MVP?

[JL Paules]

No, there's something screwy between the good faith estimates and the actual
costs. Also, thru no fault of our own, the date was moved from last Monday
(May 24) to tomorrow (June 3). I'll bet that the interest charges are
nailing us somewhere in there as well. Either way, we're screwed.

--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

Bet it has something to do with "points" in anticipation of rising interest rates.

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
.......................with a computer

Actually a rat-infestation problem would have to be disclosed. Now if it was
just one or two ocassional mice, that could be viewed as a different story.
It might be considered an asset.....................Environmentally
friendly?

But even if things are disclosed, it could be buried in the fine print.
Right now I've got a slew of paperwork to review for a re-finance on our
condo tomorrow. I've just been told that we need a check for ~$1100 at
settlement. I thought we were clearing about $500 so now I've got to figure
out what happened to the numbers to change so drastically.

--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]




(snip)

But if you buy a house that is infested with rats, would you blame the real
estate agent for not telling you? From what I hear, this sort of thing is
common among US real estate agents - they withold all negative information
about the house, and play up any possible positive point.
Maybe I'm exaggerating the potential problem with the house a little. But
you would be looked down upon by many for not having sufficiently
investigated the house before you bought.

 

[Steve Easton]

Would have to be one hell of an old interest rate to cause a $1600 swing in costs in 10 days. That
represents an interest "fee" of $4800 a month


--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

No, there's something screwy between the good faith estimates and the actual
costs. Also, thru no fault of our own, the date was moved from last Monday
(May 24) to tomorrow (June 3). I'll bet that the interest charges are
nailing us somewhere in there as well. Either way, we're screwed.

--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

Bet it has something to do with "points" in anticipation of rising interest rates.

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
.......................with a computer

Actually a rat-infestation problem would have to be disclosed. Now if it was
just one or two ocassional mice, that could be viewed as a different story.
It might be considered an asset.....................Environmentally
friendly?

But even if things are disclosed, it could be buried in the fine print.
Right now I've got a slew of paperwork to review for a re-finance on our
condo tomorrow. I've just been told that we need a check for ~$1100 at
settlement. I thought we were clearing about $500 so now I've got to figure
out what happened to the numbers to change so drastically.

--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]




(snip)

But if you buy a house that is infested with rats, would you blame the
real
estate agent for not telling you? From what I hear, this sort of thing is
common among US real estate agents - they withold all negative information
about the house, and play up any possible positive point.
Maybe I'm exaggerating the potential problem with the house a little. But
you would be looked down upon by many for not having sufficiently
investigated the house before you bought.

 

[analog]

Sure I did. You love M$; who cares? I pointed out that M$ is not
doing nearly as well as it once was. I pointed out you are wrong
about it giving billions to charity. Xbox sales are up...great. Let
em take some of that money and give decent support to customers. And
let em fix Publisher since it sucks at html.

 

[analog]

Your comments prove you miss the point of half of what I said. And M$
is a fitting way to refer to an incedibly greedy company. Did I dream
it, or did M$ admit anticompetitive practices in the settlement of
multiple court actions against it? M$ sure bought you cheap. BTW,
metaphor is a perfectly acceptable term in the context I used it.

 

[analog]

<snip>
For that matter, M$ never paid a
dividend until quite recently, iirc.
</snip.

What does that have to do with the current argument.??

*It was in response to an allegation that M$ was the greatest thing
since sliced white bread.

And fyi dividends are not always the greatest thing.
A company that pays dividends accomplishes two *not necessarily positive* things.
1. Reduces the share price by an amount equal to the dividend.
2. Forces a taxable event upon the shareholder instead of allowing the shareholder to determine the
most advantageous time for a taxable event.

*The profits of a corporation belong to the stockholders. In fact,
under IRS regs a corporation is limited in how much retained earnings
it can keep on hand. Bill has consistently structured M$'s affairs to
maximize the retained earnings until they now amount to many billions
of dollars. The use of this money for R&D is supportable, but much of
it goes into financing lawsuits, and toward the anticompetitive
practices that have gotten M$ into so much trouble. Share prices are
not directly reduced by dividends paid, only indirectly by market
valuation effects. Note that M$ stock prices fell dramatically when
the bubble burst, and that was before M$ decided to pay dividends (and
very meager ones at that). Your two statements above are consistent
with a speculators view of the stock market, not an investor wishing
to own a piece of a profitable company.

