New Bookmarks
Year 2001 Quarter 4:  October 1-December 31 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

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For the October 1-December 31, 2001 Additions and Summaries scroll down this document 
For the other editions go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
For the full set of Bob Jensen's Bookmarks go to http://WWW.Trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm
    (The full set is never up to date with the latest additions to my New Bookmarks.)

Click here to go to Bob Jensen's home page http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

Choose a Date for Additions to the Bookmarks File

December 20, 2001     December 10, 2001     December 3, 2001     

November 23, 2001    November 14, 2001    November 7, 2001      November 1, 2001     

October 24, 2001        October 18, 2001        October 10, 2001        October 2, 2001    

 

Scroll down this page to view this week's new bookmarks. 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

I maintain threads on various topics at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 

San Antonio Events and Regional Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/sanantonio.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Whenever a commercial product or service is mentioned anywhere in Bob Jensen's website, there is no advertising fee or other remuneration to Bob Jensen.  This website is intended to be a public service.  I am grateful to Trinity University for serving up my ramblings.

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

Bob Jensen's Commentaries, Quotations, and Links Regarding the Latest U.S. War are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 

December 20, 2001


This is the last edition of New Bookmarks for the Year 2001.  My wife and I will be spending the holidays with my father in Algona, Iowa.  Archived editions are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

My father (Vernon) is nearly 90 years old and in the best of health considering his age.  In 1995, he asked me to write a story about his first trip away from the farm (when he was fourteen years old).  You can read the story about when life was difficult but, at the same time, more genuine because few people had any money to waste on anything. 
See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/vernon.htm 

A Year 2001 message of love from my wife, Erika
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/erika/xmas01.htm

A Year 2000 message of love from my wife, Erika.  
She describes how a Munich street urchin became Cinderella filled with love and joy --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/erika/xmas00.htm 

Bob's Old Story About Growing Up in Iowa
Short story entitled My Glimpse of Heaven:  What I learned from Max and Gwen

Brotherhood - in memory of the 343 fallen firefighters --- http://www.brotherhoodfdny.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm

The State Department unveils a site dedicated to September's terrorist attacks, and it's surprising some observers with its emotional tone, raising a question about propaganda  --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,49067,00.html 


Quotes of the Week

The ultimate fate of any profession lies not in its rules, regulations, and controls. The fate lies in the will and dedication of the majority of people who serve in that profession --- the honest cops, the devoted doctors, the dedicated professors, the faithful clergy, and the ardent auditors.
Bob Jensen in a message to his students following the Enron scandal.

To Andersen's credit, it has long advocated a tighter rule.  But that would crimp the Big Five's clients --- companies and Wall Street.  Accountants have helped stall changes.  
Enron's collapse may finally break that logjam.  Like it or not, the Big Five must accept new rules that give investors a clearer picture of what risks companies run with
SPEs.
Mike McNamee (See below)

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

Now, will you please move that elephant? It's blocking the television.
Laura Palmer Noone & Craig Swenson, "5 Dirty Little Secrets in Higher Education," (See Below)

Think now of the youth camp traditions.  Much of higher education is attached to a model that privileges the baccalaureate student who is eighteen to twenty-two years old, studying full-time to obtain a degree in four years, and residing in institutional housing.  These students are the privileged few--already a minority in American higher education in actual numbers but still dominant in the myths of what higher education is about.  These privileged few are granted a special opportunity in life: to spend four years of adulthood, mainly withdrawn from productive employment, in the exploitation of their physical and mental capabilities for their own purposes--some high-minded, some frankly bent on the pleasures of youth--while being protected from most of the ordinary consequences (often even the legal consequences) of irresponsible conduct.  (It is no accident that drug abuse has historically been a phenomenon among the un-employed young--with the graciously un-employed upper-class youths buying their supplies from the unwillingly un-employed lower-class youths.  The two groups have more in common than we like to imagine.)  Dormitories and fraternity/sorority houses and student ghettos are the scenes of a wide variety of childish behaviors to which the denizens feel entitled.  Many students living in the same settings are disgusted by some of what they see and refrain from much of the behavior around them, but they rarely succeed in overthrowing the dominant culture.
James O'Donnell "Youth Camp:  A Long Farewell" (See Below)

 

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy --- http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/nihilism.htm 




It's almost springtime in Texas.

From our beloved Lady Bird Johnson
The Wildflower Center http://wildflower.avatartech.com/Plants_Online/Native_Plants/native.html 


New
Bob Jensen's Threads on Return on Business Valuation, Business Combinations, 
Investment (ROI), and Pro Forma Financial Reporting --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 


A New Kind of Cheating

Use of a cell phone for purposes of cheating during an examination would seem to be an obvious problem.  It just never dawned on me until I witnessed it in a men's room on December 15, 2001.  It was the beginning day of final examinations.  I did not have my final examinations scheduled until the following week.  However, I listened in while a student quite obviously was asking questions on a cell phone and then waiting for answers.

Leaving books and crib notes in a bathroom or hallway is a common problem.  The cell phone idea, however, just had never dawned on me.  This could be a particular problem on makeup exams.  How often have you made a student leave books and notes in your office and then put the student alone in a room to take a test?  Have you ever thought about that tiny cell phone that might be in a pocket?

I suspect the next best thing is having a buddy with books and a computer hidden in one of the stalls such that it is not necessary to make a phone call to the buddy.

Bob Jensen's threads on cheating are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

Reply from Rohan Chambers [rchambers@CYBERVALE.COM

How about this.....

Some students use cell phones as calculators, and.....during the examination they send text messages to each other!

Rohan Chambers 
Lecturer in Auditing and Finance School of Business Administration 
University of Technology, Jamaica

Reply from Andrew Priest [a.priest@ECU.EDU.AU

Hi

We ban cell (mobile) phones from exam rooms and an invigilator goes with student to the men's/women's room so as to minimise this risk. However, I have often noticed some invigilator waiting outside the toilet facility rather than discreetly inside.

Regards, 
Andrew

 

Reply from Christine Kloezeman [ckloezem@GLENDALE.CC.CA.US

I too bought 52 hand held calculators from Pic and Save for the use in all my classes. Last semester I found a student using her palmtop that had all the notes. I have a container that keeps them in the division office so others can use them. The bathroom trick has been very well used this semester so I told them for the final they had to take care of business. I like the comment about when they leave the room they have finished the test.

I do this to be fair to those 60% that will not cheat. I have even been thanked by the students because they felt studied hard and it wasn't fair to have student get good grades without learning.

I like the idea of re-developing an honor code. Many times we need to revisit these areas with the students.

I wish there was a site we could develop that would keep the instructors on top of the current cheating techniques. It's like having teenagers. You can save a lot of problems by being aware of the things they are trying to pull. Anybody know of a site like that. I know I will visit it before each test.

Hi Christine,

I have updated a site concerning how students plagiarize at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

I am also trying to build up the above site for cheating on examinations. I hope others will send me great ideas on how to cheat.

Bob Jensen rjensen@trinity.edu 

Reply from Patricia Doherty [pdoherty@BU.EDU]

What bothers me about all this is the lengths to which we all go to prevent cheating. It is, as a faculty member here described it, another "1% solution" in that for the very few who would really cheat, we spend huge amounts of our time, and restrict those who wouldn't cheat anyway. I used to have someone accompany people to the rest room, but we frequently have so few proctors that I cannot spare anyone, and began to feel silly about it, so now I do random checks. I had never thought of the cell phone thing. I do know that the graphing calculators provide ample opportunity to cheat, so we have resorted to buying, as a department, 400 cheap calculators, which we pass out for each exam, then collect. That restricts that avenue.

We used to check ID, have not recently. So yesterday (yes, Saturday) while grading I found a "fake" exam. Really irritated me that someone would waste our time that way, and I plan to investigate further after we have grades in, with little hope of success.

We give case exams in managerial, which are harder to cheat on. And we do allow a page of handwritten (no photocopies or printed) notes. I always question how far I am willing to go to prevent cheating, and where I just say, if you are that clever, go ahead, you'll get your "reward" someday.

I have updated my threads on cheating with additional items at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

 


An Old Kind of Cheating

The first edition of New Bookmarks in Year 2002 will feature sites where you can either purchase research papers or download them for free. Since many of you are grading or have just graded term papers, I thought it might be of interest to show how sophisticated these papers are becoming --- cheating is becoming more difficult to detect.

For example, note the index on the left margin at http://www.a1-termpaper.com/wom-gen.shtml 

I clicked on Business to obtain the index at http://www.a1-termpaper.com/bus-idx.shtml 

I then clicked on Accounting and obtained the listing at http://www.a1-termpaper.com/bus-acc.shtml 

In the first Year 2002 edition of New Bookmarks, I will relay a study by a student who used this and other services, sometimes paying as much as $90 for papers and then examining the grades and comments written by professors. For an advance view of this study, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm#SethStevenson 

Note that most term papers are not free online and, therefore, will not show up in Web search engines unless some student was required by his instructor to put his or her term paper online.

You might be able to detect cheating in a search engine if the clueless student did not even bother to change the title of the paper (which can be found using search engines.)

I have updated my threads on plagiarism with additional items at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


This is a Good Idea

One way to actually make money off spam is to sue the people sending it. That's what Bennett Haselton did under Washington State's anti-spam law, and now he has $2,000 coming his way. Others are doing the same to junk faxers.  "Wham, Bam, Thank You Spam," by Jeffrey Benner, Wired News, December 12, 2001 --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,49089,FF.html 


The IRS has released Revenue Procedure 2001-59, which includes the new 2002 tax tables as well as numerous inflation-related changes to tax deductions, credits, and exemptions. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/66066 


Computer Hero of the Year
Professor. Herbert A. Simon, 1916-2001, Winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics and the 1986 National Medal of Science.  He was the fourteenth foreign scientist to ever be admitted into the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Simon was a long-time professor of Political Science, Economics, Business, and  Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University

You can read a tribute to him in the May/June edition of EDUCAUSE Review, pp. 26-27.

Also see one of his last, perhaps the last, published paper entitled "What Makes Technology Revolutionary," EDUCAUSE Review, May/June 2001, beginning on Page 28 --- http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/edreview.html 
The paper was, however, written in 1987 in EDUCOM Bulletin and reprinted in EDUCAUSE Review.

In the above article, Professor Simon asserts that the steam engine was the start of the first industrial revolution, and the computer was the start of the second industrial revolution.


Overwhelmed, underappreciated, overexpectant, underdone--2001 was a year of dramatic extremes. Here are some trends and strategies that flew high or flamed out. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFS80BcUEY04e0BD3g0A4 


New Items on the Enron Scandal

Factoid:  Enron's external "independent" auditors made more from consulting and internal auditing at Enron than the firm's fees from its "independent" audit.

"The Big Five Need to Factor in Investors," Mike McNamee, Business Week, December 24, 2001, Page 32 --- http://www.businessweek.com/ (not free to download for non-subscribers)

At issue are so-called special-purpose entities (SPEs), such as Chewco and JEDI partnerships Enron used to get assets like power plants off its books.  Under standard accounting, a company can spin off assets --- an the related debts --- to an SPE if an outside investor puts up capital worth at least 3% of the SPE's total value.  

Three of Enron's partnerships didn't meet the test --- a fact auditors Arthur Andersen LLP missed.  On Dec. 12, Andersen CEO Joseph F. Berardino told the House Financial Services Committee his accountants erred in calculating one partnership's value.  On others, he says, Enron withheld information from its auditors:  The outside investor put up 3%, but Enron cut a side deal to cover half of that with its own cash.  Enron denies it withheld any information.

Does that absolve Andersen?  Hardly.  Auditors are supposed to uncover secret deals, not let them slide.  Critics fear the New Economy emphasis means auditors will do even less probing.

The 3% rule for SPEs is also too lax.

To Andersen's credit, it has long advocated a tighter rule.  But that would crimp the Big Five's clients --- companies and Wall Street.  Accountants have helped stall changes.  

Enron's collapse may finally break that logjam.  Like it or not, the Big Five must accept new rules that give investors a clearer picture of what risks companies run with SPEs.

The rest of the article is on Page 38 of the Business Week Article.


"Let Auditors Be Auditors," Editorial Page, Business Week, December 24, 2001 --- http://www.businessweek.com/ (not free to download for non-subscribers)

But neither proposal (plans proposed by SEC Commission Chairman Harvey L. Pitt) goes far enough.  GAAP, the generally accepted accounting principles, desperately need to be revamped to deal with cash flow and other issues relevant in a fast-moving, high-tech economy.  The whole move to off-balance sheet accounting should be reassessed.  Opaque partnerships that hide assets and debt do not serve the interests of investors.  Under heavy shareholder pressure from the Enron fallout, El Paso Corp. just moved $2 billion in partnership debt onto the balance sheet. Finally, Pitt should consider requiring companies to change their auditors who go easy on them, as we have seen time and time again.

Bob Jensen's commentaries and threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


"Arthur Andersen:  How Bad Will It Get?" Business Week, December 24, 2001, pp. 30-32 --- http://www.businessweek.com/ (not free to download for non-subscribers)

QUOTE 1
Berardino, a 51-year-old Andersen lifer, may find the firm's competence in auditing complex financial companies questioned.  While Andersen was its auditory, Enron's managers shoveled debt into partnerships with Enron's own ececs to get it off the balance sheet --- a dubious though legal ploy.  In one case, says Berardino, hoarse from defending the firm on Capitol Hill, Andersen's auditors made an "error in judgment" and should have consolidated the partnership in Enron's overall results.  Regarding another, he says Enron officials did not tell their auditor about a "separate agreement" they had with an outside investor, so the auditor mistakenly let Enron keep the partnership's results separate.  (Enron denies that the auditors were not so informed.)

QUOTE 2
Enron says a special board committee is investgating why management and the board did not learn about this arrangement until October.  Now that Enron has consolidated such set-ups into its financial statements, it had to restate its financial reports from 1997 onward, cutting earnings by nearly $500 million.  Damningly, the company says more than four years' worth of audits and statements approved by Andersen "should not be relied upon."

Bob Jensen's commentaries and threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


One of the most prominent CPAs in the world sent me the following message and sent the WSJ link:

Bob, More on Enron. It's interesting that this matter of performing internal audits didn't come up in the testimony Joe Beradino of Andersen presented to the House Committee a couple of days ago

"Arthur Andersen's 'Double Duty' Work Raises Questions About Its Independence," by Jonathan Weil, The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/fr/emailthis/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1008289729306300000.djm 

In addition to acting as Enron Corp.'s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP also performed internal-auditing services for Enron, raising further questions about the Big Five accounting firm's independence and the degree to which it may have been auditing its own work.

That Andersen performed "double duty" work for the Houston-based energy concern likely will trigger greater regulatory scrutiny of Andersen's role as Enron's independent auditor than would ordinarily be the case after an audit failure, accounting and securities-law specialists say.

It also potentially could expose Andersen to greater liability for damages in shareholder lawsuits, depending on whether the internal auditors employed by Andersen missed key warning signs that they should have caught. Once valued at more than $77 billion, Enron is now in proceedings under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Internal-audit departments, among other things, are used to ensure that a company's control systems are adequate and working, while outside independent auditors are hired to opine on the accuracy of a company's financial statements. Every sizable company relies on outside auditors to check whether its internal auditors are working effectively to prevent fraud, accounting irregularities and waste. But when a company hires its outside auditor to monitor internal auditors working for the same firm, critics say it creates an unavoidable conflict of interest for the firm.

Still, such arrangements have become more common over the past decade. In response, the Securities and Exchange Commission last year passed new rules, which take effect in August 2002, restricting the amount of internal-audit work that outside auditors can perform for their clients, though not banning it outright.

"It certainly runs totally contrary to my concept of independence," says Alan Bromberg, a securities-law professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "I see it as a double duty, double responsibility and, therefore, double potential liability."

Andersen officials say their firm's independence wasn't impaired by the size or nature of the fees paid by Enron -- $52 million last year. An Enron spokesman said, "The company believed and continues to believe that Arthur Andersen's role as Enron's internal auditor would not compromise Andersen's role as independent auditor for Enron."

Andersen spokesman David Tabolt said Enron outsourced its internal-audit department to Andersen around 1994 or 1995. He said Enron began conducting some of its own internal-audit functions in recent years. Enron, Andersen's second-largest U.S. client, paid $25 million for audit fees in 2000, according to Enron's proxy last year. Mr. Tabolt said that figure includes both internal and external audit fees, a point not explained in the proxy, though he declined to specify how much Andersen was paid for each. Additionally, Enron paid Andersen a further $27 million for other services, including tax and consulting work.

Following audit failures, outside auditors frequently claim that their clients withheld crucial information from them. In testimony Wednesday before a joint hearing of two House Financial Services subcommittees, which are investigating Enron's collapse, Andersen's chief executive, Joseph Berardino, made the same claim about Enron. However, given that Andersen also was Enron's internal auditor, "it's going to be tough for Andersen to take that traditional tack that 'management pulled the wool over our eyes,' " says Douglas Carmichael, an accounting professor at Baruch College in New York.

Mr. Tabolt, the Andersen spokesman, said it is too early to make judgments about Andersen's work. "None of us knows yet exactly what happened here," he said. "When we know the facts we'll all be able to make informed judgments. But until then, much of this is speculation."

Though it hasn't received public attention recently, Andersen's double-duty work for Enron wasn't a secret. A March 1996 Wall Street Journal article, for instance, noted that a growing number of companies, including Enron, had outsourced their internal-audit departments to their outside auditors, a development that had prompted criticism from regulators and others. At other times, Mr. Tabolt said, Andersen and Enron officials had discussed their arrangement publicly.

Accounting firms say the double-duty arrangements let them become more familiar with clients' control procedures and that such arrangements are ethically permissible, as long as outside auditors don't make management decisions in handling the internal audits. Under the new SEC rules taking effect next year, an outside auditor impairs its independence if it performs more than 40% of a client's internal-audit work. The SEC said the restriction won't apply to clients with assets of $200 million or less. Previously, the SEC had imposed no such percentage limitation.

The Gottesdiener Law Firm, the Washington, D.C. 401(k) and pension class action law firm prosecuting the most comprehensive of the 401(k) cases pending against Enron Corporation and related defendants, added new allegations to its case today, charging Arthur Andersen of Chicago with knowingly participating in Enron's fraud on employees.
Lawsuit Seeks to Hold Andersen Accountable for Defrauding Enron Investors, Employees --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31970.xml 

Bob Jensen's commentaries and threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


The Public Oversight Board, the group that oversees the peer review process required of all public accounting firms that audit publicly held companies, has decided to take an active role in the expanded peer review that Deloitte & Touche is providing to Andersen. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65920 


But We're Hanging in There at a Reduced Rank 11 (Which is About in the Middle Among 23 Professions)!

A recent poll jointly conducted by CNN, Gallup Organization, and USA Today ranked various professions according to how members are perceived in terms of conveying honesty and ethics. Find out how accountants ranked in comparison to members of other professions. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/66220 

A recent poll jointly conducted by CNN, Gallup Organization, and USA Today ranked various professions according to how members are perceived in terms of conveying honesty and ethics. In recent years, nurses and pharmacists have monopolized the top positions on the annual survey.

This year, in the wake of the September 11 events, firefighters took a decisive victory as frontrunners in the poll. Accountants appeared in 11th position, with 41 percent of respondents giving the profession "High" or "Very High" ratings for honesty and ethical standards.

Rounding out the top 10 were Nurses in second position, followed by U.S. Military Personnel, Policemen, Pharmacists, Medical Doctors, Clergy, Engineers, College Teachers, and Dentists.

Following Accountants in the ranking of 23 professions were Bankers, Journalists, Congressmen, Business Executives, Senators, Auto Mechanics, Stockbrokers, Lawyers, Labor Union Leaders, Insurance Salesmen, Advertising Practitioners, and Car Salesmen.

One thousand five adults participated in the poll, which was conducted November 26 and 27.

Details are given at http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr011205.asp 


As promised, the Securities and Exchange Commission has revisited the issues that concern publicly held companies regarding Regulation Fair Disclosure, the ruling that requires publicly held companies to provide information that could influence the purchase of shares simultaneously to every potential investor. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65824 

Bob Jensen's commentaries and threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.ht


New York's Mayor Rudy Giuliani plans to start his own consulting firm when he leaves office in January. Reports are that the new firm will have an affiliation with Ernst & Young and will receive financial backing from the Big Five firm. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/66338 


From the Free Wall Street Journal Educators' Reviews for December 13, 2001 

TITLE: Former Auditor of Superior Bank Cites Grand-Jury Probe Into Collapse of Thrift 
REPORTER: Mark Maremont 
DATE: Dec 12, 2001 
PAGE: C16 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1008126509354552200.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Accounting Fraud, Accounting Irregularities, Auditing, Auditing Services, Bad Debts, Banking, Loan Loss Allowance

SUMMARY: Ernst & Young LLP, former auditor of Superior Bank, is cooperating with a grand-jury investigation. Superior Bank, which failed in July, is one of the largest banking institutions to fail in recent years. A representative from the Office of Thrift Supervision told Congress that Ernst and Young permitted improper accounting. Ernst and Young contends that there were no accounting mistakes.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What actions has Ernst and Young taken in cooperation with the grand-jury investigation? Is Ernst and Young required to take these actions? Are they violating client confidentiality by surrendering working papers to a third party? Under what circumstances is it acceptable to share client work papers with a third party?

2.) What factors does Ernst and Young contend contributed to the failure of Superior Bank? If Ernst and Young had perfect foresight about these events, what changes in the financial reporting would have been required? Is it reasonable to expect auditors to anticipate changes in the economy? Why or why not?

3.) What factors does the Office of Thrift Supervision claim contributed to the failure of Superior Bank? Discuss two financial reporting issues that should have been considered by Ernst and Young. Do you think that Ernst and Young allowed misleading financial reporting by Superior Bank? Why or why not?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University


From the Free Wall Street Journal Educators' Reviews for December 13, 2001

TITLE: EPA Will Destroy Hudson River to Save It 
REPORTER: Bonner R. Cohen 
DATE: Dec 12, 2001 
PAGE: A18 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1008121274639180560.djm  
TOPICS: Financial Statement Analysis, Financial Accounting

SUMMARY: This commentary by a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute provides environmental and civic arguments against the EPA's recent decision to dredge the Hudson River to remove PCBs legally dumped there by GE prior to 1977. Related articles provide the history of GE's efforts to prevent this decision to dredge the river. Questions relate to environmental remediation reporting requirements and assessing GE's disclosure of this particular Superfund clean-up project.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What financial accounting standards address reporting requirements for environmental liabilities? Specifically, describe the AICPA's statement of position on this topic. What are the major points of disclosure and liability recognition discussed in that document?

2.) Using the AICPA's statement of position, summarize the environmental laws currently in effect in the U.S. What is the Superfund Law?

3.) What is a "Superfund site"? Who decides on the actions which must be taken in cleaning up a "Superfund site"?

4.) Both the commentary by Bonner Cohen and the related articles emphasize the fact that GE legally disposed of PCBs in the Hudson River. If the company's actions have always been legal, then why must GE pay for the cost of cleaning up the river, estimated to total $460 million?

5.) Obtain GE's 2000 annual report from the company's web site. Note 21 provides disclosure related to liabilities including their involvement in various environmental clean-up efforts. How detailed are the disclosures of their obligations in this area? Compare this disclosure to the requirements in the AICPA's statement of position. Do you think the company has accrued any amount for the liability to clean up the Hudson River? If so, how much? Cite any accounting standards you rely on to make this estimate.

6.) How significant is the expected cost of cleaning up the Hudson River under the EPA's plan relative to GE's overall operations? Given the EPA's decision and based on the AICPA's statement of position, what requirements do you think GE must meet in reporting its results for the year ended December 31, 2001?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

--- RELATED ARTICLES --- TITLE: EPA Orders Dredging of PCBs from the Upper Hudson River REPORTER: Matt Murray ISSUE: Dec 05, 2001 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1007497237159676640.djm 

TITLE: U.S. Decision to Seek River Clean-Up is Big Setback for General Electric REPORTER: Matt Murray And Tom Hamburger ISSUE: Aug 02, 2001 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB996670293589550385.djm 

~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ +

 


CPA2Biz Unveils Business Valuation Resource Center --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31976.xml 

The BV Center will include resources and information from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and industry experts on various factors affecting the value of a business or a transaction, such as mergers and acquisitions; economic damages due to a patent infringement or breaches of contract; bankruptcy or a reorganization; or fraud due to anti-trust actions or embezzlement. The BV Center will provide a comprehensive combination of solutions that meet the professional needs of CPAs practicing business valuation, including those who have achieved the AICPA's Accredited in Business Valuation credential. The BV Center will also provide networking communities for BV practitioners as well as a public forum for discussion of business valuation trends, developments and issues.

"Tremendous growth in the BV discipline, coupled with a dynamic group of factors affecting business valuation, means that CPAs need a consistent, timely and relevant vehicle through which BV-related information can be disseminated to them," said Erik Asgeirsson, Vice President of Product Management at CPA2Biz. "The BV Center on CPA2Biz will provide them with AICPA books, practice aids, newsletters and software, along with industry expert literature and complementary third-party products and solutions. Because the issues associated with valuation impact CPAs in both public and private sectors -- auditors, tax practitioners, personal financial planners as well as BV specialists -- the BV Center will have a powerful horizontal impact on the profession."

"I think that CPAs who practice in business valuation ought to go to the BV Center for information and tools that are timely, relevant and easy to obtain," said Thomas Hilton, CPA/ABV, Chairman of the AICPA Business Valuation Subcommittee. "The BV Center is a source CPAs can use to offer their clients a higher level of service, as well as to connect with other CPAs who provide valuation services."

The CPA2Biz Website is at www.cpa2biz.com/ 

Bob Jensen's Threads on Return on Business Valuation, Business Combinations, Investment (ROI), and Pro Forma Financial Reporting --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 


