All Posts Tagged With: "computers"
Ebay’s big problem
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Tue, Sep 01 2009 | 3 Comments
Today’s big news is that Ebay will be selling off a huge portion of Skype, but in my house we can’t log in to the website due to a “closer alignment between Ebay and Half.com.”
What is happening is that when Chris attempts to log into his Ebay account, he gets a message saying that he needs to enter in his credit card information before he can continue. The next page is hosted on an old credit card processing server for Ebay and it (at least at one point in time) is legit. After he enters in his information he gets an error message that says, “Sorry, we cannot process your request at this time, please try again later.” This is on a page that is full of broken images.
After that it sends him back to Ebay’s homepage, and he’s still not logged in.
Every time one of us calls Ebay they give us the run around, won’t let us talk to a technical support person, and also tries to play it off like we have a virus on our computers. I know that all customer support people are trained to assume that most customers are computer illiterate and have downloaded 44 viruses on their computers and don’t know how to clear their cache, but I suppose we’re the exception. We have three computers and are completely unable to log in to Chris’s account due to the Half.com error.
So, here we are, we’ve spoken to three different people at Ebay: One on the online chat and two on the phone. The situation has yet to resolve itself so we started looking at online forums to see what other people are doing and there are people out there who haven’t been able to log into their Ebay accounts for months due to this error.
I suppose if it came down to it, Chris could sell on my Ebay account, but he has spent the last two years building up his feedback and credibility on his account and now he has regular customers.
This post may sound a bit scatterbrained, but we’re both pretty fed up with the entire situation and are starting to consider selling on Amazon and other internet sites to just try to stop this problem from happening again. Ebay (and PayPal) have been nothing but a headache for the past month anyway. After a package was lost in the mail and the customer didn’t pay for insurance on it, PayPal decided that (even though we had plenty of proof that the item was shipped and the Post Office will back up this claim) it would be holding onto the money until the package was delivered. Over 2 months later, the package was delivered and we got the money, but we really couldn’t figure out what is the point of offering insurance.
Related posts:Another EBAY update
Another Update on our Ebay situation
Ebay ex-CEO Meg Whitman is going to run for the Governor of California? (Plus, an update to our eBay situation)
Tags: ebay accounts, computers, paypal
Low PC sales sends Microsoft profits plummeting
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Fri, Jul 24 2009 | 0 Comments
Microsoft is having a hard time in 2009. This year has so far been the worst for the company in years. For the first six months of the year the company saw weak computer sales as well as frozen corporate tech budgets which led to profits declining by 29 percent.
However, things may be looking up for the second half of the year according to CFO Chris Liddell. He wanted to keep everyone’s hopes up after Microsoft missed expectations by $1 billion and the earnings slipped by a steep 29%.
The earnings topped off a fiscal year in which revenues for the company fell for the first time since 1986, when Microsoft first went public. For the entire year, it said that profits went down 17% or $1.62 a share.
Of course investors weren’t happy to hear the news, sending Microsoft’s stock price down $2, which is 7.8%, to $23.56 a share. In April, Intel’s CEO said that it had seen the worst PC sales and that they had “bottomed out” after the holiday season. Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said, “we couldn’t necessarily see the bottom. I think that at least we are seeing signs now of the bottom,” in a response to Intel’s statement.
Liddell also made the statement that the remainder of the calendar year will be difficult for PC makers and the software giant because Microsoft’s success is directly linked to the PC industry which is expected to sell fewer computers this year than last. Right now, netbooks are still all the rage and if they are running Windows, they are running XP which means less profits for Microsoft. If Windows 7 comes out and is good enough, then they will begin making more money off the sales of the netbooks due to a higher royalty.
In hopes of stirring up a little demand for the products, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 on October 22 as well as a new Office suite in the first half of next year, but these alone will not help the company.
Once upon a time Microsoft was the company everyone wanted to own stock in because it seemed like a pretty safe bet. There was no other competition for them as far as operating systems. If there were other operating systems out there no one really ever paid much attention to them. Now, Microsoft is trying to stop Apple from taking more of the market share than it already has and is fighting with a pretty bad recession.
