Archive: Business & Technology

(Ithaca, NY)  The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Ithaca Carshare Thursday.  The ribbon cutting was on Seneca Street, directly in front of the Moosewood Restaurant alongside one of the parking spaces reserved for an Ithaca Carshare vehicle.

Ithaca Carshare vehicles have been available for use since Wednesday, June 25. The local nonprofit provides members self-service 24-hour access to 6 hatchbacks, and a pick-up truck. Carshare members use an online reservation system to choose the vehicle they need at the time they need it.  Vehicles are located in several locations around town, including downtown, Collegetown, two locations on the Cornell campus, at Ithaca College, and at EcoVillage on West Hill.

MATERIALS PARK, OHIO (August 2008) - "To excite young people in materials, science and engineering," the ASM Twin Tier Chapter based in upstate New York put their money where their heart is.

The ASM Materials Education Foundation funds ASM Materials Camps, ASM scholarships, and other worthwhile programs. The administrative expenses of the Foundation are supported through endowment funds, thus, 100 percent of every dollar donated directly supports Foundation programs.

Performance Systems is expanding locally and nationally.  New jobs continue to be created in Ithaca, as rising energy costs have led to a renewed focus on energy efficiency across the country.  The head-count at Performance Systems has recently topped 55 employees.

In New York state, the need for energy efficiency in multi-family buildings has prompted a major reorganization in Performance Systems Contracting.  Alwyn John has moved over to head the multi-family division, while Cliff Babson will be taking over at the helm of the residential services division.

(Ithaca, NY) The Downtown Ithaca Alliance has been awarded a $200,000 façade and building improvement grant from the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, through the DHCR’s Main Street Program.

The announcement was made yesterday by Governor David Paterson. The monies will be used for building improvements and façade renovations within portions of the 22-block area comprising the downtown Business Improvement District.

Dr. Digit 'Splains It AllDr. Digit 'Splains It All

I am a good backup do-bee.  I have strategies to make sure that everything I can think of that is important to me will be backed up, if not every week then every couple of weeks.  But no matter how clever you are about backing up your important data, it isn't really put to the test until something fails.  That is what happened to me two weeks ago when I got home from a vacation.

There are two computers in my office, a MacBook and a Hewlett Packard PC desktop.  The PC is around five years old.  The night I got home I turned it on and had no problem.  The next morning the hard drive was completely dead.  When I say 'dead' I mean that most of the drive was unreadable.  It didn't recognize the 'D:\' partition that HP puts on its drives to hold a recovery system.  It still knew about the folders on the 'C:\' partition, but it thought that all but c:\windows were empty.  And much of Windows itself was gone.

Bond insurance typically helps provide additional protection from default to a tax-free municipal bond. Until eight months ago, if the bond insurer was rated AAA by Standard & Poor’s (S&P), there was little thought given to the underlying bond issuer’s credit quality. However, because the bond insurance industry looks very different today, you need to look closer at insured bonds.

More Downgrades Possible
The risk of further insurer downgrades continues to cast a shadow on the industry. The only major development is that the general quality of the insurers has fallen into three distinct tiers, as shaded in the chart below.

Every year Cornell Real Estate throws a 'Party by the Pond' for the businesses located in the Cornell Business & Technology Park near the airport .  This year was no exception, and while the party is a chance for local business people to relax, eat, and play, it is also where the annual Community Service Award.  This year Verizon Wireless was honored. 

"We are very excited to have been recognized for our contribution to the community," says Corporate Sales Manager Tracey Austin.  "We take great pride in being involved in the communities in which we live and work. I am proud that my Team is willing to participate, and that Verizon Wireless as a company also supports those endeavors."

"The award recognizes volunteer and community service efforts made by companies, and employees of companies, located at the Cornell Business and Technology Park," says Cornell Real Estate Project Manager Melissa Baldassarre.  "Nomination forms are sent out to all the not-for-profits in Tompkins County as well as all the companies within the Business & Technology Park.  This includes the United Way and Human Services Coalition.  We receive several nominations that are reviewed and chosen based on the quality and quantity of community service."

Despite volatility, it's important not to lose sight of your long-term investment goals.

Risk and Price Fluctuation
You generally don't need to be concerned about short-term price fluctuation if your bonds are providing the following:

• Income
  
  
• Diversification
  
  
• Return of Principal
  
  
• Less price volatility than with stocks
  
  

(Ithaca, NY) More than 600 workers from over 40 downtown Ithaca-based offices and businesses have already signed up to enjoy free food, drinks, live music, and participate in an office worker Olympics competition that’ll be held the week of July 21-25, 2008, leading into downtown Ithaca’s Sidewalk Sale Days on July 25 and 26, 2008. They’ll enjoy free ice cream sundaes, participate in The Giant Ithaca Coffee Break, throw the mouse-pad Frisbee, shoot rubber bands at a target in the office Olympics and participate in a hot dog eating competition.

Both the public and participating workers will be able to go on a downtown scavenger hunt that ties into Sidewalk Sale Days and hear live music from artists that’ll be performing at the Bernie Milton Pavilion every day at lunch time.  

If your parents are getting older, you may have to assist them in various aspects of daily life - one of which may be their investment strategies. And by being "proactive," you may be able to make things much easier for Mom and Dad in their retirement years.

One of the best things you can do for your parents is to find out if they are investing in a way that's appropriate for their situation. When many people get older, they tend to get more financially conservative, choosing investments that offer significant preservation of principal, such as certificates of deposit (CDs) and U.S. Treasury securities. And of course, this is understandable, because your parents, like many people at their stage of life, probably don't want to take too many financial risks. And yet, by "taking no chances" with their money, they could actually be taking on more risk than they think.

Dr. DigitDr. Digit 'Splains It All

Sometimes you just want a simple program to perform a simple task.  That is not the Microsoft way -- their idea is to make complicated programs that complicate performing simple tasks.  So I look to those programs that don't aspire to sit at the table at Software Mount Olympus, simple hardworking programs that are content to live among the rest of us.

The task I want to be simple is the archiving of this publication.  Typically I take screen shots of all the important pages, then save the articles for the week in PDF format.  Then I put all the picture and PDF files into one big PDF.  Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed by Adobe Systems in 1993 as an open standard for portable -- that means readable on any kind of computer, PC, Mac, Unix, whatever -- documents.  That makes it a valuable way to archive things, because it allows you to share your documents with anybody.  And that is what a newspaper strives to do.

Hangar TheatreJuly 1 (ITHACA, NY) With a star-studded cast and more than 300 in attendance, the Hangar Theatre announced an historic $4.6 million dollar capital campaign at its "Hangar for All Seasons" launch event on Monday, June 30 at the theatre. Lisa Bushlow, Executive Director, announced that early donors have already contributed more than 65%, a total of three million dollars. "Our volunteer campaign leaders and board of trustees have done an extraordinary job of demonstrating the need and sharing the vision of what a year-round, renovated Hangar can bring to our community. We are so grateful for the support we have already received."

John and Elaine Alexander, Co-Chairs of the National Campaign effort chose to lead the campaign "not only because of what the Hangar offers our community, but also because of what the Hangar provides to the theatre arts nationally-a magical place for young and seasoned professionals to work and learn together and to go on to work in theatres throughout the country."