Professor Elam

HEB Night November 5, 2013

Posted Wed Oct 30 2013

There will be two lectures but HEB Execs this next Tuesday from 5 30 - 6 50.

HEB invited our faculty to their headquarters for a complete presentation on their business model. This resulted in TAMUSA creating HEB night.  This year's presentations are detailed below. We strongly urge students to attend to learn more about this large SanAntonio based success story. HEB welcomed our faculty based on their ositive experience in hiring A & M graduates. And yes I would have my own business cards with me for the event! 

Evening Topics/locations:

 

Classroom 168: HEB Presenters: Andy Russ (Director of Operations for Planning & Analysis-Houston & Central Market )& Tammy Hermann (Director of Merchant Areas & Software Development Centers)

HEB Recruiting Team: Shelley Hajovsky, Mary Valdez & Janie Maxwell

 

Classroom 196: HEB Presenters: Myric Polhemus (Director of Human Resources- San Antonio West Area) & Erika Prosper (Director of Qualitative Research for Customer Insights)

                        HEB Recruiting Team: Susan McCloud, Abel Acevedo, Rosie Gamez & Paola Comparini

 

 

SA CPA Student Week Brings Speakers to Campus

Weekend October 27 2013

Luis Martinez  at right TAMUSA campus representative for San Antonio CPA Society hosted speakers over two evenings this past week.

On Tuesday Oct 22 we had Arturo Machado with Sol Schwartz. Arturo hails from El Paso and described his journey to becoming a CPA. Taking the exam while married with small children was a challenge.

Valerie Brauner with Akin Doherty Klein and Euge PC also spoke. Valerie is from Nebraska and followed a rather circuitous route to becoming a CPA. Among other skills, she worked as a meat cutter.

 

Wednesday October 23 we hostd Kathleen Dvorak and Tony Ridout with Ridout Barrett.

Tony has visited our campus previously and hired some of our graduates!  I was surprised to learn that Ridout Barrett now has 36 employees making it about number 13 in size in San Antonio.

 

The wweather cooperated and things had cooled off a tad. We were therfore able to have the get together outside in the courtyard.

 

 

 

 

 

Registration for Spring 2014 Begins Monday Oct 28 2013

Posted Wednesday Oct 23 2013

You can register as of Monday Oct 28, the sooner the better so we can have an idea of which classes make.

Accounting Professionals to Speak at TAMUSA Oct 22,23

Tuesday oct 22 2013

Valerie Brauner CPA  and Arturo Machado CPA will both speak tonight Tuesday Oct 22 at TAMUSA Brooks City Base Campus. We will gather on the eclosed patio at 5 30 pm.

tomorrow Wed Oct  23 Tony Ridout CPA and Kathleen Dvorak will be visiting with us at 5 30 o nthe patio.

Both are speaking on behalf of the SA CPA Sociey Student membership.

Please make plans to join us.

A Socionomic Take on the Movies

Weekend Oct 20 2013

Socionomics

While markets have picked up, the themes at the theater are decidedly downbeat. 

Robert Redford stars in a one man show with little to no dialog. in All is Lost. Here is the tag line.

After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.

This suggests a population grappling with whether the future is indeed brighter than where they are today.  I have not seen the film but presume Redford survives. Contrast this with the first Rocky movie that appeared shortly after the Dec 1974 low of 577 on the DOW. Rock resonated with audiences as the underdog winning the day. Here potential movie goers are navigating their own lives comparing it  with the sailor lost at sea. 

Audiences are flocking to see a similar story in Gravity. Contrast the theme of Gravity, lost in space, with the 1983 film The Right Stuff. The Right Stuff finally gave Chuck Yeager, first man to break thesound barrier, his due. All seven of the Mercury Astronauts had, as Tom Wolfe described it, the right stuff. This was just what audiences wanted to hear as the markets lifted off the 1982 final lows of the 1966-1982 bear market.  In the photo  notice the astronaut floating helpless in space, a metaphor for the contiinued jobless recovery in the country. 

 

 

Chromebook Threatens MSFT

Weekend October 19 2013

MSFT has had its own way for years as the non apple operating system. Get ready to move over, no wonder Ballmer threw in the towel. 

