Tech Better

I should make a T-shirt. One that says, "When I was your age, I could use pooling accounting on my merger."

Pooling was disallowed, of course, in 2001. It allowed companies to avoid goodwill and thus save a temporary hit to EPS. Strange, huh? Accounting choice did not affect future cash flows. The investors shouldn't care. But management did. EPS mattered dearly.

Most of you understand the heart of the matter here, and if so, skip to the next paragraph. If not, the gist is as follows: In merger waves, acquirers tend to pay higher than book value for target firms.

Google has launched a new service called Tip Jar. The basic idea is for people to post their best tips on a variety of topics, and then visitors vote on the quality of the tip. The subject areas include At Home, At Work, Finance, Kids & Family, Shopping, Food, Cars & Transit, and Travel. Below are a couple tips I found. The site is worth checking out, if even just for a minute. Here is the URL: http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=3cfc

"When composing reports or essays, turn OFF spell check.

A YouTube video clip made its way around our office a few days ago. It was a clip from the Conan O'Brien show. His guest was comedian Louis CK. In the clip Louis makes the point of just how much we take for granted these days. I could elaborate, but I think you would be better served by just watching the video. It's worth a laugh, and with all the negative news on television, it might change your perspective just a bit.

In this current economic climate, many businesses are looking for ways to cut costs. Well here is a simple suggestion that can produce some surprising results.

The average desktop computer has a 400-watt power supply. Generally, however, computers will only pull around 100 watts per hour. Therefore, over a 24 hour day a computer can consume roughly 2400 watts or 2.4 kilowatts (100 watts * 24 hours).

The national average for power is 9.5¢ per kilowatt-hour.

By Ryan Williams, TechBetter.com - When implemented prudently, computers are about much more than checking email, surfing the internet and keeping track of accounting records. Computers are also about accountability and oversight, among other things.