Thursday, January 23, 2014

Ask the Advisor: Guiding Self-Employed and Entrepreneur Clients

When most people think about retirement plans, Social Security immediately jumps to mind. Next comes company pension plans. But those don’t help individuals who are self-employed or entrepreneurs and start their own small companies. What can they do to protect their retirement years?

Financial advisor Louis Barajas specializes in self-employed and entrepreneur clients, and offers his advice on where to start. Whether self-employed or entrepreneur, the process begins with mapping out how you expect your life to unfold. And in the case of entrepreneurs, it also means investing in the eventual retirements of the loyal workers that will be with you on the journey.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Avoiding pitfalls when retiring in paradise

For many of your clients, the idea of retiring abroad may seem like a ticket to paradise. It can be, but there are a number of laws, regulations, and common sense advice you need to know about when advising them on such a move.

For one thing, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) takes effect this year. There will be no tax havens to be found – anywhere.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Lightning-Fast Supercomputer to Model Climate Change

Oregon’s Portland State University will use a high-profile $350,000 grant to build a new supercomputer to study climate change. The high-performance machine named Gaia will provide 20 teraflops of computing power when completed by the end of this year with additional upgrades planned for 2015.

(Read my complete article at Go Parallel)

NSF Grant Propels 'Comet' Supercomputer

The National Science Foundation (NSF) was awarded the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, a $12 million grant to deploy a new petascale supercomputer named Comet.

(Read my complete article at Go Parallel)

DoD Supercomputer Gets New Home

Previously housed at the Maui High-Performance Computing Center, one of the five U.S. Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers, “MANA” has found a new home at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

(Read my complete article at Go Parallel)

Parallel Programming Pioneer Honored

Katherine Yelick, who co-invented the Unified Parallel C (UPC) and Titanium languages and demonstrated their applicability across architectures through the use of novel runtime and compilation methods, has been named the “Athena Lecturer” by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Council on Women in Computing (ACM-W) for improving fundamental understanding and practice of parallel programming.

(Read my complete article at Go Parallel)

Supercomputers and SMBs: States Fill in the Gaps

Small and mid-sized businesses have supercomputing needs too, but often times do not have the resources or necessary training to access the high-powered machines. However, recently announced initiatives in two states aim to change that.

(Read my complete article at Go Parallel)

M&A looking strong in 2014

Merger and acquisition activity continued at a robust pace in the closing months of 2013, and by all accounts, the industry will see more of the same in 2014.

Consider a few recent statistics from M&A data publisher Irving Levin Associates and from Hammond Hanlon Camp, a New York-based strategic advisory and investment banking firm that is focused on the healthcare industry:

(Read my complete article at Healthcare Finance News)

The CEO's new right-hand man (or woman)

Few industries are undergoing as much sweeping change as healthcare and that is leading to a new role for the chief financial officer.

Sure, a strong grounding in the basics of finance is still in order. But the growing demand at hospitals and healthcare organizations is for a strategic CFO – someone who truly sits at the right hand of the CEO as a strategic partner.

(Read my complete article at Healthcare Finance News)

4 healthcare hot topics for 2014

With the closing of 2013 and arrival of 2014, it is a time to look ahead at a few of the industry trends we can expect in the upcoming 12 months.

1. Insurance exchanges
 
Despite the abysmal start of HealthCare.gov, thousands of Americans selected new insurance plans, getting one of the major aspects of the Affordable Care Act under way. Now the healthcare industry is waiting to see if the exchanges will work, said Tom Carden, a senior managing director at New Jersey-based Martin Healthcare Advisors.
 
 

Competitive Nature: Adrienne Urban, CTP, vice president and treasurer, World Fuel Services Corporation

Being an involved and active mother, as well as managing a professional career in finance at the same time, Adrienne Urban says she draws on a lot of personal energy.

It comes as no surprise. Urban has never been one to stay in one place.

(Read my complete article at Exchange Magazine)
 


Unemployed Boomers Struggle with Recovery, Retirement Options

A year into what some economists are considering a recovery from the Great Recession, many retirement planners may find 2014 to be one of their most challenging years of all.

