CPA Firm Technology Blog

Some Tech Sites and Some Updates to Google Docs

I follow a lot of tech blogs so I can know what's going on and keep lots of crisp, fresh tech goodness in front of you, the gentle reader..... but seriously, some of the better sources out there are:

• Merlin Mann, personal productivity guru - www.43folders.com
• Lifehacker.com - Gina Trapiani's superb tips blog
  
• This Week in Tech (podcast) - www.twit.tv - good general tech news
  
• The CPA Tech Advisor has some good podcasts as well (most notably, their round table podcast called "Tech to Go")

Speaking of Merlin Mann, The King of 43 Folders recently reported that Google has added 300 templates for various kinds of documents.  Like most templates, some are nice and some are campy.  My vote:  Stick with the MS templates - there are more of them, and there are more you could actually use at your office as opposed in your role as a member of the PTA.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Lifehacker, 43 Folders, This Week in Tech, TWIT, Tech To Go, Web

Tech News and Notes - Week of 7/17/2008

I'm behind on reporting on the gadgetry in my office, so here are some updates on things :

• I've been working with my  Scansnap S300 for the last few weeks, and I'm really impressed with it.  Although I would like to have TWAIN or ISIS compatibility, it's an amazing little device, and well worth the $260 it costs on Amazon for this piece of hardware.  It has only jammed twice after running hundreds of pages through it, including a couple of hundred thermal receipts for an expense report.  (and in one of the two jams, I had forgotten to take the staples out of the original - Doh!
• I seem to be on a LOT of conference calls lately, and have been using a Plantronics Calisto Pro Phone ( Cordless, DECT 6.0, Bluetooth, speaker phone, and it comes with a really good headset).  If you're a Skyper, this thing even has a USB connection to your PC so you can use it for your VOIP application.  I also really like the range on this thing- in the spring (before my A/C was running all of the time), I could use this item connected to my Jawbone headset (which has noise cancelling) to talk to people while taking in the great outdoors in my yard.  [Don't tell anyone that working for yourself has perks like that....]
• I mentioned that I had converted my home internet connection to TDS' fiber optic (PON) service, and I've also got their digital TV offering.  Verdict: The fiber optic internet rocks, and the digital TV is also very good - but seems to be in early implementation.  Once they start offering On Demand and DVR's in September, the TV will be up to speed with the rest.  The TV service reminds me a lot of dish service, in that there is a slight delay between when you select a channel and when it is displayed on your PC.  It doesn't take long, but it's just long enough to be a little annoying.

A few other things came to my attention earlier this week:

• The Association of QuickBooks Technologists is having a conference this fall for CEO's, CFO's, IT Directors and Management Consultants looking to streamline business processes and who want to learn more about Business Solutions designed for QuickBooks users. The conference is in Deerfield Beach, Florida on October 16, 2008, and appears to be reasonably priced.  (There are worse places to be than South Florida in October).  For more information contact AQBT founding member Dawn Scranton.
  
• The cobranding I discussed a couple of weeks ago has been very interesting, and offers some neat potential marketing tools for mid-sized and larger CPA and bookkeeping firms.  I've actually considered creating a CD for clients with the trial/free versions of Peachtree, OA Express, and QuickBooks SimpleStart along with an HTML page which has links to my site..... really interesting stuff.  This is something I would look into if I was at a firm looking to grow their accounting software consulting business.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Gadgetreviews and news items of note FYE 2008-07-17, Office Accounting, AQBT, Peachtree, QuickBooks, TDS, Fiber Optic Internet Access, PON, Plantronics Calisto Phone, Scansnap S300

Multiple Monitors!

Multiple Monitors are the way to go!

Here's a cool monitor stand for four monitors..... Ergotron makes good gear from everything I've experienced and heard.... Now all I need is:
1. 4 24" monitors.
2. A way to run 4 24" monitors off of my laptop OR a nice dual quad core processor desktop with about 16GB of RAM and a tricked out four head video card.....

It's the minor details in life that make things complicated....

I saw on the Techbargains.com website that Dell is now pricing some of their discounted deals with TWO 22" monitors.... entry level for the paperless office, but it's nice to see that Dell understands that you need more screen real estate when you're trying to kick the paper habit...  While people have been doing this for a while, it lets me know that the multi-monitor thing is going much more mainstream - especially since the Vostro line is targeted at home office users and small business users.... very interesting.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: MonitorStands and multiple monitors

FAST Internet.....

Dang. That's scary fast.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Report on the Fiber to the Home Connection....

I love fiber.