Related posts:Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 7
Tags: market share, cfo, netbooks
‘Recession Proof’ Careers
Michael Bowler | RSS | Wed, Jun 10 2009 | 2 Comments
As the economy has proven, nothing is fully recession proof. In an emotionally driven society and a fairly unpredictable financial condition, job security has tended to mean nothing and cost cutting has prevailed beyond the course of the job market. However, there are some careers that have still proven to be ‘recession proof’. Some are very lucrative, rewarding careers, and still some do not require four year degrees or time extensive training.
Health care is a very rewarding career, and job security is inevitable, especially with experience and tenure, simply due to the fact that illnesses and death are just parts of life, uninfluenced by economic status or stability. People do not stop getting sick if the economy is down. When you think of health care, you think of doctors and nurses, but unbeknownst to those not privy to the inner workings of the industry, it is a large field with endless opportunities if you have the patience and patients, homonym intended. There are several jobs that one can have in the health care field, some of which do not require a doctorate or bachelor’s degree.
Physician assistants have the same functions as a doctor except for opening up their own practices or medicating patients, in some cases. They do not earn as much as doctors or receive the potential notoriety, but they are well above median salary. Nurse practitioners can earn enviable salaries and even specialize or start up specialty practices. Often times, people visiting their general physician will actually see a nurse practitioner in the office. Diagnostic cardiac sonographers are also popular careers with a high demand rate due to the technological specialization. They collect reflected echoes and Doppler signals from images and tracings of a person’s heart, using ultrasound equipment to assess the condition of the different functions and valves of the human heart, very useful due to the high rate of cardiac illness in a fast food society.
Physician assistants must go through a two-year training program, and at least two years of college and a license exam, and the median salary is $62.000 per year. A nurse practitioner does need a master’s degree in nursing and the median salary is $74,000 per year. A cardiac sonographer only needs a two-year associate’s degree, or in some cases, a 1-year certificate in diagnostic sonography while a laboratory technician needs a bachelor’s degree with coursework in chemistry, biology, and statistics and state certification and licensing upon completion. Both of these supporting careers have a median salary of over $50,000 a year each.
With a specialized technical background and education, a rewarding career can be found in the manufacturing industry. In an earlier article, we discussed how Hewlett-Packard was downgrading production but hiring in development. This is a booming job market if you can be placed in a job that focuses on the promise or specialization of a market that is beginning to cycle forward quicker than usual, in an effort to come out of the recession ahead of a respective field. Some newer jobs with high skill levels are opening up and they are really only requiring some vocational training and/or apprenticeships.
Computer control operators use computer numerically controlled machines (or CNC) to make precision products for a variety of machines and automobiles. CNC programmers develop programs that run the tools the operators use. They review computer aided design blueprints of the products and determine what the machine will have to do, in a sequence of events, to cut, shape, and assemble the part. The number of jobs in these fields is projected to decline slightly over the next seven years, but with this type of training, it is inevitable that a CNC operator or programmer will have endless opportunities in development fields of all sorts, especially in a society that is always technologically developing, also due to the limited number of professionals entering training programs and difficulty companies have in hiring workers with the necessary skills and knowledge. Operators and programmers need either a two-year degree or combination of vocational degree and apprenticeship. An operator can make $33,000 a year and a programmer can make $44,000.
Although the financial services industry has significantly declined over the past year, especially in the recession, actuarial services, an overlooked financial sector, is still booming. Actuaries develop, price, and evaluate financial insurance products such as life, auto, health or homeowners insurance. The demand is already up, and experts agree that this sector of the financial field will grow exponentially before 2016.