As for your comments about Publisher. It was designed to do what it's name implies and that is
desktop publishing.
MS was nice enough to give it web publishing capability so that the occasional or "Mom and Pop" user
could establish a web presence without having to spend the money for a full blown version of
FrontPage.

If you are serious about your website? then it's time to loose the training wheels and buy a program
that is designed for that purpose.

I am a "mom and pop" user. The problem is that now that I need to
move to a better web program, there is no easy way to do it. It
should be possible to move directly into FrontPage with no hassle, but
that is not really the case. The notion that two members of the
Office family cannot talk to each other without major surgery is
nothing short of bizarre to this lay person.

 

[analog]

In most jurisdictions, you would be wrong about that. There is a duty
to disclose known material defects, like a rat infestation. Likewise,
M$ has an ethical and legal duty to not misrepresnt its software. The
courts refer to innocent advertising hype as "fluff", but if you read
a Publisher 2002 retail package, any reasonable individual would
conclude it was just peachy for websites (of course MVPs do not fall
in the catagory of reasonable individual in thsi case).

I don't mind spending money to move to a better program. In fact I
bought FrontPage 2000 and 2002 for just that purpose. What I am
pissed about is that it is very difficult to make the transistion, and
now it is not even possible for all practical purposes to even move to
Publisher 2003 (due to the bloated code problem for any site of more
than a very few pages).

I am sorry if the MVPs in here do not understand why this would piss a
person off.

 

[analog]

It is axiomatic that you never come out ahead dealing with bankers...

I've just been told that we need a check for ~$1100 at

 

[analog]

Show me how to import my site into FrontPage without a bunch of pain
and suffering. Take the home page at www.logwell.com, which is text
only and generated in Publisher 2000, and get it to render decently in
FP. If I can transistion the logwell website into FP with a few hours
work, I would be happy. So far the MVPs in here who have tried it had
no better luck than I did (in FrontPage 2000 and 2002; I have not
tried 2003 after the horrible previous experience). Heck, I will send
you the .pub file, the Publisher2000 html, whatever you want, for any
page(s) on the site to play with.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I know very little about Front Page, but it seemed easy enough when I
copied your home page www.logwell.com to FP2003.
The background did not come and the top as well as the bottom graphic
are not there, otherwise looks very similar.
Took about 30 seconds.

 

[analog]

Therein lies the rub. It takes forever to straighten out all the
little problems. Further, at least in FP2002, you could not work with
the page once you got it to halfway display. The nested table code
was the source of the problems according to M$ technical support at
the time.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I see no problem and another 30 seconds and the graphics are also
copied.
They are dissimilar so there will be some issues.
If you want perfection, it is not possible anywhere with any product
at any time.
You are spending far more time complaining what it will not do than it
would take you to work around.
If you wanted something close to seamless transition you should have
started with an earlier version of the same product.

 

[Steve Easton]

<snip> *The profits of a corporation belong to the stockholders. </snip>

Correct, and they are reflected in the stock price, as they are part of what determines "book
value."
Paying dividends reduces book value which in turn reduces the value of the shares, in a proportion
"exactly equal" to the amount of the dividend.

Also, there are no IRS regulations that dictate when a company should pay dividends. It is a matter
that is determined by the company board of directors. Period.

Before you continue this part of the thread, keep in mind that I spent 10 years as a NYSE/SEC
registered, Series 7 Securities Broker.

;-)

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[Steve Easton]

First you need to set up FrontPage to deal with your site.
With your site and a page open in FrontPage before you do anything click Tools > Page options >
click the HTML source tab and check "Preserve existing HTML" and then click OK.

Then edit till your heart's content.

