Take a stroll down memory lane

Found this slideshow to be sort of amusing, and it sports a hilarious title: "How Microsoft Windows 3.0 Dragged the IBM PC into the Graphics Age." Maybe "dragged and dropped" would be a more apropos characterization to borrow from the GUI nomenclature. Here's the intro:

Microsoft introduced Windows 3.0 on May 22, 1990. This is the desktop operating systems that finally succeeding in bringing the IBM standard PC world into age of the graphical user interface. Before this time, most people using IBM standard PCs ran Microsoft's MS-DOS or the nearly identical IBM-branded PC-DOS operating system that limited users to running what today could only be considered a primitive command-line interface to enter program instructions. There was no reason to use a mouse with an IBM PC, because PC applications were simply masses of text displayed on green or amber screens. There were two earlier versions of Windows, but they were not widely adopted. Most people who wanted to work with a true graphical interface bought the Apple Macintosh. And it was mainly the Macintosh and the manifest advantages of a GUI that drove Microsoft to develop Windows. The release of Windows 3.0 was essentially the culmination of more than six years of Microsoft research and development to bring a Mac-like graphical interface to PCs. It's been a graphical world ever since and most people born less than 20 years ago probably haven't a clue what it would be like to control a computer without a GUI. This eWEEK slide show illustrates what the advent of windows 3.0 meant to the personal computing world.

I remember that my assignment at the time was still working as a Progress 4GL/SYMIX developer mostly with client UNIX character systems. A number of my colleagues were still using dumb terminals instead of telnet clients and protesting "Why do you need a PC?" Then I showed them how to cut and paste text commands and entire files between telnet sessions with Windows 3.0 and a mouse, saving a significant amount of time and keystrokes. It had never occurred to them that a Graphical User Interface like Windows 3.0 could be a transparent interface protocol between two entirely different remote hosts. They were used to thinking in terms of UUCP logins as the only mode of transferring files, or sometimes you got lucky and the client had enabled an FTP port.

Of course now it doesn't occur to the kiddies not to use cut and paste at will, so we have to remind them that plagiarism is still unethical.

Installing Windows 7 from a USB drive

Here's a very useful How-to video by Bill Detwiler, the Head Technology Editor for TechRepublic.

Value Added Tax for the United States?

The possibility of the United States adopting a Value Added Tax is in the news as of late. Here's something from Reuters. Excerpt:

Hank Gutman, KPMG tax principal, director of the Tax Governance Institute, and former chief of staff of the U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation,will serve as moderator of the panel discussion.

"The realities of the U.S. fiscal situation—including an estimated $1.4 trillion deficit for Fiscal Year 09, projected deficits in excess of 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product and rising demands from entitlement programs—are leading tax policy makers to consider additional revenue sources," said Gutman. "A value-added tax, which taxes the transfer of goods and services, will clearly be on the table as a topic of increasing discussion," he added, pointing out that VAT is one of the world's most popular taxes and is in use in more than 130 countries.

Of course, my focus on the VAT has to do with selling consulting services. Obviously I haven't had to collect sales tax on my services since they are not taxable. I'm not sure this is the case with a value-added tax. Because I'm incorporated and have my corporation pay me for services, won't I have to pay VAT on the difference between my W2 compensation and what I bill per hour? In which case it would seem like increasing my W2 wages would be a good idea to avoid a large VAT. But that would naturally raise income taxes.

So I guess I'll go back to the old standby of raising my rates in case of a VAT. That ought to work. I guess that guy was right about death and taxes. Can't avoid either.


Here's an interesting paragraph from the somewhat shoddy yet nevertheless very informative VAT page on Wikipedia.

Revenues from a value added tax are frequently lower than expected because they are difficult and costly to administer and collect. In many countries, however, where collection of personal income taxes and corporate profit taxes has been historically weak, VAT collection has been more successful than other types of taxes. VAT has become more important in many jurisdictions as tariff levels have fallen worldwide due to trade liberalization, as VAT has essentially replaced lost tariff revenues. Whether the costs and distortions of value added taxes are lower than the economic inefficiencies and enforcement issues (e.g. smuggling) from high import tariffs is debated, but theory suggests value added taxes are far more efficient.

The page also discusses how massive accounting efforts are expended on enforcing a value-added tax, so net revenues from VATs are often lower than projected. Big surprise there. Also the regressive nature of the VAT is criticized, but it notes that the burden of any tax is shouldered most by the consumer except for a progressive income tax.

Third party deals are a mixed bag

I'm working through a consulting company right now and it has been a great experience so far. The staff is professional, they don't micromanage and they can deal with my rates, about which they never complain.

I received a call the other day from another consulting company and if my initial read is correct, dealing with them would be lousy. The account manager called me and talked to me for 20 minutes straight about how tough the sell was going to be to the particular customer. The entire conversation on his part was obliquely related to the expectation of hourly rates and how mine were higher than what they were hoping for.

My reaction to this is always the same: "OK. So?" In other words, what's the problem? If the number is too high, find somebody else. Well there's the problem. It's hard to find an independent consultant specializing in this particular niche technology. You can always call the software company who owns the technology we're talking about—they have consultants, too. Here's the catch: they want to score over 200% of my rate for their consultants.

So it's all relative to the market just like every service for sale. Here's the bottom line question for third parties: are they willing to tell the end client the "bad news"? Because I never hesitate.