Additionally, the surface computer is able to connect to specially designed devices that rest on top of it. What to move pictures from your laptop to your PDA? No problem: draw a circle around the them with your finger, and drag them on over!

Here are a couple of interesting articles that go more indept into the features and benefits Microsoft is promising in their first Surface Computer:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-29MSSurfacePR.mspx

Happy Birthday UPS!

UPS Turns 100 today.

For more info on the company's origins (a nifty story, incidentally, and kind of inspiring to small business owners) and history, check it out here.

Yahoo! news also did a story on the UPS anniversary earlier this month, but the reliability of their news links leaves a bit to be desired. If it's still up, you can find the story here.

Here's to you, UPS!

Receptionists and admins all over the world thank you for making the driver's uniform a pair of shorts! ;-)

Technology & the Future of Business

This is a fantastic article from Entrepreneur.com. The focus is on the impact of technology on small business.

It makes a number of excellent points about mobility, accessibility, and networking. Since I will be on the road this weekend the mobility aspect is priceless to me. I love being up to able to pick up and go and still get my work done.

What better way to take advantage of new tech advances than to hire a VA? All the benefits of an employee, none of the overhead. What's not to love?

A pretty cool thing...

There was a recent discussion on a listserv I am on talking about how much personal information we should share with clients, each other, the general public, etc. I try to keep things professional, yes, but I like to think people realize I'm a human too, just not someone that moves numbers around all day *laugh*. I'm also pretty open with my life. If anyone wants to find something out about me, it's not that hard ;)

Having said that... at the risk of over-sharing, I wanted to share kind of a cool thing that is happening in my life right now. We owned a home several years ago, but it was a money pit and we eventually sold it to get out of it and vowed to never buy a house again. Plus I don't like fixing stuff when it breaks - I just pick up the phone and call someone. I still do that actually.

Anyway, so we are living in a 4 bedroom home that I just love (see that picture over there? Look at all those bookcases! They are full now of course - about 600 lovely books) and my son absolutely loves his school and we have the best neighbors in the world and we have this amazing backyard. It seemed so silly to move so we had every intention of staying here forever... until the landlord told us he was going to sell it. Talk about panic!

So... we are buying this house. I wasn't all that thrilled about it to be honest at first given the nightmare that was our first home. But then I realized. Oh my goodness. We are able to BUY A HOUSE. Our income in our business is such that we can afford and the bank approves of us having a mortgage. I realize this is not a big deal for some people, but you know... I think it's pretty cool. What a measure of success for me. Oh, I still have a lot of places I want to take OffAssist, but this is for sure a major milestone. Tom and I run this business together. It IS our income and we are good at what we do. It feels pretty darn good to know that we are actually making a living doing what we love and doing it ourselves.

Have a great weekend everyone... and thanks for letting me babble :)

The Paperclip Saga Continues...

If you read The Paperclip Rebellion, you are probably wondering what exactly DID happen to Penelope. Well, to answer your question, I'm going to share the email that went out to my friend.

====

Dear X,

We apologize for the delay in getting back to you on the status of Penelope. In her "delicate condition" we just could not bear the thought of her going through the hazards of the US Postal Service. You see, shortly after she arrived here, she had a liaison with one of our domestic paperclips name Louie. Louie has been a great help to us through the years, and it took us completely by surprise when Louie suddenly disappeared. It was at this time that Penelope came to us in tears and informed us that she was expecting.

Yes, Penelope was pregnant!

Since this happened while Penelope was in our care, we take full responsibility. We have taken the burden of her medical bills, and those of the child, upon ourselves. We would not even imagine asking you for any sort of compensation. The joy of having Penelope, and now little Claude, in our house has been recompense enough.

To add even more happiness to the tale: Louie has come home! He and Penelope have been through counseling together and have decided to make a go at being a real family. Louie is currently working on Candy's desk. He recently got a promotion and is in charge of holding our contract to purchase our house together. Penelope is so proud, and little Claude is the spitting image of his Daddy!

So, as you can see, we just cannot see our way to break this new family up. Penelope has applied for citizenship in our household. We hope that you will not hold this against her, as she seemed very happy with your household but has found the love of her life in ours.

Penelope, Louie, and Little Claude send their best!

PS: Wow..you might want to start thinking about putting in place some immigration restrictions. Penelope has been preaching the glories of your household to many of the other paper clips on Candy's desk. Looks like we might want to go into the paper clip tourist trade!

PSS: I'm enclosing a picture of Penelope with her new daughter for you.

Not-Seeing Spots - Color Laser Tracking

Did you know that your color laser printer may be telling tales?

Apparently many of them print tiny yellow microdots, invisible to the naked eye but that show up under blue LED light in a dark room, on your documents. It is supposedly security encoding, but no one knows what information is encoded in the dots, other than the device serial number.