Fiber Optic Internet and New Software Business Models

I'm in the middle of getting fiber optic internet installed today (through TDS, my phone company - even though I don't have a land line), and am excited about it.  I'll post more, as well as some speed tests once I get things set up.  Speed on the line is advertised as 25Mbs down, 10Mbps up.  Hopefully this will eliminate the occasional flutter in my VOIP conversations. Intuit recently announced that they have 50,000 ProAdvisors, which is a pretty significant milestone.  For comparison, AICPA has 300,000 members - so there's plenty of room for growth - but 50K is going to be far and away the largest in the segment (as you would expect).  If you haven't looked at the partner programs from Intuit (ProAdvisor Program), Sage (Sage Accountants Network), and Microsoft (Microsoft Professional Accountants Network) as well.  One can join all three for a total about $1,200 per year, and get close to $30K in software.... good stuff, people. Not to be outdone, Sage and Microsoft have both announced some initiatives through their partner programs which are very innovative.  Sage has offered ads on job site Monster.com for SSAN members, is giving away a free license of Peachtree Complete Accounting (plus six months support) for clients of CPA's switching from Quickbooks (see their site, www.switchmyclients.com for details), and has a number of innovative offerings to help their members meet the needs of clients, including payroll tax subscriptions and a five user license of Peachtree Quantum for SSAN-Peachtree members.  Microsoft's MPAN program recently announced a co-branding initiative where MPAN members can put links to their own website in copies of Office Accounting and Office Accounting Express for clients, which is pretty interesting.  I'll write more about this later, but Microsoft still offers the Microsoft Action Pack to MPAN members in public practice or consulting.  This subscription is basically everything Microsoft you would ever use in a 10 person CPA firm for $299 a year.  They also are linking to the MPAN Certified Consultant directory from within the software - so if someone has the software and tries out a sample company, they can go to the "Find a Small Business Accountant" page on the Microsoft site, and find an MPAN member to help them (search this database under zip code 37922, and you'll find me as an "MPAN Consultant", which means that I have passed their certification exam on Office Accounting).  (Side note - take and pass as many of the certification exams as you can - my phone rang yesterday with a potentially very lucrative opportunity because I was on the QuickBooks ProAdvisor site for Enterprise Solutions.  I personally billed and collected about $4K off of leads from my ProAdvisor listing last year, with an average rate over $100 per hour, and actually turned away a lot of leads from this source.  This would not have been possible without taking and passing the ProAdvisor exams for the standard and enterprise editions of QuickBooks). On the software subscription vs. purchase front, Microsoft is now selling MS Office Home and Student on a subscription basis.  The new product is called "Equipt", and is bundled with some Windows Live / Office Live services, including Windows Live OneCare and Office Live Workspace.  This seems like a great offering for students and others who need MS Office software, but get sticker shock at the initial price of purchasing this software.

It's important to note the following:

• Same EULA as Home and Student (e.g. use for the student only or the parents when helping students with homework).  Accordingly, this is NOT and SHOULD NOT be used in a business environment.
• Software can be installed on up to three PC's.
• Office updates are pushed out automatically, and upgrades during the subscription term are automatic.

Some links for those wanting to know more:

• Microsoft Press Release on Equipt - http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jul08/07-02EquiptPR.mspx
• ZDNet Coverage of MS Announcement -http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1469
• Review of Equipt -http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=485

If you're doubting that software subscriptions are the wave of the future, let me remind you that Intuit announced a restructuring last week which realigns their workforce to focus on subscriptions and online services.  From Intuit's press release:

The changes better position the company to deliver on its comprehensive "Connected Services" strategy. The strategy increases Intuit's emphasis on developing value-added services for its desktop products and innovative online offerings. The company plans to focus on both traditional and new markets across the globe, while embracing social networking and mobile technology trends.

While I'm a serious technophile, I plan on celebrating the 4th with my family by taking my son and niece to a drive-in movie while they still exist.  (There's plenty of time to watch  HDTV and surf the internet over fiber later.)  Life is, after all, all about relationships, isn't it? Brian Tankersley is a Knoxville, Tennessee based CPA and consultant, and is an Associate with K2 Enterprises.  You can read more of Brian's writings either on AccountingWeb.com or at http://blog.bftcpa.com. 

Tags: TDSFiber Optic Sage Microsoft Intuit MPAN ProAdvisor SSAN Software and Services

Fraud from the Ukraine..... in Texas... Affecting People on Long Island.

If you don't believe that it can happen to you.... or if you're avoiding dealing with those pesky PCI standards for not retaining credit card numbers, etc..... you should read this article.

"Three alleged hackers have been arrested for allegedly  using "college-level knowledge of computer programming skills" to steal and sell credit card numbers from customers of Dave and Buster's restaurant chain, the Justice Department said Monday"..... 
"One of the men arrested, Maksym Yastremskiy, of Ukraine, was found in possession of millions of stolen credit card numbers, unrelated to the restaurant, on his laptop when the Turkish National Police arrested him in July."

"Private account data was captured almost immediately at the point of sale. Similar attacks have occurred at other retail outlets, including T.J. Maxx, DSW shoe stores and Polo Ralph Lauren."

So... how did they do it?

The government said the hackers illegally accessed 11 of the national chain's servers and installed packet sniffers at each location. The sniffers vacuumed up "Track 2" data from the credit card magstripes as  it  traveled from the restaurant's servers to Dave and Buster's headquarters in Dallas, according to the indictment.

Estimated damage to financial institutions?  $600K, and 5,000 people were affected by the breach.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: CreditCard Fraud

The Future’s So Bright, We Have to Wear Shades

There’s a very interesting article by Andy Kessler on the editorial page in the Wall Street Journal this morning which discusses the coming war in technology; the link is here.  While Microsoft and Google are the armies currently fighting the skirmishes around the future of technology, this is really simply a proxy war about how we will use technology in the future.  Just as there are different methods of transporting goods around the country (think: rail vs. truck vs. airplane), there are also different models of computing
(browser vs. local vs. mobile).  Processing power (thanks to Moore’s Law), bandwidth, and wireless technology have changed the level of real time information sharing.  HP has even come out with a laptop (HP Compaq 6720t) which is designed to be used as a thin client into corporate systems and which doesn’t even have a hard drive!.

Many accountants are rightly concerned with the security and information control implications of using online services for their
mission-critical applications.  While these are legitimate concerns, the reality of our digital infrastructure has generally made these concerns less of a problem now than in the past.  High speed internet is getting faster.  Last week, I received a flyer from my local telephone company offering a fiber internet connection which would have 25Mbps down/10Mbps up connectivity to my home. 

