Blog for "the-enabler" of the letsnet.org network

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College Parents of America is a membership organization that helps parents get their kids through college. The group's newsletter offers financing tips, tax information, saving strategies, admissions advice, and more. Have individual questions answered toll-free; and receive discounts on computers, books, and other products. A one-year membership is $25, two years is $45, and four years is $85.
The 2nd largest money out lay (after your house, but larger then that car). They just can financed differantly, that's all.
http://www.collegeparents.org/



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Investor's Relations Information Network offers more than 32,500 free company annual reports in their original formats. Annual reports may include photographs, graphs, and text. You use the Adobe Acrobat Reader program to read the information, which comes to you in the form of PDF (Portable Document Format) files. (With Acrobat Reader, you can read PDF files on Windows, Macintosh, DOS, and UNIX operating systems. You can download a free copy of Acrobat Reader from Adobe's Web site or by clicking a link on the IRIN Web site.) To find an annual report, just enter the first few letters of the ticker symbol or company name.





MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Medicare keeps its costs down by assigning a standard fee that it will pay for each medical procedure. When a doctor accepts the assigned fee as full payment for a particular service, the agreement is called accepting assignment. The reason accepting assignment is so important is that if the doctor charges a fee higher than the fee set by Medicare (and he can charge up to 15 percent more than the approved amount), then your elder must come up with the difference.

For example, if Medicare sets $500 as the fee for a certain procedure, a physician who doesn't accept assignment can charge your elder up to $575. Medicare will pay $400 (80 percent of the approved fee), and your elder will pay $175 instead of the $100 she would pay if the doctor accepted assignment. You should always ask a doctor whether he accepts assignment to avoid surprises later.

Paying for an Older Person's Health Care
Adapted From: Eldercare For Dummies
The cost of a serious illness, surgery, or a lengthy stay in the hospital can easily wipe out your elder's nest egg. The more you know about health-care insurance plans (government and private), the better prepared you are to help keep your elder as physically, mentally, and financially healthy as possible.

Medicare
Medicare is a federal health insurance program that provides hospital and outpatient medical insurance for eligible people over age 65 (as well as younger people with disabilities or end-stage renal disease). The benefits, premiums, deductibles, and copay requirements are the same in every state. Most older Americans who were employed or were married to someone who was employed are eligible. Everyone who qualifies for Social Security benefits receives an application automatically at age 65.

The Original Medicare Plan
The Original Medicare Plan is the heart of Medicare, the nation's largest health insurance plan. It's divided into Part A and Part B.

Part A helps cover hospital stays. It pays for nursing home care (for a very limited period following a three-day hospital stay). Part A also pays for hospice care and certain home health-care services. There are no monthly premiums for Part A.

When your elder is admitted to the hospital under Part A, she's responsible for an initial deductible ($840 in 2003) for every benefit period. (A benefit period begins on the day of hospital admission and ends 60 days after discharge.) Should your loved one be readmitted within those 60 days, she doesn't have to pay another deductible. However, if she's readmitted after those 60 days, then she's responsible for a second deductible. After a deductible has been paid, Medicare kicks in the full amount of eligible charges for up to 60 days. After that, your elder must share the burden of cost through hefty copays. In 2003, the copay was set at $210 a day for days 61 to 90 and $420 a day for days 91 to 150. After 150 days in the hospital, your elder is responsible for 100 percent of the cost for each additional day.

Part B covers medical bills, most doctor's fees, diagnostic tests, outpatient care, and some medical equipment. Your elder pays a premium for Part B ($58.70 a month in 2003). The premium gets deducted from her monthly Social Security checks. A deductible of $100 must also be paid before Medicare covers any portion of physician fees. Once the deductible is satisfied, your elder pays 20 percent, and Medicare pays 80 percent of all eligible physician charges.

Before authorizing treatment, ask your physician and the local Medicare office if Medicare covers the proposed services or fees.


Medicare + Choice
Congress created the Medicare + Choice program to give older adults more choice. This program allows companies (under contract to Medicare) to manage Medicare services for its subscribers. It works like this: Medicare pays a set amount of money every month to a private health plan for your oldster's care. Medicare + Choice includes two different plans: Medicare managed care plans (HMOs) and Medicare private fee-for-service plans.

If your elder chooses a Medicare HMO plan, she still has Part A and Part B in the Original Medicare Plan coverage and still pays the premium, but she may also have to pay an additional premium to belong to the HMO plan. In return, the HMO may charge lower deductibles and copays or eliminate them altogether. The HMO may also have benefits that don't exist in the Original Medicare Plan (such as prescription drugs, eyeglasses, and dental care). But in this plan, your elder usually must see the health-care professionals that are in the HMO's network of providers.