According to what little has been said by printer manufacturers and the government (both in the US and the EU), the dot identifiers are intended to be a counterfeiting deterrent and a way to help the government locate and prosecute counterfeiters.

The big problem I see with this is that no one will talk about it. No one will come out and say "this is the mark - this is the information encoded in it". There is too much unknown from the consumer end. It also deprives people of their anonymity.

Technically, anonymity is not a guaranteed right, but it sure as heck encourages free speech--how many of you read (or write!) an anonymous blog? One where the writer can unload about life or work in a way that will protect them from reprisal. That is the glory of anonymity and THAT is what this printer watermarking takes from people.

Seriously. People have been faking money for as long as nations have been making money, color printers aren't really the problem Big Bro!

There are a few really good articles out there on this, so I'm just going to give you a list, starting with the first one I read:

Seeing yellow over color printer tracking devices at LinuxJournal.com

Seeing Yellow - official web home of the campaign to stamp out printer tracking

Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents at PC World's site - one of the first articles to report printer device tracking

Mac vs. PC

I just finished answering an e-mail from a client asking which was better: Mac or PC. The whole of that conversation will be in my next techtip. However, there was one topic that I did not touch upon, and thought I would cover it now.

Virus Protection

So the Mac people would have you believe that Apple computers are immune from viral attacks. This is just not true. The truth of the matter is that 99.9% of virus' are targeted at Windows operating systems. Seriously, if you were going to spend the time to write software, at which market would you target you product?

Windows: 90%
Linux: 6.5%
Apple: 3.5%

Yes, I think I would go for the Windows computers as well. As have most major software and hardware manufacturers.

So yes, Windows is more susceptible to viral attacks. However, if Apple and Linux get their wishes, soon they will be facing many of the same difficulties facing Windows. Of course, we all know that hackers adapt faster than large corporations.

Which do you think with get to the Mac first: the virus', or the software to prevent them?

Preparing for the Great Unknown

Success and stability are fragile things, like Jenga. All it takes is removing one of the many bricks in the tower to bring it all crashing down.

That one brick can be something different for each person, family, or business. The most common unforeseen disaster people face is job loss. Also high on the list is sudden and/or severe physical or mental illness. The death of a loved one, a parent in failing health who suddenly needs full-time care. A major storm that damages your home or business.

All of these things can bring your carefully built financial tower down if you don't have some sort of plan in place. Think of it as emergency management.

The most stressful thing about many of these situations is the financial burden it causes. Accountingweb had a really great excerpt last month from Gail Perry's Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies about emergency funds. It gives brief info on how much you should have in your fund, where to find it, some rough guidelines for when to use it and when not to.

Here are a couple of other good articles on emergency funds:

Building an Emergency Fund at Bankrate.com

The $0 Emergency Fund at MSNMoney.com offers a different take

Need to Know? Call VANetworking!

Tawnya Sutherland, of VANetwortking.com, wants everyone to know about VAs.

VAs have been in the media a lot lately, with features on ABC, the Today show, and Tawnya's recent interview with a Philadelphia radio station.

To make it easier for practicing VAs and the media to connect, Tawnya has created a web-based survey asking VAs a variety of questions that may be helpful to media contacts. What is your primary niche? Specialty? Location? How long in business? etc.

Read Tawnya's press release here.

If you are a VA and would like to take part in the survey (I did it a week or so ago), it will be open until September 15, 2007. VAs who participate will be credited in the final survey results with a link to their website. You can find the survey HERE.

Presenting... "My Grad School Application"

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.

VA's in the Chicago area might want to check this out - a whole new market for those skilled in presentation creation.

"It's possible that kittens are the wave of the future,"

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!