While I’m still mulling over whether or not I really need that fast a connection at home since my current connection is 10Mbps down/1Mbps up through my cable provider, it’s really interesting that this level of service is now available in Knoxville, Tennessee, which, although a nice-sized city, is admittedly not one of the first cities you think of when you imagine fast internet speeds.  My current internet connections (cable and Sprint wireless) continue to impress me with the speeds which are possible; my cable connection averages 8 Mbps down, 970K up whenever I test the speed, and my wireless connection (backup) has been running over 1.1 Mbps down/300K up on the road lately with EVDO Rev A. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that telecommunications and other utilities are also more reliable than we have had in the past.  Where I used to reboot my router and modem every morning, I now go for months without rebooting these devices, and they seem to just work now.  My collaboration with others within K2 suggests that their experiences are similar:  I have noted only two critical outages among the team during the first four months of the year.  When I started my career 15 years ago, we would have two or three power outages during the busy season which would shut us down and cause us to lose work.  While utilities aren’t sexy, they certainly seem to have made significant improvements in the last generation.

If you haven’t tried some of the latest evolutions in Web-based applications, here are some for your consideration:

• Gliffy – Flowcharts on the Web
• QuickBooks Online
• Microsoft Office Live Small Business and OfficeLive Workspace
• Bill.com – Electronic workflow and AP/AR processing
• Copanion GruntWorx – An online application for scanning and organizing tax returns
• XCM – Workflow automation for CPA Firms
• Google Apps – An office suite which allows Web-based collaboration and processing of spreadsheets and word processing documents.  These documents can be taken offline with an app called Google Gears.
• Thomson and CCH offer hosted versions of their CPA firm applications.  Thomson’s offering is called Virtual Office CS, and CCH’s offering is called Global fx.  (Both have simplified life for many firms who want to quit applying updates and administering servers in their offices.)
• Capital Confirmation makes audit confirmations paperless and electronic (and really fast as well).
• Jungledisk – An application installed on your PC which creates an encrypted storage drive using Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) .

While the future direction of computing hasn’t been finalized, there are really interesting things happening in technology, and some things (like those pages or CD’s for reference materials) are on the way out. The future appears to offer more choices for how tools are delivered to users, which will make it much easier to work from anywhere – even a condo in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Brian Tankersley is a CPA and CITP based in Knoxville, Tennessee.  You can learn more about him at www.bftcpa.com.

Tags: WebApplications cloud versus local accounting CPA space

Gadget du Jour: Hot Swappable USB 2/SATA Drive Dock, Discussion of Virtualization

In October of last year, one of the big gadget sites (Engadget, link here) mentioned a SATA hard drive connector which permitted users to "dock" their 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive in a stand similar to the docking stands you can get for your iPod.  It was a nice concept, and since it was teaching season, I looked into ordering one.  At that time, the stand was $50, and the shipping was like $56 - clearly outrageous-  so I passed.  Fortunately, I wasn't the only tightwad geek who was desiring this nifty little toy, and Circuit City has picked up a version of it for their online store:

This device is a paltry $40 (before a $10 rebate which expires on 4.30), so it's on my short list for when I buy the next gadget for the office.  Unfortunately, I think I'm going to be slammed with the other new gear I'm expecting, as well as the configuration of my 1U Sharepoint server in the office so I can learn more about that technology.

I've also been working on Virtualization quite a bit lately.  I'm carrying couple of Western Digital 250GB 2.5" HDD's with me so I can have Virtual Machines to use when demonstrating various applications.  So far, I have the following apps in VM's:

• Full CCH ProSystem fx Suite of Apps
• QuickBooks 2008 and QBES 8.0
• Peachtree 2008 Quantum
• Office 2007
• Office 2003

I'm also collecting some nice VM's from vendors, including the Interwoven Worksite demo I got from them during a face to face in Chicago last week, and a Dynamics GP VPC which I have downloaded from the Microsoft Dynamics  partner site, aka PartnerSource (sorry, guys - it's Dynamics partners only).  Very, very cool.

The nice thing about working in a virtualized environment is that you can run it on a PC that doesn't have all of your programs installed.  Once I've made the full transition to VM's, if my laptop broken down, I could borrow or buy a new PC with lots of RAM and run all of my apps for teaching off of the virtual machines.

VM's aren't just for demos, though.  I ended up also using a VM for my production tax environment this year.  While I didn't do many returns, I wanted to go ahead and keep the app installation and configuration I had on my old laptop in XP Pro when I made the switch to a virtualized environment.  All I had to do was download a tool from the VMWare website which converts a physical installation of software on a physical hard drive to a virtual hard drive (VHD) file which can be used with the virtual hardware created by VMWare and MS Virtual PC.  While my tax software vendor said that my current year tax software was compatible with Windows Vista (which I'm using as the base OS on my two production machines), they were making no guarantees on the back year stuff.  I did read that some people were using back year versions of my tax software on Vista, but I decided to go ahead and stick with the XP installation, with the thought being that I would be better off not having to wrestle with the expected configuration issues when I tried to run these infrequently used yet eseential program on a Vista machine.

Until next time, happy trails from the road. 

(blogged from Atlanta Bread in W. Columbia , SC on the way to the K2 Team Confab in Savannah this week)

Mobile Broadband Kicks it Up a Notch

As many of you know, I am a loyal (paying) Sprint customer, and have used a variety of their cards since they rolled out EV/DO service about a year and a half ago. I am usually home a lot during the winter months, and have recently started venturing out of my winter hibernation cave to go back to my life of roaming the earth and through it searching for the best accounting technology. I have noticed a significant increase in the speed of Sprint’s mobile broadband service since I last talked about it last year. Where your average city would have a download speed of 500-700K and an upload speed of 70K last year, I’ve been seeing speeds of 1.7-2 Mbps down and 200K upstream. Since these are as good or better than those received by low end DSL, Ma Bell has to be shaking in her boots(!).

