New Bookmarks
Year 2004 Quarter 2:  April 1 - June 30 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

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.

Once again Trinity University receives a top ranking --- http://www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/news_releases/usnews_ranking2003.htm 

Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File

June 25, 2004     June 10, 2004  

May 15, 2004    May 1, 2004 

April 8, 2004     April 1, 2004     

June 25, 2004

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on June 25, 2004
Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

I am transitioning to the mountains of New Hampshire for an eight-month sabbatical leave.  Since this is a research leave, I'm not certain I will find the time to put out future editions of New Bookmarks until I return to teach at Trinity University in January 2005.

New:  
Year 2004 92 Spring Pictures from the White Mountains --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm 

For my generation:  I especially remember "those?"  (Turn up your speakers full blast) --- http://www.singingman.us/DYR.htm 
The home page is at http://www.singingman.us (with more songs)

NOVA: World in the Balance (Population Time Bomb) --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/

American soldiers are taking abuse --- http://www.chromedomezone.com/ 

Quotes of the Week

We should never believe statistics we didn't falsify ourselves.
Pierre Steffen, a Boeing VP, going for (and getting) a laugh at a Global Aviation RFID Forum in Atlanta.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
Vincent Van Gogh

You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.
Amy Carmichael

It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes as quoted in a recent message from Mark Shapiro

For me, CBS has become "the enemy within", and I hope never to watch the network again. I think most Americans ought to reflect on the results of their irresponsible and unpatriotic behavior and perhaps narrow their viewing options by one network. The next time America or Americans suffer at the hands of terrorists, thank CBS.
Pat Boone, "CBS and 60 Minutes Modern Benedict Arnolds," NewsMax, May 24, 2004 --- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/5/24/132813.shtml 

The truth—as we all so bitterly know—is that the IT world is filled with certified, credentialed and accredited idiots. I bet you've hired a few. I know I have. The fact that someone has an aptly named BS from Harvard topped off with a misleadingly named master's from MIT does not a good developer (or employee) make. We have to ask ourselves why we make the assumptions we do about individuals with "elite" credentials. The answer says far more about our personal biases than their professional attitudes, aptitudes and skills. Shame on us.
Michael Schrage, "Hiding Behind Certification," CIO Magazine, June 15, 2004 --- http://www.cio.com/archive/061504/itwork.html 

Big Sellers From Wiley

The publisher (Wiley) said the year-on-year growth was partially driven by the strong second half performances of the publisher's U.S. professional/trade titles, which included bestsellers in finance (Hirsch & Hirsch/Stock Trader's Almanac and Mauldin/Bull's Eye Investing), real estate (Allen/Multiple Streams of Income), and leadership (Kouzes & Posner/Leadership Practices Inventory and Lencioni/Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In addition, Testosterone, Inc., an examination of CEO misbehavior by Christopher Byron, sold well.  Accounting and finance textbooks also contributed to the company's growth, such as Kieso/Intermediate Accounting, 11th edition and Kimmel, Weygandt, and Kieso/Financial Accounting, 3rd edition.
SmartPros, "Accounting Products Contribute to Wiley's Record Growth," June 17, 2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x43978.xml 

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
Benjamin Franklin.as quoted by Mark Shapiro --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-22-04.htm 

A California jury awarded a sixth grader $500,000 when school officials didn't silence a classmate's "lewd insults and threats." I'm all for disciplining obnoxious kids, but a half million bucks for an eleven-year-old's insults is ridiculous.
Peter Berger, "Hidden Costs - Education in the Age of Lawyers.," --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-22-04.htm  

WordPerfect also has a few features Microsoft Office still lacks. For instance, when you are considering changing the font, size or alignment of a selected block of text, the program instantly gives you a preview, right in the document, of what the change will look like.  WordPerfect Office can also quickly and easily save any document in Adobe's PDF file format, a universal, cross-platform file type.  And WordPerfect maintains its famous "reveal codes" feature, which allows you to dig into any section of text and make minute changes to formatting by altering the underlying computer codes. I'm not a fan of this feature, but some types of users, especially lawyers, seem to love it, and Microsoft has nothing that really matches it.  Plus, WordPerfect Office is cheaper than Microsoft Office. Its student and teacher edition, which like Microsoft's is really aimed at any home user, can be bought for about $90.
Walter Mossberg, "Microsoft Office Rivals Include One to Avoid And a Good Alternative," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html 

Tablet PCs have come a long way. Their fast processors and huge memory chips provide high-quality handwriting recognition. Funny thing, though, writes columnist Simson Garfinkel: just about every tablet PC on the market today has a keyboard hidden underneath the writing surface. Just lift up the screen, and—voilà!—you have a traditional (albeit expensive) laptop computer. In fact, Garfinkel notes, tablet PCs seem to "spend a large part of their lives serving as traditional laptops, with the stylus snug in its holster while the keyboard gets a vigorous workout."  
Simson Garfinkel ---  http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/garfinkel0704.asp?trk=nl 

Bob Jensen's April-June 2004 Updates on Frauds and the Accounting Scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud063004.htm 

Bob Jensen's threads on scams and scam protections are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 

Updates on the leading books on the business and accounting scandals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm#Quotations 

I love Infectious Greed by Frank Partnoy ---  http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm#Quotations 

Fraud Detection and Reporting --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Charity Frauds --- Fraud Detection and Reporting --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm 

Most of us trash spam mail in less that the 0.4 seconds that it took for the Lakers to score a game-winning basket against the spurs.  Such is not the case for the blind when it comes to deleting spam.
"Blind Get Earful of Spam Daily," by Amit Asaravala, Wired News, June 18, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63934,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html 

Question
How can an Excel spreadsheet be turned into a Flash file?

Answer from Richard Campbell

This is a link to a demo of a product called Excelsius. You can convert an Excel spreadsheet to a highly interactive Flash file. Each of the demos is powered by an underlying Excel file.

http://www.infommersion.com/demos.html 

Richard J. Campbell 
mailto:campbell@rio.edu 

Bob Jensen tutorial on how to convert Excel spreadsheets into DHTML interactive Web documents is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm#Excel 

Question
What is Excel Macrame?

Answer from Richard Newmark

I clicked on a broken link and wound up on a really interesting blog at http://j-walkablog.com/blog. Here is some excel art. I did not know that there was such a thing as excel art.

 

Excel Art

This Excel file is worth a look. It's called excel_art.xls (for best results, right-click the link and download the file). The sheet uses 65,565 cells (279 rows and 235 columns), and the workbook has no data or macros. The image is formed by coloring the cell backgrounds. --- http://j-walkblog.com/blog/docs/excel_art.xls 

If you like that, you might also like superman.xls, which uses an entirely different technique: colored ASCII characters.

And finally, no discussion of Excel art would be complete without a link to Debbie Gewand's work.

--------------------------------------

Richard Newmark
Associate Professor of Accounting
Monfort College of Business
Colorado State University
Greeley , Colorado 80639
http://student1.mcb.unco.edu/phduh

Critical Shortage of Accounting Phds

June 12, 2004 message from Glen Gray

I though members of this list would find this article interesting. I find it particularly interesting because our state is trying to get to retire early.

Glen L. Gray, PhD, CPA
Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems
College of Business & Economics
California State University, Northridge
Northridge, CA 91330-8372

http://www.csun.edu/~vcact00f 

"Dude, Where's My Teacher?," by Jerry Ascierto, California CPA, June 2004

 With enrollment increasing, university officials face the daunting task of recruiting accounting educators as they combat budget cuts and a high cost of living. Who will teach the next generation of CPAs?