News from Fathom

December 2001

Forward this newsletter to a friend!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
In this issue: 
* Financing Terrorism 
* Is Globalization to Blame for the Terrorist Attacks? 
* Free Seminar: Manufacturing Anywhere 
* Back by popular demand: Prospecting for Business Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Columbia University 
* The London School of Economics and Political Science 
* Cambridge University Press 
* The British Library 
* The New York Public Library 
* The University of Chicago 
* University of Michigan 
* American Film Institute 
* RAND * Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 
* The Natural History Museum 
* Victoria and Albert Museum 
* Science Museum *

~~~~~~~~~~~ IN THE NEWS ~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, US officials began an intense effort to freeze bank accounts and financial transactions linked to terrorist groups. As the search continues with the help of foreign nations, investigators are finding that Al Qaeda's network of assets is wider reaching and more complex than they ever imagined, encompassing funds from private corporations, charitable organizations, investment groups, and organized crime operations around the world.

Jean-François Seznec, adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University and Raporteur to the UNESCO-Amar standing conference on relations between Islam and the West, examines the financing behind terrorist operations and explores ways to stop the flow of funds in the free feature "Financing Terrorism: Channels for Depositing and Moving Money": http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=603&page=feature&id=122459

FREE BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS FEATURES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*** TERRORISM AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD ... September 11 and the Dark Side of Globalization Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, explores the dark side of globalization-- transnational networks and underground markets nearly invisible from state governments: "The World Bank estimates that half of the commercial transactions that take place in Egypt every year are in the black market..." http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=604&page=feature&id=122424 

*** TERRORISM AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD ... Terrorism, Imperialism and Globalization John Harriss, director of the Development Studies Institute at The London School of Economics and Political Science, considers the economic, political and cultural contexts for the emergence of terrorist movements: "The enemy that we are now fighting--terrorism--is to an important extent a creature created by western imperialism, headed up by the US..." http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=605&page=feature&id=122430 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ONLINE COURSES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Free Seminar * MANUFACTURING ANYWHERE, a free seminar from RAND, explores the changes the 21st century will bring to manufacturing. Learn about "Napsterization," postponement, outsourcing, vertical disintegration, and more. The seminar is free; simply follow the checkout process to enroll: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=606&page=course&id=10701041 

* Short e-Course * PROSPECTING FOR BUSINESS INFORMATION, a short online course from the New York Public Library, is designed to help small business owners, job-hunters, grant seekers, investors, advertisers and others navigate Web- and library-based company information services for business research. Also includes temporary access to databases from LexisNexis, infoUSA and Standard and Poor's. Class starts December 19: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=607&page=course&id=49704700 

* Short e-Course * DEVELOPING YOUR CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PLAN, a short online course from Columbia University, is designed to help beginning teachers strengthen their classroom management skills from the start. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=612&page=course&id=41704005 

* Semester-Length Course * CHILDREN'S MATERIALS: EVALUATION AND USE, an online course from the University of Washington, is designed primarily for educators seeking an endorsement as school library media specialists and teachers who want to build a classroom collection of the "best of the best" in children's literature. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=613&page=course&id=1406

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=614&page=directory 

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=608&page=directory&id=0 

THINKING IS ENCOURAGED @ FATHOM.COM  (TM) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?cid=608&page=directory&id=0 

You can listen to part of my August 2001 workshop in Atlanta devoted to Fathom at 
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001cpe/01start.htm
 


Lesson Plans Library (K-12) ---  http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/index.html 

Find hundreds of original lesson plans, all written by teachers for teachers. Use the pull-down menus below to browse by subject, grade, or both.
 
Lesson Plans for Assignment Discovery and TLC Elementary School
If you are searching for lesson plans to support Assignment Discovery and TLC Elementary School programming, click here.
 
See NEW lesson plans for the fall! Click here.


EDUCAUSE Review, November/December 2001
Table of Contents

Features

Excerpt

 

Departments
  • techwatch
    Information Technology in the News
    [PDF format 128 KB]

     

  • Leadership
    Connecting IT Possibilities and Institutional Priorities
    by John C. Hitt
    [PDF format 134 KB]

     

  • Inside IT
    Improving Service Quality with Benchmarks
    by Ray Grant
    [PDF format 142 KB]

     

  • New Horizons
    Building "Open" Frameworks for Education
    by M. S. Vijay Kumar, Jeff Merriman, and Phillip D. Long
    [PDF format 63 KB]

     

  • policy@edu
    Balancing Copyright Concerns: The TEACH Act of 2001
    by Laura N. Gasaway
    [PDF format 90 KB]

     

  • Viewpoints
    Coordinated Autonomy
    by Jim Davis
    [PDF format 64 KB]

 

  • Homepage
    The EDUCAUSE Regional Conference Strategy
    by Brian L. Hawkins
    [PDF format 50 KB]

 

 


"To Youth Camp:  A Long Farewell," by James J. O'Donnell, EDUCAUSE Review, November/December 2001, pp 14-19 --- http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm01/erm016w.html 
Excerpts are quoted below.  Go to the above link to download the full article.

Five years ago, the revolution in "distance learning" (or "distance-independent learning" or "distributed learning") seemed to be upon us.  Two or three years ago, the sounds of the revolution could be heard in all quadrants of the sky.  Yet as we go into the fall of 2001, the rumblings are much quieter.  What appeared inevitable only a couple of years ago now looks puzzlingly remote.  To be sure, evidence of the revolution can be seen here and there: new products are becoming available, many more courses are available in some location-independent form, and Western Governors University already has its first Chancellor Emeritus and an enrollment of five hundred students.  And there is wisdom in persistence and patience.  If the dot-coms have gone dot-bust, it's reasonable to think that the inflated expectations in the not-for-profit sector1 would also deflate, and what was overvalued two years ago would be undervalued today--making this a good time to invest.

It baffles some that the revolution has not occurred.  But when a question won't answer itself, chances are you're asking the wrong question.

Distance learning was certainly high concept for the 1990s in higher education.  But like the "horseless carriage," this notion materialized through an unimaginative extension of traditional forms.  The key insight was that networked information technology makes it possible to reorganize the process of learning and to redistribute what takes place face to face so that it takes place when learners and teachers are separated in space and time.  Traditional students could learn in new ways, and new kinds of students could join the academic community for the first time.

Many of those who felt keenly the clarity of that vision also thought that existing institutions harbored some excess capacity of instructional time and attention that could be sold cheaply in bulk.  This was a shimmering dream, never realistic.  Much time and energy was spent trying to prove that concept, with precious little to show as a result.  Nobody has succeeded in building outlet malls for the mind--offering cheap and serviceable merchandise of sometimes dubious origin more or less protected by prestige name brands.  That is, in fact, good news.  And even where more realistic projects were put in notion, markets have been slow to evolve, faculty hard to recruit, and production costs impossible to bring in line with the results that can be demonstrated.  At least one university that made a splash announcing its for-profit subsidiary for distance learning has now quietly closed down the operation.

Nothing is as easy as it seems.

Think now of the youth camp traditions.  Much of higher education is attached to a model that privileges the baccalaureate student who is eighteen to twenty-two years old, studying full-time to obtain a degree in four years, and residing in institutional housing.  These students are the privileged few--already a minority in American higher education in actual numbers but still dominant in the myths of what higher education is about.  These privileged few are granted a special opportunity in life: to spend four years of adulthood, mainly withdrawn from productive employment, in the exploitation of their physical and mental capabilities for their own purposes--some high-minded, some frankly bent on the pleasures of youth--while being protected from most of the ordinary consequences (often even the legal consequences) of irresponsible conduct.  (It is no accident that drug abuse has historically been a phenomenon among the un-employed young--with the graciously un-employed upper-class youths buying their supplies from the unwillingly un-employed lower-class youths.  The two groups have more in common than we like to imagine.)  Dormitories and fraternity/sorority houses and student ghettos are the scenes of a wide variety of childish behaviors to which the denizens feel entitled.  Many students living in the same settings are disgusted by some of what they see and refrain from much of the behavior around them, but they rarely succeed in overthrowing the dominant culture.

Colleges and universities are deeply and complexly attached to the infantilization.  The social position of higher education in European and American societies is firmly rooted in a notion of prolonged and irresponsible childhood.  Though only a fraction of students actually have the opportunity to live such a life, servicing their needs still provides the conceptual and bureaucratic structure of higher education institutions.  A new administrator in my university asked me how "the typical student" gets computer support-and when I pressed the question, I found that "the typical student" is the undergraduate, even though undergraduates make up less than 50 percent of our FTE population.

Parental anxiety plays a significant part in encouraging institutions to establish and preserve these patronizing cultures.  Parents want levels of security that would be unreasonable to expect if their eighteen-year-old son or daughter instead moved off to the big city to get a job.  They want to be absolutely sure that their children have easy access to three super-abundant meals a day and don't have to worry about paying for the food.  They expect health care, counseling, and other services that would be preposterous to expect elsewhere, and colleges and universities compete aggressively to deliver all these services.

So when most people think of higher education, they think of something that happens to people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two and that lasts for about four years.  In reality, many students are already well into their twenties, still working on a first degree while taking a responsible economic role in society as well.  Many others, in their twenties and thirties, are engaged in professional education, whether for the academic Ph.D. or in the myriad professional disciplines.  Higher education institutions serve a huge variety of adult learners, some working for a bachelor's degree, some for professional degrees, some for continuing professional education, and some for reasons of cultural and personal enhancement.  But on the traditional campus, all those adults are in one way or another made to feel marginal.  Even--one might say especially--the search for a parking space often reminds them that they are second-class citizens.2


NOTES

1    I mean here the deliberately not-for-profit sector, to distinguish traditional colleges and universities from that new sector of the economy that would really like to make a profit if they could, but...

2    Notice that complaints about the failings of higher education rarely include the astonishingly successful system of professional education.  Although we may argue about the specifics of curriculum and the focus in, say, law and medical school, few dispute that those schools do what they do extraordinarily well.  Likewise, nobody writes best-sellers complaining about the quality of community college education, yet few outside those institutions hear anything about the extraordinary and beneficial impact they have on students' lives.

Bob Jensen's documents on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


From Syllabus News on December 11, 2001

Blackboard, CollegisEduprise Expand Partnership

Blackboard Inc. and CollegisEduprise, Inc. said they would bundle their respective tools and services to strengthen their offerings to the higher education market. The collaboration will blend the Blackboard 5 Learning System, software licensing, application hosting and integration services from Blackboard with education assessment, strategic planning, end-user help desk services, and faculty pedagogical training from CollegisEduprise. Clients of both companies include the Community College of Denver, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Montgomery Community College, New York Institute of Technology, Norfolk State University and the University of Baltimore.

The Bb homepage is at http://www.blackboard.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on Blackboard are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/blackboard.htm 


Seton Hall University unveiled a program to provide technology resources and training to economically disadvantaged people. Project SHUTTLE, for Seton Hall University Technology Training for Lifelong Education, aims to provide technology education, resources and training to people without a personal computer or technological resources. The project will collaborate with the school's Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and Upward Bound Program to provide laptop computers to participating high school seniors. The students receive training in laptop use and are encouraged to take the computers home for schoolwork and home use. EOP director Carol McMillan-Lonesome called SHUTTLE "a conduit for families to embrace lifelong learning through technology, understand the ... importance of higher education and achieve personal ... aspirations."

For more information, visit: http://academic.shu.edu/shuttle/index.html 


eCollege Says Courseware Exceeds Disability Standards

Courseware developer eCollege said the software it will release this month will exceed Section 508, the federal accessibility standard for information technology. The comany said its software targets student users as well as disabled faculty authoring online courses. It will also provide a support staff trained in assistive technologies. The software will be available without requiring a new version purchase, upgrade or implementatioin, the company said. Mike Gibson, coordinator of the Professional Training in Adaptive Technology Program at the Colorado Center for the Blind, said, "working with an e-learning company that is proactive in understanding and meeting the needs of the blind helps us to change what it means to be blind."

The eCollege homepage is at http://www.ecollege.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on course authoring systems and shells can be found at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm
 


Pepperdine University, eNeuralNet, and IBM Corp. have joined forces to open the Murray S. Craig Digital Democracy Lab at Pepperdine's School of Public Policy. The lab is dedicated to promoting political accountability via the use of artificial intelligence software. eNeuralNet is donating its Minutes-N-Motion political accountability software, a 50-seat license, and an IBM server. Craig, the software's creator, will serve as a strategic advisor to lab director, Pepperdine professor Mike Shires, in developing curriculum and research applications.

For more information, visit: http://www.pepperdine.edu 


A Century of Drawing: Works on Paper:  Works on Paper from Degas to LeWitt (Art, History) --- 
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/drawinginfo.htm
 


Evaluation of Websites

I recommend the comprehensive site at http://www.prana3.com/tools/  

A message from Ed Scribner

Here's a guide Susan Beck at the NMSU Library has prepared for student evaluation of Web sites --- http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html 

A message from Ron Tidd about evaluation of Web Sites:

Also consider:

Bobby- http://www.cast.org/bobby/  
web page validation for accessibility by people with disabilities (be attentive and expand the community)

W3C- http://validator.w3.org/  
free HTML validation service

Web Site Garage- http://websitegarage.netscape.com/  
tune up your web page

Web Wonk- http://www.dsiegel.com/tips/  
Tips for designers and writers

Web Shui at http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-3881.html?tag=st.bl.3880.dir.3881 

Web sales have proven to be a small slice of most sectors, so retailers are more selective about their investments in Web initiatives. They're starting to view their Web sites like any other store--now that it's built and functioning, what justifies spending more money on it? http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFS80BcUEY04e0BD3h0A5 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for evaluation of Websites are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm#Evaluation
 


The Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta is pleased to accept applications for its Master of Arts degree in Humanities Computing. The programme integrates computational methods and theories with research and teaching in the Humanities. The Faculty is committed to offering its students opportunities to combine their interests in the Arts and emerging computing technologies, particularly in the areas of information management, multimedia, electronic publishing, and distance education. The new M.A. in Humanities Computing will help form students who not only understand, create, and manage multimedia and technological projects, but also understand the critical and intellectual traditions of Humanities scholarship.

Please find enclosed a poster and brochures that outline the programme, which should provide interested students with the information they need to make an informed decision. To be most widely considered for funding, applications to the programme should arrive no later than January 7, 2002, although we will continue to review all applications after this date.

Please circulate the posters and brochures to interested departments, institutes, and potential students. Thank you for your support of this new and exciting endeavour.

Yours truly,

Nasrin Rahimieh 
Associate Dean (Humanities) Faculty of Arts 6-14 
Humanities Centre University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E5 
Tel: (780) 492-9132 Fax: (780) 492-7251


Here's a guide Susan Beck at the NMSU Library has prepared for students:

http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html 

Ed Scribner 
New Mexico State

For professional Website evaluation, you might take a look at http://www.prana3.com/tools/ 


"5 Dirty Little Secrets in Higher Education," by Laura Palmer Noone & Craig Swenson. EDUCAUSE Review,
  November/December 2001, pp. 20-31 --- http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm01/erm016w.html 

Dirty Little Secret #1
You Don't Have to Be a Researcher to Be a Good Teacher

Lest there be any misunderstanding, let us make clear that we think research is a good thing.  We support it, benefit from it, and think the "scholarship of discovery" to be a worthy pursuit.1  But let's all be honest: some researchers make great teachers, whereas others--some of the most celebrated researchers, in fact--have no place inside a classroom (if judged by their ability to facilitate learning).  The irony is that many in this second group don't want to be in the classroom anyhow.

If a "good researcher" is defined as someone who is a critical and reflective observer, who asks good questions, who draws warranted conclusions from data, and who understands the limits of prediction, we'll agree that the researcher does indeed have a place inside the classroom.  If, on the other hand, a "good researcher" means what it usually means--that he or she is publishing formal "academic" research--that's where we part company.

The pattern followed by most researchers leads them to learn more and more about less and less.  Narrow specialization often precludes interdisciplinary breadth.  The gift of so many great teachers, by contrast, rests in their breadth of knowledge--in their ability to synthesize and communicate the ideas of others and to inspire their students.

 

Dirty Little Secret #2
Professors Know a Lot about Their Disciplines but Very Little about Teaching

The process of getting a doctorate has never been about learning how to teach.  Oh sure, most traditional doctoral programs require candidates to serve as teaching assistants, but that usually means little more than assigning them to classes.  Faculty in most disciplines tend to look down their noses at those who choose education (i.e., "teaching") as their discipline.  Doctoral candidates in most disciplines primarily learn their disciplines and learn how to do research.  Teaching is way down in the pecking order, and everybody knows it.

Thus, until very recently, there were few efforts to teach doctoral candidates how to teach and even fewer to teach professors how to be better teachers.  And even though many institutions have now created centers to help instructors teach better--a hopeful sign--directors of those centers state that relatively small percentages of professors use these services.  In addition, those who do learn teaching techniques are probably ignorant about how those techniques work.   Simply put, those who do most of the teaching don't know all that much about how their students actually learn.

 

Dirty Little Secret #3
Professors Know Even Less about Learning Than They Do about Teaching

See  http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm01/erm016w.html 

Dirty Little Secret #4
Part-Time Instructors Are Just as Effective as Full-Time Faculty Members

See  http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm01/erm016w.html 

Dirty Little Secret #5
Seat-Time Measures Don't Measure Seat Time

One of the most widely used measures in higher education is the Carnegie Unit of Instruction.  Ostensibly, the Carnegie Unit measures "time on task"--the amount of time that students spend with instructors.  Time on task is considered a "best practice" in undergraduate education,6 but the dirty little secret is that student time spent on a task is not generally what the Carnegie Unit measures.  What it usually measures is the amount of time for which a course is scheduled.  It doesn't measure time on task for the simple reason that attendance isn't required at most institutions.  In many traditional classes, a student who shows up only for the mid-term and final exams, and hands in required assignments, won't be directly penalized.

The situation is more acute in this age of electronically mediated instruction.  Here the Carnegie Unit is an obvious anachronism. This realization is at least partially behind the initiatives of accrediting bodies that now require a much greater emphasis on assessing student learning--that is, on measuring the outcome rather than the input.

But measuring outcomes is difficult, as innovators have discovered.  Like the old saying about the weather, everybody talks about it, but nobody (or at least a relatively small number) does anything about it.  Inputs are easy to measure, though, and so higher education clings to outdated measures like the Carnegie Unit as if they were articles of faith. That presents a problem if student learning is the goal: when we are concerned about how long a student's rear end is in a seat, we are concerned about the wrong end of the student.

Family Therapy

Well, there it is--the elephant in the living room has been uncloaked.  There are likely a few more dirty little secrets lurking among us, but enough already.  Higher education will probably never be one big happy family.  We are an awfully diverse bunch, we tend to be argumentative by nature, and we seem to like it that way.  Besides, nothing says that we all have to be the same--or that being the same would be a good thing.  But we can learn from one another, and the good news is that there is nothing particularly earthshaking about the secrets revealed above.  Higher education does not have to give up its emphasis on research, which has, after all, built in the United States and Canada the greatest research infrastructure and capability in the world.  What is needed is much greater attention to student learning--how it happens, the conditions under which it occurs best, and how to measure it.  Then college and university faculty must prepare themselves to manage that process.

Now, will you please move that elephant? It's blocking the television.

Notes

1.    We here use Ernest L. Boyer's term.  See Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Princeton, N.J.: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990).

2.   Stephen D. Brookfield, The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990).

3.   Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered.

4.   Judith M. Gappa and David W. Leslie, The Invisible Faculty: Improving the Status of Part-Timers in Higher Education (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993).

5.   Edward E. Lawler III, "Challenging Traditional Research  Assumptions," in Edward E. Lawler III et al., Doing Research That Is Useful for Theory and Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

6.   See A. W. Chickering and Z. F. Gamson, "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education," Wingspread Journal 9, no. 2 (1987).  See also AAHE Bulletin, March 1987.


External Auditing of Information Security: Perception Versus Reality

A message from E. Scribner [escribne@NMSU.EDU]

One client's view of security-related external audit procedures:

"Security Journal: Annual Audits Target Security, But Miss Mark"

http://www.computerworld.com/itresources/rcstory/0,4167,KEY73_STO66354,00.html 

Ed Scribner 
New Mexico State

Jensen Comment:  The above article is very timely and very disturbing.  A quotation is shown below:

Perception vs. Reality

When I first started working in the security world, I looked forward to external audits. I saw the auditors as independent experts who could review objectively what I had been trying to achieve and give me pointers on how to improve. I expected a strong report that would help keep management support for my security initiatives.

Think you could do it better as an information systems auditor? Pass the Certified Information Systems Auditor exam and perhaps you’ll be providing companies like mine with more thorough security assessments. This Web site includes conferences and training programs as well as exam information.

Read Kevin Van Dixon’s “Spoof Bounce” paper at the SANS Institute Web site to see the kind of risk that having a predictable IP identification can cause.

This paper on TCP/IP “spoofing sets” shows how technically esoteric bugs get, but the threat is real.

The annual audit is just one hoop security managers in financial services organizations must jump through. These 23 other regulatory agencies all have an impact as well.

Anomaly-based intrusion-detection systems are in their infancy, but interesting projects such as these provide valuable security services.

Now I know the process much better. I don't look forward to external audits; I just prepare my list of user accounts and logical access controls. To be polite, I play the game properly: The auditors come, and I provide an hourlong presentation about our work this year: the deployment of personal firewalls to every desktop, the extension of our intrusion-detection systems from signature-based to anomaly-based, the automated virus update process and the delivery of dual Internet connections to provide some protection against distributed denial-of-service attacks.

They listen—the fresh graduate auditor looking wide-eyed on his day out of the office to earn some billable time, the older auditor looking harried and lost. Then they nod and ask to run their cheapo in-house scanner software on our domain controller. They don't ask to run it on our production domain controller, but on our corporate desktop domain controller. Of course we refuse, because it's untested software and we have a change-control process for that sort of thing.

They look surprised, but we save the day by asking what information they require. They list the usual: account name, privileges, last log-in and so on. We run a shiny report from our vulnerability assessment systems and hand it over in hard copy. The graduate looks crestfallen, realizing he'll be spending tonight reading it to find something—anything—to report.

A week later, their report arrives with a spurious "medium risk" assigned to information security because, out of the thousands of accounts they reviewed, they found one that hadn't been used for a few weeks.

I suppose I shouldn't be bitter. If they did a proper job, they might find many problems, and we'd look bad. And we'd never hire them again. It's a nice, comfortable arrangement that helps both sides—the auditors don't have to do any real work (apart from that poor graduate), and we don't get any real hassle. But how are we supposed to get better unless we are under pressure?

I can't imagine what it must be like on the other side of this farce—why would you become an auditor? Now that I've seen the time they can allocate to their reviews, I realize they just don't have the time to get to the bottom of anything until external factors force them to investigate.

So will auditors who are too underfunded to find anything guarantee me a nice, healthy bonus? I wish. My management is well aware of the depth of investigation involved in an annual audit. Instead, they will be measuring my performance based against my objectives set at the beginning of the year.

The rest of the article is at http://www.computerworld.com/itresources/rcstory/0,4167,KEY73_STO66354,00.htm

Trinity University students may access the article at J:\courses\acct5342\readings\ExternalAudits 

My threads on related issues are in "Opportunities of E-Business Assurance & Security: Risks in Assuring Risk" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 


If the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is fully enforced, stations will be unable to afford to webcast their tunes

"Why college radio fears the DMCA," by Mark L. Shahinian, Salon, December 13, 2001 --- http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/13/college_webcast/print.html 

In the heady days of the late 1990s, Internet radio broadcasts were a poster child for the free flow of information over the Web. But if a 1998 federal law is fully enforced, webcasting could be just a fond memory for college radio.

Under the terms of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), radio stations around the country are supposed to pay thousands of dollars in annual fees to broadcast streaming audio over the Web. Managers of college and community stations say while their commercial counterparts may be able to pay the fees, their stations don't have the cash and will shut down their webcasts.

The 1998 law came up on Capitol Hill Thursday, as members of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property held an oversight hearing on how temporary copies stored on computers should be counted when calculating copyright fees.

The hearing, said congressional staffers, was an early skirmish in a battle to defang the DMCA and transfer power from record companies back to broadcasters.

Webcasting was once touted as an example of the Internet's leveling power -- it allows small local stations to reach Internet users all over the world. And college stations, which run tight budgets and eclectic playlists, fit the webcast bill perfectly. But record companies don't like webcasting, with its potential for copying and distributing unlimited digital copies of songs.

Under long-standing U.S. copyright law, broadcasters pay a coalition of songwriters' groups to air music over the Internet and the airwaves. But until the DMCA, performers and record companies did not have the rights to royalties when stations played their music. As part of the 1998 law, Congress allowed performers and record companies to start collecting fees on songs sent over the web, said Joel Willer, a mass communications professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. There are still no performer fees for regular airwave broadcasts.

But until now, the law has yet to be fully enforced. If it is, college radio on the Web will be in trouble.

According to Bob Kohn, founder of eMusic.com, and author of a book on music licensing, classic Beltway dealmaking partially explains why radio stations are being asked to pay performers for webcasts,

As the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act came together, says Kohn, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association, or DiMA, struck a deal: The DiMA, made up of webcasting heavies such as MTV, wanted to shut small webcasters out of the market. The RIAA wanted money for its artists and record companies.

The RIAA got their fees -- and the fees effectively strangled the interest in small-time webcasting, says Kohn. The fees may end up doing the same for college webcasting.

Both the RIAA and the DiMA strongly disagreed with Kohn's characterizations.

"That's just pathetic," says Jonathan Potter, head of the DiMA. "The MTVs and AOLs of the world have spent millions to argue for lower rates for everybody." Agreeing to webcast fees was painful, and was only done because members of the DiMA, faced with huge lawsuits over copyright infringement, had their back to the wall, says Potter.

Will Robedee, general manager of KTRU at Rice University in Houston, is trying to pull together a coalition of college radio stations to change the DMCA. Some fees are acceptable, but college stations shouldn't have to pay anywhere near what the big commercial stations pay, says Robedee. The law makes some provision for special treatment of nonprofit stations, but Robedee wants guarantees of substantially lower fees

The law also includes requirements that stations report every song played -- requirements, says Robedee, that would be impossible for low-budget, nonautomated stations to meet.

"There is a public interest in having these stations webcasting," Robedee said, citing exposure given to unknown bands, and the eclectic playlists that characterize college radio.

Still, performers deserve payment for their songs, says Jano Cabrera, spokesman for the RIAA. "We think that the law makes sense because artists and record companies who invest time, energy and resources should be compensated."

The fees, if implemented, would mean the end of webcasting at KALX, the University of California at Berkeley's radio station, says KALX general manager Sandra Wasson.

KALX pays a total of $623 per year to songwriters (as opposed to performers) to play music over the Web. The fee is low, Wasson said, because KALX doesn't run advertisements. If the recording industry's fee proposal goes through, KALX would have to dish out $10,000 to $20,000 a year in webcasting fees, Wasson said. And the fees would be retroactive to 1998.

"On our small budget, there's just no way we can afford those amounts," says Wasson, who also notes that KALX's $200,000 yearly budget is huge compared to most college stations.

The recording industry and broadcasters are battling in front of a federal arbitration panel over just how high those fees should be. The RIAA, representing performers, is asking for 0.4 cents per listener per song. Broadcasters want fees many times lower. Record companies and performers will split the fees equally, Cabrera said.

Robedee, at Rice, hopes a new bill intended to gut the Millennium Copyright Act will include protections for college stations.

The Music On-Line Competition Act is designed to break the hammerlock the recording industry has over music distribution, says Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. Cannon co-authored the bill along with Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va.

Continued at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/13/college_webcast/print.html

Bob Jensen laments the DMCA from an educator's perspective at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
 


Innovation of the Week

"Distributed computing's prime moment," by Stephen Shankland, ZD Net News, December 13, 2001 --- http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5100648,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02 

A 20-year-old in Owen Sound, Canada, has found the world's largest known prime number using a mere desktop computer. But he didn't work alone: His system was part of a 210,000-machine quasi-supercomputer stretched across the globe. Using a computer with an 800MHz chip from Advanced Micro Devices, Michael Cameron found the prime number on Nov. 14, according to Entropia. The San Diego company sells software to enable "distributed computing," which harnesses the unused processing abilities of computers scattered across the Internet.

Although the arrival of profit motive has transformed distributed computing, its roots remain in academic pursuits such finding optimal Golomb rulers or alien radio signals.

Cameron's computer found the number, but he shares credit with others: George Woltman, who founded the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) and wrote the search software, and Entropia founder Scott Kurowski, who created the network system called PrimeNet that governs the 210,000 computers that are part of the effort.

Prime numbers, once a mathematical curiosity but now crucial to encrypted communications, are numbers greater than one that are divisible only by one and the number itself. Cameron was participating in a project to search for a particular type of prime number called a Mersenne prime.

The number that Cameron discovered--2 to the 13,466,917th power minus 1--has 4,053,946 digits. In order to cram his discovery onto a 29-inch-by-40-inch poster sold by Perfectly Scientific, the number is printed in a tiny 1.37-point font and read with a magnifying glass.

Mersenne primes are named after Marin Mersenne, a French monk born in 1588 who investigated a particular type of prime number: 2 to the power of "p" minus one, in which "p" is an ordinary prime number.

Mersenne primes are much rarer than ordinary primes. The GIMPS effort, exhaustively searching for possible candidates since 1996, has been responsible for discovering the five most recent examples. Altogether, 39 have been discovered so far.

Cameron's computer took 42 days to verify that the number was a Mersenne prime. After that, researchers using a workstation took three weeks to confirm the work.

Prime numbers are needed for encrypted communications such as a Web browser's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology that makes it harder to sniff out credit card numbers or other private information. But those systems typically use primes that are merely 300 or so digits, said Stanford University mathematician Dan Boneh.

"The large Mersenne primes are not very useful," Boneh said, though finding one will grant a person 15 minutes of fame.

Mathematical hobbyists have provided online versions of Cameron's number written out in decimal form or in words.

Searching for Mersenne primes is computationally intense, but it is a problem that's known as "embarrassingly parallel," which means it can easily be broken down into independent parts that separate computers tackle. Many supercomputer problems take another form, requiring high-speed communication between separate computers or requiring that a problem be solved one step at a time with little opportunity for sharing among many systems.

Parallel computing tasks aren't merely academic. Sun Microsystems and Intel use distributed computing software to help design microprocessors, and companies such as Entropia, Turbolinux, Platform Computing, Parabon Computation and United Devices have software that can be used for work in genetics, pharmaceuticals or financial services. Typically, this software is used within a single corporation rather than on strangers' computers across the Internet.

The concept of distributed computing is closely related to "grid" computing, which unites computers and storage systems into a single pool of resources. The National Science Foundation is among those interested in the concept, devoting $53 million to one grid.

Continued at http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5100648,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02


Innovation of the Future

"A new spin on computing UC scientists suggest way to harness electrons for processors," by Carl T. Hall, San Francisco Chronicle, December 10, 2001 --- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/12/10/MN230810.DTL  

Some radically new ways of building computers are starting to take shape as scientists venture ever deeper into the weird realm of quantum mechanics.

A team of researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara has taken a key step by suggesting for the first time a practical way to bring the elusive phenomenon known as "electron spin" under precise control.

Experts said it opens up a path toward a whole new style of computing, one that is expected to be particularly useful at performing calculations that stymie conventional machines, such as breaking complex codes and searching huge databases at lightning speed.

"We're trying to explore how to go about building real quantum devices," said David Awschalom, a physicist and director of the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation at UC Santa Barbara.

Although such devices are a long way off, experts say the basic scientific foundation is being laid for machines capable of exploiting the quirky behavior of matter at the scale of individual atoms and subatomic particles.

"Quantum computers are proving to be very difficult to build, for many reasons, but one of them is how do you get these little quantum elements to behave the way you want them to," said Mark Kubinec, a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Awschalom reported the results of his latest adventures in the quantum world last week in the journal Nature. The experiments were among the first under a $1.2 billion research initiative launched by the state of California.

The high-profile effort, announced last December by Gov. Gray Davis, includes corporate partnerships and four new "Centers for Science and Innovation" being created at UC campuses throughout the state.

Continued at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/12/10/MN230810.DTL 


PDA reliability has got to get better, says David, but it won't until we stop thinking about PDAs as traditional computers. http://clickthru.online.com/Click?q=0a-ZnBCIrrVci48ArtKshNYSOuR 


Online Guide to Eastern Shorebirds (Science, Ecology) http://www.a2z4birders.com/cgi-bin/birds 


A "shopping list for terrorist organizations" is being distributed by the Customs Service to businesses as a guide to guard against future attacks --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/conflict/0,2100,48993,00.html 


Book Recommendation: "'Good Enough' isn't enough: Nine Challenges for Companies That Choose to Be Great"

Mediocrity. It's the comfortable curse that a company can live with...but not grow with. And according to business writer, thinker, and consultant Alan Weiss, if mediocrity continues long enough, it can deteriorate into paralysis and business failure. In "'Good Enough' isn't enough," Weiss declares war on the shrug- and-smile culture that maintains a sparkling appearance while allowing gross inefficiency and concealed incompetence to fester. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814405053/accountingweb 


After a hired hacker proved the Department of Interior websites were easy to penetrate, a U.S. district judge orders all sites taken down. When they'll be back up is anybody's guess --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48980,00.html 

Web wanderers looking for information on national parks, government mapping services or geological disasters will need to get their information from non-official websites for a while.

A hired hacker's ability to easily penetrate computer systems operated by the Department of Interior has resulted in a legal order taking the entire system offline until the network can be secured.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued the order late Wednesday after a report showed that the computer system which handles $500 million annually in royalties from Indian land has major security holes that make it easy to access the system, alter records and possibly divert funds.

Continued at - http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48980,00.html  

See also:
Suppression Stifles Some Sites
Oh Boy, an Indian Controversy

Bob Jensen's threads on security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 


Four teenagers admit they wrote and spread the Goner e-mail worm that created apoplexy among antivirus companies last week --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48969,00.html 


Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative ---  http://early-cuneiform.humnet.ucla.edu/cdli.htm 

The Cuneiform Digital Library

The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3200 B.C., until the end of the third millennium. Despite the 150 years since the decipherment of cuneiform, and the 100 years since Sumerian documents of the 3rd millennium B.C. from southern Babylonia were first published, such basic research tools as a reliable paleography charting the graphic development of cuneiform, and a lexical and grammatical glossary of the approximately 120,000 texts inscribed during this period of early state formation, remain unavailable even to specialists, not to mention scholars from other disciplines to whom these earliest sources on social development represent an extraordinary hidden treasure. The CDLI, directed by Robert. K. Englund of the University of California at Los Angeles and Peter Damerow of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, is pursuing the systematic digital documentation and electronic publication of these 3rd millennium sources. Cooperative partners include leading experts from the field of Assyriology, curators of European and American museums, and computer specialists in text markup. The CDLI data set will consist of text and image, combining document transliterations, text glossaries and digitized originals and photo archives of early cuneiform.

This electronic documentation should be of particular interest to cuneiform scholars distant from collections, and to museum personnel intent on archiving and preserving fragile and often decaying cuneiform collections. The data will form the basis for the development of representations of the structure of 3rd millennium administrative and lexical documents, making the contents of the texts accessible to scholars from other disciplines. A typology of accounting procedures, graphical representations of formal structures of bookkeeping documents, and extensive glossaries of technical terms later supplemented by linguistic tools for accessing the primary sources by non-Assyriologists are being developed. Data formats, including Extensible Markup Language (XML) text descriptions, with vector-based image specifications of computer-assisted tablet copies, will be chosen to insure high conformance with ongoing digital library projects. Metadata-based lexemic and grammatical analysis of Sumerian in the CDLI markup environment will not onl y put at the disposal of specialists in the fields of Assyriology and Sumerology available cuneiform documents from the first thousand years of Babylonian writing, but also general linguists, semioticists, and historians of communication and cognition, of administration and early state formation, will for the first time have access to the form and content of these records.

In an initial three-year phase funded by the Digital Library Initiative of the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities (see text of funding proposal), project staff and associates expect to complete the digitization of the early cuneiform collections of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, the Louvre, Paris, the Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Approximately half of large holdings of the British Museum should be finished in this period. Dual track internet presentations of these collections (conforming on the one hand with individual museum presentation, on the other with archival data sets of the CDLI) will be implemented in steps, beginning in January 2001 with that of the Vorderasiatisches Museum. The ca. 3200 tablets of that museum represent one of the finest collections of early cuneiform known to us, with representative text groups from all of the major phases of writing in Mesopotamia. Project staff are currently preparing for insertion in our internet pages the full image data sets of the Hermitage, with its substantial archives of pre-Sargonic Lagash (ca. 2400-2350 B.C.) and Ur III (ca. 2050-2000 B.C.) administrative documents, and of all collections of tablets deriving from the period of proto-cuneiform (ca. 3200-3000 B.C.). Such research tools as a reliable paleography of twelve hundred years of cuneiform, and a lexical and grammatical glossary of the wide-ranging records from the period of early Babylonian history will follow from the cooperative research on these data sets sponsored by the CDLI.


Even members of the industry say it will take years before Bluetooth wireless technology is adopted en masse. But that doesn't mean we can't dream about its potential --- http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,49023,00.html 


Camera on the Tip of His Shoe

He was put on probation for taping "upskirt" videos with a sneakercam ... but that didn't stop him from taking it with him to his probation office --- http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,49054,00.html 

A man sentenced to probation for using a tiny video camera in his sneakers to peek up women's skirts also used the "sneakercam" to ogle women at his probation office, prosecutors told a Florida court.

The allegations came to light during a hearing on Tuesday after defendant Daniel Searfoss was arrested a second time on voyeurism charges, the Tampa Tribune reported on Wednesday.

Searfoss, a 43-year-old mechanic, was first arrested Dec. 31, 2000, on a misdemeanor voyeurism charge at a Wal-Mart store in Plant City, Florida, near Tampa. Police said he wired a camera hidden in his sneaker to a video recorder he carried in a bag, using it to peek up women's skirts.

See also:
Reporters Scowl at Face Scanners
Protesters Wish for Cams to Scram


Hi Sarah,

I suggest that you begin with a free online accounting history book by David A.R. Forrester. It is a great book and has some great references to other books. You will find the link at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory 

Although it is not accounting history per se, I also recommend the book by Geoffrey Poitras that is also referenced beneath the Forrester book.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Sarah Cheng [ACCT] [mailto:acsarah@inet.polyu.edu.hk]  
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 4:24 AM 
To: CPAS-L@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU ; rjensen@TRINITY.EDU  
Subject: Re: Accounting history

Any idea about a good book on accounting history?

Regards,
Sarah Cheng


One-time Internet booster Henry Blodget, who recently left Merrill Lynch, is reportedly one of several stock analysts being probed for alleged conflicts of interest --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48992,00.html 


Which one factor is most important when choosing a Web server (software) platform for your enterprise?

See Information Week's choices at http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFMQ0Bdl6n0V30BDq50Ao 


Small town governments, church groups and the Ohio State Senate have Web addresses that have been hijacked and held ransom by pornographers lately in a growing trend.

"Sites Forlorn When Reborn as Porn," by Jeffrey Benner, Wired News, December 10, 2001 --- 
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,48903,1162b6a.html
 

The website for the city of Villa Hills, Kentucky, currently features a picture of 19-year-old Tina clutching her bare breasts.

Images of "Euro Teen Sluts" appear where Manchester, Iowa's city government information used to be. And teachers looking for Home Education Magazine at its former online address will find a link to "gang bang models," but absolutely no helpful tips on home schooling.

These are just a few of the growing number of local governments, church groups and nonprofit organizations that have recently seen their homepages turned into smut dens.

The International Lutheran Woman's Missionary League, the Nebraska Department of Education, the Ohio State Senate and the Ballet Theatre of Annapolis, Maryland, have all experienced the same fate, according to N2H2, a Web filtering company that tracks porn on the Web.

"It's a trend we started seeing several months ago," N2H2 spokesman David Burt said. "It seems to be a couple of companies, one in Armenia. They buy up lapsed domain names and convert them to porn sites."

The takeovers all involve domain names whose registration has expired. Some owners just forgot to renew. Others gave up ownership to their old address after switching over to a new name.

The domain names may have been snapped up by speculators who make a living trafficking in expired domains, according to Ron Wiener, CEO of Snapnames. His company specializes in purchasing expired names the instant they become available.

"All the good new names are gone, so speculators feast entirely on (expiring) names," Wiener said. "Most are just trying to find a buyer for it."

In many cases, the target market is the old owner.

The new owner of Manchester, Iowa's old website -- replaced with links to porn after the city inadvertently failed to renew its registration -- offered to sell it back for $550. Manchester refused, and shifted its homepage to a new address instead.

The Good News Web Designers Association, a Christian organization, has issued a warning to its members not to let domains lapse, after numerous reports emerged of Christian sites being bought by pornographers based in Russia and then held for ransom.

"Christian ministry sites, Catholic Diocesan sites, Youth Ministry sites, children's sites, Christian Web designers' own business sites, and amusement parks," have all been hit, the alert cautions.

Catholic Diocese in Cleveland and Brooklyn were among the victims, according to United Press International.

With roughly 1 million formerly registered domains opening up each month, Wiener said trafficking in them has become big business, and most get purchased the instant they're available. "This is one of the biggest stealth industries around," Wiener said. "We have customers dropping $50,000 a day on expired domains."

Continued at  http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,48903,1162b6a.html  

See also:
Homeschool Gets Sex Education
Confusion Is Domain Problem
Is It Too Late for Sex.Coop?
Activists Attack Porn Bill


Trinity University's Student Managed Fund --- http://www.trinity.edu/smf/ 

Trinity's Student Managed Fund manages over $500,000 of the University's endowment.  The year long class is responsible for actively managing the portfolio by buying and selling stocks picked and voted upon by class members.  The objective of the class is to improve students' skills at investment management, securities analysis, and team participation through practical means.  We invest exclusively in common stocks and use the S&P 500 index to gauge performance.   Recent Action in the SMF


A Xerox senior engineer's life is in tatters after being charged with trading digital images of child pornography. He says he's innocent, and government records show inconsistencies in the case ---  
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48946,00.html
 

CANANDAIGUA, New York -- Larry Benedict is sitting cross-legged on the floor of his home in New York's picturesque Finger Lakes region, surrounded by the detritus of a once-happy life.

A pair of hermit crabs scuttles about in an aquarium in the corner, left behind when his wife and son moved out. Squirreled away in a cardboard box are 15 patents he was awarded as a senior engineer at Xerox, which has told him he no longer has a job. Closer

By far the most prominent feature in the living room of Benedict's lakeside home is a pile of paper that would reach 10 feet high if stacked. It's a record of his defense against a criminal prosecution that began in 1995. The case has thrashed his family, career and savings, and shows no sign of ending soon.

Uncle Sam has accused the 44-year-old engineer of swapping computer disks containing images of minors engaged in sexual activities.

Benedict has been indicted on two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 2252, which makes it a federal felony to distribute images "of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." Because the proceedings against him are still underway, Benedict remains free on $7,500 bond.

It should be no surprise that Benedict insists he's innocent. In addition to the social ostracism that a child porn conviction would bring, a prosecutor once informed Benedict that he'd face up to 50 years in prison if a jury believed he was guilty.

What is unusual, however, is that a review of thousands of pages of court records, affidavits and transcripts has uncovered a series of remarkable inconsistencies in the criminal case that the federal government has assembled.

Police destroyed vital evidence that could have shown Benedict was innocent. One investigator incorrectly informed a grand jury that there was written evidence linking Benedict to child pornography, even though none was ever found.

A postal inspector told a grand jury that Benedict confessed to trading child pornography while in the presence of state police witnesses. The state troopers insist it never happened.

Files and entire directories mysteriously appeared on seized computers while they were stored in police evidence rooms. It took prosecutors nearly five years to uncover illegal image files on Benedict's PC -- in an obvious, top-level directory titled "GIF."

For its part, in court filings as recently as Monday, the U.S. Attorney's office steadfastly denies any wrongdoing.

Martin Littlefield, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Buffalo, New York, in charge of Benedict's prosecution, won't comment. "For me to engage in an out-of-court dissertation about allegations would be unethical and inappropriate on

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48946,00.html 

In Part 2 of a series, was a suspected trafficker in child pornography a wronged target of an overeager postal inspector? --- 
http://www.wirednews.com/news/politics/0,1283,49013,00.html
 

A former Xerox engineer admits trading pirated PC games with a convicted pedophile. But is that all they exchanged? Part 3 of a series by Declan McCullagh, reporting from Canandaigua, New York --- 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49083,00.html
 

Former Xerox exec Larry Benedict is accused of trading child porn, but enforcement officials still can't produce any evidence that images existed on his computers. Part 4 of a series by Washington bureau chief Declan McCullagh --- 
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49132,00.html
 

Did Larry Benedict purposely swap child pornography, or did he merely think he was swapping computer games? One lesson in this seven-year saga is that proof isn't always clear when dealing with electronic files. Part 5 of a series by Washington bureau chief --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49141,00.html 


Two groups that publish sexual content on the Web challenge the Communications Decency Act, fearful the vagueness of its obscenity provision leaves them vulnerable to charges --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,49044,00.html 


Europeans still fret over what impact actual euro currency will have on the continent, but auction sites think it'll help facilitate cross-border transactions --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,49048,1162b6a.html 


A message received from AccountingWeb on December 14, 2001

Here is a sample of the questions that have been posted this week. Check out all the questions at our Q&A Forum and see if you can lend a hand. http://www.accountingweb.com/help/anyanswers.html 

1. Is there a source for determining what cities have grant money available for small businesses planning to relocate? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65595 

2. How can one best structure a lump sum damages settlement that involves a lawyer's contingency payment? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65731 

3. What account should be used to book rebates received on the purchase of PC's, cell phones, and so on? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/66048 

4. An individual tax practice in Denver, CO is contemplating raising prices at least 30% but is worried that the increase will cause many clients to leave. Are there any statistics available that address this issue? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/66187 

Bob Jensen's threads on helpers for accounting practices and small business are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.ht
m
 


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As companies continue to grapple with security and disaster recovery concerns brought about by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government is considering a broad set of security standards that it will push its agencies and private industry to follow. Last week, the Business Software Alliance, at its Global Tech Summit in Washington, issued a "Cyber Security Blueprint" to guide collaborative government and industry initiatives. The proposals include greater investment in enhanced security tools, federal research and development investment in security technology, and increased criminal penalties against computer crimes --- http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D701%2526a%253D19634,00.asp 


MicronPC is giving a thumbs-up to new security measures with a notebook computer launched Monday. The PC maker's new Transport GX2 features a fingerprint reader to verify a person's rights to access data inside the system. With the GX2, MicronPC becomes one of the first manufacturers to build into a notebook so-called biometric security. http://clickthru.online.com/Click?q=34-pJJSIcdN1sbGQTBGltAkVn4R 


A message from Peter C. Bruce [pbruce@statistics.com

Raftery, Tanner & Wells' new book "Statistics in the 21st Century" (Chapman & Hall, 2002) is not, strictly speaking, new, in the sense that much of the material has previously appeared in journal articles. Still, unless you know that you will be stuck analyzing the same types of problems with the same methods in the same job from here on out, it is a valuable addition to your book shelf.

This book grew out of a series of articles in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, presenting 30 short review articles on the role of statistics in various discplines, as well as 20 similar articles on recent methodological advances. It will be of interest to several sorts of statisticians: -- Academics seeking to understand whether methodologies developed mainly in the context of another discipline might have applicability for their own; -- Researchers whose statistical applications have been narrowly focused, and who want to expand their understanding in a general way; -- Teachers who believe their students may benefit from greater knowledge of how statistics is used in the world -- Independent consultants thinking of expanding their reach; -- Students contemplating career choices and professionals thinking of a career change.

A large part of statistics is measuring and understanding variability, and there is some variability among these vignettes. David Oakes (survival analysis) packs an enormous amount of statistical content into just over four pages, and the goal of broad coverage is undermined a bit by detailed forays into theory that are necessarily terse and jumpy. Peter Guttorp's piece on environmental statistics has much less material to tackle and does it in more space, resulting in a more readable "density index."

Bottom line: A valuable resource for the statistician who wants a quick understanding of what the rest of the profession is doing. Tons of references a good book to have around.

The following disciplines and topics are touched upon:

- Survival analysis - Causal analysis in health science ("counterfactual approach") - Environmental statistics - Capture-recapture - Predicting genetic merit in animal breeding - Modeling toxicology - Assessing diagnostic tests (Receiver Operating Characteristic Methodology) - Randomized clinical trials - Epidemiology - Analysis of the gene - Financial markets - Market research - Time series data - Statistics in political science and sociology - Psychometrics - Forensic statistics - Demography - Climate and weather (global warming) - Seismology - Measuring internet traffic - Data compression - Reliability - Statistical Process Control

Methods Topics

- Log Linear models - Bayesian statistics and Gibbs sampling (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) - Decision theory - The bootstrap - Which variables to select for a model - Nonparametrics - Generalized Linear Models - Missing Data - Robust statistics - Likelihood - Measurement error models - Minimax decision-making

Reviewed by Peter Bruce, statistics.com 
Available at http://www.statistics.com/content/bookstore/ 


Wow!  Over 20 years of Usenet discussion groups to search, browse, and post messages --- 
http://groups.google.com/
 

A popular search engine (Google) has posted 20 years' worth of Usenet discussion group postings: more than 700 million entries in all. Included: American Taliban John Walker, screen name, "doodoo." --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,49016,00.html 

Teenager Training for Terrorism:  The Early Years

E-mails from a Traitor The young John Walker left an enormous cache of nutty e-mails --- http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/669eqdyh.asp 

From August 1995 to August 1997, John Philip Walker Lindh, the Marin County jihadist, was a frequent contributor to Internet newsgroups. As Newsweek reports  http://www.msnbc.com/news/669825.asp  in its latest issue, he used the nom de plume "doodoo."

At the outset, he pretended to be a rapper, critiquing the rhymes of another Internet poseur as "some 13 year old white kid playing smart," which would actually be a pretty fair description of himself, then a 14-year-old white kid trying to pass himself off as black. Two years later, he was "Prof. J" pontificating on the relationship of Judaism to Zionism in the newsgroup soc.religion.islam.

In between, he seems to have liquidated his comic books and video games in order to buy audio equipment. But on July 29, 1996, he suddenly pulls up short: "I've heard recently that certain musical instruments are forbidden by Islam," he writes. And by September 21, 1996, he's placing an online want ad (WTB means "wanted to buy") for recordings of Malcolm X speeches. He comes across in many places as a budding totalitarian, though it should be noted that many 15-year-old habitues of newsgroups try to sound imperious. Not that many sign their e-mails "Br. Mujahid," however.

You can retrieve the online oeuvre of the American Taliban for yourself by searching for "doodoo@hooked.net" in the newsgroups archive at Google http://groups.google.com/groups?group=news&hl=en . Or you can read them at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/669eqdyh.asp  , reformatted in chronological order. The only editing I've done is to remove the e-mail addresses of third parties and the more technical parts of the address headers. The personal webpage he refers to, http://www.hooked.net/users/doodoo/index.htm  , seems no longer to exist.

Bob Jensen's Bookmarks on "Discussion Groups, Newsgroups and Chat Rooms" are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#DiscussionGroups 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.ht


News from New Media on December 13, 2001

THIS WEEK'S NEWS

* BUSINESS Future of Marketing for 2002: New Priorities, Part I The flash and excess that were the mark of marketing in the 1990s are officially gone for good. Today, customer knowledge and calculable returns rule. The following issues will be essential to marketing success in the coming year: Multi-Channel Synchronization Today, most businesses operate across many channels, from retail stores and catalogs, to call centers and the Web. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3265 

We Came, We Saw, We Did a Little E-Shopping In fact, 25 percent of us are finished buying gifts; report finds last two weeks of November were the biggest so far this year for online shopping. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3261 

Untapped Webizens: Seeking Out the Gay and Lesbian Market Nowhere has the Web's potential to galvanize had a stronger impact than in the gay and lesbian community, yet little has been done to reach this market online. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3257 

Toys Continue to Top E-Commerce Lists If the data from the Nielsen//NetRatings Holiday eCommerce Index is any indication, there should be a lot of packages arriving at a lot of homes that will make a lot of children very happy this holiday season. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3254 

Travel Joins the Holiday Shopping Spree Online shoppers outspent their post-Thanksgiving e-commerce purchases during the week ending Dec. 2. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3251 

DESIGN Making Advertisers and Users Happier: A Case Study Making advertisers and users happier: Has Lycos achieved the impossible? http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3263 

How Web Designers Sell Themselves Are you one of those Web designers who design quite well, but don't have time to work on your own site? Savvy Web surfers looking for designers expect a great deal from a site offering Web development/design. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3262 

Is Your Web Site Qualified to Sell? Does your site pass the one page only indicator? Take this test to find out. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3256 

Eight Things to Consider When Choosing a CMS If you are a Web site owner you'll probably be keen to do the job of keeping your Web site up-to-date yourself. We've been producing content management systems for our clients for couple of years now, but the main problem has been that these systems often cost more than the original Web site. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3253 

Accommodating Visually Impaired Shoppers Online retailing behemoth Amazon.com is making it easier for the visually impaired to shop on the Internet by launching an alternative version of its Web site designed for customers who use screen access software. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3249 

/-------------------------------------------------------------------\

**JOB SECURITY -- CAREER GROWTH -- CHALLENGING POSITIONS** The internet.com Careers Channel is the leading online Information Technology (IT) job board. Whether you need to start your new job today, are searching for your dream job, or are just wondering what your skills are worth, you'll find the tools you need to land your next great job. Don't wait any longer! http://www.internet.com/sections/careers.html 

* TECHNOLOGY Internet Influencing All Aspects of Healthcare The Internet has provided efficient ways for doctors to treat and communicate with their patients, but it's also provided a platform for pharmaceutical companies and other organizations to reach doctors, a study by The Boston Consulting Group and Harris Interactive found. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3264 

Enterprises Continue to Drive Wireless Applications Nearly half (46.1 percent) of development managers at large corporations plan to develop applications for wireless devices in the coming year, according to Evans Data Corp . That's more than plan on developing B2B e-commerce applications and even security. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3260 

ISPs Barely Passing Customer Service Tests A survey of more than 14,000 Internet users by the National Regulatory Research Institute and BIGresearch found that almost half (47 percent) of the respondents have complained to their ISP about the quality of service. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3258 

Email Can Do That? Email Can Do That? All the technology @d:TECH has to offer is being channeled into your inbox. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3252 

Advanced Ad-Serving Features, Part 2: Third-Party Ad Servers Advanced features of third-party ad servers that meet the needs of advertisers & agencies. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3250 

MORE NEWMEDIA NEWS (From the internet.com Network)

Sun To Find Competition in New Intel Rack Units Setting themselves as the "Company Of Choice," the popular chipmaker is betting increased flexibility is what carriers, OEMs are looking for in a rack unit. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article/0,,10_939031,00.html 

Judge, Creditors Approve @Home Extension Creditors at the nearly-defunct broadband ISP agreed to keep its operations open until February 2002, saving millions of high-speed customers from shutdown. http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,,8_938361,00.html 

President to Name Tech Advisory Group A panel of technology marquee names, including AOL Time Warner's Steve Case, could play an influential role in helping to shape the administration and the government's technology policy. http://www.atnewyork.com/news/article/0,1471,8471_938721,00.html 

TOP HEADLINES FROM INTERNETNEWS.COM

Yahoo! To Snatch HotJobs Out of the Clutches Of Monster.com http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article/0,2198,3531_939331,00.html 

For Online Retailers, It's Showtime http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article/0,,4_939511,00.html 

Ciena Posts Net Loss, Warns of More Losses http://www.internetnews.com/fina-news/article/0,,5_939451,00.html 

CONTACT US!

Questions? Comments? Please e-mail them to NewMedia Managing Editor Laura Rush (lrush@internet.com). Please do not send unsubscribe requests to this address--instructions for that appear at the very bottom of this newsletter. You can also subscribe/unsubscribe directly from our Web site, at http://www.newmedia.com 

Bob Jensen's Tutorials on e-Commerce are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


Dmitri Sklyarov, the Russian hacker arrested after DefCon earlier this year for cracking Adobe's e-book reader security and publishing how he did it, makes a deal --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49122,00.html 


Subject: I AM A STUDENT REQUESTING HELP

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jennifer Collins <jcollin2@OLIVET.EDU>  
To: <CPAS-L@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 3:27 PM 
Subject: I AM A STUDENT REQUESTING HELP

I am a student at Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, IL majoring in Accounting. I have been asked to do a special project listing three > examples of how accounting impacts some aspects of our society. If you can  help me at all please do. I have been asked to use the internet and/or >business professionals therefore, I decided to combine the two. As I said > before, any information that you can give me will be greatly appreciated. 
Thank you. 

Reply from Bob Jensen

I tend to agree with the President of Harvard University when he stated the following:

**************************************** 
If one were writing a history of the American capital market, it is a fair bet that the single most important innovation shaping that market was the idea of generally accepted accounting principles. Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University and former Secretary of Treasury 
***************************************

From FEI Express, May 24, 2001 --- http://www.fei.org/newsletters/express/feiexpress62.cfm

LAWRENCE SUMMERS AT THE FORBES CFO CONFERENCE Lawrence Summers, the President-elect of Harvard University and former Secretary of Treasury, talked about what's new in the "New Economy" and how those innovations have contributed to the overall success of the global economy.

Three hallmarks of our time: 1. Technology that brings people together; 2. The fact that we are REALLY becoming ONE world; the coming together of our global economy; 3. The power of free markets not only is clearly demonstrated but actually increasing in importance.

Summers also talked about the dramatic shift in capital allocation arising from shareholder activism in the late '80s and through the '90s. He spoke about how the shift of investors' dollars from unresponsive, under-performing management teams to venture capitalists and private equity investment groups drove the dramatic stock market performance in the '90s. Our capacity for creative destruction and reallocation of capital underlies the ability to do this. Further, U.S. companies have been the most aggressive in seeking out opportunities abroad.

As to the future, he joked that economists are often advised to name a date or name a number, but not both. How quickly the inventories are worked off is one key. Summers thinks they were worked down nicely in the first quarter of this year, which bodes well for the balance of the year. Equipment investment will be weak for some time, in his view. There is still excess capacity and there is equipment being sold off from busted companies at pennies on the dollar. Therefore, investment will lag. Consumer spending is the final key component. Summers thinks that most likely we will just barely avoid a technical recession, but sluggish consumption and investment will continue for three quarters. He thinks the tax cut is too small in the near term to have any impact on the short-term economy.

The tax cut, in his view, will not help in the current economy, and he thinks it's a big mistake in the long run. In his opinion, there is a significant risk, and we can't afford it. Smaller surpluses will lead to higher interest costs. He thinks it will put us back into deficit spending. Second, we can't be sure what the surplus or deficit will be in five or ten years. The error band around the forecasts five years from now has a width of $600 billion. He thinks we shouldn't lock in long-term cuts with that kind of uncertainty.

Globally, Japan is on the downslide again. It must resolve the "mother-of-all" banking crisis before its economy can rebound. Europe faces a real risk of diminished expectations, feeling that 3% growth is just fine. However, Mexico is a bright spot and appears poised for growth in his view. India and China are experiencing substantial growth, while China's growth, is decelerating and India's is accelerating. Brazil is looking at important elections in 2002 that show worrisome signs of turmoil.

For the long run, his view is that we are in a period of remarkable opportunity, but will be challenged in the short term.

Summers emphasized that the US should care more about what happens around the world than we have historically. We are shifting to a world economy and therefore, he feels, we should spend more resources to promote the raw materials for capitalism around the world - an educated population and a culture that has the rule of law - respect for property rights and enforceable contracts - are the raw materials of capitalism.

He mocked the talk of our new economy's improved "scientific control" of inventory. Summers feels the truth is, in rapid expansion periods, that companies press to get more product out, then overbuy from the suppliers, getting stuck when the inevitable slowdown comes. It happens over and over again.

The great expansion of the 90s came with little price increases for companies. He credited the availability of imported products and the overall increase in competition in our economy with keeping a lid on prices. More knowledge-based products that are easily transportable have also provided price restraints.

Hope this helps a little.

Bob Jensen

Reply from Robert Walker

-----Original Message----- 
From: Robert B Walker [mailto:walkerrb@ACTRIX.CO.NZ]  
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 1:56 PM 
To: CPAS-L@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU Subject: 
Re: I AM A STUDENT REQUESTING HELP

This is an opportunity too good to miss. Amongst other things it has flushed out an interesting if not a little disillusioned piece from Todd Boyle which I will have to think about.

I am not quite sure why Todd disagrees with the basic accounting equation and the application of double entry - I do not believe they are suffused with ideology in the way that, say, the conceptual framework is said to be.

I also think we should see accounting, qua double entry, as being beyond the overlay of standardisation that has been imposed since the Great Depression. (By the way the other history that I think is most illuminating is R & S Storey 'The Framework of Financial Accounting Concepts & Standards' published by FASB.)

I still suffer the delusion attributed to Sombart - that double entry created Western economic hegemony. Well at least I do in part, clearly the dynamic underlying capitalism has something else in the mix beginning in Italy in the Renaissance and finding its full flowering in the US of the 20th century.

Nonetheless the impact of double entry is profound. Modern commercial and financial activity cannot happen without it. Double entry enables, firstly, the creation of artifical personality and, then, the capacity to combine a large number of individual economic interests into that one entity. Banking is afterall only a manifestation of double entry. Banking simply cannot exist without it (the banking empire of the German Fugger family notwithstanding).

The general ledger in a bank is its engine of production. It is the bank. Banks are the centrepiece of our economic system. Double entry is therefore at its core.

If I may attribute motive to Todd I suspect he perceives failure of the accounting model as presently practiced in things such as the Enron scandal. I think, contrarily, that is not accounting's failure. It is a failure to apply accounting (by which I mean double entry) properly. There is a difference.

One final thought: so far the correspondents have answered the student purely in commerical terms. Accounting's impact on government is just as profound. An insight into this can be gained in some measure by an IMF publication called 'How to Measure the Fiscal Deficit' (ed. M Blejer). The history of government finance and its accounting is as venerable as that pertaining to commerce. In fact the history I referred to yesterday - that of O ten Have - hints that double entry was first used in government as long ago as a thousand years, by Arabs of course. They were demonstrably using ex post budget analysis as far back as that.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 




QUICK FACTS ABOUT TRINITY UNIVERSITY
Trinity University's Homepage --- http://www.trinity.edu/ 

The link to the above information is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TrinityQuickFacts.htm 




Think Geek
Debbie Bowling suggests having a few laughs while you shop.

Here's a web site I thought you would enjoy! It has all types of "geeky" things to buy!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/ 

Debbie


Forwarded by Denny Beresford

One of my colleagues observed that last Saturday was the effective date of FASB Statement 142, prompting accountants across the land to shout the following holiday greeting:

Peace on Earth and GOODWILL to men (but not to expense)!

Reply from Bob Jensen

Unless, like now, it is being "impaired."


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Double click and go there for a good laugh --- http://www.whoohoo.net/resume/ 


Forwarded by Nancy Mills

Subject: Definitions

The meaning of words: The Washington Post published a contest for readers in which they were asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. The following were some of the winning entries:

Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.

Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A man was going up to bed, when his wife told him he'd left the light on in the garden shed - she could see it from the bedroom window. But he said that he hadn't been in the shed that day. He looked himself, and saw that there were people in the shed, stealing things. He rang the police, but they told him that no one currently was in his immediate area, and that, due to ongoing investigations it could be several hours before someone would be available to respond. He said OK, hung up.

He then counted to 30 and rang the police again. "Hello. I just rang you a few seconds ago because there were thieves in my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now, I've just shot them all."

Within five minutes there were half a dozen police cars in the area, an Armed Response unit, the works. Of course, they caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the policeman said to this man, "I thought you reported that you'd shot them!"

The man replied, "I thought they said there was no-one available!"


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

The Sex Of The Computer

A language instructor was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

"House," in French, is feminine-"la maison." "Pencil," in French, is masculine-"le crayon."

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is computer?" The teacher did not know, and the word wasn't in her French dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or feminine noun.

Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation. 

The men's group decided that computers should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer"), because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but they are still clueless

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you'd waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

                          Living on Earth is expensive,
                             but it does include a free trip
                             around the sun every year. 
       

                         Birthdays are good for you;

                             the more you have, the longer
                             you live. 
                        
            
                        
How long a minute is depends

                             on what side of the bathroom
                             door you're on.

                         Ever notice that the people who
                             are late are often much jollier
                             than the people who have to
                             wait for them?
       

                         If ignorance is bliss, why aren't

                             more people happy? 
     

                         Most of us go to our grave with

                             our music still inside of us. 
       

                         If Wal-Mart is lowering prices

                             every day, how come nothing
                             is free yet?
        

                         You may be only one person

                             in the world, but you may also
                             be the world to one person. 
         

                         Some mistakes are too much

                             fun to only make once. 
      

                         Don't cry because it's over;

                             smile because it happened. 
        

                        
We could learn a lot from

                             crayons: some are sharp,
                             some are pretty, some are dull,
                             some have weird names, and
                             all are different colors.... but
                             they all have to learn to live
                             in the same box. 
    

                         A truly happy person is one who

                             can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

                         Happiness comes through doors
                             you didn't even know you left open.

                         Have an awesome day, and know that
                             someone has thought about you today!

 


Forwarded by Maria

MUD PUDDLES AND DANDELIONS

When I look at a patch of dandelions, I see a bunch of weeds
that are going to take over my yard.

My kids see flowers for Mom and blowing white fluff you
can wish on.

When I look at an old drunk and he smiles at me, I see a
smelly, dirty person who probably
wants money and I look away.

My kids see someone smiling at them and they smile back.

When I hear music I love, I know I can't carry a tune and
don't have much rhythm so I sit self-consciously and listen.

My kids feel the beat and move to it. They sing out the
words. If they don't know them, they make up their own.

When I feel wind on my face, I brace myself against it. I
feel it messing up my hair and pulling me back when I walk.

My kids close their eyes, spread their arms and fly with
it, until they fall to the ground laughing.

When I pray, I say thee and thou and grant me this, give me that.

My kids say, "Hi God! Thanks for my toys and my friends.
Please keep the bad dreams away tonight. Sorry, I don't want to
go to Heaven yet. I would miss my Mommy and Daddy."

When I see a mud puddle I step around it. I see muddy
shoes and dirty carpets.

My kids sit in it. They see dams to build, rivers to
cross and worms to play with.

I wonder if we are given kids to teach or to learn from?

No wonder God loves the little children!!

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look
back and realize they were the big things."

My wish to you....Mud Puddles and Dandelions and may God
bless this day for you.

Forwarded by my cousin Donna Johnson.  I do not know who is the original author.  I do not know who is the original author, but the poem describes exactly how I felt as I addressed each of our Christmas cards this year

There is a list of folks I know
All written in a book,
And every year at Christmas time
I go and take a look.

And that is when I realize that
these names are a part
Not of the book they're written in
But of my very heart.

For each name stands for someone,
Who has touched my very life sometime,
And in that meeting they've become,
The "Rhythm of the Rhyme"

I really feel I am composed of each remembered name,
And while you may not be aware,
My life is so much better,
Than it was before you came.

For once that you have known someone,
the years cannot erase,
The memory of a pleasant word,
Or a friendly face.

So never think my Christmas cards
Are just a mere routine,
Of names upon a list, 
Forgotten in between.

For when I send a Christmas card
That is addressed to you,
It is because you're on that list
Of folks I'm indebted to.

And whether I have known you,
For many years or few,
In some way you have had a part,
In shaping things I do.

So every year when Christmas comes,
We just realize anew,
the Biggest Gift that God can give,
Is knowing friends like you!!!

Happy holidays to each and every one of you.  Pray God bless you all!



And that's the way it was on December 20, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

  Hline.jpg (568 bytes) Hline.jpg (568 bytes)

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December 10, 2001


Quotes of the Week

"When you lose, don't lose the lesson."
(Quoted near the bottom of this edition of New Bookmarks)

"It doesn't matter if you're the greatest guitar player in the world. If you're not enlightened, forget it."
George Harrison, quoted in "Zen Guitar"

"Enron chief and Bush buddy grabs $150 million while employees lose their shirts.  Probe him."
Newsweek Magazine, December 10, 2001 on Page 6,
One of the really sad parts of the Enron scandal is that thousands of Enron employees were not allowed to sell Enron shares in their pension funds and were left hold empty pension funds.  One elderly Enron employee on television last evening lamented that his pension of over $2 million was reduced to less than $10,000.  




Enron:  A Message From the CEO of Andersen

    
Bob Jensen's Commentary on the Above Message From the CEO of Andersen
     (The Most Difficult Message That I Have Perhaps Ever Written!)
     This is followed by replies from other accounting educators.

Lawsuit Seeks to Hold Andersen Accountable for Defrauding Enron Investors, Employees --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31970.xml 


WARNING
Everybody reading this message should download the Parts 1 and 2 Washington Post article immediately.  Like most online newspaper articles, these will not be available for downloading after a week or two (at least not for free like now).  The articles deal with new concerns about whether public accounting firms are more self-serving than public-serving when conducting audits.  They dwell on some serious scandals.

Some quotations and links to the full Part 1 and Part 2 articles can be found at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm
 

The Big Five Firms Join Hands (in Prayer?)
Facing up to a raft of negative publicity for the accounting profession in light of Big Five firm Andersen's association with failed energy giant Enron, members of all of the Big Five firms joined hands (in prayer?) on December 4, 2001 and vowed to uphold higher standards in the future. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65518

The SEC's Response
Remarks by Robert K. Herdman Chief Accountant U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' Twenty-Ninth Annual National Conference on Current SEC Developments Washington, D.C., December 6, 2001 --- http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch526.htm 


From the Free Wall Street Journal Educators' Reviews for December 6, 2001 

TITLE: Audits of Arthur Andersen Become Further Focus of Investigation
SEC REPORTER: Jonathan Weil
DATE: Nov 30, 2001 PAGE: A3 LINK:
     http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1007059096430725120.djm
 
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting, Auditing

SUMMARY: This article focuses on the issues facing Arthur Andersen now that their work on the Enron audit has become the subject of an SEC investigation. The on-line version of the article provides three questions that are attributed to "some accounting professors." The questions in this review expand on those three provided in the article.

QUESTIONS:
1.) The first question the SEC might ask of Enron's auditors is "were financial statement disclosures regarding Enron's transactions too opaque to understand?" Are financial statement disclosures required to be understandable? To whom? Who is responsible for ensuring a certain level of understandability?

2.) Another question that the SEC could consider is whether Andersen auditors were aware that certain off-balance-sheet partnerships should have been consolidated into Enron's balance sheet, as they were in the company's recent restatement. How could the auditors have been "unaware" that certain entities should have been consolidated? What is the SEC's concern with whether or not the auditors were aware of the need for consolidation?

3.) A third question that the SEC could ask is, "Did Andersen auditors knowingly sign off on some 'immaterial' accounting violations, ignoring that they collectively distorted Enron's results?" Again, what is the SEC's concern with whether Andersen was aware of the collective impact of the accounting errors? Should Andersen have been aware of the collective amount of impact of these errors? What steps would you suggest in order to assess this issue?

4.) The article finishes with a discussion of expected Congressional hearings into Enron's accounting practices and into the accounting and auditing standards setting process in general. What concern is there that the FASB "has been working on a project for more than a decade to tighten the rules governing when companies must consolidate certain off-balance sheet 'special purpose entities'"?

5.) In general, how stringent are accounting and auditing requirements in the U.S. relative to other countries' standards? Are accounting standards in other countries set in the same way as in the U.S.? If not, who establishes standards? What incentives would the U.S. Congress have to establish a law-based system if they become convinced that our private sector standards setting practices are inadequate? Are you concerned about having accounting and reporting standards established by law?

6.) The article describes revenue recognition practices at Enron that were based on "noncash unrealized gains." What standard allows, even requires, this practice? Why does the author state, "to date, the accounting standards board has given energy traders almost boundless latitude to value their energy contracts as they see fit"?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 


Can Internal Auditors truly be independent while being employed by the entity and seen as working for the management to achieve organizational goals? In theory, External Auditors are more likely to be perceived as independent, but is it not the case that Internal Auditors appear to have little or no independence? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65704 


The Future of Amazon.com:  Unlike Enron, Amazon.com seems to thrive without profits.  How long can it last?

"Economy, the Web and E-Commerce: Amazon.com." An Interview With Jeff Bezos CEO, Amazon.com, The Washington Post,  December 6, 2001 --- http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/01/washtech_bezos120601.htm 


Amazon.com is pinning its hopes on pro forma reporting to report the company's first profit in history.  But wait! Plans by U.S. regulators to crack down on "pro forma" abuses in accounting may take a toll on Internet firms, which like the financial reporting technique because it can make losses seem smaller than they really are.  

"When Pro Forma Is Bad Form," by Joanna Glasner, Wired News, December 6, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48877,00.html 

As part of efforts to improve the clarity of information given to investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission warned this week that it will crack down on companies that use creative accounting methods to pump up poor earnings results.

In particular, the commission said it will focus on abuse of a popular form of financial reporting known as "pro forma" accounting, which allows companies to exclude certain expenses and gains from their earnings results. The SEC said the method "may not convey a true and accurate picture of a company's financial well-being."

Experts say the practice is especially common among Internet firms, which began issuing earnings press releases with pro forma numbers en masse during the stock market boom of the late 1990s. The list of new-economy companies using pro forma figures includes such prominent firms as Yahoo (YHOO), AOL Time Warner (AOL), CNET (CNET) and JDS Uniphase (JDSU).

Unprofitable firms are particularly avid users of pro forma numbers, said Brett Trueman, professor of accounting at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

"I can't say for sure why, but I can take a guess: They're losing big time, and they want to give investors the impression that the losses are not as great as they appear," he said.

Trueman said savvy investors tend to know that companies may have self-serving interests in mind when they release pro forma numbers. Experienced traders often put greater credence in numbers compiled according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which firms are required to release alongside any pro forma numbers.

A mounting concern, however, is the fact that many companies rely almost solely on pro forma numbers in projections for future performance.

Perhaps the best-known proponent of pro forma is the perennially unprofitable Amazon.com, which has a history of guiding investor expectations using an accounting system that excludes charges for stock compensation, restructuring or the declining value of past acquisitions.

Invariably, the pro forma numbers are better than the GAAP ones. In its most recent quarter, for example, Amazon (AMZN) reported a pro forma loss of $58 million. When measured according to GAAP, Amazon's net loss nearly tripled to $170 million.

Things are apt to get even stranger in the last quarter of the year, when Amazon said it plans to deliver its first-ever pro forma operating profit. By regular accounting standards, the company will still be losing money.

Those results might not sit too well with the folks at the SEC, however.

In its statements this week, the SEC noted that although there's nothing inherently illegal about providing pro forma numbers, figures should not be presented in a deliberately misleading manner. Regulators may have been talking directly to Amazon in one paragraph of their warning, which said:

"Investors are likely to be deceived if a company uses a pro forma presentation to recast a loss as if it were a profit."

Neither Amazon nor AOL Time Warner returned phone calls inquiring if they planned to make changes to their pro forma accounting methods in light of the SEC's recent statements.

According to Trueman, few members of the financial community would advocate getting rid of pro forma numbers altogether.

Even the SEC said that pro forma numbers, when used appropriately, can provide investors with a great deal of useful information that might not be included with GAAP results. When presented correctly, pro forma numbers can offer insights into the performance of the core business, by excluding one-time events that can skew quarterly results.

Rather than ditching pro forma, industry groups like Financial Executives International and the National Investor Relations Institute say a better plan is to set uniform guidelines for how to present the numbers. They have issued a set of recommendations, such as making sure companies don't arbitrarily change what's included in pro forma results from quarter to quarter.

Certainly some consistency would make it easier for folks who try to track this stuff, said Joe Cooper, research analyst at First Call, which compiles analyst projections of earnings.

The boom in pro forma reporting has created quite a bit of extra work for First Call, Cooper said, because it has to figure out which companies and analysts are using pro forma numbers and how they're using them.

But the extra work of compiling pro forma numbers doesn't necessarily result in greater financial transparency for investors, Cooper said.

"In days past, before it was abused, it was a way to give an honest apples-to-apples comparison," he said. "Now, it is being used as a way to continually put their company in a good light."

See also:
SEC Fires Warning Shot Over Tech Statements
Earnings Downplay Stock Losses

Change at the Top for AOL
Where's the Money?, Huh?
There's no biz like E-Biz


I added the following to my December 4, 2001 message from Phil Livinston to my threads on pro forma accounting statements at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm  
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/theory/00overview/beresford01.htm 

To: FEI Members and Prospective Members From: Phil Livingston

Special FEI Express - SEC Cautions Companies to Potential Dangers of "Pro Forma" Financials

Today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a cautionary advisory on the use of pro forma earnings per share measures used in earnings press releases. The SEC warned that companies issuing earnings press releases should always include net earnings per share determined according to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and recommended that any use of pro forma measures should be accompanied by a plain English reconciliation back to the GAAP results. The SEC stated that companies not following these practices could be subject to the anti-fraud provisions of laws governing corporate financial reporting. The SEC advisory went on to recommend the guidance provided by the "FEI/NIRI Earnings Press Release Guidelines."

FEI strongly encourages companies to follow the "best practice" standard created by our Committee on Corporate Reporting and the National Institute of Investor Relations. These guidelines can be found on the FEI website at http://www.fei.org/news/FEI-NIRI-EPRGuidelines-4-26-2001.cfm . SEC officials have broadly endorsed these guidelines and repeatedly encouraged their use in public speeches. Current market and economic conditions make it important for all of us involved in financial reporting to take extra steps to make sure we are fully and fairly presenting our companies' financial results to investors. As financial officers, we have that extra duty to our shareholders, employees and creditors to provide highly transparent and meaningful information.

The use of pro forma earnings has become increasingly widespread and is drawing more attention. Some say the increased use of pro forma measures results from the inadequacies and limitations of measures currently defined by GAAP. Meanwhile, critics cite cases of abuse where pro forma earnings have been used to distort reality and provide an opaque view of a company's results. Be in the camp that uses pro forma earnings in a constructive way to provide meaningful supplemental data to the GAAP results. Please share this SEC release and the FEI guidelines with the rest of your management team. Be a best practices company in financial reporting.

Read the official release from the SEC here: http://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/proforma-fin.htm 

That's all for now,

Phil

Bob Jensen's threads on pro forma reporting can be found at the following sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm  

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/theory/00overview/theory01.htm 


The Accounting Fraud Beat (This article has some great examples.)
"Asset misappropriation comes in many forms:  Enemies Within," by Joseph T. Wells, The Journal of Accountancy, December 2001, pp.31-35 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/dec2001/wells.htm 

Sometimes, the truth isn’t very pretty. Consider, for example, the American workforce. Although regarded by many as the finest in the world, it has a dark side. According to estimates, a third of American workers have stolen on the job. Many of these thefts are immaterial to the financial statements, but not all are—especially to small businesses.

Regardless of the amounts, CPAs are being asked to play an increasingly important role in helping organizations prevent and detect internal fraud and theft. Responding to these demands requires the auditor to have a thorough understanding of asset misappropriation. CPAs with unaudited clients can provide additional services by suggesting a periodic examination of the cash account only.

Although “internal theft” and “employee fraud” are commonly used, a more encompassing term is “asset misappropriation.” For our purposes, asset misappropriation means more than theft or embezzlement. An employee who wrongly uses company equipment (for example, computers and software) for his or her own personal benefit has not stolen the property, but has misappropriated it.

Employees—from executives to rank-and-file workers—can be very imaginative in the ways they scam their companies. But in a study of 2,608 cases of occupational fraud and abuse, we learned that asset misappropriation can be subdivided into specific types; the most prevalent are skimming and fraudulent disbursements.

Continued at  http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/dec2001/wells.htm 

Other links on accounting fraud can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


How to Report Crime and Fraud

Accounting Fraud (including the Enron scandal on creative accounting) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

When you get a new suspect that sounds like consumer fraud, you probably should investigate it and/or report it to http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/ 

The FBI's Internet Fraud and Complaint Center (IFCC FBI)
To thwart fraud on the Internet and terror in general, check in and/or report to http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) --- Report security incidents here.
Located in the FBI's headquarters building in Washington, D.C., the NIPC brings together representatives from U.S. government agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector in a partnership to protect our nation's critical infrastructures. 
http://www.nipc.gov/
  

(Added this week!)
When you are sent some rather surprising "facts" or find some rather surprising "facts," please investigate them before forwarding information that may be false and misleading.  At the purportal.com site,  users can search five of the most well-known sites dedicated to setting the record straight: Snopes Urban Legends Archive, About.com Urban Legends search, CIAC Hoax Database, CERT Computer Security Database, and Symantec (Real) Virus Encyclopedia. http://www.purportal.com/ 

One of our local television stations in San Antonio recommended the Private Citizen web site for reducing the amount of junk phone calls and junk mail that you would like to halt.  The Wall Street Journal has also recommended this web site. http://www.privatecitizen.com/

Bob Jensen's Threads on Accounting Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

 


I received this advertisement by email. Can anybody send me information  good news and/or bad news about Capella?

Bob Jensen 
Email: rjensen@trinity.edu 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Capella University [mailto:capellauniv@e-mailprovider.net]  
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 8:56 AM 
To: rjensen@trinity.edu  
Subject: Passionate about teaching? Earn a Master's or PhD for your passion.

The following is vendor information on products and services which we hope is of interest to you. It is being sent to subscribers of Syllabus Magazine who have opted to receive such information. _______________________________________________

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Capella has taken a leading-edge approach to preparing education leaders and practitioners for the exciting challenges in education today. Whether you're a K-12 teacher, higher-education administrator or community college instructor, you will find our courses incorporate timely content that you can apply immediately to your profession.

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To learn more about how Capella University can help you continue to excel as an educator, visit: http://www.pinpointmedia.com/cap/syllabusoptin.htm  

 


A message from Barbara McCartney [bmccartn@metz.une.edu.au

Hi Bob

I am one of the ' interested sleepers' on the AECM listserve which is an excellent resource for those of us with a bit of GI (geographical isolation). You helped me a couple of years ago in getting an e-commerce course together and that course is pretty strong now.

I'm hoping you can also give a view on this: I've been working with a guy called Steve Smith from UWV and we decided to put together a page of links on cybercrime and I was wondering if I could get comment from the listserve before putting in the headers and making it really public.

The idea of the page is a resource page for educators - I'll be using it in my e-commerce course for example.

Anyway here it is and your view on whether it is suitable to go on the

listserve will be most valued. It works best in IE at this stage

http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~bmccartn/index.htm

Kind regards

Barbara

 


How to Report Crime and Fraud

Accounting Fraud (including the Enron scandal on creative accounting) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

When you get a new suspect that sounds like consumer fraud, you probably should investigate it and/or report it to http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/ 

The FBI's Internet Fraud and Complaint Center (IFCC FBI)
To thwart fraud on the Internet and terror in general, check in and/or report to http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) --- Report security incidents here.
Located in the FBI's headquarters building in Washington, D.C., the NIPC brings together representatives from U.S. government agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector in a partnership to protect our nation's critical infrastructures. 
http://www.nipc.gov/
  

One of our local television stations in San Antonio recommended the Private Citizen web site for reducing the amount of junk phone calls and junk mail that you would like to halt.  The Wall Street Journal has also recommended this web site. http://www.privatecitizen.com/

 

Bob Jensen's Threads on Accounting Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

 


My latest contribution to Accounting Information Systems

Document 1 (Introduction)
Document 1 contains an Overview and Timeline of OLAP, GML, SGML, HTML, XML, RDF, and XBRL at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm

WEB TIMELINE
Hypertext ---> PC ---> GUI,Mouse ---> GML,SGML --->Internet --->Hypermedia --->HTML,HTTP,WWW --->
DYNAMIC WEB TIMELINE                
CGI,Java,JavaScript,DHTML,ActiveX,ASP ---> XML --->RDF ---> OLAP ---> HBRL

Document 1 is especially devoted to a summary of online analytic processes (OLAP) and the eXtensible Business Language (XBRL).


Updates on Enrollments in Some Distance Education Programs

E-MBA at the University of Florida --- http://www.infowar.com/iwftp/edupage/00/Edupage,_September_10,_2001.shtml 

E-MBA PROGRAMS GRADUATE The first MBA graduates of the University of Florida, Gainesville, to take all of their classes online will get their degrees in December. At UF, the quality of the e-MBA is thought to be the same as the traditional, in-class degree. The same professors teach the classes, and the standards and admissions are the same as well. Most of the students in the online program enroll because they already have full-time jobs. Electronic MBAs have accreditation at UF; there is nothing to indicate whether an MBA is Internet-based. 
(Forbes Online, 30 August 2001)

Western Governors University --- http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0160.pdf 

Western Governors University already has its first Chancellor Emeritus and an enrollment of five hundred students.


Wow Sites of the Year

linkdup's set of links, news about links, and reviews of links is quite good --- http://www.linkdup.com/ 

This is a great place to start when you are looking for innovative Web site designs!

Bob Jensen's Favorite (it was overlooked by linkdup):
I have to admit that my favorite site design is the FedScope linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm#OLAPextended 


Bad and Frustrating Website Designs

The Best and the Worst of Contingency Designs --- http://www.37signals.com/dnf/ 


Wow Innovation of the Week 

From InformationWeek Daily on December 3, 2001

** INNOVATION: Videoconferencing Gets Eyeballed

Imagine turning on the news and seeing the anchor look down at his or her script during the entire broadcast. "You'd tune out pretty quickly, wouldn't you?" asks Steve McNelley, a psychologist and co-founder of Digital Video Enterprises, a videoconferencing systems provider. The company, along with Microsoft and a handful of other startups, is tackling a problem that's hamstrung videoconferencing's popularity as a one-on-one communication tool: the inability of conference participants to look each other in the eye.

Eye contact is among the most important aspects of establishing trust, researchers and psychologists say. But most desktop videoconferencing systems position the camera above the monitor, making people appear to be looking down. Microsoft Research is fine-tuning a program that gathers data about the position of a person's head, eyes, and nose from the video stream of a camera placed under that person's monitor. The program then transposes the video image onto a 3-D computer-generated head that can be manipulated to appear as if it's looking into the camera, rather than over it. Microsoft hopes to incorporate the software into NetMeeting, its online Web-conferencing product. Microsoft is ironing out the kinks of the program, which can distort facial images, says Jim Gemmell, a Microsoft researcher.

Digital Video offers custom-built videoconferencing systems that use half-silvered mirrors to create the illusion of eye contact by aligning the camera with the images from the monitor. The mirror is placed in front of the camera at a forward-tilting angle, which lets it reflect the images from an upward-facing monitor positioned just below the camera. It works much like TelePrompTers used in television to feed lines to actors and anchors.

Digital Video is negotiating production and marketing deals for the system. - Alorie Gilbert

For more on videoconferencing, see Technology Brings Far-Flung Colleagues Together http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFGg0BcUEY0V20ZlZ0AN 

 


Perhaps This Should Have Been the Wow Innovation of the Week

Apple's newest operating system sells for more than $100. The latest upgrade costs under $20. A couple of programmers discovered they could convert the upgrade into the full OS, and published the information --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48742,00.html 


Bob Blystone clued me in on this university registration crapshoot game link.

"God Doesn’t Play Dice, But the Registrar Does Choosing Classes Is Hard When You Don’t Know the Rules of the Game."  by Tim Sullivan, Georgetown University's The Hoya, August 31, 2001 --- http://www.thehoya.com/viewpoint/083101/view3.cfm 

Playing games is fun. The way I see it, there are few more relaxing and entertaining ways to spend a warm summer afternoon than with your friends or family and a scintillating board game. From tiddlywinks to Parcheesi to Operation, there’s nothing like a good ol’ fashioned game.

But no matter what game you’re playing, one universal rule applies: In order to succeed, you have to know the rules. Think about it — if you didn’t know the rules, you’d spend your days in a vain attempt to finish first in the Monopoly beauty pageant or angling to inherit a skunk farm.

I say this because I have been thinking a lot about how we students of Georgetown choose the classes we want to take and then register for the ones we don’t. The reason, I think, is fairly simple: Very few, if any, Georgetown undergraduates understand what they need to do to get the classes they want.

In short, we’re all playing a very, very important academic game, but under unpublished house rules that Georgetown established sometime around the Garfield administration.

For example, let’s say that as a junior English major, I want to take a 200-level English course. I indicate that it is my top priority during pre-registration in the proper manner, and don’t get into it. Now at the same time, a junior Culture and Politics major also pre-registers for the same English course, which counts for his or her major as well, and also lists it as his or her first priority. Murphy’s Law being what it is, my friend gets the course and I don’t.

Fine. I can handle losing a game by blowing a lay up or being out-thought by my opponent, but in this case, I just keep asking myself, “Why?” What mechanisms were in place that decided the outcome of this game?

So the questions I have for the university, and specifically the registrar’s office are these: How do you decide who gets what classes? Do seniors, as widely rumored, get preference over sophomores and juniors? If two majors claim the same class, who gets priority then? What are the tiebreakers? G.P.A.? School? Rank? Random chance? How much weight does the preference you give to a class hold? I could go on forever, but you get the gist: How does registration work?

This is, obviously, no trifling matter. The type and quality of the classes we take constitutes the bulk of what the degree we will leave here with will eventually mean.

But with a matter as serious as this, the solution is a relatively simple one: a modicum of transparency. Someone somewhere within this university must know how this behemoth process works. Somebody had to have written the computer program that makes these important decisions. Is it unreasonable to ask that the university share this information with the people it affects?

Publishing the method to this madness is one of many feasible steps that can be taken to improve the class selection and registration process. Every professor should be asked to post his or her syllabi online so prospective students can browse for classes before the hectic add-drop period. Academic departments need to do a better job updating their course description Web sites in time for pre-registration. The Registrar’s Web site should include a search or include a sort function that allows students to find classes that are still open after pre-registration or that fit into the time slots they have available after their other selections have been made.

None of these measures would be particularly difficult to implement, and the tangible benefits to students would be sizable to say the least.

You would think that the nation’s oldest Catholic university would be against gambling and games of chance, but to most people that is exactly what the scheduling process is — a crapshoot. The only difference is that in that game, when you win you get craps. In our game, that’s precisely how you describe your classes if you lose.

Tim Sullivan is a junior in the College and is a contributing editor, sports editor and member of the board of directors for The Hoya.


Tax Warning
Beware if the tax benefit of a donation is higher than the true market value,

The IRS warns taxpayers to watch out for charities that are clamoring for used car donations as the year winds down. The last month of the year is typically a busy time for charities to collect from taxpayers who hope to generate a year-end tax deduction. Find out how you can check to see if the charity is a bona fide tax-exempt organization, and get tips on valuing your vehicle. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/65397 


Key to career success:  Keep up with buzz words daily
BuzzWhack --- http://www.buzzwhack.com/ 


Wow Economics Paper of the Week (Knowledge, Learning, and Conditional Probabilities)
I received a copy from Skip McGoun [mcgoun@bucknell.edu
I think you can obtain a copy of the paper by contacting Skip at the email address above.  Skip sent along the following review by Chris Robinson. 

Hi Bob,

I think this paper is tremendously-important, and should make every one of us think more carefully about what we assume when we use the current finance "knowledge" in the classroom or in our own research.

 

As we accumulate more 'knowledge' in an area of science, we forget some of the earlier-acquired parts of that 'knowledge.' I put 'knowledge' in single quotation marks, because we only think we know; there exists no reality that is ultimately knowable, understandable and agreed upon by everyone. We forget the assumptions/beliefs/philosophies that underlie our 'knowledge.' In a more direct sense, we forget the specific choices about what to believe that subsequent 'knowledge' relies upon as its foundation. Such a process of forgetting is both natural, and necessary. If we are to remember every single foundational fact/assumption upon which our current understanding is built, and to recall it every time we try to think about something, we will think very slowly indeed!

As scientists, one of our important tasks is to continue to remember what went before, lest we fail to learn from it. The field of finance has placed very little value on remembering its own past, and particularly the choices that were made. For example, if Markowitz had chosen to work with semi-variance instead of variance, would we have a very different view of asset pricing models today? Everyone knows that alternative choice is perfectly reasonable and defensible, and yet we do not see any research today pursuing it.

Bob James takes us back to another seminal choice in finance and economics, the definition of conditional probability. Let me quote from his conclusion:

"Ironically, Samuelson's (1965) seminal article Proof That Properly Anticipated Prices Fluctuate Randomly and Malkiel's (1990) famous book A random walk down Wall Street may be among the most damaging publications in the efficient market literature. Samuelson's article led economists to believe that expectations follow martingales while Malkiel's book led the general population to believe that asset prices can follow random walks over time. Both martingales and random walks are stochastic processes that necessitate a fixed probability space. If Bayesians are correct and information affects probabilities, neither stochastic process is useful for describing expectations or asset prices."

Our belief in relatively efficient markets requires that we trust a large empirical literature showing prices change quickly in response to all public information. When we find a market that doesn't correspond to this belief, we call it inefficient. Of course no such model is perfect, and we acknowledge that there are a variety of "anomalies," but they don't affect our belief that we can use a conditional model to determine the efficiency of a market.

The problem that Bob James explains lies in the nature of the conditional probability. If the probability space itself is fixed, then we can rely on all the research of efficiency, leaving aside the issue of testing market efficiency and a return-generating model simultaneously. However, if every new observation isn't merely further evidence of the same process, but causes us to change our expectations for the distribution of the process, then none of this literature can tell us about efficiency. This Bayesian approach to statistics and probability theory has been around for a long time, but finance chose to take the fixed probability space road, presumably because it is easier to get neat results. Personally, I find Bob's arguments convincing, that Bayesian revisions to probability spaces are more likely to be the underlying behaviour of investors reacting to new information.

You could say that all Bob does is take us back to the future, since Keynes argued this long ago. That misses the point. We cannot continue to follow a path blindly, when we know the choice that put us on the path is not necessarily the best choice. If I could commission research to follow up Bob's paper, I would look in three directions:

-A redevelopment of the theoretical models in finance, using Bayesian probabilities for reaction to information. This is a very challenging task, and I have no idea where it would lead or if we can arrive at neat, compact models like the ones that currently dominate the finance field. For example, I have been wondering for a long time how valid it is for us to take a mean value of a time series of returns of asset classes for use in personal finance planning. If every period's drawing is from a different distribution, and investors react to the observations by adjusting their view of the future probability space, the way we analyze personal finance problems is not valid.

-A re-investigation of market efficiency using empirical tests that allow for Bayesian revisions of the probability space.

-A more direct investigation of investor beliefs to see how they form probabilities and whether they assume a fixed probability space or revise their estimate of the space with new information. Perhaps researchers in "behavioural finance" are already starting to address this third point.

Chris Robinson


From Syllabus News on December 4, 2001

UMass Lowell Trains Faculty Online in Distance Learning

The University of Massachusetts at Lowell has put on the Web the course it offers faculty to train them in developing online course materials. "What better way to have faculty understand the technology and the students' experience than to take an online course themselves?'' said Dean Jacqueline Moloney. The six-week online training pilot program will help 20 faculty adapt courses in a distance learning format and complete a course outline. The program will provide both technical and pedagogical skills development needed by faculty to migrate 10 courses online.

For more information, visit http://continuinged.uml.edu 


UCLA Report Pegs Internet Usage Up, E-Commerce Down

A UCLA study on the impact of the Internet shows that despite continued growth in usage, enthusiasm for electronic commerce is down, and concerns about online privacy and security remain steady. The study found that 72.3 percent of Americans have Internet access, up from 66.9 percent in 2000. Users go online an average of 9.8 hours per week, up from 9.4 hours in 2000. While Internet commerce remains strong -- 48.9 percent of Internet users purchased online in 2001 -- it is down from 50.7 percent in 2000. Jeffrey Cole, director of the university's Center for Communication Policy, said that "despite the dot-com meltdown, we found that the Internet is more vigorous than ever."

For more information, visit: http://www.ccp.ucla.edu 


SAP Funds Universities in E-Business Research

Eenterprise software developer SAP, Inc. has started a program to fund university e-business research projects. The company is currently committing more than $500,000 to fund three projects at colleges and universities, with additional research projects to be considered as the program progresses. The initial projects include "Realizing the Process Enterprise," at Carleton University, to study of the role of institutionalizing processes during enterprise system implementations; "E- Business Solutions to Border Control Challenges," at Rutgers University, a study of the information technology requirements for international trade; and "Adoption of Web-Based New Product Development Systems," at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a study of business-to-business product development.


Congratulations to Emory University:  New Doctoral Programs at a Prestigious University

We need these new programs. According to Page -3 of the Hasselback Accounting Faculty Directory 2002-2003, there were only 74 doctorates awarded in accountancy in the Year 2000. This is down from 200 in 1993.

Graig Waymire sent me a letter announcing a new doctoral programs in Accounting, Information Systems, and Marketing.  With the decline in the number of doctoral programs (for example Rice University dropped its accounting doctoral program) in the U.S. and the number of candidates in many existing programs, it is great to have a great university launch some new programs.

See http://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/phd.html 

It is not an easy decision. You have decided to go to a graduate school of business and to pursue a life of scholarship.You are seeking a doctoral program that does more than prepare you for a life’s work. You want intellectual stimulation, the opportunity to study and collaborate with motivated students and faculty who make a difference-scholars who are excited about the changes in our world and want to understand and shape the new forces at work in the economy.

One important goal of the Goizueta Business School is to educate the next generation of business academics-leaders whose research and teaching will influence future scholarship at the best business schools in the world. We want to prepare our doctoral students to conduct innovative and significant research, to publish in the top academic journals of their discipline, and to teach bright students effectively and passionately.

The School. Goizueta Business School has a collaborative environment in which faculty inspire students to ask important questions and to study new business phenomena. We are a small faculty. Our doctoral program is designed to be personal and individualized. Even though the program is organized into areas of specialization, it is designed to encourage scholarly exchanges and research collaboration across disciplines. We believe that disciplines grow intellectually at their edges.

The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Emory’s Graduate School of Arts & Science offers training and research opportunities for students in 30 major fields of advanced study. Interdisciplinary graduate programs at Emory offer another level of opportunity for advanced study in emerging fields of inquiry. These competitive programs prepare graduates for careers ranging from college and university teaching to research and administration in the public and private sectors.

The University. Collaboration does not stop at the walls of the Goizueta Building. We believe doctoral education must be connected to the University as a whole, and that students should be exposed to contemporary thinking in multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, political science, and statistics. It is our philosophy to encourage doctoral students to participate fully in the intellectual currents of Emory University by studying and collaborating with scholars in other fields and disciplines.

The City. And then there is the city of Atlanta, a vibrant laboratory for the new economy and home to the fourth largest concentration of corporate headquarters in the country. As the economic hub of the Southeast, the capital of the state of Georgia, and one of the fastest growing technology centers in the nation, Atlanta provides students with every opportunity to study current business problems and practices. We have close ties to the Atlanta business community, and our doctoral students are expected to take full advantage of the resources of the city in their research and education.

The school is currently accepting applications from individuals interested in any of three areas within the school.

· Accounting
· Information Systems
· Marketing

Students accepted into the program will commence full time studies in the Fall of 2002. A fourth area of concentration in Organization and Management will be offered beginning in the Fall of 2003 and a fifth area of concentration in Finance will be offered in the 2004-2005 academic year.

The curriculum combines doctoral coursework in the social sciences and quantitative methods, seminars on specific research topics, summer research experiences, and a dissertation.

The School’s Doctoral Studies Committee oversees the program and includes one tenured faculty member from each area of concentration. The Assistant Dean of Doctoral Studies chairs this committee, and together with the Ph.D. Coordinator, coordinates the day-to-day activities and curriculum of the Program.

For a list of FAQ on Ph.D. Use these links.

Continued at  http://goizueta.emory.edu/degree/phd.html 

Reply from a doctoral student in accounting

As a soon to be graduate, I can easily substantiate the assertions of David Fordham. I think the numbers at AAA were 255 posted positions and 62 posted resumes. Granted, I am sure there are more people looking for positions who, for reasons of confidentiality, did not list their resume. However, of the 255 positions listed many are for multiple positions. While I narrowed my list to six schools, those schools were actually interviewing for a total of 11 positions. As one whose resume was listed, I could easily have accepted 50 to 60 interviews at the convention, and I still get about one or two unsolicited emails every week.

On the other hand, my school has had very few inquiries and applications for the doctoral program.

While this is purely anecdotal, I can definitely say that the demand is there, and I am very happy about that.

Chuck Pier

Reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

I continue to be puzzled by the accreditation agencies' emphasis on doctorates. Why do they require the institutions to have minimums on the amount of "doctoral coverage" -- on the *fundamentals* classes?

I fully understand why you need some fairly heavy research credentials to teach advanced-level courses. I fully understand why you need to be active, dynamic, and devoting significant time to scholarly activity if you are teaching the top-tier material, material which requires demonstrable analytical skill, tons and tons of current, state-of-the-art knowledge, and a proven record of valid interpretation and application.

But why, oh why, do you need a doctorate to teach beginning business students the difference between revenue and expense?

These students aren't going to swim to the depths which would require their professor to be able to analyze last week's EITF details, refute last quarter's JAR lead article, or double-check last year's Horizons pieces for methodological errors. These students are struggling to understand what a bond premium is and how common stock differs from preferred stock. They aren't going to ask questions which require empirical studies of Black's CAP-M, time-series data-mining, orthogonal factor analysis, or a four-year longitudinal study of going-concern indicators.

Our accreditation team (we passed by the way!), complained about our only having 75% of our Principles sections covered by doctoral faculty. They want more doctoral faculty in those classes. Our two permanent, full-time non-doctoral professors are always, consistently, ranked in the top three or four faculty (out of 15) in the teaching ratings. Their students perform well in downstream courses. Why are we being asked to replace them with doctoral faculty when they are doing such a great job doing what we need them to be doing? How will merely having a doctorate help them do even better?

It is the accreditation agencies who are apparently driving the demand for Ph.D.'s.

And as long as our dean demands that we stay accredited, we will play the game and will continue to seek Ph.D.'s to fill our tenure-track positions. Once the accreditation agencies stop emphasizing the doctorates, then we will be more realistic and can hire more teachers like the Haydens, and like our own super-teachers Dinah Gottschalk and Kim Richardson.

David Fordham (another $0.02, once again...)


From the Scout Report on December 7, 2001

Re-envisioning the PhD http://www.grad.washington.edu/envision/ 

This new site, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, is home to the Re- envisioning the PhD project, which is tasked with investigating change in doctoral education, in particular, helping to expand the career choices available to PhD students. In the Re-envisioning Project Resources section, visitors will find conference materials, recommendations from studies, summaries of interviews, a bibliography, career resources, and more. The Promising Practices section contains information on the different ways in which groups (universities, associations, organizations, and more) are responding to concerns about doctoral education. The other two main sections of the site, National/ International Resources and News and Updates contain links to even more resources, studies, current news, related projects, and more.

 


Toolkit to End Violence Against Women  http://toolkit.ncjrs.org/ 


Van Gogh and Gauguin (Art, Art History) --- http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/vangogh.html 


On occasion I forward informative advertisements (without receiving any fees).

Every once in a while, something comes along that is so unique and different that it warrants particular attention from accounting faculty. Case Music Store: Automatic Posting is such a product. It eliminates the frustration of dealing with the interface of general ledger packages where the emphasis is on the interface as opposed to the teaching of debits and credits.

Case Music Store: Automatic Posting is a computer-based accounting practice set which exposes students to a generic automatic posting system that can be used with any textbook. Case Music incorporates the most prominent features of commercially used general ledger packages and implements them into a unique learning environment suitable for principles, systems, or intermediate.

Case Music Store: Automatic Posting includes the following features:

--Digitized video tutorial that steps the students through the practice set --A self-grading feature: internal check figures hidden within the student software --Teacher grading program which can pinpoint the exact location of student error --Ability to print or view reports at any time --View the effects of each transaction immediately in reports --Generic - Adaptable to any textbook - Customizing ability --Proprietorship and corporate version --Multiple transaction sets --Approximate time to complete is 8-10 hours

Please contact Ivy Software for a complimentary desk copy.

Ivy Software (800) 342-5489 MailTo:IvyMail@IvySoftware.com 

On the web at http://www.ivysoftware.com 


Web Design Tools -- prana3 --- http://www.prana3.com/tools/ 

Welcome to prana3 Interactive Design's Web Tools. We are your central online source for quality Web design and development information, tools, guides, tutorials, links, free Web graphics and more.

Web Design Tools
Tools, references and links to help you design your Web site with HTML, CSS, Javascript, Photoshop, Flash and more!
HTML Resources
CGI Resources
JavaScript Resources
Photoshop Resources
Flash Resources
XML Resources
CSS Resources

Web Site Setup
Once you have built your Web site, how do you upload it to the World Wide Web? Links to register and host your Web site domain.
Choose and Register your Domain Name
Host your Web Site & Domain
Find an Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Web Site Promotion
How do you get the word out about your site? Tips, methods, links and more!

Tips for Promoting Your Site
META Tag Help Sheet
Links to Search Engines
Links to Directories

Web Site Usability
How usable and accessible is your site? Learn how to make your Web site available to a wider audience.
Usability Articles
Usability Tools
Usability Links

Free Graphics Archive
Free graphic elements for your Web site! Background images, buttons, banner templates and more!
Backgrounds
Buttons & Bars
Banners

Web Site Revenue
Use your Web site to make money! Methods of site revenue discussed here.

Site Advertising
Adserving Networks
Affiliate Marketing Programs
Accepting Credit Cards/ Merchant Accounts

Bob Jensen's helpers for authoring are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 
Especially note http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 


A message from Richard Campbell on December 7, 2001

Below is a link to a presentation made with the new adding product for Powerpoint 2002 - Microsoft Producer. I didn't upload the sound files to my Windows Media server, but they play OK on my machine.

http://www.virtualpublishing.net/u4all_2/u4all_1a_files/default.htm 


Question:
A big-time consulting firm -- so big it has its own song -- doesn't like websites linking to it without permission. Naturally, this has spawned dozens of unauthorized links.  What firm is it?

Answer:

The answer is KPMG Consulting, but the answer is a little complicated.

"Big Stink Over a Simple Link," by Farhad Manjoo, Wired News, December 6, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48874,00.html 

KPMG, an international services firm, prides itself on its "e-business" savvy, and it charges companies boatloads to improve their "new economy" businesses.

But this week several website owners were wondering whether KPMG's Internet acumen was really worth anything at all, as it announced a policy that seemed to breach the most basic freedom on the Web -- the freedom to link to any site you want to.

In a letter to a consultant in Britain who runs a personal website that has not been especially nice to KPMG, the company said it had discovered a link on his site to www.kpmg.com, and that the website owner, Chris Raettig, should "please be aware such links require that a formal Agreement exist between our two parties, as mandated by our organization's Web Link Policy."

The letter added that Raettig should feel free to arrange this "Web Link Agreement" with KPMG, but that until he has done so, he should remove his link to the company's homepage. (The KPMG in question here is a tax and audit firm that is no longer affiliated with KPMG Consulting, the independent consulting firm at kpmgconsulting.com -- that firm has no "linking policy.")

Raettig is one of those digital-age 22-year-olds who know the Web inside out, and he's aware when he's being flimflammed. So he penned a nice no-thanks letter back to the company, saying that "my own organization's Web link policy requires no such formal agreement."

Raettig also stated the obvious big problem with KPMG's policy: "If every hyperlink used on the Web required parties at both sides of the link to enter into a formal agreement, I sincerely doubt that the Web would be in existence today."

Raettig posted his correspondence with KPMG on his online journal, and when others who run their own weblogs saw the item, they decided to have a little fun with KPMG. They linked to KPMG's site -- just like this -- to see what the company could do about it.

Within a day of Raettig's posting, several dozen sites were linking to KPMG's front page, according to Blogdex, a weblog indexing system. So many people visited Raettig's site that it was knocked offline for awhile, which he found "very amusing."

Tom Coates, who runs a weblog at plasticbag.org, said that KPMG was getting its just desserts. "On the Web, it's so easy for people to make a farce out of companies like this, and these communities are very strong and are prepared to say you're just dicking us around," he said. "It's not an environment where big companies can easily throw their weight around."

But George Ledwith, a KPMG spokesman, insisted the company wasn't trying to harass anyone, and was just "protecting its brand."

Asked if he was aware of the weblog backlash, he answered: "What we are aware of is that individuals and others link to our site without an agreement, and we have a Web policy clearly outlined."

The policy he refers to -- posted on the company's website -- states, "KPMG is obligated to protect its reputation and trademarks and KPMG reserves the right to request removal of any link to our website."

He said that this was not a new policy, nor was it unusual. "We easily sent hundreds of these letters over the past year," he said. Indeed, he wondered why this was considered newsworthy at all, as "many organizations do this."

And Ledwith is right -- others have tried to enforce linking rules. Last year, Ticketmaster alleged that a rival company, Tickets.com, was violating its copyright by linking to "deep" pages on its site -- that is, allowing people to bypass Ticketmaster's front page, where its most lucrative ads were located.

But Ticketmaster lost that bid. "Hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act," ruled U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp. "There is no deception in what is happening. This is analogous to using a library's card index to get reference to particular items, albeit faster and more efficiently."

KPMG is not saying that only "deep links" require approval, but that all links require its approval. Still, Ledwith was steadfast in his defense of the policy, saying that "our brand is an asset that deserves protection."

What exactly did Raettig do to KPMG to provoke its brand-protection instincts?

Ledwith insists it was merely his link to KPMG's site, but Raettig and others think the company got upset that Raettig has posted KPMG's theme song on his website.

KPMG's theme song? Yes, its theme song -- a several-minute long repetitive ditty called "Vision of Global Strategy."

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48874,00.html 

Reply from Ed Scribner

Bob,

There are so many stars in the universe that there must be other planetary systems similar to hours; thus there must be other planets like ours. Likewise, there are so many web sites in the universe that there must be others with a no-link policy similar to that of KPMG Consulting, and they're probably lurking somewhere within the depths of your bookmarks! The rest of us on the list, therefore (and I am unanimous in this, to quote Mrs. Slocombe of 'Are You Being Served?'), retract our wholehearted support for BobWeb and disavow any knowledge of your actions.

Ed

oooo 
Ed Scribner 
New Mexico State


Signs (Art, Advertising, Marketing, History) --- http://www.pjchmiel.com/photo/signs.html 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for advertising and marketing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#022119Advertising%20and%20Marketing 


'Mujihadeen' Hackers Take Out US Government Sites, The Washington Post, November 30, 2001 --- http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172582.html 

Two Web sites operated by the United States government were attacked Thursday by a group that threatened violence against Americans.

The hackers vandalized the home page of the NOAA Office of High Performance Computing and Communications, as well a Web server operated by the National Institute of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute, according to a mirror of the defacements captured by the Alldas defacement archive.

 

Both defaced pages bore the flag of Saudi Arabia and contained titles that read, in Urdu, "Allah is the greatest of all." At the bottom of the pages was a sentence that read in Urdu "Americans be prepared to die."

The hackers did not identify the name of their group but signed the pages "anonymous."

Officials from the two U.S. organizations were not immediately available for comment. Both Web sites, which were running the Apache Web server on the Linux operating system, were unreachable today.

In the message at the NIH site, the attackers called themselves "mujihadeens" and wrote "we are not hacker, we are just cyberterrorist." On the NOAA site, the group threatened "the greatest cyberterrorist attack against American government"

Separately, a Web site attacker from a group called World Of Hell today defaced a server operated by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC).

The home page of the Army's Waterways Experiment Station was replaced with the World of Hell logo and a taunting message that included greetings to numerous other defacers.

The attacker, who used the nickname Rivver, claimed to have obtained classified information that he threatened to distribute.

According to a copy of the original site cached at the Google search engine, the ERDC's mission is "to conceive, plan, study and execute engineering investigations and research and development studies in support of the civil and military missions of the Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies."

Among the groups listed in the "shoutz" section of the World of Hell defacement was GForce, a Pakistani hacking crew that recently formed the Al-Qaeda Alliance to attack Department of Defense sites. GForce defaced two military sites in October.

A mirror of the NOAA defacement is here: http://defaced.alldas.de/mirror/2001/11/29/hpcc.fsl.noaa.gov/ .

The NIH site defacement is mirrored at http://defaced.alldas.de/mirror/2001/11/30/snoop.nhgri.nih.gov/ .

The Army site defacement is mirrored at http://defaced.alldas.de/mirror/2001/11/30/www.wes.army.mil/ .

Reported by Newsbytes, http://www.newsbytes.com .

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


From The Journal of Accountancy, December 2001, Page 21 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/dec2001/news_web.htm 

SMALL BUSINESS SITES

Business Resources
sites.krislyn.com

This home page is full of links to “strictly business sites” such as online associations and e-zines. Users can find industry-specific information on accounting, economics and investments, to name a few. The business plans section of the site offers a link to a bookstore where business people can find titles on writing and implementing their plans. Visitors also can link to freebieclub.com, which provides links to various discount and gratis promotional offers.

The Voice of Small Business
www.nfibonline.com

This National Federation of Independent Business site includes a tools and tips section with articles for small-business owners, such as “Six Ways to Keep Employees Safe on the Road,” “The Small Business Owner’s Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep” and “A Checklist for Starting a Small Business.”

A Big Site for Small Companies
www.smallbusiness.com

Registration here is necessary but free and lets users seek advice from peers, share experiences and publicize their businesses with profile pages and listings in the site’s online directory. Linked articles of interest cover topics such as business planning, human resources, legal issues and raising capital. They are accompanied by smallbusiness.com’s own rating system on the article’s helpfulness.

Free Articles Here
businessbookpress.com

If you’re buying, selling or determining the value of your business, this Web site offers free articles on all three of those subjects. Titles include “Finding the Right Business to Buy” and “What Makes the Sale of a Business Fall Through?” There’s also an “Ask the Expert” message board to help users get answers to tough business questions.

Keep Up With Industry News
www.all-biz.com

This online resource center for small businesses groups its free articles by “business zones” or sectors such as advertising, communications, marketing and telecommunications. Registration is free and comes with a subscription to a newsletter that offers business tips and ideas.

Channel Surf Here
www.businesstown.com

Articles on business topics, a free newsletter and special offers on reference materials are available here. Channels include Internet, accounting and consulting. There’s no charge for a subscription.

Business Plan Preparation
www.businessplans.org

This Center for Business Planning site offers sample business plans, analyses of business strategies and sections on writing and evaluating business and marketing plans. The site also features links to other resources including a business directory and a glossary.

A Site for Survivors
www.business-survival.com

How-to articles, surveys and reports and an ask-the-experts section make up the bulk of the Small Business Survival Center. Articles are broken down by categories such as starting and running a business and dealing with technology. Titles include “10 Ways to Lower Your Computer Support Bills” and “Top 10 Deadly Small Business Mistakes.”

Solutions for Growing Businesses
www.entrepreneurmag.com

Users can access the current and archived electronic versions of Entrepreneur magazine, as well as BizStartups and HomeOfficemag, at this site. Visitors can get free subscriptions to e-newsletters and access to Entrepreneur’s annual guide of more than 400 start-up opportunities and the five-part guide, “How to Build a Business Plan.”

Help for Small Businesses
www.businessknowhow.com

Visitors here have access to sample business plans, classified ads, employment forms, model legal forms and business agreements. Articles and guidance are also offered on topics such as the Small Business Administration’s disaster-assistance program and generating traffic for your company’s Web site.

Bob Jensen's Small Business Bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#022119Small%20Business 


From The Journal of Accountancy, December 2001, Page 21 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/dec2001/news_web.htm 

For the Discerning Consumer
www.consumerreview.com

This site features product reviews written by the people who know these items best—the consumers who purchase and use them. All candid reviews have strengths, weaknesses and summaries of the products. Categories include auto, computer hardware, electronics, and home and garden. These are further broken down into item-specific sections like desktops, notebooks and personal digital assistants


Great Castles of Wales --- http://www.anzwers.org/free/castlewales/ 


Walking with Prehistoric Beasts - the Discovery Channel (History, Science, Paleontology) --- 
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/beasts.html
 


"Tenure Status And Grade Inflation:  A Time Series Approach, by Stephen F. Gohmann and Myra J. McCrickard, Journal of the Academy of Business Education, Fall 2001, p. 1 (this journal is not online)

Abstract 
In this paper we examine the influence of the tenure decision on a faculty member's grading practices.  Some academics have argued that the pressure for tenure may influence faculty to lower grading standards in an attempt to influence students to give them better evaluations, thus increasing the chances of gaining tenure.  If this hypothesis holds, we would expect faculty to have inflated grade distributions as their tenure decision approaches.  However, other hypotheses exist to explain why untenured faculty may have inflated grade distributions relative to tenured faculty.  One in particular is that untenured faculty have less experience in evaluating students and tend to err on the side of lenient grades when a grade is borderline.  If this hypothesis is true, then we would expect a faculty member's grades to be lower over time.  We use cross-sectional time-series data to examine the impact of the approach and passing of the tenure decision on faculty members' grade distributions.  Our results indicate that faculty tend to give lower grades as the tenure decision approaches, thus supporting the hypothesis that over time faculty learn how to better distinguish among student performance.

The authors are both from The University of Louisville.  The study used data over an eight year period.


It's for the birds.
Operation Migration (Ecology, Science) http://www.operationmigration.org/ 


Top Ten Selling Books on AccountingWEB ---  http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63294 


  1. Creating Rainmakers: The Manager's Guide To Training Professionals To Attract New Clients

     

  2. Million Dollar Consulting, New and Updated Edition: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice

     

  3. Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, The Future of Professional Services

     

  4. How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients

     

  5. How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Savvy Socializing in Person and Online

     

  6. Business by Referral: Sure Fire Way to Generate New Business

     

  7. How to Become a Rainmaker: The People Who Get and Keep Customers

     

  8. The I Hate Selling Book: Business-Building Advice for Consultants, Attorneys, Accountants, Engineers, Architects, and Other Professionals

     

  9. How to Maximize Fees in Professional Service Firms

  10. 422 Tax Deductions for Businesses & Self-Employed Individuals 3rd Ed.

 

Book Recommendation: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

The authors expose the fallacies of standard management thinking. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "Treat people as you like to be treated," "People are capable of almost anything," and "A manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684852861/accountingweb 


Books for Kids
Books of Wonder --- http://www.booksofwonder.com/ 


How to find books --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


The flurry of virulent e-mail worms that attack Outlook users can be prevented by a free patch on Microsoft's website. The problem: It's impossible to find and cumbersome to install --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48756,00.html 


Experience Thailand (Travel and Adventure) --- http://www.experiencethailand.com/ 


Marie's World Tour --- http://www.mariesworldtour.com/ 


2001 Antarctic Expedition --- http://www.biology.ucsc.edu/people/williams/antarctic/ 

Frozen Under (from National Geographic) --- 
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/12/01/sights_n_sounds/media.1.2.html
 

The United States and New Zealand are a world apart -- except on Antarctica, where their science bases are just a frozen hill away.  
"Where U.S., Kiwis Are Neighbors," by Kim Griggs, Wired News, December 6, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48617,00.html 


Rock and Rap
Paul's Boutique Samples and References List (Music?) http://www.moire.com/beastieboys/samples/ 


30 years of acclaimed printmaking and sculpture. (Art, Art History) --- http://www.nga.gov/gemini/ 


Berlin Mitte --- http://uinic.de/berlin-mitte/ 

An expedition through space and time in 260 photos.

The radical changes within Berlin Mitte over the past 10 years are presented from an artistic perspective. Maps of the locations photographed aid in orientation.


Question:
What are the search terms most frequently used in search engines?

Answer:
The Yahoo! Buzz Index --- http://buzz.yahoo.com/weekly /
The Buzz Index varies over time.  These are the hot ones this week.

Last Week Weeks
on Chart
1 3 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 49
2 1 Xbox 7
3 4 Christmas 4
4 2 Nintendo Game Cube 5
5 - The Beatles 1
6 5 PlayStation 2 9
7 6 Britney Spears 49
8 7 Morpheus 25
9 - George Harrison 1
10 8 Dragon Ball Z 49
11 12 Lord of the Rings 6
12 10 National Football League 11
13 11 WWF 49
14 - Segway 1
15 17 NBA 6
16 22 Shakira 6
17 15 Linkin Park 21
18 9 Kazaa 21
19 18 Jennifer Lopez 49
20 16 The Sims 9
 

What has the "Jennifer Lopez" search phrase got that the phrase "Bob Jensen" is lacking?
Don't answer that!

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


From InformationWeek Daily on December 3, 2001

New Battle Begins Over File-Sharing Programs

The next battle between copyright owners and file-sharing programs has begun. A Dutch district court judge has ordered KaZaA in Amsterdam to block its users from swapping copyrighted music files or face fines of more than $40,000 a day. A similar order in the United States against file-sharing company Napster Inc. resulted in the company banning unapproved files and eventually suspending service. But KaZaA says it can't comply with the order, since the nature of its software makes it impossible to isolate users.

KaZaA, like its sister programs Morpheus and Grokster, is based on technology from the Dutch company FastTrack. Unlike Napster, which let users share music files through a directory that resided on its own computers, the FastTrack technology uses a distributed network, with no central servers to shut down or restrict. "It's not even clear to me that [the judge's] order is feasible," says Aram Sinnreich, analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix. "Unlike Napster, there's no centralized information server, so there's no switch you can flick to stop people from sharing."

Sinnreich says the new generation of distributed file-sharing programs may be beyond the scope of litigation. "It is possible for a copyright to be violated without there being a single individual or company responsible," he says. And technological solutions aren't any better. "The only way to stop it would be to monitor all consumer Internet activity, and that would be a clear violation of privacy." The solution, Sinnreich says, is for companies to attract consumers to a legal alternative by offering things such as guaranteed file quality, ease of use, and rapid transfers. "They need to build a better mouse trap," he says. "We don't see this as an impasse." - David M. Ewalt

Read on: What The Movie Industry Can Learn From Napster http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFGg0BcUEY0V20bdF0A2 

Has RIAA Blown Royalties Issue Out Of Proportion? http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFGg0BcUEY0V20bdG0A3 

Bob Jensen's P2P file sharing threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm 


This computer consists of DNA molecules and lives in a test tube. It can't do much at all. But hey, it's a computer nonetheless --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48697,00.html 


WhatUDo (advice for sexually active teens) --- http://www.whatudo.org/ 


Ceil Pillsbury reminded me of the following article that deals, among other things, with use of Excel's pivot tables in financial reporting.  My tutorials on videos on pivot tables, including videos on how to use the pivot tables provided by Microsoft for analyzing its own financial statements and in forecasting performance are given in the following two sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/XBRLandOLAP.htm 

 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm#Excel 

HOW MICROSOFT ADDS IT UP:  Accounting the Digital Way by Scott M. Boggs, Journal of Accountancy, May 1999 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/may1999/boggs.htm 
(An overview of Microsoft's FinWeb financial reporting database.)


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TECHNOLOGY IS dramatically changing the role of the financial professional from that of information recorder to business strategist—making the financial manager much more critical to the success of an enterprise.

TO KEEP PACE WITH these changes, the financial professional is expected to provide accurate and timely financial information that can be accessed and analyzed quickly and easily. While digital technology may make it easier to collect information and move it from one place to another, it also has led to an incredible proliferation of data. Filtering, sorting, compiling, analyzing and disseminating financial data in ways that add real value to a corporation has become a daunting challenge.

MICROSOFT CORP.—with 54 financial groups charged with providing financial support to more than 85 global subsidiary operations—has struggled with these challenges. Its answer is the financial “digital nervous system,” an intranet-based environment that links all of the company’s financial groups into a single, coherent system and provides its employees with real-time access to information and financial reports through the Internet.

FIVE YEARS AGO, it took Microsoft two weeks to close the books. Now it takes four days. The company used to print and distribute 350,000 hard-copy management reports each year. Today, none. Through FinWeb, a network of intranet sites, its employees can submit travel-expense reports and be reimbursed, purchase goods and services and transfer capital assets—all from their desktops. They’ve reduced paperwork, transaction time and publishing and distribution costs.

IT’S POSSIBLE for any of its employees who need financial information for decision making to access detailed reports that are updated daily. The financial system lets people drill down through layers of information to get answers—quickly, easily and without computer programming skills. None of the technology used to achieve the objectives is beyond the reach of any organization—large or small.

AS A RESULT, the company is able to achieve something finance organizations strive for: the ability to add more value at the strategic end of the business and spend less time processing transactions.

SCOTT M. BOGGS, CPA, is Microsoft’s corporate controller. Prior to joining Microsoft, he spent eight years with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells as a manager in the emerging business services group.

 


Question:
What is the most important international tax issue?

Answer:
E&Y: Transfer Pricing Most Important Int'l Tax Issue --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31918.xml 

NEW YORK, November 29, 2001 — While an overwhelming majority of multinational corporations (MNCs) continue to rank transfer pricing as the most important international tax issue, most companies "are losing out on opportunities arising from proactive transfer pricing management of post merger integrations, e-commerce and intellectual property," according to a new survey released by Ernst & Young LLP.

Eighty-five percent of the tax and finance directors responding to the 2001 Ernst & Young Transfer Pricing Global Survey rank transfer pricing as their most important current international tax issue.

Transfer pricing involves the price at which transactions between units of multinational companies take place, including the inter-company transfer of goods, property, services, loans and leases.

"MNCs are missing opportunities to build shareholder value by not integrating transfer pricing up front in strategic business actions -- including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, e-commerce and intellectual property management," warns John Hobster, CEO of Global Transfer Pricing Services of Ernst & Young, adding that "there are encouraging signs that the most progressive companies are beginning to understand how transfer pricing can impact every phase of their business operations."

The Ernst & Young survey found that only 29 percent of corporate parents consider transfer pricing as part of their strategic corporate planning.

"Failing to integrate transfer pricing policies in the case of mergers and acquisitions is alarmingly common," said Hobster. "Half of all companies that reported a merger or acquisition in the last two years simply applied the dominant company's transfer pricing methodology, and 23 percent allowed multiple systems to continue. This increases their risk of being taxed on the same profits twice, and falls short of "best of class" behavior to harness the opportunities presented by such events."

While e-commerce transactions across borders continue to grow, two-thirds of parent companies and half of subsidiaries surveyed by Ernst & Young do not consider the transfer pricing issues related to their e-commerce activities, and only one-fourth of parent companies expect the impact of e-commerce to become significant to transfer pricing planning.

"Less than 30 percent of companies consider the transfer pricing-related issues around e-commerce, despite the fact that in many industries, the development of e-commerce is a major value enhancer," said Hobster.

Management of intellectual property has been relegated to tracking and registering, not tax-efficient exploitation, according to the survey, which found that there is no widespread clear and coherent adoption of IP management strategies that will optimize operating outcomes, minimize tax costs, or satisfy tax authority inquiries.

"Simply 'managing' a company's IP does not equate to responsible planning," said Bob Ackerman, Co-Director of Ernst and Young's Americas Transfer Pricing Practice. "Failure to integrate business and tax strategies in the IP arena leads to poor operating outcomes and overpayment of tax."

The survey also revealed an increased zeal on the part of enforcement agencies combined with a heightened capability to do their job. This is reflected in transfer pricing audits, which are a major issue for companies around the globe, with nearly two-thirds of respondents reporting having suffered a transfer pricing audit somewhere in their organization in the past two years.

"In addition, transfer pricing audits are generating more adjustments now than in 1999 at the time of the last Ernst & Young Transfer Pricing Survey," said Ackerman. "Adjustments are most prevalent in the field of technical and management services."

The survey also addressed the debate over the need -- or not -- for complete alignment of transfer prices for both tax and management purposes. It found that 77 percent of MNC parents use the same set of transfer prices for both tax and management purposes.

According to Ackerman, "This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that companies tend to favor separate systems for tax and management purposes. We believe that the two views can be reconciled. First, we found that a majority of companies use the same set of transfer prices for tax and management purposes. This is the case because it is too complicated and too confusing to maintain multiple sets of books."

Of those using the same transfer price, 52 percent use a compromise between satisfying tax requirements and achieving management/operational objectives. And among those using different transfer prices for tax and management purposes, 49 percent start with the operational transfer prices, which they modify for tax purposes.

"While every MNC is different, in our experience, compromise systems rarely succeed. Operations are often only partially motivated, pointing to transfer pricing restrictions outside their control. Transfer pricing systems are often a calculated risk--meeting some regulatory requirements, but not all," said Hobster.


Link forwarded by Patrick Charles

"New Study Explains Why Tax Harmonization Threatens America's Competitive Advantage In Global Economy," Center for Freedom and Prosperity, November 27, 2001 --- http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/press/p11-27-01/p11-27-01.shtml 


Dear Professor Jensen,

The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is now working with almost 200 campuses and twenty-some scholarly and professional societies. One aspect of that work is to encourage and support activities that "go public." In that spirit, I'm pleased to send along in this posting information about two upcoming conferences.

The first, at Rockhurst University this coming spring, aims at exploring disciplinary (and interdisciplinary) styles in the scholarship of teaching and learning. It builds on a forthcoming volume edited by Mary Taylor Huber and Sherwyn Morreale, which will soon be available from the American Association for Higher Education--Carnegie's partner in CASTL.

The second, at Illinois State University next summer, focuses on "mission, values and identity" at Research Intensive institutions, and includes attention to the scholarship of teaching and learning in such settings. You may also be interested to know that Illinois State recently announced the Cross Endowed Chair for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning--a great idea and a generous gift from K. Patricia Cross, whose work has taught us all so much about how students learn.

Thanks for your interest in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

-- Pat Hutchings


A message from Bill Schwartz

ADVANCES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION is now going to accept manuscript submissions only by email attachment. Please send the manuscript in two files prepared in WORD; one with the manuscript but not a cover page and a second with the cover page only. In addition, mail one hard copy with a submission check by regular mail. Continue to send empirical manuscripts to Professor J. Edward Ketz ( k55@psu.edu)  and non empirical manuscripts to Bill Schwartz ( bschwart@iusb.edu ).


A message from Ed Scribner at New Mexico State University at Las Cruces

Bob--You inspired me to send a brief note of encouragement to our accounting students, which I forwarded to some alumni. Here's a thoughtful response from one of them.

Ed

Raymond Bachert wrote:

 Hi Ed, good job! In my experience in industry I couldn't agree more. I  work with SAP, the largest ERP Company in the world, and MS, the largest  software company; and in my experience what you say is absolutely true.  In industry most of the manual tasks of "bookkeeping" are virtually  eliminated with EDI, the web and other forms of automation. The key to  being successful in this environment is to have high quality folks  that understand business problems and the proper application of  accounting principles to new situations.  

While at NMSU I recall there being some discussion about preparing  students to pass the CPA exam vs. preparing them to understand the  principles of accounting. The later was chosen and I think this is  absolutely the right course of learning for new business professionals.  

Industry is very competitive and the time to make changes is smaller than  ever. The key is competent, reliable professionals working with  integrity. In my experience, companies that don't have this go out of  business. The application of technology only makes this process happen  in a more spectacular way.  

Let me know if there's anything I can do for you.  
Best regards, 
Ray Bachert  

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ed Scribner [mailto:escribne@NMSU.Edu]  
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 8:59 AM 
Subject: Encouragement  

Dear Alumni and Friends,   FYI, here's a copy of a message recently sent to our accounting student  listserv:  

Dear Accounting Students,   I hope you're following the Enron scandal in the business news. There  are some severe accounting problems, among other problems at Enron, that  might discourage you about the profession. Remember, though, that these  problems only underscore the need for competent, reliable information  professionals working with integrity to make sure such occurrences are  minimized. These are the kinds of professionals the employers  consistently tell us are coming out of New Mexico State.

Hang in there!  

Ed Scribner 
Accounting & BCS, NMSU

Bob Jensen's commentaries on the Enron mess are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


The anticipated collapse of Enron will have a weighty impact on the struggling business of bandwidth trading, which the energy firm helped create at the height of the Internet boom --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,48732,1162b6a.html 


I see that none of you nominated Bob Jensen! 

TIME's 2001 Global Influentials --- http://www.time.com/time/2001/influentials/ 


It appears that Camstudio has a freeware video screen capture system that competes with the non-freeware Camtasia (that I love) for capturing computer screen activity in to video.  The Camstudio software lacks many of the great features of Camtasia, especially the feature that allows for conversion of the AVI files into RealMedia Files (to both save space and avoid having to download a special player for playback).

Hi Bob,

We would like to introduce our new freeware which can record screen activity into standard AVI movie files. It is an ideal tool for developing videos to demonstrate features of a new software, for creating movies used in user training or any other task that requires the capture of desktop activity.

The program is easy to use, and you can select an area or full desktop for recording. You can adjust the video quality settings to reduce file size, use custom cursors and add a soundtrack through your microphone.

[Name and version of app ] 
CamStudio 1.1

[Link to homepage of app] http://www.atomixbuttons.com/vsc 

[System requirements] Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000 or later. 400 MHz processor . 64 MB RAM 4 MB of hard-disk space for program installation.

[Download link] http://www.atomixbuttons.com/vsc/setup.exe 

RenderSoft Software [jupboo@pacific.net.sg

The FAQ site has a nice explanation of hardware acceleration problems that can arise when playing back any AVI files on newer computers --- http://www.atomixbuttons.com/vsc/ 

When I play back a full-screen AVI file using Windows Media Player by double clicking it, the text and graphics becomes blurred.

There are two main reasons for the movie being blurred.

One is that you are using Windows Media Player to play back a movie that has a frame size that is as big or bigger than the screen. 

In this case, Windows Media Player will shrink the picture to fit it on the screen. This cause the  text and graphics to be blurry. To view the movie in full quality, you will need to switch Windows Media Player to full screen playback, or switch your monitor to a higher resolution .

You may also record a smaller region to avoid this problem. Otherwise you may need to use the Movie Player software that is distributed with the CamStudio package to playback the movie.

Another reason for the cause of the unclear image is the use of Lossy Codec as your compressor. This means the compressor will degrade the quality of your picture to reduce the size of your AVI file.

To remedy this, you may either set the Quality settings in Video Options to a higher value, or use a Lossless Codec for your compressor (e.g Microsoft RLE is a lossless codec that is available only in the display mode of 256 colors).


When I press the F9 key to stop the recorder when the program is minimized, the save dialog does not appear.


Try minimizing all other windows on your desktop. The save dialog window is probably hidden behind them.


Can I use the AVI files recorded with CamStudio for commercial purposes ?


Yes, of course. The AVI files created with CamStudio may be used for any purposes, including commercial purposes. You may sell your recorded .AVI files or charge users for products that include those AVIs.



How come when I try to record something playing in Windows Media Player (or Real Player or Apple QuickTime), it comes out blank?


This is because hardware acceleration is being used in these players. You may want to disable hardware acceleration in these players :

Windows Media Player 7:
Choose Tools:Options (and select the Performance tab). Set the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.

Windows Media Player 6.4 and earlier:
Choose View: Options : Playback. Set the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.

Apple QuickTime:
Choose Edit : Preferences : Streaming Transport. Select Video Settings in the combobox and uncheck all DirectDraw options.

RealPlayer G2:
Choose Options/Preferences (and select the Performance tab). Uncheck the "Use Optimized Video Display" setting.

Disabling Hardware Acceleration System Wide
Another solution is to disable hardware acceleration for your whole system.

To do this on Windows 2000, go to the Control Panel, choose Display : Properties : Settings : Advanced : Troubleshooting. Set the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.

For other versions of Windows, go to the Control Panel, choose System, (and under the performance tab), choose Graphics : Advanced. Set the Hardware Acceleration slider to None.



When I record my DVD player, the output is blank.


DVD players usually require hardware acceleration to run. You may not be able to capture movies from your DVD player.



My Win 2000 system freezes when I record with CamStudio.


Try turning off system wide hardware acceleration and reducing the input frame rate of CamStudio.

Turning off system wide hardware acceleration :
Please read FAQ above on how to go about in disabling system wide hardware acceleration.

Reducing Frame Rate:
In CamStudio, go to Options : Video Options and increase the value of "Capture Frames Every __ milliseconds"



When I click the Record button, I get an "Error Creating AVI file" message.


Try going to Options : Video Options, and select a different compressor.



I am recording a game with its sound effects and music. The video comes out fine but how come the audio is missing ?


CamStudio 1.1 can only record audio from the microphone. If you need to record the audio playing in the speakers, one suggestion is to place your microphone near your speakers.


How can I optimize the video settings to get the best results ? Can you suggest a good video setting ?


One setting which gives very good frame rates is to use 256 color display mode with MS RLE as Compressor.

Futhermore, in Options: Video Options

In general, you should adjust the Set Key Frames Every and Playback Rate to be equal 1000/Capture Frame Every. For example, if Capture Frame Every is 5, then the Playback Rate should be 1000/5 = 200.

However, if you are creating a time-lapse movie, (in which your Capture Frame Every is a very large value), you may want to set the Playback Rate to be around 20 to 30 frames/second.



I have fininshed recording with CamStudio and would like to trim/cut some of the frames in the AVI. Are there any freeware video editors that can do this?


VirtualDub is a great freeware video editor for editing AVIs. Download it at http://www.virtualdub.org/index



I am trying to record a DOS application by switching to it from Windows, and it seems to be impossible as all I get is some sort of fuzzy stuff in the playback.


CamStudio cannot record your DOS application when it is running in full screen DOS mode. Try recording your DOS application in windowed mode.

You can make your full-screen DOS application into a window by pressing CTRL-ESC when you are in DOS mode. This will return you to the Windows screen. If you look at the task-bar, you will notice a new item "MS-DOS prompt". By right-clicking on this item, and selecting Properties, a dialog box will be displayed. Choose the Screen tab and under Usage, select Window and click "OK". Your DOS screen will now become a window. You can start recording from here and the output should be fine.



Does CamStudio record DirectX, OpenGL applications and special windows such as the Office Assistant in MS Word?


This actually depends on your system. For most cases, CamStudio should be able to record DirectX and OpenGL programs if they are running in windowed mode rather than full-screen mode.

( I successfully recorded the Office Assistant in one computer running Win Me, but could not do so in another with Win 2000 installed. )



I need to save in the QuickTime or Mpeg format. How can I do that with CamStudio ?

CamStudio does not save videos in the QuickTime or Mpeg movie format directly. You will need third party software to do the conversion.

For Quicktime movies, you may use QuickTime Pro from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/.

For Mpeg, there is a free AVI to MPEG converter on the internet.   Click here for free AVI to MPEG1 converter




How can I convert AVI files to Windows Media files (.ASF  .WMV) for streaming on the Internet.

You may use the free Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 7 to convert AVI files to ASF or WMV format.

Windows Media Encoder is available without charge at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/wm7/encoder.html