Last Result:
Download Speed: 2111 kbps (263.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 282 kbps (35.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1631 kbps (203.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 218 kbps (27.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1654 kbps (206.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 220 kbps (27.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

BTW, I did these tests at 7:15A, a time when many road warriors are using their aircards to check e-mail and surf the internet in preparation for another busy day on the road. Website used: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

Google Announces Low-Cost HSIA

http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

BTW, happy April Fools day.

In Software Licensing as in Tax, Sometimes Two Plus Two Is Not Always Four

I recently wrote an article about a friend who purchased Office 2007 in the early days of busy season.  This license is called an “OEM” license, and cannot be transferred to a new computer.  In my case, Rhonda bought three copies of Office 2007 with three laptops.  When those laptops wear out, have Diet Coke spilled on them, or are otherwise retired, the “rights” to run Office 2007 cannot be transferred to the replacement hardware (e.g. the license goes with the hardware instead of being portable to whatever hardware you choose to use, as you might have with a “Standard” or “Full” license.)  Other license types include “Upgrade”, “Academic”, and various forms of volume licensing.

Just as many of us have learned with taxation, two plus two doesn’t always equal four in the world of software licensing.  If one purchases one kind if license, you may get additional rights (such as the right for employees  to install software on their home PC’s, the right to upgrade and downgrade to earlier or later versions, etc.).  Just as structuring a transaction for tax purposes is very technical and can have huge implications for the total cost of ownership of an acquired business, the subject of software licensing is very technical, and one really needs to work with an expert when you are trying to meet your organization’s needs so that the type of license you purchase meets ALL of your needs for the software.

With that in mind, an industry peer (Ken McClelland at Network Management Group) wrote this excellent explanation of the difference in OEM and “Open Licensing with Software Assurance” – two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of rights imparted to the user (thanks to NMGI for letting me repost this).  [BTW, these guys have a site where they recommend hardware for CPA firms and other professional service organizations at http://www.nmgi.com/techrecs/ which receives rave reviews.  One participant who paid $350 for a one day class I taught recently wrote that “The hardware site (www.nmgi.com/techrecs) was worth the cost of the seminar by itself.”]   Let’s get to the question:

Q. Why is it cheaper to buy an “OEM” license of Microsoft Office with a new computer instead of purchasing a copy through a volume licensing program like OpenLicense, or than purchasing the copy of the software at retail in a computer store.  If it’s all Microsoft Office (and the same version), why do I care what kind of license I purchase?

A. An OEM license is cheaper because you don’t get all the “rights” that you receive with Open Licensing. 

1.       With OEM you do not have any downgrade rights (if you wanted Office 2003 but they only bundle with 2007).

2.       With OEM the license is tied to that PC….cannot be transferred to another PC if the user upgrades hardware.

3.       Open License with Software Assurance would allow for any upgrades for free  as long as the software assurance is kept current and up to date.  If you own xx07 and xx08 comes out you have no additional expense to upgrade. 

4.       Proof of ownership is much simpler under Open License as all licenses are documented on the Microsoft eOpen website.  Also as mentioned, a single license key.

5.       If you have Office under Software Assurance (SA is an add-on which gives you automatic upgrade add-on for the volume licensing plan)…you get work at home rights which allow employees to install Office on their home system for only the cost of install media.  They have rights to run the software on their home pc as long as they are employed by your firm and Software Assurance is kept current (!)

[Word and Excel as an employee benefit – wow!]

A subsidy promo just ended (Jan 31) on Microsoft Office that you could have got up to $150 / license that could have been used for your local reseller to provide services. 

Currently, the promotion is that you can get Office Enterprise for the price of Office Pro.  Max 249 licenses.

Basically  it boils down to determining which if any of these features are important to your firm and choose the appropriate licensing strategy. BTW - A better comparison would be to take Open License price (with no Software Assurance) vs. the OEM.  Price for the Office Pro 2007 should be somewhere around $430 – so your new delta would be $170 or so. 

Note:  Software Assurance can be added to the OEM license as long as it is done during the first 90 days of ownership. 

Well said, Ken.  That’s exactly why we need an expert in this stuff.  Thanks for doing such a great job on this, BTW.

Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP is a CPA, speaker, and consultant based in Knoxville, Tennessee.  He teaches continuing education classes with K2 Enterprises, instructs CPA review classes for Becker CPA Review, and blogs about accounting and technology matters on his website at http://blog.bftcpa.com.

The Perils of Poor Power

I’m in the midst of moving my office to some new space (larger, nicer, more comfortable, etc.), and the process of building and moving to this new space has brought up a big technology issue that many of us don’t consider on a regular basis – electric power. Unless you live in Hawaii, you’re probably used to having a plug-in heater underneath your desk to keep warm. You may also be using a nice laser printer at your desk, and even be using fluorescent light bulbs to be more environmentally friendly (at least on the electricity). Since it was 12 degrees (yes, Fahrenheit) when I headed out of my driveway this morning in Knoxville, Tennessee, I’m guessing that many of you are using those heaters today.

Please stop, and check your desk now. If the heater, laser printer/copier, microwave, or fluorescent lights are on the same breaker as the computer, talk to someone about getting a dedicated circuit for the computer equipment. My experience dealing with technology (including my own bricked five year old PC) suggests that the hardware failure rate for systems which are on the same circuit as any of these devices is higher than that for people who are not on the same circuit as these devices. While this is anecdotal evidence only, many users in small offices may not be familiar with the issues that can be caused by these devices. Here’s what happens:

1. Heater or Printer draws large amounts of current during its warm-up or operation.

2. This drop in current disrupts, or "browns out" the power to the electronic equipment. While these brown-outs may not seem like that big of a deal, they cause big problems on the circuitry of computers and other electronic devices (for that matter, static electricity is an issue as well).

