Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Harvey Mackay: Warren Bennis led the way Harvey Mackay, Special to The Register 12:31 a.m. CDT August 18, 2014 Warren Bennis was synonymous with leadership. Unfortunately, we lost Warren earlier this month, but his leadership lessons and principles will live on for years. He wrote more than 30 books on leadership, including his landmark work, "On Becoming a Leader." He advised U.S. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Ford and Reagan. I got to know him during his 30 years at the University of Southern California where he was a distinguished professor of business administration and headed the Leadership Institute. I had the privilege of serving on Warren's board. About two years ago, when I interviewed Warren for a group I was mentoring, he said, "I don't know of a time when leadership is more of an issue. "To survive in the 21st century, we're going to need a new generation of leaders, not managers," he said. He clarified that leaders

5 cool new security research breakthroughs By Bob Brown  NetworkWorld | Aug 19, 2014 1:42 PM PT University and vendor researchers are congregating in San Diego this week at USENIX Security ’14 to share the latest findings in security and privacy, and here are 5 that jumped out to me as being particularly interesting. *On the Feasibility of Large-Scale Infections of iOS Devices Georgia Tech researchers acknowledge that large-scale iOS device infections have been few and far between, but they claim weaknesses in the iTunes syncing process, device provisioning process and file storage could leave iPhones, iPads and other Apple products vulnerable to attack via botnets. The bad guys could get to the iOS devices via a compromised computer, they say, to install attacker-signed apps and swipe personal info. The researchers came to their conclusion after examining DNS queries within known botnets. *XRay: Enhancing the Web’s Transparency with Differential Correlation

11 Internet of Things ideas worth watching By Bob Brown, NetworkWorld | Aug 26, 2014 5:20 AM PT Cisco solicits IoT ideas in Innovation Grand Challenge Cisco has launched the Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation Grand Challenge “to spearhead an industry-wide initiative to accelerate the adoption of breakthrough technologies and products that will contribute to the growth and evolution of the Internet of Things.” Awards of $250,000 will be shared among the three winners, and can be used to jump-start the ventures. Here’s a sampling of the recently revealed 19 semi-finalists. Three grand winners will be announced on Oct. 14. Solar Freakin’ Roadways Cisco has to like this one, as it suggests using intelligent solar panels to replace everything from roadway paving to basketball court asphalt. They can heat surfaces to do away with icy driveways, and for Cisco, they would include integration with its fiber switches along highways and elsewhere. Woosh: Smart urban water

Album Sales Hit A New Low By Ed Christman and Glenn Peoples | August 28, 2014 8:59 AM EDT The market for albums continues to recede, following a (now) long-standing trend that has been accelerated by streaming's success. As streaming gathers momentum, the U.S. music industry keeps breaking sales milestones -- the wrong kind. This week's 3.97-million album sales tally is the smallest weekly sum for album sales since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. It's also the first time weekly sales have fallen below four million in that time span. Last week was fairly slow for the top releases. The top album, Wiz Khalifa's Blacc Hollywood, debuted with sales of 90,000 units, a figure below the first-week sales of many other top debuts of 2014. Three other albums debuted inside the top 10 but averaged only 31,000 units apiece. And the Frozen soundtrack is no longer moving in excess of 100,000 units per week. To compare, a year ago this past week (e

August 28, 2014 6:23 pm Apple tightens privacy rules for health apps By Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco Apple is tightening up its privacy rules to ensure a new generation of health and fitness apps are not thwarted by growing concerns over how developers use personal data. The rules will stop personal data collected through Apple’s new HealthKit platform being used to target adverts for products such as weight loss remedies. HealthKit, which will track data including exercise levels and sleep, is one of the key features of a new mobile operating system that will next month launch alongside a new iPhone and a highly anticipated wearable device, dubbed the iWatch by pundits. Shares in Apple touched a fresh high on Thursday after Apple sent out invites for a media launch on September 9, at which the group is expected to unveil new iPhones and possibly a wearable device. Health apps, which can track intimate data such as heart rate, have seen a spike in popularity

Telegraph.co.uk Thursday 28 August 2014 Scientists find secret of reversing bad memories Bad memories could be reversed after scientists discovered the part of the brain which links emotions to past events Scientists at MIT have discovered which part of the brain controls bad memories and how to reverse them By  Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent 6:00PM BST 27 Aug 2014 Bad memories of past trauma can leave people emotionally scarred for life. But now neuroscientists believe they can erase feelings of fear or anxiety attached to stressful events, in a breakthrough which could help treat depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers at MIT, US, have discovered which brain circuits attach emotions to memories, and crucially, how to reverse the link. They managed to ‘switch off’ feelings of fear in mice which had been conditioned to feel anxious. It is likely the same technique could be used in humans. “In our day to day lives we e

15 simple, secret Windows tips and tricks designed to save you time By Brad Chacos, PCWorld | Aug 27, 2014 4:13 AM PT These small, yet obscure Windows tips and tricks can make a big difference in your workflow—and save you tons of time in the process. Hidden powers and secret timesavers Time is money, or so the saying goes. And even if you're plunked down in front of your PC for fun or a hobby project, every unnecessary click and hassle you bump into burns away precious seconds of your life. Nobody wants to waste time endlessly navigating menus. Fear not! Dr. PCWorld has the cure. Take these 15 secret Windows tricks to streamline your computing experience and eradicate little irritations that trip you up throughout the day. You won't need to call me in the morning. Launch taskbar programs with your keyboard Many of us—especially users of the Start Menu-less Windows 8—use the Windows taskbar as a quick launch bar, populating it with our day-to-day prog

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe By Craig Timberg August 24 at 7:02 PM  Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent. The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology. The world’s most powerful intelligence services, such as the National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ, long have used cellphone data to track targets around the globe. But experts say these new systems allow less technically advanced governments to t

Meet Cobol's hard core fans These folks won't migrate. The reason probably isn't what you're thinking. Robert L. Mitchell August 21, 2014 (Computerworld) With the long-anticipated Cobol skills shortage starting to bite, many businesses have been steadily migrating applications off the mainframe. Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina has been doubling down. The healthcare insurer processes nearly 10% of all healthcare claims in the U.S., and uses six top-of-the line IBM zEnterprise EC12 systems running millions of lines of optimized Cobol to process 19.4 billion online healthcare transactions annually. Its custom-built claims processing engine has been thoroughly modernized and kept up to date, says BCBS of SC vice president and chief technology officer Ravi Ravindra. "It was always in Cobol, and it always will be." Cobol was designed to handle transactional workloads, and for large-scale transaction processing it still can't be beat