When I record a large window, the computer becomes very slow. How can I capture a large window fast enough?

Capturing a large frame and compressing it are time-intensive operations. Your computer may not be fast able to handle such frame rates at these sizes.

You can try to



I have downloaded your source code and found them very interesting. Would you tell me how the function XXX in file YYY works ?

Please do not direct technical questions related to the source code to us.



I am a programmer. How can I implement the feature of adding text/graphics overlay into the movie ?

You may want take a look at the functions

captureScreenFrame
InsertHighLight


in the file vscapView.cpp of the source code to see how we implemented the drawing of highlights into a frame of the AVI movie. The addition of text/graphics overlay should be very similar.

Bob Jensen's threads and a video tutorial can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 




 


Fun for Kids on the Computer
Build a Snowman --- http://www.funone.com/1new/11/snowman2/index.html 
Drag the parts to the plain snow balls.

Maybe this isn't accounting, but on the side you can assign standard costs of components and actual costs of components and then solve for the standard cost variances.  But who wants to do this?  Just have some fun at this site.


 




Forwarded by Bob Overn

If you like to drink BEER (or if you don't) here is an interesting math exercise:

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have a beer (try for more than once but less than 10, girls can substitute their favorite drink)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (Just to be bold)

3. Add 5. (for Friday Night)

4. Multiply it by 50. I'll wait while you get the calculator................

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1751.... If you haven't, add 1750 ..........

6. Now subtract ! the four digit year that you were born. (if you remember)

You should have a three digit number

Now here's the kicker!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you Ready???????????????

The first digit of this was your original number! (i.e., how many times you want to have a beer each week).

The next two numbers are your age.

IMPRESSIVE ISN'T IT?

(2001 IS THE ONLY YEAR THIS WILL EVER WORK, ISN'T THAT INTERESTING)

BOB


Forwarded by Dick Haar

Subject: Taliban vs. Texas

A large group of Taliban soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand-dune. "One Texas soldier is better than ten Taliban".

The Taliban commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune whereupon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence.

The voice then calls out "One Texan is better than one hundred Taliban".

Furious, the Taliban commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gunfight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.

The Texan voice calls out again "One Texan is better than one thousand Taliban".

The enraged Taliban Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannon, rocket and machine gun fire ring out as a huge battle is fought. Then silence. Eventually one wounded Taliban fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander,

"Don't send any more men, its a trap. There's actually two of them."


The friend who sent me this does not live in Rhode Island.

When you're from Texas, people that you meet ask you questions like, 
"Do you have any cows?" 
It's nice to
be able to say yes. 

They ask you, "Do you have
horses?" 
Yup. 

"Bet you got a bunch of guns, eh?"

Of course. They all want to know if you've been to Southfork.  They watched the TV show called Dallas.

Have you ever looked at a map of the world? Hell yes you have. Look at Texas for me just for a second.  That picture, with the Panhandle and the Gulf Coast, and the Red River and the Rio Grande is as much a part of you as anything ever will be. As soon as anyone anywhere in the world looks at it they know what it is. It's Texas.

Pick any kid off the street in Japan and draw him a picture of Texas in the dirt and he'll know what it is. What happens if I show you a picture of any other state? You'll get it maybe after a minute or two, but who else would? Even if you do, does it ever stir any feelings in you?

In every man, woman and child on this little rock the Good Lord put us on, there is somewhere in them a person who wishes just once he could be a real live  Texan and get up on a horse or ride in a pickup.

Did you ever hear anyone in a bar go, "Wow... so you're from Ok-la-homa. Cool. Tell me about it?!"
( I don't think so )

There is some bit of Texas in everyone. Do you know why? Because Texas is Texas.

Texas is the Alamo. Texas is 183 men standing in a church, facing thousands of Mexican nationals, fighting for freedom, who had the chance to walk out and save themselves, but stayed. They stayed to change the name of Tejas to TEXAS...

We send our kids to schools named William B. Travis and Bowie and do you know why? Because those men saw a line in the sand and they decided to be heroes. John Wayne paid to do the movie himself.

That is Texas.

Texas is Sam Houston capturing Santa Anna at San Jacinto.
Texas is Juneteenth and Texas Independence Day.
Texas is huge forests of Piney Woods like the Davy Crockett National Forest.
Texas is breathtaking mountains in Big Bend.
Texas is shiny skyscrapers in Houston and Dallas.
Texas is world record bass from places like Lake Fork.

Texas is mexican food like nowhere in the world, even Mexico.
Texas is larger-than-life legends like Willie Nelson and Buddy Holly, Earl Campbell and Nolan Ryan, Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey, Lyndon Johnson and George Bush.
Texas is great companies like Dell Computer and Texas Instruments.
Texas is insurance companies and oil companies.
Texas is huge herds of cattle and miles of crops.
Texas is skies blackened with doves and leases full of deer.
Texas is a place where towns shut down for Friday night football and the streets are deserted.
Texas is beaches and deserts, lakes and rivers, mountains and prairies.

If it isn't in Texas, you don't need it. No one does anything bigger or better.

By federal law, Texas is the only state in the U.S. that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. Think about that for a second. You fly the Stars and Stripes at 20 feet in Maryland, or California, or Maine, and your state flag, whatever it is, goes at 17. You fly the Stars and Stripes in front of Pine Tree High in Longview at 20 feet, the Lone Star flies at 20 feet.

Do you know why? Because we place being a Texan as high as being an American down here.

Our capitol is the only one in the country that is taller than the capitol building in Washington, D. C.
We signed those in as part of the deal when we came on. That's the best part right there.
WHEN WE CAME ON.

Texas was its own country. The Republic of Texas.
Every time I think of that I tear up. All of this makes you proud to be a Texan.

 


Forwarded by Brent and Betty Carper (and rewarded slightly by Bob Jensen to put it into his Scandinavian roots)

In an apparent copycat terrorist act, Norwegian terrorists Knute Jenson and Ollie Olson have hijacked the Viking's Goodyear blimp.

So far they have bounced off five buildings in Stockholm. Stay tuned for further developments!


Forwarded by Brent and Betty Carper

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, "I love you", mean it.

FIVE. When you say, "I'm sorry", look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

TWENTY ONE. Spend some time alone. You just may learn something about yourself

 

To this I might add TWENTY TWO
Dish out the choicest delights as often and as plentiful as possible.  Whatever you dish out, you will receive more of  in return  somewhere at sometime when you least expect it.



And that's the way it was on December 10, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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December 3, 2001


Quotes of the Week

The ultimate fate of any profession lies not in its rules, regulations, and controls. The fate lies in the will and dedication of the majority of people who serve in that profession --- the honest cops, the devoted doctors, the dedicated professors, the faithful clergy, and the ardent auditors.
This is the concluding paragraph in a recent message sent to my graduate students in accounting.  (See below)

Our enemies make us stronger.
Our friends make us forgiving.

I made this up, although I'm certain that these thoughts have been repeatedly written down in various forms.

My wife, Erika, requested that I quote the lyrics of one of her favorite songs.  It is fitting for the world in these troubled times.  I should add that I cannot recall a single fight between us.  Hence, her interest in this song must be on a broader scale.

The Way Old Friends Do --- http://members.fortunecity.com/abbalink/songs/lyrics/twofd.htm 

You and I can share the silence 
Finding comfort together 
The way old friends do

And after fights and words of violence 
We make up with each other 
The way old friends do

Times of joy and times of sorrow 
We will always see it through 
Oh I don't care what comes tomorrow 
We can face it Together 
The way old friends do

You and I can share the silence 
Finding comfort together the way old friends do 
And after fights and words of violence 
We make up with each other the way old friends do 

Times of joy and times of sorrow 
We will always see it through 
Oh I don't care what comes tomorrow 
We can face it together the way old friends do

We can face it together the way old friends do




I created a timeline of major happenings (on a timeline) leading up to the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) and On Line Analytical Process (OLAP) systems.  Overviews of XML, VoiceXML, XLink, XHTML, XBRL, XForm, XSLT, RDF and the Semantic Web are also provided --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm


Researchers at Yale and the University of Michigan have spent two years developing a new test to assess business school candidates. The Successful Intelligence Assessment (SIA) test is not expected to replace the GMAT any time soon, but may be offered as a supplement to the GMAT. The SIA test assesses an applicant's potential for business success. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64980 


Wow Technology of the Week

"Water drop holds a trillion computers Devices with DNA:   Software may one day be fitted into cells," by John Whitfield, Nature, November 22, 2001 --- http://www.nature.com/nsu/011122/011122-11.html 

If you wear the right glasses, a lot of what you see inside the cell is computation," says Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. Now Shapiro and his colleagues have turned the computational power of biological molecules to their own ends1.

The researchers have built a machine that solves mathematical problems using DNA as software and enzymes as hardware. A trillion such biomolecular machines - working at more than 99.8% accuracy - can fit into a drop of water.

Computers with DNA input and output have been made before, but they involved a laborious series of reactions, each needing human supervision. The new automaton requires only the right molecular mix.

It's too early to say whether biomolecular nanomachines will ever become practical. Optimists, including the new machine's inventors, envision them screening libraries of DNA sequences, or even lurking inside cells where they would watch for trouble or synthesize drugs.

The new invention is "an interesting proof of principle", says Martyn Amos, a bioinformatics researcher at the University of Liverpool, UK. Amos questions whether molecular automata could ever do anything complex enough to be useful, but thinks they may find applications inside cells.

"DNA computing needs to establish its own niche, and I don't think that lies in competing with traditional silicon devices," says Amos. Biological computers would be better suited to biological problems, such as sensors within organisms or drug delivery, he believes.

Continued at http://www.nature.com/nsu/011122/011122-11.html 


Cash Flow Versus Fair Value Hedges

-----Original Message----- 
From: hy hy [mailto:hy_5000@hotmail.com]  
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 5:04 AM 
To: rjensen@trinity.edu  
Subject: Fair Value >< Cash Flow Hedge

Dear Mr. Jensen. 

I would like to introduce my self, my name is Hery Yanto, I'm a student at Catholik University of Atma Jaya Jakarta, Indonesia. I would like to asking you about derivative, could you please answer my question since I'm interested to know about derivative. 

I would be very grateful if you want answer my questions below. Thank you.

Regards,

Hery Yanto

QUESTION 1
What the different between fair value and cash flow hedge?

*************************************************************** 
Bob Jensen's Reply to Question 1
If a bond pays a fixed (coupon) rate of 12% semi-annually on a face value of $1,000, then the cash flows are fixed at $60 every six months. The cash flows do not vary, but the market value of the bond will fluctuate daily with changes in interest rates. A fair value hedge would fix the value of the bond at a contracted amount (such as $990) but the combined cash flow of the hedged item (the bond) and the hedge would then be variable and no longer fixed at $60 every six months.

If a bond pays a variable rate semi-annualy on a face value of $1,000, the market value is fixed at a given level (such as $990) but the bond's semi-annual cash flows will vary with interest rates. A cash flow hedge will freeze the bond interest payments at a fixed level (such as $60) but the fair value of the bond plus the fair value of the hedge will vary.

The point is that hedged items having fair value risk and not cash flow risk can be hedged for fair value, but the hedge will create cash flow risk that did not exist before the hedge. Conversely, hedged items having cash flow risk but no fair value risk can be hedged for cash flow risk, but the fair value of the hedged item plus the hedge will now vary with interest rates.

***************************************************************

QUESTION 2 
If I'm entered into forward currency contract, to exchange USD 1 with AUD 2 in the specific date in the future, is it a cash flow hedge or fair value hedge. (I have loan in AUD currency and it will due on the same date with the contract)

*************************************************************** Bob Jensen's Reply

Bob Jensen's Reply to Question 2
Actually, you have foreign exchange (FX) risk that is best not viewed as cash flow or fair value risk. If your expiring forward contract gives you AUD 2 for USD 1 at time when the currency market is such that you could have received AUD 2.1 for only USD 1 without such a forward contract, then you have in a sense had an opportunity cash flow loss of AUD 0.1 due to your hedge.  However, your hedge also allowed you to sleep nights knowing that you would receive AUD 2 for each USD 1 no matter what happened in the FX currency markets.

Now consider the case where you must purchase a gallon of fuel at an unknown USD price in six months. Suppose the current price of a gallon of fuel is USD 1. Your FX hedge of USD 1 for AUD 2 does not hedge the price of the fuel. To hedge the price of fuel, you must instead enter into a fuel price hedge in U.S. dollars. The only thing your FX hedges against is the risk that in six months, AUD 2 will not get at least US 1 due to a decline in the AUD exchange rate. The USD 1 that you get for AUD 2 may or may not buy an exact gallon of fuel, depending upon what the price of that fuel becomes after six months.  In other words, your FX hedge did not hedge the price of fuel.

One of the best documents the FASB generated for FAS 133 implementation is called "Summary of Derivative Types."  This document also explains how to value certain types.  It can be downloaded free from at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/fasb/derivsum.exe

You find more examples of FAS 133, FAS 138, and IAS hedging and accounting at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

 ***************************************************************


Wow Book of the Week --- http://come.to/Gratis-Economy/ 

TITLE:  THE GRATIS ECONOMY: PRIVATELY PROVIDED PUBLIC GOODS
AUTHOR:  Andras Kelen
PUBLISHER:  Budapest: Central European University Press, 2001

The book is not gratis
ISBN 963 9241 22 9 cloth HB $51.95 / £32.95 ISBN 963 9241 33 4 paperback PB $24.95 / £15.95

Table of Contents
Preface 2

Theses to Announce the Concept of Gratis Economy 12

The Main Drivers of the Gratis Economy 14

Description of the Ensuing Chapters 16

 

1. The Traditional Gratis Economy – Uncharted Faces of Pro Bono Work 19

Heritage 24

Condescending Medieval Charity 27

Enthusiastic Messianism: The Central-East European Socialist Experience in Volunteering 33

Modern Applications of the Generalised Notion of Volunteering 47

Classical Fields of Volunteering - the Receding Gratis Economy 68

The Professionalisation of Sports 68

Laity in Office Holding 85

Granting of for Sponsors by Non-profits 91

 

2. The Virtual Faces of the Gratis Economy – Business Operated Sizzling Gratuities 95

Free of Charge, except for Advertising 95

Technology Bringing Forth the Banner Model of Advertising 112

Banners at Wish 112

New Browser Against Pop-up Advertising 113

Suppressors, Filters 114

Bandwidth-adaptive Advertising 118

We-pay-you Advertising 121

Deep Linking 123

Ad Serving 125

Publishing Site Using Site Model Ad Server 125

Third-party Ad Server Using Network Model Ad Serving Solution 126

A Counting Methodology for Third-party Ad Servers in a Proxy Server Setting 126

Online Business’ Comparative Advantage as to Timing 127

Validation and Visibility of Business Communication in Cyberspace 128

 

3. Free of Charge, except for Commodifying Privacy 148

Between the Right to Traceability and Anonymity 157

The Two Drivers Coinciding - Privacy Predicated Targeting Tools 167

Conclusion: Policy Deliberations 178

 

4. Gratuities Embedded in Business Processes 197

The Setting of the Exposure Threshold 197

Between Profitability and Breaking Even – Content Provision as a Non-profit Endeavour 216

Grants Economics, Gift Economics 222

Gratis Models 226

The Public Interest in the Gratis Economy – Gratuities Generated by Polity 240

 

5. The State-run Gratis Economy 240

Collective Goods 240

Patterns of Time Release in the Economy 258

 

6. The Informational Commons 267

The Intellectual Property/Wide Access Trade-off 274

Alternatives to Intellectual Property – Non-Proprietary Software Developers 285

Bites Out of the Gratis Economy 295

Conclusions: Policy Deliberations 309

 

7. Typology of Business Intrusions that Cry for Political Remedy 314

Software Spying on Its User 315

The „If it's legal, someone will do it” Assault 319

Threatening Free Speech 324

The Intricacy of Data Commerce - Corporate Governance Standing Up To Excesses 326

Grassroots Influencing Regulation 347

 

8. Toward the Demise of Mass Culture in Cyberspace 352

One-to-one Targeting 362

Space-shifting 367

Peer-to-peer Sharing 370

“Gentle Money”: Community-level Clearinghouses and Marketplaces 380

Implications for Broad Public Policy 395

 

Literature 399

References 401

 

Main Findings
This monograph, a reader book on the logics of toll free services, generalizes the notions of 

(1) voluntary work, 
(2) publicity driven business models such as ad-supported publishing and 
(3) “fair use” if intellectual property. The aim is to reach a unique essayistic approach toward encompassing and protecting everything that can be obtained free of charge in the world. The author claims that this Gratis Economy – perhaps greatest wealth creator in history – is integrating into the conventional non-profit sector.

 

When examining the social fabric, contextual perspective and manifold business models that generate or enable gratis sevices, the title – a primer on one of mankind’s very few anthropological constants - discovers numerous unexpected and uncharted themes of decommodified labor ranging from (a) time concessions granted by employers through (b) modeling the multifarious world of non-pecuniary economic communication to the (c) reconstructed typology of voluntary work based on a forgotten train of Max Weber’s theory.

 

The technological promise of online marketing is to refrain from force-fed obtrusive advertising. If delivered, this could conclude the era of mass communication in cyberspace. There is a technology analysis of whether precision technologies such as one-to-one targeting of smart adverts will ever bring about the demise of mass communication and mass marketing. The following questions are treated with reviewing the sociological arguments: will the business model of individually targeted “smart” adverts in fact bring about the demise of mass culture? Will the tollfree part of cyberspace ever integrate into the conventional social economy, as we know the third sector today? Do the policy implications of opting into an evidence-based knowledge management scheme – the future mode of online advertising - yield a satisfactory guaranty for netizens’ safe conduct and cybersecurity?

 

The author has developed a sociological angle that is capable of handling diverse aspects of the economy where the principle of “quid pro quo” is buried into entrepreneurial value propositions or into a long forgotten societal context. Ad-supported business models have suffered heavily in the bubble burst of the New Economy. However, the importance of cybertraffic in generating online revenue will remain with us even if this eyeballs-centered aspect must yield to time-honored business valuation processes and lose its exclusive character as the paramount measure of business success.

 

The author compares the sizzling methods of online targeting and weighs the policy consequence of the „information striptease“ relevant advertising is predicated on. Compromising on digital privacy is construed as a “quid pro quo”, as the voluntary price for receiving evidence-based adverts while online. In perspective, the emerging new personally tailored services can operate only if users are ready “to give their name to their otherwise anonymous browsing”: that is relinquishing traceable information for commercial purposes. This covenant of “smart” ads is interpreted as an integral part within the emerging global paradigm of smart drugs, smart bombs, smart sanctions, etc.

 

The free nature of the Internet is said to be lost to overarching business interest. I contest this simplifying claim by showing that only the overall non-profit character of cyberspace has been only limited or rather contained. As the best stuff on the Web is still hidden behind accessible unlisted databases, and little-known links, most of cyberspace will remain free as long as business communication offers compromises in matters of time-use and privacy. The author claims that time-use and privacy – compromises on our attention focus and information assurance - are the most important drivers that foster non-charging business solutions. Other drivers of the Gratis Economy are also identified.

 

 


Advances in Accounting Reports --- Updates and Demos on XBRL

Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 

A listing of XBRL Demos from http://www.xbrlsolutions.com/Demos.htm 

The following are demos which XBRL Solutions makes available.  For more information regarding these demos, please contact CharlesHoffman@xbrlSolutions.com:

XBRL for tax filinings --- http://www.xbrl.org/Events/taxfilings.html 

AICPA book link to XBRL Essentials --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/tpcpa/june01/xbrl.htm 

Multimart Web Financials Slide Show (with a bit on ERP and XBRL)  --- http://www.reportingtools.com/Present/Present_files/frame.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on XML, RDF, and XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 


Wow Site of the Week --- Visualization of Math Formulas

A message from Scott Bonacker

I would like to make a nomination for a WOW site of some week or another:

http://glinda.lrsm.upenn.edu/~weeks/pics.html 

Scott Scott Bonacker, CPA 
McCullough, Officer & Company, LLC Springfield, Missouri moccpa.com


Wow Innovation of the Week (Forwarded by Barbara MacAlpine [Barbara.MacAlpine@Trinity.edu

This should be the role model of all academic journals.

[This review] is also available electronically to licensed subscribers through the MCB University Press Emerald service [ http://giorgio.emeraldinsight.com/lhtn.htm   ]

ABSTRACT

The Internet Journal of Chemistry (IJC) ( www.ijc.com ) is an electronic-only electronic journal with the primary aim of publishing the results of high-quality research in all areas of chemistry. Unlike conventional e-journals in chemistry and other scientific disciplines, IJC offers a wide variety of innovative features, functionalities, and content that augment and enhance use and understanding of article text. Among these are user annotation and commentary; data manipulation; electronic discussion forums; electronic manuscript submission; font, format, and display control; modeling; multimedia components; personalization; and reader participation. IJC is an outstanding example of the 'eclectic journal', an emerging form of the next- generation electronic journal.

Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor and Science and Technology Librarian and Bibliographer Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 gerrymck@iastate.edu 

Reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

I got very excited when I got the above, and went immediately to their site only to find that the contents are available only by subscription.

I think we already have too many journals peddled by a handful of publishers at extortionary prices, and those hurled at captive audiences at discriminatory prices (such as AAA and similar journals).

I think a few months ago I posted a message about the resignation of most of the editorial board of the prestigious academic journal "Machine Learning" and setting up of a rival new journal with open access, "journal of Machine Learning Research". Kluwer, the publisher of the former did make amends, but came too late (and too little); MIT Press, the publisher of the latter, does allow free access.

I give below three prestigious journals available for free to all. This short list reflects my own rather narrow interests, and so is not representative of what is available for free.

1. MIT Press: Journal of Machine Learning Research http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/jmlr/ 

2. Oxford University Press Journal of Digital information http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v02/i01/Miall/ 

3. Morgan Kaufman Publishers journal of artificial intelligence research http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/jair/home.html 

I am positive there are many more. I have been searching to see if there is an index of free academic journals. I hope some one on this listserv will post a message on this.

Jagdish


Wow Article of the Week

Note from Bob Jensen:  This demonstrates the growth of distance education and then questions some of the pedagogy.

"A Virtual Revolution:  Trends in the Expansion of Distance Education," by Thomas J. Kriger, USDLA Journal (a refereed journal of the United States Distance Learning Association," November 2001 --- http://www.usdla.org/ED_magazine/illuminactive/NOV01_Issue/article02.html 

This report describes four major trends leading the growth of distance education. The purpose is not to cover every provider but to draw a picture of the types of organizational structures and educational activities that are on the rise. These include:

Corporate-university joint ventures. those that provide course management systems such as Blackboard, Campus Pipeline, eCollege and Web CT, as well as those who package and distribute courses or content from existing institutions such as UNext.com, Cenquest, Fathom, Global Education Network, Quisic and Universitas 21;

What do we learn from these descriptions? First, we learn that the variety of new ways to organize DE and reach new students is enormous, as is the talent that can be brought to bear in making education attractive in the new medium. But we also find that the way distance education is being organized and conducted often poses serious questions.

Much of the distance education under study here, whether non-profit or for-profit, is built on corporate ideas about consumer focus, product standardization, tight personnel control and cost effectiveness (maximizing course taking while minimizing the "inputs" of faculty and development time). These concepts are contrary to the traditional model of higher education decision-making which emphasizes faculty independence in teaching and research, academic control of the curriculum, academic freedom in the classroom and collegial decision-making.

While traditional practices are not sacrosanct, academic decision making processes have been very successful in producing quality higher education the best in the world. Our concern is that some of the new trends and practices described in this report may inhibit rather than promote good education. A number of specific concerns arose:

It is appropriate, indeed essential, to present information for the DE marketplace in an attractive, computer-friendly fashion. But over-attention to drawing "customers" may result in technology driving the way teaching is conducted-leading, for example, to models centered around bite-size, "point and click" accumulations of facts rather than a more reflective, less easily measured search for knowledge.

In the year 2000, AFT published Distance Education: Guidelines for Good Practice. The guidelines lay out 14 specific standards which, if observed, ensure high quality distance education. (A synopsis of the guidelines appears in the report's conclusion.) The guidelines advance AFT's belief that broad academic content, high standards, personal interaction and professional control are the key elements of educational quality. College faculty must insist on sound practice based on a broad vision of education-one that recognizes education is about more than facts, more than competencies, more than career ambitions.

Education, among other things, is about broadening intellectual horizons, relying on facts and reason when confronting life issues and learning to listen to others and defend ideas by the force of argument. That is why education is the foundation of a working democracy. Because distance education is ubiquitous and offers so much promise, faculty are obligated to carry the banner for quality and good practice while recognizing that this will sometimes require challenging current trends and practices

Continued at  http://www.usdla.org/ED_magazine/illuminactive/NOV01_Issue/article02.html  

Bob Jensen's documents on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

In particular, a related article on "The Dark Side" of distance education is provided at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm 


Online Pedagogy at the University of Phoenix

Phoenix faculty work in a highly structured environment. Course facilitators in traditional classes are forbidden to lecture. Faculty are, instead, expected to closely follow Phoenix's "teaching/ learning model," which begins with course syllabi and detailed teaching modules developed by fulltime faculty on the main campus. In this way, faculty responsibilities are broken down into a series of discrete steps, such as when course development is detached from teaching. Phoenix course modules "include guidelines for weekly assignments, group activities and grading."  Some course modules contain classroom time-management guidelines broken down into 15-minute intervals.

Phoenix defends its practice of using these restrictive guidelines in the name of standardization. The university's online catalog declares: "The standardized curriculum for each degree program provides students with specified levels of knowledge and skills regardless of the delivery method or classroom location."

Critics argue, however, that Phoenix's course modules violate academic freedom because they don't allow faculty members sufficient discretion. Milton R. Blood, managing director of the American Assembly of the Collegiate Schools of Business, has characterized Phoenix's standardized curriculum as "McEducation." He explained, "It's a redefinition of how we go about delivering higher education. The question is whether it's really higher education when it's delivered in a franchised way."

Thomas J. Kriger, quoted from the Wow Article of the Week above.


More from Kriger's article cited above:

Table 1 

A Sampling of Colleges and Universities that Offer
Online/Distance Education Programs

Institution

Characteristics

Number and Type of DE Programs

DE Enrollment

Accreditation

e-Cornell

For-profit spin off; no courses offered yet

Will offer certificates, not degree programs

NA

Not accredited as a separate entity

NYU Online

For Profit spin off primarily for corporate market

Two graduate; many corporate programs

166 (in graduate programs)

Not accredited as a separate entity

University of Illinois Online

Umbrella Organization for different U. of Illinois campuses

One professional degree; 10 master's, bachelor's completion program

6,000 courses taken online

North Central

University of Maryland University College

Claims online program is world's largest online university

12 bachelor;
10 graduate

7,955; UMUC now claims enrollment of 40,000

Middle States

Rio Saldo Community College

One of the first and largest online community college programs

Six associate degrees; 12 certificate

200 onpine courses, 8,000 students per semester

North Central

SUNY Learning Network

One of the three largest DE programs in the country (with Phoenix and UMUC)

1,500 courses from Accounting to Web design

Approximately 10,000 course enrollments per semester

Middle States

Virtual Temple

For profit spin off; no courses offered yet

NA

NA

Not accredited as a separate entity

* Figures for 1999-2000, US Department of Education, Report to Congress on the Distance Education Demonstration Programs, January 2001. Other statistics reported directly by institutions.

Rio Salado Community College (Table 1) offers one of the largest distance education programs at the community college level. One of 10 separate institutions in the huge (9,000-plus square miles) Maricopa Community College District in the greater Phoenix area, Rio Salado was founded in 1978 as a center for adult education. With no central campus, this self-described "college without boundaries" originally offered courses in high schools, libraries and community centers in the Phoenix area. In 1996, Rio Salado began to add online programs to its extensive menu of distance learning courses and training programs. Today, Rio Salado delivers 80 percent of its general education courses via the Internet or other DE technologies. New course selections at Rio begin every two weeks and students can study at their own pace, which offers flexibility for working adults.[9] Rio Salado employs 18 full-time faculty and 600 part-timers, and every faculty member is required to teach at least one online course.

The faculty role at Rio Salado is "unbundled," or broken down into a series of discrete tasks. Design teams-which include a technical trainer, an editor, a proofreader, and Web and content specialists create a curriculum and standardized courses that are taught primarily by adjunct faculty.

Rio Salado College is one of a handful of U.S. institutions that participate in the Pew Learning and Technology Program's Grant Program in Course Redesign. This program was based upon ideas found in the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, in which modular, online exercises, tutorials and quizzes would replace more expensive direct contact with actual faculty in high enrollment introductory courses.

Links to these and many other online programs can be found at the following sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


More from Kriger's article cited above:

Table 3

Corporate-University Joint Ventures:
Hybrid Course or Content Providers

Institution

Characteristics

Number and Type of DE Programs

Affiliations

Accreditation

Cardean University / Unext.com

Create courses in collaboration with prestigious business schools; problem-solving based curriculum

MBA Programs and 80 courses offered

Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the London School of Economics

DETC

Cenquest

Offers graduate business degrees and training

1 certificate
2 Master's program

Partnered with Babson, U. of Texas, Oregon Institute, Adelaide University, Monterey Institute of Technology

No

Fathom

Columbia's for-profit spin-off; niche is to provide high-quality content, courses to include arts and humanities

600 courses listed; 75,000 registered users; several hundred students enrolled in online courses

13 member institutions including U. of Chicago, American Film Institute, London School of Economics, NY Public Library

No

Global Education Network

Brainchild of Weilliams professor Mark Taylor and investment banker Herbert Allen; trying to attract faculty with star power; will offer core curriculum including arts and humanities

3 or 4 courses currently in development;
no degree programs available

Corses by individual faculty from Williams, Wellesley, Brown, Amherst, Yale

Seeking accreditation

Quisic (formerly University Access)

Offers undergraduate, graduate business courses, training; original focus undergraduate DE

Clients incoluding Cisco, United, Citigroup, Lexus, IBM

200 corporate clients; university partners indlude Dartmouth, London School of Economics, North Carolina, USC

No

Universitas 21

Global network of 18 institutions; joint venture with Thompson Learning

In planning stages

Seeking U.S. institutional participants

No

Beginning with specialized business courses in the summer of 1999, today Cardean offers a complete online MBA and a total menu of almost 100 courses. Masters courses, which require 25 to 30 hours, cost $500 each. Shorter quantum courses, each requiring two to three hours, are priced at five for $380. Teaching at Cardean is unbundled, with "senior" faculty planning the curriculum, "advisory" faculty counseling students and supervising adjuncts, and "adjunct" faculty members working with students by grading assignments, answering e-mail and directing online discussions.

Another ambitious online joint venture is Global Education Network (GEN) (Table 3), the product of an alliance between Williams College humanities professor Mark Taylor and investment banker Herbert Alan Jr. As with Fathom, GEN is one of the few for-profit DE providers committed

to bringing the "soft" subjects of the humanities online. GEN, in fact, plans to offer a full undergraduate core curriculum in a few years, with faculty drawn from small, prestigious liberal arts colleges, which are not usually associated with distance education. Not surprisingly, GEN markets itself as a high-quality DE access point; currently on the Web site are courses from individual faculty at Williams, Wellesley and Brown. The privately owned GEN reportedly has institutional relationships with Wellesley, Brown and Duke, although many other institutions-including Williams (Taylor's home campus) have chosen not to affiliate with GEN. The main objection at Williams was that associating with a DE provider would hurt its quality reputation.[21]

Other distance education joint ventures-some with significant outside funding-are attempting to capture the estimated $4 billion that corporations spend each year on DE training for their employees.[22] Founded in 1997, Cenquest (Table 3) offers business courses and graduate degree programs in partnership with a number of university MBA programs. Cenquest's original affiliates were the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Texas at Austin.

Working with these institutions, Cenquest adapts their courses for the DE market by dividing them into shorter units, which are then offered on a rolling schedule either for individual applications or degree and certificate programs such as accounting, which are more readily standardized and modularized. In December 2000, Cenquest affiliated with the prestigious Babson College to provide an MBA program to Intel employees. Cenquest has been successful in attracting venture capital. It began offering DE courses, which now number over 100, in 1998.

Update from Bob Jensen:  
I think Quisic abandoned all or most of its college courses.  You can read more about Cardian and listen to some of its faculty discuss course development and delivery from my August 2001 workshop in Atlanta --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001cpe/01start.htm 

Table 4 

Virtual Universities

Institution

Characteristics

Number and Type of DE Programs

DE
Enrollment

Accreditation

Andrew Jackson University

Correspondence school offering textbook study

3 bachelor's
3 graduate

400-450

DETC

Capella University

Offers traditional courses and corporate training; partners include Honeywell, Lawson Software

36 certificate
1 bachelor's
11 graduate

1.049*

North Central

Jones International University

First fully accredited online university

21 certificate
1 bachelor's
2 graduate

1,500

North Central

Kennedy-Western University

Markets to "mid-career professionals"

13 bachelor's
12 graduate

12 Ph.D.

23,000

Not regionally accredited; licensed by Wyoming State Dept of Ed

University of Phoenix Online

Fastest growing for-profit university; now 25% online

8 bachelor's
10 master's
1 Ph.D.; certificate programs under development

18,500

 

Western Governor's University

Private university offering menu of courses from other institutions and corporations

3 certificate;
4 bachelor's
1 graduate

208*

 

* Figures for 1999-2000, U.S. Department of Education, Report to Congress on the Distance Education Demonstration Programs, January 2001. Other statistics reported directly by institutions.

 

A typical undergraduate course at Phoenix lasts five weeks; graduate courses are six weeks. Students attend one four-hour "workshop" per week or meet for longer sessions on alternate weekends. Students also take classes sequentially-one at a time-so they can better focus on the subject matter while working full-time. An additional requirement is that students work in teams. As Phoenix's online catalog explains,

The university organizes each class into problem-solving teams of the type employed successfully in business and industry. Thus, in addition to the development of intellectual and technical knowledge, the student is able to grow emotionally so that the potential for practical application of knowledge and skill is optimized.[26]

An estimated 90 percent of Phoenix faculty (both online and classroom) teach part-time. At its Northern California brick-and-mortar campus, Phoenix employs 20 full-time faculty and 550 part-timers. These part-time "facilitators," as they are called, must possess a graduate degree from a regionally accredited institution and must work full-time in a field related to the courses they teach.

 

Links to these and many other online programs can be found at the following sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 

Accreditation issues and other matters of distance education can be found at the following site:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Quotations on the Dark Side from Kriger's article can be found at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
 


The Ohio CPA Journal (October 1, 2001) has published an in-depth article explaining the likelihood of CPAs being faced with liability claims and how risk can be mitigated. The article explains the expectations of insurance companies and offers six warning signs of an impending claim. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64075 

The article suggests that working with a risk advisor can increase the odds of:

The article explains the expectations of insurance companies, and offers six warning signs of an impending claim:

  1. Clients who won't pay
  2. Uncooperative clients
  3. Fraud/embezzlement defalcation
  4. Subpoenas
  5. Gray tax positions/IRS audits
  6. Divorce or partnership disputes

The complete article is at http://covia.yellowbrix.com/pages/covia/Story.nsp?story_id=25292158&category=Accounting&ID=covia&noad=1 


ECCH Case Awards Reflect e-Commerce Era --- http://www.ecch.cranfield.ac.uk/ 


Over the years, I have viewed a lot of departmental Webpages for prospective students.  Among those that I have seen, I think to the designs of the Arizona State University pages for prospective students are among the best available.  

For example, see http://www.cob.asu.edu/acct/undergraduate/prospective/cis.cfm 

There are ways that prospective students pages can be improved at most any university.  Several suggested improvements are listed below:

  1. In a FAQ area, have short answers but link to where students can find longer answers to questions.

  2. Add data on the number of graduates in each concentration for the past three years.  

  3. Provide information regarding job placement or graduate school admissions (where relevant).

  4. Add outside links to where prospective students can find more information about careers in the concentration.

  5. Link to some alumni letters where recent graduates discuss their job duties, travel, and other matters of interest to prospective students who wonder what it is like out there for recent graduates.  It would even be better to have some video clips of alumni being interviewed where they work.

  6. Provide short comments about what particular faculty in the program bring to bear on particular courses and then provide links to the faculty Web pages.

Why we stress that current and former employees are the weakest link in IT security!

Two former Cisco Systems Inc. accountants who admitted to stealing more than $5 million in company shares by hacking into the company computer systems have been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64703 


"Education System Aims to Improve Services for Special Needs Students," T.H.E. Journal, November 21, 2001, p. 38 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3712.cfm 

Help4Life recently launched PortEP, a new collaborative education system that seeks to improve the way schools provide services to students with special needs. PortEP enables educators to help students with behavioral health and learning needs achieve improved results by reducing administrative and logistical barriers so educators can identify, assess and provide interventions more efficiently and with lower costs. The system offers three performance modules for general education intervention,online team evaluations and special education tracking. The general education component delivers a databased problem-solving process that helps teachers identify and quickly help children before major problems develop.

PortEP also enables educators to coordinate student evaluations online, including input from parents, teachers, psychologists and physicians. The evaluation module makes collecting, organizing and acting on information more efficient, leaving more time for educators to work directly with students and families. The tracking module makes monitoring progress and making corrections less time-consuming, and allows administrators to manage resources more effectively. Help4Life, Nashville, TN, (866) 476-7863,  www.help4life.com .


If you think you're an Einstein, maybe you just know a little bit more than those around you. If you think you're a dim bulb but want to feel bright, surround yourself with people who know less. Critics say the study is mentally challenged --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48576,00.html 


That sound you hear is audio e-books, magazines and newspapers clamoring for attention.

"Audio E-Books Seek a Buzz," by M.J. Rose, Wired News, November 27, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48620,00.html 

Audible's on-demand audio files include top national newspapers and magazines, and both classic and best-selling novels. They offer more than 32,000 hours of audio programs and 165 content partners.

Audible hopes the campaign, appropriately called Spread the Word, will increase its customer base by 60,000 to 90,000 users.

To achieve this goal, Audible has sent marketing kits to about 30,000 of its most dedicated customers. In return for their customers' free marketing efforts, Audible will give away free audio files and $5,000 worth of tech prizes.

Spread the Words builds on the customer-referral volume the company has experienced informally.

"Our current customers have already played an essential role in our rapid growth, which has almost tripled our customer base within a year," said Donald Katz, CEO of Audible, Inc.

Customers who spread the word about Audible deserve to be rewarded, Katz said. In fact the kernel of the Spread the Words idea came from a customer and shareholder.


Brainteasers 
These links to quick brainteasers and workouts provide exercises you can easily work into your daily routine. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64193 


Richard always likes to try out the latest and greatest.

Below is a demo on using Microsoft Agent - in this case just for fun. After the required files are downloaded and installed - click on the link below to see Merlin in action.

This Demo requires the Microsoft Agent ActiveX Control and the Merlin character.

You can Download the required files from the Microsoft Agent webring ( www.msagentring.org ) You need to download and install files from the MS Agent from step 1 and step 2 on the Agent 2.0 page. You also need to download and install the Merlin character in step 5.

Here is the link to the demo: www.VirtualPublishing.NET/agent1.htm 

Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU


From Syllabus eNews on November 27, 2001

Palm to Distribute eBooks from HarperCollins

Palm, Inc. said it reached an agreement to distribute the HarperCollins PerfectBound line of eBooks through Palm Digital Media, its line of eBooks for handheld computers. PerfectBound's eBook list includes a variety of popular fiction and non-fiction. David Steinberger, president of corporate strategy for HarperCollins, said Palm technology "lets us offer readers the editorial and technological special features that are exclusive to PerfectBound eBook editions, while also protecting our authors' copyrights." Palm also has distribution agreements with top trade publishers Random House, Simon & Schuster, St. Martin's Press and Time Warner Trade Books.

For more information, visit: http://www.palm.com/ebooks 
(Bob Jensen's ebook threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm )


Bookstore Operator to Offer Adobe e-Book Guides

College store operator Follett Higher Education Group said it would start offering study guides and other course material in Adobe as well as Microsoft eBook formats. The company's website, efollett.com, opened earlier this year with eBook titles in Microsoft Reader format. Last week it said it would now add thousands of titles in Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader format as well. Higher education publishers participating in the launch with eBook study guides include Thomson Learning Higher Education Group, Wiley Higher Education, Houghton Mifflin College Division and Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishers. Follett is also working with OverDrive, Inc. to support course material conversion into eBook formats.

For more information, visit: http://www.efollet.com 


Louisville Installs Advanced Smart Card Platform

The University of Louisville has issued students an advanced smart card equipped with Java and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security technology. The new card system, provided by Tallahassee-based Cybermark Inc., will allow students to store electronic currency for ATM- type transactions, use the card with their meal plan, check out books in the library, and gain access to various buildings around campus. The university will also use the platform to verify student digital identities, check student status at multiple campus locations, as well as host web-based student government elections. The card is the first to be provided by CyberMark under a partnerhsip with card maker SchlumbergerSema.


At Britannica, Print Makes A Comeback

After publishing soley on the Internet and CD-ROM for almost a decade, Encyclopaedia Britannica has just issued a revised printing of the venerable 32-volume encyclopedia for the first time in four years. Editor Dale Hoiberg said the reason for the new set is that demand for the books is strong. "Computers are great, but many people still love the feel of paper and ink between two covers," he said. "Books aren't as fast as the Internet, but they provide pleasures and benefits that no other medium can." But despite the affection for books, digital encyclopedias do have their advantages -- like cost. Britannica's CD-ROMs and DVDs range in price from $39.95 to $69.95. In contrast, the new print edition will retail for $1,295.

For more information, visit: http://www.britiannica.com 


"e-cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge," by Kim McMurtry, T.H.E. Journal, November 21, 2001, pp. 36-41 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3724.cfm 

The early part of the paper is not quoted here.

The Frequency of Plagiarism

The purpose of this article is not to discuss ethical issues or to examine the downfall of American values, but let me give you some statistics. First of all, it's impossible to determine the actual frequency of cheating. Out of the 61 students in my English composition classes in spring 1999, I caught five plagiarists, all of whom had downloaded papers from the Web. That's 8 percent and there may have been more plagiarized papers I did not catch, copied from books or journals, sold by another student, etc. But we do have the self-reports of students, which offer a glimpse of the problem. For example, a 1998 survey from Who's Who Among American High School Students reported that of 3,123 students, 80 percent of them "admitted to cheating on an exam, a 10-point increase since the question was first asked 15 years ago" (Bushweller 1999). In addition, 50 percent of them "did not believe cheating was necessarily wrong," and 95 percent of those who had cheated "said they have never been caught" (Kleiner and Lord 1999). According to the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, 75 percent of all college students "confess to cheating at least once" (Kleiner and Lord 1999). This finding confirms earlier studies by Baird, and by Stern and Havlicek, who reported that between 70 percent and 85 percent of American college students "engaged in some form of cheating" (Lupton, Chapman and Weiss vol. 75, no. 4).

Cheating and the Web

There are several ways a student can use the Internet to cheat on a writing assignment. The easiest way is to type a topic into a search engine like Yahoo!, find a Web page that someone has posted on that topic with the requisite number of words, copy the text and paste it into a word processing program. Another possibility is to share assignments with friends at other schools - one student can simply e-mail a paper as an attachment to another student. For example, one of my students submitted a paper that I found to be the text from an online magazine article. When I confronted the student about it, he said he had never seen the online article; a friend at another college had e-mailed him the paper, and he assumed that his friend had written it. But the most blatant form of e-cheating is the use of "Web paper mills," sites that collect and distribute papers on the Web, either free or for a fee.

In a cursory search for these paper mill sites, I found more than 30. Such sites are easy to find - just type "free essays" into any Web search engine - and easy to use. However, many of these sites duplicate the same database of papers for whatever reason. For example, 15000Papers.com, Phuck School (www.phuckschool.com ) and T.O.P. Thousands of Papers (www.termpapers-on-file.com ) are all owned by The Paper Store and appear to offer the same collection of papers.

And with names like Evil House of Cheat, most of these sites claim to assist students in cheating and boast slogans such as "Download your workload." However, some offer interesting disclaimers, like this one from EssayWorld.com: "The purpose of Essayworld.com is to provide an additional resource for students to obtain information and additional ideas from the insights of fellow students. Plagiarism is a serious offense and Essayworld.com does not condone or encourage plagiarism. By continuing the use of this site, you acknowledge that Essayworld.com will in no way, shape or form, be held responsible for the improper use of the contents of this site. Information obtained from the essays on Essayworld.com should be treated as if it were acquired from a book and be cited in the references. Should you need instructions on how to cite information obtained from essays on the Internet, please visit our Resources section." Such disclaimers appear to be an effort to avoid liability.

Students perusing these sites can find papers in any discipline, from biology to business, from chemistry to computer science, from health to history, from philosophy to physics. The majority of these sites, however, provide papers on high school rather than college topics. For example, literature papers tend to focus on books like The Great Gatsby and A Tale of Two Cities. In addition, many of the sites, although apparently not owned by the same entity, offer the same papers. For example, I found the same essay on irony in Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour in EssayWorld.com, in Planet Papers (www.planetpapers.com ) and in Other People's Papers (www.oppapers.com ). Some of these sites even require you to submit a paper to gain access to their collection of papers. I suspect what students have done is taken a paper from a free site and submitted it to one of these sites, resulting in duplications like this. The cost of papers from these Web paper mills ranges from free to varying prices per page. The sites that require payment provide abstracts of papers with particulars, including word count, number of sources used, and sometimes grade received and course level. Many sites also offer custom essays with costs ranging from $18.95 to $35 per page.

Combating E-Cheating

The ease of finding and downloading papers from sites like these makes plagiarism very tempting. How can an instructor combat e-cheating? I have eight suggestions:

Continued at  http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3724.cfm 

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


From Infobits on November 29, 2001

"Forget About Policing Plagiarism. Just Teach" (THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, vol. 48, issue 12, November 16, 2001, p. B24) by Rebecca Moore Howard, associate professor of writing and rhetoric, and director of the writing program, at Syracuse University.

Howard argues that "[i]n our stampede to fight what The New York Times calls a 'plague' of plagiarism, we risk becoming the enemies rather than the mentors of our students; we are replacing the student-teacher relationship with the criminal-police relationship. Further, by thinking of plagiarism as a unitary act rather than a collection of disparate activities, we risk categorizing all of our students as criminals. Worst of all, we risk not recognizing that our own pedagogy needs reform. Big reform." The article is online to CHE subscribers at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i12/12b02401.htm

I can't buy this argument. It would bother my conscience too much to give a higher grade to a student that I strongly suspect has merely copied the arguments elsewhere than the grade given to a student who tried to develop his or her own arguments. How can Professor Howard in good conscience give a higher grade to the suspected plagiarist? This rewards "street smart" at the expense of "smart." It also advocates becoming more street smart at the expense of real learning.

I might be cynical here and hope that Professor Howard's physicians graduated from medical schools who passed students on the basis of being really good copiers of papers they could not comprehend.

What is not mentioned in the quote above is the labor-union-style argument also presented by Professor Howard in the article.  She argues that we're already too overworked to have the time to investigate suspected plagiarism.  Is refusing to investigate really being professional as an honorable academic?

My threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 

Reply from John Rodi [jrodi@IX.NETCOM.COM

I think that administration is the culprit in this situation. Many years ago when I first began to teach if you caught a student cheating on a single examination or a single paper the instructor could fail the student for the entire course. One day a student protested over an issue of whether homework was copied. As a result we have a three page document that we must now follow in order to charge a student with cheating. One of the recommendations is to have a witness to the cheating. Suddenly, I find that the integrity of the instructor is at issue and not that of the student. How did the inmates get the keys?

John Rodi 
Cal State Los Angeles

Reply from Merrie & John Hayden [m.j.hayden@PRODIGY.NET

Again, I say, how many textbooks and other educational writings out there would pass the plagiarism test?

John Hayden, CPA 
The PJA School


The recent news of Enron Corp.'s need to restate financial statements dating back to 1997 as a result of accounting issues missed in Big Five firm Andersen's audits, has caused the Public Oversight Board to decide to take a closer look at the peer review process employed by public accounting firms. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64184 

Once-mighty energy trader Enron faces almost certain bankruptcy after its credit rating is downgraded to junk status, scuttling a planned acquisition by smaller rival Dynegy --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48696,00.html 

"I believe we all misunderstood how dramatic a credibility crisis can be in a recession in a bear market," he said. "The speed at which Enron collapsed caught us all off guard."

Enron, which earned $979 million on $100.8 billion in revenue in 2000, last month revealed that partnerships run by its executives had allowed the company to keep about half a billion in debt off its books and allowed the executives to profit from the arrangements. Enron's dealings with those partnerships are now the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

The company ousted its top financial officer in October, and several weeks ago restated its earnings back to 1997 eliminating more than $580 million in reported income over that span.

Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


A Message from Duncan Williamson [duncan.williamson@TESCO.NET]

I'm sticking my neck out a bit and offering you all a PDF file I put together on the Enron Affair. I've taken a wide variety of sources in an attempt to explain where I think we are with this case. What Enron does (or did), what has happened and so on. It's a sort of position paper that attempts to explain the facts to non accountants and novice accountants. It's 24 pages long but doesn't take that much time to download. I have used materials from messages on this list and hope the authors don't mind and I have credited them by name. I have used Bob Jensen's bookmarks, too; as well as a whole host of other things.

I'd be grateful for any comments on this paper, or even offers of help to improve what I've done. I have to say I did it in a bit of a hurry and won't be offended by any criticism, providing it's constructive.

I have tested my links and they work for me: let me know of any problems, though. It's at http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/pdfs.html  link number 1

Incidentally, if you haven't been to my site recently (or at all), you can see my latest news at http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/news0212.html . I have a very nice looking Newsletter waiting for you: complete with Xmas theme. Please check my home page every week for the latest newsletter as it is linked from there (take a look now, you'll see what I mean). At the moment I am managing to add content at a significant rate; and will point out that I have developed several new features over the last three months or so, as well as the materials and pages themselves.

My home page (sorry, my Ho! Ho! Home Page) is at http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/index.htm  and is equally festive (well, with a name like Ho! Ho! Home Page it would have to be, wouldn't it?)

Looking forward to seeing you on line!

Best wishes

Duncan Williamson


Hi Joel,

I think the "state of affairs" in the public accounting profession is balanced on much more serious problems than the XYZ Credential and the 150-hour requirement.

Rhoda Icerman, bless her heart, informed me that the same newspaper that forced President Nixon to resign in the wake of The Watergate Scandal is going to run a two part series that all CPAs and accounting educators should take a careful look at. I am taking the liberty of quoting part of her message:

************************************************************** 

Just came from AICPA Group of 100 meeting where it was announced that the Washington Post will be carrying a 2-part series, starting this Sunday (12/2), on the failure of the auditing profession to serve the public's interest...Enron, PWC and independence, POB's deferrals, et.al.

Thought you'd like an early 'heads-up.'

Thanks for keeping us current on so many issues. I thoroughly enjoy your AECM posts. 

Warmest regards, 

Rhoda 

**************************************************************

Now we're beginning to encounter really serious media concerns for this image of this profession.

Bob (Robert E.) Jensen Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212 Voice: (210) 999-7347 Fax: (210) 999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen 

-----Original Message----- From: Joel Peralto [mailto:peralto@HAWAII.EDU] Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 1:29 PM To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU Subject: The UAA and future of the "CPA"

I just spent an hour on the telly with a small local accounting practitioner who is fuming angry at the state of affairs within the profession and the apparent "selling of the profession" (specifically, the trusted CPA designation) down the river, "by the AICPA". I'm sure this is a scenario that is showing it's ugly face all over the country lately. The points of greatest contention are the 150 hour requirement, the new experience requirements, and the "XYZ" designation, to name but a few. Does anyone care to comment, relating to similar dialog occurring in your part of the country? Of particular concern is the apparent absence of 5-year programs geared specifically to the guidelines set forth by the AICPA. Thanks!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Joel C. Peralto, CPA, CMA 
Professor-Accounting, 
Division Chair Business Education and Technology Division 
UH-Hawaii Community College 
Hilo, Hawaii 96720 Email: peralto@hawaii.edu  808-974-7327 Voice 808-974-7755 FAX


"The Internet Didn't Kill Enron," By Robert Preston, Internet Week, November 30, 2001 ---  http://www.internetweek.com/enron113001.htm 

"We have a fundamentally better business model."

That's how Jeffrey Skilling, then president of Enron Corp., summarized his company's startling ascendancy a year ago, as Enron's revenues were soaring on the wings of its Internet-based trading model.

It was hard to find fault with Enron's strategy of brokering energy and other commodities over the Internet rather than commanding the means of production and distribution. EnronOnline, its year-old commodity-trading site, already was handling more than $1 billion a day in transactions and yielding the bulk of the company's profits. At its peak, Enron sported a market cap of $80 billion, bigger than all its competitors combined.

See Also Forum: Enron E-Biz Meltdown: What Went Wrong? More Enron Stories

Today, Enron is near bankruptcy, the status of EnronOnline is touch and go, ENE is a penny stock and Skilling is out of a job. Last year's Fortune 7 wunderkind, hailed by InternetWeek and others as one of the most innovative companies in America, overextended itself to the point of insolvency.

So was Enron's "better business model" fundamentally flawed? With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, what can Internet-inspired companies in every industry learn from Enron's demise?

For one thing, complex Internet marketplaces of the kind Enron assembled are fragile. Enron prospered on the Net not so much because it had good technology -- though the proprietary EnronOnline platform is considered leading-edge -- but because online customers trusted the company to meet its price and delivery promises.

As Skilling told InternetWeek a year ago, "certainty of execution and certainty of fulfillment are the two things people worry about with commodity products." Enron, by virtue of its expertise, networked relationships and reputation, could guarantee those things.

Once it came to light, however, that Enron was playing fast with its financials -- doing off-balance sheet deals and engaging in other tactics to inflate earnings -- customers (as well as investors and partners) lost confidence in the company. And Enron came tumbling down.

Furthermore, advantages conferred by superior technology and information-gathering are fleeting. Competitors learn and mimic and catch up. Barriers to market entry evaporate. Profit margins narrow.

Enron, short of incessant innovation, could never hope to corner Internet market-making, especially in industries, like telecommunications and paper, that it didn't really understand. In its core energy market, perhaps Enron was too quick to eschew refineries and pipelines for the volatile, information-based business of trading.

But it wasn't Internet that killed the beast; it was management's insatiable appetite for expansion and, by all accounts, personal enrichment.

It's too easy to kick Enron now that it's down. It did a lot right. The competition and deregulation and vertical "de-integration" Enron drove are the future of all industries, even energy. Enron was making markets on the Internet well before its competitors knew what hit them.

Was Enron on to a better business model? You bet it was. But like any business model, it wasn't impervious to rules of conduct and principles of economics.


An important review article from The Washington Post on the Enron mess 

"At Enron, the Fall Came Quickly:  Complexity, Partnerships Kept Problems From Public View" 
The Washington Post
By Steven Pearlstein and Peter Behr
Sunday, December 2, 2001; Page A01  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44063-2001Dec1.html
 

Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


A Message to My Students in the Wake of Recent Auditing Scandals

I am forwarding a reply that I sent out to Curt and the rest of our accounting graduate students at Trinity University. I am certain that Curt was trying to be facetious is suggesting that outlook for accounting careers is becoming so gloomy that graduates should consider forming rock bands such as the Butthole Surfers (see his message below).

The Enron mess could not have happened at a worse time when accounting majors are on the decline nationwide and auditing is no longer viewed by many U.S. students as a profession of choice. The Enron publicity, especially following the forthcoming December 2, 2001 Washington Post series (starting tomorrow), will only make it more difficult for us to draw our top talent into majoring in accounting.

Perhaps every accounting educator should consider communicating some of the good news to students along with the recent bad news in the press. Perhaps we should also try to get some of our good news into the media.

In any case, this is my reply to Curt.

Bob

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jensen, Robert [mailto:rjensen@trinity.edu]  
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 8:25 AM 
To: Jensen-B Subject: RE: Having second thoughts about accounting?

Hi Curt and your fellow accounting majors,

I don't know if you know that one of the founders of the band you refer to was Paul Walthall's son (the son who dropped out of Trinity's MBA program to join Gibby in forming the band). His name was Paul Walthall Jr., although his name somewhere along the line apparently was changed to Paul Leary. I think "Leary" was his middle name and was his mother's maiden name. Paul "Leary" graduated in Art from Trinity and then went part way into the MBA program back in the days when Trinity University had an MBA program. Paul "Leary" was never an accountant (I'm not sure he ever completed a course in accounting). Gibby Haynes did indeed major in and excel in accounting at Trinity. He subsequently worked for a short time as a staff accountant with KPMG.

The senior Paul Walthall was a highly dedicated professor of accounting for over 30 years at Trinity University. I once asked Paul and Doris Walthall if they ever recited the name of the BHS Band out loud. They said they spoke of it often during prayers at church.

The funny part of the history of this band is that none of the four founders could read music or play a musical instrument. They hammered out songs by rote. The main appeal seemed to be some of the outrageous lyrics put to some really awful music. The songs were rarely, if ever, broadcast in the U.S., because radio stations were not allowed to say the name of the band on the air. The main success, and it was never a big success, of the band came from European tours. On many occasions, parents of the band members had to send money to whatever town the band was stranded in at the time.

My son Marshall in his early teenage years bought every record produced by the band --- sigh! After Marshall grew up, he tossed all of those records in the trash and is now into classical music and dances with a ballet company. The BHS Band mainly appealed to young teenagers in the rebellion stage of life.

My advice is to stay with accounting. For the most part, accounting is the path to success in a business career. There are occasional scandals such as the Enron audit, but we must give credit to the thousands upon thousands of auditors worldwide who do their jobs with diligence and laudable ethics. There are scandals in medicine, law, engineering, the clergy, academe, and government, but this is what being human is all about. It's about being human with human frailties in any vocation.

What we have to do is shore up professional systems to discourage falling from grace. The vexing problem at the moment is that multinational firms have become so huge that it is very hard for auditors to part ways with gigantic clients when intractable disputes arise during the audit.

On December 2, the Washington Post will run a two-part series that challenges whether the auditing profession continues to serve in the public's best interest. I am certain that the articles will rehash some old wounds. I just hope the articles give equal time to the successes where auditors can hold their heads high and point to where they truly did serve the investing public.

The ultimate fate of any profession lies not in its rules, regulations, and controls. The fate lies in the will and dedication of the majority of people who serve in that profession --- the honest cops, the devoted doctors, the dedicated professors, the faithful clergy, and the ardent auditors. These are the kinds of students we hope to continue to graduate from Trinity University.

Hang in there and hold your heads high!

Dr J

-----Original Message----- 
From: Curt 
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 4:18 AM 
To: Jensen-B (a listserv) 
Subject: Having second thoughts about accounting?

Hey guys, I was just surfing around some sites researching Trinity's famous band, the Butthole Surfers and I found this quote in an article about them:

"But the artistic grit and slime are only part of the Gibby Haynes story. In fact, his squeaky clean past is as much a part of the Buttholes' lore as their albums and shows. When he hooked up with guitarist Paul Leary at Trinity University in the early eighties, Haynes was an ace student. Among his distinctions were tenures as president of his fraternity and captain of the basketball team, and the award for accounting student of the year."

Anyway, some of y'all might have already knew about this, but if not, rest assured that if the accounting profession fails us, we can always resort to show business.

-curt

p.s. here's the website address of the article: http://www.addict.com/issues/2.08/html/lofi/Features/Butthole/BH-Story/ 


Another Message form a Student

Just wanted to share a link to a recent speech made by Chairman of the SEC Arthur Levitt, concerning what it means to be an auditor and where auditors derive their value.

This speech compliments my presentation, but in my mind it describes the issue in a more eloquent fashion.

It is a little lengthy, but I highly recommend that all of you at least skim through it, especially paragraphs 5-13. The message is one not of despair but of striving for betterment of the profession.

http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch399.htm 

-Mike


Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron mess are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


The Campus Computing Project --- http://www.campuscomputing.net/ 

Begun in 1990, the Campus Computing Project focuses on the use of information technology in higher education. The project's national studies draw on qualitative and quantitative data to help inform faculty, campus administrators, and others interested in the use of information technology in American colleges and universities.

The annual Campus Computing Survey is the largest continuing study of the role of information technology in US higher education. Each year more than 600 two-and four-year public and private colleges and universities participate in this survey, which focuses on campus planning and policy affecting the role of information technology in teaching, learning, and scholarship.

 
    
 HTML Summary:
 
PDF:
         The 2001 Campus Computing Survey      

The following are previous years survey summaries.
You can also order the full reports online.

    
 HTML Summaries:
 
PDF:
         The 2000 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1999 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1998 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1997 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1996 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1995 Campus Computing Survey      
         The 1994 Campus Computing Survey
     

Bob Jensen's threads on Lynne Cheney and  the ACTA Report 
"Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It"

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q4.htm#LynneCheney  


Instant Messaging Has Gone to Work It's not a surprise that a Jupiter Media Metrix study found the time spent using instant messaging applications was up 48 percent at home in the past year, but it is a surprise to see the time spent instant messaging at work was up 110 percent. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3217 

Amy Dunbar utilizes instant messaging extensively in her online tax courses.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q4.htm#dunbar 


Cookies = Applets that enable a web site to collect information about each user for later reference (as in finding cookies in the cookie jar). Web Browsers like Netscape Navigator set aside a small amount of space on the user's hard drive to record detected preferences.  Cookies perform storage on the client side that might otherwise have to be stored in a generic-state or database server on the server side. Cookies can be used to collect information for consumer profile databases. Browsers can be set to refuse cookies. 

Many times when you browse a website, your browser checks to see if you have any pre-defined preferences (cookie) for that server if you do it sends the cookie to the server along with the request for a web page. Sometimes cookies are used to collect items of an order as the user places things in a shopping cart and has not yet submitted the full order. A cookie allows WWW customers to fill their orders (shopping carts) and then be billed based upon the cookie payment information. Cookies retain information about a users browsing patterns at a web site. This creates all sorts of privacy risks since information obtained from cookies by vendors or any persons who put cookies on your computer might be disclosed in ways that are harmful to you.  Browsers will let you refuse cookies with a set up that warns you when someone is about to deliver a cookie, but this really disrupts Web surfing and may block you from gaining access to may sites.  It is probably better to accept cookies for a current session and then dispose of unwanted cookies as soon as possible so that cookie senders do not obtain repeated access to your private information.  Microsoft Corporation has added the following utilities to the Internet Explorer (IE) browser according to http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/ms.cookies.idg/ 

The Internet Explorer 5.5 changes include the following:

• Notifications that Microsoft said will help users differentiate between first- and third-party cookies, plus automatic prompts that inform users anytime a third-party cookie is being offered by a Web site.

• A "delete all cookies" control button that has been added to the browser's main "Internet options" page to make it easier for users to get rid of cookies.

• New topics that have been added to Internet Explorer's help menu to better answer questions about cookies and their management.

Instruction for cookies control using Internet Explorer --- http://www.scholastic.com/cookies.htm 

To accept cookies if you are using a PC running Windows...

Internet Explorer 5 1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.

2. Click the Security tab.

3. Click the Internet zone.

4. Select a security level other than High.

-or-

Click Custom Level, scroll to the Cookies section, and then click Enable for both cookie options.

5. Click on Apply.

6. Click on OK.

Other nations, notably in Europe, have placed more severe restrictions on the use of cookies.  See http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/eu.spam.idg/index.html


Question 1:
How can you send email anonymously?

Answer 1:
Simply set up an email account under a fictitious name.  For example, you can send email under multiple fictitious names from the Yahoo email server at http://www.yahoo.com/   (Click on 'Mail" in the row "Connect")

Question 2:
How can you be totally anonymous on the Web such that cookie monsters do not track your Web navigation at your site and bad guys cannot track your surfing habits or get at your personal information such as medical records, name, mail address, phone number, email address, etc.?  (You can read about cookie monsters at 

Answer 2:
There is probably no way to be 100% safe unless you use someone else's computer without them knowing you are using that computer on the Web.  In most instances, the owner of the computer (a university, a public library, an employer, etc.) will know who is using the computer, but cookie monsters and bad guys on the Web won't have an easy time finding out who you are without having the powers of the police.

About the safest way to remain anonymous as a Web surfer is to sign up for Privada from your IP Internet provider that obtain your line connection from for purposes of connecting to the Web.  In most instances, surfers pay a monthly fee that will increase by about $5.00 per month for the Pivada service (if the IP provider has Privada or some similar service).  To read more about Privada, go to http://industry.java.sun.com/solutions/company/summary/0,2353,4514,00.html 

Privada Control (Application)

Primary Market Target: Utilities&Services 
Secondary Market Target: Financial Services

Description Used with Privada Network, PrivadaControl provides the consumer component of Privada's services, and is distributed to end-users by network service providers. Users create an online identity that cannot be linked to their real-world identity, allowing them to browse the Internet with the level of privacy they choose while still reaping the benefits of personalized content. PrivadaControl is built entirely in the Java(TM) programming language and runs completely in a Java Virtual Machine.

I added a Special Section to the document entitled "Opportunities of E-Business Assurance:  Risks in Assuring Risk" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 

For more information about fraud, information warfare, and security, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


To my ACCT 5342 Students

My assurance services and security document is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 
You should become very familiar with security seals on Web documents, especially SysTrust, WebTrust, Truste, VeriSign, and BBB seals.

You know the difference between a virus and a worm. You should be warned, however, that the media sometimes does not distignuish the two concepts. I provide a very current illustration or a fast-spreading worm below (note the illustration also demonstrates how persons who do not install Microsoft security patches on a regular basis are asking for trouble).

An e-mail worm that appears to be a reworked version of the virulent Nimda infection is on the loose and in the wild --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48613,00.html 

From InformationWeek Daily on November 27, 2001

** Dangerous New Virus, Same Old Hole

An old and well-known security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer is continuing to cause problems, as a new worm that exploits the flaw spreads on the Internet.

The worm, known as W32/BadTrans.B-mm, has been spotted in 50 countries, and is propagating rapidly, says Dave White, technical manager for security company MessageLabs. It takes advantage of a well-publicized hole in Explorer, the same vulnerability used by the Nimda virus, which infected millions of computers earlier this fall.

A previous version of the worm, BadTrans.A, spread in April, infecting users who opened an infected E-mail attachment, but the new variant can infect users who merely read or preview the message in Microsoft's Outlook E-mail program. Once activated, the virus spreads by both replying to unread messages in the user's mailbox and mailing everyone in the recipient's address book. It also installs a Trojan-horse key-logging program on the user's computer, which collects confidential information like passwords and E-mails them to another address.

"We're getting hit quite hard," says Russ Cooper, surgeon general for security firm TruSecure Corp. He says that a patch for the IE vulnerability has been available since March, but that home users in particular have been slow to update their security. "Unless they've had a bad experience before, they haven't learned what they should and shouldn't do," he says. "The average person doesn't even know that these things exist, so adoption is going to be slow." - David M. Ewalt

For more virus coverage, see Virus Definition Update Rings False Alarm On Nimda http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE260BcUEY0V20aAT0AU 

New, Slower Version Of Nimda Worm Spreads http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE260BcUEY0V20Zgm0AQ 


Darn!  From Now On They've Got to Cover Up! --- U.S. Lessons Learned From the Taliban
The federal government will decide whether the Victoria Secret televised fashion show was too lewd for TV 

"FCC Poses as Fashion Model Police," by Declan McCullagh, Wired News, November 24, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48571,00.html 

The televised Victoria's Secret fashion show may be mildly racy, but should it be illegal?

One prudish FCC commissioner thinks so -- and has ordered the agency's "enforcement bureau" to begin investigating whether the company's famous bikinis and lacy unmentionables on TV could corrupt American youth.

Continued (without pictures) at  http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48571,00.html 


"FBI's "Trojan horse" program to grab passwords," Will Knight, New Scientist, November 21, 2001 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991589 

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is developing a computer program that can steal the passwords that suspected criminals use to lock encrypted messages, according to a source cited by MSNBC.

The "Trojan horse" program, known as Magic Lantern, could be sent to a suspect attached to a seemingly innocent email message. After the program has installed itself using a known software bug, it would capture the passwords used to encrypt messages and send these to FBI officers.

Investigators might then be able to decrypt and read secret email messages. But some computer experts question how successful such a system would be.

Graham Cluley, an anti-virus researcher at Sophos, says that some anti-virus software may detect the program automatically. If not, the anti-virus software could easily be configured to catch the program, he says.

"It would be relatively trivial to write a detector for it", Cluley told New Scientist. "Some customers may ask for a fix for it."

Continued at - http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991589 


An in-depth look at how Americans view privacy after the tragic events of Sept. 11, including thoughts on how individuals and corporations alike can help protect our right to privacy --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31810.xml 


"Playboy says hacker stole customer info," by Greg Sandoval and Robert Lemos, C|Net News Com, November 20, 2001 --- http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-7932825.html?tag=mn_hd 

Playboy.com has alerted customers that an intruder broke into its Web site and obtained some customer information, including credit card numbers.

The online unit of the nearly 50-year-old men's magazine said in an e-mail to customers that it believed a hacker accessed "a portion" of Playboy.com's computer systems. In the e-mail, a copy of which was reviewed by CNET News.com, Playboy.com President Larry Lux did not disclose how many customers might have been affected.

Playboy.com encouraged customers to contact their credit card companies to check for unauthorized charges. New York-based Playboy.com also said it reported the incident to law enforcement officials and hired a security expert to audit its computer systems and analyze the incident.

Continued at http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-7932825.html?tag=mn_hd 


"The Google Attack Engine," by Thomas C Greene, The Register, November 28, 2001 --- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23069.html 

Some clever empiricist appears to have been abusing Google to attack Web servers, switches and routers in a novel way, by crafting search terms to include known exploits. Such a search will occasionally yield active Web pages used by administrators. On top of that, a number of them have already been cached. It's reasonable to surmise that a hacker has been using Google not merely to search for vulnerabilities, but as a proxy to hide behind while executing attacks.

SecurityFocus researcher Ryan Russell discovered a wealth of such pages quite by accident, while working on improved rules for Snort, a popular open-source IDS (Intrusion Detection System).

"I was using Google to check how common a particular string is on the Web, to gauge how often a rule might cause a false-positive. Part of the process of deciding how often the rule might cause a false positive is deciding how common the string is that the rule searches for," Russell explains.

So while searching Google for a vulnerability in Cisco IOS Web Server, Russell followed a link and found himself in a switch belonging to a US .gov site.

The malicious use of search engines is nothing new, as we reported in a story back in June of 2000; but this does bring it to new levels of finesse. The significant thing here is that the cache can be used to cover one's tracks, assuming there are no graphics to be fetched.

Cruise control? So how did all this stuff get indexed in the first place? Did Google's mighty spiders do it all automatically, or did someone deliberately add the URLs?

Google offers "an advanced search feature that allows you to look for sites that link to a particular URL. When I looked for the URLs that are exploit attempts, there were no links to them. This either means they were submitted manually to Google, or possibly that the page that used to link to them has changed, and Google has already re-indexed it," Russell says.

"The simplest explanation is that they just went to Google's submit URL page, and typed it in."

Continured at - http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23069.html 


A message from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU

Okay, here's a question for those few of you who still read posts from me...

I would like to place a "timer" on a PowerPoint screen.

Has anyone here done this, or seen it done? I presume it will have to be an add-in, such as an object from a third-party package, or possibly an "undocumented feature" PowerPoint script or something.

Ideally, the timer would begin counting down second by second as soon as the slide appears.

David

Replies from Bob Jensen and Richard Campbell

You can also put a timer (along with adding your voice over a microphone) using Camtasia's Producer. Camtasia can be used to make video or a timed slide show. The "show" can be "anything" that appears on your computer screen, including PowerPoint slides. The audio is great for fleshing in the outline on each PowerPoint slide. When you are not present, students can play the audio and watch the slide show. When you are making a presentation, simply unplug the speakers.

I said "anything" in quotes, because Camtasia recording at say 10 frames a second does not do too well when the screens themselves are fast-moving video at over 20 frames per second. Fortunately, PowerPoint slide shows move much slower.

See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm#Video 

Bob Jensen

Reply From: Richard J. Campbell [mailto:campbell@RIO.EDU]  
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 3:35 PM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU 
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Been There or Done That?

David: 
Microsoft has a new product that is free for owners of Powerpoint 2002 called Producer that should do what you want. I was a beta tester. See http://www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/producer/default.htm 

Richard J. Campbell


President Bush has signed into law the two-year moratorium on Internet access taxes. The bill effectively slows progress on attempts by states to impose an Internet sales tax. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/64969 


From Fathom --- http://www.fathom.com/ 

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In November 2001, the new IASB issued implementation guidance for IAS 39 --- http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2278.html

 

When the IASC Board voted to approve IAS 39: Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement in December 1998, it instructed the staff to monitor implementation issues and to consider how IASC can best respond to such issues and thereby help financial statement preparers, auditors, financial analysts, and others understand IAS 39 and those preparing to apply it for the first time.

In March 2000, the IASC Board approved an approach to publish implementation guidance on IAS 39 in the form of Questions and Answers (Q&A) and appointed an IAS 39 Implementation Guidance Committee (IGC) to review and approve the draft Q&A and to seek public comment before final publication. Also, the IAS 39 IGC may refer some issues either to the Standing Interpretations Committee (SIC) or to the IASB.

In July 2001, IASB issued a consolidated document that includes all questions and answers approved in final form by the IAS 39 Implementation Guidance Committee as of 1 July 2001, including the fifth batch of proposed guidance (issued for comment in December 2000). The Q&A respond to questions submitted by financial statement preparers, auditors, regulators, and others and have been issued to help them and others better understand IAS 39 and help ensure consistent application of the Standard.

There is also a publication, Accounting for Financial Instruments - Standards, Interpretations and Implementation Guidance, which is available from IASB Publications. This book contains the current text of IAS 32 and IAS 39, SIC Interpretations related to the accounting for financial instruments as well as the IAS 39 Implementation Guidance Questions and Answers.

In November 2001, the IGC issued a document with the final versions of 17 Q&A and two illustrative examples that were issued in draft form for public comment in June 2001. That document replaces pages 477-541 in the publication Accounting for Financial Instruments - Standards, Interpretations, and Implementation Guidance, which was published in July 2001. Draft Questions 10-22, 18-3, 38-6, 52-1, and 112-3 were eliminated in the final document, primarily because the issues involved are being addressed in the Board’s current project to amend IAS 39.

Pending the completion of the Board's current project to amend IAS 32 and 39, no further meetings of the IAS 39 Implementation Guidance Committee are planned
.

Bob Jensen's documents on IAS 39, FAS 133, and FAS 138 are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 


From Webmonkey Front Door on November 27, 2001
Having some difficulties with something Microsoft-made? (Huh!) You could call Microsoft Tech Support, but you might just fare better with a Tarot-powered reading from The Psychic Friends Network --- http://www.bmug.org/news/articles/MSvsPF.html 


American Religion Data Archive patrons,

The American Religion Data Archive has changed its web address to www.TheARDA.com . We will no longer be using  www.arda.tm  and we cannot garuntee that arda.tm will continue to function in the future. Please change your bookmarks and links to www.TheARDA.com.

The American Religion Data Archive (ARDA) has recently updated our website ( www.TheARDA.com ). New features include, but are not limited to, report and mapping features that allow users to analyze the breakdown of Christian adherents in most of the major American denominations as well as view any changes from 1980 to 1990; additionally, there is also a new site design that should provide easier access to the material on the ARDA website.

Thank you for your continued interest in the ARDA and we hope the new additions to the website meet patrons' needs.

Until the next ARDA update,

Phil Schwadel ARDA Research Associate
The American Religion Data Archive 
Department of Sociology 
The Pennsylvania State University 
211 Oswald Tower University Park, PA 16802-6207 
814-865-6258 Phone 814-863-7216 Fax www.TheARDA.com
arda@pop.psu.edu 


Meet Carla, a 14-year-old. She's also Dana, 18. And Becky, 23. Turns out that teenage girls have more multiple online personalities than any other age group, a study says --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48716,00.html 


The former CNN chief, Ted Turner,  believes that all the consolidation in the cable news business is depriving the public of a diversity of opinion --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48706,00.html 


HooRah for Online e-Commerce!

While sales in the offline world fell in the third quarter of the year, online retailers saw their earnings rise a bit, the U.S. government reported. It could be an encouraging sign for end-of-year sales --- http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,48687,00.html


The following is an updated definition from my Technology Glossary at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 

Fiber optic= Cable that carries light pulses instead of electrical current. A cable comprised of a multitude of fine glass fibers has much more capacity than the previously popular copper cable. (See also Information highway, Networks, and Sonet in the above Technology Glossary.)

Fiber Optics Terms from "Fiber to the School Desk," in T.H.E. Magazine, November 2001, p. 26 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3709B.cfm
FIBER OPTICS TERMS

Category 5e (Enhanced) - A category of performance for inside wire and cable. Used in support of signaling rates of up to 100 MHz over distances of up to 100 meters. Calls for tighter twists, electrical balancing between pairs and fewer cable anomalies. CAT5e is intended to support 100 Base-T, ATM and Gigabit Ethernet.

Cisco IP/TV - A comprehensive network video-streaming system for businesses, schools and governmental organizations. Using network-efficient multicast technology it delivers TV-quality live video programming.

Fiber Optics - A technology in which light is used to transport information from one point to another. More specifically, fiber optics are thin filaments of glass through which light beams are transmitted over long distances carrying enormous amounts of data.

Hub - The point of a network where circuits are connected. Also, a switching node. In Local Area Networks, a hub is the core of a star as in ARCNET, StarLAN, Ethernet and Token Ring. Hub hardware can be either active or passive. Wiring hubs are useful for their centralized management capabilities and for their ability to isolate nodes from disruption.

IDF - Intermediate Distribution Frame. A metal rack designed to connect cables, located in equipment or in a closet. Consists of components that provide the connection between the interbuilding and intrabuilding cabling, i.e. between the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) and individual phone wiring. There's usually a permanent, large cable running between the MDF and IDF. The changes in wiring are done at the IDF, preventing confusion in wiring.

MDF - Main Distribution Frame. A wiring arrangement that connects external telephone lines on one side and the internal lines on the other. A main distribution frame may also carry protective devices as well as function as a central testing point.

MTRJ - A small form-factor style of fiber optic connector that is defined by its high-density footprint and RJ45 locking mechanism.

Multimode - An optical fiber designed to allow light to carry multiple carrier signals, distinguished by frequency or phase, at the same time. (Contrasts with singlemode.)

SC - Designation for an optical connector featuring a 2.5 mm physically contacting ferrule with a push-pull mating design. This connector is recommended in the TIA/EIA-568A Standard for structured cabling.

ST - Designation for the "straight tip" connector developed by AT&T. This optical connector features a physically contacting, nonrotating 2.5 mm ferrule design and bayonet connector-to-adapter mating.

Singlemode - A fiber that allows only a single mode of light to propagate. This eliminates the main limitation to bandwidth, modal dispersion.


From Infobits on November 29, 2001

NETWORKING ON THE NETWORK

For many years Phil Agre, associate professor in the UCLA Department of Information Studies, has studied and written about how the Internet affects users and how users shape the Internet. He believes that a "great deal of effort is going into technical means for finding information on the net, but hardly anybody has been helping newcomers figure out where the net fits in the larger picture of their own careers." In his paper "Networking on the Network" Agre seeks to remedy this situation for people (primarily graduate students) in academic and research communities. Topics covered include constructive uses of electronic communication, using the Net to build a professional identity, and networks and job-hunting. Agre's paper is online at http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/network.html 

Phil Agre also edits the Red Rock Eater News Service mailing list. Most of the messages concern the social and political aspects of computing and networking. For more subscription information and links to archived messages, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html 


THE TECHNOLOGY SOURCE MOVES TO MICHIGAN VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has transferred ownership of THE TECHNOLOGY SOURCE to the Michigan Virtual University. James L. Morrison, Professor of Educational Leadership in the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education, has agreed to remain as editor-in-chief and MVU has agreed to continue publishing The Technology Source as a free service to the educational community.

The purpose of The Technology Source is to provide thoughtful, illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools into teaching and into managing educational organizations. Issues include commentaries, case studies, reports on faculty and staff development, articles on the virtual university, and links to higher-education websites. You can read the November/December issue of The Technology Source at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=issue&id=45 


RECOMMENDED READING

"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.

THE GRATIS ECONOMY: PRIVATELY PROVIDED PUBLIC GOODS by Infobits subscriber Andras Kelen Budapest: Central European University Press, 2001; ISBN: 963-9241-22-9

"A work in the relatively new field of economic sociology, this highly unconventional book deals with the logics of toll-free services and generalises the notion of voluntary work toward encompassing everything that can be obtained free of charge in the world. . . . The Gratis Economy will be of interest to professors and students of applied economics and business schools, sociologists, to the e-business community, marketing practitioners, webspinners, infonauts, netizens, software developers and decision-makers of electronic media."

For more information see http://come.to/Gratis-Economy/ 


The Economy & Entrepreneurs 
In part one of a two-part series, Don Sussis takes a fresh look at the state of the U.S. economy, recent political events, and how it will all impact the future of e-business entrepreneurs as venture capitalists become even more cognizant of their potential investments. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3218 


Pattern Recognition from MIT
"Recognizing the Enemy," by Alexandra Stikeman, Technology Review, December 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/dec01/stikeman.asp 

Of all the dramatic images to emerge in the hours and days following the September 11 attacks, one of the most haunting was a frame from a surveillance-camera video capturing the face of suspected hijacker Mohamed Atta as he passed through an airport metal detector in Portland, ME. 

Even more chilling to many security experts is the fact that, had the right technology been in place, an image like that might have helped avert the attacks. According to experts, face recognition technology that's already commercially available could have instantly checked the image against photos of suspected terrorists on file with the FBI and other authorities. If a match had been made, the system could have sounded the alarm before the suspect boarded his flight.


From FEI Express on November 29, 2001

COPING WITH TODAY'S ACCOUNTING AND REPORTING STANDARDS 
Over the years, there have been increasing concerns that accounting and reporting standards may have become too complex, too difficult, and too costly to implement. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the FEI Research Foundation would like your help in exploring this important issue. Click here to complete a brief on-line survey: http://www.fei.org/rf/survey/pwc/pwc_survey.cfm 

Based on the survey results, we may recommend actions for the standard setters and regulators. We have received 140 responses so far. If you haven't already done so, please respond by Friday, December 7, so that we can include your response also.If you have any questions, please call Bill Sinnett at the FEI Research Foundation (973-898-4604 or bsinnett@fei.org ).

LINKING HUMAN CAPITAL TO THE BOTTOM LINE New data shows there is a cause and effect relationship between human capital management and financial performance -- HR practices drive financial success. Companies with best HR practices provide 3 times the shareholder returns as companies with weak practices. For companies that are currently justifying their HR expenses, this is a way to communicate in profit and loss terms. Watson Wyatt's Human Capital Index study identifies exactly which human capital practices yield the best financial return: http://www.watsonwyatt.com/homepage/us/resrender.asp?id=W-488&page=1 

Also... read HRFinance Alert, a newsletter focused on the finance side of HR issues: http://www.watsonwyatt.com/homepage/us/new/hrfinance/ 

MARKET CONDITIONS AND NON-CONVENTIONAL RISKS Marsh's "New Reality of Risk" teleconference series continues on Dec. 5 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Free to FEI members. To learn more, go to: http://www.fei.org/news/RealityRiskTele.cfm 

JOB POSTING: CFO: FEI JOB #5492 Reporting to the COO, the CFO will direct the Firm in all areas of financial matters. These duties include: development of timely and accurate financial reports; preparation of budget models and financial projections; analysis of compliance with financial plans and budgets; tracking of timely payments to the Firm's creditors; and the many other necessary responsibilities which will ensure the protection of the Firm's assets by adherence to generally accepted accounting procedures. Contact mreusser@shb.com.

To view more jobs, go to http://www.fei.org/careers/agreement.cfm 


Double Entries chooses the following accounting "Book of the Week"

BOOK OF THE WEEK 
http://accountingeducation.com/
  

Accounting: Themes, Keys, Formulas, Glossary of Accounting Terms for Your Introductory College Course (Barron's Ez-101 Study Keys) by David Minars and Davis A. Minars.

Amazon.com reviewers give this introductory accounting guide a five star rating. If you need an alternative text from your class recommendation to get you through your intro/Accounting 101 classes, this might be the place to go.

If you'd like to obtain a copy of this book, why not order it directly from the Amazon.com website by following the link provided.


Tax Changes That Your Family Should Know About 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on November 29, 2001 Subscribers to the Electronic Edition of the WSJ can obtain reviews in various disciplines by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com  
See http://info.wsj.com/professor/ 

TITLE: Don't Just Sit There: Tax changes are going to have a significant effect on almost every aspect of your finances. It's time to get ready. 
REPORTER: Frederic Wiegold , The Wall Street Journal
DATE: Nov 26, 2001 
PAGE: R3 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1006366653151356720.djm  
TOPICS: Personal Taxation

SUMMARY: The new tax law, entitled the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, was signed into law last June. The article recommends that everyone should review his or her year-end financial position and tax strategies based on various provisions of the law. Topics covered include lower overall tax rates, the impact of the AMT, and potential tax underpayment through withholding. The article provides a summary of the law's major provisions.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) Describe the major provisions of the tax cut enacted last June with respect to personal income taxes and to estate taxes. What is the significance of the year 2011?

2.) Why might the AMT prevent some taxpayers from benefiting based on the new law? Why does the AMT particularly affect taxpayers living in high tax states such as California and New York?

3.) How could a taxpayer end up with an underpayment problem because of the tax rates dropping by half a percentage point?

4.) What are the problems that can arise because of the increasing amount of estate values that are exempt from tax under the new law? How do the tax law changes, especially the year 2011, make it difficult to write a will that is sure to have the outcome desired for a surviving spouse and children?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

 


I updated some of my links to accounting educator helpers.

Accounting Educator Helpers

You can both read and listen to Joel Demski's August 15 address to the AAA membership at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001aaa/atlanta01.htm 

Other Accounting Educator Helpers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default3.htm 

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 

Archives of New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Bob Jensen's Helpers for Educators in General --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 




Forwarded by Bob Overn

Rules for Buying Gifts for Men:

Rule #1: When in doubt - buy him a cordless drill. It does not matter if he already has one. I have a friend who owns 17 and he has yet to complain. As a man, you can never have too many cordless drills. No one knows why.

Rule #2: If you cannot afford a cordless drill, buy him anything with the word ratchet or socket in it. Men love saying those two words. "Hey George, can I borrow your ratchet?" "OK. By-the-way, are you through with my 3/8-inch socket yet?" Again, no one knows why.

Rule #3: If you are really, really broke, buy him anything for his car. A 99-cent ice scraper, a small bottle of de-icer or something to hang from his rear view mirror. Men love gifts for their cars. No one knows why.

Rule #4: Do not buy men socks. Do not buy men ties. And never buy men bathrobes. I was told that if God had wanted men to wear bathrobes, he wouldn't have invented Jockey shorts.

Rule #5: You can buy men new remote controls to replace the ones they have worn out. If you have a lot of money buy your man a big-screen TV with the little picture in the corner. Watch him go wild as he flips, and flips, and flips.

Rule #6: Do not buy a man any of those fancy liqueurs. If you do, it will sit in a cupboard for 23 years. Real men drink whiskey or beer.

Rule #7: Do not buy any man industrial-sized canisters of after shave or deodorant. I'm told they do not stink - they are earthy.

Rule #8: Buy men label makers. Almost as good as cordless drills. Within a couple of weeks there will be labels absolutely everywhere. "Socks. Shorts. Cups. Saucers. Door. Lock. Sink." You get the idea. No one knows why.

Rule #9: Never buy a man anything that says "some assembly required" on the box. It will ruin his Special Day and he will always have parts left over.

Rule #10: Good places to shop for men include Northwest Iron Works, Parr Lumber, Home Depot, John Deere, Valley RV Center, and Les Schwab Tire. (NAPA Auto Parts and Sears' Clearance Centers are also excellent men's stores. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know what it is. "From NAPA Auto,eh? Must be something I need. Hey! Isn't this a starter for a '68 Ford Fairlane? Wow! Thanks."

Rule #11: Men enjoy danger. That's why they never cook -- but they will barbecue. Get him a monster barbecue with a 100-pound propane tank. Tell him the gas line leaks. "Oh the thrill! The challenge! Who wants a hamburger?"

Rule #12: Tickets to a Patriots game are a smart gift. However, he will not appreciate tickets to "A Retrospective of 19th Century Quilts." Everyone knows why.

Rule #13: Men love chainsaws. Never, ever, buy a man you love a chainsaw. If you don't know why -- please refer to Rule #8 and what happens when he gets a label maker.

Rule #14: It's hard to beat a really good wheelbarrow or an aluminum extension ladder. Never buy a real man a step ladder. It must be an extension ladder. No one knows why.

Rule #15: Rope. Men love rope. It takes us back to our cowboy origins, or at least The Boy Scouts. Nothing says love like a hundred feet of 3/8" manilla rope. No one knows why.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

1. The first German serviceman killed in the war was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937), the first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940), the highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps. 

2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress)

3. At the time of Pearl Harbor the top US Navy command was Called CINCUS (pronounced "sink us"), the shoulder patch of the US Army's 45th. Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler's private train was named "Amerika". All three were soon changed for PR purposes.

4. More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions your chance of being killed was 71%.

5. Generally speaking there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot. You were either an ace or a target. For instance Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane.

6. It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a mistake. Tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.

7. When allied armies reached the Rhine the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act).

8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn't worth the effort.

9. German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet.

10. Among the first "Germans" captured at Normandy were several Koreans. They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army.

11. Following a massive naval bombardment 35, 000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska. 21 troops were killed in the firefight. It would have been worse if there had been any Japanese on the island.

BIZARRE MILITARY MISHAPS:

Two U.S. Air Force F-15s shoot down two U.S. Army helicopters on a diplomatic mission over Iraq, mistaking them for hostile aircraft in the "no-fly zone, " killing 26 people. No one was found criminally responsible.

A "siesta" ordered by Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana to his troops during a conflict between the Mexicans and Texans caused the infantry to be overtaken in just 18 minutes. Fort Douaumont at Verdun in France was captured in 1916 by a single German soldier after French General Chretien forgot to pass on orders to defend the fort to the last man to his successor.

The Russians tried to wreak havoc on German Panzer divisions during the WWII by strapping bombs to the backs of dogs and teaching them to associate food with the underneath of their enemies' tanks. Unfortunately, the dogs only associated food with their own tanks and forced an entire Soviet division to retreat.

Japanese soldier Hiroo Onodo refused to stop fighting long after WWII was over, claiming that stories of the war's ending were mere propaganda. It wasn't until his commanding officer flew out to the remote Pacific island where Onoda was holed up and ordered him to lay down his arms that he finally complied.

Probably the most famous mistake in U.S. military history occurred in the Civil War, when Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson was mistakenly shot by one of his own troops after the Confederate triumph at Chancellorsville.


Forwarded by Dick Haar

How Old would Grampa be? The answer is at the bottom...

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandfather about current events. The grandson asked his grandfather what he thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age,and just things in general.

The granddad replied, "Well, let me think a minute ...I was born, before television, penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the pill.

There was no radar, credit cards, laser beams or ball-point pens. Man had not invented pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and man hadn't yet walked on the moon.

Your grandmother and I got married first-and then lived together. Every family had a father and a mother, and every boy over 14 had a rifle that his dad taught him how to use and respect. And they went hunting and fishing together.

Until I was 25, I called every man older than I, 'Sir'-and after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, 'Sir.'

Sundays were set aside for going to church as a family, helping those in need, and visiting with family or neighbors.

We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy.

Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense. We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege. We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent. Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends-not purchasing condominiums.

We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President's speeches on our radios. And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan' on it, it was junk. The term 'making out' referred to how you did on your school exam.

Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 & 10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents. Ice cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel.

And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

In my day, 'grass' was mowed, 'coke' was a cold drink, 'pot' was something your mother cooked in, and 'rock music' was your grandmother's lullaby.

'Aids' were helpers in the Principal's office, 'chip' meant a piece of wood, 'hardware' was found in a hardware store, and 'software' wasn't even a word.

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us "old and confused" and say there is a generation gap.

...and how old do you think I am -???

 

...This man would be only 59 years old


Goodbye Art,

Superman can do it all on his own. Bob Jensen receives a lot of help from friends and strangers. You were one of those friends that both helped and challenged me Art. Best of luck to you in retirement. May you find peace and happiness as the fruits of your years of dedicated labor.

Please do not forget us while you are listening to waves crashing on distant beaches. You might even send b-mail (i.e., messages in bottles).

Bob

-----Original Message----- 
From: Art Joy [mailto:Joy_Arthur@COLSTATE.EDU]  
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 1:19 PM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU  
Subject: Retirement

Dear AECM Confreres,

I will be retiring from academe in just a few short weeks (at the end of the current semester.) I have been a relatively inactive lurker on the AECM listserv for the past coule of years, but, as I retire, I want to say thanks to Barry for providing the list, to all of you who have contributed to the list and helped shed light on my many areas of ignorance, and a special thanks to Bob Jensen for demonstrating that Superman is not just a character in a comic book.

Best wishes to all of you

Art Joy

Arthur C Joy Associate Professor of Accounting Abbott Turner College of Business Columbus State University Columbus, Georgia 31907-5645 706-562-1659; Fax 706-568-2184 email: joy_arthur@colstate.edu

 



And that's the way it was on December 3, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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November 23, 2001

Quotes of the Week

Long-time user of "New Bookmarks" and admirer of your work and all you do for our profession. It is apparent to me you never teach a class, never take a break for lunch, have no family, and you sleep in your office. Otherwise, how could you possibly get it all done!
Dr. Tommie Singleton, Chair Department of Accounting & Business Law, University of North Alabama
(You've got that right Tommie!)

"The world of auditing and accounting appears to be in crisis, driven in part by issues such as intangibles, the complexity of derivatives and trading, and financial engineering."
Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman.  (See Below.)

Professors are people who talk in other peoples' sleep.
Forwarded by Phil Cooley

"God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way." --
Arturo Toscanini to a trumpet player

"Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on his backside." 
Ludwig van Beethoven

"No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me."
Sir Thomas Beecham

"Vocation is not a goal ... that is our birthright gift"
This is not an exact quote, but it is a paraphrasing of the quotation given by Chaplain Nickle in the November 18 sermon in Parker Chapel.  The quotation is from Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer --- http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,221764,00.html 

Dear Bob, 
It was good to see you and Erika at worship yesterday! The Parker Palmer that I quoted was: "Today I understand vocation quite differently -- not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God." from p.10 of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Chaplain Stephen Nickle

(See below for more references of Parker Palmer.)




I Am Impressed With the Technology of This New AICPA Online Video
Modernization of the (CPA) Profession's Independence Rules
http://www.aicpa.org/stream/indrulewebcast/index.html# 

Click on the above link to view a thirty-minute archived webcast on the AICPA's newly adopted rules.

After you view this webcast, we invite you to participate on December 4 at 1 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) in a live, interactive web conference. During that web conference, a panel consisting of representatives from the AICPA Professional Ethics Executive Committee, the AICPA Ethics and State Societies and Regulatory Affairs divisions and NASBA will address your questions about the rules.

Please provide us your questions via e-mail after viewing the archived webcast. We will respond to those questions during the live webcast on December 4.

To view/register for the live webcast on December 4, click the "live webcast" button located on the AICPA Video Player.

Added Note from Bob Jensen:

The FASB issued a video (the old fashioned kind that must be played on a VCR) that focuses on the supreme importance of independence in the CPA profession.  

FASB 40-Minute Video, Financially Correct (Quality of Earnings)

The price is $15.

In the midst of recent auditing scandals such as the recent Enron's auditing scandal, independence is becoming more critical to the survival of public accountancy's certified audits.  To put the problem more in perspective, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

Updates on Enron's Creative Accounting Scandal ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

Big Five firm Andersen is in the thick of a controversy involving a 20% overstatement in Enron's net earnings and financial statements dating back to 1997 that will have to be restated. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63352 

One of the main causes for the restatements of financial reports that will be required of Enron relates to transactions in which Enron issued shares of its own stock in exchange for notes receivable. The notes were recorded as assets on the company books, and the stock was recorded as equity. However, Lynn Turner, former SEC chief accountant, points out, "It is basic accounting that you don't record equity until you get cash, and a note doesn't count as cash. The question that raises is: How did both partners and the manager on this audit miss this simple Accounting 101 rule?"

In addition, Enron has acknowledged overstating its income in the past four years of financial statements to the tune of $586 million, or 20%. The misstatements reportedly result from "audit adjustments and reclassifications" that were proposed by auditors but were determined to be "immaterial."

There is a chance that such immaterialities will be determined to be unlawful. An SEC accounting bulletin states that certain adjustments that might fall beneath a materiality threshold aren't necessarily material if such misstatements, when combined with other misstatements, render "the financial statements taken as a whole to be materially misleading."

The world of auditing and accounting appears to be in crisis, driven in part by issues such as intangibles, the complexity of derivatives and trading, and financial engineering."
Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman.  (See Below.)

Independence and competence issues are even more troublesome at a time when the CPA profession is seeking to expand (or expend?) the profession into assurance services.  I have added a section below on new assurance service thrusts of the CPA profession.


A Great Summary of Web Instruction Resources 
Sharon Gray, Instructional Technologist --- http://inst.augie.edu/%7Egray/ 
Augustana College, 2001 Summit Ave., Sioux Falls, SD  57197
gray@inst.augie.edu, 605-274-4907 

For a GREAT comprehensive listing of Web Instruction Resources, go to http://inst.augie.edu/~gray/WBI.html

Related Sites of Possible Interest

See the history of course authoring technologies at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 

Advice to New Faculty and Bob Jensen's Resource Summary can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 

Bob Jensen's Helpers for Educators at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm

Bob Jensen's Educator Helper Bookmarks at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm


Subject Index to Literature on Electronic Sources of Information http://library.usask.ca/~dworacze/SUBJIN_A.HTM 

 Electronic Sources of Information: A Bibliography http://library.usask.ca/~dworacze/BIBLIO.HTM 

A new book on "The Invisible Web" --- http://www.invisible-web.net/ 
Bob Jensen's threads of the invisible web are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Time Magazine's Choices for the Best Inventions for the Year 2001 (which isn't even over yet) --- http://www.time.com/time/2001/inventions/ 




I added a Special Section to the document entitled "Opportunities of E-Business Assurance:  Risks in Assuring Risk" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 

 Parts of the Special Section follow in this Edition of New Bookmarks.

My other electronic Business links are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm


Assurance Services Opportunities and Risks

The AICPA's Assurance Services Website is at http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/index.htm 

E-COMMERCE AND AUDITING FAIR VALUES SUBJECTS OF NEW INTERNATIONAL GUIDANCE The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) invites comments on two new exposure drafts (EDs): Auditing Fair Value Measurements and Disclosures and Electronic Commerce: Using the Internet or Other Public Networks - Effect on the Audit of Financial Statements. Comments on both EDs, developed by IFAC's International Auditing Practices Committee (IAPC), are due by January 15, 2002. See http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2213.html  

The IFAC link is at http://www.ifac.org/Guidance/EXD-Download.tmpl?PubID=1003772692151 

The purpose of this International Standard on Auditing (ISA) is to establish standards and provide guidance on auditing fair value measurements and disclosures contained in financial statements. In particular, this ISA addresses audit considerations relating to the valuation, measurement, presentation and disclosure for material assets, liabilities and specific components of equity presented or disclosed at fair value in financial statements. Fair value measurements of assets, liabilities and components of equity may arise from both the initial recording of transactions and later changes in value.

 
Download
"Auditing Fair Value Measurements And Disclosures"
in MS Word format.

File Size: 123 Kbytes
Download
"Auditing Fair Value Measurements And Disclosures"
in Adobe Acrobat format.

File Size: 209 Kbytes


 

Financial Statement Assurance in an E-Business Environment
  • Risks uniquely present in an e-business environment.  

    • Networked transactions

    • Changing technologies that can tank a business overnight

    • Soft assets dominate hard assets

    • Ever-evolving series of mergers and acquisitions

    • Short and high-risk product life cycles

    • Young and inexperienced labor force

    • Success or failure may ride on one person or a few key people

    • Lack of management focus on cost control

  • Successions of losses do not necessarily impair a going concern (provided investors are willing to keep infusing the business with cash)

  • Substantive testing in audits may not be practical or feasible (see Statement on Auditing Standards [SAS] 80, Amendment to SAS 31, Evidential Matter)

 

 

New Forms of Assurance to Facilitate E-Business

AICPA formed the Special Committee on Assurance Services (SCAS) in 1994.  After a careful analysis of demographic and other trends, this committee concluded the following:

Your marketplace is changing.  Multibillion-dollar markets for new CPA services are being created.  Investors, creditors, and business managers are swamped with information, yet frustrated about not having the information they need and uncertain about the relevance and reliability of what they use.  CPA firms of all sizes--from small practitioners to very large firms--can help these decision makers by delivering new assurance services.  (AICPA Web site, "Assurance Services," www.aicpa.org).

The Elliott Committee (named after its chair, Robert K. Elliott) identified six new service areas considered to have high potential for revenue growth for assurance providers:

  1. Risk Assessment

  2. Business Performance Measurement

  3. Information Systems Reliability

  4. Electronic Commerce

  5. Health Care Performance Measurement

  6. ElderCare

The work of the Elliott Committee was followed by the appointment of the ongoing Assurance Services Executive Committee, chaired by Ronald Cohen.  This committee is charged with the ongoing development of new assurance services and the provision of guidance to practicing CPAs on implementing the services developed.

  • Information Systems Reliability Assurance 

  • Electronic Commerce Assurance. 

Business-To-Consumer Assurance

  • CPA/CA WebTrust (Joint Venture of AICPA and CICA)
    • Business Practices and Disclosure--The entity discloses its business and information privacy practices for e-business transactions and executes transactions in accordance with its disclosed practices.

    • Transaction Integrity--The entity maintains effective controls to provide reasonable assurance that customers' transactions using e-business are completed and billed as agreed.

    • Information Protection and Privacy--The entity maintains effective controls to provide reasonable assurance that private customer information obtained as a result of e-business is protected from uses not related to the entity's business.

  • Proprietary E-Business Audits

  • Privacy Audits

Business-to-Business Assurance

  • Assurances against service disruptions and product shipments

  • CPA/CA SysTrust (Joint Venture of AICPA and CICA)
    • Availability--The system is available during times specified by the entity.

    • Security--Adequate protection is provided against unwanted logical or physical entrance into the system.

    • Integrity--Processes within the system are executed in a complete, accurate, timely and authorized manner.

    • Maintainability--Updates (upgrades) to the system can be performed when needed without disabling the other three principles.

  • SAS 70 Reviews of Service Organizations (extended to B2B Risks)

SAS 70, Reports on the Processing of Transactions by Service Organizations, was issued to provide assistance in the auditing of entities that obtain either or both of the following services from an external third party entity.

  • Executing transactions and maintaining related accountability

  • Recording transactions and processing data

  • Internal Controls Risk

    • The financial statement assertions that are either directly or indirectly affected by the service organization's internal control policies and procedures.

    • The extent to which the service organization's policies and procedures interact with the user organization's internal control structure

    • The degree of standardization of the services provided by the third-party to individual clients.  In the case of highly standardized services, the service auditor may be best suited to provide assurance: however, when the third-party offers many customized services, the third-party auditor may be unable to provide sufficient assurance regarding a specific client.

SAS 70 provides for two reports the service auditor can provide to the user auditor concerning the policies and procedures of the service organization:

  • Reports on policies and procedures placed in operation.

  • Reports on policies and procedures placed in operation and tests of operating effectiveness.

Other Potential New Services to Facilitate E-Business

  • Value-Added Network (VAN) Service Provider Assurance

  • Evaluation of Electronic Commerce Software Packages

  • Trusted Key and Signature Provider Assurance

  • Criteria Establishment

  • Counseling Services

The AICPA's Assurance Services Website is at http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/index.htm 

 

Major Constraints and Considerations
Competencies Required

Competition

Jeopardy to Public Accountancy's Image of Independence and Professionalism

Legal Risks

The AICPA's Assurance Services Website is at http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/index.htm 


A Special Section on Computer and Networking Security

The FBI's Internet Fraud and Complaint Center (IFCC FBI) --- Report Internet frauds and crimes here.
To thwart fraud on the Internet and terror in general, check in and/or report to http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) --- Report infrastructure security incidents here.
Located in the FBI's headquarters building in Washington, D.C., the NIPC brings together representatives from U.S. government agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector in a partnership to protect our nation's critical infrastructures.
http://www.nipc.gov/
 

Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) --- Report computer invasions and viruses here.
The CERT® Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is a center of Internet security expertise, at the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon University. We study Internet security vulnerabilities, handle computer security incidents, publish security alerts, research long-term changes in networked systems, and develop information and training to help you improve security at your site.  http://www.cert.org/


Cookies = Applets that enable a web site to collect information about each user for later reference (as in finding cookies in the cookie jar). Web Browsers like Netscape Navigator set aside a small amount of space on the user's hard drive to record detected preferences.  Cookies perform storage on the client side that might otherwise have to be stored in a generic-state or database server on the server side. Cookies can be used to collect information for consumer profile databases. Browsers can be set to refuse cookies. 

Many times when you browse a website, your browser checks to see if you have any pre-defined preferences (cookie) for that server if you do it sends the cookie to the server along with the request for a web page. Sometimes cookies are used to collect items of an order as the user places things in a shopping cart and has not yet submitted the full order. A cookie allows WWW customers to fill their orders (shopping carts) and then be billed based upon the cookie payment information. Cookies retain information about a users browsing patterns at a web site. This creates all sorts of privacy risks since information obtained from cookies by vendors or any persons who put cookies on your computer might be disclosed in ways that are harmful to you.  Browsers will let you refuse cookies with a set up that warns you when someone is about to deliver a cookie, but this really disrupts Web surfing and may block you from gaining access to may sites.  It is probably better to accept cookies for a current session and then dispose of unwanted cookies as soon as possible so that cookie senders do not obtain repeated access to your private information.  Microsoft Corporation has added the following utilities to the Internet Explorer (IE) browser according to http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/ms.cookies.idg/ 

The Internet Explorer 5.5 changes include the following:

• Notifications that Microsoft said will help users differentiate between first- and third-party cookies, plus automatic prompts that inform users anytime a third-party cookie is being offered by a Web site.

• A "delete all cookies" control button that has been added to the browser's main "Internet options" page to make it easier for users to get rid of cookies.

• New topics that have been added to Internet Explorer's help menu to better answer questions about cookies and their management.

Instruction for cookies control using Internet Explorer --- http://www.scholastic.com/cookies.htm 

To accept cookies if you are using a PC running Windows...

Internet Explorer 5 1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.

2. Click the Security tab.

3. Click the Internet zone.

4. Select a security level other than High.

-or-

Click Custom Level, scroll to the Cookies section, and then click Enable for both cookie options.

5. Click on Apply.

6. Click on OK.

Other nations, notably in Europe, have placed more severe restrictions on the use of cookies.  See http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/eu.spam.idg/index.html

For more on cookies, see the following:

 


Question 1:
How can you send email anonymously?

Answer 1:
Simply set up an email account under a fictitious name.  For example, you can send email under multiple fictitious names from the Yahoo email server at http://www.yahoo.com/   (Click on 'Mail" in the row "Connect")

Question 2:
How can you be totally anonymous on the Web such that cookie monsters do not track your Web navigation at your site and bad guys cannot track your surfing habits or get at your personal information such as medical records, name, mail address, phone number, email address, etc.?  (You can read about cookie monsters at 

Answer 2:
There is probably no way to be 100% safe unless you use someone else's computer without them knowing you are using that computer on the Web.  In most instances, the owner of the computer (a university, a public library, an employer, etc.) will know who is using the computer, but cookie monsters and bad guys on the Web won't have an easy time finding out who you are without having the powers of the police.

About the safest way to remain anonymous as a Web surfer is to sign up for Privada from your IP Internet provider that obtain your line connection from for purposes of connecting to the Web.  In most instances, surfers pay a monthly fee that will increase by about $5.00 per month for the Pivada service (if the IP provider has Privada or some similar service).  To read more about Privada, go to http://industry.java.sun.com/solutions/company/summary/0,2353,4514,00.html 

Privada Control (Application)

Primary Market Target: Utilities&Services 
Secondary Market Target: Financial Services

Description Used with Privada Network, PrivadaControl provides the consumer component of Privada's services, and is distributed to end-users by network service providers. Users create an online identity that cannot be linked to their real-world identity, allowing them to browse the Internet with the level of privacy they choose while still reaping the benefits of personalized content. PrivadaControl is built entirely in the Java(TM) programming language and runs completely in a Java Virtual Machine.

For discussion of other forms of protection, see Privacy in eCommerce.


Question 3:
Where can you find great links to security matters in computing?

Answer 3:
Try Yahoo's links at
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Security_and_Encryption/ 


Question 4:
It is extremely dangerous to open email attachments.  However, is it dangerous to open an email message without opening any attachments?

Answer 4:
Generally the answer is no.  However, it is a bit more complicated than this.  The following is stated at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf2.html#CLT-Q11 

For many years the answer to this question was a resounding no and that is largely the case now as well. There are a series of hoax chain letters that are seemingly endlessly circulating around the globe. A typical letter is the "Good Times" hoax. It will warn you that if you see an e-mail with a subject line that contains the phrase "Good Times" you should delete it immediately because the very fact of opening it will activate a virus that will do damage to your hard disk. The letter will encourage you to send this warning to your friends.

The "Good Times" hoax, and many like it, are simply not true. However there are enough people who believe these hoaxes that the messages are endlessly forwarded and reforwarded. If you get a letter like this one, simply delete it. Do not forward it to your friends, and please do not forward it to any mailing lists. If you are uncertain whether the letter is a hoax, refer it to your system administrator or network security officer.

Just to make life complicated, however, there are some cases in which the simple act of opening an e-mail message can damage your system. The newer generation of e-mail readers, including the one built into Netscape Communicator, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Qualcomm Eudora all allow e-mail attachments to contain "active content" such as ActiveX controls or JavaScript programs. As explained in the JavaScript and in the  ActiveX sections,  active content provides a variety of backdoors that can violate your privacy or perhaps inflict more serious harm. Until the various problems are shaken out of JavaScript and ActiveX, enclosures that might contain active content should be opened cautiously. This includes HTML pages and links to HTML pages. Disabling JavaScript and ActiveX will immunize you to potential problems.

In addition, there are other cases where e-mail messages can be harmful to your health. In the summer of 1998, a number of programming blunders were discovered in e-mail readers from Qualcomm, Netscape and Microsoft. These blunders (which involved overflowing static buffers) allowed a carefully crafted e-mail message to crash your computer or damage its contents. No actual cases of damage arising from these holes has been described, but if you are cautious you should upgrade to a fixed version of your e-mail reader. More details can be found at the vendors' security pages:

Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/
Netscape
http://www.netscape.com/products/security/
Qualcomm
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/security.html

Finally, don't forget that some documents do carry viruses. For example, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint all support macro languages that have been used to write viruses. Naturally enough, if you use any of these programs and receive an e-mail message that contains one of these documents as an enclosure, your system may be infected when you open that enclosure. An up-to-date virus checking program will usually catch these viruses before they can attack. Some virus checkers that recognize macro viruses include:

McAfee VirusScan
http://www.mcafee.com/
Symantec AntiVirus
http://www.symantec.com/
Norton AntiVirus
http://www.symantec.com/
Virex
http://www.datawatch.com/virex.shtml
IBM AntiVirus
http://www.av.ibm.com/
Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus
http://www.drsolomon.com/

Question 5:
How can I safely open up email attachments?

Answer 5:
One way is to save the attachment to a floppy disk or some other storage disk that can be accessed by more than one of your computers.  The open the attachment in the computer that you least care about if there is a virus infection.  Even that computer, however, should have the latest updated version of one of the virus detection programs listed above.

You can avoid macro virus damage (which is the most common type of danger when opening email attachments) by installing QuickView Plus from JASC.  The good news is that you are totally safe from macro viruses.  The bad news is that QuickView Plus does not provide full functionality apart from displaying the text and graphics.  For example, QuickView Plus will not run the macros that may be an integral part of an Excel program.  To read more about QuickView Plus, go to http://www.jasc.com/ 


Especially note the Stein and Stewart FAQ site at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/www-security-faq.html 

CONTENTS

  1. Introduction
  2. What's New?
    Recent versions of the FAQ.

     

  3. General Questions
    • Q1 What's to worry about?
    • Q2 Exactly what security risks are we talking about?
    • Q3 Are some Web servers and operating systems more secure than others?
    • Q4 Are some Web server software programs more secure than others?
    • Q5 Are CGI scripts insecure?
    • Q6 Are server-side includes insecure?
    • Q7 What general security precautions should I take?
    • Q8 Where can I learn more about network security?
  4. Client Side Security
    • Q1 How do I turn off the "You are submitting the contents of a form insecurely" message in Netscape? Should I worry about it?
    • Q2 How secure is the encryption used by SSL?
    • Q3 When I try to view a secure page, the browser complains that the site certificate doesn't match the server and asks me if I wish to continue. Should I?
    • Q4 When I try to view a secure page, the browser complains that it doesn't recognize the authority that signed its certificate and asks me if I want to continue. Should I?
    • Q5 How private are my requests for Web documents?
    • Q6 What's the difference between Java and JavaScript?
    • Q7 Are there any known security holes in Java?
    • Q8 Are there any known security holes in JavaScript?
    • Q9 What is ActiveX? Does it pose any risks?
    • Q10 Do "Cookies" Pose any Security Risks?
    • Q11 I hear there's an e-mail message making the rounds that can trash my hard disk when I open it. Is this true?
    • Q12 Can one Web site hijack another's content?
    • Q13 Can my web browser reveal my LAN login name and password?
    • Q14 Are there any known problems with Microsoft Internet Explorer?
    • Q15 Are there any known problems with Netscape Communicator?
    • Q16 Are there any known problems with Lynx for Unix?
    • Q17 Someone suggested I configure /bin/csh as a viewer for documents of type application/x-csh. Is this a good idea?
    • Q18 Is there anything else I should keep in mind regarding external viewers?
  5. Server Side Security
    • General
      • Q1 How do I set the file permissions of my server and document roots?
      • Q2 I'm running a server that provides a whole bunch of optional features. Are any of them security risks?
      • Q3 I heard that running the server as "root" is a bad idea. Is this true?
      • Q4 I want to share the same document tree between my ftp and Web servers. Is there any problem with this idea?
      • Q5 Can I make my site completely safe by running the server in a "chroot" environment?
      • Q6 My local network runs behind a firewall. How can I use it to increase my Web site's security?
      • Q7 My local network runs behind a firewall. How can I get around it to give the rest of the world access to the Web server?
      • Q8 How can I detect if my site's been broken into?
    • Windows NT Servers
      • Q9 Are there any known problems with the Netscape Servers?
      • Q10 Are there any known problems with the WebSite Server?
      • Q11 Are there any known problems with Purveyor?
      • Q12 Are there any known problems with Microsoft IIS?
      • Q13Are there any known security problems with Sun Microsystem's JavaWebServer?
      • Q14Are there any known security problems with the MetaInfo MetaWeb Server?
    • Unix Servers
      • Q15 Are there any known problems with NCSA httpd?
      • Q16 Are there any known problems with Apache httpd?
      • Q17 Are there any known problems with the Netscape Servers?
      • Q18 Are there any known problems with the Lotus Domino Go Server?
      • Q19 Are there any known problems with the WN Server?
    • Macintosh Servers
      • Q20 Are there any known problems with WebStar?
      • Q21 Are there any known problems with MacHTTP?
      • Q22 Are there any known problems with Quid Pro Quo?
    • Other Servers
      • Q23 Are there any known problems with Novell WebServer?
    • Server Logs and Privacy
      • Q24 What information do readers reveal that they might want to keep private?
      • Q25 Do I need to respect my readers' privacy?
      • Q26 How do I avoid collecting too much information?
      • Q27 How do I protect my readers' privacy?
  6. CGI Scripts
    • General
      • Q1 What's the problem with CGI scripts?
      • Q2 Is it better to store scripts in the cgi-bin directory or to identify them using the .cgi extension?
      • Q3 Are compiled languages such as C safer than interpreted languages like Perl and shell scripts?
      • Q4 I found a great CGI script on the Web and I want to install it. How can I tell if it's safe?
      • Q5 What CGI scripts are known to contain security holes?
    • Language Independent Issues
      • Q6 I'm developing custom CGI scripts. What unsafe practices should I avoid?
      • Q7 But if I avoid eval(), exec(), popen() and system(), how can I create an interface to my database/search engine/graphics package?
      • Q8 Is it safe to rely on the PATH environment variable to locate external programs?
      • Q9 I hear there's a package called cgiwrap that makes CGI scripts safe?
      • Q10 People can only use scripts if they're accessed from a form that lives on my local system, right?
      • Q11 Can people see or change the values in "hidden" form variables?
      • Q12 Is using the "POST" method for submitting forms more private than "GET"?
      • Q13 Where can I learn more about safe CGI scripting?
    • Safe Scripting in Perl
      • Q14 How do I avoid passing user variables through a shell when calling exec() and system()?
      • Q15 What are Perl taint checks? How do I turn them on?
      • Q16 OK, I turned on taint checks like you said. Now my script dies with the message: "Insecure path at line XX" every time I try to run it!
      • Q17 How do I "untaint" a variable?
      • Q18 I'm removing shell metacharacters from the variable, but Perl still thinks it's tainted!
      • Q19 Is it true that the pattern matching operation $foo=~/$user_variable/ is unsafe?
      • Q20 My CGI script needs more privileges than it's getting as user "nobody". How do I run a Perl script as suid?
  7. Protecting Confidential Documents at Your Site
    • Q1 What types of access restrictions are available?
    • Q2 How safe is restriction by IP address or domain name?
    • Q3 How safe is restriction by user name and password?
    • Q4 What is user verification?
    • Q5 How do I restrict access to documents by the IP address or domain name of the remote browser?
    • Q6 How do I add new users and passwords?
    • Q7 Isn't there a CGI script to allow users to change their passwords online?
    • Q8 Using .htaccess to control access in individual directories is so convenient, why should I use access.conf?
    • Q9 How does encryption work?
    • Q10 What are: SSL, SHTTP, Shen?
    • Q11 Are there any "freeware" secure servers?
    • Q12 Can I use Personal Certificates to Control Server Access?
    • Q13 How do I accept credit card orders over the Web?
    • Q14 What are: CyberCash, SET, Open Market?
  8. Denial of Service Attacks 
    • Overview
      • Q1 What is a Denial of Service attack?
      • Q2 What is a Distributed Denial of Service attack?
      • Q3 How is a DDoS executed against a website?
      • Q4 Is there a quick and easy way to secure against a DDoS attack?
      • Q5 Can the U.S. Government make a difference?
    • Step-by-Step
      • Q6 How do I check my servers to see if they are active DDoS hosts?
      • Q7 What should I do if I find a DDoS host program on my server?
      • Q8 How can I prevent my servers from being used as DDoS hosts in the future?
      • Q9 How can I prevent my personal computer from being used as a DDoS host?
      • Q10 What is a "smurf attack" and how do I defend against it?
      • Q11 What is "trinoo" and how do I defend against it?
      • Q12 What are "Tribal Flood Network" and "TFN2K" and how do I defend against them?
      • Q13 What is "stacheldraht" and how do I defend against it?
      • Q14 How should I configure my routers, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems against DDoS attacks?
  9. Bibliography

    Corrections and Updates

    We welcome bug reports, updates, reports about broken links, comments and outright disagreements. Please send your comments to lstein@cshl.org and/or jns@digitalisland.net. Please make sure that you are referring to the most recent version of the FAQ (maintained at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/); someone else might have caught the problem before you.

    Please understand that we maintain the FAQ on a purely voluntary basis, and that we may fall behind on making updates when other responsibilities intrude. You can help us out by making an attempt to identify replacement links when reporting a broken one, and by suggesting appropriate rewording when you have found an error in the text. Suggestions for new questions and answers are welcomed, particularly if you are willing to contribute the text yourself.


What are the weapons of "information warfare?"

See at http://www.student.seas.gwu.edu/~reto/infowar/info-war.html 

Also see denial of service attacks at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf6.html 

After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48556,00.html 

6:57 a.m. Nov. 21, 2001 PST

BUDAPEST -- A European convention to be signed Friday will unite countries in the fight against computer criminals, who have moved on from "innocent" hacking to fraud, embezzlement and life-threatening felonies.

Interior ministers and law enforcement officials from Europe, South Africa, Canada, the United States and Japan will sign the milestone cybercrime convention, which has taken four years to draft, in the Hungarian capital.

"Realistically, we can expect some 30 countries to sign the convention," a Council of Europe official told Reuters. "And this is a major achievement, given that many conventions are signed by 10 to 20 countries at best."

The official said many people still see computer hacking and other electronic crimes as mainly a moral issue, without realizing the associated material damage and risk to life.

"There was a recent case when someone took control of the computer system at a small U.S. airport and switched off the landing lights," the official said. "This could have killed many people."

Related Wired Links:

Liberte, Egalite ... E-Security?
Sep. 27, 2001

Congress Covets Copyright Cops
July 28, 2001

Go Ahead, Make Ashcroft's Day
July 23, 2001

Online Crime a Tough Collar
July 11, 2001

Most Hacking Hides Real Threats
July 3, 2001

U.S.'s Defenseless Department
May 23, 2001

Brit Cops Tackle E-Thievery
April 19, 2001


Complaints involving the Internet crack the top 10 for the first time in a survey conducted by two major consumer advocacy groups --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48520,00.html 

Associated Press 2:35 p.m. Nov. 19, 2001 PST

WASHINGTON -- Internet shopping and services have become a leading source of consumer complaints, joining grievances about auto repair and telemarketing, a survey finds.

Problems with auto sales and household goods shared the top spot in the annual list of consumer complaints released Monday by the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the Consumer Federation of America. Those categories ranked second and third, respectively, in 1999 and have been in the top five since 1997

Consumer complaints involving the Internet broke into the top 10 for the first time, sharing eighth place with grievances about mail order shopping, telemarketing and problems between landlords and tenants.

The most common Internet complaints involved online purchases and auctions, according to reports from 45 federal, state and local consumer agencies who participated in the survey. The third most common type of Internet complaint involved service providers.

"People don't always get what they order over the Internet and sometimes they don't get anything at all," said Wendy Weinberg, executive director of the NACAA. "While there are many benefits to shopping over the Internet, consumers need to be aware of the risks."

She recommended that consumers use credit cards when shopping online, keep records of all transactions and vary passwords among different websites.

The number of Internet-related complaints has been surging for the last two years, Weinberg said.

During the 1999 holiday season, many Internet sellers claimed they could ship extremely quickly, but some failed to meet their promises. The Federal Trade Commission fined companies more than $1.5 million in civil penalties.

The situation improved last year, but the FTC said Monday it had sent warning letters to more than 70 Internet retailers reminding them to live up to their claims.

"There's a lot more consumers being impacted because there are simply more people shopping online," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a trade group. He said industry has to work to educate consumers about Internet shopping.

"There are some bad actors out there who prey on consumers and want to take advantage of the excitement of buying online," Miller said. "Consumers have to be smarter and have to go with reputable websites."

The categories generating the most complaints in 2000 were auto sales and household goods, which includes appliances, furniture, electronics and other retail items.

Complaints about household goods involved defective merchandise, deceptive advertising and failure to honor warranties or provide refunds.

Many of the complaints with auto sales involved financing deals. Some consumers complained they would take home a car with a good financing rate only to later get a call from the dealer saying they have to return the car because they didn't qualify for the rate.

The category of home improvement services fell from first place on the list in 1999 to third, but the survey ranked it as the type of business most likely to fail and reopen under another name. Furniture stores and health studios were also types of companies most likely to go out of business.

"Consumers need to check out the company before they make any payments to business in these industries," Weinberg said. "Consumers can lose large amounts of money if a company that they are doing business with closes

See also:
Holiday E-Sales Prospects Not Bad
Net Shoppers Still Complaining
Ads Stay Home for Holidays
There's no biz like E-Biz
Sleighbells & Whistles: More tidings for the season
The Holidays at Lycos


One of the most significant and controversial professional practice areas where Bob Elliott led accounting profession into its new Song of SysTrust.  I don't know if all accountants have noticed the monumental and highly controversial change in attestation services being proposed by the AICPA and the CICA for the public accounting profession.  Most certainly the lyrics are not familiar to non-accountants other than attorneys who, while dancing in their briefs, have difficulty containing their enthusiasm for this new Anthem of the Auditors.  This is the first major shift of the accounting profession into the attestation of complete information services.  Financial audits may eventually be but a small part of the total attestation and assurance service symphony of services.  The proposed new "accounting"-firm service is called SysTrust at http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/systrust/index.htm  .  

Probably the best summary of SysTrust to date is "Reporting on Systems Reliability," by Efrim Boritz, Erin Mackler, and Doug McPhie in the Journal of Accountancy, November 1999, pp. 75-87.  The online version is at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/nov1999/boritz.html.  (It might be noted that both Boritz and McPhie are from Canada --- SysTrust is a joint venture with the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the AICPA in the U.S.)  


How can you protect confidential documents at your Website?

Answer:  See http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf5.html#Q14 


Privacy in eCommerce
For a brief period, Ziff Davis published the personal information -- including credit card numbers -- of thousands of its subscribers on the Web. --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,48525,1162b6a.html 
"A Tell-All ZD Would Rather Ignore," by Declan McCullagh, Wired News, November 20, 2001

Because Ziff Davis' 1.3-MB text file included names, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses and in some cases credit card numbers, a thief who downloaded it would have enough information to make fraudulent mail-order purchases. An executive at one New York magazine firm called the error "a bush-league mistake for a major online publisher."

Zane said Ziff Davis relies on EDS and Omeda database technology to protect subscriber information. He refused to provide details, except to say that "we were doing a promotion not using the EDS and Omeda products."

In interviews, two people who appeared on the Ziff Davis list said they had typed in their information when responding to a promotion for Electronic Gaming Monthly.

"I went to the site and signed up for the free year, but did not sign up for the second year, which was not free," said Jerry Leon of Spokane, Washington, whose Visa number and expiration date appeared in the file. "I get the feeling that this was one huge scam, but that card is now dead, and any charges made on it will be refused."

"If it was just a stupid accident, they are going to regret failing a community that worries about this stuff ever happening, but if something less innocent has occurred, they may as well fold the tents," said Leon, who signed up through AnandTech's hot deals forum.

Rob Robinson, whose address information -- but not credit card number -- was on display, says he subscribed to Electronic Gaming Monthly through a promotion on ebgames.com.

"I'm annoyed that my home info as well as a valid e-mail is available to anyone. That's quite a valuable list of gamers' personal data up for grabs. I feel really bad for the poor folks who are going to have to cancel their credit cards," Robinson said.

It's not clear whether Electronic Gaming Monthly subscribers were the only ones affected by the security snafu, and Ziff Davis refused to provide details. The file appeared at the address http://www.zdmcirc.com/formcollect/ebxbegamfile.dat until around noon EST on Monday.

That address began circulating around Home Theater Forum discussion groups over the weekend, and Ziff Davis at first erased the contents of the database at around 9 a.m. EST Monday. But its system continued to add new subscribers to the public file until Ziff Davis administrators blocked access to that address around midday Monday.

"Every week we learn of new cases where companies used insecure technology or unsecure servers to handle business that utilizes financial information or customer information," says Jericho, who edits the security news site attrition.org. "In the rush to be e-appealing for e-business they e-screw up time and time again."

Jericho has compiled a list of miscreant firms whose shoddy security practices have exposed customer information. The hall of shame includes notables such as Amazon, Gateway, Hotmail and Verizon.

Ziff Davis Media publishes 11 print magazines. It is a separate company from ZDNet, which is owned by CNET Networks.

See also:
HQ for Exposed Credit Numbers
Students Expose Bank ATM Hole
E-Commerce Fears? Good Reasons


Privacy in eCommerce:  Personal Certificates

For discussion of cookies and how to Surf the Web anonymously, see Cookies.

For a general discussion of personal certificates, see http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf5.html#CON-Q12 

What is WebTrust?  What are its major competitors?  

Hint: See the following:

Question:  
What makes WebTrust more "trusted" vis-a-vis its competitors (aside from being CPA or CICA firms)?

Answer:  
WebTrust is the only service that requires random site visits by independent CPA firms to spot check if privacy policies are being adhered to by the WebTrust client.


Question:  What is the most popular and less costly privacy seal alternative relative to WebTrust?

Answer:  The Better Business Bureau --- http://www.bbbonline.org/privacy/index.asp 

 Of the many challenges facing the Internet, privacy has risen above them all as the number one concern (and barrier) voiced by web users when going online. Participants in the BBBOnLine Privacy Program are addressing this concern head-on with responsive and effective self-regulation. By subscribing to responsible information practices, BBBOnLine Privacy participants are promoting the vital trust and confidence necessary for their own and future success of the Internet.

Taking advantage of the significant expertise the Council of Better Business Bureaus wields in self-regulation and dispute resolution, the BBBOnLine Privacy Program features verification, monitoring and review, consumer dispute resolution, a compliance seal, enforcement mechanisms and an educational component. The BBBOnLine Privacy Program offers consumers a user-friendly tool that helps increase their comfort while on the Internet and is a reasonably priced and a simple, one-stop, non-intrusive way for business to demonstrate compliance with credible online privacy


Question on Website (Provider) Authentication
How can you find out that you are not at a phony site that pretends to be legitimate?

Answer:
Look for a logo verification seal on at the site.  Although the AICPA's WebTrust seal is primarily a Web privacy seal (credit card information, medical information, etc.), the WebTrust seal is also a seal that assures users that the site is not a phony imitation of a real site --- http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/webtrust/princip.htm 
The WebTrust privacy and logo verification seal contains the following image on a document (the image below is for illustration only and is not valid on Bob Jensen's Web documents).

 

A less costly  logo verification seal is the VeriSign seal if it appears on a document (the image below is for illustration only and is not valid on Bob Jensen's Web documents).

VeriSign --- http://www.verisign.com/ 
Get VeriSign's free white paper at https://www.verisign.com/cgi-bin/clearsales_cgi/leadgen.htm?form_id=0714&toc=w093325300714000&email= .

Learn From the Experts VeriSign's Training Courses cover all areas of enterprise security including Firewalls, PKI, VPNs, Applied Hacking, and Web Security. Our small classes, hands-on labs, and world-class instructors ensure the highest level of security for your networks. Download our FREE White Paper, "VeriSign Internet Security Education: E-Commerce Survival Training" outlining the benefits of security education.



 Retail Services
  SSL Certificates
  Payment Services
  Domain Names
 
  Web Site Services
 
  Secure E-Mail Certificates
 
  Authentic Document IDs
 
  Code Signing IDs
 
  Wireless Server Certificates
 

 Enterprise Services
  SSL ID Management for
Multiple Servers

 
  Authentication and PKI
  Authorization Services
 
  Payment Services
  Online Brand Protection Services
  Managed DNS Services
 Professional Services
  Consulting
 
  Training

 Solutions
  Financial Services
  Government
  Healthcare
  Wireless
  B2B
  Smart Card
  Cable Modem

The Better Business Bureau (BBB):  Another Source of Website (Provider) Authentication --- http://www.bbb.org/ 

ADVERTISING REVIEW PROGRAMS    ADVERTISING/SELLING GUIDELINES  

 

 
   DISPUTE RESOLUTION    BUSINESS GUIDANCE  

 

   
   CONSUMER GUIDANCE    NEWS AND ALERTS  
   

 

Although the BBB is best known as a place where consumers and businesses can file complaints about unethical, deceptive, and illegal commerce and charitable practices, the BBB also provides an Internet seal of Website (Provider) Authentication.  


Reliability Seal Program --- http://www.bbbonline.org/reliability/index.asp   
Helping Web users find reliable, trustworthy businesses online, and helping reliable businesses identify themselves as such, through a voluntary self-regulatory program that promotes consumer trust and confidence on the Internet.

Privacy Seal Program --- http://www.bbbonline.org/privacy/index.asp 
Helping Web users identify companies that stand behind their privacy policies and have met the program requirements of notice, choice, access and security in the use of personally identifiable information.

For a general discussion of personal certificates, see http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf5.html#CON-Q12 


Advantages of and risks of cookies --- see Cookies.


What is user authentication?

Answer See Question 4 at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf5.html#Q14 

User verification is any system that for determining, and verifying, the identity of a remote user. User name and password is a simple form of user authentication. Public key cryptographic systems, described below, provide a more sophisticated form authentication that uses an unforgettable electronic signature.

Continued at at http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf5.html#Q14  

What Dollar Rental Car Company now requires from persons who rent cars might be extended to people who conduct transactions on Websites.  Dollar Rent A Car is currently making customers give a thumbprint before they give them the keys, another example of biometrics being used for ID purposes.

"No Thumbprint, No Rental Car," by Julia Scheeres, Wired News, November 21, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,48552,00.html 


For more discussion of the above issues, go to the  document entitled "Opportunities of E-Business Assurance:  Risks in Assuring Risk" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 

My other electronic Business links are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


Crime and Justice Data Online --- BJS http://149.101.22.40/dataonline/ 



Threads on Firewalls

Note that firewalls are not generally intended to protect against viruses.  The protect against invasion of the computer by hackers intent on doing bad things such as creating entry trap doors to your systems.  For more information on firewalls, go to  http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf3.html#SVR-Q6 

Zone Alarm --- http://www.zone-alarm-pro.com/ 
In reply to a message about installing a firewall on a home computer, Chula King wrote the following in reply to a firewall question posed by Amy Dunbar:

I too use Zone Alarm, and have been quite pleased with it. I've also tried Black Ice Defender and don't think that it does nearly as good a job as Zone Alarm.

While not anti virus software, Zone Alarm will quarantine "suspicious" e-mail attachments. In addition, it blocks both incoming scans to one's computer and outgoing messages produced by spyware.

Chula King 
The University of West Florida

Reply from Amelia Baldwin

Amy,

as for hacking and such, another vote for zonealarm on your cable internet enabled computer. it is not difficult to use. yes, your cable company probes your IP a few times a day but that's NOTHING compared to the number of times you will get pinged or probed or God know what else by seemingly random attempts from total strangers. :o( Zonealarm blocks and tracks these things and if you weren't frightened before you put up a firewall, you will be when you seen how many accesses were going on or at least attempted!

as for anti-virus, keep an anti-virus program running and keep it's virus signatures up to date (the number of folks who have the software but never update it just astounds me) and never ever open an email attachment that you are not expecting even if it IS from someone you know. some viruses send seemingly random attachments via the email software of the infected computer to folks on the address list, thus you might actually receive what looks like a legitimate attachment from a known user and it will have a virus.

just my $0.02

Amelia

Reply from Bill Spinks

If you have a high speed continuous connection, you need a fire wall! (ZoneAlarm is free and pretty good). I monitor my log of blocked hits and probably get 10 or 15 a day during the week and 20 to 30 on a weekend days. Interestingly enough when I have checked the reverse address of those URLs that are trying to connect with my computer, a large number of them are from China, Korea, and Taiwan -- some have even come from middleschool computers (or so it is reported on http://samspade.org .)

If like stamp collectors you like to travel the world in symbolic form, you can report your "intrusion" back to the tech supervisor of those sites. Sometimes you hear, most times you don't, but it makes for some interesting correspondence from interesting places.

billspinks

You can read some Zone Alarm reviews at 
http://www.epinions.com/cmsw-Utilities-All-Zone_Alarm/display_~reviews
 

Reply from Brian Zwicker

In the Untouchables, Sean Connery said something like: "... never bring a knife to a gunfight" (I have removed the ethnic/racial slur)

Faced with the same incredibly high number of approaches to my home computer setup, I decided to bypass emulating a firewall, and go for the real thing - a firewall.

It turns out not to be very expensive, because I used an older pentium 2 computer I nad in the basement, a couple of ethernet cards, and some software from gnatbox. The computer, by the way boots and runs from a floppy disk! You do not even need a dedicated monitor, except for setting up. The whole system now runs from my desktop computer and you can reset various parameters from there.

Some caveats are that to do e-mail, I had to obtain the real address of my cable provider's mail server, because the gnatbox software could not be made to work without this. It also took a couple of weekends to get everything wotking. I also don't know how, or even if, this would work with many educational computer networks.

On the plus side, since the firewall computer talks to the outside world, and I talk to the firewall, it seems it would take a verrrry determined hacker to get past this setup, and although I did have a number of virus problems prior to the firewall going in, I have had nothing since.

One other thing is the list that gnatbox will show on demand of attempted accesses to the firewall. It dumps the older attempts after 12 hours, but the available list is always many screens long. I would say that if even 99.99% of all attempts are benign, at least 4 or 5 each week would be a real attempt to get through in order to damage something. Pretty scary.

Cheers,

Brian Zwicker


For more discussion of the above issues, go to the  document entitled "Opportunities of E-Business Assurance:  Risks in Assuring Risk" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm 

My other electronic Business links are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


Crime and Justice Data Online --- BJS http://149.101.22.40/dataonline/ 




"Promise of Touch Technologies," BBC News, November 14, 2001 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1646000/1646909.stm 

Takuya Nojima of Tokyo University has developed a working model to show the potential of this research.

His Smart-Tool system allows people to feel the resistance between two surfaces whose boundaries are normally impossible to sense, such as the boundary between oil and water.

The main implication is for surgical operations

Takuya Nojima "The sensor detects the conductivity of the liquids," says Mr Nojima. "So, if you penetrate the oil layer, the conductivity is zero but in the water, the conductivity increases."

In early experiments, the researchers have used boiled eggs, with the Smart-Tool cutting through the egg white, but stopping when it reached the yolk.

Such projects have strong potential in biochemistry and medicine.

"The main implication is for surgical operations," says Mr Nojima.

If a surgeon used a scalpel enhanced with Smart-Tool technology, the real-time sensor on the blade could sense what kind of tissue it is touching and rely the information back to the doctor.

Also See Five Senses of the Future:  Threads on the Networking of the Five Senses (Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, and Taste) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/senses.htm  


Some Excel Helpers 

High Powered Excel Spreadsheets ------------------------------ 
Conditional Formatting - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0247  
The Automated Spreadsheet - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0248  
Mr. Excel Tip of the Day - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0249  
User Defined Functions - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0250  
Pump Up Your Spreadsheets - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0251  
Excel Tip Gallery - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0252  
Microsoft Template Gallery - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0253 

Bob Jensen's Excel Helper Videos --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm 



Imagery  Sites of the Week

Artificial Anatomy (Medical Science from the Smithsonian) http://americanhistory.si.edu/anatomy/ 

People have always sought better ways to illustrate and understand the structure and functions of the internal body. Before the discovery of x-rays in 1895, the only practical way to see inside the human body was to observe an operation or a dissection. Cultural and religious beliefs about dissection often made the practice illegal, and even when dissection was acceptable, cadavers were difficult to obtain.

Moreover, lack of refrigeration meant that bodies decayed swiftly. Dissections had to be performed during the cooler months, and were impossible in warmer climates. Frustrated in his studies, a young French medical student devised an elegant solution—papier-mâché anatomical models.

Devices of Wonder (A History and Entertainment Special from the J. Paul Getty Museum)--- http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/devices/choice.html 

Discover the surprising and seductive ancestors of modern cinema, cyborgs, computers, and other optical devices in this new exhibition at the Getty.  The exhibits feature "eye machines."

Levitated (Animations and Simulations You Can Use and Modify for Science and Art) --- http://www.levitated.net/ 
Includes narratives.

Macro New York City --- http://www.macronyc.com/ 

Hoping to attract legal talent to the firm, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has added an interactive e-brochure to its Web site. The e-brochure uses Quick Time film and Flash animation to promote the Big Five firm's Global Tax and Legal Services department. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63247  

Switcheroo Zoo (not as serious as the above sites) http://www.switcheroozoo.com/ 

What activity provides a creative outlet to people who can't draw or paint? Photoshopping, of course. Manipulating digital images is more popular than ever --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48342,00.html 


From MIT
"The Next Computer Interface," by Claire Tristram, Technology Review, December 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/dec01/tristram.asp 

The desktop metaphor was a brilliant innovation—30 years ago. Now it's an unmanageable mess, and the search is on for a better way to handle information.

Game, set, match: Chief scientist David Gelernter of Mirror Worlds Technologies says the desktop metaphor is over. (Photos by Timothy Archibald and Jonathan Worth)

"The desktop is dead," declares David Gelernter. Gelernter is referring to the "desktop metaphor"—the term frequently used for the hierarchical system of files, folders and icons that we use to manage information stored on our home or office computers. At the annual gathering of technophiles at TechXNY/PC Expo 2001 in New York last June, he told the rapt crowd attending his keynote speech that the desktop metaphor is nothing more than virtual Tupperware. "Our electronic documents are scattered by the thousands in all sorts of little containers all over the place," he said. "The more information and the more computers in our lives, the more of a nuisance this system becomes."

For the past decade or so Gelernter has been campaigning for a new metaphor to overthrow the desktop—first in research he carried out at Yale University, where he is a professor of computer science, and now as chief scientist of his new company, Mirror Worlds Technologies, with offices in New Haven, CT, and New York City. In March, Mirror Worlds announced a novel metaphor called Scopeware, software that automatically arranges your computer files in chronological order and displays them on your monitor with the most recent files featured prominently in the foreground. Scopeware is far more sweeping than a simple rearrangement of icons, however: in effect, it transfers the role of file clerk from you to the computer, seamlessly ordering documents of all sorts into convenient, time-stamped files.

If you have ever forgotten what you named a file or which folder you put it in, you probably will agree that it's time for a change. The desktop metaphor is decades old, arising from early-1970s work at Xerox's fabled Palo Alto Research Center, and was never intended to address today's computing needs. Indeed, the product that brought the metaphor to mass-market attention was Apple Computer's 1984 Macintosh; it had no built-in hard drive, and its floppy disks each stored only 400 kilobytes of information. Today we're using the same metaphor to manage the countless files on our ever more capacious hard drives, as well as to access the virtually limitless information on the Web. The result? Big, messy hierarchies of folders. Favorites lists where you never find anything again. Pull-down menus too long to make sense of.

In other words, the desktop metaphor puts the onus on our brains to juggle this expanding collection of files, folders and lists. Yet "our neurons do not fire faster, our memory doesn't increase in capacity and we do not learn to think faster as time progresses," notes Bill Buxton, chief scientist of Alias/Wavefront, a leading maker of graphic-design tools. Buxton argues that without better tools to exploit the immense processing power of today's computers, that power is not much good to us

Continued at  http://www.techreview.com/magazine/dec01/tristram.asp 


Thank you Paula and all the other students and faculty who participated in the Trinity University Phonathon

Great news!

At 8 PM last night, student callers turned in their final pledge cards and waited anxiously to learn the outcome.

We're happy to report that the grand total of this year's phonathon is $284,708 to which we added $77,101, the results of a successful pre-Phonathon mailing. This brings the grand total to: $361,809, which tops this year's goal of $360,000.

Paula Ward


Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing http://www.eevl.ac.uk/ 