3. After hundreds of these "brown outs", the electronic equipment dies a painful death, and you and your people wonder why you seem to have so many issues with equipment, this may be the case.

Some solutions to these power problems include:

1. Dedicated breaker and separate outlets for all computer equipment. While this may be cost-prohibitive, this is the preferred solution. I had this done in my new space, and can’t wait to get all of my stuff over there so I can have my printers in the same room as my computers and my space heater.

2. Uninterruptable Power Supply. Filtered power with battery backup (e.g. a UPS) is a requirement for all server applications anyway, and a good idea for all workstations. Today I purchased a 1300VA/780 watt UPS for the low price of $165 (APC model BX1300LCD at Office Depot). Trust me – it’s cheap compared to the cost of downtime.

3. Surge protection for everything that touches the network. While it may seem paranoid to put surge protection on your cable TV wire, phone jack, electric power, and network cable, I’ve seen numerous situations where there was ONE device plugged into a network which wasn’t covered by surge protection, and a lightning strike used that unfiltered plug to push a huge surge through a network, taking everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) out.

While this isn’t a huge shock for most of you, I wanted to mention this today so you public practitioners can get your electronics separated out before the year-end surge hits for 2008

Until next time, Happy (audit) trails.

Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP

2007 Year End Tech News Roundup

Home at last!  I've got a plethora of ideas and concepts for you, gentle reader, and wanted to pass them along en mass rather than trying to get time to get Christmas shopping done and get the posts done as well.  Tip O' the Hat to Dan Meyer for pointing out my lack of posting to me earlier this month.  I aspire to better posts, and am working on some things which may just accomodate the ability to both that and make a living at the same time.... will let you know when I can talk more about it.

With that introduction, here is my list of cool ideas from my recent blog and web surfing - it's about 60 days worth of cool stuff.  Enjoy.  BFT

1. Cool list of tools for SBS (Thanks to the lovely and talented Susan Bradley for this link)

a. http://www.nogeekleftbehind.com/2007/11/15/notes-from-november-2007-kysbsug-meeting/

2. CompUSA is done, and all stores will close by the end of the holidays.  [The rest of the electronics stores are going to have to step up the geekiness to meet my needs (!)]

a. http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/07/technology/compusa.ap/

3. How to install SharePoint 3.0 on SBS 2003

a. http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/12/12/small-business-server-2003-how-to-install-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-on-sbs-2003.aspx

4. OfficeLive Workspace (Office file sharing tool)

a. http://workspace.officelive.com/

b. There is also good coverage of some of the Live stuff on a Windows Weekly podcast I listened to this week – see http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/WW-042.mp3

5. Shift-Right-Click in  Vista

a. http://www.snowball.be/Vista+Trick+Open+Command+Window+Here.aspx

6. QuickBooks security vulnerability – patch now!  (again,  thanks  Susan)

a. http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/12/11/the-apps-are-getting-targeted-now.aspx

7. Rumours (denied by SAP) that SAP may be acquired by MS…

a. http://www.erpsoftware-news.com/2007/12/microsoft-to-bu.html

8. Office 2007 SP1 is out (as my friend Randy Johnston mentioned earlier this week)

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/12/11/office-2007-sp1-available.aspx

9. Good article on switching data sources in Excel 2007

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/12/12/switching-data-sources-in-excel-2007.aspx

10. Eric Ligman’s article on downgrade rights in s/w licensing

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/11/15/6279941.aspx

11. WS 2008 Centro (50-250 client machines) now officially called Windows Essential Business Server

a. http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/11/07/windows-server-centro-is-now-officially-windows-essential-business-server.aspx

12. You can publish a OneNote notebook to a web server in HTML + Java… this seems like a way for us to share some of those many OneNote files we’ve accumulated over the past couple of years

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2007/08/12/summer-onenote-2007-news-round-up.aspx

13. Outlook Gadgets for the Windows Sidebar

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2007/11/30/outlook-2007-gadgets-for-windows-sidebar.aspx

14. You can tell Outlook an appointment is “Next Fri” and it will figure out what day that is

a. http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2007/11/14/fun-with-outlook-date-fields.aspx

 

Some Vista Users May Have XP Downgrade Rights

I'm working today with my church's Children's Ministries Director, and we're sorting out some Vista issues.  It appears that she is one of the people who runs applications (ACS church software) which doesn't work under Windows Vista.  Since many readers of this blog may be in the situation where they want to run XP Pro instead of Vista due to these kinds of legacy applications, I wanted to pass along what I've discovered about downgrading from Vista to XP Pro.

1. You may already have rights to downgrade.   Key points:

• According to a recent Computerworld article, OEM users of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate have the rights to downgrade from to XP Professional.
• According to the article,"Corporations that acquire Microsoft operating system software through volume license agreements such as Select License, or who have signed up for Software Assurance, can (generally) downgrade any Windows software at any time ". You should consult your EULA for more details or contact your volume licensing consultant.
• Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium customers DO NOT qualify for these downgrade rights.  This is probably just as well - hardware that comes with an OEM install of one of these operating systems is probably not ready for the unforgiving punishment of somebody like me who uses their computer 50-60 hours a week, every week, year round.
• You will have to provide your own CD for installing XP Pro, as well as do the work yourself to set up XP Pro.  My experience suggests that this takes a couple of hours to get the OS up and going, with longer to install updates, Office software, antivirus, drivers, and the like.

The article goes on to describe the process of setting up XP Pro, which involves installing XP Pro with the Vista key (!) and then using the phone activation option to get XP Pro up and running.  In certain circumstances, you may not have XP Pro drivers available for your new hardware (usually if you're buying cheap hardware with lots of proprietary devices built into the motherboard.)