Sounding the Alarm Bludgeoned Budgets High Costs, Low Wages A Narrowing Pipeline Old Folks Home Clinically Speaking A Seller's Market Just like slide rules and inkwells, accounting educators are becoming a vanishing breed. While enrollment in undergraduate accounting programs has risen in recent years—and increasing numbers of candidates are sitting for the CPA Exam—the number of accounting doctorates awarded annually are at their lowest level in decades. Only 86 accounting doctorates were awarded nationally in 2002, according to the Hasselback Accounting Faculty Directory. That's a steep decline from 199 degrees awarded on average between 1992-94. The demand for educators looks to only increase in the coming years as a generation of baby boomer professors retires. This situation has reached what many in accounting academia believe to be crisis proportions. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business expects that by 2007, the shortage of business doctorates—including accounting—in the United States will be 1,142; by 2012, that shortage is expected to more than double to 2,419.

As business schools nationwide scale back doctoral programs, "the demand for accounting educators is going to get severe very quickly," says CPA Janice Carr, professor of accounting at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and co-chair of CalCPA's Accounting Education Committee. 

The problem is exacerbated by California's high cost of living and vanishing state budget, which make recruiting accounting educators more challenging for the state's schools. 

And as the profession slowly begins to redouble its efforts to attract students to academia, many educators in California's schools are left to wonder: Who will teach tomorrow's CPAs?

Sounding the Alarm 
Carr has been sounding this alarm for several years at the state and national level, through her work on CalCPA's Accounting Education Committee and on AICPA Council. 

Undergraduate enrollment has steadied since its decline in the late 1990s, with the AICPA pouring significant resources in attracting the best and brightest into the profession, "and that's well and good," says Carr. "But if there's nobody there to teach them, we have a problem. As a profession, we've dropped the ball in terms of recognizing the need." 

When outlining career opportunities to accounting students, "we talk about becoming an industry accountant, a government accountant or a public accountant. But we haven't marketed academia as an opportunity over the years," Carr says. "We've overlooked it, and it's going to come back to haunt us." 

The profession is finally beginning to listen. The AICPA will soon partner with the American Accounting Association, an organization of accounting educators, and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy to address the problem, says Beatrice Sanders, director of the AICPA's Academic and Career Development division. 

And CalCPA is re-instating its doctoral grant program, which was discontinued in the mid-1980s when demand for new accounting educators seemed low. A proposal is being finalized that would award up to three doctoral candidates enrolled in either California or out of state schools a $10,000 annual stipend, for a maximum of three years. The doctoral student would have to commit to teaching in a California college or university for two years after receiving their doctorate as a condition of the fellowship.

Continued in the article

June 17, 2004 Christine Kloezeman [ckloezem@GLENDALE.EDU] 

Is it only accounting doctorates or all business doctorates? 
There are so many more options out there now.

June 17, 2004 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Christine,

I inserted the following module in the April 1, 2004 edition of New Bookmarks. It concerns business doctorates in general and steps the AACSB is taking to study the problem --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book04q2.htm 

Bob

Question
How bad will the shortage of doctoral faculty in collegiate business education become?

Answers
In September 2003, the AACSB issued the results of a survey that paint a pretty bleak picture of supply of doctoral faculty relative to increasing demand --- www.aacsb.edu/dfc 

Sustaining Scholarship in Business Schools
Executive Summary/September 2003

FINDINGS

Unless decisive action is taken to reverse declines in business doctoral education, academic business schools, universities, and society will be faced with an inevitable erosion in the quality of business education and research.

In recent years, the production of new business doctorates has decreased.  In the US, for example, business doctorates declined from 1,327 in 1994-95 to 1,071 in 1999-2000, or more than 19 percent.  The percentage of doctorates produced by AACSB-accredited institutions also has decreased, to 84 percent in 1999-2000 from 92 percent a decade earlier.  Today, the number of doctorates produced by accredited schools is at its lowest level since 1987.  Although there are some examples of new programs and marginal increases in enrollment in various parts of the world, local demand has outstripped supply in virtually all countries.

Within five years, the US shortage of business Ph.D.'s is expected to be 1,142; and in 10 years, the shortage will reach 2,419.  Although considerable uncertainty about these projections must be acknowledged, the findings take into account an in-depth review of current Ph.D. enrollments, projected demand for business education, faculty retirements, and the typical hiring patterns of Ph.D.'s by accredited and non-accredited schools.

The DFC concluded that doctorally trained individuals are the most essential element in assuring the continued rigor of business education and research conducted in academic, business, and public policy institutions.  Ensuring adequate supply must, therefore, be a primary concern from an industry-level perspective.  From a school perspective, many deans, department chairs, and program directors face unfilled positions after each hiring season.  They confront salary escalation that far exceeds market changes or salary trends in other academic fields and must deal with internal management challenges posed by salary inversion.

Demand for doctoral faculty will continue to increase as the number of MBA providers and students expands globally, business schools strive to meet global standards for quality, and demographic trends drive up undergraduate business enrollment and the proportion of faculty likely to retire.

Substantial increases in production are not expected because of funding and incentive issues.  A DFC survey of US program directors and deans suggests that about 80 percent of funding for doctoral programs derives from business schools' own resources.  Endowments and university sources, such as fellowships and assistantships, constitute the remainder.  Federal and corporate funding supports only a small fraction of the costs.  In some instances, costs are somewhat offset by assigning teaching responsibilities to Ph.D. students.  Funding models are more variable outside the US, but generally doctoral students are more likely to be self-funded or employed in junior faculty positions.

Unlike other business school programs, such as the MBA, there are few financial or reputational incentives to invest in Ph.D. programs.  The advantages to enlarging a Ph.D. program are intangible--increased faculty satisfaction, for example.

Spring 2004 Hiring Outlook

The average starting salary offer for accounting majors is $42,155, an increase of 1.9 percent over last year, according to a quarterly report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).  This is sumarized at http://www.smartpros.com/x43831.xml .  Additional salary information is at http://www.naceweb.org/info_public/salaries.htm 

Employers expect to increase hiring of college graduates by 11.2% --- http://www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=&prid=191 

Also see http://www.naceweb.org/press/display.asp?year=&prid=192 

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers 

I was fortunate to spend two years in the CASBS think tank just above the Stanford University campus (on Stanford land).  This is really a great place to reflect on your work and your life.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cynthia Brandt [mailto:cynthia@casbs.stanford.edu]  
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 5:00 PM 
To: CASBS_Fellows-casbs@casbs.stanford.edu  
Subject: New CASBS website

Dear Friends of CASBS,

The Center has a new website! It is available at both www.casbs.org  and http://www.casbs.org/ 

We redesigned the site to provide more information about the Center's mission, programs, and impact for academic audiences as well as for the public.

For functions such as nominations and panel ratings, you will need to click on the link called "LOG-IN" at the top right corner. That will connect you to the Center's internal site.

I hope that you will take a few minutes to review the site and send us your feedback. As you will see on the pages under the tab called "News", we are making a real effort to keep up-to-date on your recent research and publications. Please send us a note whenever you have new research to report or when the media cover your work, and we'll post it on the site.

Many thanks to those of you who allowed us to use your photos or quotes on the new site. I think you'll agree that your words and images convey how special the Center really is.