A message from Professor XXXXX

I recently submitted an article on Assessment Outcomes for distance education (DE) to "The Technology Source". The editor suggested that I include a reference to profiling the successful DE student because he was sure some research existed on the subject. Well I have been looking for it casually for 3 years in my reading and the 3-4 conferences per year that I attend, and never have come across anything. Have spent the last week looking in InfoTrac and reviewed close to 300 abstracts, without a single good lead. You are the man. So hoping you can answer the question - is there any empirical research on the question of profiling a successful DE student and in particular any research where an institution actually has a hurdle for students to get into DE based on a pedagogically sound questionnaire? Hoping you know the answer and have time to respond.

Reply from Bob Jensen

Hi XXXXX,

I am reminded of a psychology professor, Tom Harrell, that I had years ago at Stanford University.  He had a long-term contract from the U.S. Navy to study Stanford students when they entered the MBA program and then follow them through their careers.  The overall purpose was to define predictors of success that could be used for admission to the Stanford GSB (and extended to tests for admission into careers, etc.)  Dr, Harrell's research became hung up on "The Criterion Problem   (i.e., the problem of defining and measuring "success.")  You will have the same trouble whenever you try to assess graduates of any education program whether it is onsite or online.  What is success?  What is the role any predictor apart from a myriad of confounded variables?

You might take a look at the following reference:
Harrell, T.W. (1992). "Some history of the army general classifications test," Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 875-878.

Success is a relative term.  Grades not always good criteria for assessment.  Perhaps a C student is the greatest success story of a distance education program.  Success may lie in motivating a weak student to keep trying for the rest of life to learn as much as is possible.  Success may lie in motivating a genius to channel creativity.  Success may lie in scores on a qualification examination such as the CPA examination.  However, use of "scores" is very misleading, because the impact of a course or entire college degree is confounded by other predictors such as age, intellectual ability, motivation, freedom to prepare for the examination, etc.  

Success may lie in advancement in the workforce, but promotion and opportunity are subject to widely varying and often-changing barriers and opportunities.  A program's best graduate may end up on a dead end track, and its worst graduate may be a maggot who fell in a manure pile.  For example, it used to be virtually impossible for a woman to become a partner in a large public accounting firm.  Now the way is paved with all sorts of incentives for women to hang in there and attain partnership. Success also entails being at the right place at the right time, and this is often a matter of luck as well as ability.  George Bush probably would never have had an opportunity to become one of this nation's best leaders if there had not been a terrorist attack that afforded him such an opportunity.  Certainly this should not be termed "lucky," but it is a rare "opportunity" to be a great "success."

When it comes to special criteria for acceptance in to distance education programs, there are some who feel that, due to fairness, there should be no special criteria beyond the criteria for acceptance into traditional programs.  For example, see the Charles Stuart University document at  http://www.csu.edu.au/acadman/d13m.htm 

You might find some helpful information in the following reference --- http://202.167.121.158/ebooks/distedir/bestkudo.htm 

Phillips, V., & Yager, C. The best distance learning graduate schools: Earning your degree without leaving home.
This book profiles 195 accredited institutions that offer graduate degrees via distance learning. Topics include: graduate study, the quality and benefits of distance education, admission procedures and criteria, available education delivery systems, as well as accreditation, financial aid, and school policies.

A review is given at http://distancelearn.about.com/library/weekly/aa022299.htm 

More directly related to your question, might be the self assessment suggestions at Excelsior College:

Self Assessment -- http://gl.excelsior.edu/epn2/ec_open.nsf/pages/assess.htm 

Another self assessment process is provided by ISIM University at http://www.isimu.edu/foryou/begin/eprocess.htm 

In self assessment processes, it is sometimes difficulty to determine whether the motivation is one of promotion of the program as opposed to assessment for having students self-select whether to apply or not to apply.

You might be able to contact California State University at Fullerton to see if they will share some of their assessment outcomes of online learning courses. A questionnaire that is used there is at http://de-online.fullerton.edu/de/assessment/assessment.asp 

Some good assessment advice is given at http://www.ala.org/acrl/paperhtm/d30.html 

A rather neat PowerPoint show from Brazil is provided at http://www.terena.nl/tnc2000/proceedings/1B/1b2.ppt  
(Click on the slides to move forward.)

The following references may be helpful in terms of evaluation forms:

  1. Faculty Course Evaluation Form
    University of Bridgeport
  2. Web-Based Course Evaluation Form
    Nashville State Technology Institute
  3. Guide to Evaluation for Distance Educators
    University of Idaho Engineering Outreach Program
  4. Evaluation in Distance Learning: Course Evaluation
    World Bank Global Distance EducatioNet

A Code of Assessment Practice is given at http://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/umf/vol5/ch1.htm 

A comprehensive outcomes assessment report (for the University of Colorado) is given at http://www.colorado.edu/pba/outcomes/ 

A Distance Learning Bibliography is available at http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/disedbiblio.htm 

Also see "Integration of Information Resources into Distance Learning Programs"  by Sharon M. Edge and Denzil Edge at http://www.learninghouse.com/pubs_pubs02.htm 

My bottom line conclusion is that I probably did not help you with the specific help you requested.  At best, I provided you with some food for thought.

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are given at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 

Bob Jensen


MIT's Open Source Sharing of Course Materials is Catching On Elsewhere

"Open Source Objects for Teaching and Learning," by Gerd Kortemeyer, Syllabus, November 2001, p. 32 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5671 

Michigan State University’s Learning Online Network with CAPA (Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach) is building an open platform for the development and distribution of online content. The network, dubbed LON-CAPA, would make online content freely and openly available to any instructor in the sciences or social sciences. LON-CAPA was developed at MSU’s Laboratory for Instructional Technology in Education (LITE), and grew out of earlier MSU initiatives, including the successful CAPA and LectureOnline platforms.

The online content is composed of a resource pool of educational objects, applets, or small slices of content that are written, created, and contributed by instructors participating in the program. Gerd Kortemeyer, director of LITE and principal investigator on the LON-CAPA team, describes the platform as a resource assembly tool, “a shopping cart,” with which an instructor can go through “aisles” gathering content until the entire instructional piece is complete.

LON-CAPA is analogous to a coursepak or a jigsaw puzzle, he says. Users decide how much content to take: as little as a single animation, or as much as an entire semester’s worth of material.

Think of LON-CAPA as a digital library with an instructional management system built in. Currently, it includes material for courses in physics, calculus, chemistry, biology, food science, and psychology. Some disciplines, such as physics, contain quite a lot of material, enough to fill entire semesters. The platform offers automatic checking of homework problems, with helpful feedback available to those who come up with incorrect answers.

Each component is independent. “Instructors can choose the level of granularity desired,” Kortemeyer says. Some teachers may want to select single GIF files, animations, chapter sections, and problem sets, carefully crafting a personalized approach to the course. Others can adopt online textbooks, complete with problem sets and figures.

LON-CAPA’s flexibility and adaptability are important features. Since anyone can contribute content, there is unlimited potential for growth. The open source platform is deliberately set up for ease of use, so that selecting and adopting content is very simple. Rather than screen content before it is posted, Kortemeyer’s group has opted to let users determine the quality of each posting. “Much as visitors to Amazon.com post their reviews of books, our users will evaluate material that is put into LON-CAPA and will not only assess it but can actually make improvements to it,” he says.

“We have at least 10,000 physics resources,” Kortemeyer notes. Other disciplines contain fewer content bits, but more is being added all the time. He notes that the platform isn’t specific to the sciences and doesn’t deliberately exclude the humanities. “It’s just that certain aspects of it, such as the automatic checking of homework problems, lend themselves better to the sciences and mathematics,” he says.

Users might draw from LON-CAPA for a distance education course where all of the instruction is delivered in a virtual environment, but they might just as easily use material as part of a lecture course or as lab materials. The adaptability of the platform makes it appropriate for all sorts of situations.

At first glance, one might think that piecing together a course from a number of small fragments would require a large investment of instructor prep time, but in actuality that isn’t the case. Kortemeyer says that the granularity options allow teachers to get as detailed in developing the course syllabus as they wish and that building the syllabus takes as long as adopting a new textbook. Once the course gets going, he notes, “there’s no homework to grade, which saves a lot of time.” As with any online course, however, instructors using the platform should expect to spend some time communicating with their students via e-mail or the built-in communication tools.

At the moment, 18 institutions belong to the LON-CAPA network, and the group hopes to have at least 30 partner institutions within a year. Kortemeyer hopes that in addition to contributing content, many of the users will contribute open source tool code as well, ensuring that the platform will be self-sustaining. Member institutions have to agree to maintain a “library server,” storing some of the content, and larger institutions host an access server as well.

Continued at http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5671 

Latest News on MIT's Open Courseware (OCW) --- http://web.mit.edu/ocw/ 

The following milestones have been set for OCW through 2003:

September 2002: Course materials from 100 subjects released on the OCW web site
March 2003: Course materials from 250 subjects released
September 2003: Course materials from 500 courses released

 


"Changing the Interface of Education with Revolutionary Learning Technologies,"  by Nishikant Sonwalkar, Syllabus, November 2001, pp. 10-13 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5663 

The paradigm shift in the pedagogical design of online education will require much more in-depth study and analysis of existing methods and evolving technologies. Clearly, education delivery is not simply information transfer. There is much to learn, but we already know much about the potential of the technology for multimodal delivery of learning material to a variety of online learners.

The Five Fundamental Learning Styles for Online Asynchronous Instruction
Apprenticeship
A “building block” approach for presenting concepts in a step-by-step procedural learning style.
Incidental
Based on “events” that trigger the learning experience. Learners begin with an event that introduces a concept and provokes questions.
Inductive
Learners are first introduced to a concept or a target principle using specific examples that pertain to a broader topic area.
Deductive
Based on stimulating the discernment of trends through the presentation of simulations, graphs, charts, or other data.
Discovery
An inquiry method of learning in which students learn by doing, testing the boundaries of their own knowledge.

Recent developments in digital imaging, streaming audio and video, and interactive human-machine interfaces provide a wealth of opportunities to enhance the learning experience. More important than the technologies, however, is the context in which the multimedia enhancements are presented to learners. The design and development of combined media components—text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and simulations—for enhancing the learning process will depend on the learning model appropriate for the delivery of given course content. A list of a few potential multimedia enhancements might include:

Video, animations, and simulations offer exceptional potential for enhancing the interface of education. Experimental demonstrations and real-life experiences and situations can be captured on video and provided as digital video.

Continued at http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/magazine.asp?month=11&year=2001 

Bob Jensen's comments on how traditional classroom materials must be modified for online use are given at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm 


"Transforming Learning--Reflections on the PITAC Report, by Judith Boettcher by Nishikant Sonwalkar, Syllabus, November 2001, pp. 14-16 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5664 

Recommendations from the 2001 PITAC Report

Overarching Recommendation
Make the effective integration of information technology, with education and training a national priority.

Supporting Actions
• Establish and coordinate a major research initiative focusing on:

– Learning technologies and sciences – Information technologies for education and training
– Requirements for learning and teaching information technology fluency

• Establish partnerships involving government, university, industry, and foundations to support the pursuit of the research initiative and to cofund and collaborate in that research

• Enable educators and related professionals to use information technology effectively

• Work with industry and academia to develop technical standards for extendable component-based technology and infrastructures that can be widely used in online education and training.

PITAC Report (2001). “Using Information Technology to Transform the Way We Learn.” Arlington, VA, President’s Information Technology /Advisory Committee, Panel on Transforming Learning. http://www.itrd.gov


"Co-Laborative Psychology Online," by Ken Mcgraw et. al., Syllabus, November 2001, p. 34 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5672 

Three University of Mississippi researchers have collaborated on an award-winning Web site that enables students and researchers from any campus to conduct an array of psychology experiments from a growing online library of experiments and datasets.

The project, dubbed PsychExperiments, currently contains more than 30 unique psychology experiments available without charge to researchers and students. Its developers, psychology professor Dr. Ken McGraw, electrical engineering professor Dr. Mark Tew, and clinical psychology graduate student John Williams, describe the site as a “co-laboratory,” a resource that will grow and develop with the contributions of its users.

PsychExperiments includes replications of classic experiments as well as novel experiments based on commonly taught psychological concepts. The site also offers archived data and Excel macros that produce tables and charts from the raw data. Instructors can conduct the experiments themselves and add their data to the pool, broadening and diversifying the dataset.

The project was launched after McGraw took a University of Mississippi faculty development workshop taught by Tew. The subject, Macromedia’s Authorware, turned out to be just the tool McGraw needed to build his own custom experiments. McGraw and Tew began working with John Williams and soon discovered that they could deliver Authorware programs over the Web: Thus, PsychExperiments was born.

According to McGraw, PsychExperiments offers a number of benefits over running experiments in isolation. “First of all, because all of the material is online, students don’t have to go to a psychology lab at an appointed time to do lab research. The Web site is available all the time,” he notes. “Second, we offer convenience to instructors, who don’t have to purchase, set up, or manage software or databases on their own lab computers.”

Says Tew: “For instructors who use these experiments, there are no security issues and no costs, because they aren’t storing the data on their own servers.”

The Web-based laboratory offers researchers the chance to run experiments over large numbers of subjects, often necessary for getting good results when variables such as handedness, gender, or musical training are used. “We’re providing the scientific community with larger datasets for some experiments that really don’t work as well with a classroom-sized dataset,” says McGraw. “Housing all of the accumulated data in one place allows instructors to investigate phenomena that they might otherwise cover only in lecture rather than experimentally.”

Last year, the site won first place in the University of Minnesota’s Design Institute learning software competition. More than 300 different classes around the country have used PsychExperiments and at least 30 researchers have contributed experiments. In addition to continuing to build the site, the three collaborators regularly conduct user training sessions and are developing written training materials.

Continued at  http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5672 


"Taking Chemistry Online With Digital Video," by Catherine Murphy, Syllabus, November 2001, pp. 28-19 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5665 

The anticipated tidal wave of 2 million new students entering higher education in 2010 has forced institutions around the country to seek out ways to accommodate the influx and resulting strain on campus resources. Anticipating a 43 percent increase in full-time enrollment in less than 10 years, the University of California-Berkeley has been considering a number of options, incorporating technology where feasible to lessen the impact of high enrollments and expand learning opportunities. Digital Chemistry 1a serves as an example.


Ebrary adds scientific, medical and business titles from key professional publishers. Also: Struggling netLibrary gets a lifeline, and book clubs unite, all in M.J. Rose's notebook --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48480,00.html 

Bob Jensen's links to electronic libraries are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Acceptable use of materials vs. plagiarism

Email message from Linda Specht to her students

It has come to my attention that some of you might have gotten a bit rusty about your use of citations. The following link provides some good examples of acceptable use of materials vs. plagiarism. http://www.usm.maine.edu/~kuzma/Ideologies/Plagerism.html

Although the authors of this guide suggest a different form of citation than the one that we are using, their guidance re the use of others' materials and the use of proper citation form is relevant. Just because you have included a parenthetical citation to another's work, does not mean that you can change one or two words in his/her sentence and otherwise replicate the sentence or sentences. If you are going to use another's words, you must indicate that the words are quoted. At the same time, your paper should not simply be a string of quotes of others' works. . .but your own work synthesized from your interpretation and analysis of those other resources. Take a look at the link and I think you will understand what I am trying to get across. Good luck. I am looking forward to reading your papers. 
Linda Specht

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


From Syllabus@101communications-news.com on November 20, 2001

eCollege Ranked as 54th Fastest Growing Tech Firm

Learning software developer eCollege has been listed as the 54th fastest growing company in North America on Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology companies. The rankings are based on five-year percentage revenue growth from 1996-2000. eCollege's revenue grew 10,996 percent during the period. The fast 500 list is compiled from Deloitte & Touche's regional Fast 50 programs, nominations to the Fast 500, and public company database research. eCollege partners with colleges, universities, schools and corporations to design and build learning communities. eCollege's partners include National University; Seton Hall University; University of Colorado; DeVry University, Inc.; Kentucky Virtual High School; and Microsoft Faculty Center.
(Note from Bob Jensen:  The eCollege homepage is at http://www.ecollege.com/ .  Competitors are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm and at http://inst.augie.edu/~gray/WBI.html.  Some competitors such as Pensare have ceased operations.)


Sun Lauds Canadian High Performance Computing Lab

A high performance computing virtual lab formed by four Canadian universities was chosen by Sun Microsystems Inc. as a Sun Center of Excellence in Secure Grid and Portal Computing. The High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL), formed by Carleton University, Queen's University, The Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Ottawa, is building a secure grid environment and portal-based interfaces to enable researchers from anywhere to access resources they need. Ken Edgecombe, HPCVL executive director, said the group will use the grant to "build a seamless secure environment that is recognized as one of the best academic research environments in the world." Kerry Rowe, vice principal for research at Queen's University, called HPCVL a "demonstration of a successful partnership between the private and education sectors."

For more information, visit: http://www.hpcvl.org .


Florida School to Open New Library, IT Center

Fort Lauderdale-based Nova Southeastern University will open next month what it says will be the state's largest library at full capacity, offering electronic and wirelesss services to county residents. The library will house 20 electronic classrooms with workstations equipped with flat-screened Dell computers, ISDN lines for compressed video, and large overhead monitors. Teachers will have access to a "smart podium," enabling them to control dual projectors, a VCR system and the use of other peripherals. All library-card holders will also have direct access to an online library catalogue for books and electronic resources, including 10,000 full-text books online and hundreds of databases. Elaine Blattner, NSU's director of library services, said the library "will offer the most sophisticated technology to the community, while retaining its intensely human element."

For more information, visit: http://www.nova.edu 


Textbooks will never be the same!

"The Many Forms of Digital Text," Syllabus, November 2001, p. 41 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5676 

The term “textbook” no longer necessarily means a sturdy bound volume of sewn pages. Today’s textbook may be that, or it may be an entirely online product with hyperlinks in place of pages, or perhaps a combination of CD-ROM, Web site, and printed handouts. The five companies highlighted here publish and/or distribute digital texts, each with a unique approach.

Rovia, based in Brookline, Mass., distributes copyrighted intellectual property online. Rovia works with publishers to deliver online content to students while protecting the publishers’ rights. Using the RovReader, a proprietary browser plug-in, users can access and interact with their electronic textbooks from any Internet-capable device. www.rovia.com

MetaText offers completely online textbooks integrated with course management systems (CMS). MetaText has partnered with several course management system providers, including Blackboard, and also offers its own course management features such as Course Editor and SyllabusEditor. www.metatext.com

Atomic Dog Publishers has merged the roles of traditional print publisher and online content provider into what they call “hybred” (as opposed to hybrid) media publishing. Their titles are a combination of online content, interactive media, and print component. Atomic Dog’s holistic approach starts with the content, building technology tools such as video and animation around the subject matter. www.atomicdog.com

Thinkwell Publishers, based in Austin, Texas, offers textbook content in both CD-ROM and online formats. Thinkwell’s titles (about 15 so far in the social sciences and sciences) feature a complete set of video lectures (about 10 minutes each in length), illustrated notes to accompany the lectures, and even transcripts of the lectures for those who need them. www.thinkwell.com

OpenMind publishes customized, personalized learning materials. They work with authors to publish original content or supplements to existing OpenMind content. Using an open source model, OpenMind encourages authors and adopters to engage in a collaborative process of continuously revising, improving, and customizing content. www.ompg.com

Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm


* Short e-Course * 
DIGITAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY THROUGH EDUCATION, a short online course from Columbia University, provides a roadmap to the future of education, in which the educational program will contain the school as well as the home and the community. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=course&cid=542&id=32702503 

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=directory&cid=544&id=0 


From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on November 8, 2001
Subscribers to the Electronic Edition of the WSJ can obtain reviews in various disciplines by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 
See http://info.wsj.com/professor/ 

TITLE: Basic Principle of Accounting Tripped Enron 
REPORTER: Jonathan Weil 
DATE: Nov 12, 2001 
PAGE: C1 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB100551383153378600.djm 
TOPICS: Accounting, Auditing, Auditing Services, Auditor Independence

SUMMARY: 
Enron's financial statements have long been charged with being undecipherable; however, they are now considered to contain violations of GAAP. Enron filed documents with the SEC indicating that financial statements going back to 1997 "should not be relied upon." Questions deal with materiality and auditor independence.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What accounting errors are reported to have been included in Enron's financial statements? Why didn't Enron's auditors require correction of these errors before the financial statements were issued?

2.) What is materiality? In hindsight, were the errors in Enron's financial statements material? Why or why not? Should the auditors have known that the errors in Enron's financial statements were material prior to their release? What defense can the auditors offer?

3.) Does Arthur Andersen provide any services to Enron in addition to the audit services? How might providing additional services to Enron affect Andersen's decision to release financial statements containing GAAP violations?

4.) The article states that Enron is one of Arthur Andersen's biggest clients. How might Enron's size have contributed to Arthur Andersen's decision to release financial statements containing GAAP violations? Discuss differences in audit risk between small and large clients. Discuss the potential affect of client firm size on auditor independence.

5.) How long has Arthur Andersen been Enron's auditor? How could their tenure as auditor contributed to Andersen's decision to release financial statements containing GAAP violations?

6.) The related article discusses how Enron's consolidation policy with respect to the JEDI and Chewco entities impacted the company's financial statements. What is meant by the phrase consolidation policy? How could a policy not to consolidate these entities help to make Enron's financial statements look better? Why would consolidating an entity result in a $396 million reduction in net income over a 4 year period? How must Enron have been accounting for investments in these entities? How could Enron support its accounting policies for these investments?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

RELATED WSJ ARTICLES
TITLE: Enron Cuts Profit Data of 4 Years by 20% 
REPORTER: John R. Emshwiller, Rebecca Smith, Robin Sidel, and Jonathan Weil 
PAGE: A1,A3 
ISSUE: Nov 09, 2001 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1005235413422093560.djm 

TITLE: Arthur Andersen Could Face Scrutiny On Clarity of Enron Financial Reports 
REPORTER: Jonathan Weil 
DATE: Nov 05, 2001 
PAGE: C1 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004919947649536880.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Auditing, Creative Accounting, Disclosure Requirements


Reply from E. Scribner [escribne@NMSU.EDU

Although I very much appreciate and am trying to respond to pleas from the accounting education change movement to "reduce accounting content" in favor of developing other skills, there's always something about allegations of accounting and auditing failures in practice that makes me wonder if we're doing the right thing. I know that these pleas, communicated most recently by the Steve (not to be confused with Dave) Albrecht/Bob Sack study, originate from practice, so there may be something I'm not fully grasping about the perceived needs of practitioners. I know that critical thinking is important, but assertions that accounting is now done by "technology" seem to me to confuse accounting with bookkeeping and trivialize a challenging profession whose practice would be enhanced by a significant period of immersion in the nuts and bolts as well as the concepts of financial reporting. This is nothing new--everyone probably feels this tension. Just some rambling reflections on a rare cloudy day here in normally sunny New Mexico. Thanks for bearing with me!

Ed

Ed Scribner 
New Mexico State

Reply from David Silberberg [davidis4@HOME.COM

Or is the real problem the inherent conflict between the independance of the auditor and the fees that a particularly large client represents?

From what I've read of the Enron case, the issues were not all that esoteric or subtle.

For Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


Hi Scott,

See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/cpaaway.htm 

In this era of auditor versus machine, the above document is no longer as funny as once intended. I worry that careers may indeed pass away if the human auditors become signers rather than INDEPENDENT investigators.

There is no future for auditing careers if the auditors sign anything on the papers put before them by management and/or a management machine named HAL.

Original Message----- 
From: Scott Bonacker [mailto:scottbonacker@moccpa.com]  
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:30 AM 
To: 'rjensen@trinity.edu

Bob -

This is what I get from a Google search on "bonacker style". Where did they get "CPA Signers Wanted"??????

CPA Signers Wanted ... Message 3 from Scott Bonacker. Without trying to decide what is meant by ... It's still OK to work in the "traditional" style because there are still quite a number ... www.trinity.edu/rjensen/cpaaway.htm - 94k - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.trinity.edu ]

Scott

Scott Bonacker, 
CPA McCullough, Officer & Company, 
LLC Springfield, Misso
uri moccpa.com


Hi XXXXX,

Try http://www.iasplus.com/agenda/buscomb.htm 

You can also find a wealth of information at Paul Pacter's IAS Plus Website at http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm 

Paul is probably the most knowledgeable person in the world regarding IAS standards. His email address is ppacter@ix.netcom.com 

Here are a few suggestions on goodwill valuation and intangibles valuation in general:

Goodwill Impairment Testing is a Two-Step Process http://www.fvginternational.com/SFAS/Goodwill_Impairment_Testing_is_a_Two-Step_Process.html 

FEI Q&A --- http://www.fei.org/finrep/BusinessCombinationsQandA.cfm 

M&A Tax Report --- http://www.robertwwood.com/m&a060105.htm 

Grant Thornton --- http://www.grantthornton.com/downloads/15953.doc 

If you want to become more esoteric on intangibles valuation, to to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm  and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/theory/00overview/theory01.htm 

You might find my videos helpful at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/jensen/realmedia/  
Especially note the file called LevIntangibelsMetric.rm

Hope this helps.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: XXXXX 
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 7:15 AM 
To: 'Jensen, Robert' 
Subject: FAS 142

Hello Robert,

Long time no talk.

I am now looking at what IAS is cooking in regards the Goodwill treatment. Have you done some work on FAS 142 ?

Best Regards,

Professor XXXXX


"What Not to Say When Firing a Worker," by Barbara Kate Repa --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31775.xml 
One It can be tough to monitor your tongue while delivering the difficult news of a firing, but it is necessary to avoid negative legal consequences. Here are some of the most common -- and problematic -- slips.


Accounting graduates doing well in the U.K. --- http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2258.html 
(Actually they are doing quite well in the U.S. as well, and I hope we can keep it that way.)


Barnes &amp; Noble Textbook Home Page The price all of our books below suggested retail price. Look for books that have our Guaranteed Buy Back stamp and save even more! http://www.gis.net/~catb/textbooks.html

Bob Jensen's helpers for book buying are under "Books" and "Electronic Books" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


From The Economist (Travel) --- Cities Guide --- http://www.economist.com/cities/ 


From InformationWeek Daily on November 20, 2001

Nokia Debuts New Phones In Shrinking Market

Nokia Corp. launched three new cell phones Monday, looking to give the slumping handset market a jump-start with cutting-edge features and functionality.

New models include the 7560, a high-end mobile with a color display, integrated digital camera, and the ability to send multimedia text/photo instant messages. The phone supports high-speed General Packet Radio Service technology, which allows for an always-on Internet connection, as well as WAP, Bluetooth, and infrared connections. Nokia expects to start shipping the handset to Europe and Asia in the second quarter of 2002. Other releases include the lower end 6510 and 5210 phones, which will ship in the first quarter.

The new phones debuted on the same day that a Gartner report showed sales in the global cell phone market shrinking. Worldwide shipments were down 9% in the third quarter of this year, plummeting to 94.4 million units from 103.2 million in the same quarter last year. The report shows Nokia still on top of the industry in terms of market share, accounting for 33.4% of all units shipped. Motorola Inc. came in a distant second, with 15.7% market share, and LM Ericsson placed third at 8%.

Gartner analyst Bryan Prohm says the decline is due in large part to slumping sales in Western Europe, where the market has matured much faster than in the United States. "It's saturated. You've got 75% to 80% penetration," he says. "There's not a huge pool of new subscribers." Prohm says the spread of GPRS technology and other new features such as instant messaging will help fuel future upgrade sales and keep the market going. - David M. Ewalt

For more on mobile phones, see Taking Stock: Mobile Phone Companies Bounce Back After A Dismal Year http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE210BcUEY0V20a410Ab 

Nokia Says It's On Track To Launch 3G Phones In 2002 http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE210BcUEY0V20aAV0AR 

 


Ken Blackburn's Paper Airplanes and More --- http://www.paperplane.org/ 


Daypop (a search site for links to daily newscasts) --- http://www.daypop.com/ 
Search 5800 News Sites and Weblogs for Current Events and Breaking News


Aimster launches its own file-trading subscription service without all those pesky licenses that has kept the recording industry returning to court --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,48255,00.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on file sharing are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm 


Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South (Art, History)  http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/vangogh/slide_intro.html 


Message from Craig Polhemus

2002 AAA ANNUAL MEETING 
http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/2002annual/call.htm
  
The 2002 AAA Annual Meeting will be held in San Antonio, Texas on August 14-17. The theme of the meeting is "Reinvigorating Accounting Scholarship." Electronic submissions of papers and special concurrent sessions proposals, as well as applications to serve as moderators or discussants, are now being accepted. Submissions are encouraged by December 14, 2001. Don't forget to enter the curriculum challenge contest--see the guidelines at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/challenge.htm 

AAA LAUNCHES NEW ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS WEB SITE 
http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/pubs.htm
  
The American Accounting Association has launched a new electronic publications system that provides current issues as well as a searchable archive of recently published AAA publications, including all AAA and Section journals and newsletters. This new system provides the opportunity to browse or perform keyword searches for specific information, and also accommodates library subscriptions and pay-per-article purchase options.

INVITATION TO VOLUNTEER FOR COMMITTEES 
http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/about/volcomm02-03.htm
  
President-Elect G. Peter Wilson is filling AAA committee assignments for 2002-2003. If you are interested in serving on a committee or want to suggest some type of committee activity, please feel free to do. All suggestions and offers are welcome.


Knowledge Management (KM) 

Knowledge Management Magazine - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0254  
Measurement for KM - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0255  
Knowledge Management World - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0256  
What is Knowledge? - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0257  
KM News - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0258  
Total Knowledge Management - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0259  
Knowledge in a Global Economy - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0260  
Business Model Innovation - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0111.asp?ID=0261 


If you like Pink Floyd, you must go to Echoes. --- http://pinkfloyd.hollywoodandvine.com/ 


Whitehousekids.gov http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/index.html 


From Double Entries on November 15, 2001

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has released the exposure draft for the AICPA/NASBA Uniform Accountancy Act and Uniform Accountancy Act Rules, Third Edition (UAA). The Exposure Draft contains several additions and revisions to the UAA and UAA Rules, including rules for disclosures that must be made in connection with offering professional services via the Internet and rules on notification under substantial equivalency. Additionally, revisions are suggested to the education rules and changes are made to the Act and Rules to conform the UAA to professional standards with regard to SSARS 8 compilations. The Exposure Draft is a joint project of the AICPA UAA Task Force and NASBA UAA Committee. Comments are encouraged and welcomed by this joint group through December 31, 2001. Click through to http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2257.html  for the download link

You can download the document by clicking here
http://ftp.aicpa.org/public/download/states/uaa/uaa_expose.doc
 


A message from Ernst & Young on November 14, 2001 --- http://www.ey.com/ 

Now there is a new way to access the EYO Help Desk live right from your desktop, 24 hours a day, six days a week. When logged onto the EYO site, simply click on the LiveHelp link located at the top of the home page. An EYO support agent will respond immediately to your request for help. You and the agent can have a real-time dialogue about your question, right over the Internet using instant messaging technology. EYO's LiveHelp is available globally. Why not give it a try and see what you think of the online help experience? If you prefer to pick up the phone, you can still contact the EYO Help Desk as you have previously.


"Instant Messaging: Threat or Opportunity?" by John S. McCright, eWeek News, November 13, 2001

Instant messaging is proving itself to be a highly effective tool for business communications. How are IT departments going to make sure that it isn't also a highly effective security hole for hackers?

IM software has gone beyond the early-adopter stage and is fast becoming a part of corporate IT environments. Paranoid IT managers rightly see the proliferation of consumer IM clients from AOL, Yahoo and MSN as rogue elements on their networks. With these little beasties there is no version control, no management oversight, and in some cases they are vulnerable to viruses because they do not reside behind a corporate gateway.

Amy Dunbar loves the instant messaging pedagogy.  See 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#dunbar
 


American Roots Music (PBS, History) http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/ 


A message from Debbie Bowling on November 15, 2001

Here's two really good sites for radar around San Antonio.

Click Here
http://wwwa.accuweather.com/adcbin/metro_radar_large.asp?partner=accuweather&nav=home&type=loop&nxsite=sat

*on the above metro map site, click on the areas to show roads, etc.

Click Here
http://wwwa.accuweather.com/adcbin/local_radar.asp?partner=accuweather&nav=home&type=loop&nxtype=R1&nxsite=ksat

They are two excellent sites.

Debbie

Maps (including San Antonio Maps)
Note that in the second site listed above, there is a tab for maps or go to http://www.accuweather.com/adcbin/maps_index?nav=home&partner=accuweather

Bed & Breakfast Suggestions for Texas
Bed & Breakfast Texas Style --- http://www.bnbtexasstyle.com/ 
Texas Hill Country --- http://www.texasbedandbreakfast.com/ 
Frederickburg --- Gastehaus Schmidt (The Jensens Use This One A Lot) --- http://www.fbglodging.com/ 
HAT --- http://www.hat.org/ 
Texas Travel --- http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/tx/txonsdex.htm

Bob Jensen's helpers for San Antonio residents and visitors are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/sanantonio.htm 


COMPUTER PRODUCTS FOR EDUCATION is pleased to offer to you the best prices on ACADEMIC EDITION SOFTWARE from MICROSOFT, ADOBE, MACROMEDIA and others - AT UP TO 84% OFF RETAIL PRICES. If you are a Qualified Education Buyer (defined below) you can purchase software products from CPE at HUGE DISCOUNTS!

Qualified Education Buyers include K-12 and HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENTS, TEACHERS, FACULTY, STAFF, and SCHOOLS.

Visit www.edu-software.com  or call us 800-679-7007.


"Debate continues over science's role within Islam:  Historic legacy weighs heavily on Muslim scientists," BY GLENNDA CHUI,  Mercury News, November 13, 2001 --- http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/issci111301a.htm 

Against a backdrop of war, political instability and economic problems, Muslim scientists are seeking to reconcile their religion with the drive to modernize society.

Islam emphasizes the pursuit of knowledge but also, in the eyes of many, requires unquestioning belief.

In seeking to balance these precepts, some scholars argue for a return to Islam as a basis for doing science. Others call for a rejection of religious fundamentalism, which they say stifles the curiosity and questioning that is at the heart of all research.

One of the most prominent proponents of that view is Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

Since the Golden Age of Islam ended in about AD 1600, he said, ``There is scarcely any Muslim achievement to show in the sciences. To me, what that says is that if Muslims want to get out of this dangerous phase of a feeling of failure, of disappointment, they'll have to compete in the same areas that their forefathers were good at.

``And the only way they can do it is if they can get past this fundamentalism which is sapping their energy and drive. It's an angry defense mechanism. Instead of opening up and competing, it's withdrawing into a shell and just reflecting upon past glories.''

Proponents of a movement known as Islamic science, however, could not disagree more. In their view, the Islamic intellectual tradition is a seamless whole that encompasses religion and science, and they want to restore that sense of harmony.


"The Annual Interactive 500," by John McCormick --- 
http://www.interactiveweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D617%2526a%253D17766,00.asp 

The Interactive 500 is more than a list of which companies generated the most hard dollars from their web operations in the past year. It's also Interactive Week's annual checkup on the state of e-commerce. And this year, surprisingly, the health of the online economy appears to be a lot better than most people think.

Yes, some 330 Internet companies ceased operations in the first half of the year. And some of the dot-goners — such as Quokka Sports and Streamline.com — had prime positions on the two previous Interactive 500 listings. Other former Interactive 500 companies, such as DLJdirect, have been merged out of existence. And whole Internet groupings — such as the independent e-marketplace sector that made such a strong showing on last year's Interactive 500 — are being battered.

So where's the good news? The aggregate revenue of this year's Interactive 500 is a downright jaw-dropping $378.38 billion — more than double last year's total of $183.56 billion. Many of the dot-coms on the list are profitable, and traditional businesses continue to be a dominating presence on Interactive Week's annual ranking of e-commerce powerhouses.

Indeed, just about every metric shows e-commerce is growing, becoming more profitable and, for many traditional companies, a sharp competitive edge. Properly mastered, that edge can cut new paths to online opportunity.

This year's Interactive 500 special report tells those hard-won e-commerce success stories. From manufacturing to energy to technology to wholesaling and retailing, they show that the companies that have discovered the keys to implementing Internet technologies and strategies are, more often than not, market leaders.

Take, for example, Office Depot, the leading office products' company: It's No. 30 on this year's list, and is considered by many e-tail experts to be the company to watch in the space. For its most recent quarter, ended Sept. 29, the company's overall sales were relatively flat at $2.8 billion. But its worldwide e-commerce sales grew 60 percent, to $402.0 million, while its profits surged 25 percent, from $50.6 million to $62.5 million.

"We had decided as a company from day one that the Web was going to be totally integrated into our systems and our company. We viewed it as a strategic initiative," says Monica Luechtefeld, Office Depot's executive vice president of e-commerce. "We viewed it as a critical business function."

Office Depot isn't the only business using its Internet operations as a protective skin against recessionary pressures. Some of the nation's most admired companies — General Electric, IBM, Intel and others — say the Web is critical to their success and that they'll continue to push hard on new Internet initiatives.

Lessons Learned

Most of the top companies on this year's Interactive 500 have learned how to integrate their supply chains, back-end databases, customer service operations and procurement systems with their Web operations to get a jump on the competition. They figured out how to get people to visit their Web sites and even buy something once they're there. These companies also have developed more mature mechanisms for determining whether they're getting payback from Internet expenditures.

Their efforts are paying off. Two reports last month showed that business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce activity is healthy and strong. Despite the current economic difficulties, GartnerG2, a research arm of Gartner, is predicting happy holidays for e-tailers. The research house estimates that worldwide online holiday shopping sales will hit $25.3 billion — a 39 percent increase over last year. On the B2B side, IDC expects the worldwide value of business goods and services purchased online to skyrocket from $282 billion in 2000 to $4.3 trillion by 2005 — an incredible 73 percent compound annual growth rate.

No wonder corporations are dedicating more of their precious IT dollars to e-business initiatives. In a research note published Sept. 13, John Gantz, IDC's chief research officer, said there was a growing backlog of e-business-related projects, and that Internet-related spending would grow from 15 percent of overall corporate technology spending last year to 37.5 percent in 2005. That compares with overall IT spending, which, depending on the source, is expected to grow a scant 2 percent to 5 percent this year.

"The reality of the situation is that any new technology development is based on Internet technology," says Rick Villars, vice president of e-commerce strategies at IDC.

Continued at http://www.interactiveweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D617%2526a%253D17766,00.asp 

Bob Jensen's threads on eCommerce are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


Robert Morss Lovett, a professor of English at the University of Chicago from the 1890s to the 1940s, was an "ideal public intellectual," according to Princeton history professor Anthony Grafton in the autumn issue of "The American Scholar." In the article, Grafton presents Lovett as a model example for modern intellectuals, an individual who flourished in both academe and society and took part in public dialogue beyond the ivory tower.

Anthony Grafton recently spoke at the New York Public Library about some other great learned figures in history: Faustus, Agrippa and Christian magi. His lecture, "Christian Magic and Jewish Mysticism in Renaissance Europe" is available exclusively on Fathom: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=feature&cid=540&id=122276 

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=directory&cid=544&id=0 


 "The world of auditing and accounting appears to be in crisis," driven in part by issues such as intangibles, the complexity of derivatives and trading, and financial engineering.
Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman.

From FEI Express on November 15, 2001

Highlights from FEI's Annual Current Financial Reporting Issues Conference.

The annual Current Financial Reporting Issues conference kicked off Monday, Nov. 12, at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with a keynote address by Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman. Volcker, who now heads the International Accounting Standards Committee, confessed to be something of a neophyte in the accounting world, but said he was "impressed by the difficulty of the issues" involved in trying to devise a single set of global accounting standards. Indeed, he said, "The world of auditing and accounting appears to be in crisis," driven in part by issues such as intangibles, the complexity of derivatives and trading, and financial engineering.

Volcker conceded that achieving consensus on the 14-member International Accounting Standards Board - which the IASC is charged with appointing - will be difficult. Different countries are at different stages of development, he said, and it isn't clear where the final authority for the standards would rest, especially if political entities get involved. Still, a multilateral approach appears to be the right one, he said. The former Fed chairman stressed that the IASB members will be diverse, professional, experienced and independent.

Volcker said there may be some disagreement over two competing philosophies - the U.S. approach of setting standards in detail and the "European idea" of setting out clear standards but leaving detail to practice and emerging issues. There will be a continuing role for national standard-setting bodies, chiefly as watchdogs, once the IASB does promulgate standards, Volcker added. Substantive convergence of standards within five years, he argued, could be construed as success.

He took a relatively hard line on the controversial issue of options accounting, calling it a difficult subject that won't be settled quickly. There may be different expectations about the urgency of the issue, he added, but it can't be allowed to dominate the board's agenda. Volcker added that he has seen the heavy use of options lead to inconsistencies and abuses, as well as repricing challenges.

IASB UPDATE The conference's first general session featured a panel with Thomas Jones, the vice chairman of the IASB; Edmund Jenkins, chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); and John Morrissey, deputy chief accountant at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jones, the former finance chief at Citicorp, argued that there is considerable diversity of opinion on the IASB and that "no nation has a bloc." He maintained that for international standards to work, there has to be a "three-legged stool" with standards, audit and enforcement. Convergence clearly would lower international borrowing costs, he said. Jones supported the European model of creating less-detailed standards, then "going after those who deviate" from them. He added that if real progress toward convergence isn't made in three years, the effort "will have largely failed."

He, too, cautioned that the options accounting issue is a volatile one, and its outcome isn't clear. Europeans are already writing standards on options, he said, urging the U.S. audience not to create "a frenzy" about it or become inflexible. "This is a board that won't take to being bullied," he said, and cautioned advocates of the current U.S. system not to withdraw support of the IASB over this one issue.

Jenkins emphasized the FASB's "unequivocal support" for the idea of high-quality global standards, noting that the groundwork has been laid for some time. "Now we have to get to the heavy lifting," he said. The FASB is already working with eight national standards-setters, he said, but "won't shortcut any processes in the search for convergence." Jenkins argued that principle-based standards can be "problematic," and that financial engineering is often the result of attempts to avoid detailed standards.


FASB/EITF UPDATE A second general session featured an update on projects being pursued by the FASB and the Emerging Issues Task Force. Timothy Lucas, the FASB's director of research and technical activities, walked the audience through the most recent series of statements and projects, as he has in years past.

Lucas argued that the four major FAS statements issued this year - 141 through 144 - are relatively significant, especially when compared to those from a year earlier. Arguably the biggest changes, the decisions in Business Combinations to eliminate the pooling-of-interests method of accounting for mergers and to test goodwill for impairment, were major improvements, Lucas argued. Pooling, he said, was "non-accounting," tended to create wrong-headed incentives and involved complex criteria. Moreover, he said, the previous treatment for goodwill impairment was not operational, and goodwill amortization was not meaningful.

Lucas detailed a number of projects in the FASB pipeline. A "purchase method" project will be the first done in concert with the IASB, he said, and a "new basis/fresh start" effort will likely be led by the IASB.

The FASB does plan a project on reporting financial performance, though Lucas said he saw little relationship between the project and the controversy over pro forma statements. He said the board wants to understand how companies use statements to assess performance, looking at issues such as form, content, classification, aggregation and display. The result might produce a better way of relating cash flow to the income statement, he said.

PRO-FORMA EARNINGS PANEL A luncheon panel discussion on pro forma earnings generated some sharp opinions. Jonathan Weill, the accounting reporter for The Wall Street Journal, was highly dismissive of many company practices and detailed some recent evidence of abuses in this area. John Jessup, vice president and controller with DuPont, agreed with some of Weill's contentions that there have been excesses and abuses. He argued, however, that the notion of providing a 10Q statement at the same time as an earnings report - which would provide an additional check of the accuracy of earnings - is very difficult for most companies, owing to the need to complete additional filing data and management's discussion and analysis.

Chuck Hill, director of research for Thomson Financial/First Call, argued that many of the recent excesses were seen as far back as the 1960s, albeit at a smaller level. That was especially true of new technology companies, many of which also had startlingly high price/earnings ratios for a short time, he said. An interactive "voting" session using devices at the audience's tables elicited considerable support for pro forma statements - or at least non-GAAP reporting. Surprisingly, however, a majority of those voting said they would accept more SEC oversight in this area.


SEC DEVELOPMENTS The session was moderated by Roger W. Trupin, vice president & controller, Citigroup.

Robert Herdman, newly-appointed chief accountant, Office of the Chief Accountant, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission discussed some of the Commission's current priorities. "Everything we do at the SEC is geared towards protecting the interests of investors," he said. "The message is consistent with [Chairman] Harvey Pitt: "Government is a service industry, there to serve the people."

He said that improving the U.S. financial reporting system - already the best in the world - is a top priority of Pitt. The basic framework of the system that came into being some 70 years ago, is pretty much unchanged, he explained, except for adding MD&A. "It can use a good dose of simplifying," said Herdman. He's strong on leveraging technology as "a good enabler to disseminate information and knowledge."

Herdman listed a few financial reporting and accounting "hot button" issues: * Events of Sept. 11 * MD&A for disclosures * Recession-related disclosures about uncertainties * Implementation issues related to FAS 141 and 142 * Revenue recognition (overstatements) - and he said he's pleased the IASB added revenue recognition to its agenda and would like the FASB to do the same.

Charles D. Niemeier, chief accountant, Division of Enforcement, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission said his department has been very busy lately - with 260 financial fraud investigations underway. The division is receiving more information from informants than ever before and the "big story" he said is the size of the companies with financial fraud investigations: there are more Fortune 500 companies than 5 years ago. It's also significant to note that Big 5 accounting firms are auditors for three-quarters of the companies being investigated.

He said that many recent investigations stemming from disgruntled employees who "have an ax to grind," are listened to "with a grain of salt" and combined with other sources to see if the complaint is worthy of investigation. Fraud investigations are underway in non-U.S. operations and into issues related to companies' quarterly reports - not just annual reports. He expressed a general concern with the "quality of audits."

"No company is immune from financial fraud," said Niemeier, and "good people get caught. It can happen to any one and any company." Companies get in trouble for a variety of reasons including: top side adjustments for which there is insufficient support, extreme pressure to make targets without adequate controls, companies dependent on acquisitions to make revenue results, and more.

How best to stay out of trouble? Niemeier said, "Don't start - one thing leads to another. And, when in doubt, disclose; communicate - early and often." Basically, he said, "Investors want to know operating results of a company - is it trending up or down?" And, on audit committees: "Audit committees can be your friend." He said the management letter is a document to memorialize what was said and done. It's protection.

Craig Olinger, deputy chief accountant, Division of Corporation Finance, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission said with the economic downturn, his division's priorities have shifted from looking into IPO issuances of "cheap stocks" to a renewed focus on periodic reporting.

Some of the key issues he advises registrants to give attention to include: revenue recognition (SAB 101), financial statement classification and effects of recently-issued accounting standards. Also, Olinger said there is a "long list" of expected inputs in the aftermath of September 11 that registrants will be addressing and advises companies to use their "best efforts to file as timely and completely as possible." There is information on the SEC's Web site that provides guidance.

Olinger said that there are now over 1,300 foreign issuers in the U.S. For these new registrants, new rules require filing annual reports and all other filings on EDGAR to provide investors with the same information that U.S.-registered companies provide. Approximately 18 percent of the foreign companies had voluntarily done so and 81 percent already electronically file financial statements.


Microsoft released Yet Another Security Patch for IE, a full week after the dire security compromise was discovered. Blame the lag time on Bill Gates, who got a holiday job working retail: The Great Cashier Himself rang up XBoxen at this week's launch.


Gemini G.E.L. online catalogue raisonne http://www.nga.gov/gemini/ 

The Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited) online catalogue raisonné presents publications of the acclaimed Los Angeles print and sculpture workshop from its beginning in 1966 through 1996. The catalogue is a work-in-progress with forthcoming installments to document subsequent Gemini editions. Many of these prints and sculpture are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art as part of the Gemini G.E.L. Archive, which is intended to include one example of each of Gemini's editions. Note that although a print or sculpture may be in the National Gallery's collection, the online image does not always represent this particular example, but can be an equivalent proof. The primary data source for all catalogue raisonné entries is from documentation sheets that correspond to each published edition. Gemini G.E.L. has compiled these records since its inception, and the data has been reviewed, organized, and transcribed by the National Gallery for this online catalogue raisonné.


Women in Academe – Still Hungry After All These Years --- http://www.aaup.org/pr01613.htm 

Women professors work at a discount. According to a report released by the American Association of University Professors, women professors earn 91 cents on the dollar compared to male faculty.

"Women faculty are making progress through the academic ranks and toward a goal of salary equity, but we’re not there yet," said Professor Mary Gibson of Rutgers University, chair of the Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Academic Profession. The Committee released a report on salary equity, "Faculty Salary and Faculty Distribution Fact Sheet, 2001 – 2002," prepared by Professor Marcia Bellas of the University of Cincinnati . . .


Cubergirl.com --- http://www.cybergrrl.com/ 


More Perfect Union (History of Japanese Americans) --- http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/experience/ 


Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-semantic-interpretation-20011116/ 

This document defines the process of Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition and the syntax and semantics of semantic interpretation tags that can be added to speech recognition grammars to compute information to return to an application on the basis of rules and tokens that were matched by the speech recognizer. In particular, it defines the syntax and semantics of the contents of Tags in the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification.

Semantic Interpretation may be useful in combination with other specifications, such as the Stochastic Language Models (N-Gram) Specification, but their use with N-grams has not yet been studied.

Although the results of semantic interpretation are describing the meaning of a natural language utterance, the current specification does not specifically generate such information in the Natural Language Semantics Markup Language for the Speech Interface Framework. It is believed that semantic interpretation can produce information that can be encoded in the NL Semantics Markup Language, but this is not ensured or enforced.

Bob Jensen's threads on speech recognition are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Speech1 


Due to competition between the two companies, Accenture has decided to drop PricewaterhouseCoopers as its auditors, effective upon completion of the current financial statements, which should be finalized by the end of November. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63246 


*Free Seminar *
 HOW TO READ JOYCE, a free seminar from Cambridge University Press, offers a pathway to Joyce that attempts to bypass the intimidation of this brilliant and inscrutable author. The seminar is free; simply follow the checkout process to enroll: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=course&cid=541&id=10701034 

* Semester-Length Course * 
READING LITERATURE, a semester-length course from the University of Washington, focuses on techniques and practices in reading, interpreting and therefore enjoying literature. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=course&cid=536&id=1276 

* Semester-Length Course * 
SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE US, an online course from the University of Washington, aims to make students aware of their heritage of the past and more intelligently conscious of the present. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=course&cid=550&id=1342 

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/link.jhtml?page=directory&cid=544&id=0 


A message from Nathan Letourneau

Hi Professor Jensen. 

My name is Nathan Letourneau and I am a student at the University of Minnesota. I created a free web site for students to go and compare prices on new and used textbooks at a bunch of different online booksellers with one click. It also lists the cost of shipping for each store and different coupons that the bookstores are offering, so as to save the students more money. I was wondering if you would put a link for my website on your page ( http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book99q3.htm  )? I know this is an old website, but I was wondering if you could post it on there anyway (or your new one) because it still shows up on web searches. I would appreciate it a lot! I see you have bigwords.com listed already. Thanks for the consideration. My website is www.CampusBooks4Less.com .

Thanks!

Nathan Letourneau leto0023@tc.umn.edu 

Reply from Robert B Walker [walkerrb@ACTRIX.CO.NZ

I have just read Bob's up-date on the Enron affair. Much as I enjoy the discomfort of organisations like Andersen's, I disagree with what is quoted from Lynn Turner, an ex-SEC chief accountant.

Turner is cited as saying that issued shares should not be taken up as receivables until the cash is received. This is utter nonsense. In the jurisdiction in which I operate the issue of shares creates an unequivocal claim against the shareholder until the issue value of the shares has been paid either in cash or in assets where the assets are transferred at fair value.

To create a receivable in such circumstances is no different to booking a sale prior to receiving the cash. The simple questions are: is there to a future economic inflow? - the answer is yes (subject to a reliable value test see below) does the entity control the claim over the shareholder? - by definition yes. does the claim arise as a result of a past event? again by definition yes. There is an asset easily valued, in the first instance, at issue value. One would need to subject the claims to a realisable value test which would entail knowing something of the creditworthiness of the shareholders holding unpaid shares but then that is a routine problem which arises everyday in accounting for trade receivables.

If that is the measure of Andersen's sins then the legal action that has begun against them won't be very successful.

For Bob Jensen's helpers in buying traditional books and electronic books, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


Liberis offers an innovative concept, one which is quite unique in Europe:

Available in 2 languages, Liberis is a whole site devoted to "Business to Business" information, with a detailed database of companies whose customers are other companies. Liberis is a "Business to Business" meeting place - a place to build new contacts and forge new deals.

Liberis is your answer to the difficulties of finding specialized and detailed information on the Web. These days, it's becoming all but impossible to find in-depth information using the traditional search engines: 2 or 3 lines and a few keywords are by no means sufficient for quickly locating a company specialized in a certain field. But at Liberis, all registered companies are displayed with a complete description of their activities, products, and services, a list of the brands they distribute, and a selection of their customers...

So don't wait a moment longer! Surf to our site today at: http://www.liberis.com 

Bob Jensen's threads on this topic are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


The notorious and long-lived Snow White virus hits an e-mail list of the American Muslim Council, and the group claims it was deliberate. Antivirus experts aren't so sure --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,48412,00.html 


Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative justices, says he would vote against a national ID card if the issue went on the ballot --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48419,00.html 


American Political Development (History)  http://www.americanpoliticaldevelopment.org/home.htm 


Hoping to attract legal talent to the firm, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has added an interactive e-brochure to its Web site. The e-brochure uses Quick Time film and Flash animation to promote the Big Five firm's Global Tax and Legal Services department. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63247 


"Courts to hear rash of cell phone suits," by Graeme Wearden ZDNet, November 14, 2001 --- http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2824451,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02 

A lawsuit is due to be filed in America on Wednesday alleging that a 34-year old man's brain cancer was caused by mobile phone use. The case is likely to be followed by dozens more in coming weeks. Lawyers acting on behalf of Michael Murray, a former Motorola worker, are seeking both compensation and punitive damages. The personal injury case will be heard at the District of Columbia Superior Court, and will seek to prove that mobile phones cause brain tumors--a claim consistently denied by the mobile industry.

Attorney Mayer Morganroth has confirmed to reporters that this case will be filed on Wednesday, adding that "others will be filed in the very near future."

A spokesman for Motorola's offices has said that there is no proof that mobile phone use causes adverse health effects, and that Motorola only knew that Murray was pursuing a "worker's compensation claim" against the company.

A flurry of similar cases is expected to hit the U.S. courts in the coming weeks, according to news Web site RCR Wireless News. Government bodies and regulators will both be targeted in lawsuits that will claim they have acted negligently by not promoting devices that could reduce exposure to emissions from mobile phones.


Murder and mayhem grip a dot-com company after its CEO is found slumped over his chair, dead. It's a first-person murder mystery, with you as the detective, vying to become the first monthly gaming series --- http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,48256,00.html 


Latin American E-Commerce Still Has Hurdles to Clear Online retailing revenues in Latin America are expected to reach $1.28 billion by the end of 2001, more than double the $540 million from 2000, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3209 


Thanks to all of you who responded to my question regarding the legality of the income tax and the "usefulness" of arguments made by individuals who claim that we don't have to pay if we don't want to. I came across a document posted on the IRS web site, under the "What's Hot" section, which lays out the response given by the IRS to such claims. I thought some of you would find it interesting reading, as well as useful for students who raise the issue in class.

The PDF document may be downloaded from http://www.irs.gov/hot/index.html . Just scroll down to the What's Hot section.

Here is a brief description of its content:

Why pay taxes? "The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments" responds to some of the more common frivolous "legal" arguments made by individuals and groups who oppose compliance with the federal tax laws. These arguments are grouped under six general categories, with variations within each category. Each contention is briefly explained, followed by a discussion of the legal authority that rejects the contention. A final section explains the penalties that the courts may impose on those who pursue tax cases on frivolous grounds.

Thank you again.

Best regards,

Brett A. Stone, Ph.D., CPA 
Assistant Professor of Accounting Faculty Advisor, 
UNY New Paltz Accounting & Finance Association (AFA) 
School of Business State University of New York at New Paltz

 


A Wired News Q&A with Fahad Al Sharekh, whose company, Ajeeb.com, just rolled out what he claims is the Internet's first free Arabic-to-English translation service --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48260,00.html 
The translation site is at http://www.ajeeb.com/ 
The English version is at http://english.ajeeb.com/ 

As chief executive of Arabic and English portal site Ajeeb.com, Al Sharekh believes that the error-prone technology known as machine translation has played a key part in speeding the exchange of information between the English-speaking world and the Middle East.

Four weeks ago, Ajeeb introduced what its founder says is the first free online service that instantly translates Arabic websites into English. The company, a division of Arabic-language programming firm Sakhr Software, has been running an English-to-Arabic translation service for more than a year.

Al Sharekh, a Kuwaiti citizen educated in the United States, admits that machine translation -- despite momentous improvements in recent years -- is still far from perfect.

Any arguments to the contrary are quickly disproved by a glance at the website of Arabic news agency Al Jazeera, where translations of headlines range from the humorous: "Concord returns to the service after a year of the stop" to the not entirely intelligible: "An Israeli incursion is near an embryo and Buch he refuses Arafat meeting."

But given the voracious demand for news from abroad in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Sharekh tells Wired News that users are learning to live with a little weird grammar.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48260,00.html 

See also:
Does Official Taliban Site Exist?
'Good News' for Arabs on MSNBC


"9/11: The Psychological Aftermath," by Sarah Graham, Scientific American, --- http://www.scientificamerican.com/explorations/2001/111201anxiety/  

Anxiety is on the rise and experts estimate that 100,000 people in New York alone are at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The count is so high in part due to the nature of the attacks. Studies show that rates of PTSD are greater following events caused by deliberate violence than after natural disasters. "If an airplane had accidentally flown off course in a heavy fog in New York and taken down one of the towers," Marmar explains, "it would have been very traumatic but probably less traumatic than knowing that somebody, or some group, wanted to kill everybody in those buildings." It is this relationship to violence that may explain the higher rates of PTSD observed in women. Compared with men, women are more likely to suffer trauma after a physical or sexual assault.

Bob Jensen's threads on 9/11 are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


Email message from Glenn Meyer

Normally, I am not moved to post many URLs but this one I thought was worth it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,39104,00.html 

Glenn Meyer

"Arm the Afghan Women," by Wendy McElroy, Fox News, November 20, 2001

It is commonplace to assume that toppling the Taliban will free Afghan women. But in an unstable country where soldiers celebrate conquest by raping — and where there is currently no guarantee that whatever form of government eventually assumes control will not be equally oppressive toward females — women have to protect themselves to remain free.

Afghan women need to exercise the right of self-defense, including gun ownership. They also need to be recognized as a force of armed resistance against oppressive regimes.

Freedom Fighters

In the 1970's, Afghan women were among the most Westernized and liberated in the Islamic world. Their pre-Taliban role as doctors, bankers, lawyers, and teachers has been well documented. But almost no attention has been given to the part they played as freedom fighters against the Soviets, or to their potential for armed resistance against future oppressors who may again try to hijack the country as the new government takes form. Yet the evidence indicates that many Afghan women would fight to protect themselves and their families.

In October 1996, the New Internationalist magazine interviewed Nooria Jehan, a mother who joined the anti-Soviet mujahideen in guerilla warfare.

"I learned explosive techniques and began supervising and teaching the younger men," Nooria recalled. "We would stick explosives and detonators under the Russians' tables and chairs."

When asked what she would do if the women-hating Taliban captured her city of residence, Kabul, Nooria said, "We will fight them as we fought the Russians."

That is what some women have done. In the Nov. 12 Newsday, journalists Matthew McAllester and Ilana Ozernoy quoted a woman named Malika, a mother whose family lived on the Taliban front line of Bagram just north of Kabul.

Continued at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,39104,00.html 


A Message from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) --- http://www.aaup.org/opedmb.htm 

What Do the Faculty Think?

The nation was shocked into silence by the unimaginable images of deliberate carnage that we witnessed on the morning of September 11, and for a time we wanted no opinions--only the details of what had happened. And then we wanted the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice. And we also wanted a time of silence to mourn. I stood outside a packed church in downtown Washington at noon on September 14 when the whole city was solemnly silent--except for the drone of a passing helicopter from time to time. New words failing us, we turned to old ones in hymns and prayers and patriotic songs. That time has passed, and now we are back to our usual habits of analysis, criticism, and scorn. The pile-up of details is not enough; as a rational species, we must push beyond them to imagine causes, motives, remedies. And that is good. That is what we do as citizens in America. That is what faculty do as professionals.

The faculty do not, however, have a single brain that renders a unified opinion on matters of public policy. We have, in our Congress, a Republican conservative former professor of economics who wants to drill for oil in the Arctic, and we have a liberal professor of physics who doesn't. Professors crowd our video screens with opposing opinions about the budget, the genetic engineering, and cultures of the Middle East, and we seem to accept their diversity in times of peace. But in times of crisis, our tolerance of such diversity fades, and the words of any one faculty member may be taken to be the words of all. It is predictable that after we had passed through the initial phases of reaction to September 11, we should want more subtle analyses. And so the discourses of academics--passionate as well as cool--have commenced. And so have the voluble reactions of those who believe that thinking out loud in our colleges and universities is so subversive that it ought to be stopped, somehow.

A distrust of intellectuals has always lurked beneath the surface of American popular opinion. Now it has begun to leak out again--either through the frontal assault in the partial reporting by the New York Post of a forum at the City University of New York, or the sideswipes at "campus teach-ins" by a respected columnist like Tom Friedman or others such as John Leo. Such editorializing may be legitimate, but to demonize "the faculty" is harmful. Further, there's a difference when the responses to faculty opinions come from those who have the power to retaliate. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer withdrew his ominous warning that public people should "watch what they say," because the government has the power to censor. Just so, the comments of some members of the board of CUNY, and of its chancellor, should also be rethought. These warnings have been accompanied by nods to academic freedom, but they still open the possibility of retaliation.

So, what do the faculty think? They think many things about September 11. Some of them died in the bombings; some lost loved ones. They disagree vociferously on ethics, strategy, causes, and effects. From my own informal survey, faculty opinion ranges from vengeful to conciliatory. That's why we cannot speak on the course of war or peace for "the faculty" that we represent within the American Association of University Professors. But we can speak for faculty on one big thing--the necessity, as patriots and professors, to think and express their views in freedom.

Mary Burgan, 
General Secretary American Association of University Professors 
October 5, 2001


One Thing About Lynne Cheney --- She's Never Afraid to Speak Her Mind

"Mr. Cheney's wife, Dr. Lynne V. Cheney, is well-known as an eloquent defender of America's traditional cultural ideals. After serving as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Cheney led the fight to reject the imposition of ideologically biased U.S. history standards on the nation's public schools -- standards that embraced every fever and fad of the politically correct Left, while denigrating or omitting altogether vital core elements of our national history and values. 
SOURCE American Renewal
--- http://www.d2kla.org/pipermail/d2kdiscuss/2000-July/000264.html 


Cheney has written and spoken about American education and the value of the humanities to one’s professional and personal life. She has been featured on television news programs and her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and many more.

Before the NEH, Cheney taught at colleges and universities, was a magazine editor and a widely published author. She has written two novels and co-authored a third. With her husband, former Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney, she wrote a history of the House of Representatives. A native of Wyoming, Cheney earned her bachelor’s degree with highest honors from Colorado College and a master’s degree from the University of Colorado. Her doctoral degree, with a specialization in 19th century British literature, is from the University of Wisconsin. She also holds more than a dozen honorary degrees.

Dr. Lynne V. Cheney http://www.northwood.edu/dw/1992/cheney.html 


Cheney's Wife Praises Appointment Of Homosexual Activist

Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney, has spoken out in favour of President George W. Bush's decision to install practicing homosexual Scott Evertz as head of the White House office in charge of AIDS policy.

In an interview with London's Telegraph newspaper, Cheney, one of whose daughters, Mary, is a lesbian, said that although marriage and the family are "very good things, I also think that a person who is gay should have every opportunity."

"My personal feeling is that the President is to be admired for appointing people who are qualified and not focusing on what group they belong to," she said.

Catholic World News, April 24, 2001 --- http://www.cwnews.com/browse/2001/04/15356.htm 


"Yesterday Vice President Dick Cheney came down with laryngitis so his wife had to deliver a speech for him. After the speech, Cheney's wife had to spend the rest of the day telling President Bush what to do."
Conan O'Brien --- http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blcheneyquotes.htm 


During the Reagan and Bush administrations Cheney's wife, Lynne, was a superb chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where she was an astringent critic of the dumbing down and political corruption of culture, especially in higher education. But her husband's demeanor--that of a librarian in need of a nap--will complicate Al Gore's only authentic campaign style--fright-mongering about Bush's candidacy being a vehicle for various extremisms.
George Will --- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will1072700.asp 


Remember that I am only your mailman on this erupting volcano in academe. Please don't shoot the delivery boy!

Having given her a tribute above, I will now reveal the reason.  The following is the highly controversial report will have many professors (especially professors still bleeding over the election of Bush and Cheney to lead the United States)  on the warpath to scalp Vice-President Cheney's wife, Lynne Chaney.  Interestingly enough, however, the other co-founder of ACTA is Senator Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate.  However, liberal faculty to date are venting their hostilities more on Lynne Cheney than on Senator Lieberman. 

"Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It" ---  http://www.goacta.org/Reports/defciv.pdf 

A quotation from the University of Wisconsin's Scout Report on November 23, 2003
(Which is not one of the inflammatory critiques.)

Though short, this report from The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a nonprofit co-founded by Lynne Cheney and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, has been getting quite a bit of media attention. The report is a scathing condemnation of universities for being "the weak link in America's response to the [September 11th] attack," a label earned in part because faculty "invoked tolerance and diversity as antidotes to evil" and did not discuss the "difference between good and evil." The report charges academia with disseminating the message to "blame America first." ACTA states, "This is not an argument for limiting free speech on college campuses. Indeed, the robust exchange of ideas is essential to a free society. But it is equally important -- and never more so than in these unsettling times -- to insist that colleges and universities transmit our history and heritage to the next generation." The report concludes with an appendix of named and numbered professors and organizations who are part of the "weak link." Anyone interested in debates over the function of universities or the composition of curricula will want to read this.

One of my colleagues informed me that the "named and numbered" have been deleted from the report.

The flaming critiques will commence appearing in the liberal press and in the ACLU press.. The national AAUP position after the 9/11 attack was rather guarded in favor of motherhood and apple pie.  A Message from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) --- http://www.aaup.org/opedmb.htm  


A Thoughtful Reply from Curtis Brown, Professor of Philosophy at Trinity University

Bob Jensen recently sent a link to a report on "Defending Civilization" produced by an organization (the "American Council of Trustees and Alumni") founded by Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman. Many of us have probably also read Harry Haines' long and thoughtful response to this document in the recent Trinity AAUP newsletter.

I started to write a note to tigertalk about my reactions to the report. Although I only scratched the surface of what I wanted to say, it got too long to post to tigertalk.

If anyone's interested, my comments, unfortunately somewhat rambling and incomplete, are available at http://www.trinity.edu/cbrown/defending.html .

Here's the short version: The central flaw in the report, in my view, is its absolute refusal to offer or consider evidence or argument pertaining to the authors' views. Everything in the report reinforces this refusal to reason about the issues: its criticism of faculty statements, not on the grounds that they were not well supported, or that more compelling considerations support an opposing view, but simply because the conclusions disagreed with the authors' own views; its appeals to authority and polling statistics, rather than evidence or reasons, in support of its own view; and above all its collection of over 100 brief supposedly objectionable quotations, taken from news reports of campus events, with absolutely no consideration of the context of the quotations or the reasons offered for the views they express, and with absolutely no attempt to provide a reasoned basis for disagreeing with these quotations.

Curtis


Maybe Lynne Cheney is Correct

"The Pilgrims' Magna Carta:  Americans can't defend a history they don't know," The Wall Street Journal, Review and Outlook, November 23, 2001 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001503 

How much is not taught was painfully evident in its survey. The Council asked the Roper organization to assess what college seniors know and don't know about American history and Western civilization and which institutions of higher learning actually required students to learn something of these subjects. The results may surprise more than a few parents now shelling out $30,000 a year to send their children to one of the nation's elite institutions of higher education. Just three of the top-ranked 55 schools--Columbia, Colgate and the University of the South--require a course in Western civilization. None of the 55 requires a course in American history. (Click here for a full list.)

So at colleges such as Amherst, Yale, Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth, Rice and the University of Michigan--to name a few--graduates can now leave as ignorant of Western civilization as they were when they entered. Other schools on the list do have history "requirements" but it turns out these are the sort of requirements that aren't in fact required. Rather, the student can satisfy them by completing a high school history course or by choosing a non-history college-level course. At Berkeley, students who earned a C or better in high school history are exempt. At M.I.T., students can satisfy the historical studies "requirement" by taking a course in Environmental Politics and Policy.

All this goes a long way toward explaining why the college seniors queried by Roper in an earlier Council survey had so much trouble with even the most basic history questions. No more than 22% had any idea that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" came from the Gettysburg Address. More than half could not identify the Constitution as the source of the separation of powers. This being the day after Thanksgiving, we're too embarrassed to print the percentage who thought the Magna Carta was what the Pilgrims signed on the Mayflower. Remember, these are students from the nation's top 55 colleges.

Facts about America's wars were also in short supply. Just four out of 10 seniors could identify the Battle of the Bulge as having taken place in World War II. Only 34% knew George Washington was the general commanding the Americans at Yorktown, the ultimate battle of the Revolutionary War. A higher percentage--37%--thought it might be Ulysses S. Grant.

About one fact most students did seem clear--that they are citizens of a nation now at war. In turn, university administrators, long cowed by the multiculturalists and pressure groups hostile to anything that might smack of Western culture, ought to consider getting up off their knees to provide young Americans with a serious education in their history and civilization.


A message from Don Clark
... for more illumination of the cultural response to the tragic events of September 11th, following Bob Jensen's forwarding of Lynne Cheney's commentary on campus culture to Tigertalk, let me suggest the Borowitz Report, to be found at:
http://www.bushnews.com/borowitz.htm 
Don Clark

A quotation from an inspiring Quaker named Parker J. Palmer

As we go into these five days together, let us remember one thing about the soul. It is like a wild animal: tough, self-sufficient, resilient, but also exceedingly shy. Let us remember that if we go crashing through the woods, screaming and yelling for the soul to come out, it will evade us all day and all night. We cannot beat the bushes and yell at each other if we expect this precious inwardness to emerge. But if you are willing to go into the woods and sit quietly at the base of a tree, that wild animal will, after a few hours, reveal itself to you. And out of the corner of your eye, you will glimpse something of the wild preciousness that this conference is looking for. I ask guidance for myself and, as Quakers say, hold this entire conference in the light, to be here, to be present to each other in the right spirit, speaking our truth gently and simply, listening respectfully and attentively to the truth of others, grounded in our own experience and expanded by experiences that are not yet ours, compassionate toward that which we do not yet understand, not only as a kindness to others but for the sake of our growth and our students and the transformation of education. Amen.

In preparing these remarks, I've asked myself what are we trying to do here? We know it's about spirituality and education, but what does that mean? For whatever it's worth, these are the images that have come to me as I've tried to put a larger frame of personal meaning around this conference.

I think we are here to seek life-giving forces and sources in the midst of an enterprise which is too often death-dealing education. It may seem harsh to call education death-dealing, but I think that we all have our experience of that.

I am always astonished and saddened by the fact that this country, which has the most widespread public education system in the world, has so many people who walk around feeling stupid because they feel that they are the losers in a competitive system of teaching and learning. It is a system that dissects life and distances us from the world because it is rooted in fear.

We come out of schools where learning turns out to be dull and we don t want to learn again. Too many children have their birthright gift of love of learning taken away from them by the very process that s supposed to enhance that gift. And so we here seek forces and sources that are life-giving in the midst of a system that is too often death-dealing.

Everyone here has had his or her own encounter with the forces of death: racism, sexism, justice denied. In my life, one of my face-to-face encounters with the forces of death was in two prolonged experiences of clinical depression, passages through the dark woods that I made when I was in my 40s, devastating experiences when it was not clear from one day to the next whether I wished to be alive, or even was still alive the darkness, face-to-face, immersed in it, hardly a spark of life.

Continued at http://csf.colorado.edu/sine/transcripts/palmer.html 

More By This Author

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation --- 
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,221764,00.html
 

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life (includes book, study guide, and video) 
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,149523,00.html
 

Teaching from the Heart: Seasons of Renewal in a Teacher's Life (VHS 30-minute video), with Parker J. Palmer 
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,149559,00.html
 

The Courage to Teach, A Guide for Reflection and Renewal  
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,105046,00.html
 

The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring  
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,221746,00.html
 

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life (includes book, study guide, and video)  
http://www.wiley.com/Corporate/Website/Objects/Products/0,9049,222761,00.html
 

 

 




Once again, Wired News is garnering votes for the year's most eagerly awaited vaporware: products and technologies that were promised but never delivered --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48515,00.html 

Related Links:

Game Arrives Only in Dreams
March 13, 2001

Vaporware 2000: Missing Inaction
Dec. 27, 2000

Vaporware '99: The 'Winners'
Jan. 3, 2000

Vaporware 1998: Windows NT Wins
Dec. 29, 1998

Vaporware 1997: We Hardly Knew Ye




The Fourth Annual Inertia Awards," by Michael Swaine, webreview, November 12, 2001 --- http://webreview.com/swaine/2001/11_12_01.shtml 

In the category of computer companies, the award goes to Dell. In the words of the nominator, "These guys can't think outside the box. They are great handling orders, but innovate the hardware—no way."

In the category of software companies, the award goes to Microsoft. One nominator says, "Company has never had an innovative idea. If the rest of the software industry went away, IE 22 released in 2030 would be promoting 'Even Smarter Links.'" Other reasons cited include monopolistic practices, that Steve Ballmer video clip in which he dances around the stage imitating an ape, Clippy, My Documents, My Pictures, My Images, My Music, My Vomit, etc.

In the category of PR firms, the award goes to Edelman. "These guys and their affiliates organized a 'grass roots' campaign to the various state attorney generals that resulted in them redoubling their resolve to fight Microsoft," a nominator complains.

In the category of Web sites, the award goes to Interwise for selling a product that requires Netscape 4 or higher on a web site that requires Netscape 6 or higher, thus making it impossible for many of the company's own customers even to contact the company.

And in the category of government agencies, the award goes to the popular favorite, the United States Department of Justice, for spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to win an antitrust judgement against Microsoft and then negotiating a settlement that largely lets the illegal monopolist off the hook.

In conclusion, the management would like to point out that this year's winners are no more deserving than many other candidates who failed to be considered solely because nobody nominated them. The spirit of solidarity that has spread across America in recent months like a virus, while it doubtless has its positive side, has had a devastating effect on the grumpiness and petty nitpicking on which this awards competition depends. You nominators, frankly, didn't rise to the high level of crabbiness that you set in past years. We understand, we really do, but we do hope to see a lot more grousing and kvetching next year.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he
sings."
-- Robert Benchley

Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already." -- Gustav Mahler,
to Bruno Walter who had stopped to admire mountain scenery in rural
Austria.

"I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play
Bach and starve." -- Xavier Cugat

"[Musicians] talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen
every time. They really are interested in music and art." -- Jean
Sibelius, explaining why he rarely invited musicians to his home.

"The amount of money one needs is terrifying . . ." -- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Only become a musician if there is absolutely no other way you can make a
living."-- Kirke Mecham, on his life as a composer.

Flint must be an extremely wealthy town: I see that each of you bought
two or three seats."-- Victor Borge, playing to a half-filled house in
Flint, Michigan.

"God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way." --
Arturo Toscanini to a trumpet player

"Already too loud!" -- Bruno Walter at his first rehearsal with an
American orchestra, on seeing the players reaching for their instruments.

"Never look at the trombones. It only encourages them." -- Richard Strauss

"I write as a sow piddles." -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything, provided
it's by Beethoven, Brahms or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once. It
came out as Das Merde." --Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell

"Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving
pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it." --Sir Thomas
Beecham to a lady cellist.

"I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music." --Benjamin
Britten on Stravinsky's The Rakes' Progress

"Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on."
--Sir Thomas Beecham on an unidentified soprano in Die Walkure

"In the first movement alone, I took note of six pregnancies and at least
four miscarriages."--Sir Thomas Beecham on Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

Sir Thomas Beecham was once asked if he had played any Stockhausen. "No,"
he replied, "but I have trodden in some."

"Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him
enough on his backside." --Ludwig van Beethoven

"He'd be better off shoveling snow." --Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg.

"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always
by Villa-Lobos?"  --Igor Stravinsky

"If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better
for music." --Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens

"No operatic star has yet died soon enough for me." --Sir Thomas Beecham

"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air
molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians." --Frank
Zappa

"Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel." --Jimi Hendrix

"Whoever is most impertinent has the best chance." --Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Simple ain't easy." --Thelonious Monk

 


Out of the mouths of babes comes the Dead Cat Test, a true story...........

A kindergarten pupil told his teacher he'd found a cat.

She asked if it was dead or alive.

"Dead," she was informed.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because I pissed in his ear and it didn't move," said the child innocently.

"You did WHAT?!?!?!" the teacher shrieked in surprise.

"You know," explained the boy, "I leaned over and went 'psssssst' and he didn't move."


Politically Spirited Humor at the Bush/Cheney Team's Expense --- http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blcheneyquotes.htm 
They really can laugh at themselves.  Jokes by Jay Leno and others.


Friends should be close and relatives distant.


Forwarded by Auntie Bev

THE SENILITY PRAYER

God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Now that I'm 'older' (but refuse to grow up), here's what I've discovered

ONE- I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

TWO- My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.

THREE- I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.

FOUR- Funny, I don't remember being absent minded...

FIVE- All reports are in; life is now officially unfair.

SIX- If all is not lost, where is it?

SEVEN- It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.

EIGHT- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.

NINE- I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use a few...

TEN- Kids in the back seat cause accidents.

ELEVEN- Accidents in the back seat cause...kids.

TWELVE- It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

THIRTEEN- The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you're in the bathroom.

FOURTEEN- If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.

FIFTEEN- When I'm finally holding all the cards, why does everyone decide to play chess?

SIXTEEN- It's not hard to meet expenses... they're everywhere.

SEVENTEEN- The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

EIGHTEEN- These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter...I go somewhere to get something and then wonder what I'm here after.

NINETEEN- I AM UNABLE TO REMEMBER IF I HAVE MAILED THIS TO YOU BEFORE OR NOT




And that's the way it was on November 23, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

  Hline.jpg (568 bytes) Hline.jpg (568 bytes)

 Hline.jpg (568 bytes)

 

November 14, 2001


Quotes of the Week

If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague
Forwarded by Dick Haar.  
Dick does not know it, but this has been the secret of journal referees for decades.

As Kuhn saw it, and several generations of scientists, historians and journalists have told it since, new paradigms are accepted slowly, if not over the dead bodies of those who grew up with the old ones. Kuhn documented one great scientist after another, from Copernicus to Darwin to James Clerk Maxwell, who struggled relentlessly against the resistance of mediocre minds and later was vindicated. It was the German physicist Max Planck who set down the definitive words on the subject: "a new scientific truth," Planck wrote, "does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
From "Rethinking the Paradigm Paradigm," by Gary Taubes, Technology Review, November 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/nov01/insight.asp 

Free Speech in America Includes Promotion of Violent Terrorism
Below you will find two quotations  from OpinionJournal on November 12, 2001.  It begins with a quotation from Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ir/index.asp  , in response to public complaints about an appearance ( http://www.vicinity.com/bnoble99/searchevt.hm?FS=Bill+Ayers&sType=auth ) by Bill Ayers, an erstwhile and unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist.  Bill Ayers is now attempting, in a new book promoted by Barnes & Nobel, to become wealthy promoting terrorism and justifying his previous bombing history.

*** QUOTE:   From Mary Ellen Keating

Granted, we live in troubled times. The reprehensible acts of the terrorists were designed to promote fear, divisiveness, even hatred among fellow Americans. We cannot let them win. Removing Mr. Ayers' book from our shelves or canceling a previously scheduled appearance is out of the question. To do so would be to give in to our fears, and ultimately to validate the position of our enemies.

*** QUOTE:   From Editors of Opinion Journal

Terrorists win if we don't let terrorists cash in on their past crimes? This has got to be the most twisted use of the "we can't let them win" cliché yet. One of our readers quips that he's looking forward to the book signing for 101 Uses for a Dead Infidel by Osama bin Laden at the local Barnes & Noble.

 




New From Bob Jensen
Video and Other Helper Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm 
(New videos will be added steadily for the next several months.  I love Camtasia.)

My main tutorial page has shifted to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 


I Love Camtasia

Camtasia Recording and Producing --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/Tutorials/ 

I prepared a Camtasia video on how I record Camtasia avi files and how I "produce" a copy of the file as a rm RealMedia file that will play on most computers without having to download the Camtasia Player.  You can read about Camtasia and download a free Camtasia player from http://www.techsmith.com/ 
(If you can play the rm RealMedia version, you do not need the player to view the videos.)


Note that if you want to record audio as well as video in Camtasia, it is best to have the microphone on a stand or clipped to your shirt.  You will probably need both hands free for use of the keyboard.

Also note that you should set up a hot key to toggle between "Record" and "Pause" (I assigned the F9 key for this purpose).  It is common while you are recording to have to do something (such as taking time to bring up another file or refresh you memory on how to perform a task) that you do not want in the video.  To pause the recording process, I simply click on F9.  When I am ready to commence once again, I click on F9 to renew the recording process.  I also assign the F10 key to end the recording process.  You can assign these "HotKeys" in the Camtasia Recorder menu choices (Options, Preferences, Hotkeys).

Camtasia has panning and zooming options even though the video is not being captured in a "camera."  Panning effects are created by moving  the "camera" (usually from side to side) while keeping the subject in the viewfinder.  Zooming entails making the image more or less magnified.

Flesh in PowerPoint, Excel, or other presentations with video and audio.  Camtasia works great for both capturing dynamic computer screen presentations in video accompanied by your audio explanations.  Your video files may take up more space that you are allowed on your Web server.  However, you can save them to CD-R or CD-RW disks that can be sold to students for around $1.00 per disk. You can learn more about Camtasia from http://www.techsmith.com/ .  You can make CDs by simply dragging files to a blank CD using Windows Explorer if you first install Easy CD (http://www.roxio.com/en/products/ecdc/ ).


One of the most frequently asked questions asked in my education technology workshops is as follows:  
"In what ways should course content materials be modified for online learning?"

My quick and dirty response is that faculty who develop content should learn how to use FrontPage or some other good HTML editor and then learn how to screen capture and video capture themselves rather than relying upon technicians.  You can learn Microsoft FrontPage, screen capturing, and Camtasia video capturing in just a few days with a little help from your friends.  With a little added effort, you can make your online course materials more interactive by saving Excel worksheets as interactive Webpages and by learning how to use JavaScript.  You can learn all of these things in less than a week if you have the correct software and hardware.

  1. Use more screen captures, audio captures, and video captures of things that you normally demo in lecture presentations.   Look under "Resources" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 
    Also see my tutorials at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

  2. MP3 Audio
    Audio capturing is especially important since you can let students hear what you like to say in lectures or case discussions.  For example, in an Excel spreadsheet you can add buttons that students can click on to hear your explanation of what is going on in various cells of the spreadsheet.  Look under "Resources" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 

  3. Camtasia AVI Versus RM Recordings --- See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm 
    Flesh in PowerPoint, Excel, or other presentations with video and audio.  Camtasia works great for both capturing dynamic computer screen presentations in video accompanied by your audio explanations.  Your video files may take up more space than you are allowed on your Web server.  However, you can save them to CD-R or CD-RW disks that can be sold to students for around $1.00 per disk. You can learn more about Camtasia from http://www.techsmith.com/ .  You can make CDs by simply dragging files to a blank CD using Windows Explorer if you first install Easy CD (http://www.roxio.com/en/products/ecdc/ ).  

    For video illustrations and tutorials, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm 

  4. Excel Saved as Webpages Can Add Interactivity In Imaginative Ways
    Suppose that you want to have students make journal entries in a HTML Webpage.  Or suppose you want to see the impact of interest rate swap valuations with changes in forward yield curve estimates. 

    Or suppose you want an interactive Excel chart imported into a HTML Webpage where the chart will change when the reader changes the loan principal, interest rate, or maturity date. 

    For illustrations on publishing Excel workbooks, spreadsheets, or charts as interactive Webpages, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/dhtml/excel01.htm 

    For videos and tutorials, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideosSummary.htm 


  5. JavaScript Calculations and Interactivity
    Try to make your online materials more interactive by saving Excel workbooks as interactive Webpages and use of JavaScipt.  For my JavaScript tutorials, see  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm .  

  6. Amy Dunbar's Online Pedagogy
    Make a lot more use of online questions and answers that replace the question and answer type of style that you probably use in lectures.  Amy Dunbar uses this approach extensively.  You can read about how she developed her first online course.  See Example 1 below.

Motivations for Distance Education 

Little Red Hen Motivations
(Those professors who go it alone without much institutional support.)

Example 1
Amy Dunbar's Online Tax Courses

I think all educators should read at least the first 15 pages of "Genesis of an Online Course," by Amy Dunbar at www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/genesis_of_an_online_course.pdf 

You Can See a Live Performance on How Amy Wows Her Online Students!
Amy Dunbar has consented to conduct a live workshop for educators in San Antonio on August 13, 2002.  She will perform in the Education Technology Workshop that I organize annually as a CPE session two days prior to the start of the American Accounting Association Annual Meetings (which are in San Antonio next August).

I just shared a platform with Amy Dunbar in a workshop presented at Mercer University on November 9, 2001.  I am amazed at what both Amy and her husband (John) are accomplishing with online teaching of income tax and tax research.  

  • Although they are teaching as full-time faculty at the University of Connecticut, both Amy and her husband, John, teach online courses from their house.  In practice, they don't have to go to the campus except to check mail, perform service activities, and work face-to-face with colleagues and students when needed.  In theory, they could move to a California beach house or a cabin on top of a Colorado mountain and still teach all their courses for the University of Connecticut.  I should note that the students in this online University of Connecticut program are adult learners who almost all have current jobs in the Hartford community.  Amy teaches all her courses online, and John teaches a summer course online.  Both professors teach taxation.

  • Amy just won an all-university teaching technology award from the University of Connecticut.  This is just another of her many all-university teaching awards from the University of Texas in San Antonio, the University of Iowa, and the University of Connecticut.  She has this rare ability of being rated perfect by virtually any student no matter what grade she assigns, even a failing grade.  Amy's homepage is at http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/ADunbar/Dunbaru.htm 

  • I don't have John's teaching evaluation scores (I'm told they're excellent), but you can read Amy's teaching evaluation scores on the last page (Exhibit 5) of the document at http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/genesis_of_an_online_course.pdf 
    (Note that the highest possible rating is 10.00 in this University of Connecticut evaluation form.

  • I especially urge you to read the student evaluation narratives at http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/genesis_of_an_online_course.pdf 

  • Amy developed all her own online course materials and relies heavily on a question and answer pedagogy using instant messaging.
  • Amy's workshop presentations and war stories about online education are AWESOME!

 

So what are Amy's highly controversial conclusions from her online courses?   Go to Page 13 in "Genesis of an Online Course," by Amy Dunbar at www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/genesis_of_an_online_course.pdf 

 


Example 2
An Innovative Online International Accounting Course on Six Campuses Around the World   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255light.htm 

A highlight for me at the November 6-7, 1998 AICPA Accounting Educators Conference was a presentation by Sharon Lightner from San Diego State University and Linard Nadig from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.  This presentation followed a ceremony presenting Professors Lightner and Nadig with the $1,000 AICPA Collaboration Award prize.

The course syllabus is located at http://www.aznet.net/course/doors/ 

Bob Jensen's Web Link --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255light.htm 

 

 

Learning Experimentation Motivations
Example 1 --- The SCALE Experiments --- http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/ 

Quotes from Professor Burks Oakley II, 
Sloan Center for Asynchronous Learning Environments,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Asynchronous Learning Networking Promotes Greater Communication

  • 51% of students reported increased communication with instructor
  • 43% of students reported increased communication with other students
  • 40% reported increase in quality of interactions with instructor

Asynchronous Learning Networking Enhances the Learning Environment

  • 75% of students rated their overall experience good, very good, or excellent
  • ALN enables students 
         to "be more prepared for class,"
         gives them "a lot of time to learn out of class," and
         allows them "to work at their own pace."

Impact on Course Grades in ECE 270, Fall 1994, 2 traditional sections versus 3 ALN sections

Course Grade

Traditional

Computer Based

A
B
C
D
E
17.4%
31.8%
35.^%
6.8%
8.3%
38.1%
26.0%
21.5%
6.6%
7.7%

Source:  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois 

For an August 2000 update, download Dan Stone's audio file and PowerPoint file from http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm 


Top K12's 100 Wired Schools --- http://FamilyPC.com/smarter.asp 
The winners are listed at http://familypc.com/smarter_2001_top.asp 

Why (Some) Kids Love School --- http://familypc.com/smarter_why_kids.asp 

Dropout rates are down and test scores are up. Students are engaged in learning and their self-esteem is soaring. So what's really going on within the classroom walls of the country's top wired schools? By Leslie Bennetts


Linda Peters provides a frank overview of the various factors underlying student perceptions of online learning. Such perceptions, she observes, are not only informed by the student's individual situation (varying levels of computer access, for instance) but also by the student's individual characteristics: the student's proficiency with computers, the student's desire for interpersonal contact, or the student's ability to remain self-motivated --- 

Technology Source, a free, refereed, e-journal at http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/default.asp?show=issue&id=44 
IN THE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2001 ISSUE


The Problem of Attrition in Online MBA Programs

We expect higher attrition rates from both learners in taking degrees in commuting programs and most online programs.  The major reason is that prior to enrolling for a course or program, people tend to me more optimistic about how they can manage their time between a full-time job and family obligations.  After enrolling, unforseen disasters do arise such as family illnesses, job assignments out of town, car breakdowns, computer breakdowns, job loss or change, etc.

The problem of online MBA attrition at West Texas A&M University is discussed in "Assessing Enrollment and Attrition Rates for the Online MBA," by Neil Terry, T.H.E. Journal, February 2001, pp. 65-69 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3299.cfm 

Follow-up experiments also showed that West Texas A&M's online students did not perform as well as onsite students on examinations.


Assessment Issues, Case Studies, and Research --- Detail File


The Dark Side of the 21st Century: Concerns About Technologies in Education --- Detail File

 

 

New and Expanding Market Motivations
Example 1 --- Stanford University --- http://ww.stanford.edu/history/fulldesc.html 

Stanford University shook up the stuffy Ivy League and other prestigious schools such as Oxford and Cambridge when it demonstrated to the world that its online training programs and its online Masters of Engineering (ADEPT) asynchronous learning degree program became enormous cash cows with nearly infinite growth potentials relative to relatively fixed-size onsite programs.  In a few short years, revenues from online programs in engineering and computer science exploded to over $100 million per year.

The combined present value of the Stanford University logo and the logos of other highly prestigious universities are worth trillions.  Any prestigious university that ignores online growth opportunities is probably wasting billions of dollars of potential cash flow from its logo.  

Virtually all universities of highest prestige and name recognition are realizing this and now offer a vast array of online training and education courses directly or in partnership with corporations and government agencies seeking the mark of distinction on diplomas.


Example 2 --- University of Wisconsin --- http://webct.wisc.edu/ 
Over 100,000 Registered Online Students in The University of Wisconsin System of State-Supported Universities

Having a long history of extension programs largely aimed at part-time adult learners, it made a lot of sense for the UW System to try to train and educate adult learners and other learners who were not likely to become onsite students.

The UW System is typical of many other large state-supported universities that have an established adult learning infrastructure and a long history of interactive television courses delivered to remote sites within the state.  Online Internet courses were a logical extension and in many instances a cost-efficient extension relative to televised delivery.


Example 3 --- Texas A&M Online MBA Program in Mexico --- http://olap.tamu.edu/mexico/tamumxctr.pdf 

Some universities view online technologies as a tremendous opportunity to expand training and education courses into foreign countries.  One such effort was undertaken by the College of Business Administration at Texas A&M University in partnership with Monterrey Tech in Mexico.  For example, Professor John Parnell at Texas A&M has been delivering a course for several semesters in which students in Mexico City take the online course in their homes.  However, once each month the students meet face-to-face on a weekend when Dr. Parnell travels to Mexico City to hold live classes and administer examinations.

You probably won't have much difficulty making a guess as to what many students say is the major reason they prefer online courses to onsite courses in Mexico City?


Example 4 --- The University of Phoenix --- http://www.phoenix.edu/index_open.html 

The University of Phoenix became the largest private university in the world.  Growth came largely from adult learning onsite programs in urban centers across the U.S. and Canada.  

The popular CBS television show called Sixty Minutes ran a feature on the growth and future of the newer online training and education programs at the University of Phoenix. You can download this video from http://online.uophx.edu/onl_nav_2.asp# 

The University of Phoenix contends that online success in education depends upon intense communications day-to-day between instructors and students.  This, in turn, means that online classes must be relatively small and synchronized in terms of assignments and projects.


Example 5 --- Partnerships 
Lucrative partnerships between universities and corporations seeking to train and educate employees.

The highly successful Global Executive MBA Program at Duke University (formerly called GEMBA) where corporations from around the world pay nearly $100,000 for one or two employees to earn a prestigious online MBA degree --- http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/gemba/index.html

UNext Corporation has an exclusive partnership with General Motors Corporation that provides online executive training and education programs to 88,000 GM managers.  GM pays the fees.  See http://www.unext.com/ 

The U.S. Army has a program developed and managed by the consulting division of an accounting firm (PwC) to deliver online training and education opportunities to every soldier.  Courses are delivered from 24 accredited colleges and universities across the nation.  The Army pays the fees.  Two links of interest are shown below:

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has a program for online training and education for all IRS employees.  The IRS pays the fees for all employees.  The IRS online accounting classes will be served up from Florida State University and Florida Community College at Jacksonville --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60881-2001May7.html 

Deere & Company has an exclusive partnership with Indiana University to provide an online MBA program for Deere employees.  Deere pays the fees.  See "Deere & Company Turns to Indiana University's Kelley School of Business For Online MBA Degrees in Finance," Yahoo Press Release, October 8, 2001 --- http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011008/cgm034_1.html 

The University of Georgia partnered with the consulting division of PwC to deliver a totally online MBA degree.  The program is only taken by PwC employees.  PwC paid the development and delivery fees.  See http://www.coe.uga.edu./coenews/2000/UGAusnews.htm 


The Dark Side

In spite of the successes noted above, most attempts to offer online training and education programs by corporations, private universities, and state-supported colleges and universities have either failed or struggle on with negative net cash flows from the online operations.

Aside from the success story at the University of Phoenix, it appears that reputation and prestige of a university are necessary but not sufficient conditions for high success in online programs.  Online programs at Carnegie-Mellon University, Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, and other top-name schools have attracted students who want those logos on their transcripts.  The is the main reason why many corporations partner with those particular schools for training and education courses.  This "prestige criterion" makes it very difficult for startup education companies or colleges with less prestigious names to expand markets with Internet courses.

Many new online programs have failed to attract sufficient numbers of tuition-paying students to break even on the cost of developing and delivering those programs.  

  • Some like the online teacher education program at McGill University have ceased operations. 

  • Some like Western Governors University struggle on with miniscule classes while supporting operations with outside funding or funding diverted from onsite training and education programs --- http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/index.html 

  • Monterrey Tech (which is to Mexico what MIT is to the US), has a multimillion dollar distance education program.  The main campus has a 12-story glass tower (a beautiful building indeed) equipped with production and delivery equipment that constitutes one of two main transmitting facilities of the Monterrey Tech Virtual University ---  the University that delivers courses daily to 29 campuses, 1,272 sites in Mexico, and 159 sites in 10 Latin and South American Countries.  Although this is one of the most successful distance education programs in the world, the number one problem still remains in finding more qualified students who are both willing and able to pay the fees.  See  http://www.ruv.itesm.mx/ 

Even in established universities that offer fully-accredited degree programs, expanding the market through online programs has been a hard struggle.  The University of Washington found that even free-course promotions did not attract large numbers of students.  http://www.outreach.washington.edu/about/releases/20010521freecourse.asp 

The Fathom program largely run by Columbia University finds that many of its free courses have sparse enrollments.  See http://www.fathom.com/ 


Links to ventures that became financial disasters are given in the following document:

The Dark Side of the 21st Century: Concerns About Technologies in Education --- Detail File


The Bright Side 

The bottom line seems to be that for many universities seeking to expand markets with online programs, the best solution to date entails partnering with corporations or government agencies who both pay the fees and promote the programs among their employees.

For urban areas such as Mexico City locked in traffic jams, online education appears to have glowing prospects.

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, it will probably be more difficult for some foreign students to become students on campuses of developed nations such as the U.S. and the U.K.  Online education has bright prospects of reaching those students.

Open share initiatives such as the new open share program in which MIT will make learning materials from virtually all of its courses available for free online, will greatly expand learning opportunities for nearly all people in the world.

 

 

Cost Savings Motivations 
Example 1 --- Stanford University --- http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/main.html 

It is possible to save enormous amounts of money using online versus onsite education delivery.  But to save enormous amounts of money, the circumstances probably must be highly unique in which students can succeed with very little communication and human interaction in every course.  

One such unique situation is the ADEPT online Masters of Engineering degree program at Stanford University.  The students are mature and are all graduates in engineering or science from top colleges in the world.  The students are generally highly motivated since a Stanford masters degree greatly improves their career opportunities, especially in economic downturns where competition for jobs becomes more intense.  Most importantly, the students are all extremely intelligent since Stanford can be highly selective regarding admittance into the ADEPT program.

The unique type of student described above allows ADEPT program to rely upon a video pedagogy where students to proceed at their own paces with very little demanded in the way of instructor supervision and communication.  It's the day-to-day instructional communication and supervision that comprise most of the cost of online training and education.  Online programs that minimize this cost will probably make money as long as sufficient numbers of students are willing to pay the fees for the online course materials and the prestige of the course transcripts.


Example 2 --- UNext Corporation --- http://www.unext.com/ 

UNext Corporation is not a low-cost training and education venture and is not yet a profitable venture.  However, UNext adopted a strategy that seeks to combine education prestige with lower cost delivery.  One of its headline programs entailed partnering with five prestigious universities (Stanford, Chicago, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, and the London School of Economics) to develop and continue to own and monitor 15 courses for an Executive MBA degree.  Each course's transcripts will carry the logo of the university that "owns" that course.  However, each course will be delivered by specially-trained instructors who hire out at much lower rates than faculty from prestigious schools that developed the courses.  In some cases the UNext instructors have doctoral degrees, but in many cases these instructors are highly trained specialists who do not have doctorates.  These instructors perform the labor intensive day-to-day communication and supervision duties.  The prestigious universities who "own" the courses, however, must monitor education standards in the courses since the names of those universities will appear on the course transcripts.

You can listen to UNext faculty and the course designer for Columbia University's accounting course at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001cpe/01start.htm 


The Dark Side

All that glitters is not gold in terms of cost savings and profits from distance education.  Many of the startup ventures are having difficulty changing faculty attitudes and attracting paying students.  To me this is not surprising since faculty by nature are suspicious beings, and most potential customers of distance education are not yet adequately connected to the Web.  David Noble, however, sees the early failings of many ventures as ominous warnings that distance education is by nature inferior and over-hyped by profit mongers.

And now, in the year 2001, these latest academic entrepreneurs of distance education have begun to encounter the same sobering reality earlier confronted by UCLA and THEN, namely, that all that glitters is not gold. Columbia University's high-profile, for-profit venture Fathom is reported to be "having difficulty attracting both customers and outside investors" compelling the institution to put up an additional $10 million - on top of its original investment of $18.7 million - just to keep the thing afloat. According to Sarah Carr's report in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia's administrators remain behind the venture whether or not it makes money.

Howevermuch it might enable administrators to restructure the institutions of higher education to their advantage vis a vis the professoriate, the investment in online education is no guarantee of increased revenues. "Reality is setting in among many distance education administrators", Carr reports. "They are realizing that putting programs online doesn't necessarily bring riches". Ironically, among those now preaching this new-found wisdom is none other than John Kobara, the UCLA vice chancellor who left the university to run Arkatov's company, which was founded upon the expectation of such riches. "The expectations were that online courses would be a new revenue source and something that colleges had to look into", Kobara remembered. "Today", he told Carr, " [chancellors and presidents] are going back and asking some important and tough questions, such as: 'Are we making any money off of it?' 'Can we even pay for it?' 'Have we estimated the full costs?'" Barely eight years after Lapiner and his UCLA colleagues first caught the fool's gold fever, Kobara mused aloud, "I don't think anybody has wild notions that it is going to be the most important revenue source".
David F. Noble, "Fools Gold" --- http://communication.ucsd.edu/DL/ddm5.html 

 

 

Learning Curve and Left-in-the Dust Motivations
Example 1 --- Railroad Companies Versus Transportation Companies

In the middle of the 20th Century, just after World War II, the railroad industry was in pretty good shape.  Passenger trains were nearly always full going from coast-to-coast.  The freight business was highly lucrative.  

New opportunities arose (especially airplanes and freight trucks) into which railroad companies could have diversified.  But the railroads decided that they were in the business of hauling people and freight on steel rails rather than in newer 'transportation" alternatives.

And what happened?  Airlines, automobiles, and buses stole the entire passenger market from the railroads in the United States (except for urban commuter lines) and about the only long-haul passenger service had to be subsidized and run by the Federal Government.  Even the commuter lines lost huge market shares to automobiles.

Many colleges and universities are now facing the question of whether they are to remain only onsite (railroad) educational institutions or whether they will enter into distance education (transportation) missions.  Some colleges that have quality living accommodations and reputations as onsite campuses for full-time students will probably survive long into the future just like some railroad companies continue to hall freight and make money.  However, those colleges have minimal growth potential vis-a-vis colleges that expand into distance education.


Example 2 --- The Learning Curve Thing

Even colleges currently resisting all opportunities for expanding into distance education nevertheless find it utterly stupid not to embrace newer educational technologies.  Their new students are arriving on campus with technology skills that they want to expand upon while in college.  College graduates must have technology skills for admissions to graduate schools and employment careers.  

Faculty must have technology skills if they are to help their students improve in technology skills.  And faculty soon discover that technology skills do not come easily.  They increasingly are making demands upon their institutions to provide hardware, software, and technicians who can help in education technologies.

Colleges behind in the technology learning curve are now scrambling to catch up in terms of electronic classrooms, instructional support services, course delivery shells such as Blackboard and WebCT, laptop computers for students and faculty, wireless networking, etc.

Having progressed upward on the learning curve, taking on a mission of distance education becomes more of a possibility.  Faculty who increasingly rely upon chat rooms, discussion boards, virtual classrooms and other utilities in WebCT or Blackboard catch on to the fact that they could be doing the same things for distant students that they are doing for campus residents.  The opportunities for grant money and/or release time to develop a distance education course are no longer as frightening when faculty progress further and further along the technology learning curve.  Improved performances of technology-savvy students add more incentives.

 

 

Motivations to Show the World How To Do It Right
(Duke University Decides to Be in the Education Business Rather Than Merely the Classroom Business)
"THE HOTTEST CAMPUS ON THE INTERNET Duke's pricey online B-school program is winning raves from students and rivals," Business Week, October 27, 1997 --- http://www.businessweek.com/1997/42/b3549015.htm 

Update:  The Duke MBA --- Global Executive MBA Program (formerly called GEMBA) --- http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/gemba/index.html 
As of Fall Semester 2001, there have been over 600 graduates from over 38 nations.  In terms of enthusiasm and alumni giving, this program is a real winner for Duke University.

The Duke MBA - Global Executive is every bit as academically demanding as Duke's other two MBA programs. Global Executive uses the same faculty base, the same rigorous grading standards, and provides the same Duke degree. However, the content has been adjusted to include more global issues and strategies to serve a participant population that has far more global management experience.

  • Like most other Executive MBA programs, the Global Executive program is a lock-step curriculum, meaning that all students take all courses. The courses are targeted at general managers who have or will soon assume global responsibilities. The program is designed for those who want to enhance their career path within their existing company. 
  • International Residencies: International residencies are an important ingredient in a global MBA program as they add to the value and richness of the classroom component by providing various lenses (social, economic, cultural, etc.) through which to view various economies and systems. Instead of simply studying about an economy, Fuqua provides an experiential component which adds value to the learning experience ... 
  • Global Student body: Unlike traditional Executive MBA programs which usually have a regional draw, the flexibility of Global Executive accommodates a student body from around the globe. Not only are the students diverse geographically, but they are also diverse in the types of global management experiences that they bring to the classroom.

For the class entering in May 2001, tuition is $95,000. Tuition includes all educational expenses, a state-of-the-art laptop computer, portable printer, academic books and other class materials, and lodging and meals during the five residential sessions. The tuition does not include travel to and from the residential sites.

You can learn a great deal about the extend of distance education in this program by looking at the academic calendar at http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/gemba/global_cal2001.htm 

Update:  Duke's Online Cross-Continent  MBA --- http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/cc/cc_home.html 
In Fall Semester 2001, there were 220 students tied into two distance education centers (in Durham, N.C. and in Frankfurt) for the Cross-Continent MBA program.

While in Germany in the Summer of 2001, I had dinner with Tom Keller, former Dean of Duke's Fuqua School of Business and Dean of Duke's Cross-Continent MBA Program.  Tom spent two years in the Frankfort headquarters of Duke's Cross-Continent MBA Program.  This program is quite different from the online Global Executive MBA Program, although both are asynchronous online programs and used some overlapping course materials.  

The Duke MBA - Cross Continent program allows high-potential managers to earn an internationally-focused MBA degree from Duke University in less than two years, utilizing a format that minimizes the disruption of careers and family life. It is designed for individuals with three to nine years professional work experience.

The Duke MBA - Cross Continent program will contain course work with a global emphasis in the subject areas of Management, Marketing, Operations, Economics, Finance, Accounting, Strategy and Decision Sciences.

Students will complete 11 core courses, four elective courses and one integrative capstone course to earn their MBA degree. Two courses will be completed during each of the eight terms of the program. Depending upon their choice of electives, students may choose to complete the one-week residency requirements for their sixth and seventh terms at either Fuqua School of Business location in North America or Europe.

The two classes - one on each continent - will be brought even closer together through a transfer requirement built into the program. During the third term, half of the class from Europe will attend the North American residential session and vice versa. In the fourth term, the other half of each class trades locations for one week of residential learning. After the transfer residencies, the students resume their coursework using the same Internet mediated learning methods as before, but with global virtual teams that have now met in a face-to-face setting

World-Class Resources 
When you're linked to Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, you're connected to a world of resources residing on a network with robust bandwidth capabilities. Duke MBA students have secure access to the Duke and Fuqua business library databases as well as a network of Duke faculty and outside experts.

World-Wide Content Delivery 
The virtual classroom can take on many different forms. Here, a faculty member prepares a macroeconomics lecture for distribution via CD ROM and/or the Internet. Students will download this lecture in a given week of study and follow up with discussion and team projects.

Bulletin Board Discussion 
Rich threads of conversation occur during this asynchronous mode of communication. Professors and guest lecturers can moderate the discussion to keep learning focused.

Real-Time Chat Session 
Occurs between students and classmates as well as faculty. Here, a student in Europe discusses an assignment with a professor in the United States
.

 

The topic of motivations is continued at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm 


I am very sad to report that some of the following course developers for prestigious universities have ceased or greatly modified operations:

On August 12, 2000 in Philadelphia, I organized a workshop that included Chuck Hickman when he was the Academic Vice-President of Quisic.  At that time he was very positive about Quisic's course design staff and strategies for developing online college courses.  You can listen to his presentations and download his PowerPoint slides by going to http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm 


Wow Technology of the Week --- "Beam Me Up Scottie!" --- http://www.teleportec.com/products.html 

Teleporters

Our "teleporters" are the systems where the life size image of the presenter is captured and transmitted as a digital signal. The presenter has a workspace that is 40 inches wide and 30 inches high, which is large enough to display the upper body of a person with arm movements.

Teleportec Podium

The system presents a teleported person within the volume of space behind the podium. This system is designed to feature a teleported presenter for an audience from a few to several hundred.

Teleportec Portable Systems

Both the Teleportec teleporters and the podiums can be produced as portable systems. They can be shipped anywhere in the world using air freight. The portable systems can be wheeled through a single door for access to virtually any room.

Teleportec Theatre

Our largest system is 20 feet across with a teleportation zone of 11 feet wide. This system is capable of displaying a group of people head to toe. In addition to permanent installations we can produce Teleportec Theatres that can be transported. The Teleportec Theatres can be used for concerts and special events where the celebrities or performers will be able to make eye to eye contact with the people in the remote locations.

Content for presentations

Teleportec is working with KMA Interactive Media of York to develop presentations and interactive training programs. These custom productions provide clients with unique capabilities to present their message effectively.

Compatibility with Videoconference Standards

Teleportec systems operate on either H320 or H323 videoconference standards for transmission of the life-size images. Clients can select from a wide range of videoconference codecs to connect to the Teleportec products. Teleportec products can be added to existing videoconference networks and can be operated with existing videoconference codecs.


Wow Computers of the Future

Nanocomputing is a step closer as scientists make circuits and transistors at the molecular scale. The components are so small, in fact, they exhibit quantum effects. Could they be the building blocks for super-powerful quantum computers?  

"Nanocomputers Get Real," by Geoff Brumfiel http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48278,00.html 

Ever since Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman suggested that people could build machines the size of atoms, nanotechnology has been on the minds of scientists and sci-fi fans alike.

Nanophiles envision a futuristic world filled with teeny robots that can build diamonds out of the carbon atoms in a sheet of paper, or fly through your body scraping cholesterol off of your artery walls.

These and other spectacular promises have yet to materialize, but two articles published in this week's issue of Science magazine report significant advances in the sub-field of nanoelectronics.

First, a group at Lucent's Bell Labs built a Field-Effect Transistor (FET) from a single molecule.

"FETs are the powerhouse of modern electronics," said team member Jan Hendrik Schön. Creating a molecular-sized FET is the first step in building a nanocomputer.

The team's transistor is an organic molecule about 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It has the added benefit of bonding to plastics and other synthetic materials, something present-day silicon technologies cannot do.

Schön said this special ability might allow computer circuits to become integrated into credit cards and clothing. The fact that the molecule can be stored easily in a liquid solution also opens up the possibility of using ink-jet type technology to "print" processors on sheets of plastic.

The second paper describes how researchers based at Harvard University made semiconducting nanowires that assembled themselves into simple circuits.

"Self assembly is a concept that's been present in biology for billions of years," says Charles Lieber, the leader of the Harvard team.

To apply the self-assembly concept to their DNA-sized nanowires, the researchers grew the wires in a liquid and then squirted it over an array of electrical contacts. The wires attach to specialized glues on the contacts, arranging themselves into complex grids whose intersections behave like miniature FETs. By depositing layers of glues, liquids, and wires, the team was able to create a nanocircuit that could perform basic addition operations.

"I think that eventually you will be able create structures that are so integrated that they go right off the existing roadmap (of existing technology)," Leiber says. But Leiber also sees some long-term potential in quantum computing --computers based on the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics.

"When you make things very small," he explained, "the quantum mechanical features show up."

The nanowires used by the Harvard team are small enough to have quantum mechanical properties. "We don't know how to manipulate those properties very well, but they're there," he said. And with extensive research they might be able to use the wires in a future quantum computer.

"These are impressive achievements," says Ralph Merkle, a principal fellow at Zyvex, the world's first molecular nanotechnology company. Merkle believes that the compact size and enormous processing potential of these technologies might change the way we interact with computers.

"One of the things that's quite remarkable is the extent to which computers have become a vital part of our everyday lives when essentially they are just a box, a screen, and a keyboard," he said.

Molecular processors, he explained, could allow computers to see, hear and interact with humans much more directly. "Rather than us sitting down in front of a shrine, called a monitor, computers will do things in our world," he said.

But do we really need to develop technology so powerful that it can cram all present-day computer power into a space no larger than a sugar cube?

Merkle seems to think so. "Every time people say 'Gosh, what do we need more computer power for?' somebody comes up with a new application. Just take a look at Windows: we're going to need these molecular computers to run Windows 2015."

See also:
It Works: Really Super Tiny Chips
Nanotech Looms Large for Meds
Tiny Capsules Float Downstream
Quantum Mechanics' New Horizons
Mega Steps Toward the Nanochip
Read more Technology news

Also see Bob Jensen's threads on Invisible Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, and Microsoft.Net --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 


Training technologies continue to develop as rapidly as the rest of the technology world. The Internet is offering a whole new range of possibilities for CPA firm trainers. What is this "Online Training," and what does it consist of? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61825 

Bob Jensen's guides for online global training and education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


Several electronic services are to be added to the IRS Web site in time for the 2002 tax filing season. One of the goals of providing these services is to reduce the amount of telephone time required of IRS agents. Taxpayers "won't have to call us up," said IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. "This coming tax season takes away all the reasons not to file electronically." http://www.accountingweb.com/item/63243 


"A Parent's Guide to Insurance for College Students," by: Financial Planning Association --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31657.xml 

The Financial Planning Association homepage is at http://www.fpanet.org/ 

Bob Jensen's financial planning threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.htm 


Related to FAS 133 and IAS 39 Issues --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

Updates on Enron's Creative Accounting Scandal

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on November 8, 2001
Subscribers to the Electronic Edition of the WSJ can obtain reviews in various disciplines by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 
See http://info.wsj.com/professor/ 

TITLE: Arthur Andersen Could Face Scrutiny On Clarity of Enron Financial Reports 
REPORTER: Jonathan Weil 
DATE: Nov 05, 2001 
PAGE: C1 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004919947649536880.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Auditing, Creative Accounting, Disclosure Requirements

SUMMARY: Critics argue that Arthur Andersen LLP has failed to ensure that Enron Corp.'s financial disclosures are understandable. Enron is currently undergoing SEC investigation and is being sued by shareholders. Questions relate to disclosure quality and auditor responsibility.

QUESTIONS: 

1.) The article suggests that the auditor has the job of making sure that financial statements are understandable and accurate and complete in all material respects. Does the auditor bear this responsibility? Discuss the role of the auditor in financial reporting.

2.) One allegation is that Enron's financial statements are not understandable. Should users be required to have specialized training to be able to understand financial statements? Should the financial statements be prepared so that only a minimal level of business knowledge is required? What are the implications of the target audience on financial statement preparation?

3.) Enron is facing several shareholder lawsuits ; however, Arthur Anderson LLP is not a defendant. What liability does the auditor have to shareholders of client firms? What are possible reasons that Arthur Anderson is not a defendant in the Enron cases?

4.) What is the role of the SEC in the investigation? What power does the SEC have to penalize Enron Corp. and Arthur Anderson LLP?

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Should financial statements be understandable to users with only general business knowledge? Prepare an argument to support your position.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University


Related to FAS 133  and IAS 39 Issues 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on November 6, 2001
Subscribers to the Electronic Edition of the WSJ can obtain reviews in various disciplines by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 
See http://info.wsj.com/professor/ 

TITLE: Behind Shrinking Deficits: Derivatives? 
REPORTER: Silvia Ascarelli and Deborah Ball 
DATE: Nov 06, 2001 PAGE: A22 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004996045480162960.djm  
TOPICS: Derivatives 

SUMMARY: An Italian university professor and public-debt management expert issued a report this week explaining how a European country used a swap contract to effectively receive more cash in 1997. That country is believed to be Italy although top officials deny such "window dressing" practices. 1997 was a critical year for Italy if it was to be included in the EMU (European Monetary Union) and become a part of the euro-zone. To qualify for entry, a country's deficit could not exceed 3% of gross domestic product. In 1996 Italy's deficit was 6.7% of GDP, however, the country succeeded in "slashing its budget deficit to 2.7%" in 1997. The question now is whether Italy accomplished this reduction by clamping down on waste and raising revenues or engaging in deceptive swaps usage.

QUESTIONS: 

1.) Why was the level of Italy's budget deficit so critical in 1997? How did Italy's 1997 budget deficit compare with its 1996 level?

2.) What is an interest rate swap? How can the use of swap markets decrease borrowing costs? What is a currency swap? When would firms tend to use these derivative instruments?

3.) Does the European Union condone the use of interest rate swaps by its euro-zone members as a way to manage their public debt? According to the related article, who are the biggest users of swaps in Europe? Do the U.S. and Japan use them to manage their public debt?

4.) According to the related article, interest-rate swaps now account for what proportion of the over-the-counter derivatives market? Go to the web page for the Bank of International Settlement at www.bis.org . Select Publications & Statistics then go to International Financial Statistics. Go to the Central Bank Survey for Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity. Look at the pdf version of the report, specifically Table 6. What was average daily turnover, in billions of dollars, of interest-rate swaps in April 1995? 1998? and 2001? By what percentage did interest-rate swap usage increase from 1995-1998? 1998-2001?

5.) According to the related article, how did the swaps contract allegedly used by Italy differ from a standard swaps contract? What was the "bottom line" result of this arrangement?

6.) Assume Italy did indeed use such measures to "window dress" their financial situation and gain entry into the euro-zone. What actions should be taken to prevent such loopholes in the future?

Reviewed By: 
Jacqueline Garner, Georgia State University and Univ. of Rhode Island 
Beverly Marshall, Auburn University
Peter Dadalt, Georgia State University

--- RELATED ARTICLE in the WSJ --- 

TITLE: Italy Used Complicated Swaps Contract To Deflate Budget in Bid for Euro Zone 
REPORTER: Silvia Ascarelli and Deborah Ball
ISSUE: Nov 05, 2001 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004908712922656320.djm 


In spite of my highly negative views on pro forma statements (see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm ), I will share a more positive case for pro forma forwarded by Janet Flatley.

"Money Managers Say Pro Forma Results Are Useful," by Stephen Taub

Most money managers claim corporate financial reporting needs to be improved. But when it comes to the controversial issue of pro forma earnings, most professional investors say those figures are useful or extremely useful.

Specifically, 9 out of 10 portfolio managers believe that corporate financial reporting needs to be upgraded, according to a survey of 223 fund managers taken in October by New York-based capital markets firm Broadgate Consultants Inc. The survey of portfolio managers was intended to gauge the reaction to recent proposals by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Officials at FASB are contemplating drawing up new standards for financial reporting, and possibly requiring more information about intangible assets to be carried on balance sheets.

Despite recent criticism of pro forma financial reporting, nearly 76 percent of portfolio managers in the survey said they found pro forma accounting at least somewhat useful, and many of these said that it is extremely useful.

In fact, 67 percent of respondents opposed banning pro forma reporting from press releases. However, 91 percent of that two-thirds majority felt that corporations should provide more detail in their pro forma statements.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board last week added a project on financial performance reporting to its agenda. See recent story.

Portfolio managers are somewhat divided about whether FASB should broaden the scope of its project to require companies to include financial metrics such as ratios in their statements. 47 percent said yes to that, while 44 percent voted no.

Even so, 95 percent of the money managers said they would like more consistency in how a common financial metric - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) - is calculated. Sixty percent of managers want more information about intangible assets, and 60 percent want more detailed disclosures about internally generated intangibles, such as the value of brand names or customer lists, to name two.

So, what are the most relevant measures of financial performance? In a tight financial market, cash flow after capital expenditures and interest expense received the highest marks from the portfolio managers. Balance sheet strength came in second. EBITDA and earnings tied for third. Interestingly, book value ranked last.

As for FASB's decision not to categorize the effects of the World Trade Center attacks as an extraordinary item, nearly 55 percent of the managers agreed.

"The results of the survey clearly reveal that professional investors want more detail, precision and clarity in financial statements," said Thomas C. Franco, chairman and chief executive officer of Broadgate, in a press release accompanying the survey's results. "However, it is noteworthy that investors also appear to recognize the obvious limitations with pro forma results, but consider such reporting valuable in assessing the ongoing performance factors driving the businesses they follow."

Read On! For More of Today in Finance http://m.s.maildart.net/link_30322_6594702_1_120093342_73938558_0_7e 


A message from charlesp@cwdom.dm 

Greetings Professor Jensen

I have been reading your threads on Enron and came across this:

Bush Slammed For Giving Big Tax Breaks To Oil Buddies, by Tom Turnipseed, Counterpunch 07/11/2001 The House-passed stimulus package gave the Enron Corporation a $254 million dollar tax relief gift. Enron is a Houston-based energy giant headed by Kenneth Lay, who has been a close friend of George W. Bush and a principal financier of Bush's political endeavors. [ FULL STORY ] . http://www.counterpunch.org/turnipseed5.html 


Updates on Canadian Accounting Standards ---  http://www.cica.ca/cica/cicawebsite.nsf/public/SGAccountingStandards 


Income Tax Updates

The standard rate of mileage for business use of a vehicle is set to increase again, effective January 1, 2002. In addition, rates for deductions of mileage for moving and medical expenses will increase. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/62817 

For links to great sites on tax news, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation 


Hi XXXXX,

Typically firms try to get access to what is called a Bloomberg Terminal that, in turn, accesses a database of forward contracting outcomes for interest rate contracting. These forward rates are then translated into what is called a "yield curve," "swap curve," or "interest rate curve." All these terms mean the same thing. The problem lies in finding such a curve. Investment bankers with Bloomberg Terminals can provide you with this number. Big Five accounting firms have Bloomberg Terminals. Usually clients who enter into interest rate swaps have access to Bloomberg terminals.

You can read more about this under the definition of "yield curve" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm  
Most textbooks on financial instrument derivatives will explain and illustrate what is going on inside the Bloomberg Terminal.

Your problem begins once you have the yield curves at hand for each swap payment period. These yield curve values have to be translated into the present value of the swap. For this I refer you to some documents by Carl Hubbard and me that illustrate how to derive the interest rate swap values for each period in Example 5 of Appendix B of FAS 133.

First you should read the 133ex05a.htm file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/  For your convenience, I have attached the file to this message.

Then you should carefully study the second spreadsheet in the 133ex05a.xls workbook at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/  For your convenience I have attached that file. In the second spreadsheet, you will find the derivation of interest rate swap values in columns M through W.

Then you should get down on your hands and knees and pray for guidance. FAS 133 is a mess, albeit a necessary mess given the really bad state accounting would be in without such a standard to show enormous assets and liabilities at fair values even though their historical costs were zero (as in the case of the initial starting values of interest rate swaps).

Bob (Robert E.) Jensen 
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business 
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212 Voice: (210) 999-7347 Fax: (210) 999-8134 
Email: rjensen@trinity.edu  
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen 

-----Original Message----- 
From: XXXXX
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 3:50 PM 
To: 'rjensen@trinity.edu' Subject: FAS 133 Question

Hello Dr. Jensen,

My name is XXXXX, and I work for an accounting firm in Providence, R.I. We've been having a heck of a time figuring out how to calculate the fair value of and interest rate swap. Our client pays a fixed 8.05% interest and has an interest rate swap contract based on the 1 month LIBOR rate plus 2.25%. We were told by FASB (DIG unit), that we needed to use and "interest rate curve". How do you get or calculate this curve?? Also, is there any other site or examples of calculating the fair value? Obviously our client has one of the more easy derivatives, so it shouldn't be this hard. I've spent the better part of the day search the net for information on this subject since FASB was less than helpful, and stumbled across your site. It seems, after ready some of your information, that there is still a lot of confusion about this subject.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

XXXXX


Dear Accounting Educator:

You are invited to participate in the 2002 AICPA Professor/Practitioner Case Development Program. The program is designed to promote the collaboration of academics and practitioners in the development of real-world-based cases for use in the accounting curriculum.

The program encourages accounting educators and practitioners to jointly develop case materials based on actual incidents or situations. An AICPA task force of educators and practitioners will review all case applications and select up to ten cases for further development. Each selected case will be copyrighted and published by the AICPA for distribution to administrators of accounting programs across the United States. The student notes of the case material will also be made available at AICPA Online. The authors of the selected cases will receive a specially bound volume of all the cases selected for distribution. Accepted cases will be further considered for invited presentation at one of several education oriented conferences such as the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting (AAA-edu.org), the Federation of Schools of Accountancy Annual Meeting ( www.thefsa.org ), or the Colloquium on Change in Accounting Education (www.thecolloquium.com). If selected, both the academic and practitioner authors are expected to participate in the presentation of the case.

Applications must be received by the AICPA by December 1, 2001. Please consider participating in this program designed to foster enhancements in accounting education.

For more information on the program or for an application form, please call (212) 596-6221, e-mail educat@aicpa.org  or visit AICPA Online at http://www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/factsheet.htm 

Thank you.

Leticia B. Romeo 
Coordinator Academic and Career Development 
American Institute of CPAs Tel. (212) 596-6221 Fax (212) 596-6292
lromeo@aicpa.org 

I wrote two cases several years ago for this program.  It was a great experience.  Our "old" cases are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/262wp/262case1.htm#top 


From Syllabus Web on November 6, 2001

HP Inaugurates Campus Notebook PC Program

Hewlett-Packard last week launched a program to provide college students with notebook PCs and service support. The HP Campus Advantage program includes consultation, notebook PCs, call center support, and leasing and financing options. Kevin Learned, president of Albertson College of Idaho, which teamed with HP to offer a similar program this fall, said such technology investments are increasingly an important factor in students choice of school. "The ability for students to have instant access to the tools and information they need ... is a very appealing prospect," he said. HP said it will also be inviting schools to participate in the Annual Laptop Symposium on January 11th at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. The symposium helps schools drive creative uses for their technology.

For more information, visit: http://www.hp.com/go/campusadvantage 


Blackboard Announces e-Education Suite

Blackboard Inc. last week announced a series of product packaging enhancements that will unify its three electronic education platforms under a single suite of products. Customers can now choose between complete or independent licensing of the three primary packages: the Blackboard 5 Learning System, the Blackboard 5 Community Portal System, and the Blackboard Transaction System. In explaining the announcement, Eduventures research group director Adam Newman said, "much as the administrative systems market moved from separate providers of human resource, finance and student records systems into a common suite, we see the e-Education segment of the higher educations technology market converging into suites as well. By taking a suite approach, Blackboard is helping to define the emerging paradigm for deploying Web services that touch the daily student experience, such as Web course environments, community portals, and online commerce."

For more information, visit: http://www.blackboard.com 


Katie Dean's Education Notebook.

A school laptop plan is put on hold after parent opposition. Also: A university offers a certificate in game development.... Berkeley and Columbia business schools offer a joint MBA program --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,48106,00.html 

Bi-coastal biz degree: Business schools at Berkeley and Columbia have paired up to offer a joint executive MBA. The program will launch in June 2002.

The program hopes to take advantage of two of the most important business and technology centers, New York City and Silicon Valley.

The Berkeley-Columbia EMBA, which offers 15 weeks of instruction over 19 months, will alternate between New York and California.


The Trinity University Chaplain, Stephen Nickel, informed me that the Parker Chapel Website is now up and running at http://www.trinity.edu/departments/chapel/index.htm 

I am not certain where all the credits go for this, but some of the early design work credit goes to Tom Hicks.


EDUCAUSE Review 
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 Volume 36, Number 6

To Youth Camp, a Long Farewell by JAMES J. O'DONNELL 
The "youth camp" culture in colleges and universities has resulted in an infantilization that today stands in the way of new ideas and new technologies of strategic importance. 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0160.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0160t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

Five Dirty Little Secrets in Higher Education by LAURA PALMER NOONE and CRAIG SWENSON 
Recent societal and economic forces have called time-honored academic conventions into question, revealing several "dirty little secrets" in higher education. 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0161.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0161t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

The Answer Is Still Technology--Strategic Technology by MILTON D. GLICK, with JAKE KUPIEC 
How effective are colleges and universities in their use of technology, particularly information technology, and are their investments in technology meeting their strategic goals? 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0162.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0162t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

Copyright Assumptions and Challenges by JAMES HILTON 
Assumptions about copyright law are challenging the long-standing academic principle of the free interchange of ideas, both within and outside of the higher education institution. 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0163.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0163t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

Archiving in the Digital Age: There's a Will, But Is There a Way? by KEVIN M. GUTHRIE 
If the academic community's commitment to archiving is to make the transition to the digital age, it needs not only a system for storing and preserving electronic information but also the resources to support this system. 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0164.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0164t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

Recommended Readings on Information Technology Issues 
EDUCAUSE offers a list of readings on each of the top-ten information technology issues identified by the 2001 Current Issues Survey. 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0165.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0165t.pdf
  (non-graphic)

Why Open Source Makes Sense by LINUS TORVALDS and DAVID DIAMOND 
From Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary 
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm01613.pdf
  
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm01613t.pdf
  (non-graphic)


If you downloaded iTunes 2.0 for Mac OS X, you must go back for version 2.0.1 — thanks to a forgotten quotation mark in the code of the 2.0 installer, you may just find your hard drive wiped  clean.  A bug in the just-released version of Apple's popular iTunes software has erased some people's entire hard drives.

Also see http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48149,00.html 


From the University of Virginia (Music, History)
Lift Every Voice --- http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/music/audio.html 
I repeated this from a previous edition of New Bookmarks.  You can download the music.


I know of an instance where campus police gathered evidence of a threatening note sent by one faculty member to another faculty member.  The perpetrator apparently changed the type ball of an IBM Selectric Typewriter in fear that investigators might be able to match the typed note with the typewriter.  However, that same person did not change the ribbon, and campus police found the entire note on the ribbon.  Now similar evidence can be obtained from computer keyboards.

From TechnoScout on November 12, 2001 --- http://www.technoscout.com/general/product/product.asp?product=1620&site=80472 

The KeyKatcher lets you know what your children or employees are typing on the web.

Worried about what your kids might come across on the Internet? Whether your child is working on a school project, or just e-mailing friends, there is a lot on the Internet that they might be subjected to. Now you can know where your child has been on the net, without constantly looking over their shoulder. The KeyKatcher is designed to monitor what is going on during Web use on your computer simply by plugging it in to your keyboard port of your PC. This attachment records keystrokes without any software involved and can be moved without a trace. After setting up the KeyKatcher to record, every tap made on your keyboard is stored in a Flash RAM. The 32-Kbit holds over 32,000 keystrokes, or about 16 pages. The innovative design includes a tamper-evident seal, so you will know if someone has tried to remove it. It even monitors chat rooms and instant messaging, and lets you use your own custom password, so only you have access. Its memory also remains intact if unplugged, and through power outages. This monitor can be your eyes at home, or even at your business if you want to make sure your employees are staying on task. The KeyKatcher is subject to privacy laws in your state.

The KeyKatcher homepage is at http://www.keykatcher.com/ 


Donna Dubinsky reflects on her 15 years as a company executive and releases 15 "lessons" she's gained from them --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/holidays/0,1882,47844,00.html 


Oh! Oh!

"Brain scans can reveal liars," by Emma Young, New Scientist, November 12, 2001 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991543 

Brain scans can reveal whether someone is lying or telling the truth, US researchers have discovered. When people lied, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans revealed significant increases in activity in several brain regions.

Daniel Langleben and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania hope fMRI could be used for more accurate forensic lie detection. The widely used polygraph test is based on changes in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and the electrical resistance of the skin. But these factors can vary widely among individuals, making it more difficult to establish whether someone really is telling the truth.

Langleben's team gave 18 people an object to hide in their pockets. They were then shown a series of pictures, including one of the object itself. As each picture was presented, the participants were instructed to deny that it matched their hidden object.

When there was a match, and the person was lying, activity in several regions increased. This included the anterior cinglate, which is associated with response inhibition and error monitoring, and the adjacent right superior frontal gyrus, which plays a key role in attention.

The results suggest there is a "localised brain correlate of deception", the team says.

Saint Augustine

"The fact that deception requires extra work in a number of brain regions may indicate that the deception involves inhibition of the 'default' response - truth," adds Langleben. "Interestingly, this agrees with the traditional definition of deception dating back to Saint Augustine: 'Deception is denial of truth'."

Previous attempts to use fMRI to identify brain changes when someone is lying have failed. Langleben suspects that the simplicity of the task used in his team's experiment may help explain their success.

"The main strength of our study was adapting a simple and very well known test that has been used forensically and in research to detect deception with polygraphs and EEGs since the 1950s," he told New Scientist.

Cultural differences

However, more work is necessary before fMRI lie detection could be used for legal purposes, he says.

"Our study shows only an average difference in brain activity between lying and telling the truth in a group of young and healthy English-speaking people. In order to determine whether fMRI can be used to detect deception in any individual, much larger groups of different ages, cultures and socio-economic status should be studied."

Using fMRI also involves using large, expensive scanners, making it much less practical to use than a polygraph test.


Yahoo! Warehouse - buy and sell used, overstock, and clearance goods --- http://warehouse.yahoo.com/ 

Bob Jensen's marketing links can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm 


Linux future still murky

Gartner Group analyst George Weiss says Linux's achievements do not remove significant questions about its future. http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?159783:2700840 


The U.S. government takes its anti-Taliban campaign online --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48294,00.html 

Muslim Life in America -- DOS http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/muslimlife/homepage.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism and the war are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


National Geographic for Kids (of any age) --- http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngforkids/ 


Internet, Ethernet, Firewall, File Transfer Protocol, TCP/IP connections - say what? Here's an online reference site that provides definitions for technology terms - everything from firewalls to TCP/IP connections. The site turns tech jargon into accessible definitions that even your grandmother would understand. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61891 

Bob Jensen's guides to acronyms and technology terms --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 


For the first time, the legal arm of a Big Five firm has made it into the top 10 in annual rankings of the Global 100 law firms. The survey, compiled jointly by The American Lawyer and London- based Legal Business, analyzes growth, earnings, and productivity of firm members. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/62694 


Broadband use is slowing down just as entertainment subscription services are set to launch. Without high-speed networks, the future of online entertainment is in trouble --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,47968,00.html 


Vision 101 (Health) --- http://www.1800contacts.com/vision101/frames.html 
Explains how vision works and how to take care of your eyes.
I suggest that you click on the option to Skip the Introduction.


HIV/AIDS Bureau - provides low-income funding for HIV/AIDS care --- http://hab.hrsa.gov/ 


Book Recommendations from AccountingWEB 

Creating Rainmakers: The Manager's Guide to Training Professionals to Attract New Clients

Based on over 100 interviews with principals in professional firms, including many of today's preeminent rainmakers, "Creating Rainmakers" shows readers how to turn a professional staff into a powerful team of sales winners. The book cover generating leads, building a strong network of contacts, mastering a variety of sales techniques, and more. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558508465/accountingweb 

Million-Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice

Smaller staffs, greater job complexity, and higher performance goals are boosting the demand for consultants. This acclaimed how-to resource gives consultants the tools and advice they need to grow a firm that rakes in a $1 million a year. Step by step it shows how to raise capital, reel in new clients, set fees, accelerate growth, and more. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0070696284/accountingweb 

 


From AccountingWEB Resource Guide on November 16, 2001

Small Business Manager is the affordable, interconnected financial and business management solution from Microsoft Great Plains. Designed specifically for small, growing businesses, Small Business Manager allows you to efficiently input, organize and access the information you need to drive your business. When you've got greater functionality requirements than an out-of-the- box accounting solution provides but you're not yet ready for an elaborate software package, Small Business Manager is your ideal choice. Visit http://www.greatplains.com/smallbusinessmanager  and register to attend a free online seminar!

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for small businesses are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#Smallbusiness 


From a fraternity brother of mine long ago in my past.
"Resolution, Not Compromise, Builds Coalition Appeasing the Muslim 'street' is a recipe for defeat,"
BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY, November 12, 2001 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/rbartley/?id=95001456 


From Syllabus News on November 13, 2001

Financial Aid Companies Offer Assistance Via New Web Site

American Education Services (AES), a financial aid organization, and Allfirst Bank plan to provide affordable student loans to African-American students through HBCUmentor.org, a new website providing information, electronic tools and applications for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Through a web interface, students can search for HBCUs that best meet their needs, take multimedia campus tours, communicate directly with schools via free email accounts and submit applications online. The system provides students 24-hour access to a virtual "mentor" that interacts with the student, counseling them according to their interests, academic abilities, high school course studies, extracurricular activities and special needs. During the website's first month online, it registered more than 7,700 visitors.

For more information, visit: http://www.hbcumentor.org  


Memphis Alumnus to Head FedEx Technology Institute

James Phillips, chief executive officer of media software company Interactive Pictures Corp., was named executive director of the FedEx Technology Institute at the University of Memphis. The Institute, a partnership between Federal Express Corp. and The University of Memphis, will prepare students for technical, cross- functional business environments. Its graduates are expected to be fluent in information technology and will have access to the most up-to-date information technology for learning and research. Ground was broken in May 2001 for the building that will house the Institute. Completion is expected in 2003.


Online U. Offers Continuing Ed Web Services