2. You have other options for dealing with those pesky legacy apps include: 

•    Dual Booting, where you have both Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Business installed on the same PC is an option, but you will have to purchase an additional license for XP under this scenario if you bought a PC with Vista preinstalled.  It's one or the other if you purchased Vista with your PC - you can't use the Vista license for both the XP and vista licenses.  If you would like to dual boot, you'll need to purchase another license (and there are some issues you should look into regarding the boot file setup differences between Vista and XP). TechRepublic has some nice instructions here - but you'll generally need an extra hard disk partition set up and will also need to install XP first, followed by Vista due to some arcane issues with the boot.ini file.
• Virtualization, where you run a virtualized version of Windows XP as a separate PC in a window in Vista is also an option, but you may need to purchase additional licenses of Office, XP Pro, and other apps(including client access licenses "CALs" for server apps) to be legal to run these in a virtualized environment.  I'm actually using this for demonstrations of many applications when speaking and using my production Vista laptops (Vista Ultimate).  You will need a lot of RAM to do this (one laptop has 2GB, the other has 4GB RAM), but it works great (although the speed may leave something to be desired).  As an aside, these apps can be used to run virtualized versions of any OS, from DOS to Linux to any version of Windows.  Apps which let you run the virtualized OS include:
  • VMWare
    
    • VMWare Virtual Server (free for personal use from www.vmware.com)
    • VMWare Workstation ($199, this is what I'm using)
  • Microsoft
    
    • Microsoft Virtual PC (free)
    • Microsoft Virtual Server (free)
  • Mac Applications
    • Parallels ($99)
    • VMWare (latest versions are getting good reviews)
• Terminal Services/Citrix type connections, where the application is run on a remote PC and the user gets a window over their internet connection which is controlled with typing and mouse movement from the remote system, is another option.  There are a number of ways to do this:
  • Outsourced options, where a third party (usually the software publisher) runs the application on their server, (where they handle the backups and upgrades).  All you have to do is download the client software and work.  These options are offered by most major accounting software companies (e.g. Thomson and CCH)
  • Local server-based terminal services options, where you run the applications on a local Terminal Services server (like Small Business Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 with Citrix or 2X).  These options have you running the app in Terminal Services mode - and you'll need your IT techie to set this up.  Some applications are not supported by the publisher in terminal services mode, so this may not work, although it may be the best approach for when more than one person needs access to an application at a time.
  • Local workstation based solutions may work for when you need very infrequent access to the other operating system/application.  This would involve taking a spare workstation and connecting it to the network with an installed version of VNC Server (free from www.realvnc.com) whereby you could get access to that machine over the VNC client software.

While I'm using Vista Ultimate as the production OS on most of my systems, certain apps (most notably prior year tax software) are not, and in many cases never will be supported on Vista.  NOW is the time to do this analysis in your firm - not in the heart of busy season.  According to some media reports, this is going to be a difficult tax season on many fronts due to AMT biting more people this year, new IRS regs on paid preparers, and other issues.  With all of the stuff on the technical front, I'd recommend that you get your house in order from a technology perspective ASAP so you can minimize your stress level this winter.

I wish all of you a happy holiday season, and a safe and prosperous 2008.

Best regards, Brian

IL Technology and Business Solutions Show

I made some last minute changes to my presentations at the Illinois Society of CPA's Business and Technology Solutions Show, and promised my attendees that I would post some notes to my blog with PDF's of the presentations and links to some of the sites I discussed during the sessions.

1. Upgrading your Computers (Vista/Office 2007/Hardware Update)

• Download Upgrading.pdf

• Technology Recommendations (from Randy Johnston's company, Network Management Group, Inc.) [Disclosure: I do some paid consulting for NMGI] - Updated quarterly, this site has recommendations for workstation specs in business situations.  I always check this site when purchasing gear.
• SalesCircular - Compares sales prices on electronics and appliances from weekly sales circulars in Illinois.  OK for home hardware, probably not OK for business hardware.
• I mentioned that I upgraded my new laptop out of the box to 4GB of RAM.  I purchased the RAM from Newegg.com, one of my favorite sites for "geeky" items.  (No, I don't get any commissions if you click through - I just like the company.)

2. Small Business Servers (Overview of What is Going on in SMB Server World)

• Download SMBServers.pdf

• ScorpionSoft - Maker of Two Factor Authentication devices for SBS and Remote Web Workplace. (thanks to the lovely and talented Susan Bradley for this link)
• Microsoft SBS Page
• Microsoft Windows Home Server Page

Using Social Networking Sites to Recruit Staff and Referrals

Neil McIntyre (a young aspiring future CA in Toronto) recently posted to his blog that many accounting firms in Toronto are using Facebook, the social networking site, to recruit staff and solicit referrals from others.  He’s right to say that few public companies probably look for auditors on Facebook, but I think he sells the prospect short.  New and recent college graduates have always been leaders in adoption of new technologies (for a host of reasons), and while he’s right that nobody’s going to pick a new auditor based on their Facebook page, I think he needs to also consider that recruiting and retaining qualified staff is one of the biggest issues facing CPA firms today.  As such, any technology that lets a firm find candidates looking for positions inexpensively is probably a good thing for us (and a bad thing for recruiters).  One example I found upon setting up my Facebook account was a CPAmerica facebook identity for “CPAmerica International Careers”.  While anybody who suggested that this would have been an effective recruiting strategy when I graduated from college 15 years ago would have immediately been laughed out of town, this isn’t costing a lot in time or fees, so why not try it???