All my best, Cynthia

Cynthia Brandt 
Director of Development Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences 
75 Alta Road Stanford, CA 94305-8090

cynthia@casbs.org 
 (650) 321-2052

 

The Education Arcade 
It’s early afternoon on a Sunday at Boston’s Museum of Science. About a dozen young students are huddled in teams, peering at Pocket PCs, their parents listening nearby. There’s a palpable sense of urgency among the team members; everyone’s shouting at once. One self-assured fifth grader steps in and takes charge of her group. She has figured out what to do with the technology and begins organizing her troop into attack formation. These boisterous students are playing Hi-Tech Who Done It!, part of an MIT research project called the Education Arcade that aims to make computer and video games a valuable component of teaching. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/atwood0604.asp?trk=nl 

Bob Jensen's threads on games and learning are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment 

An Exercise in Valuation

"Putting a Value on Google," by Scott Kessler, Business Week, June 11, 2004 --- http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jun2004/pi20040611_9275_pi076.htm 

S&P takes a hard look at the search giant's fundamentals -- and at the valuations of its peers -- to find an answer

Amid an enormous level of interest in the Google IPO -- from investors, the media, and seemingly every other person you talk to at cocktail parties -- we at Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services decided to take an unbiased look at the company and its competitive position (see BW Online, 6/11/04, "Google: What Lies Beyond Search?"), including commissioning a proprietary survey of Internet users (see BW Online, 6/14/04, "Search Users Weigh In on Google").

Continued in the article

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

Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry (multimedia history)  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/berlhome.html 

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for history and entertainment are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#History 

"Pinsker on Office Hours," Guest commentary by Sanford Pinsker, June 15, 2004 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-15-04.htm 

I am surely not the only professor who has marveled at the fact that most students avoid coming to office hours -- that is, unless a paper has just been returned or one is due during the next class meeting. After a few years of, let us say, spotty office hour attendance, I learned to think of myself as Thoreau and my office as Walden Pond. I may have been "alone" but I was not lonely. There were books to read, book reviews to write, and not least of all, thoughts to think.

Still, I hoped to do better by my students. As it turns out, I didn't -- at least not for those who wanted to use office hours as a place to lobby, or if you prefer, plead, for a higher grade. Most of the time their supplications had little to do with the course at hand -- which is, after all, why I was there -- but with a few touches of ingenuity, I managed to make office hours, let us say, "interesting." What follows, then, are some of the most effective ploys I developed over the years -- for my students as well as myself.

With respect to discussions of papers that received a lower-than-expected grade, I let "model papers" do most of the heavy lifting. In each group of papers there is usually a stand-out job, one written by a student who combines talent with hard work. No doubt this student could have done a better than reasonable job by banging it out the night before the due date, but that is precisely what this student doesn't do. The thoughtfulness and dead-on writing makes it clear that this student takes a justifiable pride in the work he or she turns in.

I block out the student's name and before I return the papers I mention that a "model paper," one that may not be perfect (whatever that might mean) is available in the English department office. Students who would like to talk with me about their papers must read the model paper before our chat. Most of the time, I tell them, just reading the model paper will be enough, but if it isn't, I'm happy to have a face-to-face discussion, especially if it's aimed at improving one's work on the next paper.

I never cease to marvel at the number of angry -- and unproductive -- sessions I've avoided with this policy firmly in place. Occasionally a student will insist that his or her paper is at least as good as the "model paper," and possibly even better. There is really nothing to do for this student other than to point him or her toward the counseling office where there are people professionally trained to deal with delusion. For better or worse, I am not, and I need to save my time for students who want help in writing effective papers.

Continued in the article

June 22, 2004 message from Dan Stone [jis@uky.edu] 

I am pleased to announce the electronic release of the Spring 2004 of the Journal of Information Systems. Accessing the issue requires only a few mouse clicks: begin by going to: http://aaahq.org/index.cfm , then click on "publications," "AAA Electronic Publications," "browse publications," "Journal of Information Systems," "JIS Spring 2004".

This JIS issue features six main articles, two book reviews, and a discussant's and author's reply related to one article.

In "Accounting Information Systems Research Opportunities Using Personality Type Theory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator" Professors Wheeler, Hunton, and Bryant argue the usefulness of Personality Type Theory (PTT) for accounting systems research. More specifically, they argue for the value of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a personality measure and "discuss how AIS researchers can use PTT to complement and extend current research initiatives."

In an extended reply to Professors Wheeler et. al., Professor Lampe concurs with the value of personality constructs to accounting systems research but argues that two personality measures that are not discussed in the Wheeler et al. paper (i.e., the Millon Inventory of Personality Styles (MIPS), and the Big Five Traits of Personality) are most frequently used in psychology and are stronger psychometrically. Professor Lampe's comments include a valuable discussion of psychometric issues in measuring personality. In their reply to Professor Lampe, Professors Wheeler et al. argue that the MBTI is the best personality measure available to accounting systems researchers.

In "Development of the Journal of Information Systems from the Editors' Perspectives" Professors Hutchison, Lee, and White interview current and former JIS editors and conduct content analyses to examine the creation and development of the Journal of Information Systems (JIS). In addition to providing historical analysis of JIS, the paper also suggests potential future directions for the journal and accounting systems research.

Professors Rose, Rose, and Strand Norman apply prospect theory to the evaluation of information technology (IT) investment decisions in "The Evaluation of Risky Information Technology Investment Decisions". Their experiment provides evidence that risk-seeking evaluators rate IT investment decisions more favorably than do risk-averse evaluators, and, that risk preferences, decision domain (a well or poorly performing division), and perceived outcomes (gain or loss) jointly effect the evaluation of IT investment decisions.

Professors Wright, Jindanuwat, and Todd present a comprehensive and integrated computational model for successful audit planning in "Computational Models as a Knowledge Management Tool: A Process Model of the Critical Judgments Made during Audit Planning". Their model, which is focused on the sales and collection cycle of a manufacturing client, opines "on a client's going concern status, applicable levels of inherent, control and planned detection risk, and appropriate levels of statement- and account-level materiality. Most importantly, the model validly identifies the cause of significant fluctuations given causal hypotheses."

Professors Weidenmier and Herron present a case study and analysis of the usefulness of two generalized audit software packages (ACL and IDEA) for classroom use in "Selecting an Audit Software Package for Classroom Use". They argue that effective classroom presentation of generalized audit software provides both practical knowledge and facilitates learning of audit concepts and procedures.

In "Accounting for the Development Costs of Internal-Use Software" Professors Savage, Callaghan, and Peacock critique existing accounting standards for internal-use software expenditures (i.e., Statement of Position 98-1). They argue that this standard undercapitalizes these expenditures and they propose an alternative that specifies "the conditions under which capitalization or expensing should occur for internally developed software."

Finally Cheryl Dunn (Book review editor) presents book reviews by Professor Robert Zmud of two classic books by C. West Churchman, and by Shawn Windle (a product manager at PeopleSoft) of "Business Process Management: The Third Wave".

Enjoy!!!!

Dan Stone, 
Editor of the Journal of Information Systems

 

June 14, 2004 message from Ethical Performance [list_admin@ethicalperformance.com] 

Five areas of social responsibility considered most important by Marks & Spencer's customers have been used as the basis for the retail company's first corporate social responsibility report.

The report, verified by Ernst & Young, focuses on key CSR subjects identified in a survey of the company's prime stakeholders as having the most impact on the Marks & Spencer brand.

The subject areas, each covered in detail in the report, are: ethical trading, animal welfare, community programmes, sustainable raw materials and responsible use of technology.

The web-based version of the report can be found at http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/ourcommitmenttosociety 

Question
What's "affinity fraud?"

Answer:  See below

A key fund-raiser for Harvard University used his connection to the school to defraud benefactors out of millions of dollars, showing how sophisticated professional investors can be just as vulnerable as amateurs.

"Harvard Parents Got a Hard Lesson In Investing Perils:  A Key Fund-Raiser for School Is Convicted of Bilking Wealthy Donors, Alumni." by Randall Smith, The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2004, Page A1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108690562744434417,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us 

Karen Fleiss had good reason to trust Gregory Earls.

Both had children at Harvard College and they knew each other as donors to the Harvard Parents Fund, which Mr. Earls headed for a time with billionaire Robert Bass. Mr. Earls was a deal maker with a penchant for high-risk investments; Ms. Fleiss was a hedge-fund manager.