The other plan, the Medicare private fee-for-service plan, also covers everything in Part A and Part B of the Original Medicare Plan. Your elder pays a premium for the fee-for-service plan in addition to the usual Part B premium. This plan may also offer additional services and require deductibles and copays. One of the main advantages for some oldsters is that this plan allows them to see any provider that accepts Medicare.

Medicare + Choice Plans are not available in all states. Recently, many private insurance companies have stopped participating because they can't make a profit. Others have had to raise their premiums while cutting their benefits to stay in the game.

Medigap (Medicare supplemental insurance)
Medigap is a cute nickname for the private health insurance policies your elder can buy to cover the costs that the Original Medicare Plan doesn't cover. Medigap policies in every state (except Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) are standardized (they're named A to J) so that you can compare them easily. Each of the policies offers a different combination of benefits. In addition, any one of the ten standardized policies may be sold as a Medicare Select policy. Medicare Select Policies require policyholders to use specific hospitals, and, in some cases, specific doctors, to get full insurance benefits.

If your elder is enrolled in the Medicare Managed Care Plan (HMO) or Medicare Private Fee-For-Service Plan, a Medigap policy isn't necessary. In fact, it may be illegal for anyone to sell your elder a Medigap policy if she's enrolled in one of these health plans.


Compare Medigap plans and get the names and contact information of the insurance companies in your area that offer them by visiting online Medicare.gov and clicking Medigap Compare.

If your elder decides that a Medigap policy is the way to go, buy the policy during the open enrollment period (a six-month period that starts on the first day of the month that your elder is 65 or older and enrolled in Medicare Part B). During this period, coverage can't be denied due to existing medical conditions. If your elder doesn't enroll during the open period, she may not be able to buy the plan she wants later, or she may get charged more for the same policy.

Medicaid
Medicaid (sometimes referred to as medical assistance) provides free medical care for people with low incomes and few resources. The federal and state governments share the costs for Medicaid, but the state manages the program. Eligibility requirements vary from state to state, and the complicated rules change frequently. To qualify, your elder must be a U.S. citizen (with some exceptions) and must meet income and asset requirements. The elder's home and car can be exempt in determining eligibility. Long waits and complicated application forms are the norm.

The good news is that every state must allow some choice of providers, and if your elder is on Medicare and Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), most of her hospital stays and medical costs will be paid in full. Medicaid covers nursing home care and outpatient prescription drugs. If your elder is already in a nursing home, pays for care from her own pocket, and is almost out of money, the personnel at the nursing home can apply for Medicaid on her behalf.

Long-term care insurance
Private insurance companies sell long-term care insurance to cover medical and nonmedical needs. The older your elder gets (and the more medical conditions she accumulates), the more expensive the policy will be. Investigate this option early, before a crisis occurs.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Tue Apr 6, 8:44 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. hails its new e-mail service as a breakthrough in online communication, but consumer watchdogs are attacking it as a creepy invasion of privacy that threatens to set a troubling precedent.

Although Google's free "Gmail" service isn't even available yet, critics already are pressuring the popular search engine maker to drop its plans to electronically scan e-mail content so it can distribute relevant ads alongside incoming messages.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&e=5&u=/ap/google_mail



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Anyone that has ever forwarded asinine emails needs
to see this! It is so
funny and so true! Click on the below:
http://www.bordergatewayprotocol.net/jon/humor/web_animations/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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You can use Quicken to print checks. This little trick provides a couple of benefits: It's really fast if you have several checks to print, and your printed checks look very neat and darn professional.

To print checks, you need to do just two things. First, look through the check supply information that comes with Quicken and pick a check form that suits your style. Then order the form. (The check forms that come with remittance advices — or check stubs — work well for businesses.)

Preprinted check forms aren't cheap. If you're using Quicken at home with personal-style checks (such as those that go in your wallet), using computer checks may not be cost effective. Even if you're using Quicken for a business and you're used to buying those outrageously expensive business-style checks, you'll still find computer checks a bit more expensive.

MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Microsoft Windows XP won't allow you to uninstall Internet Explorer. How can you fix the browser or even reinstall the program if it becomes corrupt?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1555033,00.asp

MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Quickly move forwards and backwards between web pages by holding down the shift key of you keyboard and scrolling up or down on your mouse wheel. At lease it works in Opera and Internet Explorer, didn't try it on netscap or Mozilla.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Shortcut Names
When creating a shortcut, Windows will choose a name for you. However, you don't have to keep it. If the shortcut name created is GRTGM1, this is not very helpful. However, changing the name to Greatest Game Number 1 may be more useful. Go crazy with names! It's your desktop, so make it reflect your personality.

