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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Google Chrome a bit over protective

Just launched google chrome to check on my google account and got this security warning, I never get it when using safari, or firefox.


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Surprise! Accounting is the Hot New Major

There was a time when accounting was the boring college major that many people regretted signing up for. A constant barrage of numbers, statistics and spreadsheets was none too interesting.

Boy, have times changed! Thanks to recent accounting scandals by companies like Enron, there is a high demand for accountants and auditors.

According to the Job Outlook 2005 survey, accounting comes out on top as the most in-demand major on college campuses. Forget dot com start ups. Cleaning up a company’s accounting books is what’s in.

But can accounting be sexy?

“All the focus on accounting created a perception to students that accounting matters and is perhaps even sexy,” says Ira Solomon, head of the department of accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Colleges are scrambling to find more accounting teachers and professors to replace those retiring. Not an easy task, since there are twice as many accounting faculty openings than applicants to fill them.

Here are the top 10 most in-demand college majors as surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE):

1) Accounting
2) Electrical Engineering
3) Mechanical Engineering
4) Business Administration/Management
5) Economics/Finance
6) Computer Science
7) Computer Engineering
8) Marketing/Marketing Management
9) Chemical Engineering
10) Information Sciences and Systems

If you’re good with numbers and a stickler for details, you might want to consider accounting as a good career choice. However, you’ll probably have to take a number and wait in line behind all those other future accountant hopefuls. 

Accounting Police: Do They Exist?

Who created accounting principles? Who sets and revises accounting standards? What if you don’t follow all the rules, do you go to jail? Is there an accounting police force that investigates and arrests violators? It would seem that there must be some regulatory force to make sure that providers of financial statements conform to the rules. There is, up to a point, and here is how it works:
Mainly, it’s all voluntary and it works pretty well. First, double-entry accounting originated in Italy in the 1400’s, so its been around awhile. Accounting principles have evolved over the years just as have accounting standards. The reason why the system works is that the business community could not function if there was not commonality and consistency in financial statement reporting. It would be chaos, much like if there were no driving rules of the road.
Therefore, in the United States, a body of experts known as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB pronounced Fasbee) was established in 1973, which superseded another board called the Accounting Principles Board (APB). The FASB members go through a lengthy process of analyzing and reviewing problems in the accounting field that are brought to them. After much thought, they will make a pronouncement as to what they think the new or revised way of approaching the treatment of an accounting issue should be.
They are a non-governmental organization that has private financing. A big supporter of FASB is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) belong to this prestigious organization and are obligated to abide by its guidelines and principles of behavior. Other countries no doubt have similar organizations that require high levels of accounting professional conduct.
FASB established an accounting code called “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles” or (GAAP). The assumption is that if a business financial statement is prepared according to GAAP, then the user of that financial statement could rely on or trust the information more readily than if not prepared according to GAAP. Those businesses that deviate from GAAP, and many smaller businesses do, cannot say that their statements are prepared under GAAP; in fact, they should inform the reader that they are not. However, let the buyer beware.
One governmental body that has a policing function is the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It is primarily concerned with public companies because their job is to protect investors from unscrupulous acts. Recently, the SEC has gotten into the act of establishing accounting standards. It has its hands full today.
Since most businesses use their financial statements to prepare their required income tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may audit those tax returns and review the financial statements upon which the tax returns are based. Not following the rules can get you in trouble with this governmental body.
You can see that in many ways compliance to the principles and standards is a mixture of voluntary and regulatory behavior. Currently, there is an effort underway to set international accounting standards due to the inexorable globalization process. This is a massive undertaking that will take years, but it is obviously necessary and inevitable.

Monday, February 15, 2010

[HB] The Five Hardest Foods To Give Up For Lent

[HB] The Five Hardest Foods To Give Up For Lent
Tired of Hype- Hype Busted... And on One Page.