So when he asked her to invest in one of his companies in 1998 -- and intimated that Mr. Bass might, too -- she opened her hedge fund's checkbook, eventually putting almost $1.8 million into the venture.

"He had a Southern accent and a big smile, and he would say, 'Karen, I have a deal for you,' " she recalls. "By the time he was finished, it sounded like the deal of a lifetime."

It wasn't. When she cashed out, all she had to show for her investment was $50,000. Ms. Fleiss was one of three wealthy Harvard parents and alumni who recently testified about being bilked by Mr. Earls. The authorities say he stole much of the money they invested with him, siphoning off cash as he passed it through another company he controlled. In the ledgers, the skimmed funds were camouflaged as legal, management or accounting fees.

All told, prosecutors say, Mr. Earls defrauded more than 100 investors of $13.8 million. They say Mr. Earls diverted $1.2 million to an education trust fund for his own children, and $4.3 million more to other personal accounts.

The Harvard connection and other fund-raising activities gave Mr. Earls "access to a pool of potential investors who were very wealthy, and he knew how to talk those people into investing with him," prosecutor William Stellmach said at the trial.

In April, Mr. Earls was convicted of 22 counts of fraud in Manhattan federal court after one investor took his suspicions to prosecutors. In court, Mr. Earls acknowledged moving investors' money to various accounts he controlled -- which he attributed to "sloppy business practices" -- but denied stealing.

His lawyer, Barry Coburn, said in court that Mr. Earls couldn't have had criminal intent to steal because he kept records of the amounts diverted. The investors "lost their money because the Internet bubble expanded and expanded and popped," Mr. Coburn argued. They didn't have "some kind of money-back guarantee."

Mr. Coburn says his client declines to comment on the details of his case. "Mr. Earls has been convicted by a jury," Mr. Coburn says. "It would not be appropriate in my view for us to respond to particular factual allegations in this context given that Mr. Earls is facing sentencing."

As described by prosecutors, Mr. Earls's scam appears to be a variation of "affinity fraud," in which victims are lulled into dropping their guard by mutual ties to the same religious organization or ethnic group. Mr. Earls cultivated important contacts through his work for the Harvard Parents Fund and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, D.C. -- and used data supplied by Harvard to assess likely investors.

The case shows that sophisticated professional investors can be just as vulnerable as amateurs. Much of the money Mr. Earls stole came from a handful of wealthy Harvard benefactors, including a former aide to junk-bond impresario Michael Milken. Even Harvard found itself short-changed. Mr. Earls reneged on three separate pledges totaling $275,000 that he made while he headed the parents fund, a school official testified at his trial.

Mr. Earls, 59 years old, grew up in Bluefield, W.Va., and attended the University of Virginia. In the 1970s, after stints as a gym teacher, mutual-fund salesman and stockbroker, he recruited others to invest with him in projects including movies, theaters, apartments and microwave-oven retailers. The 1980s saw him organizing investment groups that bought stakes in numerous enterprises.

In the mid-1990s, Harvard's development office took notice of Mr. Earls as a potentially productive fund-raiser for the Harvard Parents Fund. He was a big donor to the school, and three of his four children eventually enrolled there. His lawyer says in an interview that recruiting investors wasn't the principal motive for his unpaid volunteer work.

Harvard fund-raising officials are angry about what happened. "The fact that someone would volunteer their time for a nonprofit and then use that opportunity to line their own pockets is an outrage," says Andrew Tiedemann, communications director for alumni affairs and development at Harvard. "We have never seen anything remotely like this in Harvard history."

One of Mr. Earls's most important fund-raising assignments was Robert Bass, one of the well-known Bass brothers from Texas, who had made numerous high-profile investments in the 1980s. The two men met in connection with Harvard Parents Fund activities, and Mr. Bass's daughter Chandler, who entered Harvard in 1996, became "good friends" with Mr. Earls's daughter Kate, Mr. Bass testified.

Continued in the article

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

Consumer fraud protections are discussed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Most derivatives like forward, futures, and swap contracts are acquired at zero cost such that historical cost accounting is meaningless.  The exception is a purchased/written option where a small premium is paid/received to buy/sell the option.  Thus if the derivative financial instrument contract is defaulted a few minutes after being transacted there are generally zero or very small damages.  Such is not the case with traditional non-derivative financial instruments like bonds where the entire notional amounts (thousands or millions of dollars) change hands initially such that enormous damages are possible immediately after the notional amounts change hands.  In the case of of a derivative contract, the notional does not change hands.  It is only used to compute a contracted payment such as a swap payment.

For example, in the year 2004 Wells Fargo Bank sold $63 million in bonds with an interest rate "derived" from the price of a casino's common stock price.  The interest payments are "derivatives" in one sense, but the bonds are not derivative financial instruments scoped into FAS 133 due to Condition b in Paragraph 6 of FAS 133.  In the case of bonds, the bond holders made a $63 million initial investment of the entire notional amount.  If Wells Fargo also entered into an interest rate swap to lock in a fixed interest rate, the swap contract would be a derivative financial instrument subject to FAS 133.  However, the bonds are not derivative financial instruments under FAS 133 definitions.

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on June 16, 2004

TITLE: Calpine Raises Cash to Pay Debt, Turn Profit 
REPORTER: Steven D. Jones 
DATE: Jun 15, 2004 
PAGE: C3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108724453234036647,00.html  
TOPICS: Accounting, Cash Flow, Debt, Early Retirement of Debt, Asset Disposal

SUMMARY: Calpine Corp. has revealed a plan that will significantly change its balance sheet and statement of cash flows. Questions focus on evaluating the plan and the related accounting.

QUESTIONS: 
1.) Outline each economic event that is described in the article. For each event, briefly explain the economic significance of the event.

2.) Assume that Calpine Corp. continues with the plan that is described in the article. Explain how each component of the plan would impact the financial statements.

3.) Why would bondholders be concerned about disposing of assets?

4.) What is a hedge? Into what type of hedge transaction did Calpine Corp. enter? Why did Calpine Corp. enter into the hedge transaction? Is net income changed by changes in market value of the asset underlying the hedge transaction? Is net income changed by changes in market value of the electricity in Calpine's long-term sales contracts? Support your answers.

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

"Outside Audit: Calpine Takes Basic Approach to Power Game," by Steven D. Jones, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2004, Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108724453234036647,00.html 

Calpine Corp., one of the main actors in California's long-running energy soap opera, is working from a script that sounds like it came right out of a business textbook: raising cash, reducing debt and aiming to put out a more profitable product.

As any soaps fan knows, however, plots can turn unexpectedly.

Calpine, based in San Jose, is raising nearly $1 billion in cash from asset sales, and in the bargain positioning itself to profit from more volatile electricity prices in the year ahead.

In a series of deals, including the sale of a large block of Canadian gas, Calpine will raise cash to finish power plants and meet obligations for maturing debt and hybrid securities that begin coming due this fall.

At the same time, the energy company is reducing how much electricity it has tied up in long-term supply contracts to 51% of output for the remainder of the year from 65% a year ago.

The change means that Calpine has more megawatts to sell on the open market this summer, when consumer demand is projected to grow 2.5% nationwide and swell as much as 6% in California

Combined, the moves mean Calpine is poised to boost cash from asset sales and increase cash flow if market prices for electricity move higher this summer. Calpine has 88 power plants generating 22,000 megawatts and another 10 plants nearing completion.

The strategy isn't foolproof: Those gas reserves are real assets, and thus are a comfort to bond holders, who may fret at their disposal. Also, if it is a cool summer, the market price for electricity would understandably suffer, and Calpine, which had a weak first quarter, would too.