And just in case you need to know how to rename shortcuts, it's the same as any icon on your desktop. And if you need to know how to rename icons on your desktop, Right-click on the icon name, Click "rename" in the list, type in your new name, then click anywhere else on your disktop to make the change.

Seize the Day





MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities (Updated)
The Experts’ Consensus

http://www.sans.org/top20/#index




MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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OK, Lets say your a big Word or Excel user, and you want to get to your disktop fast,
Take all open Microsoft Word and/or Excel files by, holding down the shift key, and clicking "File" and then click "Close All".

Normally, you wuold do this without holding down the Shift Key, and that does close all files inside either Word or Excel, but "holding down the Shift Key you've maked it universal to both or all Microsoft programs you have open.

OK, you say, but what if I have windows open in non-Microsoft Programs? Lets say I have a messenger open, and a non-Microsoft browser like Opera, well there's is a way. And after you've set it up all it takes is one click and all open program will Minimized to the Task Bar.




MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

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Making Waves
How to Turn Around the U.S. Tech Economy in One Week With No New Laws, Regulations, or Tax Breaks Required and Without Moving to India

Last week I heard from a reader who had a novel idea. If IT outsourcing and offshoring are becoming such a problem that hundreds of thousands of American programmers and engineers might lose their jobs because of it, why not just move to India and join the winning side? The idea seemed ludicrous, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made –- not sense like my mother might have had (real sense), but sense like I might have (Cringely sense). Why not move to India?
Well, there’s always the malaria, I suppose.
But ignoring the odd health problem, wages are dramatically lower in India, but then so is the cost of living. As long as your quality of life is the same or better, one could argue that it doesn’t matter how much you are being paid.
You’d probably be a lot more important in India than back home, too. That’s because an American programmer in India would probably be of most value working on projects where the final customer was an American or non-Indian company. Your marketable skills might turn out not to be architecture, design or coding, but culture and communication. Wouldn’t that be ironic? After all, from my earlier outsourcing columns it was clear that there are major problems with the practice, and those problems stem mainly from cultural differences.
I have a friend from India who came to the U.S. and worked nine years for Sun Microsystems in several important capacities. He told me that he was well into his second year on the job when he figured out that he was supposed to tell the truth in meetings. And it was very freeing when he realized that getting the bad news out as quickly as possible and dealing with it not only didn’t hurt his career in the U.S., but actually helped it.
This type of lesson remains unlearned in most Indian development organizations, so the American who can interpret the needs of the customer, explain them to the Indian technical staff, then drive the work to completion, would be very valuable.
India isn’t for everyone, but some people really love it. It isn’t America, and can’t be made into America, so forget that. India has to be enjoyed for what it is, which is a place that smells and runs and sounds completely different from what most Americans are used to.
But if you are working for HP in Houston and moving to HP in Bangalore, well Houston is actually hotter in the summer.
So I went on the web to see how easy it would be to emigrate to India. I found NOTHING. I called the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC and asked how I could emigrate to India. They didn’t know what I was talking about.
What the Indian Embassy was prepared to discuss was how my U.S. employer might transfer me to India for some period of time. I told them PBS had no such expansion plans to my knowledge, though they might make an exception just for me. They were also willing to discuss how I might go to India as an entrepreneur, bringing capital into the country and starting a new business there employing Indians. I told them I had no money to invest. And the idea that I’d just arrive at the Mumbai equivalent of Ellis Island looking for a job, well they found that rather amusing.
You can’t just move to India it turns out. Someone there has to want you -– no, they have to NEED you -– OR you have to be bringing with you a big suitcase of cash to start a business. Journeyman techies need not apply.
It’s interesting that Indian immigration policies are more restrictive than U.S. immigration policies. There is no true Indian equivalent, for example, of our H1-B work visas. There is no quid pro quo. But then there is also no wave of U.S. engineers clamoring to move to India.
Paul Sen, who directed both my “Triumph of the Nerds” and “Plane Crazy” shows (he was the guy behind the camera I tried to kill in the second hour of Plane Crazy) grew up in Calcutta, and has a keen appreciation for the cultural differences between the two nations. I remember how amused we all were when Paul took his English girlfriend to visit India and what she was most looking forward to was lying on the beach. I had never heard of anyone going to India to lie on the beach. Neither had Paul.
But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t Americans or beaches in India. If you look inside the major Indian IT outsourcing firms you’ll find lots of Americans. Most of these Americans were born in India, emigrated to the U.S., became American citizens, but have subsequently gone back to their homeland not with the idea of living there forever, but of capitalizing on this very offshoring phenomenon. They are living the American dream, but doing so in Bangalore, not Palo Alto. And why not? If it is a more efficient way to get things done then it is proper. I just feel that offshoring is presently being done too often for the wrong reasons and with the wrong ultimate result.