Spreadsheet Error & Human Error

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

Excel-erating Spam

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.

~~~

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?

Lucky Catch?

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

The Paperclip Rebellion...

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...

========

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.

Open Office Goes Back to School

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.

Accounting Standards

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.

I'm Jealous! Superfast Internet in Sweden

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

***

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.

Pass/Fail - IRS Password Training Fails

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.

The Light Bulb

Most of you guys know I'm a forum addict. I love to post on forums and email loops. I like having that camaraderie and helping people as well as learning... someone posted this and while it's pretty old, it's still correct! Special thanks to Rhonda for posting it again :)

How many forum members does it take to change a light bulb?

1 to change the light bulb.

1 to post that the light bulb has been changed.

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

53 to flame the spell checkers.

6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... Another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive.

2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp".

15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct.

156 to email the participant's ISPs complaining that they are in violation of their "acceptable use policy".

109 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum.

203 to demand that cross posting to hardware forum, off-topic forum, and lightbulb forum about changing light bulbs be stopped.

111 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum.

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty.

27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URLs.

27 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too".

12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

19 to quote the "Me too's" to say "Me three".

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.

44 to ask what is a "FAQ"?

4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"

143 to say "do a search on 'light bulbs' before posting questions about light bulbs".

1 new forum member to respond to the original post 6 months from now and to start it all over again.

Tell Me Your Tax Problems

That's what the IRS is saying according to this article from accountingweb.

The gist of it that the IRS is asking businesses to report frequently disputed or controversial tax issues to their Industry Issue Resolution (IIR) Program.

The important fact is that the deadline for submitting an issue for the fall reviews is August 31, 2007. More information can be found on the IRS website. The program has been in use since 2000 and has resulted in 25 determinations - decisions helping clarify how tricky tax situations should be handled.

IIR Submission Procedures


Overview of the IIR Program

IRS Seeks In-Depth Info

The IRS is proposing changes to how corporations and partnerships report their taxes. As I understand it, they are basically asking for more in-depth ownership information from these types of business entities.

As I understood it, the gist is that the government wants to know the names and numbers of anyone who owns more than 10% of the stock in a corporation and more than 10% interest in a partnership. They also want to know from the corporations and partners what businesses or assets they (they being the corporate or partnership entity) own more than 10% of.

To my non-tax person's eyes this looks like a way to clean up dodgy tax reporting and offshore tax shelters since the new forms will require reporting of both foreign and domestic ownership.

The good news is that these new forms appear to only apply to large, complex entities. There are income thresholds involved, both for those who would have to use the new forms, and a new minimum that will (slightly) decrease the amount of tax paperwork smaller businesses have to file.

After a bit of digging around on the IRS website I was unable to find the original press release. I'm sure there was one because the two articles I read on the subject, at accountingweb and at smbiz.com, read identically, nearly word-for-word.

Both the above linked articles have links to the proposed forms on the IRS website. If adopted, these forms would kick in for tax years ending on or after 12/31/08. The IRS is accepting public input and commentary on the new forms until 9/14/07.

IRS Tax Info for Partnerships Page

IRS Tax Info for Corporations Page

Both of the above have links to the new forms, too.

Search Me!

We've all visited websites that offer visitors the option of searching the site. Many of these sites even use a Google branded search, Google's free Custom Search Engine.

The downside, from a business owner's perspective, is that in addition to the requested information from your site, visitors also get Google AdWords ads on their search results page.

For some businesses this may be the difference between using Google's search and someone else's. .
Google now offers a third alternative. Their paid Custom Search Business Edition. Companies can pay between $100-$500 annually for a hosted, customizable site search engine. Pricing is based on the number of pages to be indexed/searched. Users with extremely large sites can also use the Google appliance (please don't ask me what that is, I got all this from AccountingWeb!)

Texting for Dollars

This article is about a guy who lost a text messaging contest at a state fair due to a missing exclamation point.

A silly bit of news in and of itself, but a slightly scary sign of the times. TEXTING contests at a state fair? I mean, I guess it is slightly healthier than all those old eating contests, future carpal tunnel surgery aside, but it seems a bit sad.

I wonder if people with full QWERTY keypads were handicapped...?

A Day Off...

Those of you here in Austin know that we've had the wettest and weirdest Summer in recent history. My niece is here visiting and we had all this fun stuff planned around office hours, but it wouldn't stop raining!

Late Wednesday night, I looked at my schedule and workload (not to mention the weather forecast), contacted my main sub and by 11pm we had bought tickets to head to Sea World all day Thursday. Who has the ability to do that? Not many people. It made me realize how much I appreciate what I do, that those long hours working have paid off, all that marketing coming to fruition. Yeah, a few things came up, but I had the ability to check email, send a text message to my team members and go on and enjoy the park. My kids? Well, they think mom and dad are pretty cool :)

We had a great time and loved every minute of it. And my clients? They were well taken care of.

I truly am grateful that all of our hard work has paid off. As OffAssist gets more mature, it makes me feel a sense of accomplishment, but more than that, a sense of pride. And, ya know, I shouldn't panic when I think about taking an unscheduled day off. So what? As long as the clients get the very best service and I get some much needed R&R, it's all good...

Some pics from our day just because I can never pass up an opportunity to show off my little cuties...

L-to-R: Jamie (6), Cassie (4) and cousin Marie (8) - And yes, that really is what life with Cassie is like.

Credit Worthy!

This is not particularly important news, but it is funny. The story was in several different places, but only AP had video.

Man Receives TWO THOUSAND Identical Exxon/Mobil Credit Cards

I agree with him, though, that it is very disturbing that the company cannot seem to explain how this error occurred. More appalling is the fact that they would not take them back and credited him a lousy $100 for his trouble--he spent three hours shredding the darn things!