The independent power generator burned through about $400 million in cash in the first quarter. It had $1.4 billion in liquidity at the end of the quarter, but it also plans about $900 million in capital spending and faces two maturing debt obligations totaling about $570 million in the next two years. In addition, the first $225 million of a type of hybrid convertible security that Calpine sold comes due this fall, and many investors are likely to want to cash out.

Calpine traded at nearly $50 a share when those hybrid securities were first sold five years ago. At 4 p.m. yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, it stood at $3.98, up five cents.

Wall Street and investors are acutely concerned with how Calpine manages its ready cash, as even the company notes. "The whole issue on Calpine has been liquidity," says Bob Kelly, the chief financial officer. "One way to get that off the table is to build our cash balance."

For Calpine, building cash is in large part about the difference between fuel costs and the price it receives for electricity it generates. For example, if it costs Calpine $35 for the gas to generate a megawatt of electricity that the company sells for $50, then it earns $15.

Five years ago, when prices and demand for electricity were high, Calpine prospered by selling long-term power contracts. To hedge those contracts, the company locked in fixed gas prices partly by purchasing Canadian gas fields.

Since then, gas prices have risen, but electricity demand and prices haven't kept pace. Sometimes Calpine customers, many of them utilities, could come out ahead by relying on Calpine's fixed-price power, shutting off their own generating plants and selling their gas for a profit on the open market.

Now Calpine is going back to customers with an offer to provide the generating capacity only. Or, as in the earlier example, the utility pays $15 for the generating capacity and provides the gas at its own expense. While that may appear to be a small change, it makes a big difference on the balance sheet, because Calpine no longer needs as much gas in the ground as a long-term hedge.

"Our profit margin doesn't change," says Mr. Kelly. "We get the capacity value of the megawatts just the same as we do now, but we have removed the energy side of the trade so we are long gas. That frees up the opportunity to sell the gas."

Calpine has 230 billion cubic feet of natural gas in Alberta on the block. Mr. Kelly estimates the company paid about $1.25 per thousand cubic feet for that gas and recent Canadian deals suggest the company could now get $2 per thousand cubic feet. At that price, Calpine's Alberta gas reserves represent a 60% return on a three-year investment.

But the deal looks even better from a balance-sheet perspective, since Calpine intends to pay off some bank debt and then use most of the proceeds to buy back bonds that are trading for about 60 cents on the dollar. Put it all together: Calpine bought gas for $1.25, will sell it for $2 and use the cash to repay nearly $3 of debt.

"We've doubled our money in 2½ to three years," says Mr. Kelly. "People ought to be happy."

Yet the enthusiasm on Wall Street has been restrained. Calpine shares have gained little since the plan was announced June 10, and its bonds have lost ground, trading down another 25 cents yesterday.

The tepid response is tied to the view that the gas on Calpine's balance sheet is a core asset, with some creditors seeing billions of cubic feet of gas as a cushion against a hard landing for their bonds.

"That's not the way to look at it," counters Mr. Kelly. "If anyone is looking at gas as security on the bonds, then they ought to sell the bonds."

The other key to Calpine's current restructuring is higher power prices that will spur cash flow, and for that Calpine could use a heat wave. Consumers weather cold with natural gas and other sources of energy, but most rely on electrically powered air conditioners to beat the heat. Too many cool and breezy days, however, and air conditioners get turned off.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting for derivative financial instruments are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/caseans/000index.htm 

PwC provides a summary of major issues in the hot debate over how to account for stock options --- http://www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/F108DCCEFCCF1D5385256E9A006C7005 

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting for stock options --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm 

Question
How can you download an entire Website?

One answer
HTTrack Website Copier 3.32-2 http://www.httrack.com/ 

HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.

It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an integrated help system.

WinHTTrack is the Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP release of HTTrack, and WebHTTrack the Linux/Unix/BSD release. 

See the download page.

Peabody Essex Museum (art history site founded in 1799) ---  http://www.pem.org/homepage/ 

Where "Big Brother" still decides what you may read and learn!

"Vietnam Orders Net Clampdown," Wired News, June 8, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,63764,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html 

Vietnam has ordered local governments nationwide to closely monitor Internet use and enforce regulations aimed at cracking down on "bad information" sent or read on the Web, an official said Tuesday.

The move comes after the communist country sentenced several dissidents to long prison terms over the past two years for using the Internet to criticize the government and promote democracy.

Continued in the article

The official Viet Nam weekly news site is at http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/ 

Disney's Nemo is a big success in Viet Nam theatres --- http://snipurl.com/NemoInVietNam 

The Atlantic Online's Poetry Pages (history, literature) --- http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/ 
Includes audio readings of poems.

THE ATLANTIC ONLINE ( www.theatlantic.com ) has a two-fold mission: first, to serve as The Atlantic Monthly's home on the Internet, presenting the magazine's digital edition and continually building a useful online archive; second, to serve as the home of Atlantic Unbound, an online journal that extends the magazine's coverage of books, literature, and culture. Each month The Atlantic Online offers the contents of The Atlantic's print edition—augmented with links to related articles, other Web sites, and/or special online sidebars—alongside a weekly update of original Web-only features in Atlantic Unbound. The site offers access to back issues of The Atlantic from November 1995 (when the magazine first appeared on the Web) to the present, as well as hundreds of articles selected from the magazine's extensive archive. The Atlantic Online is also home to an interactive forum, Post & Riposte. Below is an overview of the site, with links to all of its principal pages.

IBM recently completed its acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers' global management consulting and information technology services business, PwC Consulting. As a result, PwC Consulting is no longer a part of the PricewaterhouseCoopers network of firms, and is now a part of the IBM Global Services business unit.  IBM (including IBM Global Services) and PricewaterhouseCoopers are not the same organization, and neither governs or is affiliated with the other, or any affiliate, subsidiary or division of the other --- http://www-1.ibm.com/services/us/index.wss/home 

PwC, however, intends to enter new lines of consulting and continue tax consulting.  The PwC Advisory Service site is at http://www.pwcglobal.com/Extweb/service.nsf/docid/3EC79B0CC612B1D485256E6D00507050 

Question
Do you think this type of consulting meets the independence test?

"PwC Launches New Performance Risk Management Service," AccountingWeb, June 17, 2004 --- http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=99330 

PricewaterhouseCoopers announced this week a new Performance Risk Management (PRM) advisory service for CEOs, CFOs and board directors. The new PRM service will help corporations improve the quality and adequacy of management reporting, especially in the area of identifying risks that could impact short and long term performance. The service will be supported by risk management software licensed from Metapraxis Limited. PRM provides a fresh approach to reporting, analyzing, predicting, and monitoring key business and financial metrics, allowing management to focus their attention on steps to improve performance and thus shareholder value. The service introduces greater transparency between the finance and business communities through the adoption of common views of key metrics.

"US companies are aggressively evaluating their core processes to improve efficiency and enhance controls to meet the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. They now appreciate the need to sustain these core processes and evaluate performance risk. The monitoring of performance risks on a timely basis will become an essential business requirement," said Fred Cohen, a partner with the US firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

June 22, 2004 reply from John Corless [corlessj@CSUS.EDU] 

Rather than focusing on other services provided to audit clients to determine independence, we should focus on how big the fees from any one client are to any one partner’s total fees. Even where only audit work is done, if the audit fee exceeds 20% of the total fees for any one partner, I think independence is compromised.

John Corless
Professor of Accountancy
CSU-Sacramento
Sacramento, CA 95819-6088

Bob Jensen's threads on PwC's auditing scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#PwC 

"Make a Date, Meet a Mate Online," Reuters, Wired News, June 12, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63827,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html 

Rick, a website developer from Columbus, Ohio, remembers his divorce nearly four years ago with an extra tinge of bitterness: His ex-wife remarried the same day to a man she met via the Internet.

"After we decided to split, we were still living together for awhile and she got online," Rick, 29, said. "They ended up meeting and two days after that, she was wearing his ring."