Then it came to me. I’ve been missing the whole point. We’ve all been missing the point of what’s really wrong with the current economic recovery. Forget about India. What is it that we are doing wrong right here right now that has us grasping at IT outsourcing as having anything important to do with U.S. prosperity?
In my 2004 predictions column from last month, I forecast that IT outsourcing would become an issue in the U.S. Presidential election. That prediction has already come to pass, but frankly I don’t see any candidates embracing it as they should. This is not strictly a matter of inevitably maturing industries in transition. Nor is it a phenomenon that can simply be stopped by a new law or regulation. These are electrons we’re schlepping halfway around the world, and it is just about impossible to keep electrons inside or outside political boundaries. So we can’t stop it, but it would also be better not to lean into it as much as we have been, nor with such enthusiasm.
What’s to be done? Well throwing $500 million into community college retraining programs as the Bush Administration proposes is doing less than nothing because it not only won’t fix or even put a dent in the problem, it also proves that those who proposed this solution don’t even understand what’s broken. The people losing technical jobs aren’t welders who can take a few weeks of retraining to move from steel to titanium. We keep being told by the experts that this is a major structural change taking place and those lost jobs won’t ever come back.
I don’t believe that one, either.
I took a long shower and figured out that what we’re all worried about is that next technology wave that is supposed to come along, but hasn’t. And somewhere in there we started assuming that the next wave, whatever it is -– biotech, nanotech, somethingtech –- will require such dramatically different skill sets that the people who are working now will just have to be shipped off to Lowes and Home Depot. But that hasn’t been the case with past waves. Of course, there are always new technical skill sets required, but most of the people in a technical organization don’t work precisely where the rubber meets the road. The difference in industrial DNA between a leading-edge chip company and a leading-edge biotech company is probably less than 10 percent.
We are in as good a shape as ever to support that next wave, we’re just nervous because it hasn’t come yet. The wave is late. If it was here, new companies would be being started in large numbers, sucking-up good and bad engineers alike along with the added spice of some new specialists brought in from universities and other countries to change the mix just enough to support the hot new technology.
Why is the wave late, then? It doesn’t have to do with technology or education or marketing, it has to do with venture capital. The venture capital business has changed and that change isn’t entirely good.
Venture capitalists aren’t my favorite people. I see them as generally greedy and self-important, and not nearly as smart as they think they are. And right now they are very nervous about making new investments. What if the next wave they pick isn’t the right one? Another part of the problem is that venture funds have grown too large, pushing up the average deal size required for funds to think of themselves as being efficient. Yes, that makes no sense, but I told you these people aren’t very smart. Several big venture funds have actually been giving money back to their investors lately in an effort to allow smaller investments. But billions of dollars –- tens of billions of dollars -- are still in those funds, waiting to be invested. And eventually the pressure of all that money is going to start a new investment cycle. Some people think it has already begun but I don’t.
And when that investment cycle finally gets going in earnest, most of the unemployed people in Silicon Valley will suddenly be employed again just at the moment they were about to sign up for that welding course down at the JC.
But there is still that part about choosing the right wave. How will the venture capitalists know when the time and the opportunities are finally right? That’s the really silly part. They don’t have to know. Heck, they’ve never known before.
These people aren’t very smart, remember? They make enormous profits in an industry where 90 plus percent of their investments have always failed. What they have always done is invest in lots of different ideas, fund lots of startups, then see what clicks and throw the really big money into what’s clicking. That’s what has worked in the past and what will work this time, too, except the venture capitalists have been reading their own press releases and their nervous institutional investors have, too, so nothing is happening.
They are waiting for a revelation that will never come.
Here is my solution to adding jobs to the jobless recovery, to bringing Silicon Valley back to life, and to taking outsourcing and offshoring off the front page. Next week, Every venture capital firm in America should take five percent of its available funds and invest that money with best deals they’ve all had sitting on their desks for months. It doesn’t matter what the startups are. Give them the darned money, which I calculate to be about $5 billion spread across a thousand new companies. It isn’t tax money, government money, money taken away from education or Medicare. Its just money that was already intended for high-tech investment –- money that probably would have been lost anyway. INVEST IT! Stop trying to pretend you are so smart or that your input and board membership really makes a difference (it doesn’t -– you heard it here first) and write the checks.
And cancel my visa application, because I’m staying here.
mbership really makes a difference (it doesn’t -– you heard it here first) and write the checks.
And cancel my visa application, because I’m staying here.
the strory and the site And here another couple of words you should look at from Robert



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".