Even amid the downfall of the financial industry in the recession, financial analysts and planners are still necessary and popular. Analysts evaluate the economic outlook of sectors and industries for organizations to invest in or assess. Personal financial planners and advisors help individuals with personal investments and finances. Financial analysts can work in a variety of industries, though some might consider going the self-employment route as they can make three to five times what a salaried employee is making, more along a freelance line. An actuary needs a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, statistics, or finance and the related professional certification and makes a median salary of $86,000. A financial analyst normally needs a bachelor’s degree in finance and can make around $48,000. A financial planner needs a bachelor’s degree in finance and to pass the certification examination. He or she can make a median salary of $61,000.
Related posts:The Five College Degrees you will see a good ROI on
Highest paying blue collar jobs
Tags: health care field, job security, median salary
Hewlett-Packard Drops 17 Percent
Michael Bowler | RSS | Wed, May 20 2009 | 2 Comments
Computer industry leader Hewlett-Packard’s sales have dropped 17% for the quarter, their quarterly report indicated yesterday. HP products affected are personal computers and printer ink, indicating that consumers just still are not secure enough in their finances to shell money out for technological expenses they see as unnecessary. HP also said layoffs would occur for an additional 6,400 workers, or 2 percent of HP’s employee work force that totals over 300,000. The layoffs will be on the cusp of the announcement of 24,600 jobs HP was already dumping as part of its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems, a technology services provider they bought for $13.9 billion last year in order to compete properly with IBM.
The new job cuts will come from HP’s product departments. The affected departments produce PCs, printers, computer servers, ink and toner cartridges. The quarterly results, reported Tuesday after the market closed, puts into question whether technology spending has fallen as far as it’s going to in this recession. Hewlett-Packard is not optimistic as shares fell in extended trading and is laying off workers in an economy which has bottomed out in the way of job losses. Chief financial officer of Hewlett-Packard, Cathie Lesjak, said in a recent interview that it’s still “too tough to call” whether technological sales have bottomed out.
Hewlett-Packard’s major supplier, Intel, which deals primarily in computer electronic chips and microprocessors, reported bottomed out PC sales totals in the first three months of the year, but according to their quarterly report, sales were returning to normal patterns. HP says PC shipments stayed flat over the last several years, but revenue from those machines fell. The recession has caused retailers to cut prices on PCs in order to bring customers into the stores, which is one explanation for how HP can make less money on roughly the same number of computers. The growing popularity of “netbooks”, stripped down, cheaper, smaller laptops, also skews the numbers due to their excessive financial benefits for the consumer, bringing down profit percentages.
Laptop sales fell 13 percent to $4.7 billion. Desktop computer sales were down 24 percent to $3 billion. Some areas improved, particularly China and consumer sales in the United States. The last area to improve will likely be business sales, due to the fact that HP is one of the pricier computer manufacturers, likely due to excessive quality, coupled with the fact that in the economy we are in, individuals will be much more likely to upgrade their computers before corporations will upgrade their systems.
In HP’s printer division, overall sales were down 23 percent to $5.9 billion. Within that, the supplies revenue, which includes ink, fell 14 percent. Lesjak said the printer/ink sales decline was only partially caused by demand (or lack thereof) from users. She said a big reason for the decline was that HP adjusting the amount of ink retailers retained in inventory.
Related posts:Acer becomes number two in worldwide PC shipments
Tags: electronic chips, netbooks, technology services provider
IBM cuts Sun Microsystem offer to under $9.50 a share
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Sat, Apr 04 2009 | 2 CommentsIBM will likely be buying out Sun Microsystems soon. It recently offered the company $9.55 a share, but just cut the offer to $9.50 a share.
Even with the drop in the offer price, IBM is offering Sun a 91% premium on the stock price, which closed at $4.97 on March 17th (the day before talk started).
Related posts:The deal would be IBM’s largest acquisition to date, and analysts say it will likely face intense antitrust scrutiny in the United States and Europe because it will give IBM a substantial lead in high-end business computers.
Some also say that Sun’s software assets will help IBM compete more efficiently as large technology companies like Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) seek to offer customers a comprehensive set of products including computer hardware, and Web-based software.
Online Printing such as brochures could be one of the keys to customer retention and mind share
Tags: cisco systems inc, computers, stock price