Rick later tried his own luck at a Web dating forum, but said a promising flirtation with a woman turned sour after several weeks of e-mail contact. He finally met a new love online, but not at a dating site -- the unsuspecting sweetheart sent him a message to compliment a music disc he had recorded.

"It's blossomed very naturally as opposed to anything else I've experienced online," he said.

While the Internet has arguably increased the chances of meeting potential mates, it carries its own share of heartbreak and growing complaints about false profiles, bad behavior and ill-suited matches.

A number of online daters and Internet sites are taking matters into their own hands, critiquing these services and warning their peers of the pitfalls of Web hook-ups.

Some review sites, like Date Seeker, compare the attributes of dating services, give tips for online dating safety and recommend ways to tweak a profile for better results. They distinguish between sites like Match.com or eHarmony, which purport to seek meaningful matches for the single gal and guy, versus more casual encounters at Lavalife or ethnically targeted sites like JDate for Jewish singles.

Online daters can find reader polls on favorite dating sites, a breakdown of broad and specialty sites and personal testimonies. At least 29 million Americans, or two out of five singles, used online dating services last year, and that market is expected to keep growing over the next five years.

But amid the triumphant tales of e-mails that end in wedding bells, a growing number of online daters are voicing complaints. At eDateReview, some of the most popular match-up sites garner lukewarm ratings.

The most frequent complaints are that far more men are online than women and a lack of protection against sexual predators or cheating lovers, said Michael Kantor, an information technology project manager in Arlington, Virginia, who runs the site.

"Men lie about their availability, whether they have a steady girlfriend or wife, and women tend to lie mostly about their looks," Kantor said.

One of 27 critiques of the site comes from a reviewer named Rich, who gives Match.com a two-star rating out of five potential stars.

"I've come to this conclusion -- there are not a whole lot of good-looking women on these dating sites," he wrote. "'Average' (in a profile) means fat, 'extra pounds' means bring a defibrillator to the date."

A reviewer identifying herself as Natalie closed her account at eHarmony after a match that didn't click, saying: "I'll take my chances on meeting my next date the conventional way."

Online dating sites say their membership rules require honest representation and prohibit harassment or abusive behavior. Some recognize that credibility problems could harm a business estimated to grow from $398 million in 2004 to $642 million within four years, according to Jupiter Research.

"We employ a lot of people that spend a lot of time reviewing the content posted on the site," said Tim Sullivan, chief executive of top dating site Match.com. "We're a brand that tends to attract people seeking a serious relationship."

Sullivan said that each month, as many as 3,000 profiles are rejected right off the bat, while another 2,000 are removed because of complaints of dishonesty from other members. A six-person "fraud and abuse" team investigates more serious breaches.

Sullivan said Match.com was testing a pilot program in Dallas this month offering members a chance to get a professional "certified" photo posted online, bearing a Match.com stamp with the date it was taken.

Nate Elliott, Jupiter Research's analyst of online dating, said the grievances were just a sign of how mainstream the practice has become.

"The things people do online to deceive people are the same things they do offline," Elliott said. "The point of connection is on a website instead of a bar or a gym."

From the Scout Report on June 11, 2004

The Kissinger Telcons (history, government) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/index.htm 

The National Security Archive at George Washington University has developed a fine reputation for its electronic briefing books and other publications, many of which have arisen from requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Released in late May 2004, this 123rd electronic briefing book in the ongoing series includes ten telcons (transcripts of telephone conversations) from the files of Henry Kissinger's collection at the Library of Congress. The subjects covered in these intriguing documents include talks on how to spin the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia ordered by President Nixon, and conversations with Alexander Haig. Some of the other telcons released as part of the electronic briefing book include conversations with Motion Picture Association president Jack Valenti and Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller. The final document of note here is a helpful finding aid to the Kissinger telcons, created by the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration.

 

Facing Up to Multivariate Data

The Future of Faces These days, all the hot-shot graphics folks are trying to figure out how to create realistic human faces with computer imagery. But photorealism can be pretty creepy. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/blog.asp?blogID=1444&trk=nl 

In 1971 was at Stanford University when Herman Chernoff developed the interesting theory for depicting multivariate data as features of faces that could be compared visually by humans.  I later applied his computer program in a AAA monograph: Jensen, R.E. (1976). Phantasmagoric accounting: Research and analysis of economic, social and environmental impact of corporate business, Studies in Accounting Research #14 (Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association, Chapter 6)

Shane Moriarity later applied this program in a financial reporting experimentr.  
Moriarity, S. (1979). "Communicating financial information through multidimesional graphics," Journal of Accounting Research 17, Spring, 205-224.

For more on this see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/00jensen/research/232wp/232wp.doc and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/00jensen/research/232wp/232head.doc 

June 11, 2004 reply from Jagdish Gangolly [JGangolly@UAMAIL.ALBANY.EDU] 

Bob,

 

Nowadays it is very easy to draw these faces. I give drawing them for financial data as a routine exercise

in my graduate statistics course (I usually ask the students to take paired samples of

companies that failed/did not fail, and try various permutations of features/data to determine which assignment

of data to features seem to produce reasonable fit.

 

There are many programs that help draw these (S-Plus, my favourite, has 'faces' routine; 'faces' in SAS even draws

asymmetric faces). Some standalone programs that   do the same include:

 

http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~wiseman/chernoff/

http://hesketh.com/schampeo/projects/Faces/chernoff.html

 

Some tutorials on faces are:

 

Visualization Techniques of Different Dimensions http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~behrens/asu/reports/compre/comp1.html

Scientific Visualisation: A Practical Introduction: A one day course http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/computing/training/document_archive/SciVis-course/SciVis.book_1.html

 

Jagdish

From Syllabus News on June 15, 2004

U. Miami Partners with Local K-12 for Online High School

The University of Miami has partnered with a local private K-12 school to start an online high school, the Miami Herald reported. The Sagemont School last fall approached UM with plans for a partnership that would let UM professors do research on online education, while Sagemont gets the benefit of the university's name on its program, officials at both schools said.

The newly inaugurated University of Miami Online High School now has 225 students in 40 countries, most of them professional athletes and performers who travel often and wouldn't be able to attend a traditional high school. The virtual school serves ninth through 12th grades, and next year will start to offer eighth grade as well. It is fully accredited and offers college-level courses that earn the students college credits.

---

Department of Kudos: Virginia Tech, MIT, eCollege Honored

Virginia Tech received a 21st Century Achievement Award in Science for its development of a 2,200 processor supercomputer from a cluster of 1,100 Power Mac G5 computers. Called System X, the system is currently the world’s third fastest computer. The award was sponsored by information tech journal Computerworld.

“The goal of the Virginia Tech project was to develop novel computing architectures that reduce their cost, time to build, and maintenance complexity. As a result, institutions with relatively modest budgets can now afford to build a premier supercomputer," said Hassan Aref, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering.

Also, MIT and Sapient Inc. were also honored for their work to develop MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW), which was named as the best application of IT in the field of education. MIT OCW offers free and open online access to the educational materials from 701 MIT courses, spanning MIT's five schools and all 33 of its academic disciplines. Anne Margulies, executive director of MIT OCW, said that since the launch of the MIT OCW pilot in 2003, the Web site has received traffic from users in more than 215 countries, city-states and territories, “making it a truly global initiative.”

Finally, course management system developer eCollege was named “Technology Company of the Year” by the Colorado Software and Internet Association, which has handed out the award for the last 10 years.

An independent panel of judges made up of 30 technology executives evaluated eCollege on the following criteria: Mission and Vision, Market Size and Strategy, Solid Business Practices, R&D, Product Innovation and Relevance, Influence on Industry Growth, Financial Growth, Culture, Employee Retention, Community Involvement, and Contributions to Customer Success. The 2004 CSIA award was presented during a ceremony held at the University of Denver.