Also, since your site is hosted on a server with FrontPage extensions:
Server: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) FrontPage/5.0.2.2623

Open the remote site in FrontPage and "Publish" it back to a location on your machine. I would
suggest creating a new folder, preferably on the root drive ( C:\ ) and publishing it to there and
then working on it with FrontPage

--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[Cheryl Wise]

Steve,

Why do you prefer your web folders to be on the C drive? I always use the D
drive since I never keep data on the C drive. Even my root directory for
localhost is on my D drive.

It is a habit I got into back in the days of Windows 98 and frequent blue
screens of death but since I run betas on occasion keeping all data on a
drive that does not contain the operating system has worked very well for
me.

 

[Steve Easton]

Hi Cheryl.

I was assuming he only had one drive so I said C:\

I like you have multiple drives.
Now if I can just remember what is saved where.
;-)


--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[analog]

I would be satisfied if i could just move into Publisher 2003, but it
is unsuitable due to the crazy bloated html issue. No shit they are
dissimilar, but why? Some issues is an understatement.

 

[analog]

Book value and stock prices are two entirely different things. Stock
prices are a function of what buyers are willing to pay basically.
While the book value enters into the equation, one should note that
stocks sometimes fall to a mere few cents per share when in fact book
value may be quite high (Kmart, Tyco, etc. come to mind).

And if you are not familiar with IRS retained earnings provisions, you
do not know as much as you think you do. Lesser corporations (than
M$) often get in trouble as a result of the retained earnings
provisions in the law. Being a securities broker does not mean you
know tax law.

 

[Steve Easton]

I know book value and share prices are two different things. That's why I said retained earnings are
a "part of" what determines book value.

That said, there is *no* IRS ruling that mandates that a publicly traded company is forced to pay
dividends to common stock holders. It is a decision of the board of directors. The board can be
forced however by the common stock holders *if* the common stock holders can accumulate enough
"share" votes to represent a majority of the outstanding shares. e.g. 51%

A company is however "required" to pay taxes on retained earnings.

Also, as a broker, it was my responsibility to understand the tax implications of any "pending" or
"requested" transaction and explain such to my clients.

But to get back to my original point, paying dividends is not always in the best interest of the
share holders.

Example right out of the "Book"
You own 1000 shares of XYX which trades at $10 per share. CMV $10,000
XYX decides to declare and pay a one time $5 dividend.
On the X date ( the day the dividend is paid ) you now own 1000 shares of XYZ trading at $5 per
share and you have a "taxable income" cash gain in your account of $5000.

Share prices are always adjusted downward by the exchanges in the exact amount of the dividend
before they start trading on the X date. As are any Put or Call options that trade with the shares.

My final point is, lamenting the fact that MSFT doesn't ( or hasn't in the past ) pay dividends is
pointless as there's really no gain for the share holders to receive a dividend.

If you want dividends, buy Utilities or Preferreds.
( but in the face of rising interest rates I wouldn't own them either )


--
Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer

 

[Cheryl Wise]

That explains it. I have 2 folders I store all my webs in. One for websites
with FPSE on the server and/or ASP/ASP.NET available and one for those
without or that I use PHP with. No particular reason why unless it is to
remind me which is on what type of server.

 

[analog]

They don't have to pay dividends, but they face the risk of punitive
taxes for excess retained earnings. The effect is that the
shareholders get screwed. Here is what happens (from an expert's
website):

"There is another retained earnings problem that is 180 degrees
different from an IRS attack on excessive officer compensation. If a
corporation unnecessarily accumulates retained earnings, there is a
special, somewhat punitive, tax called the Accumulated Earnings Tax
which imposes a special tax on the corporation if it has what are
deemed to be excessive earnings. This tax can be avoided by
distributions of earnings in the form of dividends, or, within reason,
as bonuses by following the method suggested above of documenting
bonuses to officers. Retained earnings in excess of $250,000 should be
justified."

The fact remains that M$ stock fell dramatically after the bubble
burst (many other stocks suffered also). It is difficult to argue
that the stockholders are better off without dividends being paid
since many are holding stock that is worth less than they paid for it
to this day.