Online Capella University has launched a web-based assessment tool for adults considering continuing their education. The "2-Minute Advisor" is an interactive tool designed to provide people individual course and program recommendations based on their interests and specific needs. The Advisor online questionnaire provides recommendations on courses or programs that best match a person's interests and goals; an assessment of their learning style; reference and research material to help with their decision; and information on financial aid. "Everybody has questions about continuing their education, but few people take the time to meet with an advisor, said Steve Shank, chancellor of the school. The advisor gives people "quick access to the information they need to make an informed decision."

For more information, visit: http://www.capellauniversity.edu 


Indiana Statesman Launches New Web Site

The Indiana Statesman, the campus newspaper of Indiana State University, launched a redesigned website to provide more comprehensive news and campus information. The site enables the staff to run breaking news, feedback on stories, and to use stories from other campus newspapers around the country. The newspaper developed the site with Digital Partners Inc., a Lincoln, Neb.-based company which provides technology and marketing services to online college newspapers. The company syndicates stories through a network that includes newspapers at the universities of Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Indiana Statesman publishes three times a week to 7,000 copies to students, staff and faculty.

For more information, visit: http://www.indianastatesman.com 

 


Kentucky Virtual U. Adds Online Tutoring

Kentucky Virtual University opened registration for Spring 2002 with new online services, including free online tutoring, Sunday call center hours and an online writing center. Acting chief executive officer Daniel Rabuzzi said the services "are designed to create a high- touch environment for students plugged into class over the Internet. Live tutors are now just a click away, and in some subjects, are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Students can schedule tutoring sessions in subjects ranging from basic math to Calculus II, accounting, chemistry, economics, Spanish and statistics. The tutoring will remain free through mid- May 2002 and is available through an arrangement with the University of Kentucky.

For more information, visit: http://www.kyvu.org 

 

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 
Especially note the document at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


Learn how to account for business combinations, goodwill, and other intangible assets. Andersen's Executive Summary and NEW Controller's Supplement identify the provisions and action steps needed to implement Statements 141 and 142. These documents also contain a topic-by-topic comparison of the new rules and prior rules. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/62265 

The FEI has put together some helpers on accounting for business combinations at  
http://cvccommunications.com/2/BusinessCombinations.html
 


Bill Gates addresses the opening of Comdex and admits personal computers don't work very well. Microsoft will fix the problems in the next 10 years, he says --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/exec/0,1370,48323,00.html 


A newly discovered flaw in the way that Internet Explorer handles Web site cookies could enable an attacker to view and edit a user's personal data contained in the cookies. The vulnerability affects all versions of IE, but is mitigated by several factors, according to a bulletin released last week by Microsoft Corp. Under normal operation, Web sites are only able to access the cookies for their site on a given user's machine. By crafting a URL with specific contents, an attacker could gain access to cookies for other sites and edit the contents of the files by injecting a script. Read the story at http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D701%2526a%253D18121,00.asp 


Many once-vaunted e-commerce sites are dead and gone, but often the merchandise they didn't sell is still floating around on the Net. Joanna Glasner takes a look at where it can be found --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/business/0,1367,48189,00.html 


Forwarded by David Spiceland

The Business Editorial Review team of MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is inviting academics from all disciplines to become External Reviewers. MERLOT is a cost free means of viewing learning materials developed by other instructors. Viewers can become Members with only a last name and address, although access is available to non-members also. Members are able to contribute their own materials as well as write User Comments for others.

MERLOT can be accessed at the following site:

http://www.merlot.org

The criteria for being an External Reviewer are that the individual be an instructor at an institute of higher learning and that he/she has demonstrated expertise in the discipline, is recognized for excellence in teaching, has experience using technology in teaching, and has participated in the activities of the discipline association(s).

An External Reviewer is partnered with a member of the Editorial Review Board to conduct Expert Peer Reviews on a learning module in their discipline. In addition to contributing to the discipline, serving as an External Reviewer enables the individual to become more familiar with the types of learning material available. After completion of the review, the External Reviewer is recognized for his/her contribution.

Accounting is one of the many sub-disciplines found on MERLOT.

Individuals interested in serving as External Reviewers should contact:

Cathy Owens Swift,
Business Co-Editor
Georgia Southern University PO Box 8140 Statesboro, GA 30460-8140
cswift@gasou.edu  912-681-5217


A Wired News Q&A with Fahad Al Sharekh, whose company, Ajeeb.com, just rolled out what he claims is the Internet's first free Arabic-to-English translation service --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/culture/0,1284,48260,00.html 


In the face of the Taliban's hell-bent quest to destroy all vestiges of arts and culture in the country, one man with a website hopes to keep Afghanistan's history alive --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47842,00.html 

The website includes images of contemporary and historical Afghan artists, stories about Afghanistan, and Afghan music, fiction and poetry. Azad compiled his work through networking and reporting. While he makes no money off of his website, he has since left his job in the technology sector to devote all of his time to building and maintaining the site.

Afghanmagazine.com details the demise of cultural centers in Afghanistan.

"Herat is a city in Western Afghanistan that had gone through a renaissance right before the Soviet invasion," Azad said. "You can still sense the beauty of the city, but most of the cultural heritage has been destroyed."

The Afghan National Museum and the National Contemporary Art Gallery in Kabul have been looted, while any remaining artwork has also been demolished. In fact, most Afghan art is now unaccounted for due to archival destruction.

"In 1996, in order to keep the rebels warm, the entire card catalog archiving the art at the Afghan National Museum was burned," Azad said.

Geographic location made Afghanistan the epicenter for the arts and gave it worldwide importance. Within one valley in Afghanistan, rare Greek coins were found, Buddhist statues were erected and pottery depicting deities from Islam, Judaism and Christianity were unearthed, Azad said.

Afghanistan was immensely rich in the arts from prehistory to the 17th century, according to Thomas Leisten, an assistant professor of Islamic art and architectural history at Princeton University. Gold was discovered from the first century, while Greek temples were built when Afghanistan was ruled by the successors of Alexander the Great.

"The art of Afghanistan is not Afghan in the sense of a national art," Leisten wrote in an e-mail. "For most of its history, the cities in western Afghanistan belonged culturally and for times historically to eastern Iran."

That may explain why international art historians have not been more vocal in preserving Afghanistan's culture. They're not sure where the art belongs.

Furthermore, the Afghan Service of Antiquities, an organization that sold Afghan art to other countries, had a terrible reputation for selling art and antiques at wholesale prices to dealers in Europe and the United States.

The Taliban's role in the destruction of art in Afghanistan has been widely documented. Earlier this year, Buddhist statues imbedded in the mountains were blown up because of the Taliban's extreme religious beliefs prohibiting Muslims from viewing any cultural artifacts depicting religions other than their own.

"As for Buddhist and Hindu monuments, it may be connected to a saying of the Prophet Muhammad who ordered (other religious) idols to be destroyed when he cleansed the Kaaba in Mecca," Leisten wrote. "While Muslim rulers and regimes over centuries had apparently no problem with the existence of the Buddhas, the Taliban are taking a deliberately fundamentalist course concerning pre-Islamic antiquities."

Other Afghan Americans are taking an active role in responding to the destruction.

Amanullah Haiderzad, an Afghan sculptor who established the fine arts department at Kabul University, is trying to establish an Afghan-American art and cultural museum in New York City. But he said raising funds for the project is difficult because Afghans are generally not wealthy, and have only recently immigrated to the United States.

"My goal is to bring cultural and historical pride to the new generation of Afghan-Americans," he said. "Right now, we have nothing. This center would not only help to understand our heritage, but to get to know each other now."

Although the media still portrays Afghanistan as a barren, poverty-stricken country with no infrastructure, Azad said there is still a slight cultural presence in the country.

"A reporter recently went to the refugee camps there, and some of the masters were still painting," he said. "They were keeping the art alive."

See also:
Risking All to Expose the Taliban
Afghanistan, on 50 Websites a Day
Give Peace a Website
After Bullets Fly: War of Words
Discover more Net Culture


"Feminists Agonize Over War in Afghanistan What Women Want." by Sharon Lerner, The Village Voice, November 6, 2001 --- http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0144/lerner.php 

A year ago, when women's rights and peace advocate Hibaaq Osman was giving a speech at the United Nations, she cited only one cause for which the use of military force might be justified: to oust the oppressive Taliban regime from Afghanistan. Now that the bloody effort is under way, however, Osman, who heads the Center for Strategic Initiatives in Washington, feels differently.

"I said it, but I was just making a point," a distraught Osman recalls. "This predicament is a test for feminists. We have seen our worst nightmare—women being dehumanized and shot in public—and it makes us more radical. It makes us angry enough to entertain the idea of war. But do I support war?" Osman pauses to consider her own country, Somalia, with its brutal history, before bursting out with an emotional "No. No. No. War is not OK under any circumstances," and then concluding, "The whole thing simply breaks my heart."

The four-week-old military attack on Afghanistan is proving to be an excruciating dilemma for feminists. In heart-wrenching conversations and e-mail exchanges across the city and the globe, feminists find themselves split over how to handle possibly the most misogynistic regime in history. Many are deeply uncomfortable with the specter of a wealthy nation bombing a poor and already ravaged one—a discomfort that is only deepened by the knowledge that more women than men die as a result of most wars. And as national loyalties are stoked by current events, feminists are further strained to reconcile their patriotism with the desire to reach out to women throughout the globe.

Perhaps most frustrating has been the world's failure to heed feminists' urgent warnings about the Taliban, which they've been decrying since it took power in 1996. Under the fundamentalist militia's rule, women have been publicly executed for such "crimes" as traveling with men who are not their relatives and being suspected of adultery. The government has banned women from work, education, and examination by male doctors. Women have even been forbidden from making noise when they walk (the sound draws men's attention, according to Taliban rulers).

Back in 1997, the Feminist Majority's Eleanor Smeal was among the first to sound alarms about the ghastly treatment of Afghan women, urging the U.S. against diplomatic recognition of the Taliban and to halt construction of a pipeline through Afghanistan that would have supplied millions in profits to the regime. The pipeline project was eventually stopped, but others of the group's suggestions, including a U.S. designation of the Taliban as an international terrorist organization, have yet to be carried out.

Perhaps it's no surprise that some feminists, including Smeal, now feel the backward and violent regime deserves whatever it gets. The rare overlap between feminist and military interests made for particularly warm relations in the greenroom at an NBC station in Los Angeles when Smeal met up with three generals who were about to appear on Chris Matthews's Hardball. "They went off about the role of women in this effort and how imperative it was that women were now in every level of the air force and navy," says Smeal, who found herself cheered by the idea of women flying F-16s. "It's a different kind of war," she says, echoing the president's assessment of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Indeed, the gender gap in support for this U.S. military effort is unusually small. Historically, female support for war has lagged between 10 and 15 percent behind men's, according to Joshua Goldstein, author of War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. But in a recent survey released by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 79 percent of women, compared to 86 percent of men, said they support the ongoing military intervention, a near parity Goldstein believes may be explained by the fact that the Taliban is anathema to women.

Continued at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0144/lerner.php 


Historic Weapons Collection --- http://www.kattnet.com/arms/ 


Warship (History) --- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/warship/ 


Apple CEO Steve Jobs calls Microsoft's Office X "possibly the most important application for Mac OS X." --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48160,00.html 


Forwarded by Diane Graves

Copyright issues and concerns:

"…Not every use, even every educational use, is likely to be defined as fair use. Higher education institutions need to develop up-to-date, reliable, consistent, and clear copyright related standards for use. "Who uses what" and "how they use it" have become pressing issues, in large part because new media sources and the emergence of the Web allow for the widespread dissemination of material. As such, they raise the stakes considerably from the days when distribution was limited to students physically enrolled in classes.

Institutions must accompany these standards with a campaign to energize and educate the community about copyright, an issue that is complex and often seems as though it should be someone else's problem. Faculty, staff, and students should know when they can use material under "fair use," when they must obtain permission (and how to obtain it), and when and how they can obtain alternative sources of the material (e.g., through commissioned works or from the public domain.).

Institutions must decide how much and what kinds of risks are worth taking with regard to use. …. Institutions that take a liberal position regarding fair use risk exposing themselves to litigation and the financial costs associated with it.

Regardless of the specific position taken regarding fair use, institutions need to nurture a culture of compliance with copyright law. This culture requires education and resources. If a coherent use policy is created but faculty, staff, and students lack access to the resources needed to comply (e.g., easy copyright clearance, alternative sources for copyright material, help finding things in the public domain), the policy will be ignored.

Excerpted from: James Hilton, "Copyright Assumptions and Challenges," EDUCAUSE Review, November/December 2001, pp.48-55.

Helpful web sites:

Friends of Active Copyright Education: http://www.law.duke.edu/copyright/face/ 

Copyright Clearance Center: http://www.copyright.com/ 

Copyright Management Center at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (Includes link to Fair Use Checklist) http://www.iupui.edu/~copyinfo/ 

CREDO: Copyright Resources for Education Online (Columbia University) http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/text_version/projects/copyright/ILTcopy0.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm 


Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collections Online http://mweb.lacma.org/ 

Exeter Cathedral Keystones and Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Sculptures & Their Polychromy http://www.exetercathedral.co.uk 

Welcome to Exeter Cathedral Keystones & Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures & Their Polychromy, an illustrated introduction to, and explanatory catalogue of all the figurative sculpture that is part of the original interior fabric of the medieval building.

This extensive web-site is designed primarily for art historians and medievalists, but is also intended to enable lay people to enjoy the wonderful medieval work which can often be seen more clearly here than is possible within the building, even through binoculars.


During its third global meeting held last week in Sydney, Australia the XBRL.org Consortium announced that one of its member organizations, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), is providing a core taxonomy of XBRL for Financial Statements to members of XBRL.org for approval after receiving public comment. Go to http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2242.html 

Bob Jensen's XBRL links and threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 


"XBRL Software Tool Offers Relief From Data Transfer Woes," by: National Network of Accountants --- http://www.smartpros.com/x31679.xml 

A new way of communicating financial data promises to make auditing more efficient, speed up the small business loan processing, make it easier for financial planners to track client investments and cut down on the work required to convert from one accounting software package to another. Say hello to XBRL, a software tool coming soon to an accounting program near you.

XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is an offshoot of XML (Extensible Markup Language), the emerging favorite for transaction processing over the Web. Its language is a cousin to HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the common idiom for presenting text online and one that you may have worked with.

Let's forget the alphabet soup for the moment and zero in on why a CPA will find XBRL useful.

Consider first how many different accounting software packages your various clients use. It's bad enough that you must learn enough about each one to assess their control strengths and weaknesses, or that you must figure what combination of reports gives you the answers you need. On top of that, you often can't use that information without re-keying it (re-entering it by hand) into your own write-up system, or using a data export process that seldom works as advertised.

What's the upshot of this situation? Staff time spent re-keying client data; calls to the system administrator when the export macro bombs because of a wayward comma in a delimited file; supervisory headaches when the junior accountant mixes up the entry for cash and fixed assets. Even programs like F9 or FRx that read balances directly from accounting program into a spreadsheet don't solve the problem entirely, since many programs (QuickBooks to name one!) don't work with them. This confusion, miscommunication and software glitches can consume many hours of staff and professional time that can and should be used for other more important matters.

In addition to write-up efficiencies, XBRL will soon help CPAs and their clients to:

Speed up business loans by transmitting financial statements, aging and cash flow reports from the applicant's computer directly to the bank's. Download SEC filings into your financial analysis tool of choice, without a significant amount of cut and paste. Make it easier for the small business owner of multiple companies to see their macro financial picture. Pull in data from a payroll service provider from their Web-based site into the client's in-house omputer. Save big bucks converting data files when upgrading computer programs, by doing all exports and imports via XBRL. How will it work? XBRL proponents say it will solve the communication problem by setting up a standard translation mechanism between incompatible programs. It involves a two-part solution: taxonomy and a schema. These are "techie" terms for a common vocabulary and a presentation hierarchy. The taxonomy tells us the elements of a financial statement, and the schema tells us the order in which it goes.

Also see

IASB Provides XBRL Global Spec for Financial Statements
By SmartPros
The XBRL.org Consortium announced that the International Accounting Standards Board -- one of its members -- is providing a core taxonomy of XBRL for Financial Statements to members of XBRL.org for approval after receiving public comment.
XBRL Project Gets Backing From Software Vendor
By SmartPros
Yet another software vendor, FRx Software Corp., has thrown its support behind the XBRL specification for Financial Statements released by the XBRL Consortium.

Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 


The National Network of Accountants homepage is at http://www.nnaplan.com/ 

Founded in 1992 as a practice-building resource for accounting professionals, the National Network of Accountants, Specializing in Financial Planning (NNA) has successfully trained between 200 and 300 accounting firms annually in the science of financial planning, and has supported them in the integration of this AICPA - sanctioned specialty into their practices.

In sanctioning financial planning as the first -- and only -- practice specialty, the Institute recognized two important factors affecting today's accounting practitioner: the market for accounting services is shrinking and becoming more competitive; and a growing number of clients are looking for one-stop financial planning services from their accountants.

The NNA program is quite unique. They utilize a 3-pronged approach that generates a number of welcome benefits to the accounting practitioner in today's environment:

INCREASED REVENUE FROM THE CLIENT BASE STEADY FLOW OF REFERRALS TO NEW CLIENTS WIDER RANGE OF PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AVAILABLE TO CLIENTS SOLIDIFICATION OF EXISTING CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS EXPANSION OF PRACTICE INTO UNTAPPED MARKETS ACCESS TO A MORE DIVERSE PROFESSIONAL NETWORK

The training program prepares the practitioner to interface with his clients effectively in the financial planning arena by teaching him how to gather the necessary information to construct a plan; how to establish a client's goals, objectives and attitudes toward planning issues; how to present a finished plan to a client; and how to market his practice through the financial planning process. An overview of selected creative planning techniques is also presented regularly to members , to give the members a flavor for the opportunities this new practice specialty will offer both his clients and himself.

The NNA generates written comprehensive plans for the accountants, and provides a complete back-office support system, including unlimited access to a cadre of professional resources with expertise in a broad range of technical specialties (such as qualified plans, estate planning and asset allocation).

Therefore, the accountant does not have to invest in software, training of support personnel, or plan development time. The NNA handles all software updates and compliance issues. Working with each accountant, a designated NNA professional designs a financial plan that is consistent not only with the client's goals and objectives, but also with the style and approach of the accountant. This is a vital component. It permits the accountant to generate a high quality written plan for his client - at minimal cost. The NNA guarantees a 15-day turnaround after receipt of the completed client confidential data.

A crucial element of the NNA program is their marketing system. Many opportunities for a new client development and practice growth are found in the financial planning process - but they are not readily apparent. Through an insightful 8-Step Marketing Program, as well as appropriate collateral material and support, the accountant is trained to effectively market both their financial planning service and their tax and accounting practice.

Interested practitioners should call 1-800-234 PLAN Ext. 268,or E-Mail us at nna92@aol.com  for more information.

Bob Jensen's threads on XBRL are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 


File-trading systems may face a dim future in court and the Internet bubble may have burst, but peer-to-peer fans say their technology remains promising. Now all they need to do is figure out how to make it profitable --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48231,00.html 

Bob Jensen's P2P threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm 

Bob Jensen and Jason Xiao have a new paper focusing on file sharing in accountancy:  
Those of you that paid $20 for a password to American Accounting Association journals may download the paper as instructed above by Craig Polhemus:

"Customized Financial Reporting, Networked Databases, and Distributed File Sharing," by Robert E. Jensen and Jason Zezhong Xiao, Accounting Horizons, September 2001, pp. 209-202 --- http://aaahq.org/ic/browse.htm 


Apple has been hit with a $40 million racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a former African-American employee. He's hired a hotshot lawyer with a track record: the largest racial discrimination case in U.S. legal history --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48154,00.html 


The Shortlist Prize for Artistic Achievement --- http://www.shortlistofmusic.com/ 
You can download RAP from this site.


Student Project Team Evaluations

I have used the Issues in Accounting Education case, "An Anticipatory Case for Managing Teams and Team projects". (Vol 14, No 1, Feb 1999) This sets the team "ground rules" for evaluation. Appendix B shows the same type of grading scheme as mentioned by Hossein. 

Barb Edwards, M.Acc., CA 
Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6 Email
: bjedwards@sfu.ca 


From Applications Development Trends, November 2001, pp. 41-44.

ROI: Data mining's bottom line --- http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=5639

By Lana Gates

Easier-to-use and embeddable data mining tools carrying shrinking price tags enable many more IT organizations to sift through complex data for kernels of gold.

Data mining tools first came on the scene about five years ago as a way to extract pertinent data from data warehouses. Prior to the emergence of these types of tools, finding the data you wanted required knowing the right questions to send to the data warehouse. Data mining tools, however, look at data statistically and notice certain things that would take a human too many hours to track.

In the past, the problem with data mining tools was their cost. Although seemingly useful tools, companies could not afford their up-front expense. And because data mining tools employ mathematical algorithms to track data, they were difficult for non-technical end users to operate, often requiring someone with a mathematical and/or statistical background to handle them.

This has changed as more tools have entered the market, become easier to use and dropped in price. Data mining tools today are priced anywhere from $2,000 to $500,000, with good tools available at both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. The difference among the tools is in what they can do, the size of the database they can work with and the complexity of the problems they can handle.

Regardless of price and complexity, the tools are all cost-effective. "In data mining, the payoffs are very clear," noted data management guru Herb Edelstein, president of Two Crows Corp., Potomac, Md. "You can predict your payoff and measure whether you got it."

Continued at -- http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=5639

 


Data mining & Knowledge Discovery:  Databases In business decisions

Note from Bob Jensen: 
Before reading the message below, you may want to read about Data Mining at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#DataMining 

The following message takes you much deeper into this fascinating topic.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dr.Vijay Pithadia Ph.D.M.Comm.C.P.S.T. [mailto:vijaypithadia@lycos.com]  
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 1:22 AM

Data mining & Knowledge Discovery:  Databases In business decisions

Dr. Vijay Pithadia
Doctor of Philosophy [1996 - 99]
Master & Bachelor of Commerce [1991-96]
Electronics Technocrat [1985 - 89]

Academic Staff, Dept. of Social Work [MSW] Saurashtra University

[Vijaypithadia@sify.com

ABSTRACT:

Today computerization of many business and government transactions related to activities and decisions generates the floods of data by large and simple transaction i.e. tax returns, telephone calls, business trips, performance tests and product warranty registration are being handled through computer. For the processing the data now are days many traditional and statistical methods of data analyses i.e. ad-hoc queries and spreadsheets are used for to obtained informative reports from data but they can’t give the knowledge from data. In the present paper how the data mining and KDD technology can facilitates analyses of the data in order to get the important knowledge hidden inside the data. The second aim of this study is to awareness among the Indian Universities Teachers, Industries- Organizations people and also among software professionals to generate projects and to promote the technology in business decisions.

Key Words: Data Mining, Process, Techniques, Finance,Banking, SCM,IIT-K,Kanpur, ISI-C,Kolkata,KDD

Data Availability: Data used in this paper are available from public sources identified in the study.

 

I thank Subir Hari Singh, Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi, Roger Barker, Morehead State University, Kentucky, S. Ganesan, Alagappa University, karaikudi, Mangesh Koregaonkar, Indian Institute of Technology -B, Mumbai, A.G. Balasubranian, Goa University, Goa, Gabriel Hawawini, INSEAD, Cedex, Nitin Kumar Jain, Indian Institute of Technology -D, New Delhi, Deepak Suchdey, President, Rajkot Management Association, Rajkot, P. L. Bali, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology ,Patiala, C.S.G. Krishnamacharyalu, S.V. University, Tirupati, and Umesh Makawana, government Engineering College, Gandhinagar for making meaningful comments and suggestions. I also thank K I Device, A D B Kompany, Jakarta, Sanjay Mehta, Student of MSW, and Bakul Kakadia, Student of B.E. (IT) for research coad Juvancy.

[1] Introduction

Since last couple of years a term Data Mining is being heard from computer professionals. Data Mining [DM] is a new class of intelligent analytical method having ability to intelligently and automatically assist humans in analyzing the mountains of data for nuggets of useful knowledge. Data mining is an iterative process of extracting interesting knowledge from data in large databases. Where knowledge could be rules, patterns, regularities, relationships, constraints etc. Secondly knowledge should be valid and potentially useful and third the hidden information in the data that is useful. Where as KDD is the over all process of finding and interpreting knowledge from data.

The subject goal is extracting knowledge from data in context of large databases and to make patterns/ Knowledge in understandable forms to human beings in order to justify a better understanding of the underlying data. The emerging technology KDD having a multi step process which uses Data Mining Methods [Algorithms] to extract [Identify] what is hidden knowledge in the data according to specifications of measures. Thus data mining underlying prediction on similar groups of data and Description involves findings human interpretable patterns describing the data in business and industry from Financial Management, Marketing Management, and Economic Surveys of companies to Insurance, Banking and maintenance areas of Business.

[2] Basic Steps of KDD Process

Few of the basic steps of KDD process are discussed here;

[1] Problem Analysis: It is based on manual procedure. The main function is to understanding application domain and requirements of user related to developing prior knowledge for domain.

[2] Selection of Target data: Creating target data set and Selecting a data set or its subset on which discovery is to be performed by automatic way.

[3] Data Processing: The third step of KDD process involves removing noise/ handling missing data based on automatic program.

[4] Transformation of Data: This procedure is made manually where data reduction and projection are made and finding useful fields/features/attributes of data according to goal of the problem.

[5] Data Mining: Selection of data mining goal, choosing method according to task and extracting knowledge and analyzing/verifying knowledge.

It is based on automatic manner.

[6] Output Analysis and Review: Interpretation and evaluation the knowledge/ pattern transforms knowledge; rules reports, automatic usage and follow up for new predictions.

[3] Techniques for Data Mining

For the purpose of Data Mining htere are many techniques used. Some most popular and commonly techniques i.e. Neural Networks, Nearest Neighbour Method And Decision Tree are Discussed.

[1] Neural Networks : It is based on non- linear predictive model and better for Financial Related areas. Some of the sample systems are OWL (Hyper Logic, USA), Brain Maker ( CSS, USA ) Neuro Shell ( Word Systems Group, USA )

[2] Nearest Neighbor Method: This techniques classifies each record in a data set based on a combination of the classes of the K- record/s related to it in a historical data set [ where K is greater than or equal to 1 ] and therefore it is some times called as K- nearest neighbor techniques. Sample systems i.e. TiMBL,PEBLS etc.

[3] Decision Tree: A Decision Tree consist of nodes and branches; beginning node called root. Depending upon the results of a test the data is classified into various subsets. The end result is a set of rules with all possibilities.This method is useful in certain algorithms represent decisions. These decision generates rules for classification of a data set. Specific Decision Tree method include Classification and Regression Trees [CART] and Chi - Square Automatic Interaction Detection [CHAID] Sample systems i.e. Clementine ( Integral Solutions, UK) IDIS ( Information Discover,USA) ID3, CS.0 ( Rule Quest, Australia) etc.

[4] Data Mining Solutions for Business

The application areas of DM techniques are useful in business decisions. Some of the potential areas are i.e. Banking, Finance, Survey’s related to Customer satisfaction, Market, Buying behavior, Customer characteristics, Economic, Direct Marketing.The details are described below

[a] Financial Market : In the financial market,using various imperical models of market behaviour,technical analysis for forecasting price dynamics and selecting the optimal structure of investment portfolio can be justified.Such systems have special interfaces for laoding financial data.i.e. Supercharts (Omega Research,USA)wall street money (Market Arts,USA)etc Data mining methods are also facilitates the analysis and slection of stocks and other financial instruments.

[b] Banking : In the banking functions such as mortgage approval,loan underwriting,money lending/borrowing,loyal customer prediction,stock trading rules identification etc are the important areas for Data Mining.This system also predict the characteristics of ATM card users who sale the cards at point of sale.A system can evolve prediction models for several levels of card usage,based on parameters such as customer age,average checking account balance,return per month,number of cheques etc.In the case of mortgage loans data mining system facilitate an excellent set of discrimination rules by only 8% error rate.The input parameters are account information i.e. loan source,rates and loan to the value as well as borrower demographic information.

[c] Database Marketing : In the business world database marketing is the most successful application.The main functions of data base marketing are analyses customer data base,find patterns of existing customer preferences,to target slection of future customers.Many companies are using database marketing techniques,i.e. American Express reported that due to database marketing their purchases of credit card is increased by 15-20%.The possible apllications are Market research including media selection product segmentation,broadcasting analysis and product success prediction.A system allows television programming executives to arrange show schedules for predicting audience share to maximize market share and increase advertising revenues.

[d] Supply Chain Management (SCM) : The fundamental operation of retail is the supply chain management, product or services from the manufacturer to the customer via retail eiter virtual or physical.Data mining can help viz maximising sales and profits through an optimisation of marketing actions and providing necessary insights for the retailer to properly manage customers, promoters, products,stores and employees.Data mining provides the answers to the question such as: what customer?what products?what time?and at what price?

[e] Marketing Strategies : Target marketing actions such as direct mail campaigns are more expensive to produce and inportant is to find mailing to those individuals most likely to buy.Generating business models under the various condition is very difficult and complex.The function of target marketing can be achieved by data mining applications.Examples such as,Epsilon Data Management,USA handles America’s biggest direct mailers also including American Express.Marks and Spencer is also using this technique for direct mail campaign aimed at attracting customers on a suit promotion.

[f] Sales Forecasting : The important use of sales forecasting is for the optimisation of stocks and purchases.Retails can predict with accuracy sales as per item and location in order to optimise level of stocks,on the basis of past data.

This is also important in attracting and keeping the clients.In germany karstadt retail chain uses a neural networks based system developed by Neurotec for prediction the sales of total 2,00,000 items carried in their sotres to optimise order.In london,search space ltd.has developed a neural networks based application to forecast sales for high street retail organisation.

[g] Fraud Detection and Prevention : Data mining also palys an important role in this area.Fraud can be detected in insurance of a person,tax returns,accounts,credit cards,etc.A system can analyse the probability that the new account is fraudulent.The probabilities are used to sort the accounts so that these with highest probability can be further investigated by fraud analysis.

[5] Indian Players in Data Mining

In India a very few Organization like IIT-B, Mumbai, IIT-K, Kanpur, Tata Infotech, Mumbai, IBM-India, Banglore and ISI-C, Kolkata are working toeards this area because cost effective solutions is the major theme for development of promising technology data mining. IIT-K, kanpur and IBM-India,Bangalore are working for tools development where as Tata Infotech also working on the tools and application development includes TULearn,a set of industrail quality tools to define the nature of database and then to learn how to classify data into data bases.It consist of Credit card Eligibility Analysis,Customer satifactory survey,Market survey of Hindustan Lever Ltd.,BPL Mobile fraud detection etc.ISI-C,Kolkata has been engaged on the problems:(a)Classification of Archaeological Materials and (b)Market survey of quality control towards the customer Satisfaction indices. [6] Research Issues

The techniques of data mining is starts as new emerging concepts and all aspects of this technology are at the research level shows the developments as well improvement of its efficiency and scalability. The main issues are discussed below:

[1] It handle multiple source, different kinds of data i.e. transactional, active, relational, multimedia, object oriented, legacy etc. [2] Data mining security: Guard against the invasion of privacy. [3] Interactive Data mining of knowledge at multiple concepts level, Efficiency and scalability of data mining algorithms, Knowledge at multiple level in large data bases. [4]Smooth integration with existing databases and ware housing systems, knowledge updating, application and integration. [5] Data mining tasks: Summarization, Characterization, Clustering, Trend and deviation analyses, Classification, and pattern analysis etc.

[7] Conclusion

The application of Data Mining is emerging and powerful technology for improving business strategies,helping in design of new products & quality of products. It complements and can often replace the other business tools i.e. computer reporting and querying,statisfied analysis.Data Mining have modulation of multiple disciplines such as Database systems,Data Warehousing and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing), Machine learning,Information science,statistics,visualisation and other disciplines such as Mathematical Modelling,Pattern Recognisation,Neural Networks,Image/Signal Analysis,Web Technology etc. In the busniess decision above all models can facilitates more suitability to the decision.

Appendix - Tools For Data Mining and KDD

The public domain, commercial system [showed as com] and research prototype system is shown as pub and some of them are usually freely available for research purpose.

# Decision Tree Approach:

Pub: LMDT, OCI, PC 4.5, and SE - Learn

Com: AC2, Alice d'I soft, CART, Cognos scenario, KATE - Tools, Preclass SPSS Answer Tree, Xpertrule Profiler 4.0

# Nearest Neighbor Approach:

Pub: MLC++, PEBLS, and TiMBL 1.0 # Neural Network Approach:

pub: Neural Network FAQ Free Software , Neuro Net Site

Com: Neural Network FAQ List, 4 Thought, Brain Maker, DB Prophet,

INSPECT, Neural Works Predicts, Neuro Solutions, & SPSS Neural Connections 2

# Rule Discovery Approach:

Pub: Brute, CN2, DB Miner, DB Predictor, FOIL, and MLC++

Com: Data Surveyor, WINROSA, Data mite, wiz why and Super Query

# Clustering:

Pub:Autoclass C,ECOBWEB,Fast Fuzzy Cluster,Snob

Com:Autoglass III,COBWEB/3,Cviz Cluster Visualization,SOMine.

# Statistics:

Pub:XLISP-STAT

Com:BBN Cornerstone,Data Desk,STATlab,SPSS.

# Visualization for Discovery:

Pub:Graf-FX IRIS,VisDB,Xmdv

Com:Cviz Cluster Visualization,DataScope,UPDATE Sphinx Vision,WinViz.

References

[1] Betttini et.al.(1998),”Discovering frequent event patterns with multiple granuality in time sequences”.IEEE transaction on knowledge and data engineering,Vol.10,No.2,March/April.

[2] Cabena et.al.(1998),”Discovering Data Mining from concept to Implementation “, Prentice Hall,USA.

[3] Chaudhary and Dayal (1996),” Decision support,Data Warehousing and OLAP”,VLDB.

[4] Fayyad et.al.(1997),”Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery”– J journal.

[5] Jiawei Han(1996),” Data Mining techniques,a SIGMOD’96 Conference Tutorial.

[6] Michael Gilmant(1998),” Nuggets and Data Mining”A white paper,February.

[7] Piatetsky Shapiro (1998),”Data Mining 101”a white paper, June.

[8] Rakesh Agrawal(1996),”Data Mining Technologies”,Proc.International Conference VLDB

[9] V.Estivill Castro and A.T. Murray(1998), “Mining Spatial Data Via Clustering “Proc. International symposium on spatial data handling-SDH’98 canada,July 11-15

Reply from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU

Bob,

This semester, along with a colleague, I am teaching a computationally oriented course in statistics, datamining, and data visualisation in our AIS program.

The course is geared towards those who are looking for work in enterprise risk consulting, EDP auditing, Network security, and similar practices.

The course syllabus as well as powerpoint slides are available at

http://www.albany.edu/acc/courses/acc522/fall2001 

I shall be grateful for any comments/suggestions that the list members may have.

Regards,

Jagdish


Social Indicators --- http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2001/rp01-083.pdf 

This Research Paper summarises some of the main social statistics available for the UK. The major subjects covered are crime and justice, education, health, housing, population, social security and transport.


A message from Scott Bonacker [scottbonacker@MOCCPA.COM

At the suggestion of some helpful list members, I have been using both www.filesanywhere.com  and www.freedrive.com  for file transfers for the last month. Both are inexpensive at less than $50 per year and I have been able to upload and download files as needed. The practical limitation as always is the connection speed at a clients office. But this is still a good alternative for client computers that don't have USB ports for external drives or CD burners.

Filesanywhere holds out a promise of being able to email a link to someone that will allow them to download a specific file from the site, which would avoid having to change passwords every so often to give different clients access when they need it. Also eliminates the risk of losing control of the subscription. To really try out Filesanywhere requires a paid subscription now - the free trial site is access limited by the company so I frequently found that I couldn't access the "free" storage area due to the number of people already online with their trial accounts.

I saw that Intuit is offering something in connection with their QuickBooks software that has more capabilities but at a significantly higher cost - $19.95 per month. They also offer the option of establishing a mutual ftp site with a client for an additional $3 per month per site.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Scott Bonacker [scottbonacker@MOCCPA.COM
McCullough, Officer & Company, 
LLC Springfield, Missouri moccpa.com


From Information Week on November 12, 2001

Hollywood Goes Internet

Two movie-studio ventures are working to put in place the technology and business models to deliver films over the Net. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE2q0BcUEY04e0Zuc0Ak 

What the Movie Industry Can Learn From Napster As the movie industry contemplates digital distribution issues, it has a lesson in how NOT to do it. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE2q0BcUEY04e0Zuf0An 

Short And Sweet Movies Of course, some people aren't waiting for Hollywood to get its act together, and they're publishing short movies on the Web. Happily, reports Chuck Ulie, amid all the sameness, some of these movies are worth watching. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eE2q0BcUEY04e0Zug0Ao 


Supply and Demand for Accounting Faculty

Is This a Dream? By MICHAEL DALTON <mailto:firstperson@chronicle.com>

Personal experiences on the job market Previous articles </jobs/archive/advicearch.htm>

 "We would like to talk to you about an accounting position at our university." That was the substance of a plethora of messages I received in my placement-center mailbox at this year's national meeting of the American Accounting Association in Atlanta. I had contacted just four colleges prior to the convention about meeting with me to discuss their faculty openings. When Monday morning came, the first day of the convention, I had more than 20 requests for interviews.

This all started a little over a month earlier when I sent in my one-page résumé to the association's Web site. (http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/ ) After an applicant registered for the convention, the association posted his or her résumé. At about the same time, colleges and universities were publishing their job listings on the site. So employers could look at the pool of candidates and the candidates could check out the employers, and everybody could assess the competition. When I checked the Web site before heading to the conference, it showed 115 position announcements and 54 candidate résumés. We all know from basic economics that when the demand is twice the amount of supply it drives up salaries to compete for the small number of available candidates. A colleague at the convention remarked to me, "The salaries they are paying new hires in accounting are insane." Let me just say that it is great to be on the right side of an "insane" job market.

Before the convention started, I firmed up about four interviews. Then I started to receive e-mail messages and phone calls from different colleges asking me to check out their Web sites and to interview with them in Atlanta. By the time I reached Atlanta, I thought the eight interviews I lined up for the three-day meeting would be plenty. Nothing would have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

In the placement center at the hotel convention, candidates and employers communicated via more than 200 portable mailboxes. A dozen tables were set up, each with a binder of résumés and a binder of position vacancies. Employers could review the résumés and request interviews, while candidates could look up position announcements before responding to a request for an interview.

I had anticipated an "air drop" of my résumé at the conference. And my eyes lit up when I saw the more than 100 employer mailboxes set up as receptacles for my dynamite résumé. But my zeal faded when I realized I already had more interview requests than time would permit. It was, after all, only a three-day convention, so I settled for interviewing with 15 institutions.

For the most part, these interviews were preliminary or screening interviews to see if a candidate's résumé would be placed in a smaller pile of applicants who would be given serious consideration. For a few colleges, the interview time was really just an informational session.

But what a great feeling to be treated as a "hot commodity." Being in the trenches, teaching for 19 years at the same college, you rarely get the sense that you have made a valuable contribution. Yes there are the positive student evaluations. But my experience in academe has been that it is rare for administrators or colleagues to tell you that what you are doing is valuable or is having a positive impact on students. Perhaps we all assume that. When applying for a recent promotion in academic rank at my current job, I wrote to thank my colleagues who had provided me a letter of recommendation, to tell them that for me, the promotion would be secondary to all the kind and generous comments they had made about me. We sometimes hear the global, yet hollow, "Thanks for all you do." I think many of us could benefit from a sincere, kind word on a regular basis. There were plenty of kind words from the professors and department heads who acted as campus recruiters. Their collective desire to have me teach at their institution was exhilarating. OK, OK, it was a sterile supply-and-demand thing of having too few candidates for too many position vacancies. Nevertheless, the event energized me. It wound up that I had four interviews on Monday, 10 interviews on Tuesday, and one interview on Wednesday morning.

So what was it like to do that many interviews? Like teaching, during an interview you are on stage.

With the right attitude it can be a great deal of fun. My mission with each interviewer was simple. I had three to five things I wanted them to know about me. I had three questions prepared to ask them. The rest was just personality. It turned out to be fun talking to colleagues about their colleges and universities and about other things that were going on in the profession. With that many interviews, I knew it would difficult to keep track of who said what. Since there was little time between interview sessions, I developed a system of writing short comments and key words about each college after the interview. Typically, I wrote down information concerning the three questions I had asked each interviewer: what my teaching load would be, what the expectations were in terms of the quality and quantity of research publications for tenure, and what their general philosophy of accounting education was. In the evening, I would go back and fill in what else I could remember and prepare a separate file for each employer. It took me a month after the convention to get my formal application packets sent to the different colleges. Now the real search begins.

Michael Dalton is the pseudonym of a tenured associate professor of business and accounting at a small, private college in the Midwest. He will be regularly chronicling his search for a new job this academic year.

***********************************************
Maryann Gray, Ph.D.
Academic Information Officer
University of Southern California 203 Bovard ADM Los Angeles, CA 90089-4019
213 740-6374

 




Trivia Mystery Solved:  Using the Web to Distinguish Fact From Fiction

At St. Andrews Methodist Church in San Antonio on November 4, 2001 the minister told a story about a barber named Elmer Wells who gave out band instruments for free and taught children how to play these instruments (even though he himself had no formal training in music).  One of those children purportedly was Glenn Miller, the famous band leader and recording artist who died in a plane crash in World War II.  Supposedly, Elmer Wells was the inspiration for Elmer's Tune.  It turns out that Elmer Wells was a great inspiration for Glenn Miller, but he was not the inspiration for Elmer's Tune.

While trying to find out more about Elmer Wells, I discovered the following quotation from http://nfo.net/.WWW/j2.html#DJ 

It is interesting to note that one day Dick Jurgens heard a young mortician, named Elmer, fooling around at the piano with a little tune he had composed. Dick liked it so much that he arranged it as an instrumental for the big band, naming it simply, "Elmer's Tune". Glenn Miller heard the song and liked it so much that he asked Dick to allow him to play the tune with his own band. Jurgens not only graciously agreed, but even had a local lyricist, Sammy Gallop, write a lyric for the song before giving it to Glenn Miller. Miller's version became a national hit.

Thus I discovered that the song "Elmer's Tune" was composed by Elmer Albrecht and was first introduced in a movie named Strictly in the Groove.  The lyrics are given at http://www.smickandsmodoo.com/aaa/lyrics/elmer.htm 

Why are the stars always winkin' and blinkin' above? What makes a fellow start thinkin' of fallin' in love? It's not the season, the reason is plain as the moon It's just Elmer's Tune

What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose? Why does a gander meander in search of a goose? What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June? It's just Elmer's Tune

Listen, Listen There's a lot you're liable to be missin' Sing it, Swing it Any old way and any old time

The hurdy-gurdie, the birdie, the cop on the beat The candy maker, the baker, the man on the street The city charmer, the farmer, the man in the moon All sing Elmer's Tune

I feature this mystery mainly because it illustrates how easy it sometimes is, in a matter of minutes on the Web, to distinguish fact from fiction. In a matter of minutes, I hit upon the Website at 
http://www.ftmorganmus.org/miller.htm 

Glenn Miller is Fort Morgan High School's most famous graduate. His recording of “Chattanooga Choo Choo” sold over 1,200,000 copies before RCA awarded him the first gold record in history.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glenn Miller joined the high school football team as a left end in the fall of 1919. The maroons won the Northern Colorado football conference in 1920, and Glenn was named “Best Left End in Colorado” and given a football scholarship to the University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley, Colorado.

Meanwhile, Elmer Wells, his band and orchestra director, was having Glenn sit in with his own dance band, “The Wells of Music,” which played around Morgan County on weekends. This influenced Glenn to start his own dance band, the “Mick-Miller Melody Five.” By now, the desire to play trombone and to arrange music for his band was so great he decided to make music his lifetime career. That spark of inspiration kindled by Elmer Wells eventually caused Glenn to organize and lead the most popular of all the big band era - The Glenn Miller Orchestra!

The above story also illustrates how easy it is to make deductions that are logical but not true.  It is logical, since  Elmer Wells had such a profound influence upon Glenn Miller, that Miller's famous recording of "Elmer's Tune" would be a tribute to Elmer Wells.  Such appears not to be the case in this instance since the song was named in honor of Elmer Albrecht.


GULP!

That famous and vulgar phrase "pull my finger" takes on a sinister meaning.

Drugs have been smuggled in body cavities for years. What's to stop a suicide bomber from swallowing plastic explosives to get them on a plane? Very little, experts say, and especially not the current airport security measures --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/business/0,1367,48349,00.html 


From Leslie Owens, Readers Digest, November 2001, Page 48.

My school friend was on his way home from work when he noticed a woman standing in the parking lot looking very worried.  When he asked if all was well, she told him that she'd locked her keys in the car by had called her husband some distance away to bring her the spare keys.

On impulse, my friend put out his hand an tried the door, which opened right up.

"Oh, my God," the woman said.  "Quick, can you lock it again?"


From Gregory Bokenkamp, Readers Digest, November 2001, Page52.

While a friend and I were visiting at Annapolis, we noticed there were several students on their hands and knees assessing the courtyard with pencils and clipboards in hand.  "What are they doing?"  I asked our tour guide.

"Each year," he replied with a grin, "the upperclassmen ask the freshmen how many bricks it took to finish this courtyard."

"So what's the answer" my friend asked him when were out of earshot of the freshmen.

The guide replied simply, "One."


Forwarded by Bob Overn 

Actual Classified Ads

Stock up and save. Limit: one.

We build bodies that last a lifetime.

For Rent: 6-room hated apartment.

Man, honest. Will take anything.

Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.

Used Cars: Why go elsewhere to be cheated? Come here first!

Christmas tag-sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to-find person.

Wanted: Hair-cutter. Excellent growth potential.

Wanted. Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

3-year-old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.

Our experienced Mom will care for your child. Fenced yard, meals, and smacks included.

Auto Repair Service. Free pick-up and delivery. Try us once, you'll never go anywhere again.

Illiterate? Write today for free help.

Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary.

Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale.

And now, the Superstore -- unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience.

We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.


Also forwarded by Bob Overn

Normally, employers want their employees to give 100%, but now someone has come up with a way to give 103%. Read this and see if you agree.

Subject: How To Achieve 103%

This is something interesting....We have all been to those meetings where someone wants more than 100%.  Well here's how you do that. Here's how you can achieve 103%.  First of all, here's a little math that might prove helpful in the future.

How does one achieve 100% in LIFE?

Begin by noting the following.

IF:

A = 1       B = 2     C = 3      D = 4      E = 5     F = 6        G = 7

H = 8       I = 9      J = 10     K = 11    L = 12   M = 13     N = 14

O = 15     P = 16   Q = 17    R = 18    S = 19    T = 20     U = 21

V = 22    W = 23   X = 24   Y = 25    Z = 26

Then:

H A R D W O R K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = Only 98%

Similarly,

K N O W L E D G E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = Only 96%

But interesting (and as you'd expect),

A T T I T U D E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100% ...

This is how you achieve 100% in LIFE.

But EVEN MORE IMPORTANT TO NOTE (or REALIZE), is

B U L L S H I T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

So now you know what all those high-priced consultants, upper management, and motivational speakers really mean when they want to exceed 100%!


TEXAS A&M JOINS THE COALITION--GOD BLESS THEM

An elite combat unit from the Corps in Aggie Land stormed Bloomingdale's Department Store in New York yesterday after its intelligence agency reported that Bed Linen was spotted on the fourth floor.

No one was hurt .


Forwarded by Dick Haar

Geezers" (slang for an old man) are easy to spot:
 
At sporting events, during the playing of the National Anthem, Old Geezers hold their caps over their hearts and sing without embarrassment.  They know the words and believe in them. 
Old Geezers remember World War I, the Depression, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy and Hitler.  They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, The Cold War, the Jet Age and the Moon Landing, not to mention Vietnam. 
If you bump into an Old Geezer on the sidewalk, he will apologize.  If you pass an Old Geezer on the street, he will nod or tip his cap to a lady. 
Old Geezers trust strangers and are courtly to women.  Old Geezers hold the door for the next person and always, when walking, make certain the lady is on the inside for protection. 
Old Geezers get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and children and they don't like violence and filth on TV or in movies.  Old Geezers have moral courage. 
They seldom brag unless it's about their grandchildren.  It's the Old Geezers who know our great country is protected, not by politicians or police, but by the young men and women in the military serving their country. 
This country needs Old Geezers with their decent values.  We need them now more than ever.  Thank God for Old Geezers

 



And that's the way it was on November 14, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

  Hline.jpg (568 bytes) Hline.jpg (568 bytes)

 Hline.jpg (568 bytes)

 

November 7, 2001


Quotes of the Week

Men Face Extinction, says a British Medical Journal  Report

Professor Seigfried Meryn says men already have higher rates for all major causes of death, shorter life expectancy and women can now do their jobs just as well.

Professor Meryn, who will speak at the First World Congress on Men's Health, says: "There is a sustained increase in psychological disorders in men, including alcohol and substance abuse, mid-life crisis, depression and domestic violence, while men's increasing aggression also remains an unsolved health and societal problem.|

"Over 30 (current) wars and conflicts rage around the world are, mostly created, maintained and aggravated by men."
ANANOVA, November 2, 2001 --- http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_439385.html 


Eartheasy http://eartheasy.com/homepage.htm  

The site aims "to encourage, inspire and inform people of the inherent wealth of a simpler, less material lifestyle." The site design mirrors its mission, with a front page presenting six snapshots that connect to the main sections -- live, grow, eat, play, wear, and give. Each of the sections offers information on a number of topics ranging from energy efficient appliances to natural lawn care to kite flying and much, much more.
The Scout Report on November 2, 2001


Here are a few quotes from the bottom that I put at the top as an incentive to read through to the bottom.  

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?


      Dates are for having fun, and people should use
      them to get to know each other. Even boys have
      something to say if you listen long enough.

      --Lynnette, age 8
      (But you have to wait until the end of the football and hunting seasons Lynnette.  For best 
        success tune in the day before Christmas.)
  
      On the first date, they just tell each other lies,
      and that usually gets them interested enough to go
      for a second date.

      --Martin, age 10
      (Martin seems very wise for his age.  Accountants would call that pro forma
        information that that has not been audited.)

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers 
and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns
.
      --Craig, age 9
(Professors want to do the same thing after handing out teaching evaluation forms Craig.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?


      Both don't want any more kids.
      --Lori, age 8
(More quotes like this from kids near the bottom of this November 7 edition of New Bookmarks.)

Question:
How can professors make one class unforgettable?  
Answer:
The answer is near the bottom of this November 7 edition of New Bookmarks.




New:  
Bob Jensen's Threads on Fees and Choosing Accountants, Financial Advisors, and Consultants --- 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.htm

Note especially the documentation on types of financial advisors and how to choose an advisor.


Your kids, boyfriends and/or husbands will like this one!

Choose a destination and fly there virtually (and its much safer than the real thing)!  (Travel, Photography, Entertainment)
TerraFly --- http://www.terrafly.com/ 

TerraFly changes the way you view your world. Simply enter an address, and our system will put you at the controls of a new and innovative way to explore your digital earth.

In Europe there is something somewhat similar from a car on the ground.
SpeedyCam --- http://www.speedycam.be/ 

SpeedyCam broadcasts time-lapse movies of local roads using webcams. No matter what's the weather like, we travel around the country and Europe shooting our movies.

To view the movies, you need the free QuickTime or Windows Media Player programs. To record the movies, we just needed a "sports car", a webcam and some free time.

Currently we're shooting more video footage of local roads but we plan to travel around Europe, especially the German autobahn to get more high speed film material... :-)


Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

Most users will have to choose the rm RealMedia versions unless they happen to have the Camtasia viewer installed. Although there is no need to install the Camtasia player if your computer plays rm videos, you can install the free Camtasia player from http://www.techsmith.com/ 

New
I added video tutorials on pivot tables and conversion of Excel files and charts into interactive DHTML pages that can be read in a Web browser rather than having to read the files in Excel.  Go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm  

Danny Goodman's JavaScript Tutorials
I added a very helpful link to Danny Goodman's JavaScript tutorials.  I highly recommend both his free Web tutorials and his great JavaScript book.  Web page designers should definitely learn how easy its become to use JavaScript (not to be confused with Java).    Go to http://www.dannyg.com/javascript/ 

Danny Goodman was featured on the PBS Computer Chronicles television show on October 4, 2001.  He pointed out how there are many JavaScript plug-ins that do not require coding (actually scripting in the case of JavaScript).  With JavaScript you do not have to be a computer programmer like you have to become for Java from Sun Corporation.  JavaScript was actually developed by NetScape for purposes of creating dynamic Web pages.

Also see 

JavaScript Bible --- http://developer.netscape.com/docs/books/idg/jsbible/jsbible.html 
JavaScript Basics --- http://www.webword.com/interviews/goodman.html 
JavaScript Arrays --- http://developer.netscape.com/viewsource/goodman_arrays.html 
Yahoo's JavaScript Helpers --- http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Programming_Languages/JavaScript/ 
Bob Jensen's JavaScript Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 


Wow Common Sense for the Week ---  Just Say No to Pro Forma 

SEC Commissioner Isaac Hunt said federal regulators continue to see companies engaging in what he calls smoke-and-mirror accounting practices that inflate earnings and stock prices. Mr. Hunt described a process of manipulation of numbers on financial reports and the growing use of unaudited financial statements, also known as pro forma statements. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61880 

Bob Jensen's documents on eCommerce are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 

Bob Jensen's accounting theory documents are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 


Wow Accountant of the Week --- BRAVO!

Robert K. Elliott, past Chairman of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and executive partner at KPMG, has announced his retirement from public accounting. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/62110 

Bob Jensen's Comments About a Friend Who Fights for Technology With Every Breath
Bob Elliott has always been a controversial center of power in the public accounting profession.  My hat is off to him for his forward-thinking, determined action plans, and willingness to accept responsibilities for the betterment of our profession and our education programs.  I always admired his ability to stand up to the heat and to remain cool under criticism and pressure.  

He is also one bright guy who does not suffer fools, especially fools who never see the need for change in a profession.  His career was in public accounting, but I think that down deep his heart was in academe.  Good thing he didn't listen to his heart. Otherwise he could not afford to retire so young.

See http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/audit/Pubs/Audrep/01winter/item07.htm 

Also take a look at http://www.mecpa.org/elliott.htm 

If I had been given a chance, I probably would have nominated Bob for one of the Chrysler Design Awards (honoring visionaries) --- http://www.chryslerdesignawards.org/ 


Wow Web Design Site of Week --- From the Indiana CPA Society

CPA societies in the various states are really getting good about helping to attract students to the CPA profession.  In an earlier edition of New Bookmarks, I noted the flashy site of the Illinois State Society of CPAs at http://www.futurecpa.org/futurecpa/index.htm 

The Student section of the Indiana CPA Society's Web site has been awarded first place for excellence in public relations programming by the Public Relations Society of America's East Central District. Find out what makes this site a winner! http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61995 

The site is at http://www.incpas.org/Students/index.htm 


Wow Site of the Week --- Batter Up!

Years ago I made the Wow Site of the Week the Oyez site at Northwestern University.  Under funding from the U.S. Government, the Oyez site enabled anyone in the world to download the audio of actual oral arguments of lawyers standing before the U.S. Supreme Court --- http://oyez.nwu.edu/ 

Now there is a new Oyez Wow Site of the Week --- Oyez Baseball --- http://baseball.oyez.org/ 

"The Law-Baseball Quiz" debuted in the New York Times on April 4, 1979. Created by law professor Robert M. Cover, it compared baseball players and Supreme Court Justices. Unlike Eddie Gaedel, the midget in baseball's most publicized stunt, the Quiz has delighted and stumped enthusiasts on many occasions since it first appeared.

OYEZ Baseball is an enlarged version of Professor Cover's initial vision. We have simply burnished the metaphor that Professor Cover summoned to describe baseball personalities and justices. Much has changed from the simple newspaper version Cover penned, as quiz enthusiasts will discover.

In producing OYEZ Baseball, we have consulted a number of useful sources compiled by dedicated scholars of the Court and the diamond. We are glad to acknowledge those authors for others who may be inspired to dig deeper into some of the fascinating, entertaining, and often inspiring personal histories that we present here.

On the Supreme Court, greatness or mediocrity derives from a justice's accomplishments or lack thereof. The same is true for ballplayers. The Court vests its nine occupants with awesome responsibility. Some justices, like some players, are blessed with skills that not only generate tremendous personal achievements, but can transform their institutions, and sometimes even American culture. Others are quickly forgettable, while most toil somewhere in between. The qualities that make some justices great and others mediocre are difficult to explain fully and justify to those unversed in the Court's work. But most everyone understands baseball-and baseball may be the best way to reveal greatness or mediocrity. Hence, OYEZ Baseball.

OYEZ Baseball is part of a larger effort to bring the work of the nation's highest court -- in text, audio and images -- to the widest possible audience. The OYEZ Project has been generously supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the M.R. Bauer Foundation, and Northwestern University, and Mayer Brown & Platt. OYEZ Baseball has been made possible by support from FindLaw, the best source for legal information on the planet.

We are grateful to work with talented colleagues at Mythryn, digital storytellers of the highest caliber.Working from a great prototype created by Northwestern IT consultant Alan Kendall, the masters at Mythryn (Jim Ferolo, Scott Edelstein, Jeff Nemscher and Mike Boccieri) proved time and again that if we could imagine it, they could build it -- on time and on budget. We are pleased to have harnessed their creative talent in ways that make a great use of information technology. We also thank Chris Stangl, whose baseball knowledge was called upon in a pinch hitting role in the late innings of production; he came through with a double off the wall.

This collaboration-and many others it turns out-was originally hatched a decade ago one afternoon in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University. After one class period when Goldman revealed his passion for the Court and the game, and the connections between the two, Manna approached his baseball-minded teacher and suggested: "William Brennan is Ozzie Smith." Goldman scratched his chin and looked up toward the ceiling, not wanting to let such a sweeping claim casually pass by. "Why?" he queried. You'll have to take the quiz to discover the connection, but on that day, at least, the answer that the young student provided persuaded the good professor. Lucky for us both. The rest, as they say, is history.

Batter up!


Twelve Tips for New Web Designers ---  http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3162 
(Note that you can always remember the one recommended by Dolly!)

1. Be Humble

Many designers start their new ventures with little or no working capital. Does that describe your situation? If things get too tough do not be afraid to supplement your income by mowing lawns or cleaning bathrooms. Believe it or not, this will help you buy food for the week and it makes for an interesting story to tell people once your design business is established.

Are you a good designer? Chances are there's someone out there better than you are. When you go to visit a potential client, be confident -- but not cocky. Other designers may be bidding on the same job. You want to be the most likable.

2. Keep it Simple

Keep what simple? Everything.

Keep your designs simple. A simple design will sell more products. Keep your business simple. A sole proprietorship may be more equitable to you than a corporation (with partners) when you are first starting out. Keep your overhead low. The more money you have to lay out for your business, the less ends up in your pocket.

3. Study the Work of Others

Be open to new ideas and concepts. There is nothing wrong with getting inspiration from someone else as long as you do not plagiarize their work. Studying other's work will help you to grow creatively.

4. Get 50 Percent Up Front
(That always worked for Dolly.)

When starting a new job be sure to have a thorough, signed contract and a deposit. If at all possible get a 50 percent deposit on the job. Requiring a deposit lets the client know that you are a serious professional and it locks them in the project. Now they have an investment at stake. They will be more open to your suggestions and will place more value on your services.

5. Keep a Notebook

Inspiration comes at the strangest times. Keep a small notebook nearby to jot thoughts down. Sometimes great things start there.  Care must also be given to keeping good records and an accurate calendar. The more organized you appear, the better reputation you acquire.

6. Develop a Portfolio

Don't just tell people you're good, show them. Print out samples of your work and have it available to show at a moment's notice. Put your portfolio online so that people can browse it at their leisure.

7. Blow Your Own Horn

When you have finished a project, prepare a press release and announce it to the appropriate media contacts. If the project is of local significance, send your release, along with a photo of you and your client looking at your work to local newspapers and television stations. If the project is larger in scope, submit your press release to larger venues. You never know what will come of it.

Be sure to include a way for people to contact you in your press release. Be direct. For example: "For more information visit http://www.explodedview.tv."

8. Be a Schmoozer

Your best jobs will probably come from word of mouth. Therefore, meet as many people as you can. How do you do that? Attend seminars and trade shows. Join the local chamber of commerce and take advantage of the events they sponsor. Carry several of your business cards wherever you go and be ready to hand them out.

When you visit a potential client, it helps to bring a gift. It doesn't have to be elaborate; something useful or tasty is usually best. If the client offers you something to drink, always say "Yes." If you accept their hospitality, the odds of getting the job significantly increase.

9. Write Articles

Writing editorials is an excellent way to get your name out to the public. Is your method of design unique? Tell the world about it. Getting your articles published establishes you as an authority in the field. If the reading audience is large enough, you may even have the ability to influence the way the industry evolves.

10. Be a Speaker

Make yourself available to give lectures on your field of expertise. This may be done through speaker's bureaus or magazine publishers. Be alert to possible venues and be ready to step in when the opportunity affords itself.

11. Drink Decaf

A few years ago I was drinking hot coffee during the workday. Then I would have a venti Starbucks Frappaccino to reward myself for a job well done. At 3:00 a.m., I would find myself tapping away on my keyboard unable to sleep. This, of course, rendered me useless in the morning. It became a vicious cycle, which had to be broken. Now I start work early and get to bed at a reasonable hour. The day is much more productive.

12. Put Family First

Spouses and children are more important than careers. Yes, you may be working hard to support your family, but they also need to spend time with you. Be sure that when you finish up work for the day, you leave your cares and stresses behind and enjoy what you're working so hard for.

These twelve tips are not a guarantee for success, but if you apply them you will be a step ahead most independent Internet designers.


HBO On Demand (Any time, any place, Movies, Entertainment, Television) --- http://www.hboondemand.com/ 

HBO On Demand is a dream come true for HBO digital subscribers. (It's a great reason to get digital service.) This revolutionary new service lets you watch your favorite HBO shows exactly when you want to. You can even pause, rewind and fast forward at any time. For a small additional monthly fee, you get unlimited viewing of great HBO shows. Because there's no charge per show hassle, using HBO on Demand is easy, fun and a great value.

For more details, try FAQ.


From the Free Wall Street Journal Educators' Reviews for November 1, 2001 
Subscribers to the electronic version of the WSJ may obtain these highly useful reviews by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 

TITLE: Special Report: E-Commerce: Data, Data Everywhere... 
REPORTER: Kevin J. Delaney 
DATE: Oct 29, 2001 PAGE: R8,10 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004296279799214760.djm  
TOPICS: Managerial Accounting, Accounting Information Systems

SUMMARY: In this article in the special e-commerce section, Delaney interviews Bernard Liautaud who helps firms utilize the data they accumulate with today's technology. He accomplishes this by providing software that allows his clients to access, analyze and share the information already captured in databases in their information systems. He maintains this gives the manager an opportunity to focus on specific issues "that can get lost in the aggregate data."

QUESTIONS: 

1.) " ...but, says Bernard Liautaud, companies still don't know how to use it," according to the sub-headline of this article by Delaney. Find an example of ineffective technology use in the related article about Alan Greenspan's remarks to Congress last week.

2.) What does Liautaud mean by the term the "Age of the Analytics?" How does he describe the evolution of databases and their uses?

3.) If management accounting presents relevant information to decision-makers, how would Business Objects help? What happens to information that is presented "in the aggregate?"

4.) In management accounting, relevant information can be provided to decision-makers for both routine and non-routine purposes. Give four examples of information needed for routine purposes. Give four examples of information needed for non-routine purposes. The sort of service provided by Liautaud would be more useful for which of these two purposes? Why?

5.) Find a specific example in the article in which a company was not using some available information, producing results that were not in the company's best interest.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

Bob Jensen's documents on eCommerce are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 

Bob Jensen's accounting theory documents are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 


My original threads on the Enron scandal (FAS 133, FAS 57, Ethics) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

To this I have added the following :  

From the Free Wall Street Journal Educators' Reviews for November 1, 2001 
Subscribers to the electronic version of the WSJ may obtain these highly useful reviews by contacting wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 

TITLE: Enron Did Business With a Second Entity Operated by Another Company Official; No Public Disclosure Was Made of Deals
REPORTER: John R. Emshwiller and Rebecca Smith
DATE: Oct 26, 2001
PAGE: C1
LINK: Print Only in the WSJ on October 26, 2001

TOPICS: Disclosure Requirements, Financial Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis

SUMMARY: Enron's financial statement disclosures have been less than transparent. Information is arising as the SEC makes an inquiry into the Company's accounting and reporting practices with respect to its transactions with entities managed by high-level Enron managers. Yet, as discussed in a related article, analysts remain confident in the stock.

QUESTIONS:

1.) Why must companies disclose related party transactions? What is the significance of the difference between the wording of SEC rule S-K and FASB Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 57, Related Party Transactions that is cited at the end of the article?

2.) Explain the logic of why a drop in investor confidence in Enron's business transactions and reporting practices could affect the company's credit rating.

3.) Explain how an analyst could argue, as did one analyst cited in the related article, that he or she is confident in Enron's ability to "deliver" earnings even if he or she cannot estimate "where revenues are going to come from" nor where the company will make profits.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

 

--- RELATED ARTICLES ---

TITLE: Heard on the Street: Most Analysts Remain Plugged In to Enron
REPORTER: Susanne Craig and Jonathan Weil
PAGE: C1
ISSUE: Oct 26, 2001
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004043182760447600.djm 

TITLE: Enron Officials Sell Shares Amid Stock-Price Slump
REPORTER: Theo Francis and Cassell Bryan-Low
PAGE: C14
ISSUE: Oct 26, 2001
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004043341423453040.djm

Readers may also want to note the following article:
"Where Was The Audit Committee?" by Mark W. Pearson, Financial Executive, November 2001, pp. 44-47 --- <http://www.fei.org/magazine/articles/11-2001_audit.cfm> 

Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron scandal (FAS 133, FAS 57, Ethics) are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


We hear a lot about Windows XP.  What about the new MS Office XP?

Forwarded by Vidya Ananthanarayanan

You have heard about Office XP, read about it, some of you have even seen it in action... we are now ready to deploy it HERE! So join us on November 28 from 10-11:30am at the Integrated Learning Center (Library Room 103) for a taste of what Office XP can do for you: 


Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 39  http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html 

This bibliography presents selected English-language articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. Most sources have been published between 1990 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 1990 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet.

Announcements for new versions of the bibliography are distributed on PACS-P and other mailing lists.

An archive of prior versions of the bibliography is available.

Bob Jensen's helpers for finding electronic books are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


The message below describes what are some major revisions to the electronic journals of the American Accounting Association.

Dear Robert E Jensen,

Today, the American Accounting Association launches a new, more comprehensive online publications system with many enhanced capabilities.

As an AAA member, you have access to many of these electronic publications at no charge.

The electronic journals, newsletters, and other publications are available online at:

http://aaahq.org/ic/browse.htm 

You may also reach our electronic publications from the AAA website (http://aaa-edu.org) by clicking on "Publications" in the left side bar.

Your new case-sensitive Username and your Password are:

Username: XXXXX

Password: ZZZZZZ

You may change your password online at any time. Please call or email as noted below if you have problems accessing the system.

Using this Username and password, you may access Accounting Education News and the newsletters of the Sections you belong to, PLUS the full text of any electronic journals to which you have subscribed.

JOURNALS:

All AAA members may view abstracts and search through the full text of any or all of the nine AAA journals.

If you have enrolled in Electronic Option either for the three association-wide journals ($20 for the three-journal package) or for any of the six Section journals ($5 each, available only to Section members), you may also read or print full text. To add Electronic Option to your membership, please email us at office@aaahq.org  or call (941) 921-7747, ext. 0.

NEWSLETTERS:

All AAA members have access at no charge to Accounting Education News. Section members may also access Section newsletters at no charge through this new system. Most Section Newsletters will also remain accessible through the Section's Web page.

OTHER FEATURES:

The new electronic publications system also accommodates library subscriptions; pay-per-view and subscription options; limited free trials; and automatic search alerts by email.

We have set your automatic search alerts so that you will be notified by email when various articles are added to the online system. YOU MAY CHANGE OR ELIMINATE THE AUTOMATIC SEARCH TERMS ONLINE AT ANY TIME. Thank you for assisting us in exploring this new feature, and please let us know if you have comments about it or other aspects of the electronic publications system.

We hope you will enjoy this new and improved service. If you have any problems or questions regarding this new service, please contact me at craig@aaahq.org  or call me at (941) 921-7747 ext. 303.

Craig 
[Craig Polhemus, American Accounting Association]
Craig Polhemus
[craig@aaahq.org


File Sharing by Instant Messaging 

Who needs file-sharing applications when you have instant messaging? Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are set to become bigger than Napster ever was --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,48071,00.html 

Instant-messaging services that allow users to trade music, movie and television files over the Internet appear to be safe from the legal woes that have plagued other digital music and movie companies.

Microsoft, America Online and Yahoo now have added file-sharing enhancements to their instant-messenger applications that allow users to swap any digital files over centralized networks.

Other digital media companies -- most notably Aimster, which provides file-trading capabilities through instant messaging -- have faced long legal battles with the recording and motion picture industries over this issue. But these corporations, by virtue of their size and association with the recording industry, are unlikely to be sued by the major labels.

"In almost every case, you have an accumulation of well-financed companies -- media conglomerates -- ganging up on startups," said Whitney Broussard, an entertainment copyright lawyer with New York's Selverne, Mandlebaum & Mintz, LLP. "Legal arguments aside, these companies have a lot of muscle and they can often crush the little music startups. And maybe in the end, the music industry will be right about file trading, but larger companies can fight back. It's a lot riskier when you go down the legal road with those companies."

This trio of heavyweights' new services has been warmly received by the recording industry. The three -- along with RealNetworks and Napster -- have signed on to be distributors for two new subscription services set to launch later this year.

However, those deals don't allow users to share files over instant-messenger systems.

While the instant-messenger programs allow file trading, officials from both Microsoft and Yahoo said the Terms of Service forbid any illegal activity.

"Yahoo has a strong track record in protecting the rights of copyright holders," said a Yahoo spokeswoman. "While we do provide core communications capabilities to users, the sharing of copyrighted material is expressly against our Terms of Service. Yahoo clearly notifies all users that any type of infringement is prohibited before any sharing can be initiated."

The Recording Industry Association of America -- a trade association representing the music labels and the leading organization fighting copyright violations online -- had no comment about potential legal problems with the new services.

Continued at - http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,48071,00.html  

Use of instant messaging as a teaching pedagogy is discussed by Amy Dunbar --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q3.htm#Dunbar 

Bob Jensen's threads on file sharing and P2P software are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm 

Bob Jensen and Jason Xiao have a new paper focusing on file sharing in accountancy:  
Those of you that paid $20 for a password to American Accounting Association journals may download the paper as instructed above by Craig Polhemus:

"Customized Financial Reporting, Networked Databases, and Distributed File Sharing," by Robert E. Jensen and Jason Zezhong Xiao, Accounting Horizons, September 2001, pp. 209-202 --- http://aaahq.org/ic/browse.htm 


A message from Larry Gordon

As you know from his e-mail message, Steve Loeb has decided to step-down from being Co-Editor of the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (JAPP). I understand his desire to pursue other interests and, like all of you, wish him well in his new endeavors.

As founding Co-Editor of JAPP, Steve has worked hard to help launch, maintain, and continuously improve, the high quality of JAPP. Indeed, all of us who are concerned about JAPP owe Steve a debt of gratitude for a job well done. In this regard, I am pleased to report that Steve has agreed to serve on the Editorial Board of the journal. Thus, I will still have the benefit of Steve's continuing council. Nevertheless, Steve's departure as Co-Editor does leave an important void in terms of JAPP's operations. In order to fill this void, I am pleased to announce that Martin P. Loeb is assuming a new role with the journal.

Starting with Volume 20, Numbers 4/5, I will become JAPP's Editor-in-Chief and Martin will become its Editor. In his new role as Editor, Martin will be an equal partner with me in all editorial decisions regarding the journal. Those of you who already know Martin surely realize how fortunate we are that he has decided to accept this new role with JAPP. For those of you who do not know Martin, let me just say a few words about him. Martin is a professor of accounting here at The Robert H. Smith School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and is a superb scholar. I am sure that all of you join me in welcoming Martin in his new role with JAPP.

Sincerely,

Larry
LGordon@rhsmith.umd.edu
 

Note from Bob Jensen
The accountancy profession, especially the profession's educators, owe Steve Loeb an enormous bow of appreciation for his many years of service as Editor of Journal of Accounting and Public Policy.  Although I usually dreaded opening those envelopes from the University of Maryland that contained research papers to be refereed, I always realized that Steve quietly and diligently sacrificed year in and year out for the good of our profession.  How could any of us not help you out Steve?


The FBI's Internet Fraud and Complaint Center (IFCC FBI)
To thwart fraud on the Internet and terror in general, check in and/or report to http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

One of our local television stations in San Antonio recommended the Private Citizen web site for reducing the amount of junk phone calls and junk mail that you would like to halt.  The Wall Street Journal has also recommended this web site. http://www.privatecitizen.com/


The Financial Times is actually a very good source for economic, financial, business, and business education news --- http://news.ft.com/home/us/ 


Distance Education Programs at Texas A&M University --- http://www.tamu.edu/ode/disted/ 

Note how some universities are now listing distance education courses and WebCT courses in separate categories.  For example see the categories at http://www.tamu.edu/ode/disted/ 


Latest News on MIT's Open Courseware (OCW) --- http://web.mit.edu/ocw/ 

The following milestones have been set for OCW through 2003:

September 2002: Course materials from 100 subjects released on the OCW web site
March 2003: Course materials from 250 subjects released
September 2003: Course materials from 500 courses released

Conclusion:  Don't be in a big hurry to use this free material.


Update on Fathom

"New Times, New Rules: An Interview with Fathom's Ann Kirschner," by James L. Morrison and Ann Kirschner, The Technology Source, November/December 2001 --- http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=896 

Ann Kirschner, a media and marketing pioneer in broadcast television, cable and satellite television, and interactive media, is president and CEO of Fathom. Co-founded by Kirschner and Columbia University, Fathom offers a full range of learning opportunities for professional development and personal enrichment, from free seminars to accredited courses. These learning opportunities are facilitated by Fathom's global network of leading learning institutions—universities, libraries, museums, and a university press. Recently I spoke with Kirschner about Fathom and its groundbreaking work in higher education.

James L. Morrison [JM]: Tell us about Fathom's inception as well as its relationship to Columbia University and its other partners.

Ann Kirschner [AK]: In 1998, Columbia made a high-level strategic decision to understand how the Internet would transform higher education. The university's intellectual capital was becoming increasingly valuable, as revenues from patent licensing continued to climb and as faculty were increasingly sought after by for-profit ventures.

Fathom was built on the notion of international partnerships. Worldwide interest in corporate training and learning has spawned the concept that education is a global business, which means that the greatest strength of universities—their intellectual capital—is more valuable than ever. The best way to take advantage of that strength is through international partnerships that balance the goal of reaching a global audience with local educational objectives and values. In other words, Fathom is a knowledge network, collaborating with institutions and educational companies all over the world.

JM: What makes Fathom a "knowledge network?"

AK: Fathom’s consortium collaborates on the creation and distribution of high quality knowledge. Fathom provides a focus and an infrastructure through which we can share production resources, technology platforms, and market intelligence. We also identify and share best practices from our consortium members on areas as diverse as intellectual property policies and organizational structures for digital media development. Working with the members of the network, as well as course providers at other institutions and companies, we are able to aggregate content and courses from literally dozens of sources—in much the same way that a great bookstore combines the output of many publishing companies, or a television network relies on quality production sources. Our goal is to select the best content and courses and offer them to a global learning community.

JM: With whom does Fathom share its international partnerships?

AK: We now have partnerships with the London School of Economics, Cambridge University Press, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, the British Library, the New York Public Library, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the American Film Institute, the Rand, the London Museum of Science and Natural History, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. We also have relationships with dozens of other course providers—educational institutions as well as for-profit companies.

The idea of partnering with other universities came to us early in the planning of Fathom because we recognized the value of expanding beyond a single institution, broadening our access to intellectual property, and thinking outside the borders of any single culture or country. Additionally, partnerships broaden our marketing reach. Universities have strong ties to their alumni and, beyond that, to the university’s extended community of families, faculty, and researchers.

Libraries and museums have an even broader reach through their patrons and on-site visitors. At the New York Public Library alone, for instance, millions of visitors use the library facilities each year.

Fathom sought participation from libraries and museums not only because their curators and librarians are experts in their field—faculty of another kind—but because they already serve their visitors and researchers as "clients" in a more consumer-centric model than universities. A great museum exhibition, for example, is focused on serving museum visitors with information and context that will inform their understanding of the collection. Museums measure their success at least in part by attendance at exhibitions and the sales of collateral material such as exhibition catalogues. That doesn’t make them less serious or scholarly, but it suggests some different metrics for success.

Overall, the Fathom consortium has direct contact with over one million people through alumni publications, newsletters, direct mail, websites, and e-mail. And through its 13 member institutions, Fathom also has the opportunity to work with about 10,000 faculty members, researchers, museum curators, and librarians—quite likely one of the largest, and most important, groups of experts in the world.

In addition to our consortium, we are building important partnerships that aid in distribution and marketing. Fathom recently announced a unique relationship with the BBC, for example, to create and promote history studies online, beginning with an e-course we created with Columbia University’s renowned history professor, Simon Schama. We hope that the BBC model will become the foundation for future online seminars.

Continued at  http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=896 


Business and Economics Courses from Fathom --- http://www.fathom.com/ 

Business and Economics

Under Accounting and Taxation, the following links are found:

Accounting and Taxation
Accounting

Accounting and Finance for Small Business

Auditing

Taxation

Under Accounting we find the following:

Accounting
 
Courses and Seminars: View all 36 results...  

Intermediate Accounting Theory and Practice 120A (Fall 2001)
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course covers the interpretation, use, processing, and presentation of accounting information, as well as principal accounting statements. Valuation, recording, presentation, and control of cash, receivables, inventories, and current liabilities also are examined. more...

Accounting for Non-Accountants
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course is designed for non-accounting managers and personnel in organizations of all sizes who must work with and understand internal accounting/financial data--without overemphasizing the detailed mechanics and technical language of accounting. It also is appropriate for entrepreneurs and business owners who desire a greater understanding of what an organization's accounting and financial information systems can and should be supplying. Students gain the knowledge and skills necessary for interpreting reported accounting data and evaluating its impact, including an overview of the financial and managerial accounting process. Topics include fundamental accounting, accounting for sales, cost of sales and inventory, cash and internal control, depreciation method, financial statement analysis, and cash flow. more...

Intermediate Accounting Theory and Practice 120C (Fall 2001)
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course covers accounting for bonds, pension plans, long-term leases, and income taxes, as well as long-term investments in corporate securities. Other topics included accounting changes, developing statements of changes in financial positions, and analyzing financial statements. Price-level and fair-value accounting, as well as present and future value of cash flows, also are discussed. more...

Intermediate Accounting Theory and Practice 120B (Fall 2001)
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course covers the valuation, recording, and presentation of plant, equipment, and intangible assets; accounting for corporations; contributed capital; stock rights; options, and convertible securities; retained earnings and dividends and treasury stockbook value and earnings per share. more...
 
 

Under Taxation we find the following:

Taxation
 
Courses and Seminars: View all 4 results...  

Income Taxation in Personal Financial Planning
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course examines the issues and determination of tax liability for numerous events and activities as they relate to the financial plan. Students are provided with the information and tools of income taxation necessary for making financial planning decisions with the context of either personal or client financial goals and objectives. Topics include tax issues and concepts in relation to insurance, investments, benefit planning, intra-family transactions, and business operations. Students are taught and asked to demonstrate an understanding of the following planning techniques: (1) excluding income, (2) deferring income, (3) shifting income, and (4) managing or timing income. more...

Federal Income Taxation
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course explores individual income taxation issues, including tax determination; personal and dependents exemptions; concepts and inclusions of gross income; general deductions and losses; deduction of certain business expenses and losses; depreciation, cost recovery amortization, and depletion; deduction of employee expenses; itemized deductions and losses; passive activity losses; property transaction gains and losses; nontaxable exchanges; and capital gains and losses. more...

Estate Planning
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course is designed to aid accountants, trust officers, attorneys, life insurance underwriters, and financial planners in solving estate planning problems. Topics include tax objectives, wills and living trusts, the unlimited marital deduction, saving the "second tax," holding title to property, lifetime gifts and trusts, life insurance and annuities, employee benefit plans, business interests, and post-death problems. Recent tax law changes also are covered. more...

Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders (Fall 2001)
From: UCLA Extension (through Onlinelearning.net)
This online course examines classification of corporations and associations, organization of corporations, transfers of property to and from a corporation, small business stock, dividend distributions, earnings/profits, property dividends, basic problems in redemption of stock, attribution rules, and partial and complete liquidations. Instruction also covers accumulated earnings, subchapter S, and transactions between corporations and shareholders. more...
 

Conclusion:  Fathom is moving fast in adding new courses, but a much more rapid pace is being set in arts and humanities than in professional concentrations.


The first-ever Tech Museum of Innovation awards are handed out and its organizers hope this is the start of something big.
"For the Benefit of Humanity," by Sawitree Somburanakul, Wired News, November 2, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,48099,00.html 

A South African foundation and a Brazilian engineer joined three Americans Thursday as recipients of the first Tech Museum of Innovation Awards.

The awards, established by San Jose's Tech Museum, in conjunction with Applied Materials and Santa Clara University, are intended to reward technological innovation that specifically benefits poor and underdeveloped pockets of humanity.

The five winners each received a prize of $50,000.

Freeplay Foundation, a 3-year-old South African organization, won in the Education category for its work in using wind-up and solar-powered radios to help Africans gain access to educational information.

The other winners were Brazil's Fabio de Oliveira Rosa, the founder of IDEAAS (Economic Development); Joseph DeRisi, a UC San Francisco biochemistry professor (Health); Dr. Betsy Dresser, director of the Audubon Nature Institute in Louisiana (Environment); and Chaz Holder, president of CZBioMed in North Carolina (Equality).

"I was genuinely surprised and absolutely delighted," said Kristine Pearson, director of the Freeplay Foundation. "I think (the awards are) fantastic and very well put together.

"Most of the world lives in poverty. Technology has to benefit humanity at large," she said.

That's the idea, according to Peter Giles, president of the Tech Museum. To motivate the innovators to innovate for reasons other than making a buck or two. "Technology benefiting humanity" is the award program's slogan.

"Our goal was to recognize ways in which technology was being used to help in these areas (of the five categories) and other areas, so that we would encourage more people to address the important problems facing humanity," Giles said.

The Tech awards were inspired by The Millennium Project of the American Council for the United Nations University, and its sponsors hope that they will come to be recognized globally.

"We want to build a strong foundation, so that years from now, these awards will start to become like the Nobel Prize," said Giles. "We want to see it develop to the point where it could stimulate people from all over the world to use technology in a way that will address humanity’s greatest challenges.

"This awards program focuses on the application of technology to important human problems. The award finalists have to actually have demonstrated and done significant benefits to humanity," Giles said. "Secondly, we are not aware of the another award program that looks globally to the role of technology."

Fabio de Oliveira Rosa's project would certainly fit Giles' criteria of applying technology to solve a human problem. His low-cost electrification project, IDEAAS, has helped people in rural Brazil turn barren landscape into arable land.

"These awards and all the programs are very important," de Oliveira Rosa said. "I'm very fond of technology and it's very exciting to see how technology can be applied and integrated with science in helping humankind."

He said he plans to use the money to help raise funds to fight poverty in other Third World countries.

Likewise, DeRisi's Health prize will be used to expand microarray technology research that makes the under-funded malaria treatment throughout Africa more available.

"I didn't expect to win," DeRisi said. "My main goal was to raise an awareness of malaria and reach the public eye. Being the winner is just added bonus."

Despite being in its first year, the Tech Museum competition drew 390 applications from 50 countries. From that group, 25 finalists were selected.

"I think it just turned out to be terrific. It turned out to be more than what we expected," said Jim Morgan, CEO of Applied Materials. "One of our purposes is to help provide information to everyone. By publicizing these ideas, they will spread quickly, and it will help more people around the world faster."

The number of competitors challenged the jury.

"The nominees were very inspiring as a group, and there's tremendous diversity of the ideas in innovations," said Jim Koch, director of the Santa Clara University's Center of Science, Technology and Society. "So, the process was a very arduous one and took a great deal of time."

Koch said that the judging focused on the urgency of the problem addressed by the technology and how replicable or inspiring it is to others.

Continued at  http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,48099,00.html  


From Double Entries on October 31, 2001
E-COMMERCE AND AUDITING FAIR VALUES SUBJECTS OF NEW INTERNATIONAL GUIDANCE The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) invites comments on two new exposure drafts (EDs): Auditing Fair Value Measurements and Disclosures and Electronic Commerce: Using the Internet or Other Public Networks - Effect on the Audit of Financial Statements. Comments on both EDs, developed by IFAC's International Auditing Practices Committee (IAPC), are due by January 15, 2002. See http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2213.html  

The IFAC link is at http://www.ifac.org/Guidance/EXD-Download.tmpl?PubID=1003772692151 

The purpose of this International Standard on Auditing (ISA) is to establish standards and provide guidance on auditing fair value measurements and disclosures contained in financial statements. In particular, this ISA addresses audit considerations relating to the valuation, measurement, presentation and disclosure for material assets, liabilities and specific components of equity presented or disclosed at fair value in financial statements. Fair value measurements of assets, liabilities and components of equity may arise from both the initial recording of transactions and later changes in value.

 
Download
"Auditing Fair Value Measurements And Disclosures"
in MS Word format.

File Size: 123 Kbytes
Download
"Auditing Fair Value Measurements And Disclosures"
in Adobe Acrobat format.

File Size: 209 Kbytes

Bob Jensen's accounting theory documents are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 


From Double Entries on October 31, 2001
SEC CHARGES FORMER SENOR EXECUTIVES AND EMPLOYEES IN MASSIVE FINANCIAL REPORTING FRAUD SCHEME AT MCKESSON HBOC, INC. 
On September 27, 2001, the Commission filed securities fraud charges against the former General Counsel, Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President in charge of Enterprise Sales, and two other former gatekeepers of the financials of HBO & Company (HBOC), later a subsidiary of McKesson HBOC, Inc. (now known as McKesson Corporation). The Commission alleges that each of the senior managers played integral roles in a scheme to "cook the books" of the company. The wrongdoing pervaded the top levels of HBOC's legal, finance, accounting, sales and other departments. This massive financial reporting fraud scheme began at Atlanta-based HBOC in 1997, and continued after its January 1999 merger with San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation. When the fraud was first disclosed in April 1999, McKesson HBOC shares tumbled from approximately $65 to $34, a decline that slashed the company's market value by more than $9 billion. 
http://accountingeducation.com/news/news2217 .


FASB Guidance on Derivatives and FAS 133 (Accounting for Derivatives Financial Instruments and Hedging Activities)

Derivatives Reference Manual --- http://www.fasb.org/tech/intro.html 

Chapter 1—Pricing Concepts and the Term Structure of Interest Rates
[Download] (35 pages)
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Chapter 7—Derivatives
[Download] (60 pages)
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

The October 2001 DIG Statements on FAS 133  --- http://www.fasb.org/derivatives/issuindex.html 

Issue B12—Embedded Derivatives in Beneficial Interests Issued by Qualifying Special-Purpose Entities (Released 10/99; Revised 10/12/01)

Issue B34 Embedded Derivatives: Period-Certain Plus Life-Contingent Variable-Payout Annuity Contracts with a Guaranteed Minimum Level of Periodic Payments

Issue C15—Normal Purchases and Normal Sales Exception for Option-Type Contracts and Forward Contracts in Electricity (Cleared 06/27/01; Revised 10/10/01)

Issue C17—Application of the Exception in Paragraph 14 to Beneficial Interests that Arise in a Securitization (Released 10/01)

Issue C18 Scope Exceptions: Shortest Period Criterion for Applying the Regular-Way Security Trades Exception to When-Issued Securities

Issue C19 Scope Exceptions: Contracts Subject to Statement 35, Statement 110, or Statement of Position 94-4

Issue J19 Transition Provisions: Application of the Normal Purchases and Normal Sales Exception on Initial Adoption to Certain Compound Derivatives

Issue D2—Applying Statement 133 to Beneficial Interests in Securitized Financial Assets (a Resolution of the Issues Raised in Implementation Issue D1) (Released 10/01)

Issue E21—Continuing the Shortcut Method After a Purchase Business Combination (Released 10/01)

Issue J19—Application of the Normal Purchases and Normal Sales Exception on Initial Adoption to Certain Compound Derivatives (Released 10/01)

Earlier DIG implementation guidance can be found at http://www.fasb.org/derivatives/issuindex.html 

Bob Jensen's FAS 133, FAS 138, and IAS 39 helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

Bob Jensen's Glossary on these matters (including DIG issues) can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/133glosf.htm 
Note especially the update to the term "Net Settlement."


Hi Bob,

I wanted you to be aware of the fact that I've posted a newly published article on the Kawaller & Company website -- "Complying with FAS 133: Hedging Currency Transactions," published in AFP Exchange, September/October 2001. The article was co-authored with Elie Zabal, President of INSSINC, which is a world-wide provider of risk managment software.

Besides covering alternative ways exposures may be hedged, the paper also was designed to in connection with FAS 133 documentation requirements.

Go to http://www.kawaller.com  and click on "Articles." (It's the first listing under "Currency articles.)

I'd be happy to hear from you with comments or questions.

Ira Kawaller Kawaller & Company, LLC kawaller@kawaller.com 


International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) updates --- http://www.iasc.org.uk/cmt/0001.asp 

Especially note the broader coverage of international accounting news at http://www.iasplus.com/ 


"Where Was The Audit Committee?" by Mark W. Pearson, Financial Executive, November 2001, pp. 44-47 --- http://www.fei.org/magazine/articles/11-2001_audit.cfm 

Where was the auditor?" It's a question often asked by investors and others in the wake of allegations of fraudulent financial statements or a restatement of reported financial results. Now, as the role of the audit committee expands, investors are also wondering, "Where was the audit committee?" Is your audit committee prepared to answer?

In the last few years, the roles and responsibilities of the audit committee have been of interest to investors, legislators, regulators and the general public - largely due to concern over several factors: a number of highly publicized cases of alleged fraudulent financial reporting that were costly to investors; errors requiring restatements of financial statements; the use of acceptable, but aggressive accounting principles; and "earnings management" practices to achieve desired financial results.

In response to this increased attention, a number of commissions and committees - consisting of corporate executives, accounting and auditing practitioners, academics, regulators and others - were formed to study the appropriate role of the audit committee. From these studies, new requirements and recommendations have emerged, resulting in audit committees taking a more proactive role in the oversight of financial reporting.

It's widely believed that the new practices would have gone a long way toward preventing the financial reporting abuses of the past. Thus, the following explores the practices and how they might improve the financial reporting process.

What Has Changed?

Recent significant activities of a number of groups assisting to enhance the effectiveness of audit committees include:

How Has This Changed What Audit Committees Do?

As a result of the implementation of these recommendations and requirements, audit committees have increased the depth of their understanding of the company's business.  Such an understanding not only enables audit committee members to have a more thorough and candid dialogue with management about the company's risks, but also puts them in a better position to ask the right questions about reported financial results.

Audit committees also are focusing more on the company's internal controls; they expect periodic briefings regarding the company's controls from management, the internal auditors and the independent auditors.  Audit committee members are not in a position to determine if the internal controls over the financial reporting process are functioning properly, so they must turn to others.  Usually, that means asking questions of those directly responsible for internal controls -- meaning management.  Management can provide background information on the internal controls, but audit committees also need independent views from the internal and independent auditors.  The committee should review with the auditors and management their assessments of the company's controls and make sure that appropriate actions are being taken to correct any significant deficiencies.  An environment in which management pays little attention to internal control, or fails to respond to control deficiencies noted by the auditors, may increase the risk of fraudulent financial reporting.

Armed with a better understanding of the business and financial reporting process, audit committees can ask more insightful questions about the financial statements and disclosures.  Scrutiny of the financial statements might detect unusual activity, such as premature recognition of revenue as alleged in several recent enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission.  For example, when analyzing the financial statements, the audit committee may question whether a spike in revenue at the end of a reporting period is in response to a sales promotion or represents an improper acceleration of revenue to meet revenue or earnings targets.

 Continued at http://www.fei.org/magazine/Nov-2001.cfm 


"Will Anthrax Help Usher in Age of Paperless Society?," by Michael R. Zimmerman, eWeek News, October 31, 2001

I'll admit it. I don't rush to open my mail any more when Dan the mailroom guy tosses it on my desk. As reassuring a presence as Dan is (6'3" and an ex-Marine), there's not much he can do to stop the threat of bioterrorism. And as far as I know we don't have any radiation-zapping machines in the mailroom.

These days I'm making sure the fax machine is stocked with paper and my desk cleared of hard copy mail. Although the chance of anything like that happening at eWEEK is remote, the inundation of Anthrax stories and photos of clean-up guys in bunny suits, as well as the frequent warnings from Attorney General Ashcroft to be on the lookout for peculiar behavior, is unnerving.

So I've started asking people to fax me things that only two months ago I would've insisted be sent by overnight delivery. This is from a person who over the course of the last five years has berated people—mostly PR professionals (Sorry, folks) for simply asking for my fax number—let alone actually faxing me something.

I've also started relying more on e-mail and attachments and links. Let's face it, we all know the paperless society that the personal computer age was supposed to usher in never happened. People only started printing out e-mails and attachments. Then they started printing out Web site info. And in color! The need for paper didn't go away, it just changed.

Well, for me, the need has changed again. These days I'm making sure the fax machine is stocked with paper and my desk cleared of hard copy mail.

It should be noted that I've also noticed a marked decrease in the amount of hard copy mail I'm getting. I can't tell if that's a concerted effort by tech companies and PR firms or not.

But I'm curious. Have your mail habits changed? Has your company made any institutional changes with regards to receiving hard copy mail vs. e-mail? Or, if you're company is accustomed to mass mailings, have you scaled them back and turned to e-mail and faxing instead?

If the answers are yes to the above, we could very well be on the way to that paperless utopia talked about so long ago—in the '80s.


From Tech Update Today on October 31, 2001

Army takes the lead with smart cards

As the world grows more obsessed with security, the U.S. Defense Department is tightening up access to buildings, computer networks, e-mail and online transactions by switching to "smart" identity cards. The Army will deploy 4.3 million of the Java-based cards over the next 18 months. Enterprises should take note of the military's example. This post-September 11 world demands a bold rethinking of your IT agenda. And tamper-proof, forgery-proof digital credentials are a key component of that agenda. 

Read full story http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?158037:2700840 

Also see http://www.wirednews.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47971,00.html 


From InformationWeek Daily on October 31, 2001

Major-Label Uncertainty Holds Up Online Music Services

LOS ANGELES--Two years after Napster started a revolution that's still changing the way consumers access music, the industry is stuck in neutral when it comes to developing the Internet as a distribution channel. With apologies to the oft-delayed major label-backed services, MusicNet and pressplay, a panel of independent online music execs told an audience at the Webnoize 2001 conference here that they've seen little progress in getting the labels to recognize the value of third-party online services.

To the contrary, they described music-industry efforts to further limit consumer choice by introducing "protected" CDs--which prevent consumers from copying music purchased through retail outlets--as a uniformly bad move. "It's less functionality for the same amount of money," observed Jeremy Miller, the panel moderator and a former exec of defunct music playlist service Uplister. The panel expressed a degree of frustration that efforts to get licenses to use major-label content haven't panned out. Emusic.com senior VP Steve Grady said the subscription service provider assumed from day one that it wouldn't be able to obtain major-label content and instead focused on developing an inventory of music from independent labels. While that has prevented Emusic from attracting a huge user base, Grady said it's let the company offer consumers what the major labels seem reluctant to deliver: the flexibility to use music downloads in a variety of ways, from burning CDs to loading files into MP3 players.

James Glicker, president of music services for FullAudio, which is developing a service that will compete with MusicNet and pressplay, said the labels simply want more revenue assurances than budding service providers can provide. Right now, Glicker said, "There's no business there. Once there is a business, once they can see revenue there, then they'll be more flexible." Sean Ryan, CEO of Listen.com, agreed that the labels have to be convinced that third-party online services can generate enough revenue to offset the labels' concerns about losing control of their product. Said Ryan, "As we show that we can do that, the rights will start to clear out."

Webnoize analyst Lee Black cautions, however, that licensing giant swaths of music isn't a simple matter for the major labels. Black says that the labels' contracts with artists don't specify royalty payments for digital distribution, and thus the contracts have to be revisited before music can be licensed to online outlets. - Tony Kontzer

More from the conference: Napster CEO Targets Q1 2002 Relaunch http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEqi0BcUEY0V20ZRu0A6 


The Canadian West (Photographs, Maps, History)  http://www.archives.ca/05/0529/052901_e.html 


From InformationWeek Daily on October 31, 2001

** WEB SERVICES: Patent Could Trip Up IBM, Microsoft

Tech goliaths such as IBM, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems have big plans for Web services, but they may face a potential David--a.k.a. Charlie Northrup, chief executive of Global Technologies Ltd. Inc. in Princeton, N.J. His metaphorical slingshot is patent 5,850,518--also referred to as patent 518--which he filed in 1994.

It covers two claims, which were intended to protect Global Technologies' initial entry into Web services. Northrup summarizes the patent claims in this way: "When a program is running, it needs to be able to register that it's available as a service--and indicate the types of services it can give you. Similarly, the program should be able to select any registered services that are out there that it can take advantage of. It should also be able to determine which ones it currently knows about, load the ones that it doesn't yet know about, connect to those services, and use them."

Patent 518 appears to intersect with Microsoft's .Net strategy and Sun's Liberty Alliance, says Northrup, who adds that he doesn't plan to file a claim of patent infringement. But those plans may change. Northrup has another set of Web-service related patents slated for approval in about two months, and his company just started seeking financial backing to cover the cost of filing other patent claims.

Intellectual-property attorney G. Gervaise Davis of Monterey, Calif., firm Davis & Schroeder isn't sure whether Northrup has a case, since he hasn't reviewed the wording of the patent claims. But Microsoft, Sun, and others should closely analyze the patent for possible conflicts, he says. For starters, patent litigation is second only to antitrust cases when it comes to fees, typically running upwards of several million dollars, Davis says. That doesn't even include the time and energy drain on execs and engineers. And about 70% of patent cases that are litigated are upheld as valid, he says. "It's the sort of thing you want to avoid at all costs." - Sandra Swanson

Patent disputes are tricky. 

Read the full story at http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEqi0BcUEY0V20ZRv0A7 


Will XP support your hardware? Bill O'Brien knows that you really don't want to roll out Windows 2000 only to find yourself facing yet another upgrade decision in a few months. http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?157915:2700840 


Two Special Collections from the General Accounting Office (GAO)


The Post-September 11 Environment: Access to Government Information http://www.ombwatch.org/info/2001/access.html  

Chilling Effects of Anti-Terrorism: "National Security" Toll on Freedom of Expression http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/antiterrorism_chill.html 


The advertisement below is for your information only.  Bob Jensen receives no remuneration for displaying this advertisement.

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Google: New Look and New File Types Google keeps "tabs" on what's new by simplifying the user interface & introducing a power command. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3174 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


From The Scout Report on November 2, 2001

AltaVista Education Search http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/edu 
This new page from AltaVista allows users to search for terms from within the university and college sites in AltaVista. Searches from this page will cover the more-than-20 million university and college sites held here. Users can also browse the three categories, Education, Colleges & Universities, and K-12 Education, though admittedly the links here, while annotated, are not extensive.


Three Educational Math Sites: 


Eartheasy http://eartheasy.com/homepage.htm 
The site aims "to encourage, inspire and inform people of the inherent wealth of a simpler, less material lifestyle." The site design mirrors its mission, with a front page presenting six snapshots that connect to the main sections -- live, grow, eat, play, wear, and give. Each of the sections offers information on a number of topics ranging from energy efficient appliances to natural lawn care to kite flying and much, much more.


Incubator http://www.vrd.org/Incubator.shtml 
The Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) provides the Incubator software for free to nonprofits. The software "is designed for start-up AskA services in need of software for taking in, routing, and answering questions via the Web." Training and server space is provided by VRD at no cost. This page supplies links to an Academic Library Demo, a K-12 Service Demo, and a presentation on Incubator from the Digital Reference Conference.


Free Telephone Area Code Searches

I noticed you have an area code lookup (phone information) link to  555-1212 which does not work or is no longer free at:  > http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm

My company offers a free area code lookup service which you are welcome to link to at:  www.AreaDecoder.com

If you prefer, you can have your own input field by using something like:

<FORM ACTION="http://www.areadecoder.com/cgi-bin/decoder.cgi"> 
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="searchField"> 
</FORM>

Although we do not offer white and yellow pages, there are many other free sites that do, infospace.com for example. The Area Decoder is primarily for domestic and international lookup by city name or by code.  Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you,
Dick Kreutzer
www.areadecoder.com
  


The Taliban believes the Internet is unholy, but there was an "official" website until right after the September terrorist attacks. Its current status, however, is a mystery --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47956,00.html 


KRTU from Trinity University is now available worldwide at www.krtu.org .

You and your friends in exotic lands such as Australia, Siberia, and Boerne can listen 24 hours a day with Windows Media Player.

See our new logo, our music schedule, and anything else you ever wanted to know about Trinity's radio station at our newly-redesigned website.

Oh yeah... We are still available on good old-fashioned radio waves at 91.7FM.

Thank you for listening.

Ben Donnelly 
Operations Manager KRTU FM 91.7 
Trinity University 715 Stadium Drive San Antonio, TX 78212 (210) 241-8345 
ben.donnelly@trinity.edu  
Listen to our live webcast at www.krtu.org 


What happens if it looks like child porn and pretends to be child porn, but really isn't child porn? That's one of the issues the Supreme Court will be looking at when it decides whether or not to uphold the Child Pornography Prevention Act --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47987,00.html 


From MIT
"A Smarter Web" by Mark Frauenfelder, Technology Review, November 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/nov01/frauenfelder.asp 

Tim Berners-Lee must feel like he's in a time warp. In the early 1990s, he spent a frustrating year trying to get people to grasp the power and beauty of his idea for a scheme known as an Internet hypertext system, to which he gave the beguiling name the World Wide Web. But since the Web didn't yet exist, most people couldn't imagine the implications of what he was talking about. Berners-Lee persevered, and with the help of the few people who shared his vision, his invention became the fastest-growing media distribution system in history.

A decade later, Berners-Lee is struggling with the same problem—only this time, he's trying to articulate his dream of a Semantic Web. The idea is to weave a Web that not only links documents to each other but also recognizes the meaning of the information in those documents—a task that people can ordinarily do quite well but is a tall order for computers, which can't tell if "head" means the leader of an organization or the thing on top of a body. "The Semantic Web is really data that is processable by machine," says Berners-Lee, who is director of the MIT-based World Wide Web Consortium. "That's what the fuss is about."

Today's World Wide Web is fundamentally a publishing medium—a place to store and share images and text. Adding semantics will radically change the nature of the Web—from a place where information is merely displayed to one where it is interpreted, exchanged and processed. Semantic-enabled search agents will be able to collect machine-readable data from diverse sources, process it and infer new facts. Programs that weren't made to be compatible with each other will share previously unmixable data. In other words, the ultimate goal of the Semantic Web is to give users near omniscience over the vast resources of the Internet, turning the millions of existing database islands into a single gigantic database Pangea.

To compare the Semantic Web with today's Web, Berners-Lee—an intense person who speaks in low-volume bursts—offers the following scenario: Imagine registering for a conference online.

The conference Web site lists the event time, date and location, along with information about the nearest airport and a hotel that offers attendees a discount. With today's Web, you have to first check to make sure your schedule is clear, and if it is you have to cut and paste the time and date into your calendar program. Then you need to make flight and hotel arrangements, either by calling reservations desks, or by going to their Web sites.

"There's no way you can just say, 'I want to go to that event,'" explains Berners-Lee, "because the semantics of which bit is the date and which bit is the time has been lost." But on the Semantic Web, he asserts, those bits will be labeled; the software on your computer will recognize those labels and automatically book your flight to the conference and reserve a hotel room with the click of a button.

The Semantic Web will also be a richer, more customizable Web. Imagine running your cursor over the name of the hotel and being informed that 15 percent of the people who've voted on its quality say it's excellent. If you happen to know that the hotel is a dump, you can instruct your browser to assign those people a trust level of zero. (The polling information would be saved on a third-party "annotation server" that your Web browser accessed automatically.) By assigning high levels of trust to people who match your tastes and interests, and "bozo-filtering" the people who don't, the Web will start looking more like your Web.

It's an enormous undertaking. The first step is to establish standards that allow users to add explicit descriptive tags, or metadata, to Web content—making it easy to pinpoint exactly what you're looking for. Next comes developing methods that enable different programs to relate and share metadata from different Web sites. After that, people can begin crafting additional features, like applications that infer additional facts from the ones they're given. As a result, searches will be more accurate and thorough, data entry will be streamlined and the truthfulness of information will be easier to verify. At least that's the goal.

Many feel it can't be done. Even though things are heating up in research labs, the Semantic Web as envisioned by Berners-Lee is hampered by social and technical challenges that some critics say may never be solved. But that's not stopping the World Wide Web Consortium and other organizations from trying. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and commercial enterprises such as Network Inference in Manchester, England, are already developing tools for building the Semantic Web infrastructure—as well as applications for using it. And according to Berners-Lee, with growing numbers of people beginning to grasp how the Semantic Web will "allow more and more sophisticated agents to do things on their behalf," we'll soon see some glimmers of what could be in store.

Untangling the Semantic Web

In his crowded office on the third floor of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science building, research scientist Eric Miller doesn't seem bothered by the pounding and grinding noises coming from heavy equipment on the construction site next door. As the head of the Semantic Web project, the friendly and energetic Miller is too enthralled with his new job to notice. "I'm the luckiest guy alive," he says. "I get paid for what I'd do for free."

Berners-Lee tapped Miller to head up the consortium's Semantic Web Activity because of Miller's involvement in Web-based knowledge management projects and his ability to enthusiastically articulate the concepts behind the Semantic Web. Standing next to a whiteboard covered in diagrams of metadata in action, Miller explains that the fundamental idea behind the Semantic Web is to make the Internet more useful to people by making the information floating all over the Web more easily manipulated by computers.

Today, by contrast, most content is formatted for human consumption. When you read a news article online, for instance, you can easily pick out the headline, byline, dateline, photo credit and so on. But unless these things are explicitly labeled, a computer has no idea what they are. It simply sees a bunch of text. In the Semantic Web, a news story will be marked with labels that describe its various parts, making it easy, among other things, for a search engine to find articles written by Jimmy Carter and not stories written about him.

That's not possible today, at least not on a global scale. The formatting tags used to create Web pages are part of the hypertext markup language (HTML), and they describe only what a Web page's information looks like (boldface, small, large, underlined, etc.). The Semantic Web would go beyond cosmetics by including tags that also describe what the information is: tags would label text as designating, for instance, subject, author, street address, price or shipping charge. These descriptive tags are the metadata—the data about the data. Metadata is not a new concept, nor one restricted to the Internet. A library's card catalogue—with its records describing a book's title, author, subject, year and location on the shelves—is metadata.

The Web made it trivially easy to exchange documents between previously incompatible computers (a few of today's Web users may recall the headaches of the 1980s, when computers from different makers were electronic islands). The Semantic Web will take this a step further, making it possible for computers to exchange particular pieces of information from within documents.

Beyond Metadata

You can't have a Semantic Web without metadata, but metadata alone won't suffice. The metadata in Web pages will have to be linked to special documents that define metadata terms and the relationships between the terms. These sets of shared concepts and their interconnections are called "ontologies."

Say, for example, that you've made a Web page listing the members of a faculty. You would tag the names of the different members with metadata terms such as "chair," "associate professor," "professor" and so on. Then you'd link the page to an ontology—one that you created yourself or one that someone else has already made—that defines educational job positions and how they relate to each other. An appropriate ontology would in this case define a chair as a person, not a thing you sit on, and it would indicate that a chair is the most senior position in a department.

By defining the relationships between terms, ontologies can then be used by applications to infer new facts. Suppose you have created a Web page that teaches schoolchildren about condors, and have added metadata to the content. You could link to an ontology (or more likely, several ontologies) that define the various terms and their relationships: "California condor is a type of condor from California." "Condor is a member of the raptor family." "All raptors are carnivores." "California is a state in the United States." "Carnivores are meat eaters." By using both metadata and ontologies, a search engine or other software agent could find your condor site based on a search request for "carnivores in the U.S."—even if your site made no mention of carnivores or the United States.

Because ontology development is a big undertaking, it's likely that site creators will link to third-party ontologies. Some will be free, others will be sold or licensed. One issue that will have to be confronted: just as with dictionaries and atlases, political and cultural bias will creep into ontologies. A geography-based ontology maintained by the Chinese government, for instance, would probably not define Taiwan as a "country."

But that hardly impedes the vision. As the World Wide Web Consortium continues to develop standards and technologies for the Semantic Web, hundreds of organizations, companies and individuals are contributing to the effort by creating tools, languages and ontologies.

One major contributor is DARPA—the folks responsible for a great deal of the technology behind the Internet (see "DARPA's Disruptive Technologies," TR October 2001). These days, DARPA is contributing tens of millions of dollars to the Web consortium's Semantic Web project and has developed a semantic language for the U.S. Department of Defense called DARPA Agent Markup Language that allows users to add metadata to Web documents and relate it to ontologies. University of Maryland computer science professor Jim Hendler—who was until August manager of the DARPA program—has been working closely with Berners-Lee and Miller to ensure consistency with the consortium's efforts. Last December, Hendler announced the creation of a language that combines the DARPA Agent Markup Language's capabilities with an ontology language, developed in Europe, called OIL (which stands for both Ontology Inference Layer and Ontology Interchange Language).

A developer of this new language, University of Manchester lecturer Ian Horrocks, also advises the World Wide Web Consortium on the Semantic Web. In January, he cofounded a company called Network Inference to develop technology that uses ontologies and automated inference to give Semantic Web capabilities to existing relational databases and large Web sites. Recently, an Isle of Man-based data services company called PDMS began using Network Inference's technology to add Semantic Web capabilities to corporate databases. Dozens of other companies, from Hewlett-Packard to Nokia, are contributing to Semantic Web development (see "Spinning the Semantic Web")

Continued at http://www.techreview.com/magazine/nov01/frauenfelder.asp 

Also see

Berners-Lee Slams MS Browser Tactics --- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22611.html 


The code that can descramble DVDs can be published on the Web, rules an appeals court in overturning an earlier edict --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48075,00.html 

"This is a great decision -- the court recognized that the First Amendment prevails even when people claim trade secret laws," said Robin Gross, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation who represented defendants in the case. "They were also clear that computer code is pure speech worthy of First Amendment protection."

The California case began in late 1999, when the DVD Copy Control Association (DVDCCA), and movie industry trade group, sued Andrew Bunner, a Web developer, and numerous other unnamed individuals for posting and linking to the DeCSS code on the Web.

The DVDCCA said the defendants were using "confidential proprietary information" and were therefore violating movie companies' trade secrets.

In January 2000, the trial court issued a preliminary injunction against the defendants, barring them from posting "or otherwise disclosing or distributing, on their websites or elsewhere, the DeCSS program ... or any other information derived from this proprietary information."

The appeals court reversed that ruling Thursday. The court did not decide whether or not Bunner disclosed a movie trade secret -- that will be decided in trial, which is still pending. Instead, the court said that Bunner can only be barred from posting the code if it has been proven, in a trial, that he has violated a secret.

"DVDCCA's statutory right to protect its economically valuable trade secret is not an interest that is 'more fundamental' than the First Amendment right to freedom of speech or even on equal footing with the national security interests and other vital governmental interests that have previously been found insufficient to justify a prior restraint," the ruling stated.

The DVDCCA could not be reached for comment on Thursday.


"Joint Strike Fighter faces future competition," by Duncan Graham-Rowe, New Scientist, October 29, 2001 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991488 

Lockheed Martin may have won the largest ever military contract to develop the Joint Strike Fighter, but the losers, Boeing, could still have the last laugh.

The Pentagon's announcement on Friday that Lockheed Martin had won the $200 billion, winner-takes-all contract was met with jubilation in President's Bush's home state of Texas, where the company is based.

But experts are warning that the JSF is unlikely to be delivered on time and could be soon made obsolete by Boeing's programme to build uncrewed combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), the pilotless robotic planes of the future.

The JSF is a jet fighter and is supposed to become the new striking force of the US and British armed forces from 2009. Foreign sales could be worth as much as $400 billion extra.

But Paul Nisbet, defence analyst with JSA Research, in Rhode Island, warns that such contracts are notoriously optimistic about development costs and how long it will take to deliver. "I don't see why this contract should be any different," he says.

If they fall far enough behind schedule they could face losing out to Boeing's pilotless planes. "UCAVs will be far more capable than manned airplanes," says Nisbet. Besides being safer, UCAVs should also outperform piloted craft, while being smaller and cheaper to produce.


From Webmionkey on November 2, 2001

Will the privacy directive proposed by the European Commission crumble the cookie for good? If the European Parliament plenary assembly says "yay" on November 13, and if then the EU Council of Ministers follows that up with yet another "yay," euro-surfers may indeed find themselves re-entering all their tasty personal data again and again. And again!

The European Commission, believing Web cookies are the equivalent of spyware tools, wants the technology banned --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48025,00.html 


"Women impeded by tech downturn," by Peter Deleveti,  San Jose Mercury News, October 29, 2001 --- http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/wiretap/pd103001.htm 


Some tax data and a message from David Fordham about levels of household income.  I might add that the marriage penalty also leads to a lot of separate filings from "significant others" in households.

-----Original Message----- 
Take a look at Statistics of Income data 1998 SOI data on adjusted gross income: 

Total taxable returns filed in 1998 -                             93,047,898 
Lower 83% of returns with AGI less than $75,000      77,475,127
Top 17% of returns: $75,000 under $100,000              7,221,303 
                                $100,000 under $200,000           6,266,258 
                                $200,000 under $500,000           1,606,186 
                                $500,000 under $1,000,000           307,020 
                                $1,000,000 or more                       172,004

I was shocked ... [lots and lots deleted] 
Amy Dunbar

----------------------------------------------

Amy, isn't this another example of how statistics can so easily paint a very skewed picture?

Note that the unit being reported is "tax returns", not people.

If I and my wife file a joint return, then our AGI is going to be greater. And if we include our kids' investment income, AGI is greater still.

If I and my wife file separately, then not only will both our AGI's be lower, but it will count as TWO (2) returns in the above table. (If my kids decide to file their bank account interest separately rather than being included in my return, well, then you have additional lower AGI returns.)

Thus, as long as joint filing is allowed, there will naturally be more "returns" as the AGI gets lower, even with all other things being equal. You can't necessarily infer the exact portion of the population in each income bracket by counting "returns".

Note that I'm not disputing your conclusions, just pointing out that as always, we must look closely when using statistics.

David Fordham 
James Madison University


Artists of Brucke: Themes in German Expressionist Prints [Flash] http://www.moma.org/brucke/ 


Note that firewalls are not generally intended to protect against viruses.  The protect against invasion of the computer by hackers intent on doing bad things such as creating entry trap doors to your systems.  In reply to a message about installing a firewall on a home computer, Chula King wrote the following in reply to a firewall question posed by Amy Dunbar:

I too use Zone Alarm, and have been quite pleased with it. I've also tried Black Ice Defender and don't think that it does nearly as good a job as Zone Alarm.

While not anti virus software, Zone Alarm will quarantine "suspicious" e-mail attachments. In addition, it blocks both incoming scans to one's computer and outgoing messages produced by spyware.

Chula King 
The University of West Florida

Reply from Amelia Baldwin

Amy,

as for hacking and such, another vote for zonealarm on your cable internet enabled computer. it is not difficult to use. yes, your cable company probes your IP a few times a day but that's NOTHING compared to the number of times you will get pinged or probed or God know what else by seemingly random attempts from total strangers. :o( Zonealarm blocks and tracks these things and if you weren't frightened before you put up a firewall, you will be when you seen how many accesses were going on or at least attempted!

as for anti-virus, keep an anti-virus program running and keep it's virus signatures up to date (the number of folks who have the software but never update it just astounds me) and never ever open an email attachment that you are not expecting even if it IS from someone you know. some viruses send seemingly random attachments via the email software of the infected computer to folks on the address list, thus you might actually receive what looks like a legitimate attachment from a known user and it will have a virus.

just my $0.02

Amelia

Reply from Bill Spinks

If you have a high speed continuous connection, you need a fire wall! (ZoneAlarm is free and pretty good). I monitor my log of blocked hits and probably get 10 or 15 a day during the week and 20 to 30 on a weekend days. Interestingly enough when I have checked the reverse address of those URLs that are trying to connect with my computer, a large number of them are from China, Korea, and Taiwan -- some have even come from middleschool computers (or so it is reported on http://samspade.org .)

If like stamp collectors you like to travel the world in symbolic form, you can report your "intrusion" back to the tech supervisor of those sites. Sometimes you hear, most times you don't, but it makes for some interesting correspondence from interesting places.

billspinks

You can read some Zone Alarm reviews at 
http://www.epinions.com/cmsw-Utilities-All-Zone_Alarm/display_~reviews
 

Reply from Brian Zwicker

In the Untouchables, Sean Connery said something like: "... never bring a knife to a gunfight" (I have removed the ethnic/racial slur)

Faced with the same incredibly high number of approaches to my home computer setup, I decided to bypass emulating a firewall, and go for the real thing - a firewall.

It turns out not to be very expensive, because I used an older pentium 2 computer I nad in the basement, a couple of ethernet cards, and some software from gnatbox. The computer, by the way boots and runs from a floppy disk! You do not even need a dedicated monitor, except for setting up. The whole system now runs from my desktop computer and you can reset various parameters from there.

Some caveats are that to do e-mail, I had to obtain the real address of my cable provider's mail server, because the gnatbox software could not be made to work without this. It also took a couple of weekends to get everything wotking. I also don't know how, or even if, this would work with many educational computer networks.

On the plus side, since the firewall computer talks to the outside world, and I talk to the firewall, it seems it would take a verrrry determined hacker to get past this setup, and although I did have a number of virus problems prior to the firewall going in, I have had nothing since.

One other thing is the list that gnatbox will show on demand of attempted accesses to the firewall. It dumps the older attempts after 12 hours, but the available list is always many screens long. I would say that if even 99.99% of all attempts are benign, at least 4 or 5 each week would be a real attempt to get through in order to damage something. Pretty scary.

Cheers,

Brian Zwicker


International Resources from the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/ 


International Religious Freedom Report (From the U.S. State Department) 
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/
 


What a great idea!

It's probably not the most cost-effective way to rake in customers, but a website posted by a taxi driver in Barcelona lures four to 12 riders a month ... from Brazil! --- http://www.wirednews.com/news/culture/0,1284,47666,00.html 

Bet you don't know what a water fountain looks like in Barcelona. A recycling bin? A mailbox?

There's a cab driver in this Catalonian capital who believes you might care enough about those mundane objects to hail his website, especially if you're from Brazil.

Aspiring techie Francisco Dugo has been flashing images of Barcelona on Taxitupi.com for the last year and a half, seeking to parlay a simple digital camera and some HTML knowledge into increased business

He doesn't exactly take you for a ride of the city's monuments and tourist sites on his Web page, designed in black and yellow, the official colors of Barcelona cabs. Instead, Dugo unobtrusively takes pictures of whatever he finds interesting during his shifts, selects the best ones and loads them into the site once or twice a week.

"The webcam captures the day-to-day," Dugo said, referring to the 94-picture camera mounted with Velcro atop his dashboard. "It may show a dog, just as it may show a traffic light. There's a photo section that does show the prettiest parts (of the city). But there are any number of Web pages that can show you the Sagrada Familia or the Ramblas. I have that too but that's not the point behind the webcam."

Besides promoting his native city, the point is mostly to attract customers, and the concept seems to be working. Dugo said his site averages about 250 visits a day, the majority coming from Spain, but with Brazil running a not-too-distant second.


Veterinarians have a new tool to help them figure out the disease when confronted by confusing symptoms, but its creators warn it's not a complete cure --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47707,00.html 


FAS 142 Update from the FEI Express on November 1, 2001

POLL: MANY WILL BOOK IMPAIRMENT CHARGES 
Thirty percent of the financial executives participating in an informal polling by FEI say their company expects to recognize an impairment charge for goodwill upon implementation of FAS 142. Forty-five percent do not expect to recognize the charge, and one-quarter of respondents don't know yet.

"Almost one-third of the respondents currently expect to book an impairment charge for goodwill. This is a significant number, and an indication of the kind of impact adoption may have in this current economic environment," said Dean Krogman, FEI Vice President of Technical Activities.

Earlier this year, the Financial Accounting Standards Board approved the issuance of Statements of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141, Business Combinations, and 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets. Under Statement 142, goodwill is no longer amortized but must be reviewed annually for impairment, defined as an excess of net book value over market value. Goodwill would also be required to be tested for impairment if an event occurs that is likely to reduce the market value of a reporting unit below its carrying value.

The financial executives were asked if their company expects to have the same number of reporting units as operating segments or whether there would be more reporting units than operating segments. Responses were equally divided: 45 percent expect the same number of reporting units as operating segments; 45 percent expect to have more, and 10 percent don't know.

More than two-thirds of the respondents (68 percent) expect to use a combination of discounted cash flows and market multiples in determining the fair value of reporting units. Almost one-quarter (24 percent) plan to use discounted cash flows only, and a mere 8 percent plan to use market multiples only.

"We expect the market multiples to be used as verifications of valuations done in other ways," said Krogman. "It's very difficult to find publicly traded competitors with exactly the same business mix as your company's reporting unit, which would be required exclusively for market multiple valuations."

The polling took place during an FEI teleconference for members about the new business combination standards. Approximately 75 financial executives responded anonymously to each question.


Now is a good time to be a venture capitalist, despite the economic slowdown. That's one of the optimistic viewpoints at this year's Red Herring NDA conference --- http://www.wired.com/news/exec/0,1370,48048,00.html 

Nobody talked about their "cash burn," their plans for "grabbing mindshare" or their "exit strategy" at this year's Red Herring NDA conference.

A chastened gathering of venture capitalists, investors and entrepreneurs at the plush St. Regis seaside resort focused on more old-fashioned concepts like making money, holding on to customers and, in some cases, staying alive.

"It's been a brutal year," said Peter Finkelstein, vice president of business development for Orinda, California, startup Critical Point Software. "It took until September to close our last $3 million. Our survival instincts were definitely tested."

See also:
There's Gold, But You Gotta Dig
A Hands-On Look at Valley
Techno Magic Courtesy of People
Need a Job? Do Biotech
Give Yourself Some Business News
Executive Summary: movers and shakers


"How Islam Won, and Lost, the Lead in Science," (History), by Dennis Overbye,  The New York Times, October 30, 2001 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/30/science/social/30ISLA.html 

"Nothing in Europe could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600," said Dr. Jamil Ragep, a professor of the history of science at the University of Oklahoma.

It was the infusion of this knowledge into Western Europe, historians say, that fueled the Renaissance and the scientific revolution.

"Civilizations don't just clash," said Dr. Abdelhamid Sabra, a retired professor of the history of Arabic science who taught at Harvard. "They can learn from each other. Islam is a good example of that." The intellectual meeting of Arabia and Greece was one of the greatest events in history, he said. "Its scale and consequences are enormous, not just for Islam but for Europe and the world."

But historians say they still know very little about this golden age. Few of the major scientific works from that era have been translated from Arabic, and thousands of manuscripts have never even been read by modern scholars. Dr. Sabra characterizes the history of Islamic science as a field that "hasn't even begun yet."

Islam's rich intellectual history, scholars are at pains and seem saddened and embarrassed to point out, belies the image cast by recent world events. Traditionally, Islam has encouraged science and learning. "There is no conflict between Islam and science," said Dr. Osman Bakar of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown.

"Knowledge is part of the creed," added Dr. Farouk El-Baz, a geologist at Boston University, who was science adviser to President Anwar el- Sadat of Egypt. "When you know more, you see more evidence of God."

So the notion that modern Islamic science is now considered "abysmal," as Abdus Salam, the first Muslim to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, once put it, haunts Eastern scholars. "Muslims have a kind of nostalgia for the past, when they could contend that they were the dominant cultivators of science," Dr. Bakar said. The relation between science and religion has generated much debate in the Islamic world, he and other scholars said. Some scientists and historians call for an "Islamic science" informed by spiritual values they say Western science ignores, but others argue that a religious conservatism in the East has dampened the skeptical spirit necessary for good science.

Continued at  http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/30/science/social/30ISLA.html  


Lessons From Affiliate University: Minipages 101 Affiliate marketing has become a game of survival. When last week's session of Commission Junction University (CJU) challenged us to learn what works on the Net, you listened. Particularly when those classic first-movers -- porn, gambling, and spam -- are getting results. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3169 


The Brick Testament (Religion, Children) --- http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/ 

Note that some Jews and Christians may find the interpretations of these biblical stories offensive or just too hip.  The leggo pictures may also offend some readers, but other readers may really like this picture storybook.


Barefoot Books (Children, Education) http://www.barefootbooks.com/ 

Give your child a better start in life... At Barefoot, we celebrate art and story with books that open the hearts and minds of children from all walks of life, inspiring them to read deeper, search further, and explore their own creative gifts.


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs --- http://www.snow-white-disney.com/ 


Screen Capturing

Initial Message from Ross Stevenson [ross.stevenson@AUT.AC.NZ

Hi aecmers I would appreciate info on the software you (experts) use to screen dump from an accounting program (such as Mind Your Own Business - MYOB) to a Word document. I'm told there is stuff out there that is much better than 'PrntScrn' Thanks in advance for any responses

Ross Stevenson 
Auckland University of Technology NZ

Reply from James Borden [james.borden@VILLANOVA.EDU

I have always thought that Paint Shop Pro ( http://www.jasc.com/ ) did an excellent job with screen captures (among other things). To me it is one of the all-time great shareware programs!

Jim Borden 
Villanova University

Reply from Bob Jensen [rjensen@trinity.edu

I also use Paint Shop Pro for a picture grab of the screen.  

For conversion of pictures of text into computer text that can be pasted into MS Word, I use OmniPage Pro --- http://www.caere.com/products/omnipage/pro/ 

Many scanners now come with text conversion software.

Bob Jensen
Trinity University


Reply from Del DeVries [ddevrie1@UTK.EDU

When is a screen dump not really just a screen print? When you are trying to capture a page which is either larger than a single viewable screen or scrolls (such as web pages).

I have used Capture EZ Pro, http://www.screencapture.com/ezepro.htm  (shareware), primarily for web page captures (multiple output file format capabilities) where I needed a snapshot of the entire web page - not just a single screen full. The same could apply to accounting systems.

One additional slick feature is sequential file numbering for capturing multiple web pages (or any screen capture) without taking time to specificially name each file. You specify the leading characters of the file name - the program adds sequential numbering to each successive capture.

Del DeVries


Reply from Bob Jensen [rjensen@trinity.edu]

Del's message is extremely helpful when you want to capture complete images that are larger than the screen.

However, a better way to capture entire Webpages is to simply use Internet Exlplorer's "File Save as" option for downloading entire Webpages.  Of course, you will get separate files for each picture since the only way a Webpage can show a picture is to link to that picture's file (i.e., pictures are not "pasted" into HTML files like they are pasted into MS Word files.

If all you want is a picture from a Webpage, it is generally possible to simply right click and save the single picture file.  If you want all the pictures and other items appearing on the page, then you go to File, Save as and choose the entire Webpage option.   It is possible that the Webpage is in Java such that this is not possible, but most web pages are in HTML where this is possible.

PDF files are more problematic.  Generally the authors let you select text and pictures for copying, but it is possible for the authors to turn off selection permission.  In that case you must resort to EZ Pro, Paint Shop Pro, or one of the other software options for screen capturing.

Since I stopped using Netscape years ago, I don't know if you can do the same type of Webpage and picture file download using Netscape.

Bob Jensen


Reply from Ronald R. Tidd [Ron@RRTIDD.COM

To expand on Bob's comment about using the "File Save As..." option in Internet Explorer to save entire web pages:

Under Save as File Type, select Web Archive Single file (*.mht) and you will not get separate files for each picture.

Also take a look at Hyperionics, http://www.hyperionics.com/index.html 

Ron Tidd

Reply from Jim McKinney [jim@MCKINNEYCPA.COM

For web site capture I usually use Adobe Acrobat. You can download whole sections of a website automatically with the pages date-stamped and source-links printed at the top of the page. 

Jim McKinney 
Howard University

Reply from Andrew Lymer [a.lymer@BHAM.AC.UK

You could also check out Fullshot from Inbit.com ( http://www.inbit.com ) - I switched to this from SnagIt a while back and prefer it for most things involving quick screen grabs (although agree for post snag manipulation, PSP is better)

Andy Lymer 
University of Birmingham, UK

Reply from Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM

I like SnagIt from TechSmith ( http://www.techsmith.com/ ), a company that also produces CamTasia and DubIt each of which are also useful producs.

Roger


Portal servers offer customizable Web interfaces, personalized content presentation, security, application integration, and tools for communication and collaboration. That's a tall order. To find out how well the vendors support business requirements, Doculabs compares portal servers from six vendors--BroadVision, Epicentric, iPlanet, Oracle, Plumtree, and Tibco--and explains what to look for. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEqa0BcUEY04e0Zhe0AM 

Bob Jensen's threads on portals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm 


Aspects of the Victorian Book (Literature, History) --- http://www.bl.uk/collections/epc/victorian/intro.html 


Nowhere Girl (a cartoon-style diary of a real woman) --- http://www.nowheregirl.com/ 


Sex: Unknown --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/gender/ 



From XML Report on October 31, 2001

XML Content management All the news that's fit to XML by Rich Seeley

News content published on the Web is immediately more useable and more searchable--if it is XML tagged.

But as he was envisioning the advantages of XML'ing the news, Vincent Huang, co-founder of XMLCities, Inc., Milpitas, Calif., saw that there was one giant roadblock. While content managers back in a news organization's home office would love having XML content to feed to Websites for television, radio and print media, reporters were likely to resist adopting new word processing systems or add-ons that would require them to learn a new way of writing.

"When an author is creating content," Huang says, "you don't want any restraint. You don't want your authors saying: 'Oops, I can't do this. Oops, I can't do that.' It goes against human behavior."

Added to the potential steep adoption curve, is the fact that in lean economic times, publishers are likely to think twice about replacing existing word processing software on every PC for every reporter in every bureau around the globe.

So Huang came up with what he considers a simple but elegant solution. Let the reporter in Russia bang out his stories in Word 6.0 or whatever old or new text processor he is comfortable using. Then put automated XML tagging software in the hands of the content managers or copy editors who prepare the news stories for electronic publishing.

"What we're saying is, if you're using Microsoft Word or Word Perfect or anything, it doesn't matter," Huang explains. "Author your content and save it in RTF. And after that we can load it into our XMLMaker and apply auto-tagging."

Huang's XMLMaker Suite, which will be available Dec. 1, uses pattern recognition technology to automatically tag text and also includes a "Select-n-Click" feature that editors can use to add XML tags while copy editing.

News content providers would not be the only organizations to benefit from such a tool, according to Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink, Inc., the Boston-based XML analyst and consulting firm. He says it would be "particularly effective for highly unstructured content" in other verticals including education, financial and legal.

For more information: http://www.xmlcities.com  http://www.zapthink.com 

For more on XML Content management go to: http://www.adtmag.com/section.asp?section=specialreport .

Bob Jensen's threads on XML, XBRL, and all that other good stuff can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 



Why is AOL the top-rated destination according to one measurement firm, and MSN the top site according to another? It's because statistics can say just about anything --- http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,48041,1162b6a.html 


The Financial Times has performed a comprehensive study of Executive MBA programs worldwide, and has ranked the schools based on such factors as resulting salary increases and career progress of graduates, the corporate view of executive MBAs, company-sponsored MBAs, the cost of such courses, and the role of e-learning. The U.S. schools scored high in the rankings, with seven schools placing in the top 10. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61872 

So where's Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT?  The winners are as follows:

  1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton (US)
  2. Columbia University Graduate Business School (US)
  3. London Business School (UK)
  4. New York University: Stern (US)
  5. University of Chicago Graduate Business School (US)
  6. Northwestern University: Kellogg (US)
  7. Instituto de Empresa (Spain)
  8. University of Navarra: IESE (Spain)
  9. Emory University: Goizueta (US)
  10. City University Business School (UK)

Below I repeat a module from my May 4, 2001 edition of New Bookmarks.  Note that Wharton ranks at the top in the above survey, but did not make the Top 10 in a Wall Street Journal survey.

From the May 4, 2001 Edition of New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q2.htm 
Stanford, Wharton, MIT, UC Berkeley, and Duke all get "Routed."

The WSJ rankings below are highly controversial and confusing to say the least.  I think the survey was conducted using Palm Beach County's discarded punch-out voting machines (remember the chads).   Stanford, Wharton, MIT, UC Berkeley, and Duke were in a sense "routed"  by the Wall Street Journal's in-charge Special Edition editor, Lawrence Rout along with consulting editor Ronald Alsop.  

A good researcher/editor should sit back and question whether the outcomes are consistent with intuition and previous research.  The main conclusions should also be internally consistent with the data.   When there are inconsistencies, a good researcher tends to ponder the reasons before publishing the results.  There are some inconsistencies in the WSJ top rankings that just do not make sense to me.  If the Special Edition had been sent out for academic review like a paper submitted to a research journal, I seriously doubt whether the referees would have voted to publish this Special Edition.

The Wall Street Journal Special Report: "Top Business Schools," April 30, 2001 ---  http://interactive.wsj.com/pages/topschools2001.htm 

           WSJ Top 10
01. Dartmouth College
02. Carnegie Mellon University
03. Yale University
04. University of Michigan
05. Northwestern University
06. Purdue University
07. University of Chicago
08. Harvard University
09. Southern Methodist University
10. University of Texas at Austin

To go directly to this special report and participate in online discussions, visit http://CareerJournal.com  

To purchase the e-book "The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Schools," containing larger survey results and in-depth profiles of more than 150 schools, go to http://WSJbooks.com 

The WSJ's sample of recruiters generated significantly different rankings than the university deans surveyed for the US News rankings --- http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/apps/gradmba.htm 

U.S. News Top 10
01 Stanford University (CA)
02 Harvard University (MA)
03 Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
04 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
05 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
06 Columbia University (NY)
07 University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08 Duke University (Fuqua) (NC)
09 University of Chicago
10 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

In my comments below, I do not want to take sides on any school's ranking in either of the studies.  However, I do want to raise some questions about inconsistencies within the WSJ's rankings that might account for some of the differences between the WSJ versus the US News rankings.  Keep in mind that there were two different survey populations.  The WSJ sample contained "corporate recruiters" whereas the US News sample contained "university deans."

Stanford (Rank 1 versus 45) and MIT (Rank 5 versus 38)
The WSJ's overall Top 10 does not include most of the US News' overall Top 10 and vice versa.  For example, the top US News school is Stanford University at Rank 1. Stanford ranks 45th in the WSJ outcome in spite of Stanford's significantly higher average Year 2000 GMAT scores (730) compared with all other schools of business in the U.S.  Top GMAT averages are among the  main reasons US News respondents (deans) ranked Stanford as the top school of business.  The WSJ includes SMU in the overall Top 10 and then criticizes SMU on Page R7 of the Special Edition for needing to "upgrade the lower tier of students."  In other words, the WSJ is saying that SMU is better than Stanford but that SMU should become more like Stanford.  Does this make any sense?

Purdue at Rank 6 is a WSJ favorite purportedly (Special Edition Page R7) because of analytical skills and engineering backgrounds of many incoming graduate students.  That's a WSJ in-your-face slap at the famous MIT university (downgraded to Rank 38 by the WSJ from Rank 5 by US News).  MIT is the top ranking engineering school according to the US News rankings and Purdue at Rank 13 at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/gradrank/eng/gdengt1.htm.  My point here is not that recruiters in the WSJ sample did not favor Purdue over MIT.  My point is that those favoring Purdue must have done so for reasons other than those supplied by the WSJ to support having Purdue at Rank 8 and MIT at Rank 38.  I doubt that MIT's students are that seriously inferior to Purdue students in terms of "analytical skills" and "engineering."

One of my reasons for doubting of the WSJ analysis of survey outcomes is the "Pay Factor."  Why do most of the graduates from the WSJ's top-ranked schools have such low "Pay Factor" rankings relative to the top "Pay factor" schools below?  When the top products do not have the top prices, it would seem that the WSJ's Lawrence Rout and the rest of us  would sit back and ponder why.

The Pay Factor

Business schools in The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive top 50 that reported the highest and lowest average salaries for Class of 2000 graduates

Ten Highest

The Wall Street Journal Special Report: "Top Business Schools," April 30, 2001
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB988148379552037498.htm
  
School Salary Signing Bonus Guaranteed Year-End Bonus
1. Harvard University $99,247 $19,690 N.A.
2. Stanford University 97,876 15,355 $38,582
3. London Business School 95,232 23,650 17,310
4. IMD 93,000 21,000 N.A.
5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 92,343 23,495 33,517
6. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 92,081 22,722 N.A.
7. Northwestern University 92,000 23,000 24,000
8. Dartmouth College 91,223 21,523 46,488
9. Insead 91,000 N.A. N.A.
10. University of California, Berkeley 90,000 19,800 35,000

 

My Diploma Wish Factor

An even greater inconsistency in the WSJ conclusions versus the data is revealed in the  "Recruiters' Favorites" at http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB988220429769371192.htm 
(I don't know why there are only nine instead of ten favorites.)

The WSJ claims

Specifically, we wanted to get the opinions of the people who know the schools the best -- corporate recruiters. We thought the business world's view of M.B.A. programs would be of crucial importance to the schools, their students and the companies that hire them.

However, the resulting WSJ's overall Top 10 are not consistent with  the Top 10 outcomes below.  When the WSJ's respondents ( recruiters) were asked which school they would choose to get an M.B.A. degree, these were the ranked outcomes:

The Wall Street Journal Special Report: "Top Business Schools," April 30, 2001  http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB988143448957418118.htm 
Rank What school would you choose for a MBA degree? No. of Nominations
1. Dartmouth College 75
2. Stanford University 48
3. Harvard University 44
4. Carnegie Mellon University 33
5. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 32
6. Northwestern University 30
7. Yale University 27
8. University Of Chicago 26
9. University Of Michigan 23

Another confusing outcome is that some schools in the WSJ overall Top 10 do not rate high on any specialty.  I would suspect a Top 10 to be highest in at least one specialty area.  The specialty area outcomes were as follows:

Recognition for Academic Excellence

When recruiters were asked to nominate one or two schools they believe excel or have reputations in these academic specialties, these schools were named most often at http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB988143448957418118.htm 

Rank School No. of Nominations
Accounting
1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 86
2. University of Chicago 71
3. University of Texas at Austin 36
4. New York University 29
General Management
1. Harvard University 183
2. Dartmouth College 108
3. Northwestern University 81
4. University of Michigan 62
E-Commerce
1. Stanford University 129
2. Carnegie Mellon University 95
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 91
4. University of California at Berkeley 46
Finance
1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 253
2. University of Chicago 191
3. Columbia University 52
4. Carnegie Mellon University 47
Information Technology
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 169
2. Carnegie Mellon University 109
3. Stanford University 67
4. University of Texas at Austin 38
International Business
1. Thunderbird 107
2. Harvard University 86
3. University of Pennsylvania 56
4. Columbia University 38
Marketing
1. Northwestern University 297
2. University of Michigan 54
3. Harvard University 47
4. Dartmouth College 41
Operations Management
1. Carnegie Mellon University 116
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 102
3. Purdue University 53
4. University of Michigan 48
Quantitative Analysis
1. University of Chicago 137
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 129
3. Carnegie Mellon University 96
4. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 79
Strategy
1. Harvard University 207
2. Dartmouth College 73
3. Stanford University 66
4. Northwestern University 54

Bob Jensen's Questions

These WSJ versus US News outcomes vividly demonstrate that business school rankings, like beauty, lie in the eyes of the beholding publisher. It is possible to get "Routed" and "Re-Routed"  when aggregating and reporting the results of surveys.  

Why are there so many internal and external inconsistencies in this study?  Why didn't the WSJ attempt to explain the differences in US News rankings with the WSJ overall rankings?  What more should have been done before publishing the rankings?

Was any effort made by Lawrence Rout to discuss inconsistencies between his WSJ rankings by corporate recruiters and the US News rankings by school of business deans?  For example, was the AACSB school of business accrediting agency consulted by WSJ analysts?  Was Stanford given a chance to question why they were downgraded from Rank 1 to Rank 45 before the Special Edition went to press?  Were MIT and Purdue faculty consulted in an attempt to explain Purdue's Rank 6 versus MIT's Rank 38?  Perhaps Stanford, MIT, and Purdue faculty would have found some serious flaws in either the WSJ or US News outcomes that explain such differences.  Why weren't  major  differences between WSJ versus US News even  mentioned in the WSJ's Special Edition?

Personally, I doubt whether either the WSJ or the US News school of business rankings would ever have been accepted for publication by an academic research journal having rigorous referees that we, as professors, must do battle with before publishing our results.  The reason is that we must explain inconsistencies rather than ignore them!  Questioning about inconsistencies and research rigor is the number one responsibility of a journal editor and his/her team of academic referees.

My bottom line conclusion is that there are more inconsistencies in the WSJ survey than in the US News survey.  



Trinity University colleagues might want to note that Nancy Cooley is Phil Cooley's sister-in-law (I think).  Her article below is entitled "Toward More Effective Instructional Uses of Technology: The Shift to Virtual Learning,"  by Michelle A. Johnston and Nancy Cooley

Below is a description of the November/December 2001 issue of The Technology Source, a free, refereed, e-journal at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=issue&id=45 

Note the change in our URL. UNC-Chapel Hill has transferred ownership of The Technology Source to the Michigan Virtual University. I have agreed to remain as editor-in-chief and MVU has agreed to continue publishing TS as a free service to the educational community.

Michigan Virtual University is a remarkable institution as you can see from my interview with the president, David Spencer, in the September-October issue (see http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/default.asp?show=article&id=921  ). David sees TS as an integral tool in assisting MVU implement its mission.