Another site I’ve used is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) , a social networking site where people “link” to each other and can help others meet other people of interest online.  Where the introduction to an associate was a “push” transaction in the past (e.g. the referrer somehow divined that you needed to meet someone in their network and set up lunch for the three of you), LinkedIn makes it possible for the person looking for referrals to query the networks of those linked to them for introductions.   Where Facebook was created by hipsters looking for a date and for ways to interact with their friends online, LinkedIn is a hard-core business machine designed to help you extend the reach of your personal network.  I was introduced to LinkedIn by a friend from church who was in a top Executive MBA program a couple of years ago, and have been amazed by the people you can meet by just logging in periodically.  All of the recruiters I know use sites like LinkedIn to find mid-career candidates for open positions, so if you’re looking for a job (or looking for people looking for a job), this may be a good place to spend a little time.  The above-mentioned Neil McIntyre also compares Facebook and LinkedIn in an earlier post.

So if you’ve had your head down and elbows out working for the last few months, you may do well to come up for air and take in some of the new social networking sites for you and your firm.  Just as social events helped us with perspective on our education in college, social networking sites may help us with perspective on our careers, and others we meet on these sites may help our careers, job searches, and firms more productive and profitable.  (Who knows – you might even get a date!)

Gateway Notebook Battery Recall

Gateway has a new battery recall this week.  I suppose the warm weather has caused some PC's to spontaneously combust or something......  Either way, check their site if you have a Gateway notebook,

Remember- only you can prevent laptop fires.

More Info: http://www.gateway.com/battery/

Backup Horror Stories for CPAs....

So there I was- listening to this week's Security Now podcast on the plane- and about 12 minutes in, Steve (the host) starts talking about his hard drive testing and data recovery tool. (This tool is typically used after a drive has started giving trouble). Here's the thumbnail-

CPA has old server.  In the middle of tax season, their server stops working due to drive failure.  Tech runs Spin Rite on the disks, recovers most of the data (which is of course not backed up), and then installs a new server after tax season.

I'll probably play this in the CPA Firm Tech session in Des Moines - it's a pretty scary scenario.  The other thing CPAs seem to harbor is an acute sense of denial about the need for backups.

Links are as follows:
http://tinyurl.com/29q9hj
-or-
http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-095.htm

When your browser completes loading the page, just search for CPA, and you can read the transcript directly.
Enjoy- BFT

The Latest from Google Labs....

As you may know, Google allows their engineers to spend lots of time on their pet projects.  Some of these projects end up on the scrap heap, but a lucky few end up as Google Labs projects that we get to play with.  Some of the more interesting ones I've seen lately are:

• Plan a trip with public transportation - http://www.google.com/transit/ - While this seems to be limited in its scope (for example, there aren't any northeastern states on the list of cities where you can do this, I'm going to be going to both Portland and Seattle, and this might be a good way to get to and from my flights and trains.  I'll write back if the experience warrants mentioning.
• View the surface of Mars - http://www.google.com/mars/ - While I'm not sure why you would want to do this, it's pretty cool that it can be done.

TSCPA Knoxville Chapter Mini-Seminar Materials

Handouts from today's TSCPA Knoxville Chapter Mini-Seminar are presented below as a PDF.

Download TechUpdate2007-05-01.pdf

Enjoy!  Brian

Mossberg Recommends Macs for Home Users

The Wall Street Journal's weekly Walt Mossberg column (subscription required unless you go through http://ptech.wsj.com) comes out recommending Macs for home users.  While many of us think Walt may have drank a little too much Cupertino Kool-Aid (visual: imagine Steve Jobs dressed as the Kool-Aid pitcher from the ads), it's certainly interesting to see this.  He also discusses the limited availability of Windows XP on OEM PC's, as well as his frustrations trying to work with hardware in Windows Vista.

While Mossberg is certainly entitled to his opinion, I think the dearth of software targeted at the Accounting vertical market makes it a fundamentally bad idea to switch to Macs for a small CPA firm.  Although people like Thomson and CCH are both offering hosted versions of their CPA Firm Apps (in which case you would really be hosting your apps in the "cloud"), I still think there's enough out there on a PC which you need in a small firm that you're not going to be able to run on a Mac.  (disclosure: The last Apple product I have owned (besides my iPod)is an Apple ][+, with a scalding 1 Mhz 6502 processor, and a tricked out 64K ot RAM.  If anybody is interested in purchasing it, please e-mail me - I think I still have it somewhere.)  All bets are obviously off if you're a Big-4 firm, and can have your core apps written for you, but generally, the apps for vertical industries just aren't there.

Mossberg also discusses the Mac's ability to run Windows (since they're both based on Intel processors), but despite the buzz from the chattering creative classes, and their ad campaign which says , "You're a nerd if you have a PC", some things have not historically run well on Mac hardware.  For example, when Apple first came out with Boot Camp, their application that lets you reboot a Mac using the Windows XP operating system, there was no way to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.  If you use a PC at home, this probably wasn't a big deal, but if you have a Windows computer at work, that's a pretty big problem, since most system admins require you to press Ctrl-Alt-Del before you log into your network.  Oops.  My Mac enabled friends seem to mutter about other similar issues in hushed tones, and stop talking about the things they don't like altogether when they don't like things.

Many of us in the IT community see the coming wave as applications hosted by third parties and running on the internet.  Microsoft has seized on this with SharePoint 2007 (and the hosted version for SMB called OfficeLive) and its ability to assist business users with sharing information amoung disbursed teams.  Google's new office competitor which runs in a browser offers a first edition view of what browser-based computing could look like (although it certainly has a long way to go before it becomes as elegant as Office 2007).  With internet connectivity becoming more reliable, faster, and staying relatively cheap, these types of services may be the long-term future of computing.  Basically, you would have a box that prints things and runs a browser that looks and acts a lot like today's PC, except you would never install anything on it.  [Think of this as the modern version of a green-screen VT100 terminal from the old mainframe computing days.]