 

On university campuses, students cherish their facebooks -- paper booklets that serve as student directories with mug shots. Now, a bunch of Harvard students are taking the concept nationwide with a student-focused social network --- http://www.thefacebook.com/ 

Thefacebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges. We have opened up Thefacebook for popular consumption at:

BC • Berkeley • Brown • BU • Chicago • Columbia • Cornell • Dartmouth • Duke Emory • Florida • Georgetown • Harvard • Illinois • Michigan • Michigan State MIT • Northeastern • Northwestern • NYU • Penn • Princeton • Rice • Stanford Tulane • Tufts • UC Davis • UCLA • UC San Diego • UNC UVA • WashU • Wellesley • Yale

Your facebook is limited to your own college or university.

You can use Thefacebook to: 

• • Search for people at your school 
• • Find out who is in your classes 
• • Look up your friends' friends 
• • See a visualization of your social network

"College Facebook Mugs Go Online," by Rachel Metz, Wired News, June 9, 2004 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63727,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html 

Maya Chard-Yaron, 19, was poked about 10 times last week. But rather than getting annoyed at the unsolicited jabs, Chard-Yaron kind of enjoyed it -- especially since friends and acquaintances were doing the poking through a social-networking website, Thefacebook.

On Thefacebook, poking is a way of saying "hi" to would-be contacts, a method to strike up a conversation without adding the person as a friend.

And there's quite a bit of poking going on. Chard-Yaron, a Southern Californian who will be a junior at Columbia University in the fall, is one of about 250,000 students at 34 colleges across the United States intrigued by Thefacebook. Unlike social websites like Friendster and orkut, Thefacebook is meant only for college students and alums.

"I know it sounds stupid but when I log onto Thefacebook and I see this person poked me I think, 'Aww,' 'cause I miss them," she said.

Thefacebook is modeled after schools' traditional facebooks -- booklets with names, photos, interests and other information about students. The site started in February and is expanding rapidly. Engineered and initially intended just for students at Harvard University, Thefacebook's creators -- all five of them Harvard students -- hope to have their site available to about 200 American colleges by fall.

By registering on Thefacebook, students can compile lists of friends, send messages, list their classes and summer vacation plans, and divulge as much -- or as little -- personal contact information as they like.

Mark Zuckerberg, a 20-year-old Harvard student, came up with the idea in January. Harvard has facebooks for different residential houses, but students can't search those they don't belong to, Zuckerberg said. He said he thought it would be a good idea to put an all-school facebook online, where students could access others regardless of where they lived. By early February, after about a week of programming time, Zuckerberg's site was up and running at Harvard.

With an early pool of about 4,000 students, Thefacebook grew at the school to where it now boasts about 95 percent of the student population as members, Zuckerberg said.

"When it took off at Harvard I thought it'd be cool to make it a multi-school thing," he said.

In mid-February, Thefacebook's creators opened the site to students at other colleges, and the site's popularity kept rising.

"We've had to run to catch up with the number of users," said Chris Hughes, another Thefacebook collaborator.

Zuckerberg was surprised at his site's success initially.

"I expected that a few people would do it at Harvard and they'd tell their friends, but I didn't expect it would take hold as this all-inclusive directory," he said.

Some changes are also in store for Thefacebook users. Zuckerberg wants to enable users to offer more information about themselves, like extra pictures or their own websites. For now, however, students are just having fun discovering the site's capabilities.

Chard-Yaron is one of many whose friends e-mailed her a link to the site, asking her to join. At first, Chard-Yaron thought it was "weird" and "sketchy," but she created an online profile for herself anyway this spring, before exams and papers got underway. She said now she checks the site daily.

The site's founders are banking on its long-term health. Though the costs of running it have increased from about $85 to almost $3,000 a month, Thefacebook is now self-sufficient, thanks to an influx of ad revenue, Hughes said. Ads from search powerhouse Google will pay for the site for a while, Zuckerberg said.

The founders also aren't paying themselves, but they will hire a few people to help with the summertime expansion, Hughes said.

There have also been offers of outsider investments and even a few interested in buying the site, Zuckerberg said, but the founders turned down several buyout offers (they wouldn't say who made the offers or for how much). They aren't interested in cashing out just yet.

"We've had a few approaches," Hughes said, "but we like what we're doing to the site."

Question
What services are available to help you create a Weblogs and blogs?

Answer from Kevin Delaney

"Blogs Can Tie Families, And These Services Will Get You Started," by Kevin J. Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2004, Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,personal_technology,00.html 

Online Web logs, or blogs, have long been a bastion of techy types, those prone to political rants, and assorted gossips. But now they're making inroads among families who want to keep up on each other's doings.

Blogs are personal Web sites where you can post things, including photos, stories and links to other cool stuff online. They resemble a journal, with information arranged chronologically based on when you post it. The simple form is a major virtue -- you don't have to think too hard about how to organize your blog.

I've used a variety of Web sites in recent years to share photos of my children with their grandparents and other family far way. Lately, I've wondered if it wouldn't be better to put photos, digital videos and other links I want to share with my family on one Web site, making it easier to manage and access them from afar.

With this in mind, I've been testing three of the most popular blogging services, which are available free or for a small monthly fee.

Blogger, a free service from Google at www.blogger.com, promises you can create a blog in "three easy steps." After selecting a user name and password, I chose a name and a custom Web address. Then I selected a graphic look -- "Dots," a simple design with a touch of fun that seemed right for a family site -- from 12 attractive templates. After that, Blogger created my blog. Within a few minutes, I was able to put a short text message on the site and have Blogger send e-mails to alert my wife and father of the blog's existence.

Blogger, like the other services, lets you further customize the organization and look of your site and put several types of information on it. Sending text to the blog is as easy as sending an e-mail. (In fact, Blogger and the other services I tested even let me post text to my blog using standard e-mail.) A Blogger button on Google's toolbar software, which must be downloaded and activated separately, offers the useful option of posting links to other Web sites on your blog as you surf the Web. Another nice feature lets you designate friends or family members who can post to the main blog.

To put photos on any blog hosted by Blogger, you have to download another free software package from Picasa called Hello. Hello blocks connections to computers operating behind what's known as a proxy server, which is a pretty typical corporate configuration. As a result, I couldn't upload photos from my work PC, though I was able to do so from home.

Blogger lacks some advanced features other services offer. But its main shortcoming is that it doesn't let you protect your site by requiring visitors to use a password to enter. I don't want strangers to look at photos of my kids or search notes I'm writing for family members. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on any plans for such a feature, citing restrictions related to the company's planned initial public offering.

TypePad from Six Apart, at www.typepad.com, provides a higher-powered service for creating blogs that does let you password protect your site. You can also upload a broader range of files, including video clips. But the tradeoff is a level of complexity that is unnecessarily frustrating.

The company offers three monthly subscription rates starting at $4.95. It costs $8.95 a month for the version that allows you to create photo albums, a feature that I consider essential for a family blog. Albums allow you to avoid filling up the main blog site with strings of photos. If you choose to password protect your blog, though, TypePad won't let you link your blog directly to photo albums. It's a surprising shortcoming, and Six Apart doesn't disclose it on its site. Its support staff gave me complicated instructions for another way to make such a link, but they never worked for me.

Six Apart Chief Executive Mena Trott says the photo-album-linking problem is a bug the company is working to fix. She acknowledges that parts of the service could be easier to use, and says improvements will be made. She also says that in practice Six Apart lets most users exceed the company's miserly limits on blog storage space, which are 100 megabytes for the $8.95-a-month plan.

