Professor Elam

$500 Ultra Mobile PC?

Has anyone seen one of the ASUS UMPCs?  Two pounds, 500 bucks or less, a battery that lasts for 3 hours, this might work?  If you have a laptop you know that by the time you carry the power cord and converter, and yeah you had better, the whole thing is not near as portable as you thought.  This however could be a different cup of tea.  I don't think it is for sale in the US yet, but looks like a winner to me.

More Restructuring and Impairmnet

Whoops the Cerebus HR Block deal is off.   Gee how the mortgage business has changed in a few months.  No way to structuer the deal to make it work, so  HRB will be taking a restructuring charge and an impairment loss.  HRB thought they could unload their mortgage business on private equity, but the market meltdown overcame that idea.  Check out the stock price on HRB and see what happened.  We study accounting to understand what those terms mean.  Hmm, this would be a great final exam question ......

Robert Frost

Robert Frost became the first poet to read a poem at a Presidential Inauguration in 1961, he was 87.

In managerial class today we discussed opportunity costs, sunk costs, and relevant costs.  At that point I asked how many had read 'The Road not Take' though I referred to it as two paths led into the woods, that is a line not the title of the poem.  Only one has done so , hre is a link to Frost and to this particular poem as you read down.   Opportunity costs, choices, Robert Frost  nature, gee this blog gets around.  If you have not read the poem, as Mac Davis says, stop to smell the roses with this one.

Mid East Kicks in $7.5 G to CITI

Now let me get this straight, according to Congress, it is definitely not OK for Abhu Dabi to run out ports, absolutely no way, uh uh, nosiree by golly.  But on the other hand, when those geniuses at Citicorp C manage to lose their collective shirts, it if just fine for the same folks to pony up $7.5 Billion bucks. Does anyone see an inconsistency in all this?  Is owner ship of  major US Money Center, okay lately losing money center, Bank any different from operating a port?  Only in the mind of Congress eh?

Oprah versus Barbara

Maria Bravo got the conversation going with her review of a book about women in business.  I was amazed that no one knew Maria Bartiromo. I also noted that the Presidents of UNT and SWT as well as the recent Deans of the College of Business are female, as well as the Accounting Dept Chairs at both schools.   Well here ia an article about how different these two apporaches can be -  Oprah for Obama adn Barbara for Hillary.

Indeed i don't see Barbara Striesand as someone exciting voters.  The interesting thing about Oprah is that in the past she has not been political, hardly the case for Ms Streisand.  Whatever I think,  Oprah is a media juggernaut, a sort of one woman media empire in her own right. Barbara has many friends in Hollywood. And now Obama has apparently pullled up even or ahead in iowa.  All of a sudden this long drawn out Hillary is a slam dunk campaign, may just be a horse race.

PS The references in the article are to a movie and the theme song The Way We Were starring Redford and Striesand.  No doubt this wil be the way Obama will try to cast Hillary, as were not now.

Wiley Plus Visits UNT Dallas Campus

UNT Dallas Campus offers a great venue for meetings.  The atrium design of the building lends well to mixing and mingling. And our fine state of the art computer labs aid in hands on learning.

After visiting the campus for our last Community College Accounting Teacher Forum, Wiley Rep Melanie recommended it as a site for Wiley Plus Instruction. 

Wiley flew Facutly Mentor John Arle in from Eugene, OR for the day. He delivered a talk on how he uses Wiley Plus technology in our Theater Style Room 102.  Later the group lunched in the atrium.  The day concluded with a hands on demo in one of our computer labs.  We  visited with the group and posted some shots in one of the photo albums down the left hand side of the page.  At left John Arle, Marek Frankiewicz, Carrie Addis,and Melanie visit while the group is in the computer lab.

Thanks for choosing our campus, come again soon!  The next CcATS will be Friday February 8, 2008.