Pros and Cons of Computer Technology :: Computers

Pros and Cons of Computer Technology In the last couple of decades, compute technology has expanded enormously and has become part of our daily lives. Many of us use computers at work, school and even at home. We are at the point where we can not return to our old lifestyles because we have accustomed ourselves to an easier way of life through computers. There are many advantages to working with computers as well as disadvantages. The implementation of computers in our society has helped facilitate our lives. Computers can help us create and edit documents very easily and can help us speed up work. It is now easier to communicate and send documents through computers at the push of a button. The Internet and E-mail services are just two examples of many features that computers can offer. There are many benefits that technology can offer but not everyone has the sufficient background or training required. Computer literacy is a demand in today's work force and is mostly affecting the older generation. The older generation is at a disadvantage compared to the younger generation that is already being exposed to computers at school. Computer skills are a major issue and will force the older generation to return to school for training. The older generation will have to live with this drastic change and will be forced to adapt to our technology otherwise they will be left behind. Many people feel that computers have eliminated thousands of jobs. For example, in the "Interview with the Luddite", Kirkpatrick Sale states, "We have an estimated 6 million people who have lost their jobs to automation, or overseas shops, since 1988". Kevin Kelly on the other hand disagrees with Kirkpatrick Sale and states, " It's leading them to study coputers and to learn how to get a job with computers". "The number of jobs created by computers and technology is rally more sizable". I agree with Kevin Kelly on the fact that computers and technology has generated just as many and even more jobs to our society than it has eliminated. I feel that computers do not mean that jobs will be eliminated because we still need people to run these machines but that people need to be trained in a different skill. For example, many years ago the Engineering Industry use to develop blue print projects by hand. Today Engineers use different types of computer software such as Cad Key, Auto Cad, an d Micro Station which require cmputer training in the specific software.

