Everyone has a top ten list at the end of the year but rather than slave over creating ten videos I’m turning to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB).
NFIB is a great resource for small businesses, and they’ve created their own top ten video list. It covers subjects like unemployment and unemployment insurance, the federal deficit and debt ceiling, the EPA, the new health care regulations and one bright spot of young entrepreneurs.
The videos are all around 5 minutes or less, so check them out…
Top 10 Videos of 2011 for Small Business.
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Who’s not paying their fair share? According to Elizabeth Warren, those who build factories and create jobs – meaning those who create wealth. Quoting her…
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.”
My question is: Who are “the rest of us” that Elizabeth Warren talks about? The top 1% pay 38% of income tax, the top 10% pay 70%, the bottom 50% pay 2.7%. Who’s not paying their fair share?
The small business owner, who can’t afford lobbyists to buy loopholes, works 60, 70 hours a week, creates jobs by hiring employees, and maybe makes 2, 3, 400 thousand a year and what happens? He/she pays 50% taxes in fed income, state income, state sales, sometimes city income tax and city sales tax, property tax, fees up the ying-yang, and for what? Continue reading .
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After all my warnings about scareware, Google comes along with a warning on its search results pages that many of you might believe is scareware, but it’s not – it’s real.
Google Malware Warning
According to Google’s Online Security Blog
This particular malware causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through a small number of intermediary servers called “proxies.” We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their antivirus software and remove the infections.
This malware is actually a result of scareware, or fake anti-virus software that infects computers. And, Google admits, there may be a whole new slew of fake scareware ads that look like the Google warning. A valid Google warning will only be seen at the top of a search results page.
So, if you see this warning it’s time to run an AV scan. You do have anti-virus installed, right? And it’s up-to-date, right? If not, Google will even help you at their Help Center..
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Who reads the fine print? Everybody, right? Sure. Like you read the EULA for every piece of software you install or the terms of service on every web site you visit.
But, others on the web are looking out for you by spending time actually reading those legal contracts which you are inadvertently agreeing to.
I just came across a post that compares the Terms of Service of 7 different cloud services. The blurb that got my attention is something like the following
a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services
That’s in Google’s version, the post (7 cloud services compared: How much control do you give up?) compare’s seven cloud services and in my humble opinion (I’m not a lawyer) Amazon Web Services (which I use) and SugarSynch (which I don’t) have the most favorable (to you) terms of service.
Most large companies have lawyers on staff who write this stuff and who, in the best interests of the company that pays their paycheck, try to make it as legally broad as possible.
Of course, in the U.S. with its Patriot Act, the government can demand access to all your files online, without a warrant, and the company storing your files not only can’t ask your permission, they can’t even tell you what the government is doing with your private property. But that’s a story for another day…
In the meantime, it’s still your responsibility to read the fine print..
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Do politicians never learn? California, like many other states, just passed a law mandating online companies (like Amazon.com) collect state sales tax if their “presence” in the state includes affiliate marketers.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that a state can’t mandate collection of sales tax unless a company is physically within its boundaries. So, whenever a state passes some silly law that says an online affiliate constitutes a corporation’s physical presence, Amazon tells all those poor affiliates that they can’t be affiliates anymore.
So what happens to the state? NO MORE INCOME TAXES FROM THE REVENUE ON AFFILIATE SALES!
California, which has about the worst budget deficit in the country, just shut down 25,000 sources of income tax. Why do you think so many companies are leaving California? Why have California and other liberal states lost population over the last few decades?
Because you can’t do business in California without the government as an unwanted partner. An overbearing, micromanaging, ignorant partner to boot. (A State Board of Equalization? Really? I’m just saying.)
I’ve written about this often, but the stupidity of politicians is truly mind-boggling.
It’s like when the federal government passed a special 10% surtax on any recreational boats over $100,000. What happened? The boat manufacturing business lost 20,000 jobs. With that loss of income tax, the government ended up losing money.
When a government gets too greedy, the economy goes underground. Look at Greece. 30% of its economy is “off the books”. When taxes get too high people find some way around them or just move somewhere else.
So why do governments do it? Because of the way government does accounting. Say that in your state 10 million cartons of cigarettes are sold per month. If you raise taxes by $1.00 a carton, the state gets an extra $10 million a month, right? WRONG!
People quit smoking. The politicians even say that’s why they’re doing it, to make people quit smoking (for their own good, of course, that’s why they’re called sin taxes). Or people start smoking pipes, or buy their cigarettes in the next state, or on the black market. The government KNOWS that will happen.
If that’s the case, why do they figure on collecting $10 million/month? It’s called “static accounting”. They don’t take human nature into account.
As a small business person, you know if you triple your prices you’re NOT going to triple your revenue. Why? Because people quit buying if the price is too high. If you start counting on that income you are going to be in for a rude awakening. It’s called the law of diminishing returns.
It’s the same thing with taxes only politicians are just too damn stupid to figure it out. They all just pat each other on the back and start spending the money they think they’re going to get.
This week President Obama stated that businesses don’t like added regulations “because it eats into their profits”. Well, duh! How does the government think it makes money? Through JOBS. Through BUSINESS. And the government is doing everything it can to ruin both while complaining of those ‘greedy businessmen” and companies “hoarding” cash.
Let me ask you something, would you go to Las Vegas and gamble your money if the pit boss changed the rules every 10 minutes? I don’t think so.
I don’t know about you, but I am so tired of hearing about greedy businessmen during the last 2 years. How about a few news stories on greedy governments?
Further reading:
The silly California law (PDF)
Amazon ends deal with 25,000 California websites
[Update Oct. 7, 2011]
Amazon has worked out a deal with the California legislature to hold off for a year while Amazon tries to prod the federal government to come up with a nationwide solution regarding online sales taxes (yeah, good luck with that). Amazon then sent emails to former California affiliates asking them to re-up..
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Long, random passwords are even more vital in today’s world of cheap GPU’s (Graphics Processing Unit).
There has been brute force password-cracking software out there for years but now, combined with a GPU rather than a CPU, the cracking time has shrunk incredibly.
In a recent post from Vijay’s Tech Encounters (GPU Password Cracking – Bruteforceing a Windows Password Using a Graphic Card) Vijay compared cracking passwords with a GPU and CPU.
For example, a five character random password takes a CPU 24 seconds to crack. A GPU takes less than a second. An 8 character password that would take a CPU almost a year to crack takes a GPU 18 hours and 30 minutes. 9 characters is 43 years vs. 48 days, although adding symbols to the mix increases the time.
Since GPU’s are built for math heavy processes like rendering graphics they are much better suited to cracking passwords.
Do you need to worry?
First of all, there are methods to prevent password cracking at the front door (login) of a web site, things like timeouts after 3 guesses, etc. Plus, network speeds are not fast enough to allow a billion guesses per second.
But, what if your password is stolen from a company’s database? Passwords are encrypted and stored as “hashes”, and that’s where password cracking software comes in.
According to privacyrights.org, over 500 million records have been breached since 2005.
So, what do you do?
Use a password manager. Most integrate with your browser so all you need to remember is one master password. They can automatically generate passwords for you. Set yours up to have at least 10 characters, including symbols, and use a different password for each different website.
Use a secure link (https) whenever possible, especially when on the road using a wi-fi connection.
Technology is improving with the use of two-factor authentication, like using a token communicated on a sideband (e.g. SMS message or phone call), tokens generated with a crypto keyfob, or using smartcards for PKI signing.
According to Moore’s Law, password cracking using a GPU will take half the time every two years. It pays to stay ahead of the game..
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