Google is offering a variety of Chrome Books.  Unlike MSFT they start in ten seconds and  is compatible with android systems. 

No wonder Google hit $1,000 this past week. 

Will J C Penny Pass the Going Concern Test?

Posted Tuesday Oct 15 2013

Analysts now wonder if J C Penny will last until the second half of 2014 to turn the company around.

After losing sales under Ron Johnson's tenure, many wonder if it is too late for the venerable retailer.

Compnanies must pass a going concern test for a clearn audit opinion to be issued. It will be interesting to see what the external auditors decide in the case of JCP.

Who Needs a Jeep?

Posted monday Oct 14 2013

The Dodge Brothers made this video in 1920 obviously to promote their rugged vehicle.  I cannot imagine how the vehicle negotiates that mud without a limited slip differential. And the scene where they turn it back over and rol up thw unbroken windows is a true classic. It is hard to imagine a Jeep in 1942 doing what this dodge did in 1920. 

Dodge would make a truck for WW II that as loater re branded as the Power Wagon.

John Wallace on Preventing Malware

Weekend October  12 2013

John Wallace of Resource Global Professionals RGP delivered a lecture this past Wednesday at San Antonio Internal Auditors on the securityof on line banking. The short story there is that there is not much security and a lot of danger via malware. Malware installs unseen on your computer  from clicking on an apparently friendly site. The malware then resides ony your computer until you enter passwords and bank account numbers. It copies the numbers and sends them to the bad guys in who knows where, think Tadkistan. 

The WSJ featured an article the very next day on software that purportedly would prevent this. The idea was that one would surf the net in the cloud and not on your own computer. I asked John to respond. 

Here is his comment about Light Point, thanks for keeping out TAMUSA students up to date. 

The concept of a virtual browser is a brilliant (though not entirely new) idea.  In 2001, a company was founded called Green Border.  They provided a product that "sandboxed" the browser (on the desktop or laptop), preventing malware from making its way to the computer's operating system.  The product appeared to work well and I used it for several years.  Unfortunately, in 2007 Google bought the Green Border company and promptly halted sales and suspended support.  It has been reported that Google wanted to capture the technology for the Chrome browser.  Indeed, Google came out with a feature to "sandbox" the Chrome browser.  Unfortunately, the Chrome "sandbox" was publicly compromised in 2012.  Although Google fixed the vulnerabilities that allowed it to be compromised, there is no way to be sure that it cannot again be compromised (or has not again been compromised) by these sophisticated malware developers.  Microsoft and Mozilla have also tried to "sandbox" their browsers, with limited "success".  This is why I am fairly confident when I say that there is no "secure" browser.  

What is novel about Light Point is that it is being hosted in the cloud.  That can potentially keep the malware off of the user's desktop/laptop/tablet.  However, considering that the Light Point browser could be compromised by zero-day malware (as was Google's Chrome "secure" browser), then it would be unwise for users to do their online banking via the Light Point site.  The malware would still be capable of harvesting the user's online banking credentials.

 

Whether or not Light Point Security, LLC will make it in the marketplace remains to be seen.  According to the WSJ article, they are a two-person startup, with a little bit of money.  Their target customers are businesses, yet they only support the Mozilla Firefox browser.  However, they have plans to support Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Google's Chrome, and eventually mobile platforms.  I wish them success, but I don't think their solution is the magic bullet.  Their product and service, should it take off, will most certainly be targeted by the organized criminal gangs I mentioned in my presentation.  Unfortunately, with their tremendous resources, I doubt that these criminals will find it impossible to compromise Light Point.

For what it is worth, those are my thoughts about Light Point!

 

 

SA CPA Student Membership Nights

Posted Thursday Oct 10 2013

Tuesday Oct 22 2013

Arturo Machado CPA with Sol Schwartz and Valerie Brauner will be presenting this night. Arturo is with Sol Schwartz and Valerie is with Akin, Doherty, Klein, and Feuge. She is a senior tax accoutant and works out of the Boerne Office. 

Wednesday oct 23 2013

Tony Ridout CPA partner with Ridout Barrett will present along with Kathleen Dvorak one of his accountants. 

Classes normally meeting at  5 30 PM will assemble in Courtyard for a joint presentation.