Butler Lumber Essay

After thorough review and analysis of Butler Lumber’s financial reports, I believe that it is in the best interest of Northrup National Bank to not only approve the requested $465,000 loan, but look to increase the loan amount. A review of the 5 C’s will show in more detail the decision to approve this loan: 1. Capacity/Cash Flow: Butler runs a lean operation that has allowed them to have success due to competitive pricing. They have met their financing needs by increasing their debt (notes payable) in order to keep up with the demand. However, their borrowing had led conjunctly to an increase in sales. Net sales have increased 59% over the 1988-1990 timeline and have been projected to increase by another 34% in 1991. From 1988-1990, for every $1000 borrowed, net sales increased by $4,278.96. By utilizing leverage, they have been able maintain their free cash flow and maintain their current ratio over 1.0. Although Free Cash Flow and current ratio have dropped over the past year, Butler has made large investments which have proven able to give a higher return, which will have significant payoff in the long run. By doing this, they will continue to have the ability to pay interest to debtholders, repay debtholders, and buy short-term investments. As business continues to grow, debt obligations will decrease and their current ratio will be back on the rise. (See Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2). Based on this analysis, I believe the estimate for the loans requirements is light. I believe it would be in the best interest to pursue rolling the $247,000 owed to Suburban National Bank onto this line of credit. With the increased projection in sales, you are also seeing an increase in cost of goods sold. However, that number could be dramatically reduced if Butler had the appropriate capital or credit line to take advantage of the 2% discount for payments made within 10 days of the invoice date. If total cost of goods sold will be roughly $2 million in 1991, you could reduce that by over $40,000.00 simply by taking advantage of the 2% discount. Having quick access to capital will allow Butler to run their business more efficiently. 2. Capital: Butler has a good level of net worth compared to total assets. This has been continuously increasing from 1988-1990 and will be even higher in 1991. The reason for this is going back to their use of leverage. They increased notes payable from nothing to $247,000 in the three year span. By doing this they have been able to increase total assets at a much faster pace than their borrowing. Butler will be able to continue to increase its capital ratio with their new line of credit. Even with an increase in liabilities, Butler should have no problem repaying their debts, even if there were to be an economic downturn. They hold very little long term debt, so even with a decrease in sales they should be able to meet their financial obligations. They have equity in their plants and land and could utilize that if need be. Also, they have the ability to weather a crisis because of the amount of business that they have in home improvements. If there is a housing boom, people will lo ok to build new houses, where as if there is a backup in the housing market, people will stay in their house and do improvements. 3. Collateral: With rolling the almost $250,000.00 loan into this line of credit, and pursuing the increase in the total line of credit, I believe that this loans should be secured. I would keep the loans secured by the assets of the company and do not see the need to pursue personal collateral. We know that Mr. Butler currently has objections to using collateral, but if we can show him how having a large credit limit would be able to have a substantial positive impact to his bottom line, he should be comfortable with putting up company collateral and nothing personal. I would secure this using the company’s property as well as their inventory. At the end of the first quarter of 1991, Butler’s inventory was valued at $556,000 and its property at another $162,000. Because it would be such a large line that could help Butler Lumber, it needs to be understood that when working with that level of volume, some sort of collateral needs to be put up. We will be able to show how taking advantage of the 2 net 30 option, you can decrease cost of goods sold and increase net income with no strategic changes to business. Using this collateral would be a good way to recover some of the funds to reduce the loss if the company were to go bankrupt. However, when evaluating the performance of the company, it is believed that this company should be able to continue to produce strong results regardless of the economy and that the securitizing of the loan is an added safety precaution due to the increase size of this line of credit. 4. Conditions: The first thing that needs to be determined is the limit on the credit line. It was originally requested to obtain a limit of $465,000. However, it is recommended that we, as part of the approval process, refinance the current $247,000 loan to Suburban National Bank. If there were to be an issue, we do not want there to be a conflict on who needs to be paid first. Mr. Butler has had a working relationship with Suburban National Bank, but we do not see this to be an issue due to the fact they are capping him at $250,000. It is recommended that the limit exceed $750,000.00 but be no greater than $1,000,000.00. There needs to be enough capital infusion that they can meet all needs, take advantage of supplier discounts, and take advantage of short term opportunities. However, we do not want to exceed $1,000,000.00 because we do not want the company to become overly aggressive and invest more an inventory then can be sold, leaving them overleveraged and at bigger risk of de fault due to economic downturns. Next, we need to determine an appropriate interest rate for this line of credit. Based on economic outlook, it would be in the best interest of Northrup to make this a fixed loan based on the prime rate of interest. From February of 1989 to January of 1991, the prime rate of interest has dropped almost 2% and we believe it is going to be downward trending for the next three to four years before going back up (See Exhibit 3). Therefore, we believe we should do a prime plus 1% loan, giving an interest rate of 10%. As rates continue to drop, the value of this loan will continue to increase. If at any point we fear that this loan maybe paid off through an outside bank refinance, we can look to restructure this line of credit to a lower rate. Because this is a lower rate, we can pursue adding the balance of the loan to payoff the obligation of buying out Henry Stark. This is at roughly a $70,000 balance, which is secured by land and buildings with an 11% interest rate. This will lower Butler’s current debt obligations and will result in an increase in profit. Because this business appears to be in a growth phase, controls operations costs effectively, and has the ability to weather economic crisis better than others, this would be a good company to invest in. Next, we need to determine the duration of this line of credit. We need to clearly state that this will be reviewed every two to three years to revisit creditworthiness as well as ability to repay. If need be, the limit could be lowered. However, if the company continues to grow we can also evaluate the possibility of a credit limit increase. When determining fees, we need to realize that this is a competitive situation and they should be somewhat minimal. The commitment fee should be .50% per year. This falls right in line with the average. We will keep the closing fees at .25% in order to ensure they are on the low end and we can keep his business. We want to establish a working relationship with Mr. Butler so that we will be his only source of borrowing. We will not put a prepayment fee on this line of credit, but should continue to keep his business with reviews and potential changes and increases every two to three years. We also need to negotiate in appropriate covenants into this loan agreement. This will carry forward the reps and warrants that we have Mr. Butler sign. By adding the following covenants, we will be able mitigate risk for the bank and allow us to detect any signs for potential default early, allowing us time to evaluate our next steps before it is too late. The following covenants should be documented: * Notification of borrowing outside of our bank * Detailed description of usage of loan proceeds * Quarterly Financial Reporting sent to Northrup * Maintain ethical and legal responsibilities * Notification of any major business impacts such as mergers, acquisitions, and business model changes. By installing these conditions, it will allow us to properly forecast and negative business impacts and allow us to make appropriate modifications. We believe that because over 55% of Butler’s business is in home improvement, economic downturns should not impact them as much as other businesses. Also, by now being able to take advantage of the 2 net 30 discount, the company will be able to instantly lower expenses and increase net income. 5. Character: The character of Mark Butler is strong and it is believed that he would be a conscientious borrower. He is an extremely hard worker and takes a lot of pride in his business. He knows the business inside and out and possesses sound judgment. He is well respected by his peers. All of this things make him a strong candidate for lending, because it appears that he will do everything in his power in order to pay this loan back and on time. This includes tapping into personal equity form his home, his life insurance policy, or the interest that his wife has in a separate property.

Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue Essay

There are thousands of languages in the world, such as Spanish, French, Chinese, English†¦However, No one can do better job in the second language than their mother language. In the article Amy Tan’s â€Å"Mother Tongue†, Amy Tan emphasized her idea that we speak different languages unconsciously and we are categorized by the way we talk. The author talked about her mother who is a Chinese emigrant wanted to provide her daughter a better environment to grow up and spoke â€Å"broken† and â€Å"limited† English, but anyway, Amy can still communicate with her mother without obstacles. Throughout the story Amy Tan uses pathos and ethos to tell us that how hard to gap the Asian American culture and still is for Asian Americans to work through the difficulties of the English languages. As a Chinese people having English for the second language, Amy Tan was difficult at times, but still. She overcome all the barriers and succeeds when no one thought she could. Even though that it will be extremely hard for us to succeed in a region that not belongs to us, but still there’s an opportunity for everyone to be a king. To be successful, we have to adapt the environment around us and meanwhile make efforts as much as possible. Amy tan uses ethos to prove this point according to her sentence â€Å"I’m not a scholar of English and literature, I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. † Basically, she’s explaining that although she is not a native speaker, she still became an English writer and be succeed somehow. Amy Tan convinced people according to her own accomplishments that no matter where they are from, no matter what mother language they original own, they still have a chance to achieve an honor. People who speak â€Å"broken† or â€Å"limited† languages should be respected. Even though, they could not show their mind perfectly and confused others as well, they tried their best to prove themselves. After all, this is their second language, which need them, make huge efforts getting accustomed to it. In her book, â€Å"Mother Tongue†, Amy Tan tells us an experience in the ospital when her mother went to the doctor to get the result of CAT scan. The doctor despised her when she was complaining them about losing her scan result. It was not until Amy Tan talked to the doctor that they apologized and cared to solve the problem. Amy was fill with anger when she wrote â€Å"†¦and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake. † Amy is insisting that people not taking a person seriously because their â€Å"broken† language can have dangerous consequence. In summary, people should be respected any way even if they cannot use it freely.

King Louis XIV: One King, One Law, One Faith Essay

King Louis’ reign and goals can be summarized with his desire for â€Å"one king, one law, one faith.† As an absolutist leader, he centered the country around himself, and was successful in his goal. By glorifying his position as king, he achieved â€Å"one king†, by limiting the power of others, he achieved â€Å"one law† and by uniting the French religion, he achieved â€Å"one faith†. Louis XIV was successful in accomplishing this central, powerful French monarchy. To achieve â€Å"one king† in France, Louis formed himself into an absolute and glorified leader, doing wonders for France’s centralization. In 1682, Louis relocated to his new palace at Versailles, magnificent enough to be the home of a god. The sheer size and beauty awed Europe and proclaimed his authority. Rituals, too, at Versailles boasted Louis’ power. Common activities such as dressing and walking required elaborate, showy rituals whose precipitants competed for the honor of their task. These, too, made Louis the center of attention and achieved the loyalty of his subjects. Finally, Louis governed in a matter that did not demand any input from others; he governed in the matter he desired, and superseded the power of the nobility and aristocracy. His efforts were not in vain, people felt honored if Louis were to but merely glance at him, or if they were to but walk with him. Louis exercised much control over his people because of the matter in which he made all affairs revolve around him. Louis XIV desired â€Å"one law†, achieved by his limitation of the powers of nobles and other statesmen and the unification of the military. Louis was but a young boy during La Fronde, a series of uprisings against royal policies and heavy taxation. Nevertheless, it had a significant impact on Louis XIV’s reign; he made sure to never allow another rebellion or let nobles to be as powerful as they had been. He ruled through multiple council of state, but demanded an active role in their decisions. â€Å"That I had no intention of sharing power†, said Louis. Another significant policy of Louis was his housing of the French nobles at Versailles. He demanded that all the nobles stay at Versailles for part of the year so he could survey their activities. Nobles, having no choice, would come and obey their monarch. To further his law policies’ success, Louis regulated the French military by establishing one uniform and training method. This did not allow for the noblemen to threaten his supreme power or question his loyalty. Although Louis claimed he had supreme authority in France, he  relied heavily on the cooperation of nobles to extend his power. Even so, Louis was successful in uniting his â€Å"one lawâ⠂¬ , not influenced by others. Finally, Louis desired â€Å"one faith†. Although Louis was not intolerant to Protestants, he hated division, and oppressed non-Catholics. Most significantly was Louis revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which allowed Huguenots the right to worship in 150 French towns, making a very strong example of Louis’ stance toward Protestants. In addition, Huguenots lost their churches, schools and clergy. Indeed, Louis did not approve of Protestantism. He instead praised Catholicism, as he was a Catholic himself. He required all his subjects to be loyal to the Church and its laws. This united France with a common faith that would continue to shape the religion on France. Though the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had drastic effects on the economy of France, Louis had achieved a unified French faith which he insisted would be vital to the nation In conclusion, Louis XIV embraced a â€Å"One king, one law, one faith† policy toward his gove rning. He was successful in this goal, attributed to his own glorification, the restriction of others’ power and the unity in religion.

