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Archive for the 'Business' Category
Wireless Philadelphia - I knew it wouldn’t last

wifi phillyAccording to The Metro newspaper on Friday (2/29/2008), “The construction of the city’s wireless Internet network has officially come to a halt.” I’m not surprised. Why? Because as a friend of mine had said, “Philadelphia is where technology comes to die.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Philly in some ways, and have been living in the area for over 20 years. But it’s no surprise that Earthlink has decided to sell this over-publicized, under-achieved network set up under former Mayor John Street. It had experienced scheduling setbacks and technical issues from the very beginning, and the layoff of half of Earthlink’s workforce back in August of 2007 didn’t make Philly Wifi look like a promising venture either.

Wireless Philadelphia said Thursday it has connected close to 1,000 digital inclusion customers to the wireless network since June. That’s far from its original goal of 10,000 in the first year.

Who’s going to buy up this lost cause? Have they even set up those purported “Eye in the Sky” surveillance cameras yet in an effort to help reduce crime? Let’s face it, the closest thing to cutting edge technology in Philly was probably used in making my Dunkin Donuts coffee this morning.

Submitted by: RayAna Park, Web Developer
on March 03, 2008 - 10:54 am

Those pesky SAS’s

Need to locate one of the Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS)?  A great place to try is the Journal of Accountancy, which reprints many of the standards in full text.  The journal is available on Lexis & Westlaw, as well as in Jenkins’ print collection!

Submitted by: Jenny Hohenstein, Reference/Electronic Services Librarian
on February 15, 2008 - 10:34 am

Taking care of your taxes… and gadgets

taxesHere’s a useful article from Yahoo Finance concerning the 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions stemming from an interview with the head of IRS. Did you relocate to start a new job recently? This one’s for you then:

Moving expense to take first job. Here’s an interesting dichotomy: Job-hunting expenses incurred while looking for your first job are not deductible; but moving expenses to get to that first job are. And you get this write-off even if you don’t itemize. If you moved more than 50 miles, you can deduct the cost of getting yourself and your household goods to the new area, including 20 cents a mile (and parking fees and tolls) for driving your own car.

So what are you going to do with the extra money you saved by reading this? The holidays are over so you can go ahead and splurge on yourself, guilt-free. This Rotating Stand for iPhone and iPod Touch may be the most elegant way to show off your iPhone at your desk. Or for the shutterbugs like me who spend way too much time retouching the dust out in all your photos, how about a Digital Sensor Cleaner? The makers of this gadget are pros in creating static control equipment so one shot of that anti-static air onto the camera’s sensor should get rid of those annoying, tiny spots that come out in your photos. Hm, I wonder if it could help me from being electrocuted by my light switch every morning…

Submitted by: RayAna Park, Web Developer
on January 31, 2008 - 4:16 pm

New Article e-mail Alert

alertAre you researching articles to publish your own article or book or just because ….. you want to know? WilsonWeb Index to Legal Periodicals Full Text has a “Create Alerts” feature that keeps track of newly published articles for the research topics of your interest.

Enter your search and request daily, weekly or monthly updates that are e-mailed directly to your desktop. Alerts can be customized to your preferred format: full text, customized citation or brief format. To receive them make sure to add search@hwwilsonweb.com to the whitelist in your SPAM filter.

This service is available to Jenkins members. Not a Jenkins’ member? It is not too late to join us.

I know that now you can’t wait to try this new feature, so log on to WilsonWeb and give it a try. You can learn more about using this database by checking this pdf tutorial.

Submitted by: Katrina Piechnik, Head of Technical Services
on December 14, 2007 - 2:29 pm

NASD? Try FINRA

Looking for the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD)? The NASD was consolidated with select functions of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to form a new organization, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). According to FINRA, they are responsible for: registering & educating industry participants, examining securities firms, writing & enforcing rules, and administering a dispute resolution forum for investors & registered firms.

Submitted by: Nancy Garner, Head of Information & Research Services
on December 10, 2007 - 12:00 am

This Baby Hasn’t Kindled My Interest

This week Amazon released Kindle, what they call a “wireless reading device”. Think of it as an eBook reader that also gives you access to newspapers and blogs.