AOL's Journals service, which requires an AOL subscription, is about as simple to use as Blogger. It allows you to restrict public access to your blog and provides nice albums for grouping photos. If you do decide to restrict access, your visitors will have to register with AOL. That registration is free, though, and many people already have an AOL "screen name" because they use the company's instant messaging service.

But other advanced features, such as the button in Blogger for easy linking to Web sites, are missing. In addition, the layout templates aren't nearly as attractive graphically as Blogger's and TypePad's. AOL says it's working on all of these issues, and expects to add a Web linking button and phase out the registration requirement later this year.

I'm not completely satisfied with Journals, and I would be happy to use Blogger or TypePad if they manage to work out their issues with photo albums and passwords. In the meantime, though, I've chosen AOL's Journals to create my family blog.

"WEBLOGS COME TO THE CLASSROOM," by Scott Carlson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2003, Page 33

They get used to supplement courses in writing, marketing, economics, and other subjects

Increasingly, private life is a public matter.  That seems especially true in the phenomenon known as blogging.  Weblogs, or blogs, are used by scores of online memoirists, editorialists, exhibitionists, and navel gazers, who post their daily thoughts on Web sites for all to read.

Now professors are starting to incorporate blogs into courses.  The potential for reaching an audience, they say, reshapes the way students approach writing assignments, journal entries, and online discussions.

Valerie M. Smith, an assistant professor of English at Quinnipiac University, is among the first faculty members there to use blogs.  She sets one up for each of her creative-writing students at the beginning of the semester.  The students are to add a new entry every Sunday at noon.  Then they read their peers' blogs and comment on them.  Parents or friends also occasionally read the blogs.

Blogging "raises issues with audience," Ms. Smith says, adding that the innovation has raised the quality of students' writing;

"They aren't just writing for me, which makes them think in terms of crafting their work for a bigger audience.  It gives them a bigger stake in what they are writing."

A Weblog can be public or available only to people selected by the blogger.  Many blogs serve as virtual loudspeakers or soapboxes.  Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender, has used a blog to debate and discuss issues with voters.  Some blogs have even earned their authors minor fame.  An Iraqi man--known only by a pseudonym, Salaam Pax--captured attention around the world when he used his blog to document daily life in Baghdad as American troops advanced on the city.

Continued in the article.

Bob Jensen's threads on weblogs and blogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog 

"Who's Seeding the Net With Spyware?  Young surfers pick up paychecks for posting misleading pitches armed with invasive programs.," by Emily Kumler, PC World , June 15, 2004 --- http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116512,00.asp 

It's tough enough sometimes to figure out where you picked up that spyware, but have you ever wondered who planted that digital parasite?

It's likely a young man, maybe a college student, just making a few bucks spreading pop-up ads that contain a package unwelcome by many. And it's a growing cottage industry

How It Works Spyware follows your Internet surfing habits and serves up advertisements. You typically pick up spyware by clicking on links, which may not make it clear that you're downloading a "bonus" program when you read an ad or download a program you want.

The Federal Trade Commission defines spyware as "software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge and which may send such information to another entity without the consumer's consent, or asserts control over a computer without the consumer's knowledge." The federal government and several states are considering antispyware laws, and Utah recently enacted one.

FTC and industry leaders have urged Congress to resist spyware legislation, instead pushing for the industry to adopt self-regulatory practices. They fear that proposed laws define the practice too vaguely, and would prohibit other marketing practices that benefit consumers. But some lawmakers worry that the tech industry will not regulate spyware aggressively enough to protect consumers.

Meanwhile, computer users continue to face the side effects of spyware on their systems: bogged-down Internet connections, identity theft, lost documents, system problems, and potential loss of privacy.

Who's Behind It The people distributing the links for spyware downloads are paid about 15 cents every time an unsuspecting surfer clicks on their misleading bait.

"Friends signed me up one night, after we'd been drinking," says one twenty-something man, who plants spyware for pay. "They said it was an easy way to make some money."

"All I had to do was sign up and post fake ads, saying things like 'to see my picture click here.' Then when they clicked, it told them they had to download software to see the pictures."

But the user downloaded no pictures; instead, they got the greeting, "Come back later to see my photo." The ad is bogus, but the contamination of the computer is real.

He says open forums and other unregulated sites are the best places to post ads, because large numbers of people are likely to click on the phony links.

"You have to move around," he says, noting that if users complain, he'll be kicked off a site, or a section of a site. For example, he will just move to a different part of a classified advertisement site, he says. "It's really easy, so reposting your ad is not a big deal."

At 15 cents per hit, he got checks every two weeks for a few hundred dollars each.

"I could have made a lot more," he says, adding that he really isn't doing it anymore. "All I had to do was put more ads up and I would have doubled or tripled my profits."

What's the Risk? The foot soldiers who spread spyware may also become victims of the companies behind the software.

Many companies paying individuals to spread spyware post a disclaimer on their own Web site. It often contains a clause telling readers that if they commit fraud the company has the right to pull their paycheck.

However, the new Utah Spyware Control Act and other privacy laws sometimes invoked to combat spyware consider posting spyware to be fraud.

The spyware spreaders may not be reading the disclaimer themselves. But they do understand the company is paying them to trick people into downloading software, the young man says.

Does he feel any remorse for contaminating the computers of naive users? "Look, they're perverts if they click on my ads," he says, noting that the ads imply pornographic pictures await. "I say some nasty stuff, so, no, I don't feel bad." Anyone online should have a spyware blocker, spam blocker, and a firewall anyway, he said. "If they don't, they're just stupid."

A Challenging Battle Placing ads online can be a tempting and easy way to make money from home, notes Ray Everette-Church, chief privacy officer for antispam product vendor Turn Tide.

"It is very successful," Everette-Church says. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars a month is generated in this tiered structural referral." He is serving as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in an ongoing adware case arguing against pop-up ads.

Millions of Americans online haven't protected their PCs, and pursuing perpetrators of spyware is more complicated than in other criminal investigations, according to Mozelle Thompson, an FTC commissioner.

"It's hard to identify how many companies are engaged in dangerous spyware, or spyware in general," Thompson says. "The definition of spyware is too broad."

The surreptitious nature of spyware makes it more difficult to track who, where, and how the spyware is disseminated, Thompson told a House subcommittee at a recent hearing.

"Consumer complaints, for instance, are less likely to lead directly to targets than in other law enforcement investigations, because consumers often do not know that spyware has caused the problems or, even if they do, they may not know the source of the spyware," he said at the April hearing.

How to protect against spyware intrusions into your computer --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection 

June 23, 2004 message from Irv Gleim [irvin_gleim@gleim.com] 

The IMA will make substantial changes to the CMA Exam beginning July 1, 2004. These changes will include a new essay section that incorporates material from all four exam sections. In addition, CPAs will no longer be waived from the financial accounting and reporting material, and will instead be waived from economics and business applications topics.

However, there is good news; the current exam will be available until December 31, 2007, allowing plenty of time for completion. BUT, you must apply by June 30, 2004. In other words, APPLY NOW! Click the link below to open the online registration form.

https://www.imanet.org/forms/examregform.asp 

Gleim will continue to provide up-to-date materials throughout the current exam's duration. Gleim will also release a new edition for the revised exam this summer so that we will be able to meet all of your students' certification needs. You can view more information on Gleim's CMA Review and see how we will prepare your students to PASS by visiting the link below:

http://www.gleim.com/accounting/cma?lj062204

Bob Jensen's threads examination review courses are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#010303CPAExam 

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on June 11, 2004

TITLE: Outside Audit: Goodyear and the Butterfly Effect 
REPORTER: Timothy Aeppel 
DATE: Jun 04, 2004 
PAGE: C3 
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108629544631828261,00.html  
TOPICS: Accounting Changes and Error Corrections, Pension Accounting, Restatement