Also note that we are expanding our use of information technology tools to enhance the e-journal features of TS. As John Walber and Jonathan Finkelstein describe in their letter to the editor at http://ts.mivu.org:8000/default.asp?show=article&id=972  , the authors of all articles in this issue will use OfficeHoursLive (OHL) during November to chat with you about the topic of their articles. OHL is a powerful, easy-to-use, Web-based virtual classroom designed to enable instructors to speak and interact with students live online via a microphone connected to your computer (no long-distance charges). The office hour schedule is posted at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=webchats&issue=45  Check the schedule, drop in, chat with the authors, and experience another tool that facilitates communication at a distance. Can’t make it? We have added a button to our interactive options titled “webchat”; click on that button and you will be taken to the chat archive for that article.

Please forward this announcement to colleagues who are interested in using information technology tools more effectively in their work.

As always, we seek illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of integrating information technology tools in teaching and in managing educational organizations. Please review our call for manuscripts at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=call  and send me a note if you would like to contribute such an article.

Many thanks.

Jim -- 
James L. Morrison morrison@unc.edu  
Professor of Educational Leadership CB 3500 Peabody Hall Editor, 
The Technology Source UNC-Chapel Hill http://ts.mivu.org  
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3500 Editor Emeritus, 
On the Horizon Phone: 919 962-2517 http://www.camfordpublishing.com  Fax: 919 962-1693

IN THIS ISSUE:

In this issue's first case study, Colette Mazzucelli and Roger Boston illustrate their use of Internet technology in an international seminar on conflict prevention in the Balkans. Through a combination of innovative Web development, chat tools, and streaming audio-visuals, the organizers sought to engage seminar participants in an ambitious, cross-cultural study of the factors leading to ethno-political violence. As they discuss the goals of the course, the authors offer a timely model of virtual learning in a global context; as they illustrate the various components of their course design, they provide a range of resources that all promote a highly interactive, dialogue-driven pedagogy. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=949 

Most educators agree that creating a technology-rich, student-centered learning environment means more than just making an existing syllabus available on the Internet--but questions remain regarding what "more" entails. In our second case study, Marina Milner-Bolotin and Marilla D. Svinicki offer a few suggestions: instructors can adapt their syllabuses to target specific student anxieties, incorporate discussion forums to encourage varied and extensive participation, and employ technological tools that personalize homework assignments to each student. Such advances not only resolve technological difficulties, but also address timeless pedagogical concerns. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=909 

In this issue's third case study, Donna Wood describes how a simple simulation enabled her students (a group of preservice teachers) to develop their technological skills and to enhance their pedagogical repertoire. Simulating participation in the Oklahoma Governor's Task Force for Technology in Education, Wood's students used Web sources to develop a plan, a curriculum, and instructional materials for helping public school teachers to integrate technology into their work. The students also had a choice to produce a multimedia Web site that would subsequently be accessible to any public school teacher in the state of Oklahoma. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=910 

With several years of experience teaching college-level German at UNC-Chapel Hill, Scott Windham knows that students learn best when they engage with foreign languages in realistic contexts. The availability of real-life materials in written and audio format on the Internet, Windham reports in our fourth case study, represents a true innovation in language instruction, and his own use of these resources gives a compelling illustration of this point. Having seen an enthusiastic response from his students, he also notes that student skills in at least two of the four critical areas of foreign language study--listening and reading--have improved. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=892 

In our final case study, Maggie McVay Lynch reports on how she combated several persistent problems plaguing the distance learning courses at her university. Familiar with the high drop out rates (and low re-enrollment rates) for online courses, she set out to discover what she could do about them. Lynch created a course to prepare students for the distance-learning environment, requiring them to analyze differences between distance and traditional learning, reflect on their academic responsibilities in the new environment, and use technological tools. Students also identified their learning styles and psychological types in order to build plans for adaptation to the online environment. The results? The attrition rate of online students was reduced to an average of 15% and re-enrollment increased to 90%. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=901 

Michelle A. Johnston and Nancy Cooley's commentary offers some clarity on why the shift toward virtual learning is both confusing and thrilling for many educators. As Johnston and Cooley point out, instructors must develop their own technological expertise and find new ways of teaching if technology is to become transparent and student learning is to become central. In response to demands from contemporary students, their parents, and their future employers, teachers must develop a pedagogy that fosters a technologically astute citizenry. Johnston and Cooley describe the sociological as well as technological shifts driving today's pedagogical transformations. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=869 

In a commentary interview with James Morrison, Fathom President and CEO Ann Kirschner outlines the collaboration between Fathom and Columbia University. Through this collaboration, Fathom is currently building an international learning network of universities, libraries, museums, and other educational institutions. Such extensive partnerships, Kirschner observes, will not only revolutionize education by expanding accessibility to high-quality course content, but will also serve as a valuable tool for institutions seeking a broader market for their programs. For a provocative glimpse into the future of education, read on at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=896 

How can technology training in higher education be made more cost-efficient as well as more time-efficient? Addressing this crucial question in our faculty and staff development feature, David P. Diaz proposes some key concepts for faculty and administrators: pedogogy-based training, an emphasis on context-specific applications, an ethic of collaboration, and a flexible combination of both virtual and face-to-face interaction. Such a fourfold strategy, Diaz notes, would save valuable resources by streamlining the process, thereby making technology integration a much more accessible goal for institutions. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=924 

Mary Harrsch recommends an excellent new tool called Dragon Web Surveys. For a reasonable price, Dragon Web enables non-programmers to design full-featured Web-based surveys. Users can define a single response question with either a radio button or a drop-down list, a multiple response question with check boxes, a value response question for a numeric response, a text response question with space for a short or long text response, or a Likert scale question where respondents rate items on a numeric scale. The software also offers different security options and multiuser remote capability, and it outshines its predecessors. Still not sold? Read Harrsch's full report to find out how she took advantage of a free 30-day downloadable demo. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=919 

In his review of our spotlight site, Stephen Downes introduces Technology Source readers to Harvard University's Research Matters. The site not only offers an impressive range of accessible research from Harvard faculty, but provides such information in a highly polished, easy-to-navigate format reminiscent of the finest commercial e-journals. In its fine balance of content and design, Research Matters provides a worthy standard for bridging the gap between the university and the general public. After a first browse, researchers and web designers alike will find themselves making further visits. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=964 


"Toward More Effective Instructional Uses of Technology:  The Shift to Virtual Learning," by Michelle A. Johnston and Nancy Cooley, The Technology Source, November/December 2001 --- http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=869 

The early portions of the article are not quoted here.

New instructional models

New technologies within virtual learning environments are forcing pedagogical shifts—shifts from the teachers controlling the teaching to the students controlling the learning (Johnston, 2000). Not all students or faculty members are comfortable with this shift in control, and some continue to prefer more traditional models. Yet technology allows the exploration of multiple learning paths and different learning preferences by both students and instructors. Examining and preparing for a movement toward student control of learning is a daunting challenge, requiring extensive preparation by both professors and students. However, as Haddad (1999) suggests, change is worth it because technology-based innovative teaching and learning strategies can both enhance cognition and improve instructional management. Supported by powerful technologies, students can become responsible managers of their instruction, and instructors can become facilitators and co-learners. Ultimately, assessment and learning tasks can become more performance-based (Tinzman, Rasmussen, and Foertsch, 1999).

Two instructional models that have promise in a virtual learning environment are project-based learning and student-led inquiry. In the first model, project-based learning, instructors select the project or problem, and in the second, the control shifts to students who construct their own research questions:

1. Project-based or problem-based learning, which originated in the sciences, has applications in all disciplines. In this model, students and their instructors examine complex problems and construct new knowledge to solve problems using real-life resources and high-performance technology.

2. Student-led inquiry or research asks students to construct significant questions and to design strategies for answering those questions, presenting their findings, and evaluating their products and processes. The processes tend to be authentic, requiring higher levels of cognition, and relate both to real life issues and themes across disciplines. For example, an ecology instructor who wanted to design authentic and real-life learning opportunities for the students formed a partnership with neighboring communities in a regional groundwater quality and pond study. The students designed studies which culminated in reports to the appropriate partnering community organizations. Because they reflected specific communities' needs and students' findings, the study designs, procedures, and reports were all different.

Both student-led inquiry and project-based learning provide methodologies for virtual learning environments in which students take charge of their learning while the instructor facilitates. Within these learning environments, technology and instructional models become intertwined and support constructivist principles.

Conclusion

Technology, whether or not we are ready for it, is changing the way we work. Contemporary students, who are more technologically savvy than those of the past, demand pedagogical change. Furthermore, the societal imperative, expressed by the expectations of their parents, communities, and their future employers, promotes that change by asking for a technologically astute citizenry. Educators at all levels, and particularly at the postsecondary level, have to examine the instructional environment, shifts resulting from technology, phases of technology integration, and models of instructional practices along a continuum. The continuum moves from the automation level of technology integration through a transition level to data-driven virtual learning, which supports new and emerging models of instruction.

Technology has already changed the educational environment in which we teach in ways that instructors must recognize and address. Expectations regarding the role of instructional technology will continue to grow as new technologies emerge. Concomitantly, new instructors will create and implement new pedagogical models that will better capture students' mastery of course objectives made possible by high-powered technology.

References

Haddad, W. (1999). TechKnowLogia: It is about knowledge and learning. Unpublished manuscript.

The Milken Exchange on Educational Technology and Peter D. Hart Research Associates (1999). Transforming learning through technology. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation.

Ravitz, J., Becker, H., & Wong, Y. (2000). Constructivist compatible beliefs and practices among U.S. teachers (Rep. No. 4). Irvine: Center for Research on Information Technology and Services. Retrieved May 16, 2001, from http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/findings/report4/.

Shank, R. C. (January 2000). A vision of education in the 21st century. Technology Horizons in Education (T.H.E.) Journal, 27(6), 42-45.

Tapscott, D. (1999). Growing-up digital. New York: McGraw Hill Professional Publishing.

Tinzmann, M. B., Rasmussen, C., & Foertsch, M. (1999). Engaged and worthwhile learning. In Fine, C. (Ed.), Learning with technology: Participants' manual (pp. 5-18). Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

Valdez, G., McNabb, M., Foertsch, M., Anderson, M., Hawkes, M., & Raack, L. (1999). Computer-based technology and learning: Evolving uses and expectations. Oak Brook, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.



Bob Jensen's Threads on Accounting Fraud, Forensic Accounting, Securities Fraud, and White Collar Crime ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm


New:  
Bob Jensen's Threads on Fees and Choosing Accountants, Financial Advisors, and Consultants --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fees.htm





What Students Will Never Forget! 

Forwarded by Don Ramsey

Here is a selection from Bailey White's book, "Mama Makes Up  Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living", about a substitute teacher at her school who had lost an ear in an automobile accident.  

Mr. Harris has a pair of glasses with an artificial ear attached to the temple. It matches his real ear perfectly; and as long as he keeps the  glasses on, everything is fine."   "....

Mr. Harris is a vigorous teacher. He doesn't just wander  around the classroom with a piece of chalk in his hand and mumble. He gets  excited about physics. He yells. He bangs on the desk. He scribbles  wildly on the chalkboard. And invariably, in his pedagogical heat, he will  forget himself for an instant and whip off his glasses. The ear comes off  too. It is an unforgettable moment.

Whatever Mr. Harris is saying when  that ear comes off is seared into memory forever. It's the ultimate  audiovisual aid.

Cheers,  

Donald D. Ramsey,
University of the District of Columbia

Note from Bob Jensen:  
Somehow I think that everything the instructor said before the ear fell off would be instantly forgotten.


Forwarded by Dr. Bernards

 WHO SHOULD YOU MARRY?


      You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff.
      Like, if you like sports, she should like it that
      you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip
      coming.
      --Alan, age 10
  
      No person really decides before they grow up who
      they're going to marry. God decides it all way
      before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck
      with.
      --Mindy, age 10
  

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?


       Twenty-three is the best age because you know the
      person FOREVER by then.
      --Camille, age 10
  
      No age is good to get married at. You got to be a
      fool to get married.
      --Freddie, age 6

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
     

You might have to guess, based on whether they
      seem to be yelling at the same kids..
      --Derrick, age 8
  
      

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?


      Both don't want any more kids.
      --Lori, age 8
  
      

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?


  
      Dates are for having fun, and people should use
      them to get to know each other. Even boys have
      something to say if you listen long enough.
      --Lynnette, age 8
  
      On the first date, they just tell each other lies,
      and that usually gets them interested enough to go
      for a second date.
      --Martin, age 10
  
      

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?


  
       I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would
      call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about
      me in all the dead columns.
      --Craig, age 9
  


      WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?


      When they're rich.
      --Pam, age 7
  
      The law says you have to be eighteen, so I
      wouldn't want to mess with that.
      --Curt, age 7
  
      The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then
      you should marry them and have kids with them.
      It's the right thing to do.
      --Howard, age 8
  
      

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?


      I don't know which is better, but I'll tell you
      one thing. I'm never going to have sex with my wife. 
      I don't want to be all grossed out.
      --Theodore, age 8
  
      It's better for girls to be single but not for
      boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.
      --Anita, age 9
  
      

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?


  
      There sure would be a lot of kids to explain,
      wouldn't there?
      --Kelvin, age 8
  
  
      

"And the #1 Favorite is........"
  
      HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?


      Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she
      looks like a truck.
      --Ricky, age 10
  
  (I would read the story entitled The Ugly Duckling to Ricky.  Wives somehow turn
   into swans when they think the time is right Ricky.)


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A group of geography students studied the Seven Wonders of the World. At the end of that section, the students were asked to list what they considered to be the Seven Wonders of the World.

Though there was some disagreement, the following got the most votes:

1. Egypt's Great Pyramids 
2. Taj Mahal 
3. Grand Canyon 
4. Panama Canal 
5. Empire State Building 
6. St. Peter's Basilica
7. China's Great Wall

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student, a quiet girl, hadn't turned in her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The quiet girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there were so many."

The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help." The girl hesitated, then read, "I think the Seven Wonders of the World are:"

1. to touch 
2. to taste 
3. to see 
4. to hear

She hesitated a little, and then, 

5. to run 
6. to laugh 
7. and to love

May you be reminded today of those things which are truly wondrous.

--- Author Unknown ---

 



And that's the way it was on November 7, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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November 1, 2001


Quotes of the Week

Forwarded by Bev Koebrich [auntiebev@mediaone.net

Subject: You may cry, but U have to double click and go here, it's well worth the trip
(give it 45 seconds to load the song, be patient)

http://bayridge.com/tribute.swf 

No words to quote:  The perspective from above (a photograph for cockpits of U.S. war planes) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/temp/FromAbove.htm 

Forwarded by Kenneth Johnson

"The federal income tax system is a disgrace to the human race." 
Jimmy Carter

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." 
Albert Einstein

"We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. As one man said, 'At least there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." 
Erwin N. Griswold

"I can't make a damn thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side and they seem right, and then I talk to the other side and they seem just as right, and here I am, where I started. God, what a job!" 
Warren G. Harding

"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes." 
Judge Learned Hand 

Laurie McAulay from the U.K. added the following quotations:

"Accounting was born without notice and reared in neglect." 
(Sterling, 1979)

"Accounting performs the same function in a modern society which witchcraft performed in a more primitive one." 
(Gambling, 1987, Accounting, Organizations and Society)

On a more serious note:

The quality of human life is much too rich and the nature of our relationships with each other much too complex for any system of thought to dictate from a position of privilege." 
(Arrington and Francis, 1989, Critical Perspectives on Accounting).

Possibly my favourite, however, is:

"My third disappointment in this study is that I have been unable to say anything definitive, or even mildly useful, on the subject of transfer prices ... the issue remains a perennial puzzle for academics, while practitioners continue to cope. I wish the best of good fortune to the next researcher to tackle this problem." 
(Vancil, 1979).


"If someone walks rather than drives his car to the corner store to get a loaf of bread, we consider that person a good user of technology precisely because s/he didn't use it. Being a balanced technology user requires knowing when to use it and when not to." 
From THEN WHAT? A FUNQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGY, HUMAN TRANSFORMATION, AND MARSHALL MCLUHAN (As quoted in Infobits on October 26, 2001)

 




The FBI's Internet Fraud and Complaint Center (IFCC FBI)
To thwart fraud on the Internet and terror in general, check in and/or report to http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

One of our local television stations in San Antonio recommended the Private Citizen web site for reducing the amount of junk phone calls and junk mail that you would like to halt.  The Wall Street Journal has also recommended this web site. http://www.privatecitizen.com/


Excel Tips and Videos (Pivot Tables and Charts)
Did you know that Microsoft Corporation presents some of its financial history in Excel pivot tables?  You can download the Excel Workbooks containing pivot tables from http://www.microsoft.com/msft/tools.htm 

I prepared a video on how to download and use the Microsoft pivot tables.  The video can be downloaded from PivotMicrosoft.rm

I also have a video illustrating how to make a pivot table ---  PivotTable01.rm

In addition, I provide a video illustrating how to make a pivot chart --- PivotChart01.rm 

Some other videos are located at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ 


Excel Tips and Videos (Goal Seek)
This is a nice feature used by Dr. Hubbard and me when we derived the yield curves consistent with interest rate swap values in Example 5 in Appendix B of FAS 133.  Both a narrative in 133ex05.htm and an Excel workbook 133ex05a.xls  illustrating the derivation of yield curves can be found at  http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/ 

I prepared a video illustrating the use of the Goal Seek utility in Excel at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/ 
The goal seek video is named ExcelGoalSeek.rm 


Excel Tips and Videos (Conditional Formatting)
This is a nice article discussing a feature of Excel that I never tried before reading this article.  

"Vigilant Spreadsheets, by Charles Kelliher and Lois S. Mahoney (both authors are faculty members at the University of Central Florida), Journal of Accountancy, November 2001, pp. 41-45 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/nov2001/kelliher.htm 

Would you like to be able to scan your company’s financial operations spreadsheet and instantly see which departments are over budget or behind schedule or which accounts receivable are past due? There’s an easy way to do that in Excel, which can automatically flag cells that meet most any condition you establish. You can set the cells to display different formatting flags—colors, font styles, shading, patterns, underlining—with each custom format identifying a specific financial condition. For example, you can program Excel to flag costs that are over budget by displaying them as red; under-budget costs may appear blue.

The Excel function that does this job is conditional formatting. What makes the function especially handy is that it’s not static—that is, when the data in the worksheet change, the cells instantly reflect that by taking on the appropriate formatting.

To set up the function, first highlight the cells you want to include. Then click on Format, Conditional Formatting, which brings up the dialog box shown in exhibit 1 (of the article).

I prepared a video illustrating the use of the Conditional Format utility in Excel at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/ 
The conditional formatting video is named ExcelConditionalFormat.rm 

Bob Jensen's Excel Tips and other tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/busn2311/helpers1.htm 


Innovative Pedagogy of the Week (This may have potential in various courses on campus.)
I hope a video can be obtained for subsequent viewing.

A winner of the Pulitzer Prize will write his novel online while surfers watch --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47961,00.html 

Live, from Florida State University, it's Writing a Novel in Real Time.

At least, that's what Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler is trying to do with his Inside Creative Writing program that launches Tuesday.

Butler, who teaches at the university, will begin with a simple concept for a story when he starts writing at 9 p.m. (EST).

"My project ... involves the sharing of a fully elaborated, moment-to-moment act of personal intimacy formerly found only behind the veil of private life, the act of creating a piece of literary fiction," Butler said.

The writing will be viewable online and on a Florida educational channel for approximately three weeks.

The story idea will come from "one of the postcards from his collection of hundreds and (he will) build a first-person story that picks up the voice of the written message he finds on the back."

Butler said the idea is allow the reader to learn from the creative decisions as they happen.

Each episode will conclude with the author answering questions e-mailed to him during the broadcast. "I won't have the chance, even unconsciously, to re-plan the story," he said. "I want the whole process to be visible in real time on the Internet."


From Syllabus e-News on October 30, 2001

Wisconsin Picks Instant Messaging Platform

The University of Wisconsin has licensed the Jabber Communications Platform to provide instant messaging (IM) applications for its 80,000-plus students, faculty and staff. Jabber, an IM applications developer, will provide the real-time communications platform, which can also be extended to provide messaging between students and users of other messaging services like Yahoo or MSN. The IM services will be delivered via the Jabber Instant Messenger client for Windows, developed to ensure the performance of widespread deployment of IM. Roger Hanson, a technologist with the University of Wisconsin, said the platform would provide "everything we think our students and faculty will need for spontaneous IM communications."

For more information, visit: http://www.wisc.edu 

To read about Amy Dunbar's first experience using AOL's Instant Messaging while teaching an online tax course, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q3.htm#dunbar 


From Syllabus e-News on October 30, 2001

Michigan Provides Dow Jones Service to B-School

Dow Jones Newswires said it would provide its flagship equities information service, Dow Jones News Service, to the trading room at the University of Michigan Business School. The school's Trading Room is designed to give students a realistic view of operations on an actual trading floor. Students are required to manage a real investment fund, combining skills acquired in traditional courses with the latest financial technology to develop strategies for portfolio management. Dow Jones news service offers quick, in-depth reports on everything that affects the stock markets. Richard Sloan, a Michigan professor of accounting and finance, said "students now have the opportunity to analyze how security prices react to the release of new information using the same information source as the Wall Street professionals responsible for setting prices."

For more information, visit: http://www.bus.umich.edu 


Campus Pipeline Unveils Content Management for Higher Ed

Campus Pipeline, Inc. introduced what it called the first enterprise content management solution designed for higher education. The Campus Pipeline Luminis Content Management Suite 2.0 is the product of a collaboration between the company, Drexel University, Pepperdine University, and Documentum, a provider of enterprise content management. The software is intended to automate and administer the management of tens of thousands of Web pages, documents, and other digital resources, from multiple contributors, both inside the campus and in the public domain. Drexel chief information officer John A. Bielec said the collaboration allowed the school to "customize the first content management suite for higher education and help many universities address similar needs."

Bob Jensen's threads on course authoring systems can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 


"But Enron analysts must have the energy and persistence of Talmudic scholars to penetrate the company's cryptic financials. In effect, Enron's troubles were hiding in plain sight." See ARTICLE ONE quoted below.

A Message to My Students on How This Relates to Accountancy:

Below you will find two of the most important short articles that I will assign next semester in ACCT 5341 Accounting Theory.  These are articles about the importance of the "tone at the top" in terms of ethics and information credibility.  We will watch a video from the FASB entitled "Financially Correct" that, in interviews with top CEOs and investors like Warren Buffett, stresses how the most important thing top management can do for investors is to set the tone at the top in terms of information credibility and quality of earnings reporting.

After viewing that video, we will turn to one of the largest flagships of multinational corporations --- Enron Corporation.  Reality will set in when we witness the low-quality earnings reporting and low-quality tone at the top with a double dealing "senior officer" (CFO, Andrew Fastow) of Enron.  Reality will set in when we study FAS 133 on how to account for financial instrument derivatives and then witness how these derivatives were accounted for in a murky way by Enron.  Reality will set in when we consider the dependence auditing firms on the retention of enormous clients like Enron and the clout that such clients have on critical audit decisions.

One article below asks "Where has Enron's board of directors been through all of this?"  I would instead ask, where was Enron's Audit Committee in all of this?   Derivative financial instruments in Enron were intended to be hedges and not speculations.  FAS 133 only allows special accounting treatment for those that qualify as hedges.  Why did losses mount if these derivatives were designated as hedges?   I don't have answers for this, but it will be interesting to see if we can dig up some answers.  

I suggest that you listen to the following audio clip that I recorded in a FAS 133 training workshop that I organized a couple of years ago in NYC.  Mike Koegler is an executive with Chase Bank:

Audio of Mike Koegler of Chase Bank  KOEGLER3.mp3

Clearly, Enron could not get FAS 133 hedge accounting treatment using derivatives that it sold to itself.  Doesn't it follow that Enron also should not be dealing in derivatives in a $1.4 billion derivatives trading company organized and heavily owned by  Enron's CFO?  LJM is not mentioned in Enron's annual reports to date, including the Year 2000 annual report (at least I could not find any mention of LJM in a word search of annual reports to date).  Links to the annual reports are provided to date.   Nowhere in those annual reports are Mr. Fastow's related party transactions mentioned.  Enron's press releases on this matter appear after the media somehow picked up on Mr. Fastow's related party transactions.  He belatedly resigned (in July of 2001) from his partnerships that were exposed over a year ago in the media.  Enron now has a new CFO

If you want to listen to other FAS 133 audio clips that I recorded from presentations by Mike Koegler and other FAS 133 experts, go to the following documents:

http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000overview/mp3/133intro.htm 

http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000overview/mp3/133summ.htm 

The SEC has launched an investigation into related party transactions at Enron.  In particular, Enron's October 22, 2001 response reads as follows at http://www.enron.com/corp/pressroom/releases/2001/ene/70-LJMfinalltr.html 

ENRON ANNOUNCES SEC REQUEST, PLEDGES COOPERATION 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, October 22, 2001

HOUSTON – Enron Corp. (NYSE: ENE) announced today that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested that Enron voluntarily provide information regarding certain related party transactions.

“We welcome this request,” said Kenneth L. Lay, Enron chairman and CEO. “We will cooperate fully with the SEC and look forward to the opportunity to put any concern about these transactions to rest. In the meantime, we will continue to focus on our core businesses and on serving our customers around the world.”

Enron noted that its internal and external auditors and attorneys reviewed the related party arrangements, the Board was fully informed of and approved these arrangements, and they were disclosed in the company’s SEC filings. “We believe everything that needed to be considered and done in connection with these transactions was considered and done,” Lay said.

Enron is one of the world’s leading energy, commodities and services companies. The company markets electricity and natural gas, delivers energy and other physical commodities, and provides financial and risk management services to customers around the world. Enron’s Internet address is www.enron.com. The stock is traded under the ticker symbol “ENE.”

Click here to download this press release in Adobe Acrobat 4.0 format.

 

The main articles that caused me to pounce on this are quoted below.

ARTICLE ONE
"How Enron Ran Out of Gas," by Paul Kedrosky (Professor of Business at the University of British Colombia), The Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2001, Page A22 --- Click Here 
http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1004306265411230320.djm&template=pasted-2001-10-29.tmpl
 

Is troubled Enron Corp. the Long Term Capital Management of the energy markets, or merely yet another mismanaged company whose executives read too many of their own press releases? Or is poor Enron just misunderstood? Those are the questions after another week of Chinese water torture financial releases from the beleaguered Houston-based energy concern.

A year ago Enron was the hottest of the hot. While tech stocks were tanking, Enron's shares gained 89% during 2000. Even die-hard Enron skeptics -- of which there are many -- had to concede that last year was a barnburner for the company. Earnings were up 25%, and revenues more than doubled.

Not bad, considering where the company came from. A decade ago 80% of Enron's revenues came from the staid (and regulated) gas-pipeline business. No longer. Enron has been selling those assets steadily, partly fueling revenues, but also expanding into new areas. By 2000, around 95% of its revenues and more than 80% of its profits came from trading energy, and buying and selling stakes in energy producers.

The stock market applauded the move: At its peak, Enron was trading at around 55 times earnings. That's more like Cisco's once tropospheric valuation than the meager 2.5 times earnings the market affords Enron competitor Duke Energy.

But Enron management wanted more. It was, after all, a "new economy" Web-based energy trader where aggressive performers were lucratively rewarded. According to Enron Chairman and CEO Ken Lay, the company deserved to be valued accordingly. At a conference early this year he told investors the company's stock should be trading much higher -- say $126, more than double its price then.

Then the new economy motor stalled. The company's president left under strange circumstances. And rumors swirled about Enron's machinations in California's energy markets. Investors pored over Enron's weakening financial statements. But Enron analysts must have the energy and persistence of Talmudic scholars to penetrate the company's cryptic financials. In effect, Enron's troubles were hiding in plain sight.

It should have been a warning. Because of the poor financial disclosure there was no way to assess the damage the economy was doing to the company, or how it was trying to make its numbers. Most analysts blithely concede that they really didn't know how Enron made money -- in good markets or bad.

Not that Enron didn't make money, it did -- albeit with a worrisomely low return on equity given the capital required -- but sometimes revenues came from asset sales and complex off-balance sheet transactions, sometimes from energy-trading revenues. And it was very difficult to understand why or how -- or how likely it was Enron could do it again next quarter.

Enron's financial inscrutability hid stranger stuff. Deep inside the company filings was mention of LJM Cayman, L.P., a private investment partnership. According to Enron's March 2000 10-K, a "senior officer of Enron is the managing member" of LJM. Well, that was a puzzler. LJM was helping Enron "manage price and value risk with regard to certain merchant and similar assets by entering into derivatives, including swaps, puts, and collars." It was, in a phrase, Enron's house hedge fund.

There is nothing wrong with hedging positions in the volatile energy market -- it is crucial for a market-maker. But having an Enron executive managing and benefiting from the hedging is something else altogether, especially when the Enron executive was the company's CFO, Andrew Fastow. While he severed his connection with LJM (and related partnerships) in July of this year -- and left Enron in a whirl of confusion last week -- the damage had been done.

As stories in this paper have since made clear, Mr. Fastow's LJM partnership allegedly made millions from the conflict-ridden, board-approved LJM-Enron relationship. And recently Enron ended the merry affair, taking a billion-dollar writedown against equity two weeks ago over some of LJM's wrong-footed hedging. Analysts, investors, and the Securities & Exchange Commission were left with many questions, and very few answers.

To be fair, I suppose, Enron did disclose the LJM arrangement more than a year ago, saying it had erected a Chinese wall between Fastow/LJM and the company. And in a bull market, no one paid much attention to what a bad idea that horribly conflicted relationship was -- or questioned the strength of the wall. Now it matters, as do other Enron-hedged financings, a number of which look to have insufficient assets to cover debt repayments due in 2003.

We didn't do anything wrong is Mr. Lay's refrain in the company's current round of entertainingly antagonistic conference calls. That remains to be seen, but at the very least the company has shown terrible judgment, and heroic arrogance in its dismissal of shareholders interests and financial transparency.

Where has Enron's board of directors been through all of this? What kind of oversight has this motley collection of academics, government sorts, and retired executives exercised for Enron shareholders? Very little, it seems. It is time Enron's board did a proper investigation, and then cleaned house -- perhaps neatly finishing with themselves.

Then I discovered the "tip of the iceberg" article below:

ARTICLE TWO
"Enron Troubles Only the Tip of the Iceberg?," by Peter Eavis, TheStreet.com --- http://www.thestreet.com/markets/detox/10003083.html 

Dealings with a related party have tarnished Enron's (ENE:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis) reputation and crushed its stock, but it looks like that case is far from unique.

The battered energy trader has done business with at least 15 other related entities, according to documents supplied by lawyers for people suing Enron. Moreover, Enron's new CFO, who has been portrayed by bulls as opposing the related-party dealings of his predecessor, serves on 12 of these entities. And Enron board members are listed as having directorships and other roles at a Houston-based related entity called ES Power 3.

The extent of Enron's dealings with these companies, or the value of its holdings in them, couldn't be immediately determined. But the existence of these partnerships could feed investors' fears that Enron has billions of dollars of liabilities that don't show up on its balance sheet. If that's so, the company's financial strength and growth prospects could be much less than has generally been assumed on Wall Street, where the company was long treated with kid gloves.

Enron didn't immediately respond to questions seeking details about ES Power or about the role of the chief financial officer, Jeff McMahon, in the various entities. Enron's board members couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Ten Long Days

Enron's previous CFO, Andrew Fastow, was replaced by McMahon Wednesday after investors criticized Fastow's role in a partnership called LJM, which had done complex hedging transactions with Enron. As details of this deal and two others emerged, Enron stock cratered.

The turmoil that resulted in Fastow's departure began two weeks ago, when Enron reported third-quarter earnings that met estimates. However, the company failed to disclose in its earnings press release a $1.2 billion charge to equity related to unwinding the LJM transactions. Since then, investors and analysts have been calling with increasing vehemence for the company to divulge full details of its business dealings with other related entities. Enron stock sank 6% Friday, meaning it has lost 56% of its value in just two weeks.

Enron's End Run?
New financial chief's involvement in Enron business partners
Enron-Related Entity Creation Date McMahon Involved?
ECT Strategic Value Corp. 4/18/1985 Yes
JILP-LP Inc. 9/27/1995 Yes
ECT Investments Inc. 3/1/1996 Yes
Kenobe Inc. 11/8/1996 Yes
Enserco LLC 1/7/1997 Yes
Obi-1 Holdings LLC 1/7/1997 Yes
Oilfield Business Investments - 1 LLC 1/7/1997 Yes
HGK Enterprises LP Inc. 7/29/1997 Yes
ECT Eocene Enterprises III Inc. 2/20/1998 Yes
Jedi Capital II LLC 9/4/1998 Yes
E.C.T. Coal Company No. 2 LLC 12/31/1998 Yes
ES Power 3 LLC 1/7/1999 Yes
Enserco Inc. 3/25/1999 No
LJM Management LLC 7/2/1999 No
Blue Heron I LLC 9/17/1999 No
Whitewing Management LLC 2/28/2000 No
Jedi Capital II LLC 4/16/2001 No
Source: Detox

However, Enron has yet to break out a full list of related entities. The company has said nothing publicly about McMahon's participation in related entities, nor has it mentioned that its board members were directors or senior officers in ES Power 3. (Nor has it explained the extensive use of Star Wars-related names by the related-party companies.) It's not immediately clear what ES Power 3 is or does. So far, subpoenas issued by lawyers suing Enron have determined the names of senior officers of ES Power 3 and its formation date, January 1999.

Among ES Power 3's senior executives are Enron CEO Ken Lay, listed as a director, and McMahon and Fastow, listed as executive vice presidents. A raft of external directors are named as ES Power 3 directors, including Comdisco CEO Norman Blake and Ronnie Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong-based Hang Lung Group. A Comdisco spokeswoman says Blake isn't commenting on matters concerning Enron and a call to the Hang Lung group wasn't immediately returned.

Demands, Demands

Rating agencies Moody's, Fitch and S&P recently put Enron's credit rating on review for a possible downgrade after an LJM deal that led to the $1.2 billion hit to equity. Enron still has a rating three notches above investment grade. But its bonds trade with a yield generally seen on subinvestment grade, or junk, bonds, suggesting the market believes downgrades are likely.

If Enron's rating drops below investment grade, it must find cash or issue stock to pay off at least $3.4 billion in off-balance sheet obligations. In addition, many of its swap agreements contain provisions that demand immediate cash settlement if its rating goes below investment grade.

Friday, the company drew down $3 billion from credit lines to pay off commercial paper obligations. Raising cash in the CP market could be tough when investors are jittery about Enron's condition.

This week, a number of energy market players reduced exposure to Enron. However, in a Friday press release, CEO Lay said that Enron was the "market-maker of choice in wholesale gas and power markets." He added: "It is evident that our customers view Enron as the major liquidity source of the global energy markets."

McMahon reportedly objected to Fastow's role in LJM, allegedly believing it posed Fastow with a conflict of interests. But he will need to convince investors that the 12 entities he's connected to don't do the same. Enron has said that its board fully approved of the LJM deals that Fastow was involved in. Now, board members will have to comment on their own roles in a related entity.

Related Links

Enron's belated FAQ statement on "related party transactions" --- http://www.enron.com/corp/pressroom/faq.html 
Exclusive Reports --- http://houston.bcentral.com/houston/stories/2001/07/02/story1.html 
Enron Keeps Bleeding --- http://www.businessweek.com/reuters_market/M/REUT-MCO.HTM.htm 
Enron Corporation homepage --- http://www.enron.com/ 
Enron Corporation's Financial Statements

Annual Information
> 2000 Annual Report
> 2000 Financial Highlights
> 1999 Annual Report
> 1999 Financial Highlights
> 1998 Annual Report
 

Reply from Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM

Here are a couple of recent URLs on Enron:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/business/28ENRO.html?pagewanted=print 

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/wto/featured/2001/tclarke.html 

Roger


Reply from Bill Mister

I have heard that the Enron investigation has now been pulled out of the SEC's Fort Worth Office and is now being run out of Washington. This is an unusual move.

I wonder if the move from Ft. Worth to Washington had anything to do with the editorials in the NY Times and the Washington Post. In the Times the new leadership at the SEC was referred to as a "puppy dog" rather than a "watch dog." And, I believe it was the Times that said they would look to see how the SEC handled the Enron case after the "kinder and gentler" speech Mr. Pitts made to the AICPA.

Another factor is that the CEO of Enron is a strong Bush supporter.

I wonder which if either of these influenced the SEC to change the venue of the investigation?

Also, Enron's Audit Committee is chaired by Bob Jaedicke (yes, the former Stanford accounting professor and dean) and a member is Senator Phil Gram's wife, Wendy L. Gramm.

This will be interesting, albeit possibly disgusting, to watch.

William G. (Bill) Mister 
william.mister@colostate.edu
 


Changing Priorities in the SEC 
The new Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, Harvey Pitt, is intent on shifting the focus of the SEC from prosecuting corporate financial fraud to improving financial disclosure. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61403 

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm


A book recommendation from the AccountingWeb on November 2, 2001

In this groundbreaking book, the author uses professional service firms in industries such as consulting, investment banking, law, and advertising as a model for all knowledge organizations to develop intimate and profitable knowledge-based relationships with their clients. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750671858/accountingweb 


From Syllabus e-News on October 30, 2001

Schools Go 'Cashless' for Off-Campus Purchasing

Mercer University in Macon, Ga., and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., have instituted "cashless" buying programs to enable students, faculty and staff to use their ID cards to purchase goods at select off-campus businesses. Currently students use the stored value cards to buy some products on campus, including vending machine snacks, cafeteria lunches, and books. The new program, being managed Student Advantage Inc., would create off- campus networks of businesses at which card holders could make cashless card purchases. The company said the program would "dramatically" decrease the use of cash on and off campus, thereby contributing to campus safety. It also helps cement the universities' relationship with their surrounding communities, officials argued.

For more information, visit:  http://www.studentadvantage.com 


Wow Site of the Week

Songs of the Century for Teachers (although I think anybody with a school address can download the great music) --- http://www.songs-of-the-century.com/ 

You can download and listen to the music and download curriculum plans, exercises, and other teaching ideas using this music.

The recordings are by original artists such as the Kingston Trio.

Note that it takes about 10 seconds to register free for this site.  You may have to download a plug-in for RealPlayer, but the Songs of the Century site makes this automatic and will only take a matter of minutes.

Categories Include the Following:


On October 28, the PBS TV show called Computer Chronicles featured radio stations on the Web.  However, if you want to find show summaries, I find the Computer Chronicles Web site to be poorly maintained and hopelessly out of date at http://www.cmptv.com/computerchronicles/ 

Some of the sites (not mentioned on the show) for finding free online radio that you can listen to while working at the computer, include the following:

Yahoo's radio links --- http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Radio/ 

National Public Radio (NPR) --- http://www.npr.org/ 

http://www.webradios.com/ 

http://www.web-radio.fm/ 

http://www.internetradiolist.com/ 

http://www.radiofreeworld.com/page14.html 

There are many others that you can find with a search engine.


USC may be playing games, but it is not in fun.  The U.S. Army and USC are joining forces to design commercial PC games that will be used to train the next generation of soldiers.

"New Army Soldiers: Game Gamers," by Noah Shachtman, Wired News, October 29, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47931,00.html 

The U.S. Army, working with a University of Southern California research lab and a team of game-making firms, is developing two games, set on urban battlefields, that will be used both to train grunts and entertain geeks.

Players will command a nine-person team in C-Force, which is being developed for one of the "next-generation" gaming systems, like the X-Box, Game Cube or Playstation 2. CS XII, the other game, is a PC title in which players lead a company of about 100.

Both games, available commercially within two years, will have Rob Sears -- the man responsible for the legendary combat titles Mech Commander and Mech Warrior 3 -- as the executive producer.

The armed services have a long history of adapting commercial products for training purposes. But this is the first time the military's ever commissioned a commercial game.

Military gamers are, to put it mildly, psyched about the prospect of an officially sanctioned war game.

See also:
A'Hacking the Military Will Go
War is Virtual Hell
Armor: The Things They'll Carry
New Weapons for a New War
Conflict 2001: Fresh Perspectives
Take your chances in Gamesville


Falls Earth Station, Inc. --- http://www.fallsearth.com/ 

Today’s campus and institutional communication infrastructure must provide reliable and cost-effective support for a variety of tasks. Whether your organization has a large and complex mission requiring separately managed spheres of operation, or whether some or all of the tasks are combined into a single responsibility center; aspects of each communication and control function will increasingly share common physical plant.

At Falls Earth Station, we understand that change is a constant. We design, build, integrate, and operate cost-effective communication and control systems primarily for the university, institutional, and campus environment.

From Syllabus e-News on October 30, 2001

Student Consumers Targeted by Digital TV Companies

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, and the University of the Arts are being offered high-end digital cable television service that offers them up to 118 digital channels, access to premium channels, pay-per-view events, and the ability to customize channel line-ups over the Internet. The service, provided by Madison, N.Y.-based Falls Earth Station, Inc., would be delivered directly to a cable headend on the campus and fed through the campus's existing cable system, thereby eliminating the need for a satellite antenna on each dormitory building. Jerry Barnes, president of Falls Earth Station, said, "we recognize today's college student is a sophisticated and value-conscious consumer, and (the service) is designed to offer the variety, value and flexibility demanded by the higher education community."

For more information, visit: http://www.fallsearth.com 


For Me It Was Disappointing
For a greatly overpriced $25, I purchased the "book" entitled Quality Issues in Distance Learning (AACSB International, 1999).  It is really just a pamphlet of about 30 small pages and is very disappointing.  I find it lacking in Web links, references, data, and examples.  It is no wonder that this item did not make much of a splash in the online education and research sea.  Perhaps it is appropriate that this arrived in my mailbox just before Halloween.  The skeleton outline is helpful, but the flesh is almost nonexistent --- http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Publications/quality_issues.html 

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Forward 2
About AACSB 3
Recommendations 4
Quality Issues in Distance Learning
1.  Introduction and Background 7
2.  Definition 9
3.  Organization of the Guidelines 10
4.  Mission
     4.1.  Inclusion in Mission
     4.2.  Commitment to Distance Learning
     4.3.  Stakeholder Involvement

10
11
13
5.  Students
     5.1.  Student Support Infrastructure
     5.2.  Student-Faculty and Student-Student Interaction
     5.3.  Consumer Information for Students

14
14
15
6.  Faculty
     6.1.  Faculty Composition and Qualifications
     6.2.  Faculty Commitment to Distance Learning

16
19
7.  Curriculum and Learning Issues
     7.1.  Design of Learning Experiences
     7.2.  Individual and Group Learning
     7.3.  Technology Strategy
     7.4.  Assessment

20
20
21
22
8.  Instructional Resources
     8.1.  Resource Sufficiency

23
9.  Intellectual Contributions
     9.1.  Intellectual Contribution Policies
     9.2.  Ownership and Compensation

25
26
10. Business and Institutional Relationships
     10.1. Off-site Support
     10.2. Customized Distance Learning Programs
     10.3. Partnership Arrangements

26
27
28
11. Summary and Conclusions
      Issues of Quality Distance Learning Delivery

29
Student Questions for Distance Learning Providers 31
Order Form 33
Mission Statement and Strategic Objectives 35

Bob Jensen's education technology documents are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


Hi XXXXX,

I don't think there is any way of making a downloaded PDF file stop working after a time limit. A PDF file is not an executable file and would have not way of terminating itself. The best you can to is to put a warning at the top of the document that says the material is dated and students will have to go to such and such site for updated materials.

In other words, put a link at the top of a document and encourage users to always download a fresh document. Also put a date at the top so that they know when you last revised the document. Unfortunately, revising a document does not always entail revising all of the material in the document. Perhaps you should have two dates: One that indicates when you last added to the document and one that indicates when you last thoroughly revised the document.

Always encourage people to send you suggestions for revisions and corrections. Then have some process for making revisions and corrections as quickly as possible.

You can prevent printing and text selection for automatic quotations in a PDF document. In Adobe Exchange software, go to File, Document Info, Security and then choose to block printing, text selection, editing, password controls, etc. But there is no way of preventing downloading to my knowledge.

You can read more about adding security to PDF files at the following sites:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/products.html

http://www.adobe.com/epaper/tips/acr5secure/pdfs/acr5secure.pdf 

http://www.adobe.com/epaper/tips/acr5secure/page3.html 

Hope this helps.

Bob

-----Original Message----- 
From: XXXXX
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 11:51 PM 
To: rjensen@trinity.edu Subject: A question for you

Bob:

Over the years, I have been distributing extensive handouts in PDF format to students. I prepare these handouts to elaborate upon class discussion or to discuss current topics. These handouts, however, end up having a life of their own. Is there any way to prevent people for printing/accessing a PDF file after a certain date, i.e., to make it expire?

I am not interested in preventing access after a time period for commercial reasons. My main concern is that my hastily prepared handouts (which admittedly always have some errors because they are carefully proofed or checked by another person) end up being distributed on the web beyond my class for an indefinite period of time. I get emails pointing errors in my 3-year old handouts that I have since fixed.

Thanks.

XXXXX

Update from Bob Jensen:  
The author of the above message discovered that PDF files may be timed out if they are served in a special way on Adobe's server.  I could not find any information about this at Adobe's website.  If there is such a service, it is probably not a free service from Adobe.


Interesting Site of the Week (History, eCommerce, eBusiness, dot.com)

The Museum of E-Failure http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/ 

The Museum of E-Failure is an attempt to actively preserve the home pages of sites that will probably disappear in the next few months. Our goal is not to laugh at these failed enterprises, but to preserve documentary images - as many as possible - before all traces of their existence are deleted from history's view. It is my hope that these screenshots may serve as a reminder of the glory, folly, and historically unique design sensibilities of the Web's Great Gilded Age (1995-2001). May no historical revisionists ever claim that this wacky period didn't happen - these screenshots prove that it did!

Thanks to all who sent in defunct or endangered site URLs during the last month . Be proud - you've done your part to preserve our vanishing Cyber-Heritage!

If you'd like to support this peculiar exercise in ALT-PRINT-SCREEN documentation? Send a tip using the Ghost-O-Meter and I'll try to get a screen grab of the site before it disappears.

Steve Baldwin


Web Search Engines FAQS:  http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/oct01/price.htm 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


The 2000 National Doctoral Program Survey http://survey.nagps.org/ 

Improving graduate education has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. We wanted to know how implementation of recommended changes was coming along, so we asked the people to whom the improvements matter most: graduate students. Between March and August of 2000, over 32,000 students and recent Ph.D.'s responded to our survey on educational practices in doctoral programs.

You can rank programs based on student assessments of their educational practices and on student satisfaction, view program reports on the 1300 programs from which we received at least 10 responses, and view overall results for each discipline.

View the Results
  Rank programs by perceived implementation of recommended educational practices and by student satisfaction
  View program reports for any of the 1300+ programs from which we received at least 10 responses
  View aggregate results broken down by discipline and by respondent characteristics
 
Help the Cause
  Tell others. Send an email to students in your program, to friends at other programs, and to members of your graduate student association.
  Link to us. Add a link to the survey home page, http://survey.nagps.org, to your own web site.
  Talk to your campus newspaper. Our press kit contains materials your campus paper can use in a story.
  Talk to your chair and your dean. These background materials provide a good starting point for a discussion of educational practices in your program.
  Brainstorm. Share your ideas for making graduate education better.
  Sign up. Sign up to be notified about future surveys.
  Give us feedback. If this survey is helpful to you, tell us! If you have ideas for improvements, let us know about them.
Discuss the Results
  Discuss ways to improve graduate education
  Discuss ways to improve this survey
 
About the Survey
  Read background materials on the survey, including information on methods, the sample, credits, and press materials.
  Sign up to be notified about the next survey

Many disciplines are documented. One such discipline is as follows:

Aggregate Results, Business and Management Programs

Overall results, Business and Management programs
Results by gender, Business and Management programs
Results by citizenship for U.S. universities, Business and Management programs
Results by ethnicity for U.S. citizens, Business and Management programs
Results by enrollment status, Business and Management programs
Results by year of graduation, Business and Management programs
Recent graduates vs. current students, Business and Management programs
High- vs. low-participation departments, Business and Management programs
Current students at U.S. institutions, Business and Management programs

The following report is not very current, but it is informative about trends.

Demand For Business Ph.D.s Continues Slow Rise, While Doctoral Production Falls Steadily, AACSB International --- http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Newsline/view.asp?year=1999&file=spdemand_1.html 

Demand for Ph.D.s in business schools rose slightly this year according to results of the latest AACSB surveys of business doctoral production and faculty demand.  The overall vacancy rate rose to 6.8 percent, compared to 6.6 percent a year ago.   Planned growth in business faculty positions is up by one-half of a percentage point, from 3.1 percent last year to 3.6 percent this year.

The number of business doctoral degrees awarded in 1997-98 is 1,006, down from last year's 1,072, marking this as the third year of doctoral production decline.  The number of women receiving Ph.D.s fell to 304, down from 319.

New African-American Ph.D.s in business rose to 34, three more than the year before.   Hispanic-American Ph.D.s rose from 11 to 23.  Eight Native-Americans earned business doctoral degrees, compared to two last year.  Among non-U.S. or Canadian citizens, the percentage of total degrees conferred rose to 34.5 percent from last year's 28.1 percent

Survey Results

  DOCTORAL PRODUCTION 1997-98 AND DEMAND FOR DOCTORATES 1998-99, 1999-00
  FACULTY POSITIONS FILLED, VACANT AND PLANNED GROWTH, 1998-99, 1998-1999
  FACULTY DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION OF AACSB SCHOOLS
 

Distance Learning Documents from the AACSB International

Distance Learning Programs Increase; Schools Focus On Use Of Technology To Extend Business Education  from the AACSB International --- http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Newsline/view.asp?year=1999&file=wncomputer_1.html 

Distance learning is a new information technology application that is in a rapid growth phase. Business schools now seem to have their basic technological infrastructure in place and the focus has shifted to how to use the technology to support and extend business education. Microcomputers now are ubiquitous in business schools and mini/mainframes are becoming rare.

These are some of the findings of the most recent UCLA Survey of Business School Computer Usage, conducted in cooperation with AACSB. Survey results provide comprehensive overviews of business school computing, communication and technological environments - information that is designed to assist deans and strategic planners with developing business program plans and technology allocation decisions.

The Fifteenth Survey compiles data from 232 business schools in 11 countries and was conducted by a team from California State University, Dominguez Hills, led by Julia A. Britt, associate professor of management. Britt, who has co-authored the survey with Jason Frand, assistant dean and director, computing and information services at the UCLA Anderson School, took over primary responsibility for the survey this year.

This year, schools reported owning a total of 49,245 microcomputers, an average of 221 per school, a slight increase from the 215 microcomputers per school as reported last year. "The small increase seems to confirm the conclusion that the average number of microcomputers per school has reached saturation," said Britt. The computer operating budget as a percent of the school operating budget of 3.5 percent is just slightly above that of last year, 3.3 percent, indicating that the decline from the high of almost 5 percent in 1993 may have leveled off.

According to Britt, product and market developments have moved microcomputer equipment in the direction of a commodity product. "All Intel-based microcomputers offer essentially the same features, run the same operating system and application software, and individual purchases are frequently based on just price or convenience rather than unique capability or a proprietary operating system," she said. Overall, Windows now has a combined 92 percent share of the desktop operating system usage, up from the 87 percent reported last year. It appears that almost all of the DOS only systems now have been replaced.

Further, both the faculty-per-micro density and the student-per-micro density show very little change from last year. Eighty-four percent of the undergraduate schools and 91 percent of the MBA schools indicate that there usually is very little waiting for microcomputer access at a density level of 17. However, the data shows that when 24 or more students are required to share access to a single microcomputer, there always will be a wait. And finally, commercial systems now have allowed Email to become ubiquitous. The schools report that 92 percent of the faculty, 94 percent of the staff, 77 percent of the undergraduate, and 87 percent of the MBAs now use Email regularly. As can be seen in the table, local area networks (LANs) provide extensive access and communication opportunities.

Local Area Network Access (percent of schools) N=228 LOCATION PCS LAPTOPS Faculty Office 97% 64% Admin Office 96 50 Computer Labs 96 42 Classrooms 84 51 Library 72 27 Dormitories 54 28 Group Room 43 32

"The excitement is in access to and utilization of this basic infrastructure," Britt said. "This is where the dynamic developments are occurring. Together with distance learning, the Internet and the Web are becoming one of business schools' most frequently used application resources. An increasing number of faculty members are using the Internet and the Web resources for classroom support, and more and more students are using these resources for business research," she said.

Continued at http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Newsline/view.asp?year=1999&file=wncomputer_1.html 

Detailed appendices in the survey identify key benchmarking metrics by business school, including budget ratios, computer ownership requirements, and microcomputer and staff density ratios, as well as examples of innovations in the areas of curriculum, Web development and the technological environment.

The executive summary of the survey report can be found on the Internet at http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/jason.frand/researcher/survey/15exsum.htm
Schools participating in the survey received a free copy of the report. Additional copies can be ordered by sending a check for $50 per copy to: Jason L. Frand, Assistant Dean, Computing and Information Services, The Anderson School at UCLA, 110 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481.


Quality Issues in Distance Learning from the AACSB International (for $25 or $30) --- http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Publications/quality_issues.html 

This report results from the work of a task force established by the Board of Directors of AACSB - The International Association for Management Education. The board recognized the growing importance of distance learning in management education, and they charged the task force to provide guidance to assist 1) schools developing distance learning programs, and 2) peer reviewers evaluating distance learning programs.

In addition to its response to the two specific requests of the board's charge, the task force report provides a list of questions for prospective students to use when considering enrolling in a distance learning program.

While this report has as one of its aims to assist peer reviewers evaluating distance learning programs, it does NOT create new accreditation standards for distance learning. Accreditation standards for management education appear in other documents and have sufficient flexibility to be used to evaluate quality in distance learning. This report should assist reviewers to interpret the standards as they apply in distance learning programs.

Bob Jensen's documents on distance learning are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


AACSB/EBI Survey Findings Reveal Little Relationship of Gender, Status and Rank to Business Faculty Satisfaction --- http://www.aacsb.edu/Publications/Newsline/view.asp?year=1999&file=wnfindings_1.html 


Other Reports from AACSB International

Special Reports

 

Surveys/Survey Results

 

Statistical Information


The American Accounting Association's former benchmarking program is described at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/about/brochures/bench.htm 
Tom Oxner pointed out to me that program was dropped when the AACSB International adopted a similar program.
Craig Polhemus later wrote the following message:

Bob,

Thank you for alerting me to the outdated information on the AAA Rutgers site. (It was the 2000-01 brochure you accessed there.) We will correct that right away.

I am sorry that you did not hear that the AAA Benchmarking program has been cancelled. All participating schools were notified immediately, and this change has been included on the AAA front page each week since it happened.

The AACSB’s plans for accounting and business program reporting changed substantially between August and October. Based on consequent recommendations from Tracey and me, the AAA’s Executive Committee decided to end the program immediately.

The day that decision was made, we updated the active Benchmarking-brochure URL ( http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/partners/bench.htm ). This is the Benchmarking URL reached from the AAA front page ( http://AAA-edu.org ) either through the drop-down menu or through the Faculty Development sections.

Looking closely, I note that the URL you cited led to a blue brochure. The blue brochure was for 2000-01; the 2001-02 brochure (both before and after the change reflecting the end of AAA Benchmarking) is in green. It does require a close look to notice which year each is for – poor brochure design on our part.

Because I couldn’t find an active path from the AAA front page to the 2000-01 blue brochure at the URL you cite, I tried our Search function – and sure enough its first two hits were to the 2000-01 blue brochure, with the 2001-02 discontinuation notice the fourth hit.

A Benchmarking discontinuation notice is also in the forthcoming Fall issue of Accounting Education News.

As always, I greatly appreciate your calling this Web problem to my attention as well as your strong support for AAA programs.

I’m away from the email account that subscribes to AECM, so could you please summarize or post this there for me? Thank you.

Craig 
[Craig Polhemus, American Accounting Association]

The AACSB International's benchmarking program is described at http://www.aacsb.edu/knowledgeservices/benchmarking.asp 

I might note that when it comes to critical problems identified by the AACSB International, curricular issues take a back seat relative to issues noted at http://www.aacsb.edu/tfintro.html .

eCommerce and eBusiness curricula comparisons are dealt with at http://www.aacsb.edu/E-Business/Index.html 

Although there are no databases listed, you can find some good curriculum publications at http://www.aacsb.edu/Pubs.html 


From my bookmarks at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm 

Education Statistics (Data)

International Education Data, Statistics, and Trends
Education Indicators Education at a Glance 2001:  Education at a Glance OECD Indicators
- 2001 Edition --- http://www.oecd.org/els/education/ei/eag/ 

National Center for Education Statistics

Projections of Education Statistics to 2011 --- http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfor.asp?pubid=2001083 
Total public and private elementary and secondary enrollment is projected to increase from 52.9 million in 1999 to 53.4 million in 2005. Then total enrollment is projected to decrease to 53.0 million by 2011, an overall increase of less than 1 percent from 1999 (table 1).

Between 1999 and 2011, public elementary and secondary enrollment is projected to increase 8 percent in the West, while in the South it will increase 1 percent. In the Northeast and Midwest, enrollment is projected to decrease 4 and 3 percent, respectively, over the same period (table 5).

Enrollment in degree-granting institutions is projected to increase from 14.8 million in 1999 to 17.7 million by 2011, an increase of 20 percent. A 16 percent increase is projected under the low alternative and a 23 percent increase is projected under the high alternative (table 10).

High school graduates from public and private high schools are projected to increase from 2.8 million in 1998-99 to 3.1 million by 2010-11, an increase of 11 percent. This increase reflects the projected rise in the 18 year-old population (table 23).

Between 1998-99 and 2010-11, the number of public high school graduates is projected to increase 20 percent in the West, while the South will increase 12 percent. The Northeast and the Midwest are projected to increase 11 and 2 percent, respectively, over the same period (table 24).

The number of bachelor's degrees is expected to increase from 1,184,000 in 1997-98 to 1,392,000 by 2010-11, an increase of 18 percent (table 27).

Under the middle alternative, a 34 percent increase in current expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools is projected for the period from 1998-99 to 2010-11. Under the low alternative, current expenditures are projected to increase by 29 percent; under the high alternative, current expenditures are projected to increase by 40 percent (table 33).

Under the middle alternative, current expenditures per pupil in fall enrollment are forecast to increase 33 percent in constant dollars from 1998-99 to 2010-11 (table 33).

Download, view and print the entire report as a pdf file (937kb).

 

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS --- http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ 
Features

IPEDS Web-Based Data Collection allows institutions to provide NCES with the required statistical data, replacing the paper survey forms that have been used in past years.

IPEDS Peer Analysis System and Self-guided Tutorials enables a user to easily compare a LinchPin institution of the user’s choosing to a group of peer institutions, by generating reports using selected IPEDS variables of interest.

IPEDS College Opportunities On-line (COOL) presents data on institution prices, financial aid, enrollment, and type of programs that are offered by the institution. IPEDS COOL is designed to help college students, future students, and their parents understand the differences between colleges and how much it costs to attend college.

 

College Opportunities Online --- http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/ 
IPEDS College Opportunities On-Line is your direct link to over 9,000 colleges and universities in the United States. If you are thinking about a large university, a small liberal arts college, a specialized college, a community college, a career or technical college or a trade school, you can find them all here.

College Opportunities On-Line is brought to you by the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education. NCES was authorized by Congress in 1998 to help college students, future students, and their parents understand the differences between colleges and how much it costs to attend college.

College Opportunities On-Line helps you find out about a specific college or set of colleges, if you have some in mind. You can name the colleges and obtain information about them.

If you are not sure what colleges might be of interest, IPEDS COOL has the tools to help you search for a college. You can search for a college based on its location, program, or degree offerings either alone or in combination. The more criteria you specify, the smaller the number of colleges that will fit your criteria. Once you've found some colleges of interest, you can obtain important and understandable information on all of them.

Once you have determined the colleges that meet your interests, we urge you to obtain more information about them by visiting their web sites, writing for more information, or visiting the schools of your choice.

Warning: An institution's inclusion in IPEDS COOL does NOT imply approval of the institution or its programs by the U.S. Department of Education. Title IV eligible schools (those that participate in awarding Pell Grants and other federal financial aid) have recognized accreditation. This is important for acceptance of transfer credit or degree recognition.

Other College Related Links

Contact the IPEDS Staff

 

Education Statistics Quarterly_ http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/quarterly/winter/ 

Advanced Telecommunications in U.S. Private Schools: 1998-99---  http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001037.pdf 

Digest of Education Statistics, 2000 --- http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001034

A Primer for Making Cost Adjustments in Education--- http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001323 

Condition of Education (Annual Report to the U.S. Congress) http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/ce/index.html  

Education Statistics Slide Show http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/edstats/slide1.htm

Digest of Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/D96/  

U.S. Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/ 

DAS Web http://www.pedar-das.org/ 

UNESCO Statistical Yearbook http://www.education.unesco.org/educprog/stat/index.html  

Fedstats http://www.fedstats.gov/ 

Facts and statistics (Fast Facts) --- http://gwu.edu/~gprice/handbook.htm 

US News Online Comparisons of Programs in Higher Education


I've been making CDs for years, but only recently did I discover software that makes it as easy as easy as (Edit, Copy) and (Edit, Paste) in Windows Explorer (which is free with the Windows operating systems).  But you do need one added piece of software.

For those of you who have never recorded a CD-R or CD-RW, there is a pretty good buy out from Roxio that includes both the Easy CD Creator 5.0 package and the Go Back 3 Deluxe for a combination price of $119 --- http://www.roxio.com/en/promotions/t12/index2.jhtml 

Recording a Data CD has really become easy.  All I do is click the DirectCD Project button and the Format button.  That turns a blank CD-R or CD-RW disk into a file receiver such that you simply drag or paste files into the CD using Windows Explorer (exactly like you would when moving or pasting into other hard drives).  You can even remove the CD and re-open it later to add or delete files (i.e., you can build and modify the CD at different points in time).  Then when you have just the files you want in your CD, you click the finalization options and Easy CD Creator finishes the CD into a disk that can be read on virtually any CD-ROM drive.  The CD-RW files can be erased and modified later on, whereas the CD-R disks cannot be erased.

Easy CD Creator can also copy CD audio disks.  You can also make photo or video CDs.

What I really like is the MP3 CD button that allows you to record analog input (such as the audio part of a videotape) into MP3 files on your hard drive.  Learn more at http://www.roxio.com/en/products/ecdc/;jsessionid=1PCBIFOX54SGZT33IAVBVQQ 

I've not used the Go Back 3 software package, but it probably is something I will install soon.  GoBack 3 Deluxe delivers quick and easy system recovery, providing users with the power to undo PC problems and greatly reduce downtime and service calls --- http://www.roxio.com/en/products/goback/;jsessionid=1PCBIFOX54SGZT33IAVBVQQ 


Impressions via 'Sessions' The New York Times just introduced "sessions.  "If you don't know what they are, you'd better find out. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3147 


From the U.S. Library of Congress (History, Music, Folk Songs, but no audio here) --- 
Woody Guthrie and American Folk Song Archive - he was a grass-roots Renaissance man --- http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/wwghome.html 

You can find some good free MP3 folk singer downloads, including some Woody Guthrie songs,  at http://www.crypticgallery.com/mp3/main.html 

The are a number of other sites that provide audio samples (usually not complete songs).  For example, try the samplers below:

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/default.asp?oid=4165 


From Webmonkey Frontdoor on October 30, 2001

Last week, we all reeled with enthusiasm over Apple's hip new iPod MP3 player. But where's the hot new audio device for the PC? Introducing Imation's RipGO!, a mini CD-R burner and digital audio player. The unit, which is already the subject of a fair amount of hype, plays MP3 and WMA files, and it records any digital file, music or otherwise, onto teeny tiny 80mm CD-Rs. Cute!


Question:
What is the new wage base (after which no social security deductions will be made from your paycheck for the rest of the year)?

Answer:
The Social Security Administration has announced the new wage base for application of Social Security tax withholding, effective January 1, 2002. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61172 


The IRS has issued Notice 2001-70 on Disaster Relief From Application Of Mid-Quarter Convention in Tax Code Depreciation Rules. In this notice, the IRS relieves taxpayers from using the mid-quarter convention for computing depreciation expenses. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61029 


Amazon Expects a Merry Christma$; bellwether e-tailer its predicts pro-forma profitability for Q4. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3160 

I know that I talked about this crapola called "pro forma" in the October 24 edition of New Bookmarks, but once again it rears its ugly head.

I have a free video on the pro forma deceptions at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5341/jensen/realmedia/ 

I have threads on these deceptions at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 

Dennis Beresford addresses the pro forma issue at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/beresford01.htm 

The way in which tech firms are reporting results of a very difficult quarter is quite a turnaround from a couple of years ago.
"Earnings Downplay Stock Losses," by Joanna Glasner, Wired News, October 29, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47886,00.html 

Even when presented in the best light, the financial results that technology firms are reporting this month look pretty awful compared to a year or so ago.

After accounting for the techniques that firms employ to downplay poorly performing segments, however, the actual results may be quite a bit worse than even the most uninspiring first impressions would indicate.

Nearing the tail end of a brutal investing year, many firms with substantial holdings in the telecom and technology industries are reporting financial results that divert attention away from hefty investment losses they've sustained.

Instead, firms such as Microsoft and Amazon.com are encouraging investors to focus on "operating income" -- the money derived from their core business -- and to view losses in other areas as one-time events.

In some instances, the emphasis on operating income is a stark turnaround from a couple of years ago. Back then, when tech stocks were riding high, it was common practice for companies to include investment performance when discussing profits.

But when the market tanks, customs change.

"It typically has been the case that investment gains have been included in general earnings. But in bad times, they're separated out," said David Tice, manager of the Prudent Bear Fund, which makes money betting against stocks perceived as overvalued.

While he doesn't object to firms' treating investment income as a separate category, Tice believes the treatment should be consistent in good economic times and bad ones.

However, not every firm adheres to that principle.

A case in point, this earnings season, was Microsoft -- a company that for most of 1999 and 2000 earned hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter from gains in its investment portfolio.

When its investments were doing well, Microsoft (MSFT) headlined its earnings announcements with its net profit, a figure that included both the sizable sums it made from its main business of selling software and the gains it made from outside investments.

The results were impressive. Reporting its earnings for the three-month period ending Sep. 30, 2000, Microsoft boasted of a net profit of $2.2 billion. Much of that bountiful profit came from a $1.13 billion gain from outside investments that quarter.

But that was last year. This past quarter, when its investments performed poorly, Microsoft gave first mention in its Oct. 18 earnings announcement to operating income. By that measure, the software company reported a profit of $2.9 billion for the three months ending Sep. 30, up from the same period last year.

However, the number didn't include outside investments. Microsoft gave secondary mention to net earnings, which were noticeably worse. After taking into account investment losses of $980 million, an income tax payment and some incidentals, the company's net profit actually totaled $1.28 billion.

That's still not bad, of course, but in context, it's more than 40 percent less that what it reported in the same quarter a year ago.

Microsoft said it gave operating income first mention in its earnings announcement because this was a crucial metric for investors to watch. In queasy economic times, Wall Street could take solace in the fact that the company's main operating system business was chugging along very nicely.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47886,00.html 

See also:
Amazon Not Out of the Jungle
Profits, Losses and Damn Lies
Where's the Money?, Huh?
There's no biz like E-Biz


Almanac of American Politics --- http://nationaljournal.com/members/almanac/ 


From Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, November 2001, Page 21 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/nov2001/news_web.htm 

BANKING SITES

The New Banking Hours—24/7
www.usaccessbank.com

This e-bank offers its customers the same services they would find at any traditional institution—certificates of deposit, interest checking, overdraft protection and savings accounts—as well as bill payment and brokerage services. Customers also have access to other online resources such as the Free ATM Finder for locating nationwide, surcharge-free ATMs.

Online Financial Strategies
www.onlinebankingreport.com

In addition to offering a subscription to its e-zine and archived issues (click on Subscriptions for pricing information), this site also provides customers with a free sample of five articles from the Online Banking Report archives, and boasts more than 1,000 pages of useful ideas and Net banking products, plus links to the home pages of the 100 largest U.S. banks.

Money, Mortgages and MSN
www.moneycentral.msn.com/banking/home.asp

This page of Microsoft’s MSN.com has information, resources and a search tool for online banking. The banking commentary section explores the topic “Why isn’t cash obsolete?” as of this writing. The mortgages and loans section lets you apply online once and receive multiple home or car loan offers, as well as find the best current credit card rates. The Step-by-Step Guides section “Bank Online” gives users advice on what to look for in an e-bank and what tools they will need to begin e-transactions.

The Business of Banks
www.bankrate.com

This site offers the latest auto loan, mortgage and credit card rates here. In addition, users have access to tools to rate banks, find local branches and see national averages on mortgages and credit cards. Financial calculators and a free subscription to Bankrate’s electronic newsletter are also available.

A Quick Course in Online Banking
www.onlinebrokerage.about.com/blbank.htm

About.com’s Online Banking Center gives users an introduction to and basic information about conducting electronic banking transactions. Topics include Web banking basics, paying bills and mortgages online, and banking software. Articles on topics in banking and links to related information also are available.

Electronic Transaction Resources
www.bank-accounts-online.com 

The Banking and Investing Online Resource Group publishes articles with titles such as “How to Manage and Strengthen Your Dream Sales Team,” and offers a Q&A section devoted to customer service and online banking. By clicking on the Fraud Reporting tab, users can get links to fraud prevention and reporting organization Web sites including the Federal Trade Commission and the Fraud Bureau.


The Best Online Banks --- http://onlinebrokerage.about.com/cs/bestwebbanks/index.htm 

One-stop Online Banking Center
Find the answers to all of your questions about online banking here.

Internet Bank Scorecard, from Gomez.com Best of the Net
Internet consultancy, Gomez.com's Winter 2000 ranking of online banks.

SmartMoney's 2000 Online Banking Rankings Best of the Net
WSJ's personal finance magazine, SmartMoney's ranking of online banking sites.

BankRate's Best US Online Checking Accounts for 2001
Check out the best in US checking accounts for the year 2001.

Canadian 2000 Online Bank Rankings, from Quicken.ca
Financial software maker Quicken ranks Canadian web banks.

"0-Effort" Online Banking's rankings
This Web site has recently announced its ranking of online banks. And you can sort them by Best Interest Rates, Best Bill Paying, or Best Customer Service.


This one is a little hard to believe.
Holiday e-commerce will reach record levels in 2001, despite economic uncertainty, according to Nielsen//NetRatings and Harris Interactive. But outside North America, holiday e-commerce is really starting to take off. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3154 


Demand Increasing for Online, Electronic Payment Methods The use of the Internet to pay bills is growing, but so is the use of several electronic payment methods. A survey by the Yankee Group found it's the convenience of eliminating checks that is helping convert consumers. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3149 


Congress isn't considering legislation on national ID cards, but the subject continues to bother civil libertarians who fear that it's only a matter of time --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47788,00.html 

Actually, what Larry Ellison is proposing is not so unreasonable.


A three-century-old theory that the Northern and Southern lights match has finally been confirmed by a NASA spacecraft 
"Parallel Polar Light Shows," Wired News, October 26, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47920,00.html 

"The search for intelligent life at NASA," The Economist, October 25, 2001 --- http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=832711 


From Infobits on October 26, 2001

SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING: COSTS AND CONCERNS

Recently, here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and elsewhere, there has been more than the usual talk about the exceptionally-high and constantly-rising costs of scholarly journals and what scholar, editors, and libraries can do about the situation. Here is a summary of some of the discussion and reading:

At the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information & Library Science 2001 Lucile Kelling Henderson Lecture, John Vaughn, Executive Vice President of Association of American Universities (AAU), presented some possible solutions to the problem. He suggested that scholarly publishing be non-revenue generating, funded on a cost-plus basis, as are research activities. He said that scholars need to retain their copyright, or at least sufficient rights to keep their publications accessible to the scholarly community. Vaughn proposed the following actions:

-- a high quality study of the economics of scholarly publishing in the print environment that can then be extrapolated to the digital environment,

-- a series of discussions with key actors and stakeholders in the academic community, and

-- the establishment of a group of experts with an oversight board to develop a business plan to transform the current system.

For more info on AAU's position on scholarly publishing, see "Principles for Emerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing" at http://www.aau.edu/issues/Principles5.10.00.html 


"Declaring Independence: Returning Scientific Publishing to Scientists," (THE JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING, vol. 7, issue 1, August, 2001) at http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-01/buckholtz.html 


LEARNED PUBLISHING 

Journal of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers http://www.alpsp.org/journal.htm 

"Publishing Electronic Journals Online" by Tom Abate (BIOSCIENCE, vol. 47, no. 3, March 1997) http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/guide/prices/prices8.html 

The Open Archives Initiative Develops and promotes interoperability standards that aim to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content http://www.openarchives.org/ 

International Consortium for the Advancement of Academic Publication A Canadian e-journal publishing initiative http://www.icaap.org/ 

The Resilience Alliance An attempt to develop manuscript processing software for e-journals http://www.resalliance.org/consortium/ 

Project Euclid: A New Model in Scholarly Communication http://projecteuclid.org/ 

Berkeley Electronic Press Partnership Provides a suite of electronic publishing tools http://escholarship.cdlib.org/bepress.html 

Commercial services for e-journal editors:

ScholarOne http://www.scholarone.com/applications.html 

Rapid Review http://cjs.cadmus.com/rapidreview/index.html 


THEN WHAT? is a novel dealing with the future of learning and technology by Infobits subscriber, Jason Ohler <jason.ohler@uas.alaska.edu> . Since 1986, Ohler has been Director of the Educational Technology Program at the University of Alaska Southeast.

For more information and excerpts from the book, link to http://www.jasonohler.com/thenwhat/ 

INFOBITS is also available online on the World Wide Web at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/  (HTML format) and at http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/text/index.html  (plain text format).


Allegations that Big Five firm KPMG helped the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain cheat Medicare and Medicaid will be resolved by a $9 million settlement by the firm http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=61513

Allegations that Big Five firm KPMG helped the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain cheat Medicare and Medicaid will be resolved by a $9 million settlement by the firm. KPMG this week agreed to settle out of court in a case that last year slapped their client the Columbia Hospital Corporation with over $840 million in criminal fines for defrauding government health care programs.

The case alleged that KPMG filed false claims on behalf of Basic American Medical Inc. and later Columbia Hospital Corp. that allowed them to collect on costs they knew were not allowed. The case revolved around false claims made from 1990 to 1992, and involved four hospitals in Florida and two in Kentucky.

"We vigorously deny that we engaged in any wrongdoing," KPMG spokesman George Ledwith said. He added that the accounting firm agreed to settle only to avoid costly litigation and put a 10-year-old dispute behind it.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 


"Programmer Exposes Microsoft Flaws," by Amy Harmon, The New York Times,  October 23, 2001 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/technology/23PIRA.html 


"U.S. forces pack pocket computers:  Handhelds track troop movements, help pinpoint targets, MSNBC, October 23, 2001 --- http://www.msnbc.com/news/646394.asp?0si=- 


From MIT
"Information Warfare," by David H. Freedman, Technology Review, November 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/nov01/freedman.asp 

The rising stakes have touched off an escalating stream of network skirmishes between those determined to break into organizations' computers and those charged with protecting them. Right now, the bad guys are winning. "Internet security is a big mess," says Bill Cheswick, a chief scientist at Lumeta, a Somerset, NJ, computer-security software firm spun off from Lucent Technologies. "It gets discouraging sometimes." That sobering reality has sent Cheswick and other top computer scientists into their labs to come up with new weapons for the intensifying battle


A proposal to create an "electronic Congress" in times of emergency is causing some wonder up on Capitol Hill --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47841,00.html 

This is something I proposed on September 12 at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/justiceappeal.htm#Jensen 


Apple has finally unveiled its secret "breakthrough" device: The iPod is a pricey portable music player that stores up to 1,000 songs and can copy a CD in 10 seconds. But Apple fans aren't all that thrilled --- http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,47805,00.html 


Cleopatra from Egypt:  From History to Myth --- http://www.fmnh.org/cleopatra/cleopatra.html 


The Senate is preparing to approve the biggest expansion of eavesdropping laws in a generation. Opponents of the anti-terrorism bill try to put a brave face on bitter defeat --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47858,00.html 


Take a look at these Top 100 Most Influential Accountants and their favorite books.

Accounting Today announced its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for the year 2001. Many people named on the list shared their most recent reading experiences. Here are the books that are shaping these top minds. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61222 

The actual listing of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting is at http://www.electronicaccountant.com/html/top100peop/top100list.htm 

I detected the following professors or former professors of great influence.

Congratulations to our former AAA President Steve Albrecht, Professor of Accounting from BYU (although on leave at Stanford)

Congratulations to our ethics watchdog Abraham J. Briloff ,Professor Emeritus, Baruch College

Congratulations to diligent GASB part-time member William Wallace Holder, Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting, University of Southern California

Congratulations to our ever- intangible Baruch Lev Professor, New York University
Baruch is probably the only professor on this Top 100 list with a highly useful Web site.  See http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~blev/ 

Congratulations to Belverd E. Needles Jr., President, International Association for Accounting Education and Research (but we all know Bel from Depaul University and from his successful textbooks in accountancy).

Congratulations to Harvey L. Pitt, Chairman, SEC (many of you may not know he was formerly an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University).

Three Cheers for Our Terrific Mary Stone!
Congratulations to Mary S. Stone, Professor, The University of Alabama and most recent President of the American Accounting Association until August 22, 2001.

Congratulations to Ray Whittington,  Director School of Accountancy, DePaul University (a suitable honor for a very good professor of accountancy).

The most popular books among the Top 100 Most Influential Accountants are as follows according to the list at http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=61222 

Security Transformation: Digital Defense Strategies to Protect your Company's Reputation and Market Share, by Mary Pat McCarthy and Stuart Campbell with Rob Brownstein
The Man in the Mirror, by Patrick Morley
The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, by Bruce Wilkinson
The ValueReporting Revolution: Moving Beyond the Earnings Game, by Robert Eccles, et. al.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, by Mitch Albom
Under the Tuscan Sun : At Home in Italy, by Frances Mayes
John Adams, by David McCullough

 


EToys has pried the nails from its coffin, saved by a former rival. The site is one of several dot-com burnouts resurrected by a one-time competitor --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47745,00.html 


Like most systems designed to protect children from sexual or violent content on the Web, a voluntary one touted by Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo has severe limitations --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47808,00.html 

Haunted by the specter of regulation, three of the biggest companies on the Net are throwing their weight behind a new smut filtering scheme --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47798,00.html 


From the FBI
Crime in the United States, 2000 --- http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/00cius.htm 


PixelPress (Art, Photography, Aritists) --- http://www.pixelpress.org 

At PixelPress we attempt to simultaneously explore new ways of understanding the world and new ways of using media to deepen the exploration. We invite a wide variety of artists and documentarians to present their work, and frequently collaborate with them to better utilize the new potentialities of digital media, such as non-linear narratives, layered points of view, shifting relationships of image and text, and other evolving forms. We also select books, exhibitions or events of interest in our PixelPicks, an occasional column that highlights work from a variety of cultures, many of them under-represented in mainstream media. And we publish essays and articles on subjects surrounding the contemporary evolution/revolution in media.

All of this has been done without any commercial sponsorship. And other than one grant from the Hasselblad Foundation in Sweden – for which we are eternally grateful – this site has been funded only by the spirit of adventure. So if we don’t change it fast enough, please don’t be discouraged. We are working on it.


Learn how to organize your message, pick a theme, and utilize fonts to maximize your usage of PowerPoint. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/61530 


From Transparency International
Global Corruption Report --- http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/ 


From the National Academies Press
Terrorism and Security Collection  http://www.nap.edu/terror/ 


DoubleTake Magazine (Literary News, Fiction, Poetry, Literature) --- http://www.doubletakemagazine.org/ 


Macromedia claims it owns the patent to Adobe Photoshop and files a suit against Adobe Systems --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47773,00.html 


Women Make Movies (a feminist site that films cultural differences in the lives of women) http://www.wmm.com/ 


Instant messaging gets a digital media overhaul, as Yahoo integrates streaming music, cartoon backgrounds and games into its new application. But America Online and Microsoft still rule --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47782,00.html 

Yahoo on Monday released the latest version of its popular instant messenger application, offering users the ability to stream popular music, play games and create cartoon backgrounds on the system.

The company's new service enhancements are an attempt to counter the tremendous reach that competitors America Online and Microsoft have built up by embedding their applications on pre-packaged products.

Yahoo's goal is to build a real-time entertainment portal that allows users to watch movie clips and interviews, listen to new music, play games or simply personalize the chat window with comics like Dilbert or generic backgrounds.

"We've put an entertainment tool through the IM window where people can connect with bands, or watch the newest video or purchase the CD," said Mary Osaka, a Yahoo spokeswoman. "It provides users a way to experience IM in ways they never have before."

While AOL and Microsoft have primarily been competing for the dialup users, Yahoo has made a serious play to attract broadband users looking for more than just a simple text experience.

"It's a good strategy for Yahoo to go after the rich media, high-end users because AOL and MSN are going to be targeting the ease-of-use newbie consumers," said Billy Pidgeon, an analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix. "That doesn't mean that these companies won't get into that later, but for now, this is Yahoo's best bet."

Along with the company's streaming Internet news program FinanceVision, Pidgeon said it was clear Yahoo was developing a strategy for high-speed users.

Yahoo faces an uphill battle in its fight to gain a strong foothold with instant message services -- among the fastest-growing applications on the Internet.

AOL and Microsoft have a decided advantage. AOL users have free access through the Internet service provider, while Microsoft users have a default service built into the operating system.

That strategy has worked well for both companies, which have battled for the top spot in the IM wars. Currently, Microsoft has 42 million users, a number that is expected to grow now that the company's Windows Messenger client is built into the new XP operating system, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.

See also:
Aimster Up, Napster Down for Now
Can't We All Just Chat Along?
This Hack's Sights Set on AIM
Trapped and Chatting in NYC


This is yet another reason why I recommend subscribing to the electronic version of The Wall Street Journal so that you can also subscribe to the free educator service.  This is one of the example cases from the free October 25 edition of the Accounting Educators Review:

SEGMENT REPORTING and FX HEDGING

TITLE: Pfizer Posts Jump In Third-Period Net On Lipitor Sales 
REPORTER: Beth M. Mantz 
DATE: Oct 18, 2001 
PAGE: B9 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1003323212215713160.djm  
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting

SUMMARY: 
The article describes information in both the quarterly report and in supplemental information supporting the earnings release that is linked to the electronic form of the WSJ article. Topics discussed in the article include the effects of foreign currency translation on revenues and details from segment reporting.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) Examine Pfizer's 3rd quarter report, linked through the article on WSJ interactive as "listen to Pfizer's conference call discussing third-quarter earnings." How are the company's segment results presented? Do segment reporting standards under SFAS 131 require this much detail? Why might a company want to present such detail?

2.) Along what lines do you think the company organizes its management reporting system?

3.) The article describes a "$242 million foreign currency hit because of the strong dollar." This amount is given in the supplemental information to the quarterly financial statements. How does foreign currency affect this company's revenues? How can the company hedge against the impact of foreign currency translations?  (To this I would add questions about FAS 133/IAS39 accounting rules for FX hedging.)

4.) The article states, "revenue for human pharmaceuticals climbed 13% to $6.24 billion, or 16% excluding the impact of foreign exchange..." Where is this information presented in the quarterly results linked to the article? What concerns do you have about the way that this information is presented?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University


I teach in an electronic classroom that allows for switching between 37 computers, a document camera, and a SmartBoard. Any designated computer (on a touch screen) displays simultaneously on two screen. The same thing happens if I plug my laptop into a VGA port on the lecturn.

In my office, I have a LinkSys splitter that allows me to input four devices (e.g., computers) and switch each device to a single monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I use this so I only need one keyboard and mouse at my desktop. However, the monitor signal degrades too much such that each of my two main computers has its own monitor. See http://www.linksys.com/ 

You can try a Y-Cable VGA signal splitter that costs about $5.00. However, you may lose some image quality.

The best solution is to have a splitter with a SVGA or VGA distribution amplifier See http://www.monitorworld.com/faq_pages/q24_page.html  
I think my LinkSys splitter degrades because it only splits the SVGA signal without distribution amplification.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ramsey, Donald [mailto:dramsey@UDC.EDU]  
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2001 6:56 PM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU Subject: Laptop Ports

Is it possible to simultaneously control two digital projectors, and read a live image from a document camera, from one laptop? Would you run out of ports? Is any external hardware necessary? Many thanks for any advice!

Best,

Donald D. Ramsey, 
University of the District of Columbia

[dramsey@UDC.EDU

Reply from John Roberts [roberts_j@POPMAIL.FIRN.EDU

My school recently purchased some InFocus projectors that were meant to be used with notebook computers. Consequently, when we tried to use these in the classroom witha normal desktop computer we discovered that there was no video out from the projector to a monitor as there had been on previous models of projectors we had used.

InFocus wanted $325 for their Cable Wizard that would allow us to have both the projector and monitor hooked up. Our IT department located another splitter - the VS-102 manufactured by ATEN International based in Taiwan. It has a MSRP of $69 (BUY.COM has it for 47.95) and has worked great - no discernable degradation of signal.

You might check out the following site for this and other video splitters:

ATEN's site: http://www.aten-usa.com/products/productselect.php?CATEGORY=VIDEO 

Buy.Com's site:
http://www.us.buy.com/retail/searchresults.asp?search_store=1&qu=video+split 


A growing number of small and midsize companies are deploying enterprise resource planning applications. In the past, many of these companies lacked the budget or time to consider implementing large, complex, and expensive ERP packages. But now, top-tier vendors are offering less-expensive, modular, and hosted versions of their software. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEqY0BcUEY04e0ZM40Aw 

Bob Jensen's ERP threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosap.htm 


So much data, so few ways to print out a good copy. Not anymore. Introducing PrintMe, a worldwide network of servers connected to a worldwide network of printers --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47785,00.html 


I found your name on the website as someone who teaches existing server-side Java courses. My company has developed a new, practical server-side Java course, and we would like you to consider offering it to your students in the future.

You can view the syllabus of this new class that we developed at www.basebeans.com  . The web site has the complete details of the Train the Trainer workshop. As technology advances from servlets to JSPs, the next step is towards JSP frameworks. As an instructor, I'm sure you are aware of the constant need to stay ahead of the curve.

If you would contact me at (415) 781-1463, I can tell you more. 

Thanks, 
Rene


I received the message below from Accountingtemps on October 25, 2001

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF ACCOUNTANTS?

To find out, Accountemps and Robert Half recently surveyed 1,400 chief financial officers (CFOs) and interviewed a wide range of leading experts in accounting and academia for their opinions on how today's trends will shape the future of the accounting profession.

The Next Generation Accountant project addressed such questions as:

· What new educational standards and competencies will be required of tomorrow's accountants? 

· What impact will technology have on the field? 

· How will the growth of consulting and specialization change available career options? 

· Where will the hottest accounting jobs be in the future?

To learn more, visit the Next Generation Accountant web site at http://www.nextgenaccountant.com . The site contains complete survey results, a summary of research findings, an accounting skills quiz, audio and video clips of expert interviews, and more.

Download or request a free copy of our 20-page Next Generation Accountant research guide at: http://www.nextgenaccountant.com/research_hili/research_guide.html 

You may also view the interactive web cast at: http://www.nextgenaccountant.com/webcast/webcast.html 

If you have any questions, or if you are interested in having a local Accountemps or Robert Half representative make a presentation of the Next Generation Accountant findings, call Accountemps at 800-803-8367 or Robert Half at 800-474-4253 for the office nearest you.




Paul Harvey Writes:

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better.

I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches, I really would.

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car.

And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.

It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in, I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him.

When you want to see a movie and your little brother wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him.

I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely. On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books.

When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle.

May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

Paul Harvey (for the "Rest of His Story") http://www.paulharvey.com/ 
You can hear his voice, listen to his news, and read his news.


Halloween joke forwarded by Dick Haar

Three vampires went into a bar and sat down. The barmaid came over to take their orders. "And what would you, er, gentlemen like tonight?"

The first vampire said, "I'll have a Bloody Mary."

The second vampire said, "I'll have a mug of blood."

The third vampire shook his head at his companions and said, "I'll just have a glass of plasma."

The barmaid wrote down each order, went to the bar and called to the bartender,

"One Bloody Mary, one blood regular, and a blood light."


If you have children, you may find this site from Little Golden Books a nice Halloween treat. Even if you don't have children, it is a neat Web site. You will need Flash installed on your computer.

Halloween Pop-up Book http://www.goldenbooks.com/fun/emagic/flash/h2k.html 

Bob Blystone


Farmer Joe --- http://newfunpages.com/farmerjoe.php3 


Forwarded by a Happy Lady (I listed some, but not all, of these in a previous edition of New Bookmarks).

THE "TWO COW" GLOSSARY

A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT: 
You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.

A SOCIALIST: 
You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN: 
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?

AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT: 
You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous.

A COMMUNIST: 
You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.

A FASCIST: 
You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. 

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: 
You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: 
You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: 
You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. Yo u then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon (that's plural) and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie, please.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: 
You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You worship both of them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported on them.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION: 
There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN IOWA CORPORATION: 
You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...


Forwarded by Dick Haar

A group of Aggie blondes in a class at Texas A&M were given the assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So they go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, and they're falling off the ladders, dropping the tape measures - the whole thing is just a mess.

An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the blondes, puts the pole back in the ground, and walks away.

After the engineer has gone, one blonde turns to another and laughs. "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length."


For Us Charlie Browns in life!  Forwarded by Auntie Bev.

Charles Shulz Philosophy

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields.

But the applause dies. Awards tarnish.

Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.

They are the ones that care.



And that's the way it was on November 1, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/ 

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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October 24, 2001


I will be out of the country for a week.  This will delay in the next edition of New Bookmarks.


Quotes of the Week

How many people does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to really, really want to change.
Forwarded by Janet Flatley

Forwarded by Dick Haar (The author is Peter Ferrara):

"There was a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper there an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. "So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one."

"An American is English...or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, or of an Indian tribe , Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

"An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose. "An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

"An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

"An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. "When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

"An American does not have to obey the mad ravings of ignorant, ungodly cruel, old men. American men will not be fooled into giving up their lives to kill innocent people, so that these foolish old men may hold on to power. American women are free to show their beautiful faces to the world, as each of them choose.

"An American is free to criticize his government's officials when they are wrong, in his or her own opinion. Then he is free to replace them, by majority vote.

"Americans welcome people from all lands, all cultures, all religions, because they are not afraid. They are not afraid that their history, their religion, their beliefs, will be overrun, or forgotten. That is because they know they are free to hold to their religion, their beliefs, their history, as each of them choose. "And just as Americans welcome all, they enjoy the best that everyone has to bring, from all over the world. The best science, the best technology, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.

"Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The nation symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. "These in fact are the people who built America. Many of them were working in the twin towers on the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families.

"So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. "But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

"So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands too will join the community of free and prosperous nations.

"And America will welcome them."

Peter Ferrara
Associate p\Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law.




To Subscribers of the AECM

I want to thank Denny Beresford for his announcement that I will be one of the two recipients of the American Accounting Association's Outstanding Accounting Educator awards to be granted in San Antonio next August. I prize both his friendship and his valuable contributions to the AECM.

Since my wife and I am hurriedly preparing to depart for Brazil (I'm conducting an eCommerce workshop at the Asian Pacific Accounting Conference in Rio), I do not have time today to respond to the many messages of "congratulation" from close friends and other friends whom I have never met face-to-face. Your very kind words reveal that we all are indeed good friends. I define friends as people who happily share their talents, time, questions, answers, joys, and frustrations with one another. The most important thing is that friends can even be critical of one another without taking it personally. Subscribers on the AECM are indeed good friends.

Joel Demski, who is both my friend and the current President of the American Accounting Association, made some points that I agree with in his inaugural address in Atlanta on http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/001aaa/atlanta01.htm 

He also complained that scholarship in accounting is "no longer any fun." On that point I must disagree! Since the rise of technology in education and Internet communications (especially AECM communications), I am finding more fun in scholarship than ever before. We have a new kind of collaboration and bonding that in most ways makes traditional communications obsolete. It has been a real joy to visit so many campuses, meet so many new faces, and learn so much from each of you around the world. It has been especially fun to have some of you focus my thoughts and ideas with your questions and answers on the AECM. The AECM is especially great since I don't have to camp out in airports just to get inside your heads.

I will be doing a workshop with Amy Dunbar at Mercer University on November 9. At that time, I will propose to Amy that I interfere with her efforts to organize an honors reception in San Antonio in August. However, I do not want to bill that reception as focusing on Bob Jensen's award. Rather, I would like this to be billed simply as an AECM subscriber get together where those of us that have bonded on the AECM have a chance to meet face-to-face and acknowledge the wonderful contributions of the many activists on the AECM. If you don't make this a Bob Jensen affair, then I will in good conscience feel free to donate substantially to that reception and possibly help find a place where we can hold the reception. Erika would like to hold it in our home, but I'm afraid there are too many of you to fit inside the house. (Nobody wants to party outdoors in August in San Antonio unless it's in a swimming pool.) There are, however, a number of places downtown where we can meet close to the Marriott AAA Convention Headquarters.

And in all of this, let's all take a bow in the direction of Baltimore where Barry Rice had the vision to turn the AECM into a reality.

My love to all of you!

Bob Jensen


September 11 Web Archive (History, Media, Terror) ) --- http://september11.archive.org/ 

Why Project (Art about the attack on the World Trade Center & Pentagon") --- http://www.whyproject.org/ 

Afghan Women's Crafts (get something good for doing something good) --- http://www.feminist.org/store/ProductAfghan.asp 

Groups viewed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. have no trouble voicing their side on the Internet, and many of the sites are even hosted on American soil --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47616,00.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/justiceappeal.htm 

Coates Library has provided links to a few Websites concerning terrorism and the September 11th attack: a law and policy site from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, an extensive site from Vanderbilt University, and a list of related government documents from the University of Maryland. These links will be updated regularly. From the library homepage http://lib.trinity.edu/  mouse over "Research Support" and click on "Recommended Internet Sites." You'll see the link near the top of the page.

We also have PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM, from the state department, and a few other related documents on the "new government documents" display shelf just to the right of the coffee bar.

Michael J. Kaminski 
Assistant Librarian/Public Services 
Elizabeth Huth Coates Library 
Trinity University 715 Stadium Drive San Antonio, TX 78209 Ph: (210) 999-7087 fax: (210) 999-8182
michael.kaminski@trinity.edu      http://www.trinity.edu/mkaminsk 


Hi David,

Your message will appear in the October 24 edition of New Bookmarks to be released later on this morning --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

I also added it to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 

Thanks,

Bob Jensen

Dear Prof Jensen:

I was browsing your site with interest, and wondered if you might be interested in adding our Web-site, at http://www.bublos.com  to your list of resources. Bublos is primarily a book price comparison site, though also offers many other useful resources as well, including a growing book-review archive, and lots of other literary bits and pieces. We also have useful information regarding used and rare books at http://www.bublos.com/library/rare.books.html 

I hope you'll have a few moments to pay us a visit, and would be very grateful for your consideration in adding our Web-site to your list of other resources.

Many thanks,

David Benham 
http://www.bublos.com
 


Sharing Professor of the Week --- Jim Patten at California State University at Bakersfield --- http://www.csubak.edu/~jpatten/ 

Especially note Jim's accounting ledger system in  Excel.

I have a complete Excel based general ledger accounting package on my Web site. You will also find some managerial data, tax templates, and Compound Interest Value Factors/tables Please feel free to visit the site. I do appreciate feed back.

You will see that I have used some "Quick Books" techniques and some concepts from the old AICAP ATB package that was taken over by Creative Solutions. For those who are olde enough to remember, I use the olde BPI general ledger accounting system chart of accounts. The BPI package was used on every PC platform at one time---Dec, TRS 80, IBM, Apple II, etc, etc.

The problems with using dedicated accounting packages include: Software availability/cost Learning curve Lack of flexibility at the report generation stage.

So, unlike some, I feel that using an Excel based accounting package is a real plus. If fact, my financial statement report generator using Excel is as real world as it gets! That's why every package out there has "export" to Excel capabilities, since they cannot compete with the capability of Excel in terms of report formatting!

I have actually installed my Excel package for a number of organizations, so I know it works!

Here is my site:

http://www.csubak.edu/~jpatten 

Jim Patten, 
Associate Professor of Accounting 
Cal State University, Bakersfield

 


Electric Voltage Levels in Many Nations

This is an interesting web site with the voltage and plug types for many countries. Unfortunately, it is ambiguous about Brazil. This site is a company that wants to sell converters --- http://www.dvdoverseas.com/world_broadcasting.htm 

Larry Gindler


Hedge Funds

I don't have much time to spend on this since I am hurriedly preparing to leave for Brazil.

The SEC has a page on hedge funds at http://www.sec.gov/answers/hedge.htm 

You can check on hedge fund performance at http://www.hedgefund.net/  
There is a lot of free information, including discussions of strategies.

The Hedge Fund Association is at http://www.thehfa.org/ 

I am afraid I cannot provide more at this time.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From:  Michael 
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2001 1:43 PM 
To: rjensen@trinity.edu Subject: Information

Help!   I have read your numerous articles on hedging, speculating etc and would like to know or learn more. I am very interested in yield curve arbitrage and also speculative trading. I am very interested in any information you may provide like the title of a good book or also, a hedge fund that deals with such things (checked www.hedgeworld.com  and could not find one that is open).

 I am looking for real life examples not just the theory. Kinda of like what you provided in your articles. Thank you very much, and I hope you respond soon.

Micheal


The Illinois CPA Society announced the launch of a new Web site that is devoted to providing students of all ages with valuable resources and the latest accounting career information. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/60145 

The flashy link is at http://www.futurecpa.org/futurecpa/index.htm 

Other career links can be found at  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers 


Hi XXXXX,

Opportunities in the corporate sector have declined in this economy for graduates with either a PhD or a MBA. The demand is still very high in academe for graduates with an accounting doctoral degree. There are some opportunities for educators in corporate training programs, but these usually entail teaching and/or management of online courses.

When the economy was in better shape, accounting and finance PhD opportunities existed in the financial industry, particularly for graduates of top schools who wanted to do research for brokerage houses and investment banks. Graduates with IT specialties such as SAP were and still are often lured away from academe by large accounting firms and/or large corporations. I think there are still good business sector opportunities for PhD graduates with IT skills.

As an example of recent UT graduate placement, go to http://www.bus.utexas.edu/news/your_business/july01.asp 

In 1999, there were only 144 doctorates granted in accounting and tax. Nearly all of them were placed in academe. There were good jobs for more than 10 times as many graduates. In the Year 2000, there were only 74 graduates according to the Accounting Faculty Directory 2002-2003 by James R. Hasselback, Page -3 (actually there is no page number, but the page is three pages in front of Page 1)

If you can get at back issues of The Accounting Review, you will see accounting PhD job openings advertised in every issue.  These might provide you with some help concerning jobs available to accountants with doctoral degrees.

I am sorry I cannot provide you with better links.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: XXXXX
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 9:04 AM To: rjensen@trinity.edu Subject: Advice needed!

Hi Dr. Jensen!

I hope the accounting program is still going strong!!!

Since the last time I emailed you in the summer I've been doing a lot research regarding grad school. I've been trying really hard to decide whether going to get a PhD or MBA would better suit my long-term career goals. After a considerable amount of research and attending a few MBA informational sessions, I've decided that maybe an MBA would not be the best for me. I learned about what job options were available to me after receiving an MBA and my current job options. I realized that there are not too many additional benefits to outweigh the high costs. I was interested in moving into consulting if I decided to pursue an MBA, but I learned from some readings that maybe I do not need an MBA to move from audit to consulting.

I quickly realized that public accounting and consulting all involved lots of hours and for now that is fine, but I'm not sure if that is what I want to spend my career doing. I realized after entering the workforce now for over a year how much I miss school and being in the academic community. Of course I've learned a lot this past year from work. The experience of working in public accounting has allowed me to really think about where I want to take my career. I know eventually I would enjoy teaching, but think I would also enjoy working a few years longer before teaching. In your last email you mentioned that there are also corporate positions available for PhD graduates. Can you tell me more specifically what those positions might be?

I guess preparing to attend a PhD program and a MBA program are different. I know what they are looking for in a candidate for entrance into a MBA program, but what kind of work experience are admissions looking for a PhD candidate?

If there are any websites that I can visit to learn about career options for PhD graduates in accounting, please let me know. Any opinion you can give me would greatly be appreciated. Thank you.

XXXXX


Wow Innovation of the Week

"The Electronic Paper Chase," by Steve Dilea, Scientific American --- http://www.scientificamerican.com/2001/1101issue/1101ditlea.html 

It offers excellent resolution and high contrast under a wide range of viewing angles, requires no external power to retain its image, weighs little, costs less and is remarkably flexible (literally and figuratively)--unlike today's computer displays. No wonder traditional ink on paper continues to flourish in a digital world that was expected to all but do away with it.

Yet ink on paper is lacking in one of the essential traits of computer displays: instantaneous erasure and reuse, millions of times without wearing out. Electronic ink on paper with this ability could usher in an era of store signs and billboards that could be updated without pulping acres of trees; of e-books that embody the familiar tactile interface of traditional books; of magazines and newspapers delivered wirelessly to thin, flexible page displays, convenient for reading, whether on crowded subways or desert islands.

There have been intermittent efforts to produce such electronic paper over the past three decades, but only recently has research gone into full swing. The day when Scientific American and other periodicals are routinely published in this medium may come before 2010, thanks to competition between two start-up firms. Both companies are offshoots of major research institutions: the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory. Both firms base their core technologies on tiny, electrically charged beads, with the imaging capability controlled electronically. And they are not only racing each other to commercialize their efforts but are also anticipating competition from the organic light-emitting diodes that are beginning to emerge from laboratories.

Spinning Off Electric Paper The earliest attempt at "electric paper," as it was originally called, came as a response to the poor visual quality of the computer displays available in the early 1970s. "The CRTs [cathode-ray tubes] were too dim," recalls Nicholas K. Sheridon. "I wanted to find a display material with as many of the properties of paper as possible. Finding a paper substitute was not my main motivation."

. . .

By 2002 Sheridon expects the commercial sale of similarly sized signs that can be easily updated via a wireless network. To a retail client like Federated Department Stores, Macy's parent company, which is currently spending more than $250,000 a week on changing its in-store signs, such renewable signage could prove highly desirable. Also due out next year are smaller SmartPaper signs meant to keep prices up-to-date on supermarket shelves, where inaccurate numbers can turn into expensive fines under item-pricing laws.

The pliable, reusable e-newspaper or e-magazine of the future "could happen in a few years," Sheridon has predicted on several occasions. He happens to have a concept model: a slit aluminum cylinder from which he pulls out a sheet of SmartPaper, papyrus scroll-like. In a working model, an array of electrodes along the edge of the cylinder would imprint up-to-the-minute news or feature stories on the paper's flexible, rubbery surface; plastic sheets would protect the paper from being damaged. Smaller-size beads necessary for higher resolution are on the way. As for a full range of colors, Sheridon has been issued a patent for subtractive color using transparent Gyricon beads with thin disks of color filter material in cyan, magenta and yellow, each addressable by different voltage levels.

Nevertheless, as paperlike as it may become, this electronic paper may never feel exactly like the original. Sheridon admits, "It will never be as light as paper. Paper is about four mils thick; this will always be 12 or 15 mils thick. But it doesn't have to exactly replicate paper to be useful."


New—FASB 40-Minute Video, Financially Correct (Quality of Earnings)

The price is $15.  


A message from Dennis Beresford

Bob,

The SEC has posted at its web site a speech by new Chairman Harvey Pitt to the AICPA Council meeting last week. It can be accessed at: http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch516.htm 

Mr. Pitt seems to be trying to mend fences with the accounting profession after the great acrimony relating to auditor independence and other matters in recent years. I'm pleased that he says that the SEC will try to work on the problem of ever expanding disclosure requirements and the near impossible complexity of accounting rules. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Denny Beresford


Note that the quote below is not talking about GAAP profitability.  Instead it is that vapor concept of pro forma profitability --- whatever that is as inconsistently defined by many firms trying to boost their image with investors.

From Information Week Daily on October 24, 2001

Amazon Inching Toward Profitability

Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos, addressing the company's third-quarter loss of $170 million, insisted Tuesday that the online superstore was ready to meet its pledge for profitability in the final three months of the year.

Of course, he's talking pro forma operating profitability. Measured in that sense, Amazon's results look almost rosy: The pro forma loss from operations for the quarter ended Sept. 30 shrunk 60% to $27 million, compared with $68 million a year earlier. The U.S. retail and services segments combined were profitable on a pro forma basis for the second straight quarter--to the tune of $1 million, compared with a loss of $29 million last year.

But back to the non-pro forma loss of $170 million, as computed according to generally accepted accounting principles: It was a 29% improvement from the $241 million loss a year ago, but $2 million worse than the $168 million it lost during the previous quarter. Net sales were basically flat--$639 million, compared with $638 million a year ago. One bright spot for the quarter: Sales of used merchandise, launched just 11 months ago, totaled 17% of all U.S. orders.

"To reach pro forma profitability requires not heroics, just execution," CFO Warren Jenson said during a conference call. Jensen said net sales for the fourth quarter are expected to be between $970 million and $1.07 billion, compared with $972 million for fourth quarter of 2000. He expects revenue from services--fueled by partnerships with Target, Circuit City, and Expedia formed in the past three months--to exceed $200 million this year. - Christopher T. Heun

Bob Jensen's threads on eCommerce are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on ROI and pro forma definitions (or lack thereof) are at 


Book Review

The Value Reporting Revolution clearly explains why corporations must move toward greater transparency and, more importantly, it provides a comprehensive framework for achieving that goal. Readers learn how to identify the gaps between how corporate managers perceive their disclosure practices versus how the markets see them. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471398799/accountingweb 


New Offering from PwC Division touts consistent CRM PwC ConsultingTM, a division of financial services organization PricewaterhouseCoopers, has released CRM ACCEL — a complete multi-channel CRM program designed to help companies reduce the cost of serving customers while increasing revenue. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3144 

CRM is defined at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 

A CRM portals page is at http://www.downesmarketing.co.uk/crmlinks.html 

Bob Jensen's eCommerce links are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


From the Scout Report on October 19, 2001

Institutional Policies and Practices: Results From the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, Institution Survey_ http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001201 

Released this week from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), this 138-page publication reports results from a survey of 960 institutions and is part of the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. The report gives data on types of instructors (full-time, part-time, teaching assistant, etc.), gender, ethnicity, and salaries and how these numbers have changed over time. NCES found that 71 percent of undergraduate courses are taught by full time faculty, 27 percent by part-time faculty, and 1 percent by teaching assistants (14 percent in public research institutions). The survey also found that 45 percent of faculty were part-time, and only 53 percent of institutions contribute to benefits for part-time faculty (who worked, according to the survey, an average of 36.9 hours a week). This report should be of great interest to anyone tracking changes in university employment. 


H-Utopia http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~utopia/ 

The latest addition to H-Net's discussion networks explores issues of utopia and is "devoted to discussion of utopianism in all its forms, from literary expression to policy analysis to architectural criticism to activism." With a focus on the forms, contents, and influences of utopian/ dystopian thinking, the site allows users to participate in discussions and view logs of past discussions and announcements. The welcome message link gives users information about subscribing as well as some basic information about the list and the editors.


Lift Every Voice [QuickTime, MP3] http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/music/index.html 

The University of Virginia Library is hosting a special exhibition called Lift Every Voice, named after a hymn composed by two African-American brothers in the days of the Jim Crow South and aiming to inspire the struggle for equal rights. The Lift Every Voice exhibition commemorates and celebrates a variety of songs that were a part of everyday American life through the centuries. No time to visit Virginia? Then visit the exhibition's Website and enjoy reading about the history behind our country's ballads, hymns, patriotic anthems, minstrels, musicals, and protest songs while listening to audio clips of selected songs (QuickTime, MP3). The text is enriched by digital images of historical papers, compiled by Virginia's Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, including musical scores, photos of musicians, and printed lyrics. The site also contains a section on Thomas Jefferson's relationship to music in the Old South, with digital images of texts from Jefferson's library and, of course, a sample of "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny."


They Rule (Fortune 100 Boards of Directors) http://theyrule.orgo.org/ 
(It is difficult to navigate in this site.  This site could also be improved in terms of font size, contrast, and ease of reading.)

BACKGROUND

C. Wright Mills wrote "The Power Elite" in 1956 documenting the inter-connections of the most powerful people in the United States.  Since then some of the faces have changed but the general situation has only become more extreme.  Now fewer companies control more of the economy and oligopolies exert control in nearly every sector of the economy.  The people who head up these companies swap on and off the boards from one company to another, and in and out of government committees and positions.  These people run the most powerful institutions on the planet, and we have almost no say in who they are.  This is not a conspiracy.  They are proud to rule.  And yet these connections of power are not always visible to the public eye.

OVERVIEW

They Rule aims to make some of the relationships of the elite of the US ruling class visible.  It allows users to browse through the interlocking directories of some of the most powerful American companies and easily run searches on them.  If a user finds an interesting website about a company or director they can add it to a list of URLs relevant to that company or director.  A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations for others to view.  Future users can then show approval for URLs and maps by submitting a vote.  They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.

DISCLAIMER

They Rule is NOT a Live database of board members and companies.  That information changes constantly.  I hope to update the database annually, and try to ensure that the links are accurate at the time of launch.  Please inform me if you find a connection that was never true.  Otherwise, please just see They Rule as a launch pad for investigations and not the definitive representation of reality.  I take no responsibility for the writing of others on this site, nevertheless, if something is really offensive, scandalously untrue, or might get me killed then I may delete it.  Please inform me of anything that might meet these criteria.

CONTACT

You can chat with others about the site on the They Rule mailing list on Yahoo groups, click here to go to the subscription page.  Or you can mail me at josh@futurefarmers.com

Click on a company from the ADD COMPANY menu, move it to the cent of the screen.
Click on the plus symbol beside the boardroom table.
Click on expand to see all the directors of the company.
Click, hold and drag them, to position them.
Click on their briefcases to see a menu of options for them.
Click expand to see other companies that they are on the boards of.  Build a map, clear it, build another, add some notes and save it.
Load up other people's maps with the LOAD MAP button.
Click on a director's briefcase and choose search to run a search on them in Google.
Click on the plus signs and briefcases, then use shortcut keys x=expand, delete=delete, d=donations, s=search, c=contract, u=urls.


This was sent to me by my good friend Dan Gode at NYU:  (Science, Biology, Medicine, Genetics)

Bob

The article below is by an Economist editor. It points out how complex it is to go from understanding genes to understanding disease. Read the full article for its complete impact.

http://www.feedmag.com/dna/anxiety.html 

Dan


Question:  
What is the name of the commercial online university owned by Cornell University?

Answer:  
eCornell.com at http://www.ecornell.com/ 
To date, this appears to be more of a training and certificate operation than a degree program source.

Our mission is to create unique web-based distance learning programs for individuals and organizations around the world by understanding their needs, engaging outstanding faculty and staff, and operating at the forefront of content, pedagogy, and technology.

Our Philosophy

eCornell creates rich and interactive educational programs that use technology to support both individual and collaborative learning. We believe that distance should pose no barrier to interaction or the true exchange of knowledge between faculty, students or peers.

Our goal is to design learning systems that allow learners to collectively explore and develop knowledge and individually apply that knowledge in real-world situations.

How Do We Do This?

Learner Centered Approach
We accommodate learner's needs, styles and schedules by giving them opportunities to access resources from any computer connected to the Internet.

Instructional Tools
We use a variety of tools including discussions, e-mail, interactive exercises, case studies, presentations, and team projects. In our courses we have our learners use the tools and techniques they need for successful communication, collaboration and research in the modern, worldwide, electronic workplace.

Instructional Design Process
eCornell employs a full complement of instructional designers, media experts, programmers, production artists, and quality assurance specialists, who work with faculty to translate their subject expertise into lively and effective distance courses.

1. We begin with a thorough discovery process, in which we work with our clients to understand the subject, context and audience for the course.

2. We use this information to develop detailed courses and curriculums and to select the optimum mix of presentations, activities and assessments for our potential users.

3. With the author(s), we review existing materials and specify new ones to be created for the course.

4. Even in the design phase, our projects are carefully scheduled and managed, with clear milestones and many opportunities for all parties to review the emerging product.

5. Once a delivery model has been chosen, the course goes into production.

6. Text is edited and formatted, interactive programs written and debugged, on-line quizzes developed, video scripted and produced. The eCornell staff handles the technical aspects; the author, who is ultimately responsible for course content, remains involved through proofing, testing, and setting up training for course facilitators.

7. With the official release of a course, the author's work is done, but ours is just beginning: eCornell manages the delivery of our courses to the students. We handle course scheduling, registration and tracking; provide, train, and schedule facilitators; host course content; and provide ongoing technical support.

Question:
What are the specialties to date at  eCornell?

Answer:
They seem to be in Medicine and Human Resource Management.  The HRM courses include the following:

Human Resources Studies Certificate

Human Resources and the Law
Fundamentals of Employee Benefits
Building and Managing Employee Relations
Fundamentals of Compensation
Selection and Staffing
Performance Appraisal and Management

Interestingly, Cornell University is where Blackboard began.  Now eCornell seems to be in direct competition with Blackboard.com at http://www.blackboard.com/ 


From Syllabus News, October 16, 2001

Cornell Debuts On-Line Human Resources Management Program

eCornell, the distance learning subsidiary of Cornell University, last week launched an online curriculum for human resources professionals. The program, which will offer online workshops and certificate programs, will draw on the faculty and resources of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR). Francis Pandolfi, eCornell's president and CEO, said there were about 1 million human resources executives who cannot tap the ILR school because of distance. eCornell, founded in Sept. 2000, created ILR courseware that uses case studies, interactive exercises, simulations, role- playing scenarious and multi-media presentations.

For more information, visit: http://www.ecornell.com 


Northwestern Upgrades Network Search Technology

Northwestern University has incorporated new search software to enable its online users to perform relevant, comprehensive searches across 250,000 documents and 700 sites that comprise its network. Staci Roberts, director of Web Communications for the school, said the decentralization of university information made it "increasingly difficult to find documents within our network" as its user community grew. Northwestern chose Inktomi Enterprise Search, a scalable search software platform from Inktomi Inc.

For more information, visit: http://www.inktomi.com 


LSU Center Builds Versatile Video Network

Louisiana State University's Health Science Center has finished a 72-node IP video network that links 12 offices across the state. The network, built by Wire One Technologies Inc., will be used to support research among state institutions and to collaborate with outside organizations. Kenneth Tanner, information technology analyst at the Health Science Center, said the Center often conferences across "separate, independently managed and addressed IP networks." The Wire One solution allocates network resources across multiple networks, "establishing video communications between ISDN users, IP users on our own networks and Internet2 users."

For more information , visit http://www.sh.lsuhsc.edu 


Question:
What is the online learning center for the University of Utah and what software is used?

Answer:
The Web site is at http://www.aoce.utah.edu/ and the course management software used is called Prometheus, which is the same software used by the knowledge portal called Fathom
.

Bob Jensen's links to other course management software packages are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 


From Fathom --- http://www.fathom.com/ 

DIGITAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY THROUGH EDUCATION, a short online course from Columbia University, provides a roadmap to the future of education, in which the educational program will contain the school as well as the home and the community. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=32702503&cid=000437 

PLANNING FOR EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION, a semester-length course from the University of San Diego, is a practical course that covers the basics of teacher decision-making. Class starts October 23: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=3212&cid=000438 

SWEAT SPEAKING, a free seminar from Columbia University, provides public-speaking pointers on everything from calming yourself before you speak, to making eye contact, to how to work with your audience. The seminar is free; simply follow the checkout process to enroll: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=10701031&cid=000431 

* Short e-Course * BONDS COURSE 1: INTRODUCTION TO BONDS, a short online course from Wide Learning, explains how bonds are quoted in the markets and provides an overview of the basic types of bonds and bond markets. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=3020&cid=000432 

* Semester-Length Course * INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS MANAGEMENT from New School University teaches concepts of business organization, communication, decision-making, planning, motivating, controlling, group dynamics, leadership, and change. Class starts October 22: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=14701533&cid=000433 

W.E.B. DUBOIS AND THE BLACK EXPERIENCE, a short online course from Columbia University Professor Manning Marable, looks at the life and work of this leading African-American writer and political activist of the twentieth century. Enroll anytime: http://www.fathom.com/fks/catalog/course.jhtml?id=2398&cid=000452 

Only a quarter of the world's 1,000 million Muslims actually live in the Middle East. Historian Sarah Ansari traces some of the trends and influences of Islam in the twentieth century in this excerpt from "The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World," Cambridge University Press: "From a western perspective, the Middle East was where Europe first encountered Islam..." http://www.fathom.com/story/story.jhtml?story_id=122263&cid=000454 

Trends and Prospects International security expert Bruce Hoffman discusses the history of terrorism and its continued challenge to international security in an article from "Countering the New Terrorism," published by RAND. Hoffman examines the perpetrators and their organizations, resources and methodologies, concluding with some assessments of their future threats: http://www.fathom.com/story/story.jhtml?story_id=60989&cid=000455 

Search for more online courses in Fathom's Course Directory: http://www.fathom.com/products/course_directory.jhtml 


Monkey See, Monkey Do is not always a bad pedagogy

Hi Ross,

I learned a similar lesson about 10 years ago and have since minimized presentations in class. Fortunately, I now teach in an electronic classroom where each student has a computer.  I can push buttons on a touch screen to see what each student is doing at any time during a class.

A new pedagogy that is really working for me and the students is Camtasia. When I teach something that is really technical (such as how to create Microsoft Access OLE tables, queries, forms, and bound OLE charts or accounting for interest rate swaps with forward rate yield curves), I prepare a Camtasia video ahead of time (using a microphone to record my voice as I run through each step on the video of action on the computer screen). Then in class I play a segment of the video, pause the computer video, and make the students do what I did in that segment. Then I proceed to show them the next segment, pause the computer video, and then they practice getting that topic, etc.

I am amazed at how students like this approach. Those that had trouble with any segment in class can simply play the Camtasia video after class and practice until they get it right.  Another advantage of playing Camtasia is that I don't screw up like I am prone to doing in live computer demonstrations of very technical topics.  If I screw up while making the video before class, I simply practice and then re-make the video.  The videos are also great for refreshing my memory before going to class ---  at my age I need all the memory aids I can find.

I am not saying that every class should be this monkey-see, monkey-do pedagogy. Classes should also be devoted to discussions, verbal case analyses, role playing, lectures, etc.  But when you are explaining something very technical such as in MS Access technicalities or pivot tables in Excel, this monkey-see, monkey do approach works better than anything else I have ever tried on very technical tasks.

You can download sample video demos (some of the files may be too large for downloading) of my Camtasia approach from http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/ 

Camtasia is a product of TechSmith at http://www.techsmith.com/ 

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ross Stevenson [mailto:ross.stevenson@AUT.AC.NZ]  
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 5:12 PM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU 
Subject: Using technology

Hi (from the South Pacific)

My experience with using IT technology to teach accounting......

This year I put *all* my lecture stuff (notes, past exams, ppoint slides, accounting software etc.) in a hyperlinked digital format that could be projected in the class room, was available to students in computer labs, and could be taken home by students.

I thought it was great -but- it essentially failed with one class.

This class (a first year class of Marketing students who found accounting boring/hard) thought I relied on the whizz bang delivery too much.

I know many of you could say "I told you so" but I had to learn the lesson myself.

Ross Stevenson 
Auckland University of Technology NZ


If you want to listen to some great jazz, go to John Coltrane's site at 
http://www.johncoltrane.com/ 


A message to the AECM from Tracey Sutherland [tracey@AAAHQ.ORG

Hello All. 

I should begin by thanking Bob Jensen for his unflagging support for AAA faculty development initiatives. The listserv's conversation about the AAA's Accounting Coursepage Exchange -- the ACE database -- is timely. The project is facing challenges that I'm not sure it can overcome. In conversation here you have noted the difficulties for faculty on campuses using course management tools like WebCT and Blackboard that block colleagues from easily sharing -- that's one dilemma. The other is the difficulty of maintaining continued visibility for this kind of project. Maybe it just hasn't found the right champion/audience yet -- but without participation and continued use this kind of resource can't provide good value. We'll be taking a hard look at ACE this year, and I believe we will take one of two approaches - enlist a cadre of enthusiastic members to take responsibility for promoting and monitoring this program, or consolidate it into a multi-disciplinary system such MERLOT (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). These MERLOT folks have significant resources to put behind the development of their resource -- which you can check out at http://www.merlot.org/Home.po  .

If ACE survives then the AAA web staff will revamp the whole thing -- to improve the functionality (ACE is a couple of years old and was outsourced for development -- we're using ColdFusion now in-house and could put together something that's easier for everyone to use).

We'd welcome your thoughts on the subject -- if you prefer to send them directly to me I can pull them together and post a summary on AECM. 
Best regards,
Tracey
American Accounting Association


Paul Harvey (for the "Rest of His Story") http://www.paulharvey.com/ 
You can hear his voice, listen to his news, and read his news.


A helpful message from Richard Campbell regarding multimedia chat rooms:

Bob Jensen asked me privately about audio and video chat rooms. Two that I have looked at in the past are www.livve.com  and www.seesaw.com . The second option has the opportunity to display up to six videos simultaneously. Both have inconsistent performance, but work better at fast connections. Both cost about $10 per month.

I caution everyone about going into unknown rooms. Let me express my concern in accounting terms - you may encounter an intentional display of assets that you may not want to perform an attest function on. I don't want to contribute to the delinquency of any majors here.

Richard J. Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU


Forwarded by Janet Flatley

The following report appeared in the Short Form e-newsletter of Washington (State) Society of CPAs www.wscpa.org/wscpa/ShortForm/101601/1016sf2.htm  The list referred to in the article can be accessed at: www.cpacomputerreport.com/never_again.htm 

October 16, 2001 Terrorist Attacks Claim Lives of Many Accounting Professionals So far, nearly 100 accounting professionals have perished in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. That doesn't include the 164 members of AON Insurance that supplied professional coverage via the AICPA insurance plans. Also, 24 members of the New York State Dept. of Taxation and Finance perished.

CPAs concerned about colleagues impacted by the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks are advised to visit regularly the Web site of the newsletter CPA Computer Report <http://www.CPAComputerReport.com>  . The newsletter's Web master has collected individual names and firm names of accounting and CPA firms that had offices in the World Trade Center as well as names of individual accountants killed or spared by the attack. There is a convenient email link so visitors can, on their own, submit additional data as it becomes available.

The newsletter's editor, Franklynn Peterson, ordered the work "So the profession doesn't have to get its updates piecemeal. We keep a constant search of names known to be involved so we can spot firms and individuals as soon as possible after news of their condition is reported at the diverse publications, data banks, news sites and Web sites. Additions to the lists are added nearly daily. The lists are usually updated daily by approximately 10 AM CDT."


Hey Alaska (lot of Flash) --- http://www.heyalaska.com/ 


"Ready or Not, Cyber-Conferencing's Time Has Come," by Jeffrey Burt, eNews and Views, October 17, 2001 

Among those caught in the ripple effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. are the industry conferences, those tech fests of keynote speeches and breakout sessions, of early-morning meetings and late-night parties, of T-shirts, pens and rubber balls that light up when you bounce them.

Already knee-deep in the quagmire of the struggling economy, these conferences were seeing declining numbers of attendees even before Sept. 11.

Since the attacks, many conference sponsors have seen attendance drop even further, as many attendees and exhibitors chose not to fly. Jason Chudnofsky, president and CEO of Key3media Events, which hosts uberconference Comdex, recently told eWEEK's John Dodge that he is forecasting a 30 percent drop in attendance.

As some organizers canceled or postponed conferences, others chose a different approach. Next week, both Mercury Interactive Corp. and Bentley Systems Inc. are moving their annual user conferences into cyberspace.

Mercury will use presentation technologies from PlaceWare Inc. and WebEx Communications Inc. and streaming tools from Digex Inc. and Digital Island Inc. to conduct its conference over the Web.

Bentley, which had to cancel its user conference shortly after Sept. 11, will now conduct a 20-city international simulcast that it hopes will involve thousands of participants globally.

It will be interesting to see how these go off. A key part of any conference is the interaction among the participants: the one-on-one conversations that spontaneously pop up, the product training sessions, the feeling among attendees that they are a part of a bigger industry. And what about the bags of goodies handed out by exhibitors like so much candy on Halloween? How are participants going to get their stuff?

Granted, neither of these conferences is of CeBIT proportions, but there still is the human connections made at events that can't be replicated online. But as Mercury COO Ken Klein told eWEEK's Evan Koblentz, "Obviously, things changed on Sept. 11."

The high-tech industry is about adapting to rapidly and constantly changing environments, of meeting the needs of particular situations and dealing with new demands as they arise. That's the way Mercury Interactive is approaching these new demands.

"I think we'll learn a lot from this exercise," Klein said.


All Species on Earth (Biology, Genetics, Science) --- http://www.all-species.org/ 


From the WSJ Interactive Accounting Educators Edition on October 18, 2001
All of the articles cited below raise accounting questions.

TITLE: Waiving or Drowning: Banks Face Loan Bind 
REPORTER: Mitchell Pacelle 
DATE: Oct 15, 2001 PAGE: C1 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1003094883752843520.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Banking, Bankruptcy, Restructuring

SUMMARY: The article discusses issues that banks face as a result of their borrowers violating debt covenants. Questions focus on lending agreements and debt restructuring.


TITLE: Enron Jolt: Investments, Assets Generate Big Loss; Part of Charge Tied to 2 Partnerships Interests Wall Street 
REPORTER: John Emshwiller and Rebecca Smith 
DATE: Oct 17, 2001 PAGE: C1 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1003237924744857040.djm  
TOPICS: Financial Accounting

SUMMARY: Enron Corp. recorded a $1.01 billion charge mostly connected with write-downs of impaired assets, producing the company's worst-ever third quarter loss of $618 million.


TITLE: It's a Natural: P&G Sells Jif to J.M. Smucker 
REPORTER: Emily Nelson and Devon Spurgeon 
DATE: Oct 11, 2001 PAGE: B1 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1002719217933137520.djm  
TOPICS: Advanced Financial Accounting, Taxation

SUMMARY: "Any kindergartner could have recommend this deal: the nation's largest maker of jelly is acquiring the largest brand of peanut butter." The deal also includes Crisco and is structured as a tax-free reorganization following Procter & Gamble's spinoff of Jif and Crisco to its shareholders. "P&G shareholders will own about 53% of the new Smucker after receiving one Smucker share for every 50 P&G shares they own."

Reminder to Program Professors: Go to http://wsj.com/offers/prof  to register for The Wall Street Journal Online if you haven't done so already.   There are Educators's Reviews in areas other than accounting as well as accounting.


Someone inquired about Activities Based Costing/Management (ABC and ABM) software and links.  Some helpers are provided below:

Accounting Software Links in General --- 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010303Software%20and%20Instructional%20Aids
 

Activities Based Costing --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#ABC 

Especially note ICMS at http://www.icms.net/ 

ICMS ABC Software Demo --- http://www.icms.net/software_demo_form.htm 

Books:

Forrest, Edward, Activity-Based Management: A Comprehensive Implementation Guide (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).

Cokins, Gary, An ABC Manager's Primer: Straight Talk on Activity-Based Costing (Burr Ridge, Ill: Irwin Professional Pub., 1993).

Turney, Peter B. B., Common Cents: The ABC Performance Breakthrough (Hillsboro, OR: Cost Technology, 1992).

Brimson, James A., Activity-Based Management: for service industries, government entities, and nonprofit organizations (New York: Wiley, 1994).

Links at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm 

Activities Based Management and ABC Costing http://www.rpm-abm.com/cami_idx.htm 

http://akao.larc.nasa.gov/dfc/abc/abcbib.html (annotated bibliography)

http://users.aol.com/caspari/l118.htm (Is ABC Fundamentally Flawed?)

http://www.chief.co.il/toc/ 

http://members.aol.com/caspari0/toc/BIBLIOG.HTM (bibliography)

http://www.focusedmanagement.com/FMI%20Articles/softabc%281%29.htm (ABC Software)

http://www.deloitte.com.au/index.asp?MenuId=0&Page=/content/abc.asp 

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/119803.html 

http://mba.vanderbilt.edu/germain.boer/Creating%20Value/Discussions/InvLevelandProfit.htm (from my good friend Germain)

http://www.intentia.se/liston/1762_2.lxml 

http://www.neiu.edu/~hchen/202/98/ 

http://web.mit.edu/lfm/www/working_papers/1996_abstracts/strimling_abstract_1996.html 

http://www.sba.pdx.edu/faculty/darrellb/dbaccess/finalstu.htm 

http://www.acq-ref.navy.mil/wcp/abc2.html 

http://www.tocc.com/Geyser_G.html (you have to do a little hunting)

http://hamilton99.execmba.com/activity.htm (Case Study)

http://www.acca.org.za/publications/studenews/9811p34.html (Value Added)

http://www.sbm.temple.edu/~jmereba/research.html (See the Working Papers section)

I would examine the listing of the Managerial Accounting texts at http://www.bn.com/. Enter the search terms "Managerial Accounting" and "Management Accounting." 

I also recommend that you look at the Managerial and Cost Accounting Courses in ACE at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/ace/index.htm


Hello Yogamalar,

The best two sources are quite old and will not be on the Web.

I suggest that you begin with one of the most famous deductive monographs in accounting history (it may no longer be in print, but nearly all colleges will have copies in the library). It is An Introduction to Corporate Accounting Standards by W.A. Paton and A.C. Littleton (American Accounting Association, Monograph No. 3, 1940)

The other works are AICPA ARS Studies 1 and 3 by  by Moonitz and Sprouse and Moonitz --- http://www.wku.edu/~halljo/attempts.html 

You might also take a look at Baxter's lecture at http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/saxe/saxe_1978/baxter_79.htm 

I discuss these topics at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/theory/00overview/theory01.htm 

Bob Jensen

Sir, 

I'm a student of a university and I used go through your web pages which help me giving information about my studies. I'm so happy to have a web page which students can access it and clear their doubts..

I just want a help from you sir I studying accounting and finance final year.  I'm looking for deductive approach theory in accounting practice and how it's contributed to the development of existing accounting practice in UK. It should focus on strength, weakness and limitations of the theory in current frame work practice.

I hope you will be giving me a explanation and some references...

thanky ou.. 
from sbesh
.


Apple's new digital entertainment device will get the music you have on your computer into your car and onto your stereo --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,47740,00.html 


Stories of youths who helped shape the nation --- http://www.weweretheretoo.com/ 


If you want to brush up on business terms for your job, or if you just want to make sure you've got the ins and outs of the business world down pat, this Glossary of Business Terms will do the trick. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/59892 

Bob Jensen's links to accounting, business, and finance glossaries are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm
 

The most frequently used document in Bob Jensen's website is the Technology Glossary --- 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm
 


The Journey is the Destination (History, Travel, Africa, Photography, Dan Eldon)  --- http://www.daneldon.org/ 


Early next year, Handspring will introduce a compact handheld that includes a built-in cell phone. The Palm-OS device is smaller than other smart phones and even includes a built-in keyboard --- http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,47541,00.html 


Accounting history lecture worth noting --- http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/saxe/saxe_1978/baxter_79.htm 


Research from IBM
"Bringing Computers to Life," BBC News, October 19, 2001 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1606000/1606862.stm 

IBM has unveiled an ambitious initiative to develop technologies that share the basic biological abilities of living organisms. Senior researchers at the company said the growing complexity of computers and networks demands that the technology does a better job of maintaining and healing itself.

The researchers warn that without these efforts there is a danger that networks will soon become unmanageable.

The company is backing its initiative with its own research program, a series of grants to universities and efforts to make other computer companies sign up.

Grand challenge

This week IBM is sending 75,000 copies of a manifesto written by Paul Horn, senior vice president of IBM Research, that details the aims of its Autonomic Computing initiative.

Mr Horn warns that humans are losing the battle to manage the increasing complexity of computer systems and networks.

This complexity is only going to increase as computer technology shrinks and finds its way into ever more devices.

If the current rates of the expansion of digital technology are maintained, soon there would not be enough people to keep the world's computer systems running, he said.

He called finding ways of handling this complexity the next "grand challenge" facing the technology industry.

In the manifesto he said: "The growing complexity of the [technology] infrastructure threatens to undermine the very benefits information technology aims to provide."

Ideally future networks should resemble the autonomic nervous system which maintains and monitors many basic bodily functions without conscious help.

Global power

The autonomic nervous system maintains blood sugar and oxygen levels and monitors temperature. It adjusts the body's heating and cooling systems to keep body temperature hovering around 37C.

What is needed, argued Mr Horn, are computer systems that do a much better job of configuring themselves, can work around disruptions, heal any damage they suffer or fight off potential problems.

IBM is planning its own research programs to create technologies that can turn relatively dumb networks into smarter alternatives.

It is also planning to spend millions over the next five years funding 50 research projects at universities to take on the complex challenge.

The likely outcome of the project is a series of software standards that define how to build software or hardware that has these more biological properties.

IBM is working closely with the Global Grid Forum. This industry body is driving efforts to turn the disparate computing and research capabilities of the world's science labs into a shared pool of resources that anyone can plug into.

This effort is already driving the creation of software that hides the individual quirks of individual machines and instruments behind common interfaces.


International Tax Issues in FAS 133 and IAS 39

From a Message forwarded by richard.newmark@phduh.com 

This week we feature Thuronyi's special report on the international treatment of NFIs, based on his address to the U.N. tax conference. Thuronyi concludes that no country has fully resolved the tax issues posed by NFIs, although a few nations with developed economies and complex tax systems have adopted new rules to deal with the problems. Most countries, he notes, have not yet developed tax regimes to adequately address those concerns. Thuronyi suggests that developing or transitional countries can take steps to deal with NFIs in the short term. (See 2001 WTD 199-16 )

4) Check out Tax Analysts' home page at http://www.tax.org . Once at the home page, click on the "Discussion Groups" icon or go to http://www.tax.org/Discuss/discussion.htm . From there you can browse the archives (at http://www.tax.org/taxa/tadiscus.nsf ) to view previously released discussion group postings for all of Tax Analysts' discussion groups, including the International Taxation Group.You can also check out Tax Analysts' international section at http://www.tax.org/International/international.htm  for the latest news features.

5) Now You Can Order Tax Analysts' Products From Our Internet Web Site. If you'd like to find out more about Tax Analysts' products, or wish to order (or re-order) a print, electronic, or CD-ROM publication, you now can do so from our Web site. Simply go to Tax Analysts' Home Page ( http://www.tax.org ), click on "Customer Service" on the Navigator menu, and click on "Order Form." Note: URLs found in the interior pages of the archives may be obsolete. Please use instructions above to obtain documents. Alternatively, you can contact the customer service department by e-mail at cservice@tax.org 


Almanac of American Politics 2002 ---  http://nationaljournal.com/members/almanac/ 


Female Athletes (History, Photography) --- http://www.gamefaceonline.org/ 


The new Microsoft looks even more aggressive than the old Microsoft.
"Extending its tentacles," Economist, October 19, 2001 --- http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=822234 

As it launches an array of new products, the software giant is changing, and yet its basic instincts are staying much the same


Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Version 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/ 


Hemophilia (Medicine, Science) --- http://vector.cshl.org/ygyh/mason/ygyh.html?syndrome=hemo 


America's Underinsured: A Closer Look (The disgrace is that over 40 million Americans have no health insurance) ---  http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/uninsured?OpenDocument 


Samuel F.B. Morse Papers (Samuel was more than the inventor of the Morse Code (Art, History, Communication)) ---  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sfbmhtml/ 


History of Halloween --- 
http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychannel.com/exhibits/halloween/main.html
 


For Systems Programmers
System Toolbox http://www.systemtoolbox.com/ 


New Zealanders are frustrated by slow Internet service. It seems that their electric fences, and the grass beneath them, are interfering with connection and download speeds.
Kiwi Grass Slows Farmers' Baud --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47446,00.html 


GT News Best Practices:  Best Practice - Who's Doing It? 8 recent articles from the GTNews Best Practice section --- http://www.gtnews.com/best_practice/home.html 

Michael Knorr of Citibank reports the latest on 'Outsourcing Payments Technology'

Chris Jenkins of French & Associates offers the case study 'Outsourcing Order-To-Cash at Cisco'

Susan Skerritt of Treasury Strategies looks at 'The Trend toward Globalization and the Benefits of a Centralized Global Treasury'

Eva Andersson of ABB explains 'ABB's Customer-Oriented e-Treasury'

Marco Casalino of Fiat GEVA, S.p.A. shares Fiat's experience in 'Europe: Siting a Treasury Center'

David Boulanger of AMR Research, Inc warns that '2001 Brings New Perils and Priorities' for corporate treasuries in a recessionary environment

Andreas Thorling of Nordström & Granath Ab writes on 'Working Capital Management - The Treasurer's Challenge'

bfinance contribute the case study 'Transparency in the Treasury: British Land Offers a Fresh Approach'.

All this and more in our Best Practice Section  http://www.gtnews.com/best_practice/home.html 

 




FACTS OF LIFE
=============

1) Raising teenagers is like nailing JELL-O to a tree.

2) There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm
sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.

3) The best way to keep kids at home is to make a pleasant atmosphere and let the air
out of their tires.

4) Families are like fudge . . . mostly sweet, with a few nuts.

5) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.

6) Laughing helps. It's like jogging on the inside.

7) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not for the toy.

8) My mind not only wanders; sometimes it leaves completely.

9) If you can remain calm, you just don't have all the facts.

10) You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoes and wonder what else
you can do while you're down there.


A message of hope from Brent and Betty Carper in Egypt

To those of you who have not yet seen this article, please click on the attachment. This article is well worth reading and keeping for times when you may need a boost! This article relates everything that America is and what it stands for!

Much love to all! Brent and Betty


 

Editorial from a Romanian newspaper

Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colours of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!".

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different tv channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Silvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together. The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert. I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests. I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds of thousands of people. How on earth were they able to bow before a fellow human? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles!

 

Origins:   Americans are pleased and fascinated when newspapers in other countries run strongly pro-American articles, as indicated by the resurgence of interest in Canadian Gordon Sinclair's 28-year-old radio broadcast and enormous attention paid to the purported Romanian editorial quoted above.

Since the piece as presented here is undated, untitled, and unsigned; contains no publication information whatsoever; and is a translation of an article not originally printed in English, tracking it to its source was not easy. Fortunately, some helpful readers pointed us to its origins.

This article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title "Cîntarea Americii" on September 24 in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentul zilei ("The Daily Event" or "News of the Day").

As Associated Press reported about Mr. Nistorescu:

 

Nistorescu, managing director of the daily newspaper Evenimentul Zilei -- News of the Day -- published his editorial Sept 24, two days after watching a celebrity telethon in New York for victims of the attacks . . .

Like his other columns, "Ode to America" was meant for domestic consumption. No one knows when -- or how -- the article first reached the other side of the Atlantic. But Nistorescu figures it began when someone pulled it off the English-language version of his daily's Web page and sent it to a friend.

Since then, thousands of Americans at home and expats around the world have e-mailed it to friends, saying it captured their nation's spirit. It has been read out to U.S. soldiers and on radio talk shows and posted on U.S. Web sites.

Nistorescu says he had no idea his "Ode to America" would resonate so far away . . .

Nistorescu remains surprised and touched by the success of the piece, one of thousands he has penned in a more than 20-year career.

"It is all about the American spirit and how freedom cannot be crushed," he says.

 


Forwarded by Dr. Wolff

From a friend:

I arrived in Moscow, Idaho (Home of Idaho University-one block from Best Western) and went to dinner at Best Western. About 85-100 people were in the Restaurant. I'm at a table for about 5 minutes when his "Group" comes in (20 people). They have Antiwar Picket Signs with them. 

It appears that two of these demonstrators are professors. They all sit at a large round table behind me and begin to talk very loudly about US atrocities in Afghanistan. One of the "professors" stands up and gives a brief talk about how the "US is famous for atrocities" and Afghanistan will be no different. One of the students asked a question about Viet Nam POW's. The "Professor" makes a comment about how that was only US propaganda about poor treatment of POW's. 