It’s generated a lot of buzz because you can download books wirelessly in a minute, preview them for free, and even send email to your Kindle. But it’s also got some problems. My favorite quote comes from an article in Forbes:

Kindle’s flaws add up to a device that’s as expensive as an iPhone, with far fewer uses, and a clunky design that seems aimed at the gadget illiterate.

If given a choice, I’d go for the iPhone, too. My reasons are purely economic. Kindle costs $400. NY Times bestsellers and new releases are $10 a pop. (I’m rounding off here.) So to get started reading 10 eBooks, I’d have to shell out $500. The same $500 would buy me between 25 and 30 real, honest-to-goodness books — I tend to buy paperbacks — at my local Barnes & Noble. I think the break-even point would be at around 60 books, which would probably take me about 18-24 months. Not worth it, as far as I’m concerned.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on November 21, 2007 - 3:18 pm

The heck with education stuff let’s go for the dineros

Last week Thomson agreed to sell its Thomson Education unit for $7.75 billion dollars.  That includes Thomson Gale, which publishes InfoTrac and LegalTrac, two databases that we make available to our members.

Today Thomson announced that they have agreed to merge with Reuters.  The new company will be called Thomson-Reuters.  (Thankfully, they decided not to try to come up with a name that suggests synergy but ends up sounding more like the name of a prescription allergy drug.  Cingular … Lucent … you get what I mean.)

The current leader in the financial news market is Bloomberg, which has a 33% share.  The combined Thomson-Reuters — numbers 3 and 2 behind Bloomberg — will be about the same size.  Hmm … what does that remind me of?  Oh yeah, the Yahoo-Microsoft merger rumors that were flying around last week, too.

The deal is valued at $17.2 billion U.S. dollars.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on May 15, 2007 - 9:24 am

Google Finance Adds New Features

Never miss an earnings call with Google Finance. You can view earnings calls, analyst meetings, and any other material event on your company and portfolio pages. Further, you can download these events directly to your Google Calendar.

Other smaller features added to Google Finance include:

  • Historical prices: View and download historical end-of-day prices for any U.S. or Canadian company
  • Portfolios: You can now download the latest portfolio performance and transaction details from your portfolio
  • News feeds: Stay on top of the news using your feed client such as Google Reader, Bloglines, or as part of your iGoogle
  • Last week, you may have read that there are now ticker symbols on news results for public companies on Google News. Click on the symbol and you'll go to the corresponding page on Google Finance.

They are interested in receiving feedback on what else they can do to help you manage your finances using Google Finance.  Let them know!

Submitted by: Ida Weingram, Head of Outreach Services
on May 08, 2007 - 12:25 pm

Greed Leads to the Dark Side

Anakin: When I got to them we got into aggressive negotiations.
Padme: Aggressive negotiations? What’s that?
Anakin: Ah, well, it’s negotiations with a lightsaber.
(Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones)

Viacom, owner of MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, has opened aggressive negotiations with Google over copyright infringement on YouTube. They’re suing them for a billion dollars in damages. Plus they want an injunction prohibiting YouTube from continuing to infringe.

Maybe Viacom’s on to something. Search YouTube for star wars anakin padme. You’ll get almost 800 hits. Most of them are fan tributes to the Anakin-Padme love story — geeze, get a life! — with video from the movie mashed with goopy love songs. The top 5 alone have been viewed more than 130,000 times.

All this hoohah over a couple of fictional characters? I mean, it’s not like they’re Lorelai and Luke.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on March 14, 2007 - 12:23 pm

We’re Talking Reeeeeeally Big Numbers Here

Yesterday Google filed a registration statement with the SEC regarding its acquisition of YouTube.

YouTube founder Chad Hurley received 694,087 shares of Class A common stock, which at this very moment (12:35 PM on February 8, 2007) makes him a very happy man to the tune of $326,894,154 and 39 cents. (There’s another 41,232 shares in a trust, but I don’t feel like doing the math on that.)

Another founder, Steve Chen, received 625,366 shares (currently $294,528,625.02) along with 68,721 more in a trust.

[Sigh.]

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on February 08, 2007 - 12:47 pm

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