With all of this said, I'm probably going to purchase a Mac in the fairly near future so I can speak intelligently about the operating system and applications on the platform.  While it's not going to be ready for prime-time CPA firm work for a while, they certainly do make a pretty piece of hardware, don't they?  Besides, with six windows PC's in my home (just the ones that are mine), I'm approaching the point where I need to add a Mac so my computer inventory looks like what America is buying..... or something like that.

TSCPA Appalachian Chapter Speech Notes

I gave two speeches to the Appalachian Chapter of the Tennessee Society of CPAs last night.  Thanks go out to the Chapter's leadership, who made it one of the easiest speaking trips in recent memory. 

Clicking on the links below will open a PDF file with the slides presented as part of these programs:

Two hour CPE presentation: Technology Update

One hour CPE presentation: AICPA's Top 10 Technologies for 2007

Gliffy - More than a Family Nickname Gone Horribly Wrong

So there I was - reviewing some websites for a proposal, and out pops a gem of an application that you might want to consider.  It's got a funny name (like most web 2.0 / AJAX sites), but it seems pretty neat.

The site is Gliffy, which was written using OpenLazlo, an AJAX development tool.  Gliffy doesn't aspire to take over your Office (they'll leave that challenge to better funded competitors like Google - and even with the best brains and lots of cash, that's going to be pretty tough to pull off).  Gliffy just wants your flowcharts.  Lots of them.  And you can do it in a browser.

If you're one of those who has used my Excel flowchart template in the past, you might want to sneak a look at Gliffy - in the immortal words of Bluto, "Don't cost nothin'"

More Web 2.0

AJAX (aka Asynchrynous Java and XML), the latest app platform on the web, has made it possible for websites to work like applications on your local machine.  Don't believe me?  Check out these sites:

• www.searchmash.com (Google, without the ads, in AJAX)
• docs.google.com (this is the home for Google Spreadsheets, and is also the location where Google has incorporated the technology it acquired from writely.com into their app suite.
• maps.google.com (Google Maps)

You'll notice that I'm referring almost exclusively to Google properties here - others do a great job (e.g. the Microsoft Live sites, etc.), but Google was a leader in the implementation of this combination of technologies, and their API makes it possible to create MashUps, which overlay interesting data with maps, spreadsheets, etc.  An example of this is www.chicagocrime.org, and there are literally thousands of other sites which do similar things.

The biggest change I have seen in the last half of 2006 is the implementation of new, Web 2.0 mobile sites and apps.  My favorite is Google Maps for Mobile, and many of the airline sites (example would be mobile.delta.com).  While the presentation on the Delta mobile site is nothing to write home about, the data available is really nice.  When I'm traveling on a delayed flight, I often look up the connections of my seat neighbors so they know where to go, when it leaves, and what they should do once they get off the plane - it makes you the hero of many a newbie traveler.  I'm also enamored with United's mobile site as well.  While I haven't installed the Java runtime environment needed for the GMail mobile app on my Treo, it demos pretty nicely on the web.

If you haven't checked out any Web 2.0 sites lately, you should - AJAX is more than just a cleaning agent, and it offers another possible change to a world where everything runs on browsers and servers instead of stand-alone or networked PC's.  Very interesting.....

Windows Vista & Office 2007 RTM, Business Mgt S/W

Well, it's official- Windows Vista and Office 2007 have been released to manufacturing, so they are as done as they are going to get at this point. How Vista is adopted remains to be seen- the increased security, new kernel, and new authentication model may require many corporate customers to wait on Longhorn server. Microsoft seems to have acknowledged this a few weeks ago, and is rumoured to be allowing enterprise customers to run the Longhorn beta on production servers.

I've used beta and pre-release versions of both Vista and Office 2007, and have been impressed with them, but am planning to delay running Vista in production until sometime in first quarter, as I want to test everything well before I use it in front of 100 people I don't know.

Am finalizing a post on the new world of accounting software- free apps for small business. Sage started this trend with a free version of Peachtree (after rebates), Intuit improved it with the limited version of QuickBooks SimpleStart, and Microsoft has recently introduced Office Accounting Express 2007. OAE 2007 is a substantial app (the download, from www.ideawins.com, is 205 MB), and I'm looking forward to doing some work this winter to compare and contrast the low end versions of the big three accounting applications.

Rotten Apples

Apple announced earlier this week that they were recalling 1.8 million notebooks because of faulty batteries.  While this is a surprise to many, it is now odd that the only video I could find last week on exploding notebooks was of a Mac laptop burning like a disco inferno!  I guess I understand the recall better now.

Cat 5 BCP? Take an EVDO, VOIP, and 802.11g, and Skype the President in the morning

Wi-Fi is part of the continuity plan for New Orleans, as is VOIP.  The big question I have is why it isn't part of yours as well. There's a great article in Network World this week about how the City of New Orleans used VOIP to connect Mayor Nagin with the President in the midst of the Katrina mess -

"(NO CIO Greg) Meffert gained national attention immediately following Katrina when he went into a looted Home Depot, grabbed a Cisco router, found a single live connection at the Hyatt Hotel where the mayor was holed up and used a Vonage client to connect the mayor with President Bush." - Network World, 8/21/2006

(My thought:  Never underestimate the innovation that can be done by a geek in the eye of a disaster.  Meffert's McGuyver manuever with a router, an internet connection, and some luck got the Mayor back in touch with the President.)

Read the rest of the article for more info on how they're planning to use these technologies in the future, as well as how they've deployed a mesh network to cover the center of the city for future disasters.   (