OK - I'm really mad now and I jump up and go over to their table. (In retrospect - Over the entrance to the Restaurant is a huge American Flag. On each table is an American Flag and a small hand painted sign "United We Stand"). I excuse myself and ask the Professor if I can ask him a question. He says yes. I said that he appears to be of age to have served in Viet Nam, and asked him if he had served. 

His answer was NO!  I defended this Campus and told the truth to the students. I then asked if he remembered what he was doing on February 16, 1969. When he answered , "Of course not -- that was too long ago," 

I responded, "Really, I remember what I was doing. That was the second day of my capture and I had been standing in a bamboo cage for 24 hours with water up to my chest." I then said, "Sir, your comments about how POW's in Nam were treated are a lie and I personally say to you, you are a ******* liar, as you never were there. I was a POW and they did not treat our POWs humanly. The only other person I have ever heard make the statements like you have is Jane Fonda. Is she telling the truth and not me?" 

He stood up and after about 10 seconds said, "Jane is a great patriot and I cannot visualize her lying." With that, I reached over and grabbed the small American Flag and United We Stand sign and said, "I'm taking this back to my table where it can be appreciated." 

No one said a word to me as I started to walk back. However after a few seconds, people started standing up and applauding all around the restaurant. Two men got up from a table across the room and walked over to me. The first identified himself as former US Marine Lieutenant Flynn and the other man was former Gunnery Sergeant Graboski. In a loud voice after introducing themselves, Lt. Flynn said they were former Marine Guards at a US Embassy. 

He then said "We are over at this table to defend the US Flag from all foes, both foreign and domestic." They then sat down and asked their waitress to bring their meals over to my table. A few more minutes went by with loud comments from the "Antiwar" table. All of a sudden, "Gunny" Sergeant Graboski stood up and in a loud voice said "All of you heard what the President said the other night. 

You are either with the United States or you are with the terrorists." He then said "Please stand and join me in God Bless America." As he started singing, people all around the restaurant stood up and joined in. Several of the students at the "Antiwar" table also stood up half way through the song and joined in. Both Professors and the majority of the students remained seated and refused to sing. At the end there was a great ovation. The Manager came up to my table (he and his staff came out from the kitchen and sang). He thanked me for what I started and then went over to the antiwar table and asked them to leave. "I will pay for what you have had so far but I cannot in good conscience serve you -- get out now!!"

One of the professors then made a remark, "Well, we are not going to pay one dime for how shabbily we have been treated." 

As they were leaving, one customer stood up and said, "Manager, here is $5 towards their bill, anyone else willing to chip in to get this scum out of here?" All over the restaurant, people stood up reaching for their wallet and saying "I'll chip in." 

The Manager, in tears said, "My family is from Poland, I am now a citizen and am so proud of what I see tonight." He started crying and a couple of the waitresses helped him into the kitchen. The two Marines and I were there for about another 20 minutes and finished our meal. The Hostess came up and showed us more than $100 dollars that all the other tables had told their waitresses to give towards our bill. I thanked her but said I could not take the money. Lt Flynn suggested donating it in the Restaurant's name to the New York Relief Fund, so I guess that's what will happen. I just can't believe how Americans are coming together now. Just thought you would like to hear how the rest of the country is reacting to what happened!!!

Take care -- Idaho is OK, John



And that's the way it was on October 24, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

Paul Pacter runs the best international accounting site on the Web at http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm 

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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October 18, 2001

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on October 18, 2001
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
 


I will be in Austin the next few days in order to make a presentation on FAS 133 at the Seminar on Accounting Education   sponsored by the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants.  The program is at http://www.tscpa.org/welcome/SemAcctEd.html 

This may result in a delay in sending out the next edition of New Bookmarks.


Question:  
What ideal terrorist surveillance source, based upon its perfect crime fighting record in proven history, has President Bush and other officials completely overlooked?

Answer:
The answer appears near the bottom of this edition of New Bookmarks.  Click here to jump to that answer.


Quotes of the Week

"Even Pacifists Must Support This War:  Those Who Refuse are Reminiscent of the Oxford Union in 1933." 
Scott Simon, a Quaker pacifist, whose voice we hear daily on National Public Radio.
See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/justiceappeal.htm 

On Sept. 14, Culbertson wrote: "I hope the example of cooperation and trust that this spacecraft and all the people in the program demonstrate daily will someday inspire the rest of the world to work the same way. They must!"
"240 Miles Up, Seeing Tragedy," by William Harwood, September 11, 2001 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40539-2001Oct10.html 

Good thing the picture was that of Bert instead of Miss Piggy!  I suspect Osama and his cohorts were just trying to learn English like most any kid in America --- ABCD EFG HI JK LMNOP

Taliban supporters in Bangladesh may not be as Web-savvy as they'd like to think: Among the photos they lifted off the Internet to paste on posters is an image of bin Laden next to Bert, the Sesame Street character --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47450,00.html 

 

Moslems in Bosnia and Kosovo praise the American flag while radical left professors living in the freedoms and comforts of the United States loathe that flag.  The thing about that flag is that it is the reason anyone is free to criticize America,  spit upon America's flag, and curse America's  leaders.  And the world media, especially CNN,  exuberates wildly amidst the anti-American riots to broadcast these hatreds and flag burnings to the world.  Light your torches professors, only call CNN first or the flag bonfires are no fun!  Note the following article:

"Towers of Intellect It doesn't take terror to show the imbecility of professors, but it helps," by James Bowman, The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB100223834682375520.htm 

"The American flag is "a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and oppression." (says you)
Jennie Traschen, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts 
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB100223834682375520.htm  

"Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon gets my vote."
A Professor at the University of New Mexico (who in good conscience later apologized)
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB100223834682375520.htm
  

. . . Prof. George Lakoff of Berkeley, whose response to an attack on his country was to analyze the phallic imagery of the falling towers or of "the planes as penetrating the towers with a plume of heat. The Pentagon, a vaginal image from the air, penetrated by the plane as missile."   
James Bowman, http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB100223834682375520.htm   
(That was really intellectual and creative inspiration George.  I definitely think it is an Ig Nobel Prize certainty for next year.)




"PCs Talk Personal:  Listeners like computers that voice their personality," by Erica Klarreich, Nature, October 1, 2001 --- http://www.nature.com/nsu/011004/011004-3.html 

The results have implications for anyone trying to market products on the Web. Subliminal voice cues could be used to alter customers' behaviour and attitudes.

The ethics of such marketing practice causes some experts concern: people might not realize they were being manipulated, points out Ben Shneiderman, a specialist in human-computer interaction at the University of Maryland, College Park. "It's a really striking and provocative result," he says.

Web marketing sites that used synthesized voices with personality could quickly become the computer equivalent of slick car salesmen and lose their credibility, adds Shneiderman. But marketers have been tailoring advertisements to their target audience for years, argues Nass, and using computers does not raise any new ethical issues.

Visually impaired people who need synthetic speech when they use the Web might benefit from the research, which could help designers produce more satisfying voices, Lai adds. Synthetic speech can make "your teeth grate," she says. "By simply tweaking a few parameters in creating voices, we can get more favourable responses."

The rest of the article is at  http://www.nature.com/nsu/011004/011004-3.html 


Jim Borden passed along the following link:
"Cyber U. Aid for online courses clears House despite little study," by Leena Pendharkar, CBS.MarketWatch.com. October 12, 2001 --- Click here. (The URL is too long to type here.)

Congress is set to allow college students to use federal aid for online education, despite limited research into its effectiveness and concerns about creating a new breed of diploma mills.

The House approved the Internet Equity and Education Act Thursday by a 354-70 vote. Intended to help part-time students and distance learners, the bill allows use of existing federal financial aid to pay tuition for online courses at colleges and technical training schools.

"Students who are disabled and can't make it to campus, students who might have to hold jobs while in school, and others who are currently cut off from federal aid -- this bill changes that," said its sponsor, Rep. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia.

In advancing cyber-learning, however, the measure eliminates safeguards enacted in 1992 to crack down on bogus correspondence schools that were fleecing the U.S. Education Department, which provides $40 billion in financial aid each year.

And two of the nation's largest teachers' groups - the National Education Association and the American Association of University Professors - argue that more research into the value of Internet learning still needs to be done.

"We were disappointed that this bill passed because it seems premature," said Mark Smith, government relations director for the AAUP, whose members stand to lose jobs if online courses replace classroom-based ones.

Presently, students must be enrolled in an accredited institution that offers at least half of its courses on campus to receive federal aid. They also must take at least 12 hours of weekly course work.

Under the proposed law, students need only enroll in a course one day a week. Accredited institutions no longer have to meet the 50 percent in-class rule as long as their loan default rate is less than 10 percent. That's considered a measure of how well the school is keeping tabs on its students and returning the government's investment.

"The 12-hour rule and 50 percent rule were important safeguards to problems with correspondence-learning programs," NEA lobbyist Kim Anderson said. "We're concerned about the content on the Net -- we have to make sure it's high quality."

Studies suggest adult students who take classes online do just as well as those in traditional programs, said Terri Hedegaard, founder of University of Phoenix Online (UOPX: news, chart, profile). The publicly traded company boasts the nation's largest distance-learning program, with 29,000 students. The school is part of the 100,000-student University of Phoenix, a subsidiary of the Apollo Group (APOL: news, chart, profile) that operates more than 100 campuses and learning centers around the U.S.

Hedegaard acknowledges that Web-based courses aren't the best option for all students. "We don't advocate this style of learning for 18- to 20-year-olds because they need to learn socialization, they need face time with students and teachers."

Indeed, students with varying needs may respond differently to online learning, said Stephen H. Balch, an education policy expert with the National Association of Scholars.

"Of course, class time with teachers is most enriching," Balch said. "But the heavy emphasis on writing with Net courses, and for students with families or fewer financial resources, Net learning is a good option."

Isakson notes the act will come up for reauthorization in 2003, at which time problems can be addressed. A companion bill has been referred to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.


Education Resources

Apple Learning Exchange (includes Quicktime video) http://ali.apple.com/ali/ 
Classified by subject areas and aimed mainly at K-12 teachers.

TeacherNet (from the U.K.) --- http://www.dfes.gov.uk/teachers/ 

Bob Jensen's education technology aids are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 

Note especially the advice to new faculty at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm 


A message from Dennis Beresford [dberesfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU

The latest issue of "Business Officer," the monthly publication of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) contains an interesting article titled, "Calculating the Cost of Online Courses." It is written by a Professor of Integrated Science and Technology at Marshall University. I suspect that some might quibble with the approach in the article but it's an interesting side to the technology debate that may not have been discussed much.

NACUBO makes the contents of its magazine available free on its web site (nacubo.org). However, the article is in the October issue and the latest one presently available is September so it probably will be a week or two until the article is available electronically.

Denny Beresford 
University of Georgia

The Calculating the Cost Project site is at http://www.nacubo.org/public_policy/cost_of_college/content.html

Bob Jensen's Bob Jensen's Threads of Online Program Costs and Faculty Compensation are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/distcost.htm 

Bob Jensen's Education Technology Documents --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm 


Accounting Fraud --- they do it because it usually pays very well even if they get caught!

I started a new page of Threads on Accounting Fraud, Forensic Accounting, Securities Fraud, and White Collar Crime ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm 

At the above site, especially note the Stanford University database on accounting and securities fraud.


Intellectual History and Art Site of the Week

The Legacy Project --- http://www.legacy-project.org/ 

Our site is a gathering place for people interested in the enduring legacies of the many violent traumas of the 20th century. We are dedicated to exploring issues of remembrance in different cultures, in order to better understand the contemporary significance of historical tragedy.

The Legacy Project will build a global exchange on the enduring consequences of the many historical tragedies of the 20th century. As the survivors of historical traumas pass on, the lasting resonance of their experiences will depend on whether younger generations can understand and recognize them. Such recognition will challenge subsequent generations to discover new connections across historical events and to maintain distinctions among them. To be grounded in individual experience, and to recognize common ground in the historical experience of others.

The Legacy Project offers a channel for mutual recognition across generations and geography. Through scholarly research and innovative presentation, The Legacy Project will create new — and shared — frameworks for cultural expressions of loss, drawn from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Our work will help define the language of human loss - its forms, its symbols, its grammar.

Framing a dialogue in the global language of loss — among works of creative art and scholarship — is an unprecedented cultural event. Through it, The Legacy Project seeks a collective, retrospective reflection on the losses that constitute the legacy of the last century.

 


Cal Berkeley's Labor Research Portal --- http://iir.berkeley.edu/~iir/library/webguides.html 
Note especially the Labor Education guide at http://iir.berkeley.edu/~iir/library/laboredgd.html 

 
Web Guides
Alternative Forms of Ownership
Resources for workers and firms interested in models for employee participation and ownership
Labor Education
A guide to labor studies programs at colleges and universities
Globalization
Resources covering Global trade, employment and environmental issues
Labor Libraries
A list of special libraries that focus on labor, along with selected Full-text print resources on the Internet
Government
A list of United States government, regulatory and legal web resources that pertain to labor
Labor Unions - U.S.
The IIR Library's exhaustive list of U.S. unions
International Labor Unions
Labor unions world-wide, along with international organizations that address labor concerns.
Work and career
The Library's guide to employment information and career guides on the web
Labor Culture
A selected guides to the art, culture and music of the Labor Movement

Bob Jensen's management bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#smallbusiness.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on portals and vortals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm 


A sampled item from the Wall Street Journal Accounting Educator's Review 
This is a great free service to educators who subscribe to the electronic version of the WSJ.

TITLE: Xerox Fires Auditor KPMG as Tension Continues 
REPORTER: William M. Bulkeley and Mark Maremont 
DATE: Oct 08, 2001 PAGE: A3 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1002292663458919440.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Accounting Irregularities, Auditing, Auditing Services, Auditor Independence, Auditor/Client Disagreements

SUMMARY: KPMG served as the auditor for Xerox for more than 30 years. A spokeswoman for Xerox indicates that they dismissed KPMG so that the company could "approach the 2001 audit with a clean slate." Questions concern auditor and client disagreements, auditor legal liabilities, independence, communications with successor auditor, and communication with the board of directors and/or audit committee.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) What problems with Xerox's financial reporting did KPMG express ?

2.) What concerns with KPMG did Xerox express? What role does an audit committee serve? What obligations does the independent auditor have for communications with the audit committee and/or board of directors?

3.) KPMG and Xerox are both defendants in a lawsuit. What is the nature of the lawsuit? What legal liabilities do auditors face?

4.) Who is the new independent auditor for Xerox? What communications should/should not occur between the successor auditor and KPMG?

5.) What additional audit services has Xerox obtained? Who is providing the additional audit services for Xerox? Could the independent auditor also provide the additional audit services? Why or why not? How are these additional services likely to enhance Xerox's financial reporting?

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Your audit firm has been asked to serve as the independent auditor for Xerox. Prepare a list of issues that you would like to resolve before accepting the audit engagement. Discuss the importance of each of these issues.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island 
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University 
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

Reminder to Program Professors: Go to http://wsj.com/offers/prof  to register for The Wall Street Journal Online if you haven't done so already.  Afterwards, contact the following person for the free WSJ Educators Service (includes various discipline choices):  

Tawanda Rowe
Program Coordinator
The Wall Street Journal
wsjeducatorsreviews@dowjones.com 


Bibliography of the History of American Education http://www.zzbw.uni-hannover.de/HerbstStart.htm 


Entrepreneur Books: Small Business And Investing Book Reviews --- http://www.entrepreneurbooks.com/ 


Capital Gains, Minimal Taxes: The Essential Guide for Investors and Traders clearly explains the taxation of stocks and mutual funds.

The Armchair Millionaire tells us to invest regularly and early to benefit from dollar cost averaging and the power of compounding.

The Motley Fool's Investing Without A Silver Spoon teaches us the basics of dividend reinvestment plans and buying stocks without a broker.

Talking Money by Jean Chatzky, a columnist for Money Magazine, gives basic financial advice.

The Millionaire Mind by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. gets our vote for the best wealth-building book reviewed on Entrepreneur Books! Highly recommended!

We found The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty to be a great book for entrepreneurs.

First, Break All The Rules: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently teaches us how great managers get the most from their employees.

Mortgages For DummiesTM helps us understand mortgages and when to refinance your home.

Entrepreneur Books readers have asked us to review The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It.

Business Know-How: An Operational Guide for Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with Limited Budgets offers practical, hands-on information for dealing with specific, small business situations and saving money within your home business.

Rich Dad's Guide To Investing: What The Rich Invest In, That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not tells us that to be great investors, we should first understand business.

Inc. Yourself: How To Profit By Setting Up Your Own Corporation is a classic book about forming your own corporation. But, are the tax-savings of incorporation as significant as the author claims?

The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Accounting Course is a solid introduction to double-entry accounting for small business owners.

The Insider's Guide To Small Business Loans has information about securing your small business loan.

Why Flip A Coin? The Art and Science of Good Decisions teaches us about the dating game, hedging, and more.

Rental Houses for the Successful Small Investor is a great book for investors contemplating investing in real estate rental properties.

Keys To Reading An Annual Report is an excellent, short introduction to financial statement analysis.

Angel Investing: Matching Start-Up Funds With Start-Up Companies is a great new book to help us understand the world of angel investors and venture capitalists.

We review From .com to .profit: Inventing Business Models That Deliver Value And Profit.

Beyond The Basics: How to Invest Your Money, Now That You Know a Thing or Two is a good introduction to wealth building and the stock market for new and intermediate level investors.

Financial Shenanigans: How To Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud In Financial Reports teaches investors how to spot accounting fraud and gimmickry.

It's hot on the bestseller lists, but should you follow the advice in Rich Dad, Poor Dad? We try to separate the good advice from the bad.

The stories of 101 entrepreneurs are profiled in What No One Ever Tells You About Starting Your Own Business by Jan Norman

Low Risk, High Reward: Starting and Growing Your Small Business With Minimal Risk is an excellent introduction to starting a small business. It covers many small business start-up issues and gives some useful advice on lowering your risk of losing money.


Read about Thinking Like An Entrepreneur: How To Make Intelligent Business Decisions That Will Lead To Success In Building And Growing Your Own Company.

Buffett: The Making Of An American Capitalist tells us about the life and times of one of the world's greatest investors, and the astute reader will learn many investing lessons.

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy is still a bestseller.

Wondering how to help your daughter sell more Girl Scout cookies? Read our review of the outstanding study of human nature: Influence: How And Why People Agree To Things

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel P. Goleman is highly recommended.

Bob Jensen's bookmarks on investing and small business can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm 


Especially note this one:  Wondering how to help your daughter sell more Girl Scout cookies? Read our review of the outstanding study of human nature: Influence: How And Why People Agree To Things

Influence: How and Why People Agree To Things by Robert Cialdini teaches us the basics of how people are influenced. It breaks influence into six key factors:

  1. Reciprocation
  2. Consistency and Commitment
  3. Social Proof
  4. Authority
  5. Liking (the person who is trying to influence us)
  6. Scarcity

Pat McConnell of Bear Stearns explains how analysts deal with the debate between standard setters and management teams over quality of earnings in financial reporting --- http://flywheel.memeticsystems.com/backend/ct_click.cgi?ct_id=1056&type=1 


Comparisons of HTML authoring and editing software 

"WYSIWYG Editor Shootout 2001," by Michael Calore, Webmonkey, September 28, 2001 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/39/index4a.html 

Some of you may recall the previous WYSIWYG Shootout, where GoLive, Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Fusion, and even a few text editors were passed in front of the all-seeing Webmonkey Eye of Scrutiny. Once the carrion was cleared and the battle fires were extinguished, Macromedia's Dreamweaver went home with the top prize for the second year in a row. Will Dreamweaver take home the gold star this time around? We shall see. We shall see.

This year, though, the game is a little different — for one thing, the players have changed. Macromedia, the company that makes Dreamweaver, has swallowed up Allaire, and it now markets a whole slew of development apps under the company umbrella. And some of our favorite Web editors of yesteryear (Visual Page anyone?) have packed up their belongings and retired to a cottage in the mountains. Sadly, the makers of NetObjects Fusion, one of the beefiest WYSIWYG apps on the market, have gone out of business. NetObjects Inc. will no longer produce the software, and the company has decided to sell off its assets and close its doors for good.

One of the reasons for the dramatic shifts in the roster is that the WYSIWYG editor market has undergone tremendous change recently, and the competitive spark between the software companies that make these beasts has erupted into a full-scale high Sierra wildfire. As a result, the WYSIWYG editors of today are sleeker, faster, and more powerful than their predecessors.

The WYSIWYG editors have also had to keep up with the increasingly advanced needs of the Web development community — we need a graphics application to handle our images, a presentation platform like QuickTime or Flash for our multimedia, and a content management system to keep track of several thousand files. We also need extensive backend capabilities. So the big players now market their WYSIWYG editors along side their other professional Web development applications, putting the spotlight on full-featured, interoperable development suites. They've also expanded their rosters of technologies with large-scale implementation to include JSP, JHTML, XHTML, and C#, among others.

But where does that leave the text editors? Well, it wouldn't be fair to weigh text editors like BBEdit and HomeSite against the full-fledged WYSIWYG applications that have every bell and whistle imaginable — from animated GIFs to SVG-based navigation. Sure, text editors are great for dHTML, file management, and, well, editing text, but the feature-rich, GUI-based Web editors have upped themselves into a whole new category. So this year, we'll let the text editors fight it out amongst themselves in their own league: Look for a companion Webmonkey text editor shootout soon.

What we're left with are three mighty powerful contenders that have merged or improved themselves into an all-new league of their own. Almost all of the bloat-happy, intrusive WYSIWYG editor traits have been phased out, leaving us with a fairly level playing field. This means that choosing the right editor has never been harder. So, how do we pick one editor program over another?

After an lengthy analysis of the major alternatives, the Michael Calore's conclusions are as follows:

And the Golden Monkey Statuette goes to:

Dreamweaver 4 from Macromedia!

Unbelievable! This is the third straight victory for Dreamweaver! Though the win is surely no shock to all you developers who use the program every day. If you've ever had the pleasure of using Dreamweaver, you know that it just makes building a website remarkably painless. Whether you're slapping together some quick brochure-ware, or donning your coder cap to create a thousand-page, dynamic site with all of the ubiquitous accoutrements, Dreamweaver 4 has the refined tools, the easy interface, and the well-developed standards support that you desperately need.

While all three editors scored poorly on the CSS test, Dreamweaver came closer than GoLive and FrontPage to producing consistent formatting across the most popular browsers. The code that Dreamweaver generated was a little bulkier and obtuse than the code offered by the competitors, but its purpose is obvious now: Dreamweaver's raw code actually works in Netscape 4.7.

One of the factors weighed heavily in the outcome of the Shootout was the integration between Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. The suite's ability to update code in Dreamweaver after being altered in Fireworks (something they call "roundtrip editing") certainly made our eyebrows arch skyward. For a few extra bucks, Macromedia offers a package deal of Dreamweaver 4 and Fireworks 4, so you can start creating HTML and graphics right out of the box. The CD-ROM version of the program also ships with trial versions of BBEdit 6.0 (for the Mac) and HomeSite 4.5 (for PC), so you can use these excellent text editors to bolster your Dreamweaver experience. The extra features like the O'Reilly code reference and the JavaScript debugger are big plusses as well.

Coming in at a close second is Adobe GoLive. We can't say enough about its super-cool QuickTime editor. The code-editing functionality in the program is first-rate, and the context-sensitive palettes make for a pleasant desktop feel. However, GoLive dishes out some bulky and strange code, especially when you're trying to position elements on a layout grid. Puzzling and awkward tags like xpos, showgridx, and cntrlrow give off a funny vibe. We certainly wouldn't want them on any of our pages!

And the bronze goes to FrontPage. While it has come a long way, baby, we felt like both Dreamweaver and GoLive were better tools for most Web developer needs. FrontPage does receive honorable mention, however, as the best tool for beginners. Dreamweaver may be the all-around WYSIWYG champ, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right editor for you.

Generally speaking, the crop of WYSIWYG editors we reviewed here are all pretty good. Dirty-little-secret proprietary tags are almost extinct. If you drop in hand-generated code, and for the most part, it's left alone. And Stylesheets, dHTML, JavaScript, and multimedia capabilities are now the norm rather than the exception (though success with these features varies).

So really you could pick any one of these editors. Once you got used to the program's quirks and peculiarities, it would probably do you proud as it tackled most of your daily page-building tasks. Aside from a general competency, almost every one of the editors reviewed have at least one feature that they are particularly good at. We suggest that you let the nature of your projects and your own good or bad habits guide you to the editor that most accurately matches your needs.

As you can see, when it comes to WYSIWYG editors, there's something for everyone. So just go ahead and pick one! After all, it takes a human (or at least a really smart monkey) to create a good website. These tools are simply here to help you get it done faster and with minimal effort.


I am proud to call Paul Pacter both a good friend and a former student while I was on the faculty at Michigan State University.  He was one of the many great doctoral students recruited by James Don Edwards.  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/pacter2001.htm 

Paul was a research project director for both the FASB and the IASB prior to taking on an assignment in the office of Deloitte and Touche in Hong Kong. His apartment beside the Hyatt Hotel is fabulous, and he is a wonderful host.

Paul maintains what is probably the best international accounting site in the world --- http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm 

For the latest tribute to him, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/pacter2001.htm 


World Biodiversity Database --- http://www.eti.uva.nl/Database/WBD.html 

ETI's World Biodiversity Database is a continuously growing taxonomic database and information system that aims at documenting all presently known species (about 1.7 million) and to make this important biological information worldwide accessible. Access to this online information system is free of charge for noncommercial use: scientific and educational purposes. All data in the WBD are copyright protected by the authors, artists and other contributors and may not copied or reproduced without approval of ETI and the lawful owners.

The WBD is intended to increase understanding and to support a responsible use and to facilitate the management of the earths biodiversity resources. It is built as a joint effort of specialists worldwide who contribute basic taxonomic, ecological and biodiversity data to ETI to make this available in electronic form, both online in the WBD and in subsections on CD-ROMs.

The WBD contains taxonomic information (hierarchies), species names, synonyms, descriptions, illustrations and literature references when available. A direct link to CMBI provides genetic information on protein sequence (from the SWISS-PROT and TrEMBL databases), nucleic sequence (EMBL) and 3D structures (PDB) for each taxon. In the future the WBD will be extended with online identification keys and an interactive geographic information system. A section of the WBD is available on CD-ROM.

Those parts of ETI's WBD that represent so called Global Species Databases (full worldwide coverage on specific taxa) will be linked to the Species 2000 Index of Species, a virtual basic taxonomic reference system, that is continuously updated by quality taxonomic databases. The Species 2000 Index acts as a basic species name references system that can help you to locate detailed information on species in the member databases.

The database, constructed in cooperation with the Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam (SARA), currently contains over 200.000 accessible taxa. If you have any comments or suggestions or a data set that would fit into the WBD, please forward these to our webmaster [webmaster@eti.uva.nl].


XYZ=IISBP

The proposed global business credential that we once knew as "Cognitor" and more recently referred to as "XYZ" has been given a shiny new name and an international organization to support and promote it. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/60274 

Shucks. Now I can't cognate in public.

Bob Jensen, Intensely Interesting Senile Behaving Person


Work Together, Stay in Place (Janet Flatley passed this link along to me.)
Learn how some smart organizations and quick learners are working virtually, efficiently, and seamlessly around the globe today. by Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com 

The most important part of work is teamwork. Product-development teams scattered around the world collaborating on an exciting innovation. Marketing teams coordinating the release of an ad campaign across North America, Europe, and Asia. Logistics teams moving parts and products from suppliers to the assembly line to customers.

For years, one of the biggest challenges facing such far-flung teams was how to work together across boundaries of time and place. Until September 11, the most direct response to that challenge was to hop on an airplane. A customer has a problem? I'll be in Amsterdam by 10 AM. A software engineer is stumped by a glitch? Let's all meet in Palo Alto at noon. Suddenly, teams that spend most of their time in the air don't seem quite so appealing.

What follows is a collection of smart ideas and useful tools designed to help teams collaborate more while traveling less. You can still work together, even if you stay in place.

Continued at  http://www.fastcompany.com/invent/invent_feature/virtualteams.html 


It certainly does seem likely that some travel will be replaced by other forms of meetings. Maybe even videoconferencing will come into its own, after years of requiring huge investments and elaborate procedures. And, if we're lucky, videoconferencing will make meetings so unendurable that we'll shorten them by 90 percent. After all, the problem with videoconferencing is that it's such bad TV. If the networks ran a weekly program that showed an hour of a business guy sitting at a desk listening and shuffling his notes, we'd turn it off in a second. Let's at least get some background music and a laugh track. Then maybe video conferencing will take off...

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/  


Big Five firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has retained its top 10 spot on Working Mother magazine's annual list of the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers." The other Big Five firms are represented on the Top 100 list as well. Find out what it takes to make the grade. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/60271 

But it is Deloitte and Touche that disclosed to the world a goal of doubling the number of female partners (in the next five years as I dimly recall).


Question:  What does CNN claim is the best health and medicine site on the web?

Answer:  emedicine.com at http://www.emedicine.com/ 

When I went there several times, I got the following message:

eMedicine.com is experiencing extremely high traffic due to our recent media exposure. We are providing this page with a summary of our most requested content in an effort to serve as many of our readers as possible. Thank you for your patience and support.

Hispanics may find the following site helpful:  healthfinder Espanol --- http://www.healthfinder.gov/espanol 


But this study fails to explain why they "get prettier at closing time."

"How pretty faces light up the brain," BBC News, October 10, 2001 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1590000/1590847.stm 

The romantic saying "their eyes met across a crowded room" could have some scientific basis.

It is very important to know rapidly with whom it might be rewarding to bond

Dr Knut Kampe It turns out that eye contact with a pretty face is enough to start the brain buzzing within seconds.

British researchers have found that when someone sees an attractive face, their brain's "reward centre" lights up.

The scientists believe bonding with attractive people has an evolutionary advantage and is hard-wired into the brain.

Health and strength

As well as the more obvious rewards of finding a suitable mate, associating with attractive people perhaps enhances someone's social status.

Knut Kampe, of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London, led the research.

He told BBC News Online: "From an evolutionary point of view, it is important to rate someone as attractive because this indicates health, strength, etc.


Attractiveness and Aging --- http://www.ship.edu/~sfmade/agingsummer/attractiveness/chap5.html 


From Syllabus e-News on October 9, 2001

eCollege Tops Colorado List for Fastest Growth

The fastest growing company in Colorado in the past year was edcuational courseware developer eCollege, according to the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche, which ranked state companies in its annual Colorado Technology Fast 50 listing. Denver-based eCollege, an application service provider that develops online campuses and courseware, had revenue growth of 10,996 percent in the last year. Qwest Communications was number two on the list. Five year-old eCollege has worked on online educational programs for Seton Hall University, the University of Colorado, the DeVry Institutes, the Kentucky Virtual High School, and Microsoft Faculty Center.

For more information, visit: http://www.ecollege.com 


University of Maryland Business School Puts Up Portal

The University of Maryland's Robert Smith School of Business said it would launch an Internet portal to help manage online information across its academic constituencies. The school will use software from Autonomy Corp. to organize, personalize and deliver documents, financial, transportation and logistics databases, federal agency information, and selected Web- based sources. The portal will also have natural language retrieval features to allow full-sentence search queries. Sandor Boyson, Smith's chief of information strategy, said the new portal represents the replacement of "a Website that posted static information with a sophisticated portal that delivers automated services to those who access it."

For more information, visit: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu 


U. Texas Med Center Institutes Speech Recognition

The University of Texas's Southwestern Medical Center is offering a speech recognition service enabling callers to say the name of the employee, physician, department, clinic, or study they are trying to reach and connect to an appropriate number. The service uses SpeechSite speech recognition technology from SpeechWorks International, Inc., and helps university operators, who field calls for about 75,000 patients annually, work with callers with more complex needs. The Center said more than 60 percent of all calls are now automated using the system, which resides on server in the data center and uses employee information from its human resources management system. In the near future, the system will be expanded to recognize Spanish-speaking callers.

For more information, visit: http://www.speechworks.com 


New Rutgers Site to Help Spur Applications

Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, unveiled a new web site designed to help boost undergraduate applications. The site, designed by Edgewater, N.J.-based Multimedia Solutions Inc., uses several interactive features, including Macromedia Flash, to create an "animated experience" for students, parents, and counselors browsing the site. Rutgers invested in the site redesign because it wanted "to quickly and effectively convey the entire Rutgers experience, from academics to student life ... we also wanted to increase the number of qualified applications we receive," said Diane Harris, the director of marketing for undergraduate admissions at the school.

For more information, visit: http://admissions.rutgers.edu 

 


Gene Fan pointed out this link.

Texas Administrative Code
TITLE 22 EXAMINING BOARDS 
PART 22 TEXAS STATE BOARD OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTANCY

http://info.sos.state.tx.us/pub/plsql/readtac$ext.ViewTAC?tac_view=3&ti=22&pt=22 


The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) have announced the launch of a new Web site designed to provide information about money managers, financial planners, and other investment advisors. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/59363 


One Model of a Masters in Accountancy and Professional Consultancy Curriculum
The following program is quite innovative in terms of its curriculum, here is the web address. The program follows a 4-1-1-4 structure, with the 1-1 courses offered in a DL format while the students are working full-time; the 4-4 courses are offered as a full-time set of courses during the first and second summers after graduation. http://www.mac.villanova.edu 
I have a great deal of respect for the accounting faculty at Villanova, especially their current leader, Jim Borden.

I might note that Dean Monahan is a veteran accounting educator.  His message reads as follows:

The College of Commerce and Finance (C&F), the business school at Villanova, has undergone some dramatic changes recently that should be of interest to you as you explore our new Master of Accounting and Professional Consultancy degree program.

Over the last four years we have witnessed a dramatic revitalization of our curriculum, as evidenced by the following changes:

instituted a laptop initiative (all undergraduate C&F students have a laptop computer, to facilitate the learning process, for the duration of their studies)

construction of a state-of-the-art addition and complete renovation to Bartley Hall, the home of the business school

marshaled the resources necessary to launch a radically different and innovative Executive MBA program, to be delivered in the newly acquired Villanova Conference Center

recruited talented new faculty through national searches—faculty who are actively involved in research, consulting, and curriculum change efforts

Our strategic plan embraces an overall goal of achieving educational distinctiveness and calls for similar bold steps going forward. Clearly, the business school at Villanova is a school on the move!

The College is also actively engaged in partnering in the design of its programs with the business community. Prominent corporate executives serve as members of the Dean’s Advisory Council and the CIO (Chief Information Officer) Council. Both groups are heavily involved with shaping the direction of the College, from course offerings to program development, to actually teaching courses and guest lecturing. Such active involvement of business professionals will help ensure the currency, vibrancy, and relevance of our course and curriculum offerings—something we are deeply committed to.

The Master of Accounting and Professional Consultancy is the result of extensive dialogue with members of these councils as well as with public accounting and consulting firms. The investment made by these corporate partners is paying dividends to the College in advice on strategic direction and curriculum; to the firms in helping to shape the course of graduate business education at a nationally prominent institution; and to students in the relevance and scope of Villanova’s graduate business programs.

We are indeed most pleased to invite you to participate in our innovative graduate accounting program—a program that is designed to add value to your career for many years to come. For additional information about the program, please contact the Graduate Business Office by phone 610-519-4336 or email 
( mac@villanova.edu ). Alternatively, you can visit our website at www.mac.villanova.edu .

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Thomas (Tim) Monahan, Ph.D., CPA 
Dean of the College of Commerce & Finance
Villanova University


Another model with a stronger accounting information systems focus is that of Bentley College --- http://www.cpanet.com/goto/0110bentleycollege.asp 

The Bentley College AIS curriculum is summarized at http://www.cpanet.com/goto/0110bentleycollege.asp 

Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosap.htm 


A great news site for updates on Windows XP --- http://special.northernlight.com/windowsxp/ 


Year 2001 Nobel Prize winners ---  http://www.nobel.se/ 


"No More Economic Stimulus Needed," by Milton Friedman. 
Dr. Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is co-author, with his wife Rose, of "Two Lucky People: Memoirs" (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002671888556045120.htm 

Crude Keynesianism has risen from the dead. On all sides, there are calls for fiscal stimulus to "provide the quick shot of adrenaline the slumping U.S. economy needs" (to quote from this newspaper's Outlook column on Oct. 1). President Bush has now proposed a "stimulus package," calling for spending increases and tax reductions amounting to a total of $60 billion to $75 billion, in addition to the emergency assistance of $40 billion already authorized.

I believe this is a great mistake. Let me count the reasons why:

1) The economic slowdown to date has been relatively mild. Unemployment is still at levels that more often accompany prosperity than recession, let alone depression. Sept. 11 was a major shock psychologically, but its direct economic effect -- perhaps $25 billion to $100 billion -- is a pin prick in a $10 trillion economy. The loss of physical capital, plus secondary effects (e.g. extra resources required for screening airline passengers) will reduce our potential national income. However, they need not reduce the long-term rate of growth of that lower potential, though the short-term effects will lengthen the current downturn in the economy and increase its severity.

2) The Fed is already providing a "quick shot of adrenaline," having cut the federal funds rate from 6.5% to 2.5% in the past nine months, the final one percentage point drop after Sept. 11. Monetary growth (M2) for the past year has been close to 10%, a rate of growth that if long continued would assure a sharp rise in inflation. By historical standards, the Fed's behavior was pre-emptive and aggressive.

Given the lag between monetary change and economic change, the monetary stimulus is only now beginning to take effect. But note that the stimulus is permanent: Once the money supply is increased, it is there to pass from hand to hand as it is spent again and again. Under this stimulus, the economy is likely to turn around in the next quarter or two.

When that happens, this episode will prove to be a milder, if somewhat longer, recession than usual. Indeed, even the monetary stimulus may have been somewhat overdone, and may leave an inflationary heritage. As Martin Feldstein argued cogently on these pages recently, should we not wait to see how the patient responds to the monetary stimulus before rushing into a fiscal stimulus?

3) Fiscal stimulus also takes time to have any effect. Anything passed now is not likely to affect actual spending or tax receipts until after the economy has already started to recover, and to come full flood only when the economy is expanding. Talk about locking the stable door after the horse is stolen.

4) More fundamentally, does fiscal stimulus stimulate? Japan's experience in the '90s is dramatic evidence to the contrary. Japan resorted repeatedly to large doses of fiscal stimulus in the form of extra government spending, while maintaining a restrictive monetary policy. The result: stagnation at best, depression at worst, for most of the past decade. That has also been the experience in the U.S. and other countries that have tried to use government spending to jump-start the economy.

The reason is not far to seek. Extra government spending means less repayment of government debt, or the incurring of more debt. In either case, private individuals have less to spend. Government projects replace private projects. Which are likely to be more productive?

5) Cutting taxes now would promote private spending rather than government spending and provide a supply-side incentive. That is highly relevant for the long run, but not for cyclical stimulus. Here, too, time delay is crucial. The effect of the tax reductions is likely to come into effect when the economy is already on the mend.

The one sure result of fiscal stimulus will be to ratchet up the fraction of national income spent by the federal government. Is a permanently larger government the right answer to the terrorist threat?


A message from Andrew Priest [a.priest@ECU.EDU.AU

CERT have issued "CERT Advisory CA-2001-28 Automatic Execution of Macros" which relates to macro vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel 2000 + and Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 +.

Full information on the vulnerability can be found online at:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1999-04.html  or

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/security/Content/2001.10.04.html 

In respect of macros, your attention is also drawn to the following CERT advisory:

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1999-02.html 

Regards Andrew Priest

Note from Bob Jensen:
Once again I remind readers that they can reduce macro risks by installing QuickView Plus and choose the option to open Word and Excel documents in QuickView rather than Microsoft.  However, they can only read the documents in QuickView.  See http://www.jasc.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=006 


A culture that emphasizes grievances will live in fear.
"Anthrax Is Spread by Resentment,"  by Theodore Dalrymple, The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1003094213419075600.htm 

It was H.G. Wells who, only a few years after the development of the germ theory of disease, first realized the value of bacteria for terrorist purposes. In 1895, he published a story called "The Stolen Bacillus," in which an anarchist revolutionary worms his way into the confidence of a bacteriologist in order to obtain cholera germs to put in London's water supply.

The bacteriologist, little suspecting his visitor, expatiates on the dangers of the cholera that he shows him in a test-tube: "Yes, here is the pestilence imprisoned. Only break such a little tube as this into a supply of drinking-water . . . and death -- mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and terrible, death full of pain and indignity -- would be released upon this city, and go hither and thither seeking his victims."

Wells also tells us what is going on in the mind of the anarchist revolutionary as he exultantly escapes with the deadly culture of germs that he has stolen: "How brilliantly [he told himself] he had planned it, forged his letter of introduction and got into the laboratory, and how brilliantly he had seized the opportunity! The world should hear of him at last. All those people who had sneered at him, neglected him, preferred other people to him, found his company undesirable, should consider him at last. Death, death, death! They had always treated him as a man of no importance. All the world had been a conspiracy to keep him under."

Here we have the resentment and grandiosity that, often allied to one gimcrack utopian theory or another (of which, of course, fundamentalist Islam is but one), usually motivates the terrorist. The problem is that resentment and grandiosity is almost the normal condition of modern man. Feeling himself deprived of that to which he is by right entitled, and also feeling that, according to the doctrine of equality, there is nothing and nobody in the world more important than his own glorious self, he sets about rectifying the injustices that have been done to him by indiscriminate deeds of vengeance.

I have no special knowledge of the people who are spreading anthrax in Florida and New York and Nevada, but I know that there are many people, quite apart from Osama bin Laden, who would be willing to do so, and who would be only too happy to take advantage of the prevailing situation to sow the kind of generalized panic and despair that would be balm to their wounded souls.

Often in my practice I meet people through whom resentment bubbles like sulfurous gas through molten lava. Not long ago, for example, I met a man, ominously attired in combat dress, who was so infuriated by the suffering of animals consequent upon the consumption of meat that he felt he wanted to go into the nearest supermarket and shoot everyone dead with a Kalashnikov. He had joined a gun club to learn how to shoot with maximum effect, and I had little doubt that he was thoroughly in earnest and that he could see no moral objection to his proposed slaughter of the shoppers.

Another man became infuriated with a chocolate company whose products he had consumed in immoderate quantities. When he was diagnosed as a diabetic, he became convinced that the chocolate company was to blame, for it had "addicted" him and was therefore responsible for his illness (and, of course, the illness of countless others). His demands for compensation fell on deaf ears, and to prevent the company from harming anyone again, he proposed to poison the chocolate.

The righting of a grievance, real or imagined, is the nearest many people can come nowadays to a transcendent purpose in life; and the number of people with grievances escalates as sectional historiographies -- Islamist, in this case -- grow ever more dominant and numerous. Soon everyone will be able to nurse a historic grievance of his own. Indeed, how many people will admit in decent company to having had a happy childhood?

Moreover, for many years the intellectual and moral worth of a member of the intelligentsia has been measured by the vehemence of his criticism and rejection of the accomplishments of the past. Only anger over wrongs and injustices is considered a generous or constructive emotion; admiration for past achievement has been relegated to the status of swinish complacency, which is itself the passive handmaiden of oppression. And in an age dominated by mass media, it is hardly surprising that such an attitude should have communicated itself to the whole of society. The identity of anger with virtue and generosity has become complete.

Continued at  http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1003094213419075600.htm 


Whether you're looking for a short e-course or seminar, a semester-length course for university credit, or free seminars and articles from experts at the world's leading educational and cultural institutions, Fathom is your source for quality online learning.

You can browse online courses in Fathom's Course Directory ( http://www.fathom.com/products/course_directory.jhtml ) or follow the links below to some of our most popular courses.


A new database developed by the INS is rolling out at schools around the country. It will keep track of all foreign students studying in the United States on student visas --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,47353,00.html 


Dear Professor Jensen,

I'd like to introduce the latest addition to The Wall Street Journal's family of focused, highly useful Web sites: http://CollegeJournal.com .

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Sincerely, 
Tony Lee 
Editor in Chief/General Manager CollegeJournal.com http://collegejournal.com 


New and redesigned weapons since the Gulf War are being counted on by the U.S. military to fight terrorism in Operation Enduring Freedom. Here's a run-down on some new warfare technology --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47395,00.html 


The Nobel Prize for Literature

"Strange News From Sweden The Nobel Prize goes to a writer of actual merit. What happened?" by Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002849853950752760.htm 

"Our Conrad," The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002844102262801000.htm 

We agree with those who see the awarding yesterday of the Nobel Prize for Literature to V.S. Naipaul as long overdue. As a writer Mr. Naipaul towers above some recent recipients of the prize: Toni Morrison, Gunther Grass, Nadine Gordimer. But that is a matter of judgment.

What is indisputable is that his award is timely. Mr. Naipaul's persistent theme has been that men and women from both the First World and the Third must be judged by equal standards.

"The world is what it is," he writes at the start of "A Bend In the River." "Those who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." No fiercer answer can be made to the nihilism and the moral and cultural relativism so pervasive in the West today.

Mr. Naipaul is a native of Trinidad and an Oxford scholarship boy. He arrived on the London literary scene in the 1950s, the heyday of post-colonial intellectual fashion. His first novel caught the eye of the literary establishment as the product of a "native" whose maturity portended hopeful things for the Third World. The Swedish Academy praises Mr. Naipaul for "his memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished."

This gets Mr. Naipaul mostly wrong. In "The Loss of El Dorado," Mr. Naipaul is unsparing about the abusiveness of colonial rule. But he's also no sentimentalizer of what followed: corrupt and brutal despotisms in Africa and South America, stupid home-grown ideologies, as well as the self-indulgent Western fantasies that sustain them. Writing about the lyrics of Joan Baez, Mr. Naipaul observes: "You couldn't listen to the sweet songs about injustice unless you expected justice and received it much of the time. You couldn't sing about the end of the world unless you felt that the world was going on and on and you were safe in it."

Because Mr. Naipaul has no patience with left-wing illusions about the "developing world," he refuses to traffic in stereotypes about the locals. His characters are self-conscious figures, with ambitions and desires and judgments about the world. They are not political caricatures. Leonard Side in "A Way in the World" keeps his bases covered by placing an image of Christ over his bed despite being Muslim.

Bringing it all together is what Mr. Naipaul called, in a 1990 lecture at the Manhattan Institute, "Our Universal Civilization." His conclusions are worth quoting at length:

"The universal civilization has been a long time in the making. It wasn't always universal; it wasn't always as attractive as it is today. The expansion of Europe gave it for at least three centuries a racial taint, which still causes pain . . . .

"Because my movement within this civilization has been from Trinidad to England, from the periphery to the center, I may have felt certain of its guiding principles more freshly than people to whom these things were everyday. One such realization . . . has been the beauty of the idea of the pursuit of happiness. "[This] is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on the periphery. . . .

"It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don't imagine my father's Hindu parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist, and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.''

In the face of last month's barbarism, this is exactly the message the world needs to hear.


"What the Nobel Economists Missed," by David R. Henderson, The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002844871126597040.htm 

On Wednesday, the Nobel Prize committee announced this year's winners for economics: Berkeley's George Akerlof, Stanford's Michael Spence, and Columbia's Joseph Stiglitz. Americans all, they won the award for their path-breaking contributions to the economics of "asymmetric" information.

The awards may well be justified, especially for Messrs. Stiglitz and Akerlof. But unfortunately the Nobel committee, and economists in general, are missing the big picture on information economics. Let me explain, first by highlighting the three economists' contributions.

Mr. Akerlof, in a famous 1970 article, gave a new explanation for a well-known phenomenon: the fact that cars barely a few months old sell for well below their price when new. He pointed out that although a certain proportion of new cars are lemons, once they are sold people are more likely to keep the good ones and less likely to keep the lemons. Potential buyers of used cars, knowing this fact, will pay substantially less for a used car because of the higher probability that it's a lemon.

Why is this a problem? Because the potential sellers of good used cars can't get a price that reflects their quality and, therefore, hold onto them even though potential buyers would gladly pay a higher price if they knew the car was high-quality.

Similarly, economists had long understood that if insurance buyers have better information about their health than do the companies that sell them insurance, then "adverse selection" can result. To the extent the insurance company cannot distinguish the sick from the healthy, it will set the same price for both. The sick will find the insurance a good deal, and the healthy will find it a bad deal, and so a disproportionately high number of sick people will buy insurance. The insurance company, knowing this fact, prices accordingly, thus driving out even more of the healthy, and raising prices even more, and so on. Mr. Stiglitz, in a 1976 article co-authored with Princeton University economist Michael Rothschild, showed that in theory the insurance market could break down completely.

Finally, Michael Spence made his reputation with an article in 1973 on job-market signaling. He argued that when employers hire workers, information about those workers' productivity is very costly and that they therefore need some indicator of the workers' productivity. One such indicator, he argued, is whether they finished college. Potential employees, knowing this, invest time and money in completing their degree in order to "signal" to employers that they are productive. By Mr. Spence's reasoning, people might learn close to nothing in college, but their investment pays off in a better and higher-paying job.

Mr. Akerlof, who, in 1973 was one of my senior colleagues on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers, was especially careful not to conclude that government intervention is necessarily a solution to the problem of asymmetric information. He pointed out, in fact, that two free-market solutions to the "lemons problem" are warranties and reputations. Mr. Stiglitz, on the other hand, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, seems to have more confidence in government.

Unfortunately, in discussing government solutions, Mr. Stiglitz has been vague about the kinds of solutions he has in mind and has never, to my knowledge, specified the incentives that would motivate government officials to do the right thing. Mr. Stiglitz, in fact, is often guilty of what UCLA economist Harold Demsetz calls the "nirvana fallacy": calling a problem with the market an imperfection while not having a clear government solution that would make things better.

Which brings me to the big thing missing in the work of all three: the central insight that Friedrich Hayek, co-winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics, had in the 1930s and 1940s. Hayek pointed out that almost all information that matters is decentralized, that it exists in the minds of the millions of participants in an economy. Hayek first made this point in a 1935 article explaining why socialism couldn't work.

In focusing on the information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and between employers and employees, Messrs. Stiglitz, Akerlof and Spence ignore a much more crucial asymmetry: the one between decentralized, private information and centralized government information. The former tends to be very useful; the latter tends to be almost useless.

With free markets, each person can use the particular information he or she has, what Hayek called "knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place." Modern Hayekian economists often call this "local knowledge." But in the Soviet Union, buyers couldn't communicate what they wanted through the market because there were no markets, and sellers produced to satisfy the central planners, not the ultimate users. Result: chaos and widespread poverty.

And if centralizing a whole economy makes information problems even worse, the same is generally true for centralizing parts of it. Consider the rush to federalize aviation security. Mr. Stiglitz relied on his economic theories to endorse precisely this after winning the prize, saying, "There are certain activities like airport security that should not be in the private sphere. That market is not self-adjusting." Yet America's state-controlled system failed miserably on Sept. 11. By contrast, private contractors at Israeli and European airports seem to do a pretty good job with less government oversight.

The Federal Aviation Administration is a centralizing organization that moves slowly. If it fails, its employees are rarely fired and virtually never have their pay cut. But a private airport owner, with profits on the line, might use his "local knowledge" and flexibility to come up with more imaginative ways to weed out hijackers or to protect against them if they do get on board. Chemical plants and oil refineries, either of which, if exploded, could cause many deaths, seem to be well protected by their private owners.

Could private airports do as well? They do in Britain. Here's an important case where markets, with admittedly imperfect information, may do a better job than governments, which have even less to go on.


"Web site stands up to extortion:  Data stolen from WebCertificates didn’t include credit cards," by Bob Sullivan, MSNBC, October 11, 2001 --- http://www.msnbc.com/news/641534.asp?0si=-&cp1=1 

An Internet firm that is currently being extorted by a computer criminal said again Thursday it won’t accede to his demands, despite an e-mail campaign by the criminal to embarrass the company. In August, WebCertificates.com, owned by Ecount.com, had to admit to its 1 million customers that an intruder had cracked their systems and stolen some personal data. On Thursday, the criminal began e-mailing customers about the break-in, following through on a threat because Ecount refused to pay $45,000 in extortion payments.


America Rides Out as Global Sheriff European Observer: The message to other countries may be the modern equivalent of "Saddle up, boys," by Frederick Kempe From The Wall Street Journal Europe Oct 10, 2001  --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002659764936654200.htm 


"Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001," 10 Downing Street Newsroomhttp://www.number-10.gov.uk/news.asp?NewsId=2686 


"The Pride Factor Examining Asia: Only respect for Pakistanis and Afghans can win the wider war," by Hugo Restall From The Asian Wall Street Journal Oct 10, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002658941693954120.htm 


Courage and Cowardice http://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/11/miller/print.html 
Salon publishes an interesting conversation with William Ian Miller, author of "The Mystery of Courage," on the silly but weirdly fascinating question of whether the Sept. 11 terrorists were cowards.


"War Profiteers," Oct 10 2001
The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002670846324082880.htm 
The trial lawyers say this is a tragedy they won't exploit. Don't believe it.

Things must be getting back to normal: There's litigation in the air. Yesterday the Supreme Court denied an appeal from Microsoft, which means that the case will continue to work its way through the lower courts. At the same time, the High Court shut down an effort to reverse a state ban on cities suing gun manufacturers over crime costs. Meanwhile, the trial lawyers are crossing their hearts and hoping everyone believes they have no intention of litigating liability for the World Trade Center attack.

The day after the worst atrocity on American home soil, trial lawyers association president Leo V. Boyle posted a letter on the group's Web site titled "A National Tragedy." For "the first time in our history," Mr. Boyle announced, "the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, in this time of national crisis, urges a moratorium on civil lawsuits that might arise out of these awful events."

Oh, bravo. Now, we don't question their horror at the attack. But if our tort warriors really wanted to demonstrate solidarity with the nation -- and especially with those families whose loved ones were buried in the rubble of lower Manhattan -- a pledge to accept a reform limiting outrageous fees would be more persuasive than a moratorium with no real meaning. Especially when they can count on friends in Congress to protect their core interests. Does anyone believe that Tom Daschle and Richard Gephardt didn't know exactly what they were doing when they made sure that the airline bailout bill that ended up going before both their houses wasn't the one that would have limited attorneys fees?

The lost passage we refer to appears in the version of the bill introduced by Rep. Don Young (R., Ark.). It reads as follows: "ATTORNEY FEES. -- Reasonable attorneys fees for work performed in any action commenced pursuant in this section shall be subject to the discretion of the court, but in no event shall any attorney charge, demand, receive, or collect for services rendered, fees in excess of 25% of the damages ordered by the court to be paid pursuant to this section." Contingency fees, of course, normally scale up from 33%.

With airlines desperate for cash and warning of imminent bankruptcies, it wasn't likely in any event that the bill was going to get held up over lawyers fees. Now any future claimants have two choices: Either sue in federal court in New York, or submit a claim to a federal compensation fund to be administered by a special master appointed by the Attorney General -- and give up the right to sue.

The devil . . . er, the plaintiffs bar . . . is in the details.

ATLA says it is encouraging people to take the administrative route and has set up a program to provide pro bono representation for those in need. But because no one knows what the criteria or award levels will be, victims and their families not in immediate need of money will likely hang back until they see what's what -- one reason a moratorium has little significance now. After all, claimants have two years to file. And whatever pious advisories ATLA might send its members, they're still free to do what comes naturally.

This is all the more reason to try to rescue some good from the wreckage by applying a reform endorsed by George W. Bush in the campaign: Redefine the fee relationship between a tort lawyer and his client as a fiduciary one. A version of this principle already operates in so-called securities cases. Here, lawyers fees are determined by the lodestar method: They submit bills detailing the hours they worked, which a court then multiplies by a reasonable rate that factors in a measure of the risk involved. Not only would such a reform ensure that money from this tragedy go to widows and orphans rather than their attorneys; it would set a badly needed example for all future mass tort claims. Courts are still dealing with cases from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.


Everybody talks about Afghanistan, but nobody ever learns anything about it. Despite a Taliban edict outlawing the Internet, there are plenty of sites to find out all you ever wanted to know about the country --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47243,00.html 


Pervasive Computing (PC) 

Bob Jensen' Bob Jensen's Threads on Invisible Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, and Microsoft.Net are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 


Alleging unfair restraint of trade, BDO Seidman has filed a lawsuit against the AICPA, CPA2Biz, and Shared Services LLC. The Chicago-based accounting and consulting firm and has asked that, among other things, the AICPA be enjoined from continuing the operation of CPA2Biz. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/60155 

The American Institute of CPAs issued a statement in response to a lawsuit filed against the association and its portal, Cpa2biz, by accounting and consulting firm BDO Seidman. The lawsuit claims the defendants conspired to "wrongfully fix prices for products and services without competition in a free, open and unrestricted market." --- 
http://flywheel.memeticsystems.com/backend/ct_click.cgi?ct_id=1050&type=1
 


From the Internet Scout Report on October 12, 2001

Google News

"Google's New Look & New File Types" --- http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/10-google.html 

"The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine" -- _First Monday --- http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/wiggins/index.html 

Google Searches Related to 9/11 Terrorists Attacks --- http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/9-11-search.html 

Google Zeitgeist --- http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html 

Bob Jensen's search helpers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm 


New online subscription services will be able to offer practically every major song ever published, according to a "breakthrough agreement" reached among once-warring sides --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,47413,00.html 

"The coming subscription services may now begin licensing thousands of musical works immediately. For consumers, this will essentially mean they will have access to more and better on-line music options, sooner."

The RIAA said that under the agreement, it and all its member labels and their licencees, including the new online subscription services, will immediately have access to every musical work authorized to be licensed by the Harry Fox Agency, the largest agency in the industry for licensing reproductions and distributions of musical works. HFA will issue licences for subscription services offering on-demand streaming and limited downloads.

Once rates are determined, royalties will be payable on a retroactive basis from the start of services. Pending that determination, the RIAA will pay HFA an advance of $1 million towards the royalties to be determined. If the two groups do not settle on a rate during the next two years, the recording industry will pay monthly advances totaling $750,000 per year until a rate is set.

Publishers represented by HFA will have the opportunity to opt out of the licensing agreement if they choose to. Also, if they prefer, subscription services or record companies may deal directly with HFA or individual music publishers.

The RIAA represents the interests of the over 600 record companies, including Universal, Warner, Sony, BMG and EMI.

See also:
Music Labels Not Yet in Tune
File Trading Sites in Crosshairs
Napster Settles, Eyes Relaunch
Napster's New Tune: Pay Labels
Hear how MP3 Rocks the Web
Groove With Lycos Music Downloads


Guggenheim.com has gone multicultural (art) --- http://www.guggenheim.com/ 

This is also one of the few sites to provide an initial choice as to "Broadband" versus "Narrowband."


Children are hungry, sick, and dying in many parts of this very imperfect world. 
State of the World's Children 2002  (UNICEF) --- http://www.unicef.org/sowc02/ 


United Nations Wire --- http://www.unwire.org/ 


It used to be the lowliest job in the joint. But help-desk support is moving away from troubleshooting simple questions. Now the staff is supporting business strategy. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEnU0BcUEY04e0TKF0Az 


"User Password Control," by Paul Adams, Webmonkey, October 4, 2001 ---  http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/40/index3a.html 

An easy way to get your users into the practice of using secure passwords on your site is through simple form validation. A bit of JavaScript on the form page where the user enters a new password can nip a few bad habits in the bud. If you're not up on your JavaScript, you know what to do: Read and memorize Thau's fantastic tutorial.

First, we send the password form input to a JavaScript variable — call it "pw". This can be done when the form is submitted, with the onSubmit event handler, or just when the user is done filling out the password field, by using onBlur. Next, a function tests the variable to see if it meets our criteria. If it doesn't, the function returns the error status in another variable, to be displayed to the hapless user.

So, with the value of the user's password entry in a variable, let's say we want our users' passwords to be between 8 and 16 characters long.

if ((pw.length < 8) || (pw.length > 16))

{error = "Your password needs to be between 8 and 16 characters long.\n";}

Easy enough. Now let's make sure that it contains only the characters we want — namely alphanumeric characters, dots, dashes, and underscores. This can be done with regular expressions or without. Let's try it without, so we remain compatible with old browsers.

Note: These scripts contain lengthy strings which might cause some strange wrapping on this page. If you're looking for something to cut and paste, I suggest you use this well-preserved version.

var validchars =

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789 ._-";

var temp;

for (var i=0; i<pw.length; i++)

{temp = "" + pw.substring(i, i+1);

if (validchars.indexOf(temp) == "-1")

{error = "Your password contains illegal characters.\n";}}

This little routine uses the indexOf method. If indexOf finds the character you're looking for, it returns a number indicating where that character is located in the string; if it doesn't find it, it returns a value of -1. Here we take each character from the password string, in order, and see if it's in the list of valid characters. If any of the characters return a value of -1, the error message is displayed.

Similar measures can be applied to ensure that passwords comply with any cruel and unusual policies you may want to impose. Bear in mind, however, that client-side authentication techniques like this aren't impossible to bypass — you should have a second line of defense on the server side, checking again that no illegal passwords have gotten by your JavaScript. You should be checking anyway, escaping slashes and quotes, and blocking malicious scripting. A secondary server-side check can be a good place to make sure that passwords aren't dictionary words too, just because it's so cumbersome to check passwords against a dictionary in JavaScript.

For courses, it is a whole lot easier it is a whole lot easier just to use Blackboard, WebCT, or some other system discussed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 


Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Here are a couple of websites that you might find useful.

First, Diotima (materials on women and gender in the ancient world) at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/ , with wonderful up-to-date bibliographical lists (for such topics as athletics, death, magic, rape, ancient medicine, law, prostitution, and so forth) available at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/biblio.shtml . If the topic you want isn't listed, go below the lists to the keyword function. Also, there is a link to abbreviations if the initials of a journal are unfamiliar to you.

Second, the Perseus Classics Collection at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/  (put out at Tufts University). Below I have included the introduction for this fabulous collection of art, texts, maps, historical sketches, etc.

Best to all,

Joan Burton Chair, 
Classical Studies 999-8144 jburton@trinity.edu 
Trinity University


Forwarded by Andy Lymer

In the spring of 2000, a new journal, the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), was created, based on a new vision of the journal  publication process in which the editorial board and authors retain significant control over the journal's content and distribution.  Articles published in JMLR are available freely, without limits and  without conditions, at the journal's website, http://www.jmlr.org .  The content and format of the website are entirely controlled by the  editorial board, which also serves its traditional function of  ensuring rigorous peer review of journal articles. Finally, the  journal is also published in a hardcopy version by MIT Press. 

 Authors retain the copyright for the articles that they publish in  JMLR. The following paragraph is taken from the agreement that every  author signs with JMLR (see www.jmlr.org/forms/agreement.pdf ):


The Supreme Court awards another victory for freelancers, saying National Geographic must pay for republishing a photographer's works electronically. Is this a sign of things to come in digital-age copyright disputes? 

"Freelance Victory Blurs Picture," by Kendra Mayfield, Wired News, October 10, 2001
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47430,00.html
 

Finding the intersection between decades-old copyright law and where it applies in the digital world remains far off the map in the wake of a critical Supreme Court decision on Tuesday.

In the year's second significant victory for freelancers versus digital publishers, the court refused to take up a lower court ruling that said National Geographic should have paid freelance photographer Jerry Greenberg for republishing his works in a 30-disc CD-ROM set without his permission.

The court held, without comment, an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last March against the National Geographic Society for violating Greenberg's copyrights.

That court ruled the CD-ROM set was not a mere revision of a prior collective work, but instead was an entirely new product.

The Greenberg case follows a landmark ruling in Tasini et. Al v. the New York Times et. Al that publishers who republish freelance articles without the creator's permission or further compensation are violating their copyrights.

"The facts are different but the guiding copyright principle is the same," said Norm Davis, Greenberg's attorney. "Both are parallel cases with implications for republication of copyrighted materials in electronic formats. Both lay guidelines for publishers to use in planning products of that sort."

Both cases hinge upon section 201C in the 1976 Copyright Act, which gives publishers the privilege to reproduce and distribute copyrighted materials without consent within the framework of specific circumstances.

But critics say the 11th Circuit ruling in the Greenberg suit is inconsistent with the Tasini case, in which the Supreme Court said that if works are reproduced electronically in the same context as the original, they constitute a permissible revision of a collective work.

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Greenberg case has vexed those siding with the National Geographic.

The remainder of the article is at http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47430,00.html  

See also:
A Cold Look at Chilled Speech
Mr. Tasini, Meet Mr. Greenberg
Freelancers Fear Blacklisting
Post-Tasini: Pity the Librarians


Recording industry lobbyists had quietly tried to insert an amendment into an anti-terrorism bill to let copyright holders break into your PC and delete suspected pirated files. Privacy experts are horrified --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47552,00.html 

It's no joke. Lobbyists for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tried to glue this hacking-authorization amendment onto a mammoth anti-terrorism bill that Congress approved last week.

An RIAA-drafted amendment according to a draft obtained by Wired News would immunize all copyright holders -- including the movie and e-book industry -- for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or other computer intrusions "that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent" electronic piracy.

In an interview Friday, RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier said that his association has abandoned plans to insert that amendment into anti-terrorism bills -- and instead is supporting a revised amendment that takes a more modest approach.

"It will not be some special exception for copyright owners," Glazier said. "It will be a general fix to bring back current law." Glazier is the RIAA's senior vice president of government relations and a former House aide.

The RIAA's interest in the USA Act, an anti-terrorism bill that the Senate and the House approved last week, grew out of an obscure part of it called section 815. Called the "Deterrence and Prevention of Cyberterrorism" section, it says that anyone who breaks into computers and causes damage "aggregating at least $5,000 in value" in a one-year period would be committing a crime.

If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA believes, it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks. Because the bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy efforts that cause little harm to individual users, but meet the $5,000 threshold when combined.

"We might try and block somebody," Glazier said. "If we know someone is operating a server, a pirated music facility, we could try to take measures to try and prevent them from uploading or transmitting pirated documents."

The RIAA believes that this kind of technological "self-help" against online pirates, if done carefully, is legal under current federal law. But the RIAA is worried about the USA Act banning that practice -- and neither the Senate nor the House versions of that bill include the RIAA's suggested changes.

See also:
File Trading Sites in Crosshairs
Good Beat, But Can't Dance to All
Web Music Fight Plays Out in D.C.
Look and listen: Lycos Music


Nokia has introduced a new all-in-one cell phone that does everything: Web, e-mail, FM radio, digital music and games. But guess what? It's not coming to the United States any time soon --- http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,47491,00.html 


Powers of 10 (mathematics, astronomy) http://www.powersof10.com/ 

This is an interactive site that allows you to make inquiries.  You can navigate from very small (e.g., on a strand of DNA) to very large (e.g., outer space).


"Critters on a Chip," W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American --- http://www.sciam.com/explorations/072897biosens/gibbs.html 

One sensor, dubbed "critters on a chip" by its inventors at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., consists of a tiny light-sensitive computer chip coated with bioluminescent bacteria. When the bacteria encounter certain chemicals, they light up, creating an electrical signal that the chip can process or amplify. So far the researchers have used a genetically engineered bacterium called Pseudomonas fluorescens HK44 to create a biochip that is exquisitely sensitive to naphthalene, a common petroleum pollutant.


Dismuke's Virtual Talking Machine (Music, Speech, Recording, History) http://www.dismuke.org/ 

See also "Text Reading" at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm 


Name That Tune "The Cognitive Itch"

"The Science Behind the Song Stuck in Your Head," Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2001 --- http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-000080020oct07.story 

For years, humans have been tortured by Stuck Tune Syndrome, in which a seemingly innocuous piece of music lodges in the brain and won't leave. So far, no reliable cure exists, but a University of Cincinnati professor hopes to change that. James Kellaris has embarked on a study to figure out why songs sometimes commandeer people's thoughts.

Kellaris, a marketing teacher who moonlights as a bouzouki player in a Greek band, theorizes that certain types of music operate like mental mosquito bites. They create a "cognitive itch" that can only be scratched by replaying the tune in the mind. The more the brain scratches, the worse the itch gets. The syndrome is triggered when "the brain detects an incongruity or something 'exceptional' in the musical stimulus," he explained in a report made earlier this year to the Society for Consumer Psychology. To help determine which factors cause songs to stick, Kellaris surveyed 1,000 students at four universities.

Almost without exception, the respondents had regularly endured stuck songs or jingles, with the typical episode lasting anywhere from a few hours (55%) to a full day (23%). Another 17% said the malevolent melodies persisted several days, and 5% said tunes haunted them longer than a week. One person claimed--perhaps facetiously--that music from an Atari 260 videogame had been playing in his head "since 1986."

The survey also asked people to identify the stickiest songs. From this list, Kellaris hopes to pinpoint the characteristics that make a tune more likely to bore into the brain.

One possibility is excessive repetitiveness. Although all songs contain repetitious elements, some rely on the technique so heavily that they might cause the brain to echo the pattern automatically, Kellaris suggests. Examples: "Follow the Yellow Brick Road," Queen's "We Will Rock You" and the theme from "Mission: Impossible."

A related factor is musical simplicity. "Children's songs seem more prone to get stuck than complicated material, such as a Bach fugue," Kellaris says. "Perhaps the ease with which a tune can be reconstructed" increases its adhesiveness.

Greg Scelsa of Lancaster, who composes and performs children's music for the duo Greg & Steve, acknowledges that simplicity and repetition are key ingredients for making children's songs memorable.

A classic example is "If You're Happy and You Know It," he says. The melody in each verse builds sequentially from the previous verse. He demonstrates by singing, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

With each "happy and you know it" line, the melody changes slightly, "but in a predictable way," he says. "It's the same pattern, which makes it more memorable."

Does that also make it more likely to implant itself in someone's cranium? Probably, he says. Probably? Three hours after Scelsa hangs up, "If You're Happy and You Know It" has staged a coup d'etat in our brain.

Another possible component of sticky songs is incongruity. If the beat or lyric defies listener expectations, it might incite a cognitive itch, Kellaris says. As an example, he mentions the song "America" from "West Side Story," which has a jarring 12/8 meter.

Then again, maybe melody has nothing to do with Stuck Tune Syndrome, says Diana Deutsch, a UC San Diego psychology professor who also served as founding editor of the journal Music Perception.

Perhaps persistent songs are like recurring dreams, she says: "Something in the back of your mind is trying to tell you something." As proof, Deutsch cites her own experience. Whenever she can't get a song out of her head, she contemplates the meaning of the lyrics--and the song instantly goes away. "Even songs without words can have a larger meaning," she notes, mentioning anthems and religious music as examples.

OK, but what if the tune circulating in your skull is the theme from "The Flintstones"? What's the deeper message behind that? Deutsch isn't sure, but insists that if the human brain has a tendency to play songs over and over, there must be an evolutionary reason.

If so, evolution should be outlawed. That's because it inevitably favors the most irritating songs. Let's say the brain wants to send itself an anti-anxiety message. It could play something like the Beatles' "Let It Be" or the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby." But nooooo. Instead, the inner jukebox naturally selects Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Kellaris isn't surprised. Other research has shown that disturbing thoughts are usually more memorable and compelling than pleasant ones, he says.

The first case of Stuck Tune Syndrome is lost to history. If ancient Romans had "Parvus Orbis Est" (Latin for "It's a Small World") chirping incessantly in their heads, they were kind enough not to mention it.

"Maybe this is a modern phenomenon," says H.A. Kelly, director of UCLA's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. "I can't think of any literary references to a haunting or persistent melody."

In recent times, the most bizarre cases of Stuck Tune Syndrome involve elderly men and women. In rare instances, they begin to hallucinate music, according to reports in medical journals. The songs are "so vivid that people will look for a nearby radio," says neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat."

Curiously, many of the auditory hallucinations are hymns or patriotic tunes, sung by a chorus. Some fade after time; others are permanent. "It goes 'round and 'round in their heads and they can't get it to go away," says UCSD's Deutsch, who has interviewed three sufferers and hopes to conduct a formal study of the disorder. "One woman went to her doctor and complained about hearing a hymn because she's not religious."

Sacks says the songs tend to be "music that was popular or important in the first 15 years of the person's life." In other words, future generations can expect to hallucinate Eminem, Britney Spears and the theme from Barney the dinosaur.

Scientists don't know what causes the hallucinations. Some people begin hearing music after surgery, others after taking too much aspirin. But most of the patients are partially deaf, so the hallucinations might be akin to phantom-limb syndrome, Sacks says.

In any case, no cure is known.

The rest of the article is at http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-000080020oct07.story 

Do you suppose the following jingle might go 'round in students' brains so "they can't get it to go away?"

Molly Mouse was a hat check girl --- W'woo W'woo!
Molly Mouse was a hat check girl --- W'woo W'woo!
Molly Mouse was a hat check girl
An accountant thought he'd give this chick a whirl --- 
             W'woo W'woo, W'woo!

He sauntered up to Molly Mouse's side --- Uh Ugh!
He sauntered up to Molly Mouse's side --- Uh Ugh!
He sauntered up, his voice quavered, but he was tacit
And whispered Molly will you be a debit on the left,  my asset
              Uh Ugh, Uh Ugh, Ugh?

Not without my Uncle Rats' consent --- Ugh Uh!
Not without my Uncle Rats' consent --- Ugh Uh!
Because for me, Clyde, it's plain to see
You'd be my credit on the right, my liability
              Ugh Uh, Uh Ugh, Uh Ugh!

That's it Clyde, better hit the road --- Goodbye!
That's it Clyde, better hit the road --- So long!
That's it Clyde, better hit the road
You ain't no hedge under 133, SFAS 133
               No OCI you'd be, for me, for me, you see!

On second thought, maybe my revised jingle should go away!  See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/muppets.htm 


Check out the latest news and information on the Proposed Global Business Credential at the AccountingWEB Resource Center. New items are added regularly, so be sure to bookmark this page. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/56555 


Seems like the Mafia invented this kind of extortion (pay us to stay away) years and years ago.

The money bin Laden has funneled to the Taliban comes from three primary sources: legal and illegal businesses or front companies bin Laden operates directly or indirectly; tribute payments he receives from several Persian Gulf states, companies or individuals that give him funds so he and his al Qaeda supporters will stay out of or minimize activities in their countries; and entities that are masked as charities.
Bin Laden's Puppets--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40211-2001Oct10.html 

This extortion seems to be working in Saudi Arabia
The  New York Times
reports that "Saudi Arabia has so far refused to freeze the assets of Osama bin Laden and his associates."http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/11/international/11DIPL.html  

Bob Jensen's commentaries and treads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


And to think that he can afford one of the $250,000 wrist watches advertised in the latest Neiman Marcus Catalog.
The New York Post reports that in his video press release, Osama bin Laden was wearing a Timex Ironman Triathalon watch. A Timex press release http://www.timex.com/html/our_company_news_smithsonian.html  claims the model is "the best-selling watch in the world," and it notes that it has also been worn by Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Dan Quayle.


If the caves and tunnels beneath Afghanistan's mountains are truly impregnable, the U.S. military may resort to dropping small "tactical" nukes. The B6-11 is a "bunker buster" nuclear bomb capable of destroying fortresses buried deep underground --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47319,00.html 


PBS Frontline Looks for Terrorism Answers --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terrorism/ 


The Peacemakers Speak --- http://www.thecommunity.com/crisis/ 


Wireless Local Networks


Palm has laid off workers, slashed prices for its handheld devices and faces fierce competition from Microsoft. Analysts say it's more than a bad economy that plagues the PDA leader --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47474,00.html 


ROTC
Officers And Gentlemen Review & Outlook: Will the Ivies now welcome ROTC back on campus? The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002239045399432280.htm 

For most Princetonians, the blackened bronze stars that dot the Gothic stone windowsills of their dormitories are relics of the university's past, each bearing the name of a Princeton man who gave his life in one of the two world wars. But for Geoff Gasperini, the stars are more than memorials. They are a tangible link to a commitment that remains alive today.

That's because Geoffrey Francis Gasperini, '01, is also Lieutenant Gasperini. At Princeton that makes him part of a distinct minority; in the class that graduated in May, he accounted for half the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. But give Princeton its due. As small as ROTC's presence may be there, the nearby chart underscores just how unique Princeton is: Of the eight Ivy League schools, only Cornell has all ROTC branches represented on campus (Army, Navy, Air Force). Princeton has Army, and Penn has Navy.

Of the remaining five Ivies, few have an outright ban. But while most accept ROTC scholarship money, accepting ROTC itself is another story. As yesterday's page-one story noted, a Yale student has to drive an hour and a half to the University of Connecticut to fulfill his or her ROTC requirements. (Princeton's Air Force cadets take their ROTC classes at Rutgers.) Given that many of these same Ivies accept millions of dollars in Defense Department subsidies for research, the message is clear: We'll take the money but not the uniform.

At most of these schools, of course, ROTC was forced off campus amid the turbulence of Vietnam. Many in academe have held their noses ever since, here complaining about the unscholarly quality of military instructors, there decrying an officer corps out of touch with the values of American society. But when you officially define your ideal relationship with the military's largest program for officer training as one that keeps it at "arm's length" -- as the University of Pennsylvania did -- such criticism rings a little hollow.

The Ivies and ROTC

  ARMY NAVY AIR FORCE
Brown * No No
Columbia * No *
Penn * Yes *
Harvard * * *
Princeton Yes No *
Yale * No *
Cornell Yes Yes Yes
Dartmouth No No No

*These schools do not offer ROTC themselves. But their students can fulfill their ROTC requirements at a nearby affiliated college or university.

Source: Army, Navy and Air Force ROTC web sites

And that's just what makes Princeton so interesting. Over coffee and bagels, Lt. Gasperini and a handful of Princeton cadets make clear they view the relationship as a two-way street. Clearly the Army is happy to tap into a talented cadre of students. But Princeton too benefits from an ROTC presence that puts real faces on the military for the other students, faculty, administration.

"There's been a great renewal of respect for the fire department and police department since Sept. 11," says Lt. Gasperini. "The military's response and the public reaction has yet to come." But on campus there are encouraging signs of the re-emergence of an understanding of the military's role -- an understanding severed by Vietnam but reflected in the honor roll of Princeton war dead inscribed on the lobby walls of Nassau Hall, where the university's president has his office. One cadet tells of getting a long thank you e-mail from a classmate and fellow ski-team member. Lt. Col. Matthew McCarville, Princeton's ROTC director, says the university's vice president called just to tell him that "your cadets and alumni" were in the administration's thoughts and prayers. Even the color guard at the football game reports more cheers, waves and "Attaboys."

 


 


Guerrilla soldier against fundamentalism (Geriljasoldat mot fundamentalistar)
Article with illustration: Asma Jahangir is a dangerous woman, so dangerous that a fatwa has been issued on her, allowing any Muslim to murder her. Jahangir, who works as a barrister and UN human rights representative in Pakistan, has spent years of her life working to improve women's legal protection in Pakistan, and for that she has been condemned by the Islamic fundamentalists. Yesterday, she gave the annual Chr. Michelsen speech. She is convinced that no country should have an official religion, and her work has earned her an international reputation and considerable praise. In spite of her upbringing in the Pakistani upper class, Jahangir has chosen not to sit back and enjoy the privileges of her class: "I had a politically active father who spent in all seven years in prison for his opposition to the military regime. From early childhood, I witnessed his fights and worries," she tells. Her fight to free her father at the age of 18 resulted in a verdict against the military regime which was used as precedence in trials against other military regimes in the 70s. Her struggle against the corrupt power structures created by decades of military regimes, has taught her to be cunning and strategic. Pakistan is marred by hundreds of honour assassinations on women every year, and while Jahangir does not believe she will live to see the society of her dreams, she is confident that Pakistan is on the right track. "Women think differently than they did 20 -30 years ago, women in all layers of society have become aware of their rights," says Jahangir, who does not want to leave her country to pursue an international career. "There is increasing resistance against the military regimes," she says, emphasising how proud she is of her people and the rich and diverse culture of the whole region. "Out of this cultural abundance a powerful creative force would grow if only we could get rid of the fundamentalists," she says. 

Journalist: Asbjørn Kristoffersen

Bergens Tidende 15.03.2001
1110016


A suggestion from Jackie Signor, educational program administrator, Dept. of Gynecology & Obstetrics, Stanford University.

I think I've got it. Killing him will only create a martyr. Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release.

Therefore, I suggest we do neither. Let the SAS, Seals or whatever covertly capture him, fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex-change operation.

Then we return "her" to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban."




Halloween is Approaching
Giant Pumpkin Carvings --- http://www.olywa.net/s&mcramer/carving/ 


An archaeologist is the best wife a man can have. 
The older he gets, the more interested in him she becomes.

Author unknown.


"Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes." 
Near the closing of an email message from Andrew Priest.

 


 

Pull My Finger, Fill My Filter 

 

2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2001 

 

Note especially the winner in Biology!  Close family living will become more enjoyable.  But the Public Health issue remains problematic.

The 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

MEDICINE
Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." [PUBLISHED IN: The Journal of Trauma, vol. 21, no. 11, 1984, pp. 990-1.]

PHYSICS
David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts for his partial solution to the question of why shower curtains billow inwards.

BIOLOGY
Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.

Note from Bob Jensen:  
Since terrorists have commenced sending anthrax spores via the mail, Mr. Weimer's invention has an unanticipated benefit.  Prior to opening any letters or packages, wearers of his charcoal-filtered underwear can transfer their knickers to their heads, tightly bound, until the coast is deemed clear in terms of possible anthrax powder in their mail.  Perhaps humiliating this inventor with an Ig Nobel prize is unjust in light more serious and unsuspecting benefits of his invention.

Now I will pass along more serious advice from Bob Blystone:

If you have general questions about Anthrax, please refer to the website listed below.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Anthrax/Anthrax.asp 

It is to the Center for Disease Control.

Go down the page and get past the PR part of the site and you can get to real information: research papers and the like. You will need Acrobat to view the papers.

Bob Blystone
Robert V. Blystone, Ph.D. 
Professor of Biology Trinity University San Antonio, Texas 78212 rblyston@trinity.edu  210-999-7243 FAX 210-999-7229

 

ECONOMICS
Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan Business School, and Wojciech Kopczuk, of University of British Columbia, for their conclusion that people find a way to postpone their deaths if that that would qualify them for a lower rate on the inheritance tax. [REFERENCE:"Dying to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the Death Elasticity," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. W8158, March 2001.]

LITERATURE
John Richards of Boston, England, founder of The Apostrophe Protection Society, for his efforts to protect, promote, and defend the differences between plural and possessive.

PSYCHOLOGY
Lawrence W. Sherman of Miami University, Ohio, for his influential research report "An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of Preschool Children." [PUBLISHED IN: Child Development, vol. 46, no. 1, March 1975, pp. 53-61.]

ASTROPHYSICS
Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe Ministries, Rochester Hills, Michigan, for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell. [REFERENCE: The March 31, 2001 television and Internet broadcast of the "Jack Van Impe Presents" program. (at about the 12 minute mark).]

PEACE
Viliumas Malinauskus of Grutas, Lithuania, for creating the amusement park known as "Stalin World."

TECHNOLOGY
Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001, and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.

PUBLIC HEALTH
Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 426-31.]

 


Forwarded by Dick Haar

 

I swear an oath on my honor as a hypocrite that...
 
I will cuss cows but eat beef, blast miners but wear jewelry and drive a car but condemn oil companies.
 
I don't want trees cut for any purpose other than to provide the lumber for my next house.
 
As a Hollywood celebrity I assert my God given right to sire at least four children by three different wives and then protest about overpopulation in the world.
 
I will put fish first by saving the sucker and salmon, but not the farmers and ranchers who feed me.
 
I demand that politicians and federal judges in Washington save all endangered species, except the small business man.
 
I feel government is imminently qualified to micro- manage nature, after all, look what a smashing job they've done with the IRS, EPA, USDA, FBI, BLM and assorted other alphabet agencies.
 
As a self-righteous hypocrite it is my duty to celebrate Earth Day with barbecues and parades and by leaving tons of trash behind.
 
I demand that feedlots and farms stop polluting our ground water.  That privilege should be preserved for me every time I flush the contents of my toilet into a septic tank or the ocean.
 
I want to relocate grizzly bears and wolves to the West but not in my big-city backyard.  After all, people live here!
 
I give my permission for mountains lions to eat lambs but if a lion eats my dog or cat I demand the abominable beast be shot on sight.
 
I will cuss oil companies on talk radio and stand in the way of their drilling more wells while sitting in my gas guzzling SUV with the engine running.
 
I will write letters to the editor on my computer castigating utility companies for not providing enough electricity.  At the same time I will send money to green groups who want to tear down hydroelectric dams and stand in the way of any new power producing projects.
 
I avow at the next cocktail party I attend while smoking a cigarette and sipping a martini that I will sue the tobacco companies for causing my lung cancer.
 
Although I have never personally milked a cow or grown vegetables in a garden I demand to have a say on how farmers and ranchers do it.
 
As a pompous hypocrite I demand that water, herbicides, and pesticides be taken away from farmers immediately, but I don't want it to affect the price, quantity or quality of the food I buy in the store.
 
It is my strongly held conviction that we should ban all pesticides, except the can of bug spray I use to kill ants and other unwanted bugs in my home.
 
As a mealy-mouthed hypocrite I vow to help stop global warming by watching the Discovery Channel on my giant sized television in my air-conditioned house.
 
I assert that cattle pooping on our nation's grasslands is a national disgrace while fertilizing my urban lawn with steer manure and urea is simply good ecology.
 
I will complain about fertilizer runoff from farms but not from golf courses because I happen to be a golfer.
 
I will hound hunters in the woods because they use guns despite the fact that hunting groups have increased habitat and wildlife numbers.
 
I demand that the government end all timber cutting or recovery in our national forests but I'll cry like a singed coyote if the feds allow wildfires to burn near my house.
 
As a card-carrying hypocrite I disavow the use of fur, leather, wool and all animal by-products, except the ones used in medicine that might save my life.
 
I demand labels be placed on all food products but not on a rock album that endorses killing cops.
 
Finally, as an arrogant and self-serving hypocrite I firmly believe that rural folks have done a terrible job of taking care of the countryside and they must do a better job because that's where I want to live or visit someday when I can escape the pollution, crime, and insanity of the barren big city in which I currently reside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Question:  
What ideal terrorist surveillance source, based upon its perfect crime fighting record in proven history, has President Bush and other officials completely overlooked?

Answer:
The "chicken" answer follows this brief introduction.

It Appears They Could Not Wait for Their 79 Promised Virgins.

The word "Jihad" strangely resembles the yell of horney Texans, especially those Aggies, visiting the infamous Chicken Ranch --- the historical bordello that was later featured in the Broadway theatrical and movie called "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."   

According to OpinionJournal.com on October 10, this is how some of Bin Laden's money for the Jihad (Holy War) was being spent by those deeply religious martyrs. 

Terrorist Stag Parties http://www2.bostonherald.com/attack/investigation/ausprob10102001.htm 

The Boston Herald reports that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had a visit from a prostitute in a Chestnut Hill, Mass., hotel room on Sept. 9. The paper quotes an unnamed driver for a pair of local "escort" services--including one service that advertises escorts "for the most discriminating of gentlemen and their most important occasion"---as saying that the escort, a blond woman in her early 20s, had a 20-minute tryst in the hotel room with one of the hijackers and was paid $180 in cash. "The FBI has interviewed the driver and the call girl and has seized records from the two escort services, the driver said. The woman, shaken by her sudden involvement in the international probe, has hired a lawyer, he added."

The newspaper notes that this "is just the latest link between the Koran-toting killers and America's seedy sex scene":

In Florida, several of the hijackers--including reputed ringleader Mohamed Atta--spent $200 to $300 each on lap dances in the Pink Pony strip club. . . .

And in Las Vegas, at least six of the hijackers spent time living it up on the Strip on various occasions between May and August. Marwan Al-Shehhi, who was aboard the second plane that slammed into the World Trade Center, frequently got lap dances at the Olympic Garden Topless Cabaret where he had a reputation as a lousy tipper, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

FBI agents have also reportedly questioned the owners of Nardone's Go-Go Bar in Elizabeth, N.J. Several of the terrorists spent time in nearby Paterson and Newark and reportedly patronized the club.

The following item is a bit of history reading for Bin Laden's terrorists intent on visiting brothels United States.  Too bad the Chicken Ranch is only history  these days.  

 

President Bush should read the last paragraph of the item below.  If the Chicken Ranch was allowed start up once again, it might become the best FBI source of information on terrorism plots ---  just like information leaks in the Chicken Ranch  helped Sheriff Flournoy attain a record of having solved every crime in Fayette County, Texas.  What I mean is that a revived Chicken Ranch could become an enormous source of  international surveillance success in modern times.  And the revived Chicken Ranch would only be a few miles from the Bush Ranch in Texas.  President Bush could almost listen in without a wire tap.  

 

 

The Chicken Ranch --- http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/ysc1.html 

The "Chicken Ranch" in La Grange, Fayette County, made famous by the Broadway musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, was perhaps the oldest continuously running brothel in the nation. Institutionalized prostitution in La Grange can be traced back to 1844, when a widow, "Mrs. Swine," brought three young women from New Orleans and settled in a small hotel near the saloon. Mrs. Swine became the first madam and began a tradition of interaction with the community and local lawmen that lasted almost 130 years. She and the girls and women who worked for her carried on a lucrative business, using the hotel lobby for entertaining and a room upstairs for services, until the Civil War, when she and a faithful prostitute named Tillie were run out of town as Yankees and traitors. After the war prostitution continued to operate in conjunction with the saloons in La Grange, but no official records were kept. By the end of the nineteenth century, prostitution had moved out of the hotels and into a red-light district on the banks of the Colorado River. There Miss Jessie Williams (born Faye Stewart) bought a small house soon after her arrival from Waco in 1905. She continued the custom set by her predecessor of good relations with the law and ran the only respectable house on the banks of the Colorado River; she admitted politicians and lawmen but excluded drunkards. Through her connections she learned of an impending crusade against the red-light district, sold the house she owned in Waco, and bought two dwellings and eleven acres outside of the city limits of La Grange and two blocks from the Houston-Galveston highway. This became the location of the Chicken Ranch.

In 1917 two sisters arrived at the house and were taken in and promoted to "middle-management" positions by Miss Jessie. They were in charge of public relations and sent packages and letters to local boys fighting in World War I.  One of the sisters eventually married an older, wealthy customer and moved to San Antonio, where she became, as one author says, "a beloved benefactor and patron of the arts." The other sister stayed in her middle-management position until her death. As the war ended and America entered the twenties, automobiles made the establishment accessible to many more customers. New prostitutes came and necessitated more rooms and new furniture. The rooms were simply built onto the main house in a haphazard fashion as needed, a style that continued until the closing of the place. Miss Jessie stayed on good terms with the sheriff, Will Lossein, who visited every evening to pick up gossip and get information on criminals who had visited the whorehouse and bragged of their exploits. Many crimes in La Grange were solved in this way. While the sheriff kept a tight grip on criminals, Miss Jessie ruled the house with a firm hand. Nothing exotic was allowed, and none of the bedroom doors had locks on them. Miss Jessie would walk the halls, and if she heard a customer giving one of her girls a hard time she would chase him out of the room and house with an iron rod and perhaps never admit him again.

As the Great Depression  hit and the economy fell, Miss Jessie was forced to lower her prices. Though initially she still had plenty of clients, as times grew harder, customers were not so plentiful and the girls grew hungry. Miss Jessie therefore began the "poultry standard" of charging "one chicken for one screw." Soon chickens were everywhere, and the establishment became known as the Chicken Ranch. The girls were never hungry. Miss Jessie supplemented the income by selling surplus chickens and eggs. The economy began to turn around as the Civilian Conservation Corps began construction of Camp Swift near La Grange, and the shortage of men and money declined. The establishment used the same public-relations tactics in World War II as in the First World War, and the ranch began an economic recovery from the depression. As the war ended, Miss Jessie was confined to a wheelchair by arthritis but still ruled the house with her iron rod. She did so into the 1950s, when she was confined to her bed and cared for by her longtime nurse. She spent her last few years with her wealthy sister in San Antonio and died in 1961 at the age of eighty.

Edna Milton had arrived at the Chicken Ranch from Oklahoma in 1952 at the age of twenty-three. She soon took over for Miss Jessie and proved just as capable and entrepreneurial. When she bought the ranch from Miss Jessie's heirs for $30,000-much more than the property value-she already had established herself as a competent madam. She had a good relationship with the new sheriff, T. J. Flournoy, who had been elected in 1946 and had immediately put in a direct line to the Chicken Ranch, so he could replace the nightly visits of his predecessor with nightly calls. Edna also interacted with the community in the same ways Jessie had: social contact between the girls and the residents of La Grange was forbidden; girls saw the doctor weekly and shopped with local merchants; and commodities and supplies were bought from local stores on a rotating basis. Edna also continued Jessie's custom of giving money to local civic causes and became one of the town's largest philanthropists. The generosity of her donations points to the success of the ranch. During the 1950s the ranch reached its sixteen-girl maximum. On some weekends there was a line at the door, made of students and soldiers from the nearby military bases. One base even supplied transportation via helicopter to the ranch. A visit to the Chicken Ranch also became part of freshman initiation at Texas A&M.

A door attendant admitted only white, presentable, and sober men into the parlor, where chairs stood on both sides of the room. No cursing or drinking was allowed of the men, or the women for that matter. Edna charged a quarter for the jukebox, seventy-five cents for cigarettes, and a dollar for a Coke, steep prices for the sixties. The women asked for music and Cokes to promote business. The going rate for their services was fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes, though more expensive options were added in the sixties. A girl would have from five to twenty customers a day. After giving an estimated 75 percent to Edna, the prostitutes still made $300 a week and had no expenses. Edna took care of taxes, insurance, utilities, food (two meals a day), weekly doctor visits, two attendants, maids, a cook, and laundry bills. Even before profits from the Cokes, cigarettes, and jukebox, it has been estimated that the ranch had an income of more than $500,000 a year. All new employees were fingerprinted and photographed by Sheriff Flournoy before they could start work, and a criminal record of any kind prevented their employment. Flournoy caught a few women wanted on warrants this way. Once at the ranch, the women had to subscribe to strict rules written by Miss Edna.

The Chicken Ranch continued operating successfully until mid-1973. That year, consumer-affairs reporter Marvin Zindler from KTRK-TV in Houston ran a week-long exposé on the ranch. He claimed that his motive was inaction on the part of the Texas Department of Public Safety and local law officers to combat the organized crime and corruption allegedly evident at the ranch. All of the attention drawn to the ranch forced the governor, Dolph Briscoe, to meet with the head of the DPS, the state attorney general, and Zindler. At the meeting it was disclosed that the DPS had run a two-month surveillance on the Chicken Ranch and had failed to find evidence of connection with organized crime. However, the pressure on the governor was such that he could not ignore the problem. He scheduled a meeting with Sheriff Jim Flournoy and ordered the house closed. The sheriff, along with some of the citizens of La Grange, saw little reason to close the ranch, but thought he had to do it anyway. He informed Edna of the situation, and by Wednesday morning of the week following Zindler's exposé, August 1, 1973, the ranch was closed and the women had left. Flournoy left for his meeting with the governor with a petition signed by nearly 3,000 people, but upon arriving was informed that the governor had canceled the meeting when he heard the house was closed. Most of the ranch's employees had headed for Austin or Houston; only Edna and a few maids were left. Edna attempted to buy a house in La Grange, but her downpayment was returned. She subsequently got married and moved to an East Texas town where her husband owned several restaurants.

Although the Chicken Ranch was officially closed, the story was not over. Customers showed up for more than two years looking for the place. Zindler also came back for a follow-up story and in the midst of an argument with Sheriff Flournoy was pushed down. This resulted in a $3 million lawsuit against the sheriff. Many local people began contributing to Flournoy's cause by selling T-shirts and bumper stickers. Flournoy settled out of court for much less than $3 million. The musical about the ranch was very successful. Edna had a silent role in the Broadway production, which was later turned into a movie. Two lawyers from Houston bought the building and land and in 1977 moved part of the building, in its original condition, to Dallas to open a restaurant named the Chicken Ranch. It opened in September 1977 with Miss Edna as the hostess, the building and furniture in their original condition, and a menu of mainly chicken dishes. The restaurant closed in January 1978. The building and furniture were auctioned off at the site of the restaurant in late June of that year in a foreclosure sale ordered by the Small Business Administration. Sheriff Flournoy resigned in 1980, saying that he and his wife were sick of hearing about the Chicken Ranch and did not want to hear that name again. When he died in October of 1982, his funeral was attended by Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby and nearly 100 lawmen. He was credited with solving every murder and bank robbery in Fayette County during his thirty-four-year term. The Chicken Ranch had helped his criminal investigations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin American-Statesman, August 2, 1973, January 22, June 25, 1978. Jan Hutson, The Chicken Ranch: The True Story of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (New York: Barnes, 1980). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin (Jim Flournoy, La Grange, Texas).

The above bit of Texas history was written by Walter F. Pilcher




And that's the way it was on October 18, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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October 10, 2001

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on October 10, 2001
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
 


Question:  
What is the most important single ingredient to the success of any economy?

Answer:  
See the ending of this October 10 edition of New Bookmarks.

Quotes of the Week

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill, 1886 --- http://www.ag.wastholm.net/aphorism/A-1886 
(This was quoted in a Trinitonian Student Newspaper Letter to the Editor on October 5, a letter that was signed by 15 faculty members at Trinity University.)

Verse is the voice from the heart, 
Verse creates uncountable wings of birds, 
That take us flying to find our dreams...

From a story that I accidentally stumbled upon in a place where I least expected to find such a story.
Talk About Town, by Le Huang, Viet Nam News, October 1, 2001 (See the Good Morning Viet Nam section below)

“If you’re a messy office person,” says Professor Luscombe, “you think that cleaning your office comes at the expense of other things. To be both neat and productive is rare.”  
Syllabus Magazine, (See below)




Question:  What makes Bob Jensen great?  

Answer:  He's a lot like James Luscombe.

"Disordered Array:  The Art of Controlling Chaos," Syllabus Magazine, October 2001, pp. 29-30 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5090 

Like many academics, Professor James Luscombe lives a life overrun by exams to grade, dissertations to read, committee recommendations to write, research to conduct, students to see, lectures to deliver. It all creates mounds of paper, floppy disks, extra furniture, boxes of unknown origin, and a collection of books to rival Amazon.com. But beneath the chaos, the professor is a productivity machine, and with so much to produce, who has time to get organized?

“If you’re a messy office person,” says Professor Luscombe, “you think that cleaning your office comes at the expense of other things. To be both neat and productive is rare.”

As he surveys his lair of lawless confusion he adds, “I’d like to think there is a neatness/productivity uncertainty principle at work in nature.”

I used to envy my colleagues who have tidy offices with everything in its assigned place out of sight.  After reading the above article,  I take solace in my piles of rubble (campus office and home office)  --- they're part of my creative process.  My wife is the neat and tidy half of our partnership, but when she is in a creative mode her work areas become just as messy as mine.  The only difference is that Erika tidies up her messes when the job is done.  My jobs are never done!

Warning:  
A messy office may be a necessary condition for creativity, but it is most certainly not a sufficient condition.


Question:  
What major corporation just signed contracts with a major state university to receive online MBA degrees in finance?

Answer:  (Jim Borden clued me into this answer.)
"Deere & Company Turns to Indiana University's Kelley School of Business For Online MBA Degrees in Finance," Yahoo Press Release, October 8, 2001 --- http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011008/cgm034_1.html 

MOLINE, Ill., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Deere & Company, the world's leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment, has entered into a Web-based academic partnership with Indiana University's Kelley School of Business to provide a Master of Business Administration degree program for Deere's finance professionals, beginning in August 2002.

The customized online program is designed as a three-year course of study to be completed in parallel with the participants' full-time job responsibilities. Course content is centered around the business knowledge, technical skills, and behavioral competencies for Deere's future leaders to use in responding to challenges facing the company. Kelley's senior faculty designed the program specifically for John Deere, with input from the Deere finance division's senior management team.

``This is a rigorous program drawing from the strengths of both the Kelley School and the Deere management team. It is designed to create value for our enterprise and allow us to attract and retain high-quality employees,'' said Nate Jones, chief financial officer at Deere & Company. ``Graduates of this program will learn skills that help them better meet the challenges of improving business performance and delivering value to shareholders.''

``The Kelley School of Business takes pride in its ability to build curricula,'' said Dan Dalton, dean of the Kelley School. ``Our faculty's talent in educational innovation enables us to create close relationships with the corporate community and construct programs according to their specific criteria. We are delighted to extend this ability to include a corporation with the integrity and strong international reputation of John Deere.''

The MBA program curriculum will consist of twenty courses structured to meld individual student goals with the organizational needs of Deere & Company. Each academic year will consist of three twelve-week sessions. The program will be launched each year with a one- to two- week residential module on Indiana University's Bloomington campus.

Teaching tools will include discussion and debate forums, on-line testing, audio streaming and video streaming, simulations, and time-revealed scenarios for case-based learning. Course materials may be accessed directly from the Worldwide Web. The program will use only full-time tenure-track faculty recognized for their quality of teaching in other Kelley School programs.

The John Deere MBA program is a customized adaptation of the Kelley Direct Online MBA program, which is the first fully online MBA offered among nationally ranked top-20 business schools. It has been available since 1999 to qualified working professionals who continue their employment while earning their degrees. It was created in collaboration with the Kelley School's corporate executive education clients, who voiced a need for MBA skills throughout their work forces. About 150 students are enrolled in the Kelley Direct Online MBA program today.

Bob Jensen's threads on universities that have similar contracts with other universities are given in the following sites:

 


Question:
What e-learning programs in a single and renowned university serve over 1,500,000 paying online students?

Answer:  
The e-Learning programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Business

From Syllabus News on October 2, 2001

Harvard B-School Expands Business Courses Via the Web

Harvard Business School Publishing said last week it would use the Internet to make available its electronic learning programs in best management and business practices to corporate groups and enterprises. HBSP said more than 1.5 million people already use its 15 e-learning modules in three topic areas of leadership, strategy and general management. HBSP will now offer support for companies that wanted to make the modules available to company groups via the Internet.

For more information, contact Nancy O'Leary at Harvard Business School Publishing http://noleary@hbsp.harvard.edu .


Duke B-School and Teradata Team on CRM Course

Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Teradata, a division of NCR Corp. that markets database analytic tools, are collaborating to hold an executive education program in customer relationship management (CRM). The program, to be held Nov. 19-20, will be taught by Martha Rogers, an adjunct professor and co-founder of Peppers and Rogers, a CRM consultancy, and Julie Edell, associate professor of marketing at Fuqua. Peter Heffring, president of the Teradata CRM division, will be a guest lecturer on the program.

For more information, visit http://www.ee.fuqua.duke.edu 


Online Library Adds Princeton Press to List

Questia Media, Inc., which bills itself as the world's largest online library, said last week that Princeton University Press, an independent publisher connected with Princeton University, has joined its list of publishing partners. The company expects to digitize and add to its collection more than 2,500 scholarly books in humanities and social sciences from the Princeton collection over the next five years. Questia Media, Inc., founded in 1998, launched an online library with search and writing tools to help students write better papers faster. The company provides access to the full- text of a large collection of books, and tools including highlighter, markup, automatic footnotes and a bibliography builder.

For more information, visit http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp   .


Universities who are interested in partnering with colleges in developing countries will most certainly want to take a look at the following cover story:  

"Reaching Across Boundaries:  The Bryant College-Belarus Connection," by G.A. Langlois, J.B. Litoff, and J.A. Ilacqua, Syllabus, October 2001, pp. 12-14 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5088 

Using the Internet’s sphere of influence, one small college is making an impact on the education of students in Belarus, a country that has achieved only limited structural reform since its independence from the former Soviet Union. Despite the country’s economic isolation from the West, Belarusian institutions are reaching across traditional boundaries to forge new collaborative relationships.

Emerging national consciousness in the Newly Independent States (NIS) of Europe has produced dramatic alterations in business, politics, economics, technology, and culture, requiring innovative educational methodologies that better match the needs of these countries in transition. In 1996, in response to these challenges, Bryant College spearheaded the Collaborative Learning at a Distance (CLD) program between Bryant and Belarus. This comprehensive joint venture is an excellent model for using Internet technologies to advance collaborative learning, communication competencies, and policy making.

In implementing the CLD Program, we encountered many philosophical, logistical, and technical challenges. Two distinctly different Belarusian institutions, the Information Technologies Center (ITC) of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the European Humanities University (EHU), bridged political boundaries to create a close working relationship between a state (government-owned) and non-state (private) institution. The shared enthusiasm of the ITC and EHU for the CLD Program enabled them to overcome their political differences.

A Non-Hierarchical Approach

The program uses a non-hierarchical model, emphasizing reciprocal, interactive learning across national and academic boundaries (see figure). It is based on our belief that learning is a collaborative process and that we learn better when we teach each other and learn in multiple ways. Our Internet-based CLD Program focuses on a small-scale, personalized interactive learning experience, which directly involves the teacher/mentor, student/learner, and all other stakeholders in the process.

This non-heirarchical pedagogical approach is relatively unfamiliar to university educators in the NIS. A history of centralized education and strong governmental control over curricula has resulted in a teaching environment that does not encourage the interactive exchange of ideas between faculty and students. At a time when funding for educational innovation in the NIS has been curtailed, cost-effective, collaborative distance learning projects can help address the problem of dwindling educational resources and compensate for the legacy of 70 years of communism.

Fostering Collaboration

Collaborative projects—including seminars for scientists and engineers who worked for the Soviet defense industry, distance learning courses, and the development of environmental policy initiatives with the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus—have been led by scholars representing diverse academic disciplines. These projects have utilized a wide array of information technologies, including International Virtual Roundtable Discussions via e-mail, seminars on Web site construction, Microsoft NetMeeting conferencing between the U.S. and Belarus, software training and development, and the use of the Internet to promote collaborative learning across diverse cultural and political boundaries. (The entire CLD Program is available at http://web.bryant.edu/~history/new/course.htm).

Using these technologies, faculty, students, and entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Belarus have formed strong ties. Faculty exchanges have permitted collaborators to teach at participating universities, conduct research, present training programs, lead trade missions, and deliver papers at international conferences. On-site visits, ranging in length from six days to six months, have played a critical role in our ability to develop trusting relationships and set the CLD Program in motion. We have learned that even sophisticated distance learning technologies cannot replace the power and intensity of human interactions.

Student-centered, collaborative group projects, standard on American campuses, are virtually unheard of in Belarus. The introduction of divergent points of view on controversial topics into classroom discussions is also largely absent. In fact, the educational system of Belarus, including all curricula issues, continues to be tightly controlled by the state. Still, the CLD Program’s use of Internet technologies has had a powerfully democratizing influence on Belarusian learners who have participated in this project.

Technology-enabled interactions between students from different cultures and with different expertise and skill sets have presented challenges. For instance, American students display an almost casual approach to e-mail correspondence, often failing to use proper punctuation or sentence structure. By contrast, Belarusians take particular care in constructing well-written messages, exacerbating the time constraints caused by limited computer laboratory access. Mentors in both countries encouraged collaborative techniques for negotiating these barriers to communication.

History professor David Lux noted that crucial pedagogical issues arose during the initial offering of his course, “The History of American Technology.” Viewing the course as an experiment to field-test technological and pedagogical issues associated with distance learning, Lux observed that cultural differences significantly affected how students approached the course. Belarusian students “proved voracious in their willingness to digest readings and engage in very sophisticated dialogue about the meaning and content of what they were reading.” Yet, Lux concluded that “the collaborative learning, student-project features of the course,” so popular with Bryant students, did not initially “translate meaningfully” into the educational culture of Belarus. With guidance and examples from Bryant faculty and students, however, Belarusian students gradually came to appreciate the value of collaborative projects.

In the course, “Cultures and Economies in Transition in the Post Soviet Era,” Professors Judy Barrett Litoff and Joseph Ilacqua described a high level of energy by students representing diverse countries. Heated debates often ensued as students tackled the difficult challenge of understanding societies in transition. However, their shared experiences as students helped them to negotiate their diverse perspectives. For example, during the Kosovo crisis in the spring of 1999, spirited e-mail exchanges of conflicting student perspectives took place. These discussions demonstrated the value of exploring cross-cultural and comparative political differences in order to better understand complex global problems.

Belarusian students enrolled in “Environmental Policy: Technology, Business & Government,” a course offered by Professor Gaytha Langlois, lacked a basic understanding of the governmental infrastructure necessary to implement well-designed environmental policy initiatives. Even Bryant students were poorly informed about how policies are actualized in the U.S., but in Belarus, the differences in governmental structure and practices further complicated this problem. The process of acquainting Belarusian students with the roles that government and non-governmental organizations play in crafting environmental and business policy has proved to be more cumbersome than expected. Through the use of structured International Virtual Roundtable Discussions, the ability of government and non-governmental organizations to formulate environmental policies became clearer.

Technical Considerations

Time differences, Internet delays, and the technological realities of Belarus presented challenges that limited the use of complex distance learning technologies. Consequently, we designed a relatively inexpensive and modest program. Since access to the Web in Belarus is often slow and unpredictable, we have provided CD-ROM versions of the CLD Web site to Belarusian students. CD-ROMs that are run on computers connected to the Web provide students with full entry to the CLD courses, including the ability to access hyperlinks. In addition, through the cooperation of information technology specialists at Bryant and EHU, a mirror Web site has been established to enhance connectivity.

Because of the seven-hour time difference between the east coast of the United States and Belarus, and because Belarusian students have limited access to e-mail and depend primarily on under-equipped (by U.S. standards) university computer laboratories for electronic communication, synchronous and asynchronous e-mail communication between the United States and Belarus has proved to be more difficult than we had originally anticipated. U.S. students are routinely assigned personal university e-mail addresses, but as a rule Belarusian students are rarely provided one. Even when students are assigned e-mail addresses, however, they often discover that access to university computer laboratories is limited to 2-3 hours a week. To encourage synchronous e-mail communication with students, Bryant faculty have adopted e-mail office hours between 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. in Belarus). By choosing these e-mail office hours, we are able to avoid the busy use of the Internet in Belarus during the mid- and late afternoon.

The most useful and successful distance learning technique that we have introduced is the International Virtual Roundtable Discussion (IVRD) via e-mail. This tool, utilizing the Internet to promote cross-cultural and comparative perspectives, has been incorporated into all CLD courses and has been enthusiastically embraced by learners. The IVRD features structured discussions that avoid the pitfalls of unmoderated chat rooms, yet it encourages learners to share informed opinions about specified topics that often result in lively exchanges of viewpoints.

On occasion, we utilize Microsoft’s NetMeeting program to provide live, two-way, global “see and talk” communication over the Internet. The Microsoft NetMeeting program, standard on new computers, uses simple computer accessories, including microphone, speakers, headset, and small video camera, that cost about $100. This inexpensive technology, although dependent upon a relatively new computer (about $1,000), replaces the high costs of long-distance telephone charges and video conferencing. Although two-way video and audio communications are exciting and hold great promise, they frequently require users to have great patience and perseverance in order to make them work properly.

The rest of the article is at http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=5088 


A Stanford University Martini 

Stanford University Goes Live On Blue Martini Software Powered Community Portals

Stanford University Expands Use of the Blue Martini eCRM Application Suite to Provide Personalized Information and Services to Students, Faculty, Staff and Alumni

SAN MATEO, Calif. , (09/27/2001)-- Blue Martini Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE), today announced that Stanford University has expanded the use of the Blue Martini 4 external customer relationship management (eCRM) application suite to power its community portals. The Stanford community portals will provide personalized content, information and services to students, faculty, staff and alumni, including University news, research, e-mail, search, online calendars, weather and public information.

Previously, the Stanford Graduate School of Business had adopted the Blue Martini eCRM suite to power its own branded knowledge portal. With this expanded agreement, the entire University system will benefit from Blue Martini Software's capabilities.

The portals will provide centralized access to multiple Stanford services and applications university-wide, and will leverage Stanford's directory and authentication system to provide single sign-on. Based on the user's status (incoming student, returning student, graduate student, faculty, staff or alumni), Stanford will be able to configure and display targeted information. Users will also be able to personalize the content, as well as the look-and-feel of their individual sites.

"We evaluated a number of companies and selected Blue Martini Software because of its depth and breadth of its application suite," said Chris Handley, executive director of Information Technology Systems and Services. "Blue Martini Software enabled us to get our student portal up and running very quickly to meet our immediate needs and see near-term return on investment, while offering the flexibility and depth to evolve our applications to meet our long-term initiatives. We believe this approach will decrease our total cost of ownership and increase our time to benefit."

"Stanford has always been at the forefront of providing the best technology resources to its students, faculty, staff and alumni," said Monte Zweben, president and CEO of Blue Martini Software. "With these new portals, Stanford will deliver a dynamic Web experience tailored to the many needs of its diverse end-users."

Collaboration and Chat Stanford may also deploy collaboration functionality to enable collaborative browsing between two or more individuals in physically different locations, as well as text-based chat. With Blue Martini Software's collaboration, two or more students could review class options online and mutually decide on a set of courses.

Campaign Management Stanford also has the option to leverage Blue Martini Marketing, which includes campaign management, analytics and visualization, to enable Stanford to proactively reach their students, faculty, staff and alumni with personalized emails and direct mail. With this application, Stanford could invite all of their alumni to sign up for seminars or events via email and drive them back to their personalized portal.

"The Blue Martini Application Suite will become the basis for "myStanford" for all of our constituencies - students, staff, alumni and faculty. Instead of having to buy and integrate multiple point solutions across Stanford, we made a single investment that will span the entire Campus. The Blue Martini Application Suite will enable Stanford to foster community communication, consolidate and share information with our constituencies, and further differentiate the prestigious Stanford brand," Handley added.

Stanford has initially rolled the portal out to approximately 15,000 students and expects to expand the portal community to include faculty, staff and alumni.

About Blue Martini Software Blue Martini Software delivers on the promise of CRM. With the Blue Martini 4 eCRM application suite, Blue Martini Software helps companies understand, target and interact with their customers across multiple touch points. The suite includes four applications: Blue Martini Marketing, Blue Martini Commerce, Blue Martini Channels and Blue Martini Service. Each application can be used individually to meet a specific business need, or as a complete suite for managing catalogs, content, transactions, campaigns, analysis and personalization. Blue Martini Software can be reached at 650-356-4000 or www.bluemartini.com .

The Blue Martini homepage is at http://www.bluemartini.com/index.jsp 


Wow Website Design Page of the Week --- http://www.whitney.org/artport/idealine/ 
This is a fabulous design that could be applied in virtually every academic discipline.

A Net Art Idea Line mapping lines of thought through time.  From the beginning, net art has travelled multiple paths. More than a medium, the net is a environment uniquely hospitable to many diverse media: programming and animation, video and audio, gameplay and community. Each individual artist picks up these threads and weaves them in novel combinations. The Idea Line is designed to let you follow these threads of thought yourself, and discover how each work is part of a larger tapestry.

Instructions

The Idea Line displays a timeline of net artworks, arranged in a fan of luminous threads. Each thread corresponds to a particular kind of artwork or type of technology. The brightness of each thread varies with the number of artworks that it contains in each year, so you can watch the ebb and flow of different lines of thought over time. As you move your mouse over the lines, they will open up to reveal titles of artworks. Place the mouse on top of a title to learn more about the work. Click to launch the work itself. Right-click (shift-click on a Mac) to highlight other pieces by the same artist.

If you are looking for a particular title or artist, type into the text box at the upper left. You'll be able to see your search results in the context of the overall idealine.

Questions about the Idea Line collection

How was the list of artworks made? We sent out a public request for help to several net art forums. Almost one hundred artists responded. In addition, we entered data on many popular or influential artworks that were not covered in this response. A text-only list of the artworks (146K) is available. Can I get on the Idea Line? Yes. Our net art database is publicly accessible. Read these instructions to learn how to enter information about your work. You can also add important works by other artists that we may have overlooked. (Note that we currently limit each artist to five works total.) We will periodically update the idealine to use new information from the database.

How do I update my information? 

If you want to update information about your artwork, let us know at idealine@whitney.org. For practical security reasons, we currently do not let the general public change information once it is in the database.

 


Norton Poets Online --- http://www.nortonpoets.com/ 
Especially note the "Multimedia" section where you can listen to leading poets read their works.


Interesting Knowledge Portals of the Week --- Very Efficient Designs

Science, Industry, Agriculture, Business, and Culture & Recreation Portals http://www.scienceandindustry.gov.au/ 
Although these are  most certainly oriented to Australia, there is a wealth of information in these portals.  Note especially the Directories and Databases.

Delivering science, industry and innovation information and services to industry, investors, and the business and research communities
 

Related Portals: Agriculture | Business | Culture and Recreation |

Bob Jensen's threads on knowledge portals and vortals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm 


I recently wrote a module on technology services at Trinity University for the first draft of a forthcoming AACSB accreditation report.

One paragraph of my module reads as follows:

****************************************************************************************** Probably the most noteworthy change in ITS support in the past several years is the improvement of the ITS Help Desk services. The Help Desk quickly responds to questions from students and faculty. Generally the answers given to questions about MS Office products, Blackboard, and Windows operating system questions are very accurate and helpful. We give ITS an A for improved quality of Help Desk services. ******************************************************************************************

I just wanted to say thanks to the men and women who have grown pretty darn good at their crafts over in ITS. Sometimes we fail to appreciate how tough a job it is to be an expert on something that keeps changing almost daily and, at the same time, fend off the hacker-crazies bent on destroying our systems.

I also want to say thanks to the Computer Science Department faculty who seem to be quite generous with their expertise in times of need of their particular skills.

This spirit of cooperation is what makes Trinity University a great place to study and work.


College news online, especially news and helpers for business students
College Journal (from The Wall Street Journal) --- http://www.collegejournal.com/ 

For example, a news item on October 8 read as follows:

Why B-School Students Are Fearing the Worst
Dark skies: With layoffs mounting and a recession looming, the coming on-campus recruitment season could be a washout for second-year M.B.A. students. Here's how one candidate feels about his job prospects.

They should have majored in accounting! (see below)


The AICPA's Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits --- http://www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/sagdpar.htm 

For nearly 25 years, the AICPA has conducted an annual survey of colleges and universities to determine the supply of new accounting graduates, and an annual survey of CPA firms and practices to gauge the demand for new graduates employed by public accounting firms. The results of both surveys are compiled in a report and distributed to accounting department heads and firm recruiting partners, among others. Since 1994 the report was expanded to include information on accounting majors and detailed gender and ethnic/racial breakdowns of graduates as well as new graduates employed by CPA firms. The findings enable the AICPA to identify trends, and educators and practitioners to compare their data with nationwide statistics.

Introduction and Highlights This 2000 edition of The Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits is prepared for anyone interested in the demographics of the accounting profession. This report will be useful for individuals involved in planning for university accounting programs, and human resources for accounting firms.

The data reported here is based on a survey conducted earlier this year of U.S. colleges and universities that offer accounting degrees at the Baccalaureate, Master’s or Ph.D. level and survey of public accounting firms and sole practitioners affiliated with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The report is presented in two sections: “Accounting Graduates” presents detailed information regarding the number of accounting degrees awarded by universities during the 1998–99 academic year and “Hiring by CPA Firms” reports the hiring of recent college graduates by public accounting firms during the academic year.

 Both sections present data weighted to provide a normative profile of the recipients of account-ing degrees and individuals newly hired by CPA firms. The Graduates section reports by level of accreditation held by the college or university. The Hiring Section reports by size of firm. Both reports present detailed gender and ethnic data. A complete description of the methodology used for gathering and weighting data is presented in Appendix A.

Following are some of the more significant findings from the report: 

• A total of 47,895 accounting bachelor’s and master’s degrees were awarded in l998–99, which represents a 20% decrease from the total number reported for l995–96. The percentage decrease of bachelor’s degrees awarded is almost twice that of master’s degrees. 

• Females are increasingly outnumbering males at the bachelor’s level (57% to 43%). For the first time in this series of studies, females outnumbered males also at the master’s level (54% to 46%). 

• Minorities accounted for 19% of the total number of accounting bachelor’s and master’s graduates, down from 23% in l995–96. However, the percentage of minority PhDs has increased from 12% to 16% for the same period. 

• The percentage of bachelor’s graduates finding jobs in business/industry has dropped relative to those entering public accounting (26% and 34%, respectively). The percentage of master’s graduates entering public accounting (61%) is triple the percentage going into industry (20%). 

• Accounting enrollments in bachelor’s and master’s programs have dropped dramatically (22%) from l995–96. Enrollments had already begun to drop from l994–95 to l995–96. A majority of responding schools expect enrollments in accounting bachelor’s programs two years from now to be the same, and they expect enrollments in accounting master’s programs to increase. 

• The number of candidates sitting for the CPA exam continued the downward trend from l993, except for an upward surge in l999. This is likely attributable to the fact that the 150-hour law became effective in more than a dozen states in the year 2000. Candidates for the May and November exams in l999 totaled 126,769. 

• The total number of accounting graduates with bachelor’s degrees hired by CPA firms decreased slightly in l999, while master’s degrees hires increased. 

• The percentage of new accounting graduates hired by the firms was about one-third the percentage of non-accounting graduate hires in l999. 

• Fifty-four percent of the new graduate hires were female; 46% were male. 

• Twenty percent of the new graduate hires were minorities, up from 16% in l996. 

• The percentage of female CPAs employed by the firms is 34%; minorities accounted for 5% of CPAs employed by the firms. 

• Eighty-five percent of the largest firms reported hiring more experienced recruits in l999 than in l998; 53% of the next largest firm-size group said they hired more experienced recruits than in l998.

The above report has been updated  to the end of 1999.  While this does not capture the crash and burning of either the dot.com industry or the World Trade Center, anecdotal evidence suggest that demand remains strong for accounting graduates in accountancy, although there has been some shrinkage in organizations other than public accounting.  Increased demand in public accounting  has been reinforced by a marked shrinking of supply of those graduates due to a myriad of factors, especially the addition of the fifth year (150-credit) college- requirement in over 40 states.  


What riles me about golden parachutes is that they take the risk out of abnormal income and often reward failure.  There is a new article about the golden parachute mess.

"Minimize Parachute Penalties," by Randy Myers, Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, pp. 33-42 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/myers.htm 

When executives at United Airlines began calculating what they would have to pay to acquire rival US Airways if the merger had been completed, due diligence took them on an eye-opening ride beyond the balance sheet. Detailed in the employment contracts between US Airways and its senior executives were severance provisions for the top five managers that would add approximately $165 million to the cost of United’s takeover deal. Even in a merger valued at more than $11 billion, that was no small sum.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
COMPANIES SHOULD NOT ENTER into golden parachute plans without careful consideration. CPAs called in to help draft these agreements can, through prudent planning, save their employers and clients significant sums.

GOLDEN PARACHUTES CAN ENCOMPASS A VARIETY of benefits, including not just extended salaries and cash payouts but also early vesting of stock options, bonuses, pensions and other benefits. Because of the complexity of rules governing parachutes and their tax treatment, most parachutes generate attest work for CPAs when they are triggered.

THE DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 1984 led to the proliferation of so-called “299%” deals in which an executive losing his or her job due to a change in corporate control got a payout that fell just under the excise tax trigger.

A GROSS-UP PROVISION LAYERS an additional payment on top of the golden parachute to reimburse the recipient for the excise tax he or she will owe.

ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR TECHNIQUES to mitigate the cost of a parachute payment is to take advantage of an IRS provision that says payments made to executives for services they provide after a change in control are not part of the golden parachute.

RANDY MYERS is a freelance financial writer who lives in Dover, Pennsylvania. His e-mail address is randy@randymyers.net.

 


"Important Tax-Act Dates for Taxpayers to Know," by the Financial Planning Association --- 
http://flywheel.memeticsystems.com/backend/ct_click.cgi?ct_id=973&type=1 

The above site has much more than dates --- it is a great summary of key things to consider in financial planning and investing.  Take a look and see how useful this site really may be in your life.


A great resource site for finance, investing, world news, and accounting
CBS Market Watch (includes a glossary) --- http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/default.asp?siteid=mktw 


PBS: Electric Money (better termed the history of money before and after computers) --- http://www.pbs.org/opb/electricmoney/ 
(Includes teaching guides and resources for instructors)


This is a great article that features the new FASB Concepts Statement No. 7
"Future Cash Flow Measurements," by D.T. Meeting, R.W. Luecke, and L. Garceau, Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, pp. 57-67 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/meeting.htm 


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
FASB ISSUED CONCEPTS STATEMENT NO. 7 TO HELP CPAs who use present value and cash flow information as the basis for accounting measurements. Using Cash Flow Information and Present Value in Accounting Measurements includes general principles governing accountants’ use of present value, particularly when the amount of future cash flows, their timing or both, are uncertain.

THE STATEMENT INTRODUCES AN EXPECTED CASH flow approach that focuses on the explicit assumptions about the range of possible cash flows and their respective probabilities. It also describes techniques CPAs can use to estimate the fair value of liabilities, taking into account the entity’s credit standing.

CONCEPTS STATEMENT NO. 7 APPLIES ONLY TO measurements at initial recognition, to fresh start measurements and to amortization techniques based on future cash flows. It does not apply to measurements based on the amount of cash or other assets an entity pays or receives or on fair value observations in the marketplace.

FASB SAYS THE EXPECTED CASH FLOW APPROACH is a better measurement tool than the traditional approach in many circumstances. CPAs should use it to develop asset and liability values when there is no contractual cash flow—taking into account all expectations about possible cash flows rather than just the most likely one.

THE GUIDANCE IN THE FASB CONCEPTS STATEMENT applies to both liabilities and assets. Measuring liabilities involves problems that are different from measuring assets. When using present value to estimate the fair value of a liability, the objective is to estimate the value of the assets required to settle the liability with the holder or to transfer it to another entity.

DAVID T. MEETING, CPA, DBA, is professor of accounting at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio. His e-mail address is d.meeting@csuohio.edu. RANDALL W. LUECKE, CPA, CMA, CFM, is vice-president, finance, at CSA Group in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His e-mail address is randall.luecke@csagroup.org. LINDA GARCEAU, CPA, DBA, is dean, College of Business, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City. Her e-mail address is garceaul@access.etsu.edu.

 


Nolo:  A Great Resource Site for Law --- http://www.nolo.com/ 

Free Information & Tools
Legal Encyclopedia
Hundreds of useful articles & FAQs

 
Law Dictionary
Legal terms in plain English

 
Calculators
Mortgages, credit cards & more

 
Legal Updates
Up-to-date info for Nolo products
Legal Research Center
- U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Laws and Regulations
- State Laws
- Supreme Court Cases
- Legal Research Tips

Court Information
- Federal, State & Local
- Small Claims

 


Information Technology Worker Shortage Continues 
Open number of IT positions in US companies has more than tripled since 1999. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3112 


If you know any accounting educators with helpful materials on the web, please ask them to link their materials  in the American Accounting Association's Accounting Coursepage Exchange (ACE) web site at
http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/ace/index.htm
Please send these professors email messages today and urge them to share as much as they can with the academy by easily registering their course pages with ACE.

I am a strong advocate of ACE and was encouraged when nearly 200 accounting educators from around the world began to share syllabi and course materials.  Now I am discouraged by the lack of maintenance that many of these same professors have with respect to the shared materials.  By this, I am referring to such problems as those noted below:

The main limitation to date is the oversight or unwillingness of accounting educators in interesting courses that go beyond a textbook, especially doctoral courses, to share syllabi and materials.  I think failure to list with ACE listing is more oversight than unwillingness since many of the syllabi and other course materials can be accessed with a little search effort at a particular university's Website.  For example, many of the accounting faculty at the University of Texas ( http://www.bus.utexas.edu/dept/accounting/faculty.html ) share syllabi and other materials on the Web but none have included their coursepages in ACE.  The same can be said for the University of Washington where Terry Shevlin shares syllabi for five courses, including a doctoral-level course --- http://faculty.washington.edu/shevlin/ 

The above college-by-college-type of search is very inefficient relative to what could be gained if accounting educators and researchers simply provided their links in ACE.  In ACE, the shared helpers from virtually all universities are categorized so that we don't have to go to each university to conduct a time-consuming search.

Even if some faculty do not keep their ACE listings up to date, simply having them in the system provides signals regarding where to go look for more current listings of particular courses.

Come on folks!  Let's get into that MIT spirit even though it seems counterintuitive (see below).

**********************************************************************

Reply from Bob Jensen to Messages from Roger Debreceny and Zane Swanson:

Hi Roger, (and Zane)

The easy way around this is for ACE to recommend that the course link be changed to a "person link" or a "department link" that is "never" broken. Then the individuals or departments involved are responsible for maintaining current links on their own at any point in time.

Short of that, what educators can do if the link is to an " old course page" is simply change to "old course page" to a page that automatically or manually links to an updated course, another course, or a page of current links.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: Roger Debreceny [mailto:rogerd@NETBOX.COM]  
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 8:44 PM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU 
Subject: Re: What happened to our ACEs?

Bob

Fair cop. But ACE makes it pretty difficult to update our records. When I go back to the site to update the course, I find that all I can do is to make amendments to that given course number. I have not taught the course since 1999 -- the only option is to email the AAA office to ask them to remove the record.

I think another problem we're finding is the rapid rise of BlackBoard/WebCT etc, which means that faculty will be having their outlines hidden behind passwords.

Roger D

-----Original Message----- 
From: Zane Swanson [mailto:Swansonz@ESUMAIL.EMPORIA.EDU]  
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 10:32 AM To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU 
Subject: Re: What happened to our ACEs?

Hi Bob Jensen,

Your recent complaint about ACE failed links points to a larger problem of frustration on the Web about links that do not work. It would seem that a program could be developed to "sweep" web sites periodically to identify links that do not work. At the limit, those individuals/groups creating links should have an Email tag a la XML that could be notified when links fail (on say a monthly basis). If the original poster of a failed link does not respond in a reasonable time, then the program could simply delete the failed link. The fact is that some portion of failed links are due to no fault at all of those who originally make the link, but to later modifications about which the original poster had no control. Perhaps, Bob's own site could benefit from such a program to sweep for failed links which would otherwise be very time consuming proposition to identify and maintain.

I tried to post this message to AECM's listserv, but could not because of some technical problem. If you want to include this message with further discussion on this matter, please feel free to do so.

Respectfully, 
Zane Swanson

**********************************************************************

Reply from Bob Jensen to a message from David Albrecht

Hi David,

What I do is to have two sets of documents. One set, a set that includes each course syllabus, is on a Web server and is available to the world. The other set, a set that includes copyrighted material or other material that I either should not or do not want to make public, is on a Blackboard server. The latter set includes material that I am allowed to show my students (such as solutions to textbook problems) but am not allowed to make available  to the public at large.

I find that serving up HTML documents on the Blackboard server is a pain in the tail since HTML documents must be "zipped" up with accompanying image and multimedia files and then "unzipped." Whenever possible, I prefer serving up HTML documents from a plain vanilla Web server rather than a Blackboard server.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Albrecht [mailto:albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]  
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 2:07 AM 
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU Subject: 
Re: What happened to our ACEs?

I confirm what Roger says. My recollection is that when I tried to have changed a URL for a course page on ACE, the change didn't take place easily.

To get a password for some courses (when the prof is hesitant to supply access) on the BGSU BlackBoard and WebCT servers takes a request to the university counsel. I have given up trying to gain access to colleagues' sites.

Dave Albrecht

 

 


From MIT:  ""OpenCourseWare looks counterintuitive in a market-driven world."
"Insight: Brave New World for Higher Education,"  by Michael Schrage, Technology Review, October 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/magazine/oct01/insight.asp 

In April 2001, MIT president Charles M. Vest announced that the Institute would bring the "open-source" software sensibility to higher education and offer—for free!—its curricula and courseware to the world via the Web. This "OpenCourseWare" initiative represents a radically different approach to digitizing, marketing and globalizing education.

"OpenCourseWare looks counterintuitive in a market-driven world. It goes against the grain of current material values," said Vest at the time. "But it really is consistent with what I believe is the best about MIT." He concluded, "Simply put, OpenCourseWare is a natural marriage of American higher education and the capabilities of the World Wide Web."

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't—don't forget that marriage is hard. Still, no serious observer doubts that digital technologies are already transforming the cultures, content and economics of higher education. What's so striking, and what Vest (to his credit) so readily acknowledges, is that the technology of higher education is becoming as much a function of market mechanisms as digital media. After all, the largest single private university in America is the University of Phoenix—a decidedly for-profit institution with an enrollment north of 100,000 students whose average age is 35 and whose average annual income is $56,000. Not incidentally, nearly two-thirds of its students are women. How's that for diversity?

Once dismissed and derided as "diploma mills," schools like Phoenix, DeVry Institutes, Strayer University and their counterparts have already had an enormous impact on American postsecondary and postbaccalaureate education. Yes, MIT, Harvard and Berkeley are fabulous brands. But there's every reason to believe that market-oriented entities like Phoenix have every economic incentive to be even more innovative than an MIT in crafting compelling online curricula and content. A decade hence, whose "courseware" sensibilities will be educating more people faster, better and cheaper around the globe? MIT's? Or Phoenix's?

Reframe that question in an open-source context: would you rather bet on Linux (MIT) or on Windows (Phoenix) as tomorrow's dominant operating system? Or is the software world better off with both—each synergistically/antagonistically keeping the other in check?

Anyone who cares about the future of software needs to understand market trends as much as digital design. Similarly, anyone who genuinely cares about the future of higher education must accept that market forces are now as critical as technological innovation.

Rebel with a Cause by John Sperling and Higher Ed, Inc. by Richard S. Ruch are two stylistically different books that offer useful perspectives on these issues. The former is an intensely personal memoir of a combative entrepreneur with a University of Cambridge PhD who battled the not-for-profit academic establishment and won. The latter is a smoothly written survey by the former dean of a for-profit revealing why these schools will matter even more tomorrow than they do today. Anybody with an "elite" university education will be intrigued and provoked by these tales. Anybody who thinks that "elite" universities will be immune from the influences of these upstarts will probably have to think twice.

In Rebel with a Cause, Sperling does not come across as the most likable entrepreneur or educator to ever pen his memoirs. Compared to Harvard president James Bryant Conant's My Several Lives, or his MIT counterpart James R. Killian Jr.'s The Education of a College President or former MIT president Howard Wesley Johnson's recent Holding the Center, Sperling's book portrays him as less an academic statesman than a ruthless buccaneer, determined to topple the cozy incestuousness of America's higher-education establishment. He's spoiling for a fight and almost never fails to find one.

"No innovation will survive unless its protagonists are willing to respond to the inevitable attacks by the academic traditionalists with a passion of equal intensity," writes Sperling. "Furthermore, successful defense of an innovation requires will, political skill, and financial resources. [We had] all three. Plus [we were] principals who were happy warriors and who thrilled to the battle."

Don't mess with me! shrieks every other page of this business autobiography. Sperling details his battles with wives and lovers as passionately as he describes his lawsuits and lobbying of educational accreditors in states that dared interfere with his vision of adult education for the masses. Why does Sperling's vision matter? Because his business success and the rising role of Phoenix-like educational institutions gives the lie to the oft-quoted Henry Kissinger aphorism that the reason university politics are so vicious is that the stakes are so small.

Because the stakes are huge. Postbaccalaureate education, training and certification are already multibillion-dollar concerns in America. Sperling is the very model of an entrepreneur who has firsthand experience with the "inefficiencies" in the educational marketplace and knows how to exploit them. Sperling knows that quality education is often a secondary—or even a tertiary—concern of universities. After all, a university is not just a marketplace of ideas; it's a marketplace.

Will that marketplace be driven more by for-profit or not-for-profit sensibilities? (Or as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman likes to put it, "tax-paying" versus "tax-exempt" sensibilities.) It's one thing for an MIT or a Stanford to benchmark itself against a Chicago or a Berkeley; but what does it mean to benchmark itself against a Phoenix or a DeVry? Or is that too ridiculous to even contemplate? Sperling has no (apparent) illusions about direct competition with the elite schools, because the fundamental missions are so different. But when it comes to opportunities in continuing education, distance learning and the Internet, he has no doubts about which kind of school is in the best position to profitably innovate.

The remainder of the article is at  http://www.techreview.com/magazine/oct01/insight.asp  


From Canada, A Very Multicultural Nation
Cultural Profiles Project (a government project) --- http://cwr.utoronto.ca/cultural/ 


Meeting God: Elements of Hindu Devotion (Religion, Art, History) --- http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/meeting_god/ 


The Floating World of Ukiyo-E --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/ukiyo-e/ 


This Article From Nature Makes a Strong Case for "Art" in a Scientific or Professional Curriculum
"Doctors examine art appreciation class improves student doctors' diagnosis" by Helen Pearson, Nature, September 12, 2001 --- http://www.nature.com/nsu/010913/010913-11.html 

"Physicians should be more like Sherlock Holmes," says Irwin Braverman. His new research suggests that art-appreciation classes could teach medical students the sleuthing skills they need: trainee doctors' diagnoses improve after they have learnt how to look at the whole picture.

Medical students often miss the details that clinch a diagnosis, says Braverman, of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. In an effort to overcome this observational blindness, he teamed up with the Yale Center for British Art to give first-year students a fine-art class.

After only two hours spent studying a classical painting and being questioned on what they saw, students' diagnostic skills improved1. They were better able to pick out key clues in patient photos than were a group who sat through an additional anatomy lecture. Art-appreciation classes are now part of the curriculum for all Yale medical students.

Challenging students' assumptions "is exactly the kind of reasoning you try and provoke in clinical diagnosis", agrees John Spencer, who studies medical education at the University of Newcastle in England.

Medical teaching has traditionally focused on cramming and rote learning, with the result that novices "don't think out of the box", says Spencer. Braverman illustrates this with the tale of a man referred with a leg problem. The student doctor, focusing on the patient's legs, couldn't work out what was wrong, although the answer was staring him in the face. The student missed the patient's bulging eyes, tell-tale signs of a thyroid problem.

The ability to see details without preconceived ideas is a key part of diagnosis, yet finely honed observational skills are often only learnt after years of clinical practice. Programmes such as Yale's art class could accelerate the process, hopes Braverman.

The course is an example of how teaching methods are changing, says Spencer, with examinations focusing on reasoning rather than simple recall.


When searching for academic and business links, it is unfortunate if you forget to go to the Baker Library at the  Harvard Business School http://www.library.hbs.edu/

Journals & News
News Updates ... Article Search ... Find a Publication ... More
Company & Industry Information
Company Lists ... Company Research ... Stock and Investments ... Industry Information ... More
Career Resources
Job Opportunities & Career Planning ... Networking & Contact Names ... More
Economics & Statistics
Economics ... Statistics ... Country Research ... More
Baker Library Collections
Baker Online Catalog ... Historical Collections ... Baker Old Class ... BakerBooks ... Corporate Reports ... About Electronic Resources ... Baker Publications ... Audio Books
Baker Library Services
Faculty ... Students ... Alumni/ae ... Administration ... Workshops ... Online Request Forms ...
General Reference
HOLLIS ... Search Engines and Web Guides ... Citation Guide ... Stack Guide... Tax Guide

 

Harvard Business School Publishing --- http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/ 

For electronic commerce publications go to the above link and search for "E-Commerce and the Internet"


From Internet Week news on October 1, 2001

ROI: Little More Than Lip Service

Ever since the dotcom bust and economic slowdown, IT organizations have latched on to all manner of "ROI" metrics to justify their technology investments.

But whether they're really calculating return on investment is suspect. New research and anecdotal evidence suggest that managers may be fudging the numbers--or at least evaluating their projects less than rigorously.

A new InternetWeek survey indicates a striking disconnect between what businesses say about their ROI studies and their actual e-business results. Some 82 percent of 1,000 managers surveyed by InternetWeek said they expect their company's overall "e-business operations" to be profitable in 2001. Yet only 34 percent said their company had developed an ROI model to measure the success of those operations. --David Lewis and Mike Koller

Read on: http://update.internetweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEbG0Bdl6n0V30SpZ0Aj 

Bob Jensen's ROI threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 

Bob Jensen's electronic commerce threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


An Educated Guess as to the Real Prize in Terrorist Leader Bin Lauden's Eyes

"Line in the Sand:  Exile Seeks to Destabilize His Oil-Rich Homeland;  Royals Caught in Middle,"  The Wall Street Journal, October 4, 2001, Page A1.

"Osama has no hope of overthrowing the U.S. --- but he does seek that in his own country," says Chas W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S ambassador to Saudi Arabia.  "What he hopes we will do is attack a broad target in the Middle East, and thus delugitimize both what we do and the Saudi regime."