Review paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Review paper - Essay Example However, poverty has driven these people towards survival of the fittest. Mothers become increasingly detached with infants who are perceived to be weak to survive the extremely poor conditions and a presumed to be a burden on the family. This aspect has been discussed in the paper. The researcher analyzed the reproductive backgrounds of seventy two women of the small town and tried to discover linkages between the economic and maternal disparity with material and emotional scarcity. The purpose behind this study is to find out the effect of materialism and economic disparity on the social and cultural norms of motherhood, attachment, parting and eventual loss by death. The researcher wants to prove that these sentiments are a production of the environment or the society a person belongs to rather than an innate psychological feeling of attachment that comes natural to a mother. His curiosity for this study developed because if two incidents in his life one of a girl from a rural area who murdered her infant son and one year old daughter. When he asked her for the reason behind her action she replied, ‘They wouldn’t stop asking for milk and that little ones had no feelings.’ And the second incident which formed the basis of his studies was in a town where there were was shortage of food, no access to clean drinking water, lack of sanitation and infectious diseases. The writer was involved with helping a woman give birth to her second child. However, her first child was not cared for, thrown in the dumps, living in very worse conditions, taken by compassion the writer took the child to the care center and with a lot of effort nurtured him back to health. The women there however paid no heed to weak children as mentioned above and shunned the writer for making an effort on the girls first born. The second born however was fair and healthy and was the center of attention. The culture there conformed to the natural term of

MDCM part B Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

MDCM part B - Case Study Example aper will discuss the recommended IT projects and compare the most suitable projects through using Portfolio Application Model Matrix which will be beneficial for MDCM. MDCM had confronted with several problems regarding IT and thus the company had prepared a list of IT projects which will be appropriate for improving the business performance. The objective of those IT projects is to increase value of the business and develop smooth information flow throughout the organization and lack of information was one of the major problems of MDCM. The following projects will be appropriate for MDCM in order to improve the profitability of business: It has been observed that different standards in information systems have resulted in increased contradiction and at times the projects intersect with each other. The lack of synchronization among different standards cause imperfect outcomes which in turn lead to inappropriate forecasts, scheduling problems and overfilled inventories among others. Thus, there was need to reduce the numerous different standards throughout the company. The Unify Methodology and Technical Standards aim for minimizing the projects cycles and inspire knowledge distribution within IT development groups. This initiative is vital for developing the ability of information technology systems in MDCM (Jeffery, M. & Norton, J. H., â€Å"Strategic IT Portfolio Management). Consolidation of data center and networks is made in order to reduce the expenses. In today’s business environment, meeting up to the competition and complying with the regulatory measures are the driving forces for organizations such as MDCM to shift company’s network to virtual private network (VPN). MDCM along with the subsidiary companies had almost 37 data centers and 19 distracted networks globally. Data consolidation will help MDCM to expand the business swiftness and also would align strategic IT structure with business requirements. It will be more reliable for MDCM to develop

Six Sigma Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Six Sigma - Term Paper Example In this respect, a manufacturer produces products that are of the same quality standards and which do not have defects that could lender them unusable and inefficient in performance of the intended services. Conclusively, Six Sigma enables manufacturers to produce products that are within a level of quality that is not extremely different from each other so long as they have a similar brand name. Introduction In the initial implementation of Six Sigma, the aspects that manufacturers considered were focused on the defects and products without defects. These manufacturers set some platform for measuring the standards according to outlined parameters. With Six Sigma, many manufacturers were able to establish parameters to moderate their production of commodities in the market so that the products were able to compare to the earlier produced having similar brand name. However, with time, some parameters that were related to time were developed to measure quality in the process of product ion so as to indicate the importance of efficiency. ... This means that efficiency in production is an aspect that is essential to measure the quality of production that could be experienced in any manufacturing company because it plays an essential role (Eckes, 2003, p53). Due to the numerous benefits associated with this management approach, its acceptance by various fields/organizations s been positive. This has been due to the fact that it effectively addressed problems experienced in the use of traditional management approaches. Other aspects of the Six Sigma included customer satisfaction, reduction in cost, increase in profit and reducing the pollution effects resulting from the use of a product. According to these values, people ensure that they improve the quality of production by ensuring that they are no issues/properties that cause defects while maintaining lowest levels of variability in manufacturing and business processes. This ensures that all people using the strategy are able to moderate the various things in the process of production so that they can ensure that they can sustain high quality or raise it, which would be beneficial to the company in terms of the sales level. The process uses some aspects of quality management to ensure that all the people are able to analyze the process of production so that it is acceptable in production. In this aspect, various things are put into consideration in the course of production to ensure that production has met some quality standards and are within some standards of production. On the other hand, according to the standards used in Six Sigma strategy, the producers are categorized in relation to their level of expertise on the production process (Schonberger, 2008, p.15). Aspects of Six Sigma In the