Coffee
Meat
Fast Food:
Dessert
 Fried Food


Ash Wednesday, lovingly known as Dirty Forehead Day, is this week. For Christians, this marks a time of penance and sacrifice before Easter. One of the common practices is to give something cherished up during Lent. Some things are very easy ("I won't eat frog during Lent!" "I refuse to participate in Burning Man during Lent.") and others are very, very hard. Following are five foods you may have the most trouble giving up.


coffee1.jpg
ladislav @ flickr.com CC BY-NC 2.0
Coffee: As soon as someone tells me he or she is giving up coffee for Lent, I have to suppress a manic giggle. I tried that one once; I told myself I was going to make use of Lent to kick caffeine's hold over my life. I was going to purify myself with only cool water and maybe juice now and then, and I was even going to be pleasant about it. Riiiight. It lasted exactly two days before people started leaving very unsubtle hints on my desk, in the form of Vivarin and Starbucks gift cards. It's hard to give up anything with a scent that calls to you from four blocks away, especially given how many coffeeshops there are around here.

pastrami1.jpg
jamesyu @ flickr.com CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Meat: I admire vegetarians who hold to their beliefs in a world full of delicious meat. I admire part-time vegetarians as well, because even if you give up meat in the best of faith for Lent, chances are you're going to end up with pork fat or chicken broth in something you eat and you won't tumble to it until you've thought about it later in bed. The worst kind of failure during Lent is one over which you had no real control. It's hard enough to remember not to eat meat on Fridays, let alone for all six weeks.











Fast Food: Lasts until the first time you have a meeting that runs through lunch and you have exactly eleven minutes to get food before the next one starts. You're halfway through the drive-through when you think about the fact that you aren't supposed to be eating this dreck. You've placed your order, though, and so you rationalize your failure by refusing to confuse the kid at the window by pulling out of the line. Besides, Fridays mean $1 Fried Fish Parts at the Golden M anyway; it's clearly a sign.


friedfood.jpg
judybaxter @ flickr.com CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
​ Fried Food: Another one that is too specific to remember. Sure, you'll skip the fries and onion rings, and you'll remember that Popeye's and KFC are verboten until after Easter Vigil, but then you sit down to a burger and it's got those onions on top, or you've munched on the orange chicken at Panda Express, or you're eating a bento box and are halfway down the tempura shrimp when you mutter a most un-Christian oath.

shrikand.jpg
qlinart @ flickr.com CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 Dessert: The most common Lenten sacrifice, but birthdays still happen during Lent, and special occasions, which cause dessert amnesia. Besides, where do you draw the line? If you go out to dinner and the restaurant comps you a tiramisù, do you offend God by eating it, or do you offend the chef by refusing? What about fortune cookies? Or breath mints? Does Ethiopian kitfo count (it isn't sweet, but it is the last course)?









Origional Post

Snowed In! 7 Memorable Movie Snowstorms


Tired of the Hype- Hype Busted
Snowed In! 7 Memorable Movie Snowstorms

"The Fatal Glass of Beer" (1933)

"Odd Man Out" (1947)
"The Cardinal" (1963)
"Airport" (1970)
"The Dead" (1987)
"Edward Scissorhands" (1990)
"The Ice Harvest" (2005)

Friday, February 12, 2010

Tired Of the Hype

I'm getting tired of all the hype in the media.  Its even present in online content.  The Online content used to be better than to do that.  But you see it everywhere, The headline, a paragraph about something important, or a top ten list, and in some places you have to click a link to go from the headline to the paragraph, and then another link to get the the whole story, end even once you get to the story sometimes you still need to click a link to get to page 2 or sometimes theres 15 pages.  This is especially annoying on a smart phone,  untill 4G is wide spread, and the next generation after snapdragon processors become popular it will annoying.  Once my ATT contract is up in July I'll be switching to Sprint, or maybe Some cheap prepaid, and useing VoIP.  I'm thinking of setting up some wifi repeaters in my car off a second battery.  I've gotten a bit off subject, anyway In the next few weeks I'll start working on setting up a some news feeds with a headline and the short answer right in the first paragraph, a link to the full article will be provided.  I'm not good with coding so suggestions and help are very welcome.  Also I have hosting set up with 1and1 and at lunar pages.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

organizing stuff, lots to come soon

I have a lot of content I've been working on, I need to set a few things up befor I can post it.  Come back soon.