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


Young Muslims who wanted to learn about "bone breaking" and how to make explosives won't be able to visit a London-based website anymore, because authorities closed it.
"England Closes Extremist Site," Wired News, October 4, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47307,00.html 

A website offering young Muslims the chance to learn all about explosives and the "art of bone breaking" was shut down this week under a new British crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Police sources told Reuters on Thursday that the closure of the London-based Sakina Securities website followed the arrest on Monday of one of its instructors on terrorism charges.

The 43-year-old alleged Sakina instructor -- police refuse to name him -- is one of two men being held on terrorism charges in Britain as it tightens the net on militants.

Bob Jensen's threads on banned literature are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q4.htm#BannedLiterature
 

See also:
Another Thing to Fear: ID Theft
Smallpox's 7 Percent Solution
Making the Case for Pakistan
A TV Plea to Patriot Hackers
Eavesdrop Now, Reassess Later?
Conflict 2001: Fresh Perspectives


Why individuals on the radical left really hate patriotism.
"CAMBRIDGE DISPATCH Left Back by Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, September 20, 2001 --- http://www.tnr.com/100101/cohn100101.html 

If all this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Since its coming-out party two years ago in Seattle, the anti-globalization movement has been frequently described as a new force in American politics, the product of a new generation with new arguments and concerns. And it is true that the movement's focus on corporations and global finance, as opposed to governments and armies, represented a change from the leftist campaigns of the 1970s and '80s. But last week, when the terrorist attacks put governments and armies back at the center of American politics, the fresh-faced radicals sounded just like their generational predecessors. And so on Friday, when United Students Against Sweatshops pulled out of its planned demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank, it also urged members to participate in "peace-oriented events" over the coming weeks: "We stand firmly against sentiments of military retaliation," the organization said, sounding exactly like the student activists of 1968 or 1991. Last spring a group of Harvard students seemed to break new ground in campus activism when they staged a sit-in to protest low wages for the school's custodial workers. Now some members of that group are starting the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice; vigils and letter-writing campaigns against military action are already in the works.

But not all of the anti-globalization left is on board. Mindful of its membership's sentiments--not to mention the police officers, firefighters, and other union workers killed in the attacks--the AFL-CIO not only canceled its planned IMF/World Bank demonstrations, but it also endorsed, in no uncertain terms, military reprisal. "We deplore the assault," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, "and we stand fully behind the President and the leadership of our nation in this time of national crisis." The AFL-CIO has asked its door-to-door canvassers, initially dispatched to drum up support for the anti-globalization cause, to collect donations on behalf of the terrorism victims instead. On Capitol Hill, some of globalization's fiercest critics, like Marcy Kaptur, the congresswoman from the Rust Belt city of Toledo, are morphing into some of the Democratic Party's biggest hawks.

All of which represents a very serious problem for the left. One of the anti-globalization movement's primary goals--and primary successes--in its short life has been repairing the generation-old gulf between intellectuals and labor. Students have flocked to union-run organizing camps; a group of labor-friendly intellectuals established Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice. Now, with one awful attack, that alliance is splitting at the seams. The hard hats and the hippies are on opposite sides of the barricades once again. At the teach-in at MIT, activists seemed to be gearing up for their generation's Vietnam--a chance to take on U.S. militarism and imperialism in their own time. They seemed to have forgotten that until last week, that was precisely the debate the American left was trying to avoid.

I think what the authors of the article imply is that there is a difference between "left" and "radical left." The radical left is trying to organize a revolution against capitalism, religion, globalization of trade, and the white race.

The point of the article is that patriotism unites races, religions, and workers with the government and business leaders. Patriotism is a bomb on radical organizers (that is what they are saying themselves in the article, especially in Toledo)

The article does not imply that only conservatives are patriotic.

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


"The Best and the Brightest:  The kids are all right, but too many professors hate America" 
The Wall Street Journal
, Page A18, October 2, 2001 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1001979331574643920.htm 

Maybe there is something to the old injunction not to trust anyone over 30 -- at least on campus. Within the confines of the faculty lounges where graying radicals are now ensconced, September 11 may be seen as another example of America paying for its sins. Yet students seem to have recognized it for what it is: their Pearl Harbor.

You might not know that from the professors making it into the headlines. At a recent University of North Carolina "teach-in," one lecturer told students that if he were President, he would first apologize to "the widows and orphans, the tortured and the impoverished and all the millions of other victims of American imperialism." Over at Yale, Professor Paul Kennedy asked the audience to understand the reasons people had for their hatred of America -- notably our military and economic power, our culture, and more. University of Texas Professor Robert Jensen (that's Robert W. Jensen from the University of Texas and not Robert E. Jensen from Trinity University) wrote that the attack "was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism . . . that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime."

Imagine, then, what it must be like for such professors to look out at their campuses to see hordes of students with American flags flying from their bicycles, sticking out of their backpacks, stuck in their pockets, or emblazoned on T-shirts with messages that promise, "We Won't Forget."

The jolt must have been even greater at Harvard, where the Crimson, the student paper, ran an editorial pegged to a poll showing 69% of Harvard students in favor of military action against the perpetrators of the attacks. More telling still was the Crimson's forthright response to what it called "bad news": namely, that only 38% of that large percentage who want military action said they were willing to take part themselves. As the editors tartly observed, one worries for the character of a student body that favors a military response "only as long as they can continue to sit comfortably in Cambridge." If students "are willing to enjoy the benefits of the national defense," the paper concluded, "they must not refuse when called to serve."

At the Yale Daily News, the editors put it this way: "After September 11, 2001, we came of age as a generation. We agreed on an agenda. We faced the same enemy. And now the government is asking us: Will we serve?" They concluded by answering their own question: "We must answer the calling of our time -- for if we don't, who will?"

Plainly what these and other bursts of campus clarity suggest is that notwithstanding the decades of effort put in by the thought reformers -- the creators of the language police, the campus harassment codes and the rest -- these people never did capture many hearts and minds. In its more overt forms on campus this ideology tends to manifest itself in Vietnam nostalgia, as it did at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where students chanted "One-Two-Three-Four, we won't support your racist war."

More subtly it appears too in those op-eds indicting an American society whose people have now got their comeuppance. Its adherents seem particularly bothered by an America that continues to celebrate memories and films focusing on World War II.

They have good reason to be bothered by such recollections. On June 12, 1942, his 18th birthday, a young Andover graduate put off his Yale education to enlist in the U.S. Navy. It was six months after Pearl Harbor. The young man's name was George Bush.

Maybe they're not beating down the doors of the Army, Navy and Marine recruiters up at Cambridge or New Haven. But if the reactions of their college papers to September 11 is any indication, America's young have learned something about their obligation to a free if imperfect society -- even if it wasn't in the lesson plan.


The U.S. Flag is not being burned at Lehigh University, but then again it was temporarily banned until students forced a change in a campus ruling to ban displaying of  the U.S. Flag.

See http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001149 (Free registration required)

Banner Banners 
We read about this one on the Web site of radio talk-show host Neal Boortz. On Tuesday Lehigh University of Bethlehem, Pa., briefly banned the American flag. The Allentown Morning Call reports that Bill Guglielmo, an engineering junior from Davidson, Md., was riding on a campus bus when, in his words, "I hear a call over the radio for them to remove all American flags."

It turns out that one John Smeaton, vice provost for student affairs, "ordered flags removed so non-American students would not feel uncomfortable," according to the Morning Call, which quotes an executive of the school as saying: "We have such a diverse student body and emotions are so high right now. The idea was to keep from offending some of our students, and maybe the result was much to the contrary. The student and the bus driver were understandably angry. A mistake was made." Within an hour, the school rescinded Smeaton's order.

What does it tell us about the state of American higher education that an administrator's first reflex when America is under attack is to protect foreign students from displays of American patriotism, which he only imagines would offend them?

"Lehigh University wavers on flag order," Lehigh Valley News, September 14, 2001 --- http://www.mcall.com/html/frontpage/b_pg001_e14noflags.htm

While acts of patriotism were breaking out across the Lehigh Valley, they were being squashed on the campus of Lehigh University.

But not for long.

It may have been meant as an act of sensitivity, but a Lehigh University official's decision to remove the American flag from a campus bus was met with anger from at least one student and the bus driver.

The backlash struck so quickly that the University immediately rescinded its order.


The weeks following the terrorist attacks yielded the largest spike in Internet traffic yet. Now, a group of scholars are attempting to capture snapshots of how websites responded to the attacks --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47184,00.html 


Public Agenda Special Report: Terrorism --- http://www.publicagenda.org/specials/terrorism/terror.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on terrorism are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


UPS Logistics has delivered goods despite blizzards, floods, and fires. But its IS systems were put to the test on Sept. 11. Find out how the company fared. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEkN0BcUEY04e0S4x0AH 


"E.P.A. Years Behind Timetable on Guarding Water From Attack, by Greg Winter, The New York Times,  October 4, 2001 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/04/national/04WATE.html 

The Environmental Protection Agency has fallen years behind its timetable for safeguarding the nation's water supply against a possible terrorist attack, according to the agency's internal documents.

Under orders from President Bill Clinton, the agency detailed its plans for protecting the nation's drinking water in 1998, offering a road map for the administration's campaign to foil terrorist plots by fortifying the United States' infrastructure.

Yet many of the steps that the agency said would be completed as long as two years ago, like identifying vulnerabilities, have just begun or are still on the drawing board. That is prompting some lawmakers to call for stricter oversight of the E.P.A.'s antiterrorism efforts.

"Our nation no longer has the luxury of time to build adequate defenses against threats to our drinking water," Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee, wrote in a letter this week to Christie Whitman, the agency administrator. "We must build them now."

See Also
Energy Citations Database (ECD)  http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/
 


"Energy Independence Now We Need A New Energy Revolution," SF Gate, October 4, 2001 --- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/04/newenergy.DTL 

Amid this week's latest batch of unbearably sad stories about the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, one of the most important stories is the one we haven't read.

It's the story about how, after the last major crisis in the Middle East 25 years ago, America embarked on a crash program to develop new solar, wind, geothermal and fuel-cell technologies to successfully become energy independent.

You didn't read it, because it didn't happen.

The news we're reading this week might look very different if we had followed that course, which was recommended at the time by scores of environmentalists, ranging from author/activist Barry Commoner to our then-governor, Jerry Brown.

Had we listened to them, the US government might not have earned our well-deserved reputation as a hypocrite nation that prizes oil above everything else, including the very values we purport to uphold.

Of even more immediate concern, our continuing dependence on foreign oil leaves the American economy dangerously vulnerable, particularly if the already unstable situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate.

That's why a campaign for energy independence remains one of our best weapons against terrorism. In the long run, one of the most effective steps we can take to preserve freedom here at home and to extend its benefits to others around the world is to loosen oil's slimy grip on our domestic and foreign policies.

There is an undeniable relationship between America's alliances with oppressive Middle East regimes and the organized, religiously fueled terror campaign that seeks to punish the US for being the chief enabler of those dictatorships. Put simply, we rely on oil-rich despots at our own peril.


"Student may face charges in hoax," by Lisa Chiu, The Arizona Republic Oct. 02, 2001 --- http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/1002student02.html 

Arizona State University junior Ahmad Saad Nasim told a gruesome tale: He was attacked from behind, beaten and pelted with eggs while his assailants uttered racial epithets.

But that story was a lie and now has ASU officers considering whether to cite Nasim for false reporting.

The department has not yet determined whether to take action against Nasim, said police Chief John Pickens, but it is in contact with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which would prosecute such crimes. Nasim could also face internal disciplinary action from the university.

The political science major confessed Thursday to the hoax after he was found lying inside a locked bathroom stall in the university's library, apparently attempting to fake another hate crime. Police said he gave no reason for either hoax.


Seems nuts to me!
Are peanut subsidies vital to the war effort, or is someone pulling our legume? 
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001258 


World Health Report 2001, Mental Health: New Understanding New Hope ---  http://www.who.int/whr/ 


Family Values Tour --- http://www.familyvaluestour.com/ 


The State of the World's Children 2002 --- http://www.unicef.org/sowc02/ 

Starting points

Begin reading 'In brief'.
A special online synopsis of messages on leadership from UNICEF's The State of the World's Children 2002. The full report – containing text with multiple examples of leadership, feature stories, statistical panels, "Voices of Young People" and declarations of commitments for children from every region of the world – can be viewed online and obtained as a print publication.
Go to Contents.
An annotated list of the messages and short features found in the online version of The State of the World's Children 2002.
View or print the full report (PDF or text-only).
The State of the World's Children 2002, available in PDF and text-only versions, reports on the progress that has been made in improving the lives of children and families since the 1990 World Summit for Children. It includes the inspiring successes of the 'Say Yes for Children' campaign that has been launched in over 100 countries. And it presents the worldwide preparations leading to the UN Special Session on Children. Includes a Foreword and reports from the UN Secretary-General, six pages of maps, 25 charts and figures, 40 photos and illustrations, 64 references, a full index and more than 50 quotes from children and young people.
Journalists: Go to the press kit.
Includes a PDF of the report, press release, press summary and six sheets of graphics on the major goals of the 1990 World Summit for Children. The press kit is linked to the Special Session web pages for journalists.

Most popular Websites in the world --- http://www.webbieworld.com/ww/ 


Chris Nolan clued me in on the following site about  what is happening on the Web.  Note the Top 50 list.
Web Characterization --- http://wcp.oclc.org/ 

Statistics
     Size and Growth
     Country/Language
     Economic Activity
     Top 50 List
     Miscellaneous
     Documentation

  Publications

  Related Links

  Project Staff

  Home

Bob Jensen's threads on Internet statistics and links to other providers of such statistics can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob4.htm 


The fact that the FBI is struggling to conclusively identify the hijacker terrorists points out how serious the threat of ID theft may be --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47201,00.html 


Savvy decision makers don't trust the "black box" business models used by consultants who have little understanding for a client's unique situation. The trick--as RollingStone.com learned--is to use predictive and highly customized models. http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eEkN0BcUEY04e0S4y0AI 


Combustible Celluloid (Movie Reviews) http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/ 


A great American History Site
States and Capitols --- http://www.50states.com/ 


American Picture Palaces (Movie Theatres, Architecture, Art History) --- http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/PALACE/ 

Each week from the 1910s through the 1940s, Americans "went to the show" in record numbers. "The show" drew peak crowds three to four times daily with an extra screening on weekends and it began, as architect S. Charles Lee noted, "on the sidewalk" with the extravagant architecture of America's motion picture palaces. (1) Palaces seated between 2500 and 6000 patrons at a time; "de luxe" palaces boasted stage shows, permanent orchestras, organs, first run films, and an array of customer services unknown to today's cinemagoers. Studio head Marcus Loew recognized, "We sell tickets to theaters, not movies." (2) Movie historian Ben Hall described the movie palace as "an acre of seats in a garden of dreams."(3)

Most studies of America's movie palaces have been nostalgic, preservation-oriented efforts which have tended to isolate movie palaces in time and space from other public architecture and from the larger current of consumerism in the U.S. In his study of San Francisco's Fox Theater, Preston Kaufmann asserts that "the world portrayed by the motion picture theater was in truth a carbon copy of the era which gave it birth. This could only be achieved in such an unforgettable decade as the Twenties."(4) Although the Twenties spawned some of the most fanciful and elaborate theater architecture, the movie palaces are understood more fully when they are read as part of a larger story--the rise of a pervasive culture of consumerism which dramatically altered the way Americans worked, played, and thought about their relationships to other citizens. When theater architect John Eberson called movie palaces "the most palatial homes of princes and crowned kings for and on behalf of His Excellency--the American Citizen," Eberson was speaking a language perfected by advertisers, retailers, religious leaders, government officials, and heads of industry during the fifty years prior.(5) Movie palaces perfectly demonstrate the anxieties, exhilirations, and pitfalls of the culture of consumerism which has become synonymous with the 'American Way.'


Online Brokers Finding It Hard to Hold Customers 
The online trading industry is losing established investors faster than it can replace them. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3101 


Pro-Forma Earnings (Electronic Commerce, e-Commerce, eCommerce)

From the Wall Street Journal's Accounting Educators' Reviews, October 4, 2001
Educators interested in receiving these excellent reviews (on a variety of topics in addition to accounting) must first subscribe to the electronic version of the WSJ and then go to http://209.25.240.94/educators_reviews/index.cfm 

Sample from the October 4 Edition:

TITLE: Sales Slump Could Derail Amazon's Profit Pledge 
REPORTER: Nick Wingfield 
DATE: Oct 01, 2001 
PAGE: B1 
LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1001881764244171560.djm  
TOPICS: Accounting, Creative Accounting, Earnings Management, Financial Analysis, Net Income, Net Profit

SUMMARY: Earlier this year Amazon promised analysts that it will report first-ever operating pro forma operating profit. However, Amazon is not commenting on whether it still expects to report a fourth-quarter profit this year. Questions focus on profit measures and accounting decisions that may enable Amazon to show a profit.

QUESTIONS: 

1.) What expenses are excluded from pro forma operating profits? Why are these expenses excluded? Are these expenses excluded from financial statements prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles?

2.) List three likely consequences of Amazon not reporting a pro forma operating profit in the fourth quarter. Do you think that Amazon feels pressure to report a pro forma operating profit? Why do analysts believe that reporting a fourth quarter profit is important for Amazon?

3.) List three accounting choices that Amazon could make to increase the likelihood of reporting a pro forma operating profit. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of making accounting choices that will allow Amazon to report a pro forma operating profit.

SMALL GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Assume that you are the accounting department for Amazon and preliminary analysis suggest that Amazon will not report a pro forma operating profit for the fourth quarter. The CEO has asked you to make sure that the company meets its financial reporting objectives. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of making adjustments to the financial statements. What adjustments, if any, would you make? Why?

Reviewed 

By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island Reviewed 
By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University Reviewed 
By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic commerce are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm 


Financial Instruments Derivatives Software
"A Shot in the Arm for Derivatives Software," by Barclay Leib, FINANCIAL EXECUTIVE, October 2001, pp. 59-53.   
This magazine from the Financial Executives International (FEI) is not online.

When retired Microsoft executive Gregory Whitten recently coughed up $32 million in late-round financing for derivatives quantitative and modeling firm NumeriX, a flurry of attention rippled through the derivatives software world.  Whitten had been Microsoft's chief software architect and the single most important person in developing Microsoft's Windows application.  Where his dollars now flow could well be an indication of yet another software success story.

NumeriX has long been known for its state-of-the art derivatives risk modeling capabilities.  The company's first claim to fame came in 1996, when it released an extremely fast Monte Carlo pricing and stress-test simulation source code within its "Time-Library Toolkit."  Merrill Lynch & Co. quickly bought this latter product and became NumeriX's initial customer.

Today, the company has 50 of the world's top physicists, mathematicians and software engineers working to solve further mathematical inefficiencies in the derivatives market.  This is the area where someone has to grapple with the manner to appropriately price every new structured product Wall Street wants to invent.  Is it better to use certain models, or is a combination of different models best in specific circumstances?

Paying attention to the robustness of one's derivatives pricing software can be important.  According to Alexander Sokol, chief technology office of NumeriX, "Use the wrong model with overly simplistic assumptions, and you risk ending up with a derivatives valuation that is 10 bid-offered spreads away from their true fair value."  NumeriX's mission is to help its customers avoid such mistakes, and perhaps most importantly, to allow clients to properly house and account for new derivatives without having to rely on any stop-gap spreadsheet solutions.

NumeriX's primary customer list features sophisticated banks and other software vendors.  Like the "Intel Inside" concept, NumeriX's source code has already been integrated as a premium service within the systems of derivatives risk management providers Fenics Ltd. (now part of GFI Group) and Murex, among others.  The firm has also partnered with major accounting firms such as Arthur Andersen and KPMG, and more recently arranged an alliance with global broker Garban Intercapital.

. . . 

 Bouchard specifically envisions that, among other delivery channels, NumeriX will soon be reaching the buy-side world via the Internet as an application services provider (ASP).  Clients will be able to upload or maintain their positions on a NumeriX ASP platform, and be charged a palatable access fee either by the time they spend on the system or by the size of the portfolio being examined.  He promises full FAS 133 accounting compliance as well.


Free service for book search and price comparison from among over 40 bookstore, www.AAABookSearch.com .

Bob Jensen's threads on other book searching sites --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#Books 


Hi Jim,

I did a piece on Professor Farber over a year ago in New Bookmarks and recommended him to be a plenary speaker for the Philadelphia meetings.  I must admit, however, I have not been following his work as of late.  Your message reminds me to take a look.

Bob Jensen

Bob,

I was just wondering if you ever subscribed to Dave Farber's IP email list. If not, I think you would find it fascinating. You can find info about it by going to http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber/  and scrolling down to the "Who am I" section.

Also, I checked out your Camtasia recording that was saved as a Real Player file. Very nice! I also think Camtasia is a great product. I have used it extensively for my distance learning classes, recording all of my lectures using Camtasia and Real Presenter. I think the two of them are a perfect combo. I then burn all the files on to a CD and distribute them to my class. I also make the files available to my regular classes via the web.

Hope all is well with you.

Regards,

Jim Borden 
Villanova University


Psubs.Org: The Personal Submersibles Organization (History, Submarines, Navy, Diving, Oceans)  --- http://www.psubs.org/ 
Includes a link to "Disasters."

To promote and encourage the discussion, design, construction, certification, ownership and use of Personal Submersibles.


The author of a new book on copyright legislation warns, "It's very clear that reckless copyright enforcement can chill speech. The message of my book is that we've gone too far." --- http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,47195,00.html 

As more and more "speech" goes digital and as those digits get locked down with increasingly stronger clickwrap -- copyright and copy protection measures -- speech faces the very impediments the Constitution's framers took pains to avoid, Vaidhyanathan says.

"It's very clear that reckless copyright enforcement can chill speech," he said. "The message of my book is that we've gone too far. There are ways in which the copyright system becomes an engine for democratic culture. But once you increase the protection to an absurd level, you end up having a negative effect on this process."

One day before the attacks, all systems were go on the souped-up revision to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- a bill that proposed to outlaw any digital electronic device or PC that did not have copy protection hardwired into it.

After the attacks, a shift in priorities came that leaves the "Security Systems Standard & Certification Act" (SSSCA) in limbo. Communications Daily now rates the chances that the SSSCA will even show its face on Capitol Hill anytime this session as "unlikely."

That suits Vaidhyanathan just fine.

"The bill as written is so sweeping that it would outlaw Linux -- or any sort of open-source activity," he said. "It would require us to fundamentally change the nature of the personal computer.

"It seems like a really short-sighted policy proposal, and I can't imagine that the personal computer industry is going to stand by and let this happen."

Another development that appeared too late to make the book was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on New York Times v. Tasini, a copyright case that recognized print journalists' right to compensation when their work is republished on the Web.

Vaidhyanathan was "agnostic" about the ruling, especially concerning Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion.

"I really didn't like the fundamentalist tone of Justice Ginsburg's opinion," he said. "She dismissed any appeal to a greater public good in matters of copyright and she made it seem that copyright is only a matter of private -- not public -- interest."

On the other hand, Vaidhyanathan hopes the tone set in Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent can carry forward into future rulings -- and laws.

"Justice Stevens actually wrote one of the most historically informed, nuanced and reasonable opinions I have ever read about copyright," Vaidhyanathan said. "He basically said that copyright is for the public, and we have to take the effects of our decisions into account. It can't just be about the interests of the copyright owners."

See also:
Hollywood Loves Hollings' Bill
New Copyright Bill Heading to DC
New World Order, Copyright Style
Point, Click, Legislate and Play
Everybody's got issues in Politics
Keep an eye on Privacy Matters


Concerned that too many civil liberties would be lost in pursuit of terrorists, lawmakers rewrite anti-terrorism, surveillance legislation to automatically expire in two years --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47230,00.html 


Online Curriculum and Certification
"Online Courses Offered to Smaller Colleges," T.H.E. Journal, September 2001, Page 16 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3621.cfm 

Carnegie Technology Education (CTE) is providing up-to-date curriculum and certification to community and smaller, four-year colleges. The courses are designed by experts in online curriculum development in conjunction with faculty at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science. CTE combines live classroom instruction with online courses delivered over an advanced Web-based system that not only provides access at any time or place, but supports homework, testing, feedback, grading and student-teacher communication.

CTE serves as a mentor to faculty at partner colleges through a unique online process, guiding them throughout the teaching experience and providing help-desk assistance, Internet-based testing, materials and tools. CTE also promotes faculty development at partner institutions by helping faculty keep pace with technology changes and real-world industry demands. The program's online delivery method makes it possible to constantly update course content, as well as continually improve the effectiveness of teaching and testing materials.

By allowing colleges to outsource IT curriculum and faculty training, CTE helps institutions avoid the large investments necessary to build similar capabilities within their department. CTE's curriculum and teacher training can also be a competitive advantage to help colleges attract and retain qualified faculty. Carnegie Technology Education, Pittsburgh, PA, (412) 268-3535, www.carnegietech.org .

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 


I live with so much email that I have avoided buying a full-featured cell phone to interrupt my life at other times..  However, my wife and I do carry what are  called  "SOS Wireless Phones" that have a button for 911 (free anywhere in the US), a button for emergency auto service (I don't recall whether this is free), and a button to bring up "Ernestine" who will direct your call to anywhere in the world for a hefty $1.45 per minute.  Obviously, these are not wireless telephones that we use for anything other than emergencies.  The phones only telephone out and do not receive phone calls.  They run on AA batteries such that we really do not have to sweat keeping the phones charged with an adapter.

What is really nice about a SOS Wireless Phone is the price.  After buying the phone, the cost is about $10 per month per phone.  

If you only want to carry a wireless phone that will make contact with the world in an emergency situation, this is probably the least expensive wireless alternative.  See http://www.sosphone.com/ 

We've been using these for years and are happy with the service.  To be honest, we have only used the phone to call for emergency road service one time.  But we do test the phones by calling "Ernestine" every now an then.


 

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Two CPAs Honored for Lifetime Achievements

The Accounting Hall of Fame inducted Nicholas Dopuch and James Don Edwards into its ranks during the American Accounting Association’s annual meeting in August.

Dopuch, the Moog professor of accounting at Washington University’s Olin School of Business in St. Louis, received this honor in recognition of his writing, vision and energy, which helped shape the development of accounting research over the past four decades.

Edwards earned admission to the Hall of Fame on the basis of his extensive contributions to the profession in both academic and professional settings. He is the Tull Professor of Accounting Emeritus at the University of Georgia’s J.M. Tull School of Accounting.

Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business established the Accounting Hall of Fame in 1950. Since that time, the Hall’s international board of electors has admitted 69 influential and respected accountants from academia, accounting practice, government and business.

 Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, Page 18 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/news1.htm#PEOPLE IN THE NEWS  

As is indicated in auditing and accounting textbooks, AU Section 411, "The Meaning of Present Fairly in Conformity With Generally Accepted Accounting Principles," specifies the "hierarchy of generally accepted accounting principles. That auditing standard states that auditors must be prepared to justify an accounting treatment other than one that is specified by literature that is applicable to the transaction. Thus, in the presence of applicable literature that is clearly on point, auditors would have virtually no choice but to insist that a client follow that literature.

AU Section 411 is clear in specifying that EITF consensus positions are included in the hierarchy of GAAP, although they are considered "level C" GAAP, and do not have the same status as, say, an FASB Statement on the same subject. However, for all practical purposes, EITF consensus positions represent authoritative GAAP that must be followed by all affected companies. I have copied below certain parts of AU 411 that explain this a little more.

Denny Beresford 
University of Georgia


Compensation and Financial Planning Sites
From the Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, Page 23 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/news_web.htm 

Plan for Tomorrow Today
www.adp401k.com

This retirement services site offers detailed explanations of various plans—defined contributions, 401(k) safe harbors, SIMPLE IRAs and executive deferred compensation. It also provides users with overviews and information about the requirements for and contributions to such plans.

A Web-Based Watchdog
www.aflcio.org/paywatch/index.htm

Although a company’s stockholders might not see much of a profit for a given fiscal year, top executives still could receive millions of dollars in salary, bonuses, and stock options. This section of the AFL-CIO site tracks compensation packages for CEOs of corporations in the Standard & Poor’s 1,500 stock index.

A Beneficial Introduction
www.rsgroup.com/html/r_retpln.htm

This section of the Retirement System Group’s site briefly reviews the benefits of various retirement plans, such as IRAs and defined benefit, contribution and nonqualified plans.

Pension Plan Tools
www.psca.org

Magazines, newsletters, research, statistics and survey information, as well as a glossary of terms, are available at the Profit Sharing and 401(k) Advocate site. Frequently asked questions about benefit plans, as well as historical data on the growth of 401(k) eligibility and defined contribution plan participation and assets from the late 1970s to 1999, are also included.

Archived Articles and Alerts
www.rbvdnr.com/eb/articles.htm

The law firm Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren, Norris and Rieselbach offers users information on various topics at this site. It features articles such as “FDIC Regulation Alert—Restrictions on Golden Parachutes and Indemnification Agreements” and “How ‘GATT’ Affects Your Retirement Plans.” The Employee Benefits section features an alert comparing the Treasury’s 2001 and 2000 limits for various types of benefit plans.


Stock options are great as long as the underlying securities rise in price. But if prices slip, the tax burden can be painful. Here’s advice on how to avoid problems.

"Sunk by Options," by Russ Banham, Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, pp. 43-48 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/banham.htm 


A Free Magazine of Literature, Poetry, Biography:  The Spook --- http://www.thespook.com/ 


Entrepreneur Magazine's Best Cities for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur Magazine has teamed with business information specialists Dun & Bradstreet to provide a ranking of the nation's best cities for entrepreneurs. In addition, you can find links to all the nation's states with useful information such as the number of businesses in the state, the number of women-owned and minority-owned businesses, the amount of business turnover, the number of businesses with fewer than 500 employees, a measure of small-business income, and information ranking banks and the percentage of small commercial loans issued in the state. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/58685 

The two cities tied for the top berth are Dallas, noted for a well-trained labor force, strong city leadership, and an extensive transportation network, and Orlando, seen as a high-tech hub with a reasonable cost of living and an attractive climate.

Other cities filling out the top five include West Palm Beach/Boca Raton, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Austin/San Marcos, Texas.

Other information in the survey includes:

In addition, the descriptive material on the site provides links to all the nation's states with useful information such as the number of businesses in the state, the number of women-owned and minority-owned businesses, the amount of business turnover, the number of businesses with fewer than 500 employees, a measure of small-business income, and information ranking banks and the percentage of small commercial loans issued in the state.

For the city rankings, go to http://www.entrepreneur.com/bestcities 

Texas Cities:


All you Einsteins pulling your hair out because you don't know why a shower curtain billows inward will be happy to know that David Schmidt has solved the mystery. No wonder he won the Ig Nobel prize in physics --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47334,00.html 


Is anything in life more frustrating than a pop-up ad that, when you click to close it, causes another one to pop up? The Federal Trade Commission is suing one man responsible for such mischief --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47217,00.html 


"Training System Delivers Accredited Courses." T.H.E. Journal, September 2001, Page 26 --- http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3620.cfm 

The Dynamic Online Training System (DOTS) developed by Australian-based WebRaven has made its way into the U.S. market. The system delivers online, self-paced accredited courses to students, providing them with a cost-effective method and the opportunity to complete their high school certificates via the Internet. DOTS is a fully manageable enrollment, student management, course administration and tuition delivery system for educational institutions. It is an innovative software solution that manages all members of an institution, from content managers, content creators, instructors and students. The system also effectively manages the delivery of training to all members of your institution, and even has the facilities to be e-commerce enabled. In addition, DOTS offers complete flexibility to build your own online courseware using multimedia components such as videos, sound clips, images, PDF files and animated GIFs. Advantages of incorporating DOTS into any institution include the cost savings, easy delivery method via the Internet and less reliability on physical resources. WebRaven, Brisbane, Australia, www.webraven.com .


There is a great review of tax software in the following cover story:

"Ranking the Products," by Stanley Zarowin, Journal of Accountancy, October 2001, pp. 28-32 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/oct2001/zarowin.htm 

Vendor Tax program Address Telephone E-mail address
ATX
Forms
Saber, Max
and Taxsolver
PO Box 1040,
Caribou, ME 04736
800-944-8883 sales@atxforms.com
CCH ProSystem fx 21250 Hawthorne Blvd.,
Torrance, CA 90503
800-457-7639 cust_serv@cch.com
Creative
Solutions
UltraTax 7322 Newman Blvd.,
Dexter, MI 48130
800-968-8900 sales@CreativeSolutions.com
Drake
Software
Drake Tax
Solution
235 E. Palmer St.,
Franklin, NC 28734
800-890-9500 drakeinfo@drake-software.com
Dunphy
Systems
1040 Professional
Tax Preparation
6740 Huntley Rd., Suite 103,
Columbus, OH 43229
614-431-0846 dunphy@dunphy.com
Intuit ProSeries 2535 Garcia Ave.,
Mountain View, CA 94043
800-934-1040 www.proseries.com
Lacerte/Intuit Lacerte 1040
Tax Software
13155 Noel Rd., 22nd Floor,
Dallas, TX 75244
800-765-7777 www.lscsoft.com
Micro Vision
Software
Tax Relief 1040 140 Fell Court,
Hauppauge, NY 11788
800-829-7354 www.microvisioninc.com
Orrtax
Software
IntelliTax 13208 NE 20th St.,
Bellevue, WA 98005
800-377-3337 webmaster@orrtax.com
TaxACT 2nd Story Software 5925 Dry Creek Lane, NE,
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402
800-573-4287 www.taxact.com
Taxworks By
Laser Systems
TaxWorks By
Laser Systems
350 North 400 West,
Kaysville, UT 84037
800-230-2322 www.taxworks.com
Universal
Tax Systems
TaxWise 6 Mathis Dr. NW, PO Box 2729,
Rome, GA 30164
800-755-9473 sales@universalsystems.com
Xpress Software Xpress Individual
Package
P.O. Box 280760,
Columbia, SC 29228
800-285-1065 www.xpresssoftware.com

 


From the University of Pittsburgh:  Terrorism Law and Policy --- http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/terrorism.htm 


German Boer's useful information for entrepreneurs
For more recent updates, see
http://mba.vanderbilt.edu/germain.boer/Creating%20New%20Ventures/mgt754-2001.htm

http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/ --Small Business Administration home page http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/active_data/domestic.html --Regional economic information  
http://www.yellow.com/
--World Wide Yellow Pages.  This is a good place to search for a busi­ness.  You can search by company name, type of business or location.

Some additional links that have useful information.

The MIT Entrepreneurs club has a significant amount of material available for entrepreneurs.  The information ranges from legal to technical.  This link should be on every budding entrepre­neur's list of essential information: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/e-club/e-club-home.html

A web site that keeps track of online auctions is http://www.itrack.com/links.html 

The Los Angeles Times at  http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/SMBIZ/
has lots of stories about new ventures and is worth looking at to get business ideas and to see what kinds of ideas are working.

If you read the sections on Articles and Speeches at this site you will find some great information for first time entrepreneurs.  http://www.accel.com/entrepreneurs/

The question and answer format of this site helps you get an idea of what venture capitalists look for in a new venture.  http://www.garage.com/forums/ventureCapital/qandaArchive.shtml

For help with legal issues, try this site.  It is written for the entrepreneur with no knowledge of the law.  http://sv.findlaw.com/

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting site that focuses on startups.  http://startup.wsj.com/

Bob Jensen Small Business and Entrepreneurial Helpers are at 
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#SmallBusiness
 


Publishing Your Own Newsletter Learn how to publish your own newsletter for fun and profit. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3099 


Zero-Knowledge Systems is ending its pioneering anonymity service on Oct. 22. It's due to lack of sales, not pressure from governments, the company says --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47337,00.html 


Is it the The End of Ma Bell As We Know It? 
AT&T is reportedly in talks with BellSouth about a "merger of equals," and may be close to resuming talks with Comcast over the future of AT&T Broadband. http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,,8_893021,00.html 


Fatal Injuries to Civilian Workers in the United States, 1980-1995 --- 
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/NTOF2000/2001129menu.html
 


"Cell Phones on Campus Advocated Education: Security concerns prompt a drive to reverse a 1988 law that bars students from using the devices at school,"  Los Angeles Times, September 30, 2001 --- http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000078272sep30.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology 


World Almanac for Kids (of all ages) --- http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/ 

Other places to look are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm#08051Glossaries 


Pornography
San Francisco's board of supervisors bans filters at city libraries, lobbing another salvo at those who want public libraries and schools to keep porn away from children --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47283,00.html 


The website is called "GET (some) REAL," and the strategy of its organizers is to wean men away from Net porn and into the real world where, presumably, real women are waiting for real attention --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47326,00.html 

The anti-porn folks spew a lot of hot air denouncing smut on the Internet, from academic discourse on the sexual exploitation of women, to sermon suggestions about the evils of filth to support groups for recovering porn addicts.

But they haven't been able to offer anything but passive resistance to the multi-billion dollar industry that drives Internet traffic. Until now.

Enter a few Swedes who grew tired of sitting on their hands, watching the online smut factory grow in size and power. They created a tool that allows people with similar sentiments to create fake X-rated pages that use cloaking technology to redirect would-be pornophiles to their website, GET (some) REAL.

"We were thinking a long time about what to do about pornography on the Internet, but couldn't come up with anything good," said Marie Birde, who edits the website as well as Darling, a Swedish pop magazine with a feminist bent. "Then we asked, 'what if we do the same thing the porn pages do?'"

The pages take seconds to make -- you simply drag pasties emblazoned with the "GETsomeREAL" logo over the "strategic" areas of female models. When an unsuspecting surfer stumbles across your newly created site, he'll be greeted with the adulterated picture and the manifesto: "Porn's fake, girls are real."

By using the same raunchy terms and meta tags used by the hardcore sites and stringing together thousands of fake pages into a single database, the site should start popping up on search engines very soon.

Birde hopes her unwary visitors learn a lesson, or at least experience a twinge of guilt.

Since the campaign was launched last Friday, nearly 13,000 ersatz pages have been generated. Birde has gotten her share of fan mail and hate mail.

"A lot of people love it, but a lot of people are like 'stay away from our porn, you crazy bitches,'" she said.

The campaign is a collaboration between Darling and Moonwalk, an web-based ad agency based in Stockholm.

Co-founder and creative director Calle Sjönell, is donating his time and talents to the effort.

"We want the guys to get off the screen and meet real girls instead," he said. "The campaign isn't aimed at the ugly guys in their fifties, but at the young guys who are still able to hang out with the real thing."

Moonwalk registered 15 domains with suggestive names, such as Texasboobfest.com, which also redirects users to GetSomeReal.com.

Although they could have simply generated the fake pages themselves, Sjönell said the goal is to raise public awareness by making people throw their own wrenches into the online porn machine, no matter how small.

"I'm against pornography because there's too much drugs and exploitation in it," Sjönell said. "But if people use sex toys together at home and really get off on it, I think that's great."

See also:
Library: We Don't Want No Filters
Separating Students From Smut
Girl Model Sites Crossing Line?
Yahoo in Porn Foe's Sights


The Wealthy:  Forbes Top 400 http://www.forbes.com/2001/09/27/400.html 


"Retinal photographs pinpoint people at high stroke risk," by Eugenie Samuel, NewScientist.com, October 5, 2001 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991388 


When I Am King (Comics, Art, Art History) --- http://www.demian5.com/ 


I think the market leader is GroupSystems (previously Ventana). In fact, I believe that GroupSystems may be the only significant player left in this marketplace. I have used this tool on several occasions and like it a lot. Unfortunately www.ventana.com  is not responding to requests at the moment.

Roger Debreceny [rogerd@NETBOX.COM


Up until a year ago, Israeli and Palestinian startups were showing signs that cooperation was possible in the Middle East. But increased aggressions since last year have rolled back the progress that was being made --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47214,00.html 


The Hidden Drawback of Consolidation 
Internet trust and payment company moves newly aquired clients to own services. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3105 


Recommended Book: Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations

The author presents a model for creating more effective change in an organization by involving everyone in the change process from the beginning. He suggests setting up large conferences with cross-functional, multidisciplinary planning and implementation groups. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576750841/accountingweb 


The End of History is Not in Sight

There is a very interesting editorial in the October 5, 2001 edition of The Wall Street Journal.  Several years ago,  I used his "End of History" book in a First Year Seminar that I taught at Trinity University.

"History Is Still Going Our Way," an Editorial by Francis Fukuyama.
Professor Fukuyama, a professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is author of "The End of History and the Last Man."

What makes this article interesting is how Professor Fukuyama now reasons that he was wrong about liberal democracy's taking over the world, and he gives credit to Samuel Huntington and others for being more accurate about forecasting the political economy of the future.

A stream of commentators has been asserting that the tragedy of Sept. 11 proves that I was utterly wrong to have said more than a decade ago that we had reached the end of history. The chorus began almost immediately, with George Will asserting that history had returned from vacation, and Fareed Zakaria declaring the end of the end of history.

It is on the face of it nonsensical and insulting to the memory of those who died on Sept. 11 to declare that this unprecedented attack did not rise to the level of a historical event. But the way in which I used the word history, or rather, History, was different: It referred to the progress of mankind over the centuries toward modernity, characterized by institutions like liberal democracy and capitalism.

March of History

My observation, made back in 1989 on the eve of the collapse of communism, was that this evolutionary process did seem to be bringing ever larger parts of the world toward modernity. And if we looked beyond liberal democracy and markets, there was nothing else towards which we could expect to evolve; hence the end of history. While there were retrograde areas that resisted that process, it was hard to find a viable alternative type of civilization that people actually wanted to live in after the discrediting of socialism, monarchy, fascism, and other types of authoritarian rule.

This view has been challenged by many people, and perhaps most articulately by Samuel Huntington. He argued that rather than progressing toward a single global system, the world remained mired in a "clash of civilizations" where six or seven major cultural groups would coexist without converging and constitute the new fracture lines of global conflict. Since the successful attack on the center of global capitalism was evidently perpetrated by Islamic extremists unhappy with the very existence of Western civilization, observers have been handicapping the Huntington "clash" view over my own "end of history" hypothesis rather heavily.

I believe that in the end I remain right: Modernity is a very powerful freight train that will not be derailed by recent events, however painful and unprecedented. Democracy and free markets will continue to expand over time as the dominant organizing principles for much of the world. But it is worthwhile thinking about what the true scope of the present challenge is.

It has always been my belief that modernity has a cultural basis. Liberal democracy and free markets do not work at all times and everywhere. They work best in societies with certain values whose origins may not be entirely rational. It is not an accident that modern liberal democracy emerged first in the Christian West, since the universalism of democratic rights can be seen in many ways as a secular form of Christian universalism.

The central question raised by Samuel Huntington is whether institutions of modernity such as liberal democracy and free markets will work only in the West, or whether there is something broader in their appeal that will allow them to make headway in non-Western societies. I believe there is. The proof lies in the progress that democracy and free markets have made in regions like East Asia, Latin America, Orthodox Europe, South Asia, and even Africa. Proof lies also in the millions of Third World immigrants who vote with their feet every year to live in Western societies and eventually assimilate to Western values. The flow of people moving in the opposite direction, and the number who want to blow up what they can of the West, is by contrast negligible.

But there does seem to be something about Islam, or at least the fundamentalist versions of Islam that have been dominant in recent years, that makes Muslim societies particularly resistant to modernity. Of all contemporary cultural systems, the Islamic world has the fewest democracies (Turkey alone qualifies), and contains no countries that have made the transition from Third to First World status in the manner of South Korea or Singapore.

There are plenty of non-Western people who prefer the economic and technological part of modernity and hope to have it without having to accept democratic politics or Western cultural values as well (e.g., China or Singapore). There are others who like both the economic and political versions of modernity, but just can't figure out how to make it happen (Russia is an example). For them, transition to Western-style modernity may be long and painful. But there are no insuperable cultural barriers likely to prevent then from eventually getting there, and they constitute about fourth-fifth's of the world's people.

Islam, by contrast, is the only cultural system that seems to regularly produce people, like Osama bin Laden or the Taliban, who reject modernity lock, stock and barrel. This raises the question of how representative such people are of the larger Muslim community, and whether this rejection is somehow inherent in Islam. For if the rejectionists are more than a lunatic fringe, then Mr. Huntington is right that we are in for a protracted conflict made dangerous by virtue of their technological empowerment.

The answer that politicians East and West have been putting out since Sept. 11 is that those sympathetic with the terrorists are a "tiny minority" of Muslims, and that the vast majority are appalled by what happened. It is important for them to say this to prevent Muslims as a group from becoming targets of hatred. The problem is that dislike and hatred of America and what it stands for are clearly much more widespread than that.

Certainly the group of people willing to go on suicide missions and actively conspire against the U.S. is tiny. But sympathy may be manifest in nothing more than initial feelings of Schadenfreude at the sight of the collapsing towers, an immediate sense of satisfaction that the U.S. was getting what it deserved, to be followed only later by pro forma expressions of disapproval. By this standard, sympathy for the terrorists is characteristic of much more than a "tiny minority" of Muslims, extending from the middle classes in countries like Egypt to immigrants in the West.

This broader dislike and hatred would seem to represent something much deeper than mere opposition to American policies like support for Israel or the Iraq embargo, encompassing a hatred of the underlying society. After all, many people around the world, including many Americans, disagree with U.S. policies, but this does not send them into paroxysms of anger and violence. Nor is it necessarily a matter of ignorance about the quality of life in the West. The suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta was a well-educated man from a well-to-do Egyptian family who lived and studied in Germany and the U.S. for several years. Perhaps, as many commentators have speculated, the hatred is born out of a resentment of Western success and Muslim failure.

But rather than psychologize the Muslim world, it makes more sense to ask whether radical Islam constitutes a serious alternative to Western liberal democracy for Muslims themselves. (It goes without saying that, unlike communism, radical Islam has virtually no appeal in the contemporary world apart from those who are culturally Islamic to begin with.)

For Muslims themselves, political Islam has proven much more appealing in the abstract than in reality. After 23 years of rule by fundamentalist clerics, most Iranians, and in particular nearly everyone under 30, would like to live in a far more liberal society. Afghans who have experienced Taliban rule have much the same feelings. All of the anti-American hatred that has been drummed up does not translate into a viable political program for Muslim societies to follow in the years ahead.

The West Dominates

We remain at the end of history because there is only one system that will continue to dominate world politics, that of the liberal-democratic West. This does not imply a world free from conflict, nor the disappearance of culture as a distinguishing characteristic of societies. (In my original article, I noted that the posthistorical world would continue to see terrorism and wars of national liberation.)

 

The rest of the editorial (for a couple of weeks at least) is at  http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1002238464542684520.djm&template=pasted-2001-10-05.tmpl

 




Good Morning Viet Nam

The Islamic fundamentalists should look for guidance from post-war Viet Nam on how to improve the living conditions of their suffering followers.

In 1972 the war between the United States and Viet Nam ended, and the two countries have been trying to pick up the pieces for decades.  In a war that lasted though two Democratic presidents and parts of the terms of office of two Republican presidents, the main goal was to discourage red tide of a communist take over of Asia.  The U.S. pulled out in military defeat, leaving all of Viet Nam in the hands of the Hanoi-based communist regime.  It is interesting two note what happened to the red tide of communism since 1972.

On a randomly-picked day of October 4, 2001, I examined a small slice of current Viet Nam by reading the Viet Nam News news service on that day.  In this October 9 edition of New Bookmarks, I will feature two articles that surprised me somewhat.  One is an economics article and the other is an article on poetry and love.  Both articles reflect the changing times in economics, politics, fear, love, and hate.  I hope that when the current U.S. war can eventually be declared over, the pieces can be picked up following the post-war lessons learned in Viet Nam.  I hope that when the current U.S. war can eventually be declared over, the pieces can be picked up following the post-war lessons learned in Viet Nam. The long-term disaster in Afghanistan began long before the September 11 terror attacks and will carry on long-after terrorist networks crumble into history. The lasting problems concern economics and the overcoming of hate and fear.

I might note that the Viet Nam News encourages capitalism by carrying daily stock quotations --- http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Home.htm 

Look what happened in the aftermath of the Viet Nam War in a nation now dedicated to peace instead of war.
"F
oreign Investors to Receive New Incentives:  Level Playing Field" 
Viet Nam News, October 4, 2001 --- 
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Update/New.htm#Foreign investors to receive new incentives, level playing field 

HANOI, October 4, 2001 — The Government is planning a fresh slew of incentives to attract foreign investment, including key proposals that would create a level playing field between domestic and foreign-invested projects.

The plans were unveiled by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam at a workshop entitled Heading for Success, held by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the Industry Ministry in Ha Noi on Wednesday.

Deputy PM Cam told the conference – which included leaders of central and local administrative bodies and representatives from 150 foreign-invested industrial firms – that foreign-invested enterprises were an integral and dynamic component of the country’s economy.

He said foreign investors’ success in production and business was also the success of the entire nation.

Cam lauded the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector for its rapid growth since the promulgation of the Foreign Investment Law in 1988, and its crucial contributions to raising the national economy’s efficiency and competitiveness.

FDI accounts for a quarter of the country’s total investment and 34 per cent of its industrial output.

Foreign firms earn 23 per cent of the country’s annual export revenue (excluding oil and gas) and some 13 per cent of gross domestic product.

The Government has issued several policies to lure foreign investment. These have included the revised Foreign Investment Law enacted in July 2000; the export-governing mechanism for the 2001-05 period; and resolutions on attracting further FDI from now until 2005.

The Deputy PM also called for prompt measures to address outstanding problems hindering the inflow of FDI capital-particularly any obstacles to the efficiency and efficacy of foreign investors’ operations.

He singled out the inadequate and inconsistent legal system, the absence of close co-ordination between relevant State bodies, and the proliferation of cumbersome and overlapping administrative procedures.

Cam also dwelt upon the absence of several key foundations of a fully-fledged market economy, and the immaturity of the country’s labour force, securities industry, property sector, and science and technology.

"The quality of consultancy, insurance and auditing services needs to be improved, alongside greater investment in socio-economic infrastructure," he said.

The deputy PM asked provincial authorities to research and solve problems faced by FDI enterprises, and report them to the prime minister when higher-level intervention was required.

Industrial sector looks forward

Speaking at the workshop, Industry Minister Dang Vu Chu presented a report on the industrial sector’s development orientations for the 2001-10 period.

To achieve an annual growth rate of 12-13 per cent in the next 10 years, Chu said, the industrial sector needed US$50-60 billion worth of investment capital.

Of this, 60 per cent would come from domestic sources and the rest would be supplied by offshore investors.

Chu laid out key annual production targets for 2010 across a range of major industries.

The output targets included 69-71 billion kWh of electricity (up 170 per cent on 2000); 34-35 million tonnes of oil (up 90 per cent); 17-19 million tonnes of clean coal (80 per cent); 30-32 million tonnes of cement (170 per cent); 4-4.5 million tonnes of steel; and 0.9-1 billion metres of fabric (140 per cent).

The plans say that locally-made machine parts are to account for 60-70 per cent of machinery and equipment assembled in the country by 2010.

Chu highlighted some key projects calling for foreign investment in the oil and gas industry.

These included the Nam Con Son gas pipeline catering for the Phu My gas-power-urea industrial complex; oil refineries No. 1 and 2; petro-chemical plants; and the south-west gas pipeline servicing the Ca Mau gas-power-fertiliser complex.

By 2010, the country’s total electricity capacity will reach 11,800 MW, generated by hydro-power, coal, gas and renewable energies (including solar, wind and geo-thermal energy).

The high-voltage grid will be extended to different regions, and active preparations will be made for the construction of the 3,600 MW Son La hydro-power plant.

The coal industry will spend more money on high-tech exploration and extraction, while in-depth investment is also needed for existing and newly built steel mills specialising in the production of embryo steel, rolled steel sheets and other products.

Further investment and resources will also be required in the mining industry, with untapped potential to explore ores like bauxite, aluminium, copper, lead, zinc and tin.

The engineering, electronics, telecommunications and vehicle industries require more investment to develop and upgrade production and assembly facilities that will ensure higher quality products with more competitive prices.

The Government will also inject capital to invigorate other industries such as textiles, paper, food processing, high-quality building materials and glassware.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Vu Huy Hoang told the meeting that more than 3,600 FDI projects have been licensed in Viet Nam to date, with a total registered capital of $41 billion.

Of these, 2,900 projects are still valid and have aggregate capital of $37.7 billion.

So far, $20 billion (or 44 per cent of total registered capital) has been disbursed.

By September 2001, 1,841 FDI projects in the industrial sector had been licensed, accounting for 63.6 per cent of the country’s project total, with a combined registered capital of $20.19 billion.

Representatives of LG-MECA (Republic of Korea), Vedan (Taiwan), Nghi Son Cement (a joint venture with Japan), Honda (Japan), VMEP (Taiwan), Sony (Japan), and Ford (the US) contributed their ideas on making improvements to the legal and regulatory framework.

They gave input on Resolution 9 on foreign investment, Decision 46 on export-import activities, and the timetable of import tax reductions for the country’s admission into the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) programme.

The foreign investors also offered solutions to the problems facing their production and business operations in the country.

A Story Poetry and Love From Viet Nam
Talk About Town, by Le Huang, Viet Nam News, October 1, 2001 --- 
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2001-09/29/Columns/Talk%20Around%20Town.htm
 

A short-sighted boy wanders along a quiet street after the rain. He opens and closes his hand lazily, catching the cool drops of water that fall from the leaves above.

Suddenly, he erupts into verse: a sweet composition inspired by the memory of a beautiful girl.

It’s a romantic scene straight out of the genre of love poetry, something often considered a luxury in the daily grind of life.

What would you think if you came across this boy on the street? Is it only the insane who mutter on the street and compose love poems?

I had asked myself this question more than once before I came across my mother’s treasure – stashed carefully away in a corner of her wardrobe.

No, it’s not precious jewelry or even money but a pile of faded paper.

It’s the unique collection of love poems composed by my father during their courtship more than 20 years ago.

"Even now I cannot understand how I could compose so many poems," my father admitted.

He had never before been struck by the creative power of romance. My mother was his first love.

But he composed these verses naturally, as if he were well-practised in the art of poetry. And his inspiration, he told me, was the mood for love.

Some of my friends, touched by tender romance, shared the same interesting psychological phenomenon.

"It’s not just happiness, sorrow can also fire up a romantic soul," said one friend who has once or twice dabbled in poetry.

A colleague of mine realised his son’s soul was captured by the charms of a female when he found some draft love poems scribbled in a notebook.

The man, in his mid-40s, understands his son very well. Poetry is a natural way for an artistic soul to give vent to its emotions, he said.

The young boy is lucky to escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life by creating a poetic, mythical land.

But most of today’s young have no time for such contemplative thoughts.

An acquaintance of mine admitted she had never composed nor received love poetry, although she has fallen in love with more than one man.

"Young people live fast and practical lives nowadays," she said, "How can we find the time or place for romantic words?"

But some people have adapted a very modern medium to convey their old-fashioned sentiments.

A recent survey found that nearly 50 per cent of young urban residents expressed their love through emails.

"It gets straight to the point," an Internet user told me, "and it’s simple, so it avoids misunderstanding."

And there are other – more traditional – ways to express one’s love, you can say it with flowers or other gifts.

"Give beautiful flowers or practical gifts, that is a better strategy than a poem which beats around the bush and takes time to decipher," another friend said.

But we cannot simply blame the fast pace of life for snuffing out the flame of romance in our souls.

One friend of mine, recently returned from a western country, told me that absence had made his heart grow fonder and he was, once again, composing love poems to his girlfriend.

He managed this romantic venture despite a packed study schedule. "Verses popped into my mind again, just as they did when our love was new," he revealed. "Our love is far more romantic, even though we are physically far apart."

He believes that every person has an artistic, romantic streak inside. All it takes to become a poet is to love and dream.

Do you believe? I am not so sure that everyone has the ability to compose beautiful love poems.

But why not try. Summon up a memory of a loveable smile, alluring eyes or the fragrance of long hair wafting in the wind.

Maybe we can all nurture a little piece of beauty in the depths of our soul.

As a poet once said: "Verse is the voice from the soul,

Verse is the voice from the heart,

Verse creates uncountable wings of birds,

That take us flying to find our dreams..."


Question:  
What is the most important single ingredient to the success of any economy?

Answer:  
Contract enforcement that minimizes fraud, extortion, and confiscation of investment and income.  This is why Viet Nam is becoming a better place to invest than in many (most?) other parts of the world.  Any nation such as Singapore  that abides by contract enforcement has much brighter economic prospects than nations (Russia and China come to mind) that allow criminals to ruin the prospects of contract enforcement.  This includes contracting for human justice as well as economic justice.  Set the terms in advance and abide by your promises.  

I suspect this is why Viet Nam is making a concerted effort to "level the playing field."  (See above)

The Viet Nam News homepage is at http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Home.htm 



And that's the way it was on October 10, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 


If you know any accounting educators with helpful materials on the web, please ask them to link their materials  in the American Accounting Association's Accounting Coursepage Exchange (ACE) web site at
http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aaa/ace/index.htm
Please send these professors email messages today and urge them to share as much as they can with the academy by easily registering their course pages with ACE.

 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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October 2, 2001

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on October 2, 2001
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
 

You can change the viewing size of fonts by clicking on the View menu item in your browser. 

Scroll down this page to view this week's new bookmarks. 

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

Robert W. Jensen contends that the United States deserves every terrorist act that can be inflicted upon it and is using the September 11 attacks as an excuse to further ignite the U.S. into a revolution against corporate America and capitalism.  

I am not Robert W. Jensen from the University of Texas --- See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/justiceappeal.htm 

Janet Flatley noted the following from The Wall Street Journal on September 16, 2001 --- http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001149 

Another J-prof, Robert Jensen (that's Robert W. Jensen) of the University of Texas, somehow persuades the Houston Chronicle to publish a scurrilous article arguing that America is "just as guilty" as the perpetrators of Tuesday's atrocity:

This act (attack on the U.S. on September 11) was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism--the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes--that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime. For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism. And it has supported similar acts of terrorism by client states.

Janet wrote the following:

Thank you so much for your clarification about the "other" Prof. Jensen.  I sent your email to the editor of www.opinionjournal.com Best of the Web because of the item it carried 2 weeks ago (see link above).  I don't know if they will publish it, but they have been very forthright about correcting/clarifying previous items.

All these matters are, in normal times, the subject of legitimate dispute. But we are at war. This is not the time to fight old foreign-policy battles.

 Janet Flatley

Special Song of the Week from Anne Murray --- http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/goodnews/main.html 

Anne Murray's song goes like this:

I rolled out this morning
The kids had the morning news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
Some senator was squawking about the bad economy
It's gonna get worse you see
We need a change in policy.
There's a local paper rolled up in the rubber band
One more sad story's one more I can stand
Just once how I'd like to see the headline say
Not much to print today, can't find nothing bad to say.

Because ... nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today.

I'll come home this evening
I bet that the news will be the same
Somebody takes a hostage, somebody steals a plane
How I wanna hear the anchor man, talk about a county fair
And how we cleaned up the air, how everybody learned to care.

Oh tell me ... nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
And in the streets of Ireland, all the children had to do was play
And everybody loves everybody in the good ol' USA
We sure could use a little good news today.

Links to hear the above song (the audio will only work with some computers):

http://www.friendsinneed.com/littlenews.htm 

http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/bush/1092/lyrics/goodnews.html 

Quotes of the Week 

All of the following quotations were forwarded by Jagdish Gangolly

Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing. 
A. Einstein

It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks. 
A. Einstein

In childhood we learn our lessons with the aid of both body and mind, with all the senses active and eager. When we are sent to school, the doors of natural information are closed to us; our eyes see the letters, our ears hear the abstract lessons, but our mind misses the perpetual stream of ideas from nature, because the teachers, in their wisdom, think these bring distraction, and have no purpose behind them. 
R. Tagore

On his experience at school: "We had to sit like dead specimens of some museum, while lessons were pelted at us from on high, like hailstorms on flowers". 
R. Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, 
Where knowledge is free; 
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; 
Where words come out from the depth of truth; 
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; 
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; 
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action into that heaven of freedom, 
My Father, let my country awake.

From:Rabindrananth Tagore, A Tagore Reader, ed. Amiya Chakravarty, 1961 The Macmillan Company




The goals that Usama bin Laden lays out in his own words are at  http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
Also see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17451-2001Sep24.html 

Government reports and intelligence experts have been warning for years that Osama bin Laden has been trying to build one, but nobody is saying publicly whether he's been successful --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47158,00.html 
Some think he may have the "suitcase nuke" ready or close to ready for deployment.

CIA World Factbook 2001 --- http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html 
The facts speak for themselves.

Bob Jensen’s Commentaries, Quotations, and Links Regarding the Latest U.S. War http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JusticeAppeal.htm 


MIT analyzes the media coverage of the terrorism attack and its aftermath
re-constructions --- http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/introduction.html 

re:constructions is an on-line resource and study guide, designed to spark discussions and reflections about the media's role in covering the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath. As millions of people around the world sit glued to their television sets, even as we write, we feel it is important to encourage critical analysis of the words, images, and stories which fill the media - as well as the ones we are not hearing or seeing. We hope this site will be used to help inform discussions in schools, places of worship, union halls, civic gatherings, and homes as people struggle to make sense of what is happening and to sort through their competing emotions about these events.

We are not offering answers here so much as encouraging people to ask hard questions before they rush to judgement and action. We do not present these essays as the work of experts - although in some cases we have included pieces from important commentators, past and present. Most of us are still learning how to think critically and theoretically about the media ourselves. All of us are too torn apart by these events to have any certainty about the adequacy of our words and our knowledge to respond to such a situation. But, we want to share what we know and what we think and what we feel. We want to see if these ideas might be useful in helping someone else begin a similar process of exploration and examination.



Teachers in Michigan are starting the school year with their own computers, thanks to a new technology initiative paid for by the state --- http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,46987,00.html 


Scott Bonacker forwarded the following link to a Yale University site --- http://buster.cs.yale.edu/implicit/index.html 

Implicit Association Test (IAT):  Unconscious roots of thinking and feeling.

The IAT was originally developed as a device for exploring the unconscious roots of thinking and feeling. This web site has been constructed for a different purpose -- to offer the IAT to interested individuals as a tool to gain greater awareness about their own unconscious preferences and beliefs.

Many years ago, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote: "Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret.  But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."   This quote from Dostoyevsky captures two themes to which that IAT relates:  First, that our private attitudes may not always be ones that we are willing to express publicly.  Second, that our attitudes may not even be accessible to our own conscious thought and feeling

It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds', and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds'. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology. This web site presents a new method that demonstrates public-private and conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. It also displays the method in a do-it-yourself demonstration form. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.

In addition to several do-it-yourself demonstrations of the IAT, this site contains various related information. The value of the demonstrations may be greatest if you try at least one by clicking below before browsing the rest of the site.

Click here for preliminary information about the available IAT demonstrations, to help you decide whether or not to try them, and which to try.

Note: Your browser must support Java Applets to try one of the IATs (WebTV is not yet able to support Applet technology). For best viewing, turn your brightness setting to maximum and be sure that text and background color overrides on your browser are turned off.

Problems completing an IAT
General comments about the IAT
Bibliography of relevant articles


"Would You Mind If We Fingerprint Your Brain?," y Dave McGowan February 24, 2001 --- http://davesweb.cnchost.com/brainfingerprinting.htm 

Nothing is ever done for the good of the people, even when appearances may indicate otherwise. That is one of the inviolate rules of politics that must be applied when attempting to interpret any significant action, event or trend. A corollary to that rule is: any new technology will be used to the detriment - and never the benefit - of the people.
        There is a consensus opinion developing though that the routine acceptance of DNA evidence in U.S. courts of law would be an exception to these rules. DNA evidence, we are told, is a way to right egregious miscarriages of justice. Indeed, crusading attorneys like Barry Scheck have built high-profile careers out of freeing the wrongly convicted. It is not likely though that exonerating the innocent is the ultimate goal of the DNA crowd. Emptying out the country's prisons doesn't seem to be real high on the state's priority list.
        To the contrary, finding new ways - as well as new reasons - to incarcerate America seems to be the order of the day. The freeing of the falsely convicted makes for a nice way to sell DNA technology to the general public, however. It also makes for a nice way to sell another new technology -- 'Brain Fingerprinting.' In case you haven't heard, Brain Fingerprinting is a way to actually read a suspect's mind and determine whether or not he has committed a crime...
        That is the claim made by the creator and chief proponent of the new technology, anyway. As 60 Minutes reported on December 12th, 2000, allegedly 'civilian' scientist Larry Farwell "says that by analyzing the brain waves of a criminal suspect, he can tell whether or not that individual has committed a crime."

      

"Highlights of CBS 60 Minutes Featuring Brain Fingerprinting," Mike Wallace, December 10, 2000 --- http://www.brainwavescience.com/Highlight60Minutes.htm 

MIKE WALLACE: Tonight, an improbable story about a revolutionary new technology called Brain Fingerprinting that has caught the interest of both the CIA and the FBI. It is the creation of Dr. Larry Farwell, a scientist from Iowa, who says that by analyzing the brain waves of a criminal suspect, he can tell whether or not that individual has committed a crime. Dr. Farwell believes Brain Fingerprinting could one day be as effective as DNA in helping police investigate crimes, and in helping free those who have been wrongly convicted.


The Federal Reserve has a new site to aid in teaching economics and finance --- http://www.kc.frb.org/fed101html/

The Federal Reserve Today -- What our Nation's Central Bank is All About...

History - important events before and after the Federal Reserve was formed. Banking Supervision - the Federal Reserve as a bank regulator.
Structure - the organization of the Federal Reserve including the FOMC, Board of Governors and Advisory Councils. Financial Services - Federal Reserve Banks provide products and services to your bank and the Treasury.
Monetary Policy - how the Federal Reserve affects interest rates. Quiz yourself on Federal Reserve facts
 

"Higher Education in the Digital Age: Planning for an Uncertain Future," by Diane Harley,  Syllabus Magazine, September 2001 --- http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?ID=4769 

No "One-Size-Fits-All" Model for the Future

How should universities balance their role of serving an evolving on-site student demographic and exploring new, potentially for-profit models of online education? They must first assume that future campus populations will represent a mix of residential and off-site students who will expect an innovative blend of ICTs in their courses. And they should continue to experiment, because university experimentation and evaluation will be an essential contributor to our knowledge about what does and does not work in online distributed education. To paraphrase President Emeritus of Stanford University Gerhard Casper, university experiments should:

Be developed within the context of the residential university Facilitate the production of high-quality software and infrastructure that enhance teaching (expensive, and to date there has been too little investment) Monitor the quality of learning more closely Test whether online education can substitute for classroom experience (a complex task) Test what sources of revenue can cover the costs of both experimentation and scaling. Second, university leadership should be very clear about institutional goals and possible market niches when planning to serve off-site students. Our ongoing work at CSHE suggests that there are a number of key issues to consider when thinking about the costs and benefits of entering into the expensive and fast-changing world of online residential and off-site distance education. We are all aware of the emergence in the past few years of a diverse array of online education models—for-profit ventures (Fathom.com, NYU Online), equity stakes in external companies (University of Chicago, Columbia University, UNext.com), university consortia (Universitas 21, WGU, University Alliance for On-line Learning), licensing agreements (Pearson, McGraw-Hill), and most recently, the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative. To disentangle this world, types of institutions and their missions, as well as the technologies themselves, must be disaggregated. Choices that make sense for an extension arm of a research university or a well-focused proprietary institution such as the University of Phoenix, may be entirely different from choices that are realistic for a community college or a small residential institution.

We can safely predict an ongoing market for residential higher education and the unique socialization and networking roles it serves. Such institutions will primarily invest in technologies that enhance their regular course offerings; perhaps secondarily (if at all) getting into the online distance learning business. Others may see the online market as an important new source of students and funds, and will thus capitalize heavily in new ventures to be at the forefront of the predicted boom in global online education. Successful models will provide a flexible mixed or hybrid mode (varying proportions of online and face-to-face methods) for teaching and learning. Whatever model emerges for a particular institution should be the result of careful planning and reflect a synthetic approach that includes wise use of the existing and cutting-edge technologies and is customized to the subject matter, to student needs and schedules, and to the institution’s mission, goals, and budgets.


From Infobits on September 28, 2001

ONLINE LEARNING VERSUS CLASSROOM LEARNING

Much research into the efficacy of online learning over classroom learning has been anecdotal and of questionable quality, leading to inconclusive results and the need for further study. Two recent articles in the JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT address this question of efficacy.

Terrence R. Redding and Jack Rotzein ("Comparative Analysis of Online Learning Versus Classroom Learning," Journal of Interactive Instruction Development, vol. 13, no. 4, Spring 2001, pp. 3-12) compare the learning outcomes associated with three classroom groups and an online community college group in pre-licensing insurance training. They conclude that "online instruction could be highly effective" and that a "higher level of cognitive learning was associated with the online group." They also note that higher achievements of the online group can be attributed to the self-selected nature of the students, the instructional design of the online course, and the motivation associated with adult learners. Redding and Rotzein recommend that further studies be conducted in other fields of study to see if their results can be replicated in other professions or disciplines.

In the same issue Kimberly S. Dozier (Assistant Professor of English, Dakota State University) urges restraint in rushing to replace traditional classroom courses with online classes ("Affecting Education in the On-Line 'Classroom': The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," ," Journal of Interactive Instruction Development, vol. 13, no. 4, Spring 2001, pp. 17-20). She cautions educators "not to forget what makes us teachers and what makes us learners. We must not forget the limitations of technology and we must not assume that an on-line course duplicates a traditional course." One of the aspects of learning that she fears may be missing in some online learning experiences is self-reflection as students are "simply responding to a specified task and moving on to the next one."

Note: neither article is available on the Web. Check with your college or university library to obtain copies.

Journal of Interactive Instruction Development [ISSN 1040-0370] is published quarterly by the Learning Technology Institute, 50 Culpeper Street, Warrenton, VA 20186 USA; tel: 540-347-0055; fax: 540-439-3169; email: info@lti.org; Web: http://www.lti.org/ 


IS THE CLASSROOM A DIRTY WORD?

With seminars, trade shows, and magazines emphasizing online learning, Elliott Masie, President of The MASIE Center, worries, "Is the classroom a dirty word? Does classroom training suffer from a public relations or self-concept problem?" In "Does the Classroom Have a Self-Concept Problem? A TechLearn 2001 Think Piece," he presents several situations in which the classroom can be a more appropriate learning setting:

-- the learning activity involves discussion or live role modeling;

-- the learning target is a motor skill that requires the use of equipment;

-- the audience is small and it is easier and cheaper to put a subject matter expert with a learner, than to produce a digital learning module that will be used by just a few people;

-- the bulk of the content is gained from a Socratic dialogue with fellow learners.

The article, from the TechLearn Trends on-line newsletter, is available online at http://www.masie.com/masie/default.cfm?trends=253&page=trendsdisplay 

TechLearn Trends is published by The MASIE Center Learning and Technology e-Lab & ThinkTank, 95 Washington St., Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 USA; tel: 518-350-2200; fax: 518-587-3276; email: emasie@masie.com; Web: http://www.masie.com/ 


To subscribe to the free email version of TechLearn Trends, link to http://www.masie.com/masie/default.cfm?page=techlearntrends 


"What makes the new technologies worth embracing? Why should institutions of higher education undertake the major investments that are involved? What makes the Internet more than just the latest in a long chain of technological innovations -- including radio and television -- that have fallen short of inflated expectations in the realm of advanced learning?" Tripathi's essay is a preview from a forthcoming anthology on digital education. The article is available on the Web at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/a_tripathi_1.html 

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm 


"Wired colleges block in-class Net browsing," USA Today, September 26, 2001 --- http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001/09/25/classroom-browsing.htm 

Two colleges on the cutting edge of Internet technology are now pioneering solutions to a rapidly growing problem: students who pay more attention to their computers than to their professors.

Bentley and Babson colleges were among the first in the nation to wire their classrooms for the Internet. And now they're spending tens of thousands of dollars on software and hardware that lets professors block some Internet access in classrooms with network connections.

"Faculty members were finding students surfing the Net, sending instant messages, even looking at porn in some of the freshman intro classes," said Phillip Knutel, Bentley's director of academic technology.

As another deterrent, some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see.

The software doesn't censor which sites a student can visit on the Internet. Instead, a professor can choose whether classes have access to the entire Internet or just the school's internal network. Professors can also block out e-mail and instant messaging.

Babson math professor Joe Aieta said his students have told him the temptation to use the Internet during class is too great when it is at their fingertips. That's why Aieta occasionally limits their access.

"They think they can keep up with the classwork while sending and receiving messages," Aieta said. "But they acknowledged that it didn't always work so well."

Babson freshman Patrick Lehner, 19, said the network-blocking software doesn't bother him that much.

"Are students here happy or proud about it? Probably not," he said. "But there's a good lesson to be learned from it. It might help rebuild people's habits so that they focus more (on class)."

Bentley, which in 1985 became one of the first U.S. colleges to require undergraduates to have computers, first implemented the blocking technology in classrooms in the last academic year. Babson had a primitive version of the software installed three years ago.

Cabletron, a Rochester, N.H.-based company founded by Babson alumnus Craig Benson, developed the original Babson blocking program. Enterasys, a subsidiary of Cabletron, developed Bentley's program and recently upgraded the one at Babson. Both schools were involved in the development.

Lois Brooks, director of the Academic Technology Specialist program at Stanford University, said she doesn't know of any other school that is doing what Babson and Bentley have done.

"I've heard people talk about this, but I haven't heard it go beyond the speculation stage," she said.

Some schools have been trying less sophisticated solutions to the problem.

The University of Virginia has installed switches in its business school classrooms that kill access to computer networks. But the switches aren't well-hidden, and students who know where they are can flip them back on.

Other schools, such as UCLA, last year banned Internet connections in its required, core classes. And Columbia last year expanded its "integrity code" to include a student promise to "use technology in the classroom only as it is directly relevant to the material being discussed."

So far, no tech-savvy student has been able to crack Bentley's or Babson's software, according to Knutel and Aieta.

Aieta plans to ask his students to try to crack the program in order to test its security, figuring that's what they'd be trying to do anyway.

"If you have denied access, and if the student thinks they can somehow get it back, they will try everything," Aieta said. "They've never seen a button they didn't want to push."


2001/9/17 -- List of 28 new ERIC Digests --- http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/index/2001-9-17.html 

Studies of particular interest in higher education include the following:

ED451860 Adult Women in Community Colleges. ERIC Digest
ED451859 Minority Student Retention and Academic Achievement in Community Colleges. ERIC Digests
ED451760 The Changing Nature of the Academic Deanship. ERIC Digest.
ED451841 Facilitating Responsibility for Learning in Adult Community College Students. ERIC Digest.
ED451855 International Students at Community Colleges. ERIC Digest.
ED451733 Reflective Teaching Practice in Adult ESL Settings. ERIC Digest.
ED451277 Practitioner Assessment of Conflict Resolution Programs. ERIC Digest Number 163.
ED449637 Assessment of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students for Special Education Eligibility. ERIC Digest #E604.
ED449633 The Warning Signs of Learning Disabilities. ERIC Digest #E603.

I Love Camtasia

I have generated some video aids for my students using Camtasia.  Camtasia is fantastic for showing and explaining something technical such as the application of software or the explanation of homework problems and illustrations in accounting.  Camtasia will capture successions of screen changes and cursor movements on your computer screen.  Camtasia will also capture your voice explanations as you go along.  It will also make audio sounds when you click on the mouse or type on the keyboard.  You may highlight cursor movements for the video.  You can also dub audio, pictures, and video clips into a video that you captured at an earlier point in time.

Since the Camtasia reader and the compression codec files for playing Camtasia avi files were not installed on any of the Trinity University lab computers, I was worried that my students could not see and hear the video helpers that I created.  Then I discovered that the Camtasia Producer that accompanies the Camtasia recorder will convert the captured avi files into RealMedia (rm) files.  The benefits of converting the avi files to rm files include the following:

I have placed a Camtasia avi file and a RealMedia file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/camtasiaSample/ 
Unless you have installed the Camtasia reader, you probably will prefer to download the RealMedia version of this sample video capture of Exercise 03-07 of the Perry and Schneider book on Accounting Information Systems.

Be patient when downloading the above files.  The avi version is 29 Mb and the RealMedia version is 14.7 Mb.

Camtasia from TechSmith is described at http://www.techsmith.com/ 

Also see the following article praising the pedagogy of Camtasia:

      "A Hassle-free and Inexpensive Way to 'Videotape' Class Lectures," by Rene Leo E. Ordonez,   
      EDUCAUSE Review, September/October 2001, pp. 14-15 --- http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm.html 


Forwarded by Ed Scribner
"How I (Finally) Got My Calculus I Students to Read the Text," by Tommy Ratliff --- http://www.maa.org/t_and_l/exchange/ite3/reading_ratliff.html 

Last fall, I gave short two-minute (or so I hoped) quizzes at the beginning of class, asking one of the reading questions. As the semester went on, I became increasingly dissatisfied with the results. Quiz time stretched to five or ten minutes, and I saw very little difference in the students' preparation. My hope had been that the quizzes would provide motivation for completing the reading, but instead the quizzes themselves became the focus.

This spring I had students email me their answers to reading questions prior to each class. I was able to quickly review their answers and gain some idea of areas that needed extra attention. To keep my in-box manageable, students gave their messages a specific subject line which I used to filter their assignments into a separate mail box.

I was very pleased with the results. The class average was 23 out of 28 assignments, which means that 19 out of 23 students in the class answered questions for each assignment. As a result, the class as a whole was better prepared for each class meeting than any other calculus class I have taught.

One of the most surprising results was that the students seemed more willing to write complete sentences and express complete thoughts when using email than with handwritten work. The lack of symbols on the keyboard was a decided advantage. For example, in a handwritten assignment, many students would explain Newton's Method by giving the formula xn+1 = xn - f(xn)/f'(xn) and hope that would be enough. However, the difficulty of entering mathematical notation via the keyboard, combined with the ease of editing their answers, made most students prefer using complete sentences to writing a few cryptic comments. In this case, technology, in particular, the limitations of technology, encourages the students' mathematical development.

For example, one student's response to the questions from February 17 was:

1. The term "locally linear" means that at a certain point in a function, if you zoom in enough, the function will appear to be a straight line, even if the function is a curve. This allows us to estimate the slope of a curve to give us the derivative.

2. The derivative of f(x)=|x| does not exist at 0 because that equation is not locally linear. No matter how much you zoom in on the graph, the kink will always be at the origin. You can't find the slope at this point, therefore there is no derivative of f(0) for this function.

While the last sentence is not technically correct, it is clear this student had put in much thought.

From April 7, one student responded with:

1. The purpose of Newton's Method is to simply and efficiently find a root of some function. It is also used because oftentimes it is impossible to find roots algebraically.

2. The idea behind Newton's Method is that you start with 'one approximation to a root' and then find another better approximation. In Newton's Method you find successive approximations to eventually find the root, r.

Another responded with:

1.The purpose of Newton's Method is to approximate the root of a function that can not be easily solved algibraically (sic).

2. I really don't understand exactly how Newton's method works or the idea behind it.

The last response, and others like it, gave me worthwhile information on what to expect in class. I spent less time than in previous semesters defining basic terms and discussing basic examples. In their course evaluations, students indicated that these assignments were a lot of work, and even tedious at times, but most felt the readings were very useful for understanding the course material.

To keep the evaluation manageable, I graded the assignments on a binary scale (1 or 0). This took me about 15 minutes per assignment. (All three responses above scored a 1.) These assignments counted 5% of their final grade, which was just enough so most students did them, while not being overly worried about the grading.


Pseudocsience Versus the Real Thing --- New from the National Academy Press

"Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins (2001)," National Academy Press --- http://search.nap.edu/books/030907309X/html/ 

Front Matter
i-iv
Contents
v-vi
Prologue
vii-xiv
1 The Road to Reality: Scientific Method
1-12
2 Scientific Reasoning in Action
13-30
3 The Road to Reality Versus the Road to Illusion
31-48
4 UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Life Hypothesis
49-70
5 Out-of-Body Experiences and Entities
71-92
6 The Astrology Hypothesis
93-120
7 The Creationism Hypothesis
121-144
8 Normal Sensory Perception, Extrasensory Perception, and Psychokinesis
145-166
9 Reflections on the Scientific Approach to Reality
167-186
Epilogue
187-190
Glossary
191-208
Additional Reading
209-214
Index
215-22

 


Banned Books and Other Literature

Interesting projects for some courses might include such assignments as the following:

Banned Books Week (From the American Library Association) --- http://www.ala.org/bbooks/ 
Celebrate Your Freedom to Read September 22–29, 2001
Develop Yourself: Expose Your Mind to a Banned Book

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books --- http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top100bannedbooks.html 
The top 20 listed are as follows:

  • Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
  • Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
  • Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
  • Forever by Judy Blume
  • Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  • Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  • Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
  • My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry
  • It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
  • Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
  • A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  • Sex by Madonna
  • Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel

Banned Books Links --- http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbookslinks.html 


Young Muslims who wanted to learn about "bone breaking" and how to make explosives won't be able to visit a London-based website anymore, because authorities closed it.
"England Closes Extremist Site," Wired News, October 4, 2001 --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47307,00.html 

A website offering young Muslims the chance to learn all about explosives and the "art of bone breaking" was shut down this week under a new British crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Police sources told Reuters on Thursday that the closure of the London-based Sakina Securities website followed the arrest on Monday of one of its instructors on terrorism charges.

The 43-year-old alleged Sakina instructor -- police refuse to name him -- is one of two men being held on terrorism charges in Britain as it tightens the net on militants.


Should I be banned from calling your attention to CD-DA Extractor?

How to copy all or parts of most any CD
CD-DA Extractor ---  http://www.poikosoft.com/cdda/index.html 

Easy CD-DA Extractor includes three programs:

Features include:

Bob Jensen's threads for creating CDs and recording MP3 files are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources 


Tips for Improving the GMAT Score
Here's a resource for business school applicants who wish to improve their performance on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT). You'll find tips for maximizing your performance on the four-hour exam as well as sample questions. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/58154 


Efficient Systems are More Fragile

"Flight Ban Slows 'Just in Time' Factories," by Scott Thurm, Rick Brooks, and Jeffrey Ball, The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2001, page B3 LINK: http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1000336853689369570.djm  TOPICS: Just-In-Time Inventory Management, Managerial Accounting, Inventory Systems


Wow Helper Site of the Week 
Vidya Ananthanarayanan called my attention to this site from Illinois Online Network --- http://illinois.online.uillinois.edu/IONresources/instructionaldesign/index.html 

ION Articles
An Online Course in a Nutshell
Learning Styles and the Online Environment
Instructional Strategies for Different Learning Styles
Elements of Instruction
Alternatives to the Online Lecture
Developing Course Objectives
Discussion Questions
Example Courses

Related Resources

Using Instructional Design Principles to Amplify Learning on the World Wide Web
By Donn C. Ritchies and Bob Hoffman

Instructional Elements of an Online Course
NC State University

Models of Distance Education
A paper from the University of Maryland that gives strategies for incorporating Labs into online science courses.

Instructional Design Online Workshop
By Robin Eanes, St. Edwards University

Instructional Design for the New Media
From Learn Onterio

Resources for Instructors Creating Online Courses
Compiled by ION

What Works and What Doesn't
Faculty and Student Experiences


AACSB Documents on Electronic Business  --- http://www.aacsb.edu/e-business/  

Make plans to attend AACSB's  Management Education E-Commerce Conference,  May 16 - 19, 2001, in Atlanta, Ga., at the Sheraton Buckhead Hotel.  

Programs

        
button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Bachelor’s Degree Majors button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Certificate Programs
button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Master’s Degree Concentrations button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Doctoral Degree Programs (coming soon)
button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Master’s Degree Programs button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Executive Programs (coming soon)

button_ps.gif (972 bytes) News button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Centers/Institutes
button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Conferences/Seminars button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Corporate E-Business Practices
button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Student Organizations button_ps.gif (972 bytes) Research (coming soon)
      
E-Business Education (1999 Documents)
http://www.aacsb.edu/e-business/news.html  
"B-Schools: New Rules" - Graduate business schools are reshaping curricula to train the next generation of New Economy leaders. Here are ten of the best.
 Edited by Susan Moran
Business 2.0 (October, 1999)
"Biz School Gets an Upgrade" -  From small colleges to top 10 business schools, academia is abuzz with plans for new degree programs to help students cash in on e-commerce mania.
by Joe Nickell
Wired News (April 3, 1999)
"Degrees of Success" - Companies are funding B-schools' e-commerce programs to lure students. Is this education, or just another sign of Internet mania?
by Michelle V. Rafter
The Industry Standard (September 06, 1999)
"E-Commerce for MBAs" - Electronic commerce has the potential to revolutionize business as we know it. Big changes are already taking place in the way companies sell, advertise and market their products and services. E-commerce is evolving so fast that many in the business world feel clueless at times. Increasingly, corporate recruiters expect the business school graduates they hire to possess Web-related skills. To meet the demand, more business schools are offering courses in e-commerce, covering both the technology involved and the strategic elements.
NPR's Elaine Korry reports for Morning Edition
National Public Radio (June 3, 1999, Real audio file)

 


New Rankings: Top 100 Accounting Firms 
PricewaterhouseCoopers handily held on to the first position in this year's ranking of the Top 100 Accounting Firms. Read the complete listing and see how your favorite firms fared. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/58263 


More electronic business and commerce bad news.

From the FEI Express on September 21, 2001

SURVEY: COMPANIES ARE SCALING BACK E-COMMERCE COMMITMENTS FEI's fourth annual technology survey, a joint project between the Committee on Finance and Information Technology and Computer Sciences Corp., has identified several trends in corporate IT spending. Raw data for the survey comes from questionnaires sent to FEI members.

The first trend is that members' companies are scaling back the priority and the financial commitments for e-commerce. The economic slowdown has compelled member to place "renewed emphasis on identifying the appropriate level of technology investments, prioritizing those investments, increasing the availability of decision support information and leveraging IT to reduce costs." With that, the survey found, members plan to engage in more outsourcing and use of shared services.

The survey also found that fewer dollars are being spent on discretionary technology projects. Returns on investment are not clear, and many companies appear to lack formal strategic plans for IT. Moreover, the survey authors concluded, there are differing views of IT's role as a source of competitive advantage. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continue to create cost overruns, and relative satisfaction levels with them are falling. Copies of the survey are available here: http://www.fei.org/download/2001-FEI-CSC-Survey.pdf .


Managing in economic hard times requires good communications, refocusing on short-term ROI and the ability to change direction quickly. http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?141834:2700840 

Enterprise information portals from Epicentric, iPlanet, Plumtree and Viador deliver more than just data--they also provide a good ROI for companies that can afford them. http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?141406:2700840 

Bob Jensen's threads on ROI are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm 


InternetWeek is running a poll on how to measure electronic business success.

Reader Poll What is the main way you currently measure the success of your e-business initiatives? 

To participate in the poll, go to http://www.internetweek.com/question01/quest091401.htm 


"Sudan Bank Hacked, Bin Laden Info Found - Hacker E-Mail," by Ned Stafford, Newsbytes, September 27, 2001

A group of U.K.-based hackers has cracked computers at the AlShamal Islamic Bank in Sudan and collected data on the accounts of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization and its leader Osama bin Laden, Kim Schmitz, a flamboyant German hacker/businessman, has claimed. Schmitz, who has offered a $10 million reward for the capture of bin Laden, told Newsbytes that the information has been turned over to the FBI. Bin Laden, a millionaire Saudi exile whose base is now Afghanistan, is suspected of being the driving force behind the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with hijacked planes.

Newsbytes could not confirm Schmitz's claim. An FBI spokesman in Washington declined to confirm or deny the story, saying that the agency's policy is not to comment on information and leads it is receiving.

"We have received a lot of information on this case," he told Newsbytes. "Of course we appreciate the leads we are receiving from the public, but we cannot confirm what specific information has been provided to us or by whom."

Schmitz, 27, a former teen hacking prodigy who spent time behind bars before starting a successful data security business, has been accused of being press hungry. He says his recent strong anti-terrorism pronouncements are not a PR prank, but stem from his strong desire to wipe out terrorism. He says he has received death threats from the Middle East.

The bank Schmitz claimed was hacked was mentioned Wednesday by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. According to CNN, Levin referred to a 1996 State Department report that said bin Laden had provided the AlShamal Islamic Bank with $50 million in start-up capital.


Walden University introduced an online doctoral program in public policy --- http://www.waldenu.edu/ 
Walden also has other online graduate programs, including an online MBA program.

Walden University is designed for working professionals who desire an advanced degree while maintaining career and personal commitments. Walden's flexible, student-centered education allows you to earn a master's or doctorate from the convenience of your home or workplace.

Bob Jensen's links to other online programs are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm 


Professor Jensen - thought you'd be interested in these stories from Computer World. They track with your comments last week about greater use of technology in the wake of 9/11.

Janet Flatley AVP-Controller 1st Fed S&L Assn Pt Angeles WA (360) 417-3104

Public safety agencies urge quick rollout of wireless location services

National public safety organizations are pushing the FCC to enforce an Oct. 1 deadline by which cell phone network operators must offer wireless location services to customers.

http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO64274_NLTPM%2C00.html 

____________________________________________________________

Yahoo rolls out virtual conference services

The business communications division of Yahoo Inc. today unveiled two new services designed to support virtual meetings and Internet broadcasts as alternatives to physical meetings.

http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO64278_NLTPM%2C00.html 


Grrrrr
This month use special care when examining your credit card statements. Because of shutting down air transport this month, there are a lot of payments on credit cards that were received and posted late. It looks like most card companies are going ahead and adding penalties for late payments and leaving it to the cardholders to complain. Not only does it cost credit users money (and provide an unfair windfall to the card issuers) but it can also damage credit ratings due to the automatic systems that influence our lives.  (I thank Scott Bonacker for pointing this out to me.)


From the FEI Express on September 21, 2001

PWC, 3I RELEASE REPORT ON PRIVATE EQUITY From a historical perspective, 2001 is projected to be a solid year of private equity investing globally, but not the record-breakers that 1999 and 2000 were. So says the second annual survey issued by worldwide consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and global investment firm 3i.

Their report, "Global Private Equity 2001," looks at worldwide venture capital and private equity investments during 2000 and early 2001, and makes projections for the remainder of 2001. PwC is the world's largest professional services organization, with more than 150,000 people in 150 countries. 3i invests in businesses across three continents through local teams in Europe, Asia Pacific and the U.S.A.

The publication is rich in detail and analysis. Investments this year, the report says, will exceed those made in 2000 in many of the top 20 countries, but U.S. investments may fall to half of 2000's level, and Western Europe is likely to experience similar, if lesser declines. Other findings include:

During 2000, private equity investments surged 30 percent, to a new high of U.S.$177 billion. Of that amount, $113 billion went to technology-related companies. * Total investments have increased globally by an annual average growth rate of 35 percent over the last six years. * The U.S. accounted for $122 billion, or 69 percent of worldwide investments, about four times the amount recorded in Western Europe. * While no record breaker, 2001 is likely to be the third biggest year in private equity history.

The report is posted at www.pwcmoneytree.com  under the heading "Special Reports," or www.3i.com/essential reading/themarket/. Hard copies may be obtained by contacting Keith Arundale of PwC in London at keith.arundale@uk.pwcglobal.com .


From Syllabus e-News on September 25, 2001

McGraw-Hill Picks Firm for Higher Ed Simulation Courseware

McGraw-Hill last week picked Baltimore-based SM Consulting to develop higher-ed focused computer simulation software for the publisher. The companies said the Internet-based simulations to be developed will compliment collegiate-level course textbooks and foster new levels of "interaction, collaboration and competition." SM Consulting Inc., is a privately held, information technology services company with practices in managed services, Web application development, and network operations support. For more information, visit http://www.mcgraw-hill.com .

Mcgraw-Hill also distributes the excellent SmartSims strategy interactive simulations rooted in the venture startup of Pete Mazany at the University of Auckland in New Zealand --- http://www.netmike.com/ 


Doctors in New York have successfully removed the gall bladder from a woman in France, using a remote-controlled robot --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46946,00.html 


Top Five Marketing Concerns for the Next Five Years What marketers will need to know in the future. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3064 


From FEI Express on September 28, 2001

STOCK OPTION ACCOUNTING UPDATE 
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) recently issued a press release announcing some of its recent decisions regarding accounting treatment of stock options (see http://www.iasb.org.uk). Chief among the decisions made, and one omitted from the press release, was the "tentative decision" to adopt an international accounting standard that requires companies to assign a "fair value" to employee stock options. Financial Executives International has consistently warned that such a move, which would require companies to treat the issuance of employee stock options as an operating cost, could ultimately undermine the IASB's goal of creating a single set of high-quality, understandable and meaningful global accounting standards. To read the entire press release issued by FEI in response, click here:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=105&STORY=/www/story/09-21-2001/0001576563 .


Forwarded by Robert B Walker [walkerrb@ACTRIX.CO.NZ

FASB Understanding the Issues: Vol 4 Series 1 --- 

I refer to the monograph on credit standing & liability measurement written by Crooch & Upton. --- http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/fasb/statusreport_articles/vol4_series1.html  

The article seems to suggest you wish to have feedback on this and other matters. Accordingly, I send my thoughts on this matter.

I would begin by observing that I think Concepts Statement 7 is inconsistent with the earlier 1996 study from which it was derived. I found that study utterly persuasive so I do not now find CS-7 persuasive. In moments of cynicism, I think that Mr Upton’s apparent epiphany is related more to the politics of accountancy than to its conceptual purity.

By this I mean that the measurement of liabilities at risk free interest rate rather than at a rate reflecting credit standing would be so anathema to the generality of accountants that it is futile to suggest it. Indeed the Crooch & Upton begin by stating a basic premise of axiomatic significance to their case – no gain or loss should arise when engaging in simple borrowing. The idea that no sooner one entered a loan agreement than a loss would arise (because it would invariably be a loss) would have most accountants in a state of high dudgeon.

The issue then is one of gain or loss. But then that is only if you perceive the world from an income orientation perspective. I don’t, primarily because of the influence of the conceptual framework. This is reinforced by my work as a liquidator of companies. I see the world purely from a balance sheet perspective and one subject to realisable value at that. In other words, I see the utility of accounting only in terms of solvency determination with all that entails in regard to the going concern assumption.

Unlike the United States, in the jurisdiction in which I live accounting has been rendered central to creditor protection in our corporate law. Central to this law, in turn, is the conceptual framework (at least in my view and to test the hypothesis I have a case before the courts now). I am then caused considerable misgiving as the final consequence of FASB’s view is the effective emasculation of our law built, essentially, on American conceptual development.

The ultimate consequence of what FASB propose is that as a company slides toward insolvency its liability value declines, the value of its net worth increases. Presumably as it has no credit standing at all because it is insolvent, it has no liabilities. This may be practically true when the creditors miss out but in my jurisdiction at least it is not legally true because those responsible for the creditors loss are held accountable, the impediments of the legal system notwithstanding.

I note that Crooch & Upton make reference in a footnote to the theory of Robert Merton in which it is implied that the residual assets are able to be ‘put’ to satisfy the claims of creditors. That may be true in an economist’s fantasy but it is not true in law, a rather more important arena.

I say perceiving a decline in the value of a liability is considerably more counter-intuitive than the problem of accelerating the recognition of cost of debt. This is a mere triviality by comparison. After all the same amount of charge is recognised over time. The advantage of accelerating loss is that it causes an entity to be more inhibited in its distribution policy as it has less equity to draw upon. That is to the advantage of creditors.

It seems to me that there needs to be an objective value at which to determine the value of a liability, this being central to the ability to liquidate. Mr Upton in his 1996 study demonstrates that such a value will represent the price the debtor has to pay to have the liability taken away. That price will be determined by the seller providing sufficient resources to the buyer to ensure that the buyer will avoid any risk. The resources would need to be enough to acquire a risk free asset with the same maturity profile as the liability.

The effect of perceiving the ‘price’ of a liability in this way is to necessitate that it is discounted at a risk free rate.

I note that the only way to make CS-7 coherent is to assume that such transfers of assets are always made between parties of the same credit standing. This pertains to one of the major practical difficulties of reflecting credit standing in accounting measurement – that is knowing what it is. It may be easily determined in the publicly listed world in which Crooch & Upton inhabit. It is not in the small, closely held corporate world in which I operate. For accounting to have long term validity it must be applicable in all circumstances.

I think it fair to note that there is another dimension to this that tends to undermine what I believe. I have a theoretical notion that the world upon consolidation nets to nil. That is to say, my financial asset and your financial liability must have the same value in our respective records. Call this a principle of reciprocity.

Theoretically, so far as I understand it a lender will discount the face value of a zero discount bond at the risk free rate after having adjusted for the probability of receiving nothing at all. The effect of doing that is, at the inception of an advance, to carry the value of the asset at the cash value paid at that time. If the application of the principle of reciprocity was applied when the liability was revalued in the books of the debtor, the creditor would take up a gain that denied any risk existed.

I find this inconvenient as it causes me to abandon a notion in which I fundamentally believe. I will just have to suffer cognitive dissonance, won’t I? But then one should not underestimate the psychology that underlies accounting, particularly in the face of the paradoxes it is capable of generating.

Also see other articles on related topics at  http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/fasb/statusreport_articles/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm 


From Jeff Romine [jromine@TRUMAN.EDU

I want to bring something to your attention. As we discuss the changes that are necessary in accounting education, eventually the discussion will address high school accounting education. I am not sure how may states are like Missouri but in Missouri the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education publishes educational competency standards for accounting. You may view them at:

http://www.dese.state.mo.us/divvoced/business/accounting.htm 

A quick review of these standards demonstrates a "bookkeeping" orientation. This orientation probably leaves college bound students with the wrong impression of accounting. However, I suspect that these standards reflect the national standards. You may check out the web site for the National Business Education Association at http://www.nbea.org/  This means that your state may have a similar list of competencies. Please check it out in your state.

Now for the main point. If the AAA and or the AICPA want to change how students perceive accounting and what they learn in beginning high school accounting the NBEA and/or the State Departments of Education might be a good place to start. I am hopeful that this is already happening.

Please do not think that high school business education is the only place that change is required.


The Real Terrorist Plot Thickens

The suspicion is that whoever was responsible for the attacks - most likely Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden - tried to profit from them by short selling stocks. This basically means selling loads of shares before the attacks and then buying them back once the share price had slumped. The most obvious shares for this would be airlines stocks, those companies based in the World Trade Center and insurance companies - and these are where investigations are likely to begin --- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/57/21725.html 

Of course this could also be done with a variety financial instruments derivative contracts. Investigators are going to have to sort through a lot of contracts.

And is it just coincident that:  "Attack Destroyed SEC Enforcement Office; CFTC's New York Offices Were Also Leveled," by Michael Schroeder and Mitchell Pacelle, The Wall Street Journal, September  13, 2001, PageA1,A2 --- http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1000348229290230479.djm  
TOPICS: Auditing, Financial Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis


WHAT TO DO IF YOUR PURSE OR WALLET IS MISSING
Hi Bob,

We've all heard horror stories about fraud that's committed on us by people who use your name, address, SS#, credit, etc. Unfortunately I (the author of this piece who happens to be an attorney) have firsthand knowledge, because my wallet was stolen last month and within a week the thieve(s) ordered an expensive monthly cell phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Gateway computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information online, and more.

But here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know. As everyone always advises, cancel your credit cards immediately, but the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them easily. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where it was stolen, this proves to credit providers you were diligent, and is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

But here's what is perhaps most important: (I never ever thought to do this) - Call the three nationa credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and SS#. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen and they have to contact you by phone to authorize newcredit. By the time I was advised to do this, almost 2 weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done.

There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves' purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away this weekend (someone turned it in). It seems to have stopped them in their tracks.

The numbers are: 

  • Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 
  • Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742 
  • Trans Union: 1-800-680-7289 
  • Social Security Administration (fraud line): 1-800-269-0271

We pass along just about everything. Do think about passing this information along. It could really help someone?

Bev Koebrich [auntiebev@mediaone.net]


Appeals for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants --- 
http://www.cpa2biz.com/CS2000/TaskCenters/Learning/Disaster+Recovery/Melancon,+Eddy+Call+on+CPAs+to+Volunteer.htm
 

Dear Financial Planning Practitioner:

With the recent tragic events in New York City, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania still reverberating across this country, the AICPA’s Board of Directors, its staff and its members have been deeply affected.  Included in the thousands of people affected by this tragedy, we are currently aware of many CPAs who worked in the World Trade Center and the immediate area.  Thus, the AICPA wants to help all of the survivors and families of victims get through this crisis with our contributions and our expertise.

As professionals with expertise that can help people in need, we want to mobilize our members to help the survivors and families of victims.  To that end, we are looking for members with a demonstrated knowledge of financial planning matters to volunteer their services to help survivors and families of victims with the financial planning issues that they will face in the aftermath of the events of September 11th.

Volunteers will provide those in need with free consultation services to establish direction that will start them on their road to recovery – something we envision will require a commitment of several hours per consultation.  These people will need assistance with issues, such as:

 

·        Whether they have enough money to make it through the next few weeks or months.

·        How to apply for life insurance policies and benefits.

·        Dealing with continuation of benefits.

·        How to apply for federal and state benefits, including social security.

·        Settling estates.

·        Transferring retirement plans to beneficiaries.

·        Investing lump sum payments.

·        Planning for college.

·        Tax planning.

 

To volunteer, please call the AICPA at 877-CPA-4ALL (877-272-4255) between the hours of 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM Eastern time as soon as you can.  Tell the operator that you want to reach out to help those in need.  Alternatively, you may contact the AICPA via email at cpa4all@aicpa.org.  If contacting us via email, be sure to include the following contact information: name, company name, complete address, phone, fax, email, areas of expertise, and the region of the country that you are able to assist in.  Your name will be added to a list of practitioners donating their expertise.  As people or families in need call for assistance, they will be matched with a volunteering financial planning professional. 

CPA2Biz is assisting the AICPA in this effort.  A dedicated resource center is being created at www.cpa2biz.com/recovery, which will provide practitioners with information, articles, and resources related to the issues that arise from this tragedy and that can also be used to assist you in your volunteer efforts.  Please visit the site for important information for you, your clients, and your employer.

To the extent you cannot volunteer your services, it would greatly help our effort if you would provide relevant articles or information that we can disseminate to other practitioners as they help their clients through this tragedy.  This information should be sent to the Financial Planning Team at pfp@aicpa.org.

We are also accepting donations to help the survivors and families of victims.  The AICPA has the  AICPA Benevolent Fund that is used to help members and their families when they face financial difficulty caused by serious illness, accident, death or other major misfortunes.  However, to expand the scope of our assistance, the AICPA has established a new fund, CPAs in Support of America Fund, Inc., to provide assistance to CPAs, CPA firms and others affected by these events. 

To contribute to either fund, please send a check in the name of the fund to: AICPA, Harborside Financial Center, 201 Plaza Three, Jersey City, NJ 07311-3881.  For information regarding contributions please consult our website, http://www.aicpa.org/, or the CPA2Biz website, http://www.cpa2biz.com/.

Kathy G. Eddy, CPA  and Barry C. Melancon, CPA


How to save on disk space and bandwidth? --- http://www.stuffit.com/index.html 

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The good news is researchers don't believe terrorists have the capability yet to attack with biological weapons. The bad news is they believe such an attack could be devastating --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46924,00.html 

Even if Lewis is correct, that doesn't mean a biological attack can't happen. The chances a terrorist organization does have bio-weapons increases dramatically if it is sponsored by, say, Iraq or Pakistan, or another of the many countries that have the scientific infrastructure in place to produce bio-weapons.

By 1991, Iraqis had created weapons of anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

They didn't use them in the Gulf War, although they did release chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988. The former Soviet Union also had bio-warfare capabilities before its collapse.

Although the United Nations destroyed what appeared to be the final remains of the Iraqi offensive program in 1996, the United Nations Special Commission is not confident that Iraq has abandoned biological weapons research.

According to Jay Davis, a national security fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and former director of the defense threat reduction agency at the Department of Defense, it's also possible that terrorists have been working on developing a biological weapon for many years, if one were to judge by the intricate and persistent planning that went into the attack last week.

If anything is clear, it's that the United States is incapable of dealing with a biological attack -- a situation that has been hammered home perhaps too loudly to terrorists, said Mark Wheelis, a professor of microbiology and a bioweapons historian at the University of California at Davis.

"If terrorists are interested in biological weapons, it's probably our fault since we had the Secretary of Defense going on TV saying this is America's greatest vulnerability," Wheelis said.

If terrorists did succeed, and anthrax, smallpox, bubonic plague, tularemia or any of many other potentially deadly microbes were released upon American civilians, it's likely they would go undetected until people started getting sick. That might be too late.

A World Health Organization study estimated that if a tularemia biological weapon were used against a modern city of 5 million people, it would cause 250,000 illnesses and 19,000 deaths.

The attack would trigger cases of pneumonia, pleuritis and lymph node disease within three to five days after exposure. Unless treated with effective antibiotics, the disease could lead to serious illness including respiratory failure, shock or death.

Researchers are looking for ways to detect bio-attacks before they cause sickness, but no 100 percent reliable technologies exist to date.

The rest of the article is at http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46924,00.html 


History Through Deaf Eyes --- http://depts.gallaudet.edu/deafeyes/ 

Gallaudet University is developing a traveling social history exhibition about deaf Americans. Using objects and images collected by individuals, organizations, and schools for deaf students, this exhibition will illustrate shared experiences of family life, education, and work—as well as the divergent ways deaf people see themselves, communicate, employ and adapt available technology, and determine their own futures.

The Web pages at this site show the plan for the exhibition along with selected photos that will be on display.


Evolution (from PBS Television) ---  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ 


Book Review: Design for Community
What works on the Web when creating and running thriving virtual communities. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3065 


Science, Technology and the CIA (History)  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/index.html 

International Security http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/ 


Last week I wrote:

Now here is an interesting idea, I wonder if it works? Its worth a try. Even if it only works halfway at least you'll find out before those helpful emails show up from friends and strangers.

This morning I got a helpful email pointing out that the message I forwarded was a hoax. You can read about it at:

http://antivirus.about.com/library/weekly/aa082801b.htm 

Moral of the story: Don't forward anything unless you can somehow verify the source, and don't think that you can't be fooled anyway.

Scott Bonacker, 
CPA McCullough, Officer & Company, LLC Springfield, Missouri moccpa.com

 


depressedteens.com - (reaching out, mental health, psychology) http://www.depressedteens.com/indexfl.html 


Fifty to one hundred of the spoken languages today are expected to disappear during the 21st Century (Linguistics).
The Rosetta Project --- http://www.rosettaproject.org:8080/live 

The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone. In this updated iteration, our goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,000 languages. Our intention is to create a unique platform for comparative linguistic research and education as well as a functional linguistic tool that might help in the recovery of lost languages in unknown futures.


Online Directory of English as a Second Language  Resources http://www.cal.org/ericcll/ncbe/esldirector 


Advances in Language Translation

"The World Wide Translator," Technology Review from MIT, by Alan Leo September 21, 2001 --- http://www.techreview.com/web/leo/leo092101.asp 

"This whole area of language is extremely complex," says IDC analyst Steve McClure. "It's probably the most complicated problem in computer science that I'm aware of."

Computer-assisted translation typically involves two steps. First, a rules engine parses the original sentence, attempting to identify the relationships between the words. The engine then translates each word within the context that it believes to be correct—often with mixed results.

That's how most machine translation works, including Altavista's Babelfish Web site (source of the example above, translated from English to Italian and back) and freetranslation.com.

"Unfortunately," says Mark Lancaster, CEO of SDL International, a London-based globalization firm, "the way that we speak is very ambiguously. And so it's very difficult to interpret random input, which is essentially how we speak." As a result, no matter how good a rules engine is, a human translator still must correct its mistakes ("Hour is the moment…").

This second step remains the most time-consuming and expensive aspect of translation, often requiring expertise in a specific technical field as well as in the source and target languages. Moreover, two human experts may translate the same passage differently in texts where consistency is desired.

To correct this problem, translation memory stores the human-corrected translation along with the original, non-translated text. For each document, the software compares each sentence of the original to its growing translation memory.

When it finds a sentence it has seen before, it uses the remembered translation instead of the rules engine—knowing, instead of guessing. It then flags the new sections, cutting down the time spent by human reviewers. And as it adds each successive document to its translation memory, it knows more and guesses less.

For closely related sentences, fuzzy matching allows the software to produce a partial translation while flagging the differences for a human reviewer.

While not all computer-aided translation incorporates translation memory, many globalization software providers, including Trados, Mendez, Star AG, Atril, SDL, and Alchemy Software offer products that do.

Who Wants to Play?

Lancaster is excited about the potential to share translation memories. "We've been building translation memories for ten years, so we have pretty big database repositories," he says.

For now, Lancaster says, SDL uses those databases only for its own translation work but plans to develop a shareable one: customers using SDL's translation software, SDLX, will gain access to a massive database of past translations. The price of admission? Customers will have to share their resultsWho or pay a premium to keep them private.

But the idea remains controversial. Would a company willingly share its intellectual property, potentially with competitors? They might in exchange for a discount, claims Lancaster.

Such a tradeoff may appeal to small or medium-sized companies, says McClure, but large companies consider their translation memories valuable intellectual property and would be unlikely to share them.

"If Cisco has to go to the trouble of translating the gigabit router instructions to Mandarin Chinese, that's not going to be easy," agrees analyst Eric Schmitt of Forrester Research. "It's going to be expensive. Cisco doesn't want to go to the trouble and then have Alcatel and Juniper come along and get the same benefit."

Still, while these challenges remain great, they may not be computer translation's largest stumbling block, says David Parmenter of Basis Technology in Cambridge, MA, a firm that assists companies in moving their business worldwide.

"The bulk of the translation business is built on foreign translators who do the work piecemeal," Parmenter says. "It's hard to beat the economics of that."


Capitol Spotlight - keeping track of key votes in Washington, Politics) --- http://www.c-span.org/capitolspotlight/ 


Michael Moore was featured speaker on the Trinity University campus on September 24.  It is great to have controversial personalities from all sides of life speak on campus.  Michael Moore is a popular, funny, and clever speaker who jousts with the windmills of corporations (Roger and Me), television (TV Nation) and just about everything else connected with the wealthy and powerful (Downsize This!).  However, sometimes Moore takes things too far.  For example, he argues that O.J. Simpson was too stupid, rich, and unimaginative to be guilty.  Is that really funny?  The implication is that he would more likely to have cut off the head of his wife in a jealous rage if he were brilliant, poor, and creative.

Those interested in the history and controversy surrounding Michael Moore may want to take a look at  "Michael Moore: Radical Chic or Radical Schlub?" by Nick Mamatas  - December 28, 2000 --- http://www.disinfo.com/pages/dossier/id556/pg1/ 


Four-Letter Expletives from the Far Left (I left out those parts.)
"CAMBRIDGE DISPATCH Left Back by Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, September 20, 2001 --- http://www.tnr.com/100101/cohn100101.html 

If all this sounds familiar, that's because it is. Since its coming-out party two years ago in Seattle, the anti-globalization movement has been frequently described as a new force in American politics, the product of a new generation with new arguments and concerns. And it is true that the movement's focus on corporations and global finance, as opposed to governments and armies, represented a change from the leftist campaigns of the 1970s and '80s. But last week, when the terrorist attacks put governments and armies back at the center of American politics, the fresh-faced radicals sounded just like their generational predecessors. And so on Friday, when United Students Against Sweatshops pulled out of its planned demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank, it also urged members to participate in "peace-oriented events" over the coming weeks: "We stand firmly against sentiments of military retaliation," the organization said, sounding exactly like the student activists of 1968 or 1991. Last spring a group of Harvard students seemed to break new ground in campus activism when they staged a sit-in to protest low wages for the school's custodial workers. Now some members of that group are starting the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice; vigils and letter-writing campaigns against military action are already in the works.

But not all of the anti-globalization left is on board. Mindful of its membership's sentiments--not to mention the police officers, firefighters, and other union workers killed in the attacks--the AFL-CIO not only canceled its planned IMF/World Bank demonstrations, but it also endorsed, in no uncertain terms, military reprisal. "We deplore the assault," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, "and we stand fully behind the President and the leadership of our nation in this time of national crisis." The AFL-CIO has asked its door-to-door canvassers, initially dispatched to drum up support for the anti-globalization cause, to collect donations on behalf of the terrorism victims instead. On Capitol Hill, some of globalization's fiercest critics, like Marcy Kaptur, the congresswoman from the Rust Belt city of Toledo, are morphing into some of the Democratic Party's biggest hawks.

All of which represents a very serious problem for the left. One of the anti-globalization movement's primary goals--and primary successes--in its short life has been repairing the generation-old gulf between intellectuals and labor. Students have flocked to union-run organizing camps; a group of labor-friendly intellectuals established Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice. Now, with one awful attack, that alliance is splitting at the seams. The hard hats and the hippies are on opposite sides of the barricades once again. At the teach-in at MIT, activists seemed to be gearing up for their generation's Vietnam--a chance to take on U.S. militarism and imperialism in their own time. They seemed to have forgotten that until last week, that was precisely the debate the American left was trying to avoid.


After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, most businesses there started backing up electronic data on a regular basis --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,47004,00.html 


The Emerging Issues Task Force , a group that operates under the auspices of the Financial Accounting Standards Board , has announced a plan whereby U.S. firms that have suffered a financial loss due to the recent terrorist attacks will be able to treat the loss as extraordinary on company financial statements, thus not impacting the company's current income or loss. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/36674 


"Surge of New Technologies Erodes U.S. Edge in Spying," by William J. Broad, The New York Times, September 20, 2001 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/national/20SPY.html 

For decades, the United States used its technical expertise to gather electronic signals and eavesdrop on the intimate conversations of its adversaries, including Kremlin leaders in their limousines. Fleets of satellites blanketed the globe, overhearing all manner of signals, messages and conversations, day and night.

But the experts say the rapid growth of commercially available technologies is fast eroding the government's edge. New computer power gives wide access to unbreakable or virtually unbreakable codes. Fiber-optic lines give off no electronic emanations that can be gathered. Even radio waves, the spy's best friend, are evading capture as radios hop frequencies almost randomly to outwit eavesdroppers

The nation's declining ability to listen surreptitiously to global communications may turn out to have been a major reason there was little or no warning of hijackers intent on turning commercial jets into flying bombs, security experts say.

To be sure, they add, the communications revolution also offers new opportunities for spying, like snooping on cellphones. And Washington has embarked on an aggressive if quiet campaign to research, design and acquire equipment to sharpen its espionage edge.

But on balance, experts say, the intelligence losses outweigh the gains and will for some time.

"The government is trying to close the barn door," said Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University who was on the staff of the Senate intelligence committee for eight years. "The horse left a long time ago. And it's not coming back."

A longtime federal official whose work relies on the fruits of technical espionage agreed.

"It's getting harder each year to pick up what we need," the official said. "Our potential adversaries are on the verge of denying access."

Moreover, intelligence experts say, the government is short of seasoned analysts and new ones lack such essential skills as knowledge of foreign languages. Also, they say, while infiltration is theoretically the best approach to terrorist cells, in practice it is often impossible to achieve, especially among zealots intent on martyrdom.


Surveillance cameras roll at, fittingly, George Orwell Plaza in Barcelona. Unlike in the United States, where such intrusions are often viewed as invasions of privacy, few here seem to mind --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46932,00.html 


Over 23,000 white papers (categorized) in information technology --- http://itpapers.com/ 
You can also submit a paper to this site.

One of the great MIS sites is at ISWORLD at http://www.isworld.org/isworld/isworldtext.html 

Great AIS links are also provided by Alan Sangster at http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/alans/alans.htm 


United Nations officials say the Taliban have threatened to execute any of its workers who use computers or electronics communications equipment.  The question is why the U. N. allows its employees to take such huge risks by staying in that country --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47074,00.html 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Taliban have threatened to execute any U.N. worker who uses computers and communications equipment in Afghanistan, forcing a near halt to the remaining relief work in the country, U.N. officials said Monday.

The militia raided U.N. offices in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership is based, during the weekend and sealed their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from use, according to U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker.

"They warned our staff that if they use these things they will face execution," said Gordon Weiss, the spokesman for UNICEF in Islamabad.


Congress isn't going to rush to rewrite wiretapping and immigration laws, insist Democratic and GOP legislators. They say they'll move quickly on President Bush's anti-terrorism plan, while being careful to balance security with freedom --- http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47086,00.html 


"Real-Life Cyborg Challenges Reality With Technology," by Bruce Schechter, The New York Times, September 25, 2001 ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/25/science/physical/25CYBO.html 

Over the past few years, Dr. Mann has critiqued what he calls the totalitarian possibilities of technology through inventions like SeatSale and documentary films like "Shooting Back," which is part Marshall McLuhan and part Michael Moore. While some people call these activities performance art, Dr. Mann prefers to call them experiments and publishes essays about them in technological journals alongside his more conventional, equation-laden work.

To make "Shooting Back," Dr. Mann, equipped with his hidden "wearcam," went into chain stores and innocently asked why there were domes on the ceiling. He secretly filmed the employees' evasiveness and their defensive responses — "They're here for your own good" — and then reached into his bag and pulled out a video camera of his own. At that point, he was usually kicked out of the store.

"Of all places I go, it's the casinos and department stores and police stations that object most strongly to my apparatus," he said. "And yet those are the places where I feel it's most needed to prevent what would be a one-sided totalitarian regime."

Lately, Dr. Mann has been working to design chips to run some of the algorithms he has developed for his wearcam so they will be cheaply and readily available.

His most important innovation is a mathematical technique that he calls video orbits. The images that flow through Dr. Mann's eyetap camera are used to record his moving gaze. The video orbit algorithm takes these images and automatically pastes them together to make a seamless whole. By pasting together many overlapping images, the low- resolution camera behind the glasses effectively becomes a camera of far higher resolution.

More important, the video orbit algorithm tracks head movement well enough to allow the computer to superimpose a fixed display on the world. So, equipped with face recognition software, the display could attach name tags to faces. Or when the software recognizes an advertisement that had been earlier placed in a "kill file," it can superimpose something more suitable.

This technology also makes it possible for Dr. Mann's wife to "accompany" him (via the Internet) when he is shopping. "My wife can pop inside my head," he said. "And if I reach for whole milk, she can draw an X through it to give me a hint or suggestion. If she thinks a used car salesman is lying to me, she could draw a Pinocchio nose on him."

The algorithm now runs on a rather bulky computer that barely fits the description of portable. But Dr. Mann predicts that within a year it will run on a custom chip that can be implanted in the eyetap glasses.

He expects wearable computers to become common in 10 years. "I just see it as the thing that replaces all the things you normally carry around: cellphones, pagers, wristwatches, all those things become subsumed into one item," he said.

Dr. Mann is less fascinated by the equipment than with the changes it represents. "People are amazed that I can read my e-mail while I'm walking down the street," he said. "Big deal — it's just a side effect of having a computer blasting right into your eye. The real powerful thing is that you're experiencing the world through it, and that's something none of the other things that we carry do. It's allowing a new form of communication, namely communication by modifying the visual perception of reality."


"Oracle boss urges national ID cards, offers free software Idea driven by security concerns," by Paul Rogers and Elise Ackerman, Mercury News, September 25, 2001 --- http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/ellsn092301.htm 

Broaching a controversial subject that has gained visibility since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is calling for the United States to create a national identification card system -- and offering to donate the software to make it possible.

Under Ellison's proposal, millions of Americans would be fingerprinted and the information would be placed on a database used by airport security officials to verify identities of travelers at airplane gates.

``We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card,'' Ellison said in an interview Friday night on the evening news of KPIX-TV in San Francisco.

``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.

`Absolutely free'

Ellison's company, Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, is the world's leading maker of database software. Ellison, worth $15 billion, is among the world's richest people.

``We're quite willing to provide the software for this absolutely free,'' he said.

Calls for national ID cards traditionally have been met with fierce resistance from civil liberties groups, who say the cards would intrude on the privacy of Americans and allow the government to track people's movements.

But Ellison said in the electronic age, little privacy is left anyway.

``Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion,'' he said. ``All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment and tons of other information.''

Attempts by the Mercury News to reach Ellison for further comment Saturday were unsuccessful. Many questions about the proposal remain unanswered, such as whether foreign nationals would be required to have a card to enter the country. The hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks are not believed to have been U.S. citizens.

In the TV interview with anchorman Hank Plante, Ellison said shoppers have to disclose more information at malls to buy a watch than they do to get on an airplane.

``Let me ask you. There are two different airlines. Airline A says before you board that airplane you prove you are who you say you are. Airline B, no problem. Anyone who wants the price of a ticket, they can go on that airline. Which airplane do you get on?''

Oracle has a longstanding relationship with the federal government. Indeed, the CIA was Ellison's first customer, and the company's name stems from a CIA-funded project launched in the mid-1970s that sought better ways of storing and retrieving digital data.

Civil libertarians said caution is needed.

``It strikes me as a form of overreaction to the events that we have experienced,'' said Robert Post, a constitutional law professor at the University of California-Berkeley. ``If we allow a terrorist attack to destroy forms of freedom that we have enjoyed, we will have given the victory to them. This kind of recommendation does just that.''

Post said while such a system may catch some criminals, it could be hacked or faked or evaded by capable terrorists. Nor is it clear that such a system would have foiled the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.

Strong support

But polls last week show many Americans support a national ID card.

In a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, seven of 10 Americans favored a requirement that citizens carry a national identity card at all times to show to a police officer upon request. The proposal had particularly strong support from women. There was less support for government monitoring of telephone calls, e-mails and credit card purchases.

The FBI already has an electronic fingerprint system for criminals.

In July 1999, the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System became operational. That system keeps an electronic database of 41 million fingerprints, with prints from all 10 fingers of people who have been convicted of crimes.

For the remainder of the article, go to - http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/ellsn092301.htm  


Book Review: Fresh Styles for Web Designers A new group of cutting-edge Web designers are changing the face of the Web, embracing its quirks. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3087 


It's not so easy to become one these days!
America's 40 Richest Under 40 (from Fortune) ---  http://www.fortune.com/sitelets/40under40/intro.html 


Another factor that will help keep traditional mail alive in some form is "message overload." Because of e-mail, voice mail, cellular phones and faxes, people today receive a far greater volume of messages than many can handle. A study conducted by the Menlo Park, California-based Institute for the Future found that working Americans today are sending and receiving an average of 190 messages a day, up from 178 in 1997 and substantially more than several years ago.

Institute for the Future --- http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA227.html 


The New York publisher appeals an Australian judge's ruling that allows an Australian man to sue for defamation. The case has major implications for publishers on the Internet --- http://whttp://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46986,00.htmlww.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46986,00.html 


"Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics" ( US Census Bureau) http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html 


Meeting God (Hindu Religion) http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/meeting_god/index.html 


What is the name of the first accounting firm in United States? http://www.accountingweb.com/item/58643 


The Oklahoma not-so-Good-SAM hacker portrayed in his community as being unjustly prosecuted admits he invaded a news site with malicious intent.  http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47146,00.html 


CHILDE:  Children's Historical Literature Disseminated throughout Europe (History, Art, Photography) --- http://www.bookchilde.org/ 

CHILDE is a project, funded under the European Commission's Culture 2000 programme, that uses web technology to allow wider and more open access to images from collections of early children's books in Europe.

It is hoped that by sharing these images and other resources with an international audience, the CHILDE project will lay the foundations for a wider network of early children's book collections.


VoiceXML Developer Series Everything you ever wanted to know about VXML, but were afraid to ask. http://www.newmedia.com/nm-ie.asp?articleID=3094 

"VoiceXML Developer Series," by NewMedia Staff, NewMedia.com, September 26, 2001 

VoiceXML is an XML format that utilizes existing telephony technology to interact with users over the telephone through speech recognition, speech synthesis, and standard Web technologies. The first edition of the VoiceXML Developer series will provide you with a synopsis of VoiceXML and a glimpse into the technology used to develop VoiceXML applications. Subsequent editions will go into the specific details of creating VoiceXML applications.

Background

The VoiceXML 1.0 specification was released on March 2000 by the VoiceXML Forum which was founded by technologists from Lucent, AT&T, IBM, and Motorola. The group was formed out of the need to create a unified standard for voice dialogs rather than requiring customers to learn several XML specifications that had been developed internally within each of the member's respective research labs (starting as early as 1995). Other non-founders had also experimented with voice dialog XML formats including HP's TalkML and Sun's Java Speech Markup Language (JSML).

All of this led up to October 2000, when the VoiceXML Forum released VoiceXML 1.0 to the Voice Browser Group (founded in 1998) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the recognized standards body for the Web. This independent body has been working on the second version of the specification and have announced that it will release a revised specification sometime towards the end of 2001.

The nascent industry has grown rapidly since its millennium debut into a market that is expected to reach $200 million dollars in 2001 and reach $24 billion by 2005. The industry has been driven in part by an existing marketplace that has utilized Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems for call center automation; think "Press 1 for your account balance. Press 2 to transfer funds". You've probably used such a system to check your bank or credit card balances.

So VoiceXML fills an existing need for automation by improving upon the current technology and making it simpler to implement and integrate into the rest of the enterprise. VoiceXML also provides a new opportunity for companies that have not been able to afford the cost or complexity of an IVR system by using standard telephony components and leverage its existing Web infrastructure, applications, and developer skills.

Technologies

A VoiceXML system is made up of of a VoiceXML gateway that accesses static or dynamic VoiceXML content on the Web. The gateway contains a VoiceXML browser (interpreter), Text-To-Speech (TTS), Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), and the telephony hardware that connects to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) via a T1, POTS, or ISDN telephone connection. A Plain Old Telephone Server (POTS) line is the type that's installed in your home and can only handle a single connection whereas a T1 contains 24 individual phone lines.

Bob Jensen's threads on XML and VoiceXML are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/xmlrdf.htm 




Subject: Terrorism of U and S by Dr. Suess

Every U down in Uville liked U.S. a lot,
But the Binch, who lived Far East of Uville, did not.
The Binch hated U.S! the whole U.S. way!
Now don't ask me why, for nobody can say,

It could be his turban was screwed on too tight.
Or the sun from the desert had beaten too bright
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

 

But, Whatever the reason, his heart or his turban,
He stood facing Uville, the part that was urban.
"They're doing their business," he snarled from his perch.
"They're raising their families! They're going to church!

They're leading the world, and their empire is thriving,
I MUST keep the S's and U's from surviving!"
Tomorrow, he knew, all the U's and the S's,
Would put on their pants and their shirts and their dresses,

They'd go to their offices, playgrounds and schools,
And abide by their U and S values and rules,
And then they'd do something he liked least of all,
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,

Would stand all united, each U and each S,
And they'd sing Uville's anthem, "God bless us! God bless!"
All around their Twin Towers of Uville, they'd stand,
and their voices would drown every sound in the land.

"I must stop that singing," Binch said with a smirk,
And he had an idea--an idea that might work!
The Binch stole some U airplanes in U morning hours,
And crashed them right into the Uville Twin Towers.

"They'll wake to disaster!" he snickered, so sour,
 "And how can they sing when they can't find a tower?"
 The Binch cocked his ear as they woke from their sleeping,
All set to enjoy their U-wailing and weeping, 

Instead he heard something that started quite low,
And it built up quite slow, but it started to grow--
And the Binch heard the most unpredictable thing...
And he couldn't believe it--they started to sing!

 He stared down at U-ville, not trusting his eyes,
What he saw was a shocking, disgusting surprise!
Every U down in U-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any towers at all!

He HADN'T stopped U-Ville from singing! It sung!
For down deep in the hearts of the old and the young,
Those Twin Towers were standing, called Hope and called Pride,
And you can't smash the towers we hold deep inside.

 So we circle the sites where our heroes did fall,
With a hand in each hand of the tall and the small,
And we mourn for our losses while knowing we'll cope,
For we still have inside that U-Pride and U-Hope.

 For America means a bit more than tall towers,
It means more than wealth or political powers,
It's more than our enemies ever could guess,
So may God bless America! Bless us! God bless!


Swinging With a Blanket is a Great Idea

Forwarded by Auntie Bev (a true story about a flight leaving the Denver Airport)

The pilot/captain came on the loudspeaker after the doors were closed. His speech went like this:

First I want to thank you for being brave enough to fly today. The doors are now closed and we have no help from the outside for any problems that might occur inside this plane. As you could tell when you checked in, the government has made some changes to increase security in the airports.

They have not, however, made any rules about what happens after those doors close. Until they do that, we have made our own rules and I want to share them with you. Once those doors close, we only have each other.

The security has taken care of a threat like guns with all of the increased scanning, etc. Then we have the supposed bomb. If you have a bomb, there is no need to tell me about it, or anyone else on this plane; you are already in control. So, for this flight, there are no bombs that exist on this plane.

Now, the threats that are left are things like plastics, wood, knives, and other weapons that can be made or things like that which can be used as weapons.

Here is our plan and our rules. If someone or several people stand up and say they are hijacking this plane, I want you all to stand up together. Then take whatever you have available to you and throw it at them. Throw it at their faces and heads so they will have to raise their hands to protect themselves.

The very best protection you have against knives are the pillows and blankets. Whoever is close to these people should then try to get a blanket over their head--then they won't be able to see. Once that is done, get them down and keep them there. Do not let them up. I will then land the plane at the closest place and we WILL take care of them.

After all, there are usually only a few of them and we are 200+ strong! We will not allow them to take over this plane.

I find it interesting that the US Constitution begins with the words "We, the people"--that's who we are, THE people and we will not be defeated.

With that, the passengers on the plane all began to applaud, people had tears in their eyes, and we began the trip toward the runway.

The flight attendant then began the safety speech. One of the things she said is that we are all so busy and live our lives at such a fast pace. She asked that everyone turn to their neighbors on either side and introduce themselves, tell each other something about your families and children, show pictures, whatever. She said "for today, we consider you family. We will treat you as such and ask that you do the same with us."

Throughout the flight we learned that for the crew, this was their first flight since Tuesday's tragedies. It was a day that everyone leaned on each other and together everyone was stronger than any one person alone. It was quite an experience.

You can imagine the feeling when that plane touched down at Dulles and we heard "welcome to Washington Dulles Airport, where the local time is 5:40". Again, the cabin was filled with applause.

Last night I saw a program with college students where one of them said that at their campus there are no more hyphenated titles, i.e., African-American,etc., everyone is just an American. No one will ever be able to take that pride away from us. "


Worst Country Song Titles (for real recorded songs) --- http://www.downstream.sk.ca/country.htm 

  1. All I Want From You (Is Away).
  2. All My Exes Live In Texas
  3. Am I Double Parked by the Curbstone of Your Heart?  (courtesy of Michael)
  4. At the Gas Station of Love, I Got the Self Service Pump (courtesy of Barry)
  5. Bubba Shot The Jukebox
  6. Cow Cow Boogie
  7. Did I Shave my Legs for This? by Deana Carter (courtesy of Scott)
  8. Don't Believe My Heart Can Stand Another You.
  9. Don't Squeeze My Sharmon.
  10. Don't Strike A Match (To The Book Of Love)
  11. Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts Of Life.
  12. Get Your Biscuits In The Oven, And Your Buns In The Bed.
  13. Go Back To Texas and Cheesey French Fry Lake (thanks, Laura!)
  14. Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart.
  15. Her Only Bad Habit Is Me
  16. Hold On To Your Men..Cause she's Single Again (courtesy of Susan)
  17. How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away? (courtesy of Charles)
  18. How Can You Believe Me When I Say I Love You, When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?
  19. How Come Your Dog Don't Bite Nobody But Me?
  20. I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life (courtesy of Charles)
  21. I Don't Do Floors
  22. I Don't Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling.
  23. I Fell In A Pile Of You And Got Love All Over Me (courtesy of Charles)
  24. I Flushed You From The Toilets Of My Heart  (courtesy of Charles)
  25. I Gave Her My Heart And A Diamond And She Clubbed Me With A Spade (courtesy of Bruce)
  26. I Gave Her the Ring, and She Gave Me the Finger (courtesy of Maureen)
  27. I Got Tears In My Ears From Lying On My Bed Crying On My Pillow Over You.
  28. I Got Through Everything But The Door
  29. I Guess I Had Your Leavin' Coming
  30. I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You  (courtesy of Charles)
  31. I May Be Used, But Baby I Ain't Used Up.
  32. I Sat Down On A Beartrap (Just This Morning)
  33. I Still Miss You Baby...  But My Aim is Getting Better (courtesy of Eric)
  34. I Wanted You To Leave Until You Left Me.
  35. I Wanna Whip Your Cow  (courtesy of Charles)
  36. I Wish I Were A Woman (So I Could Go Out With A Guy Like Me)  (courtesy of Mick)
  37. I Would Have Wrote You A Letter, But I Couldn't Spell Yuck! (courtesy of Charles)
  38. I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dawg Fight, Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win  (courtesy of Charles)
  39. If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, Wonder Whose I'd Find On You.
  40. If I Ain't Got It, You Don't Need It.
  41. If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You  (courtesy of Charles)
  42. If I Were In Your Shoes, I'd Walk Right Back To Me (courtesy of Mick)
  43. If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low (courtesy of Charles)
  44. If My Nose Were Full of Nickels, I'd Blow It All On You  (courtesy of Charles)
  45. If She Hadn't Been So Good Lookin' I Might Have Seen the Train  (courtesy of Phil)
  46. If The Jukebox Took Teardrops
  47. If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl.
  48. If You Don't Leave Me, I'll Find Someone Who Will (courtesy of Barry)
  49. If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too? (courtesy of Charles)
  50. If You Really Loved Me, You'd Leave (courtesy of Phil)
  51. If Whiskey Were A Woman, I'd Be Married For Sure.
  52. I'll Marry You Tomorrow, But Let's Honeymoon Tonight.
  53. I'll Tennessee You In My Dreams
  54. I'm Gonna Hire A Wino To Decorate Our Home.
  55. I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail
  56. I'm Quittin' Wild Turkey Cold Turkey (courtesy of Mandy)
  57. I'm The Only Hell Mama Ever Raised.
  58. It Only Takes One Bar (To Make A Prison)
  59. I've Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart.
  60. I've Been Roped And Throwed By Jesus In The Holy Ghost Corral.
  61. I've Got $5 And It's Saturday Night
  62. Jim, I Wore A Tie Today
  63. Lay Something On My Bed Besides A Blanket
  64. Make Me Late For Work Today.
  65. Mama Get The Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head) (courtesy of Charles)
  66. Mommy, Can I Still Call Him Daddy?
  67. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don't Love Jesus.
  68. My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was Breaking My Heart  (courtesy of Charles)
  69. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Do Miss Him (courtesy of Charles)
  70. Nashville Rash
  71. Occasional Wife
  72. Oh, I've Got Hair Oil On My Ears And My Glasses Are Slipping Down, But Baby I Can See Through You (courtesy of Charles)
  73. Overlonely and Underkissed
  74. Pardon Me, I've Got Someone To Kill (courtesy of Charles)
  75. Phantom Of The Opry
  76. Pick Me Up On Your Way Down
  77. Poultry Promenade
  78. Queen Of My Double-Wide Trailer
  79. Redneck Martians Stole My Baby
  80. Refried Dreams
  81. She Feels Like A New Man Tonight.
  82. She Got The Gold Mine And I Got The Shaft (courtesy of Charles)
  83. She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger (courtesy of Charles)
  84. She Made Toothpicks Out Of The Timber Of My Heart (courtesy of Charles)
  85. She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy
  86. She Walked Across My Heart Like It Was Texas (courtesy of James)
  87. She's Actin' Single..... I'm Drinkin' Doubles.
  88. She's Got Freckles On Her, But She's Pretty (courtesy of Charles)
  89. She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)
  90. Thank God And Greyhound She's Gone
  91. Thanks To The Cathouse, I'm In The Doghouse With You.
  92. The Man That Came Between Us (Was Me)
  93. The Pint Of No Return.
  94. There Ain't Enough Room in my Fruit Of The Looms to Hold All My Lovin' For You (courtesy of Atley)
  95. There's A Tear In My Beer
  96. They May Put Me In Prison, But They Can't Stop My Face From Breakin' Out (courtesy of Charles)
  97. Tight Fittin' Jeans
  98. Trainwreck Of Emotion
  99. Velcro Arms, Teflon Heart (courtesy of Charles)
  100. Waitin' In Your Welfare Line
  101. Walk Out Backwards Slowly So I'll Think You're Walking In.
  102. Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?
  103. Who's Gonna Take The Garbage Out When I'm Dead And Gone?
  104. Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?
  105. Why Did You Leave the One You Left Me For?  (courtesy of the Johnson family)
  106. Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw (courtesy of Karen and James)
  107. Would Jesus Wear A Rolex On His Television Show?
  108. Yard Sale
  109. You Can't Have Your Kate And Edith Too.
  110. You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd
  111. You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat (courtesy of Charles)
  112. You Were Only A Splinter As I Slid Down The Banister Of Life (courtesy of Charles)
  113. Your Negligee Has Turned To Flannel Nightgowns.
  114. Your Tattoo
  115. You're a Hard Dog To Keep Under The Porch (courtesy of Susan)
  116. You're Going To Ruin My Bad Reputation.
  117. You're Out Of Step (With The Beat Of My Heart)
  118. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly (courtesy of Charles)
  119. 80 Proof Bottle of Tear Stopper

Forwarded by Mr. Clean

I just received this from my broker. I normally don't pass stock tips on,  but I thought this exception would be OK. If you hold any of the following stocks, you may want to review.

                            American Can Co.
                            Interstate Water Co.
                            National Gas Co.
                            Northern Tissue Co.

Due to the uncertain market conditions, at this present time, we advise you to sit tight on your American Can, hold your Water, and let go of your Gas.  You may be interested to know that Northern Tissue touched a new bottom today, and millions were wiped clean. 

Mr. Clean


Forwarded by Jay A. Vandenberg

If you bought $1000 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49. 

If you bought $1000 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, and traded in the cans for the nickeldeposit, you would have $79.

My advice to you is to stop investing and start drinking heavily!!!


Blind American Bunnies

Once upon a time, in a nice little forest, there lived an blind little bunny and a a big blind snake.

One day, the bunny was groping his way through the forest in search of a peace rally.   The snake laid across the path, and the blind bunny stumbled to the ground. 

"Oh, my," said the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to trip over you. I've been blind since birth, so, I can't see where I'm going. In fact, I don't even know who I am or what I'm about since the horrid attacks on September 11."

"It's quite okay," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is much the same as yours. I, too, have been blind since birth. Tell you what, maybe I could kinda crawl over the top of you, and figure out what you are, so at least you'll have that going for you."

"Oh, that would be wonderful," replied the bunny.

So the snake slithered all over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur; you have really long ears; your nose twitches; and you have a soft cottony tail. I'd say that you must be one of those highly vulnerable and unsuspecting American bunnies."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you," cried the bunny in obvious patriotic excitement.

The bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you with my paw, and help you the same way you've helped me."

So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're scaly and smooth, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone and no balls. I'd say you must be one of the slimy opium and heroin suppliers that organized, in a blasphemy of Islam,  the recent terrorism attacks that killed thousands of innocent, unsuspecting, and unarmed people.  If you have your way, bunnies like me will be put on the endangered species list."

"Yeah," replied the gleeful vermin while ever-tightening his hug on the soft and vulnerable ball of fluff.



And that's the way it was on October 2, 2001 with a little help from my friends.

 

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

 

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/ 

 

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/ 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134  Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu  

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