The reasons have to do with two workforce trends affecting the Baby Boomer generation: the growing number of older workers that are pushing off retirement; and the still large number of Boomers that remain unemployed as a result of the recession.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Ask the Advisor: Long-term Care Advice

When experts talk about long-term care in this country, the word crisis can quickly enter the conversation. The problem isn’t so much with what long-term care insurance covers, although that also weighs in. More importantly, it is the growing numbers of Americans that need long-term care insurance at a time with more providers are getting out of the game. Retirement planner Susan John, founder and president of Financial Focus Inc., in Wolfeboro, NH, discusses what is happening in the market, and how advisors can best help their clients understand this vital part of a retirement portfolio.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Best Retirement Dates for Federal Employees in 2014

With 2014, retirement planners will see a number of their clients pick actual retirement dates in the New Year. For many the date will be tied to a work anniversary or perhaps a personal convenience but for some clients, selecting the date has definite benefits implications.

If your client is a federal or state government employee, specific retirement dates have particular significance. But just the fact that your client takes formal retirement next year will involve new regulations.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Will Delaying Social Security Benefits Be a Tough Sell to Clients in 2014?

Retirement planners may have a tough time in 2014 convincing clients to hold off on claiming Social Security benefits until the last year possible. But for starters, all you’ll have to do is remind clients how little benefits increased in January: a meager 1.5%.

This year’s benefits increase is one of the smallest since 1975, and amounts to an average raise of $19 per month for most seniors. The small increase reflects the fact that consumer prices have not changed much this year, so the federal COLA is following suit, according to The Associated Press.

(Read my complete article at Think Advisor)

Friday, January 3, 2014

News Scan: Security analytics on the rise; 25% of cloud providers will disappear; more

There will be opportunities galore for big data security analytics in 2014, according to a blog on ESG-Global last week. According to author Jon Oltsik, expect there to be continuing problems with incident detection and response, for which existing analytics tools are no match. Also, Moore Law and open source will drive the need for massive horsepower for data crunching. Finally, he says there will be "tons of activity" on the supply side. The results will be a greater need for user education; for organizations to realize that security analytics is a solution and not a product; and that security analysts will need to be sold on a new type of analytics tool.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Mobile browser usage rises to 20 percent

For the first time ever, the percentage of the world's browser activity topped 20 percent on mobile devices last month.

That is the word from Dublin-based web analytics firm StatCounter. The firm tracks where browser-based activity originated from, and found that in November, 20 percent of it came from mobile devices. Personal computers account for the remaining 80 percent of browser usage.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Clouds are gathering, thickening in 2014

Clouds continue to gather and thicken on the horizon, as the cloud computing market shows no signs of slowing in 2014.

Gartner has released its latest predictions on the cloud computing market value for this year, which puts the market at $131 billion. That is an increase from the 2012 valuation of $111 billion. More importantly, Gartner predicts there will be continued aggressive growth in cloud computing in the New Year, and in fact, by 2016, the research firm says the majority of new IT spending will be in the cloud.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Internet of Things hype limits; Geek job searching gold; more

There is good news on the hype meter front. According to Gartner, The Internet of Things (IoT) is now close to its "peak of inflated expectations" in the research firm's 2013 Hype Cycle. As noted last week at Data Center Journal, there are high hopes for the Internet of Things among equipment manufacturers, chipmakers and technology developers. But many feel that IoT is greatly over-hyped and it's value is uncertain. "In a number of areas, the hype and the hesitation paint drastically different pictures of how the Internet of Things will shape future technology trends," the article notes. "On the technology side, the growing reliance on data centers as central computing hubs may expand or it may want, giving way to a more decentralized model that makes use of vast distributed resources."

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Half of enterprises worry about cloud expertise, staffing

Despite all the projections around cloud-based computing growth, half of organizations say they need more education on the best methods for moving to the cloud, and they feel they don't have the necessary skills in-house to make the transition.

Those are among the findings of a new study released yesterday by ScienceLogic, a leading producer of IT monitoring software.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

IT salaries, training on the rise in 2014, says SIM

Despite several recent reports that IT hiring is cooling as we head into 2014, the Society for Information Management (SIM) is the bearer of some good news on the IT staffing front. First is word that salaries will be increasing in the New Year. Second is the expectation that organizations will spend more on IT training.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Cloud OS Network; BYOD privacy protection; more

Microsoft Corp. has announced the Cloud OS Network, a group of more than 25 cloud service providers that will deliver services on the Microsoft cloud platform. The network consists of companies from around the world, and includes such companies as CGI, Dimension Data and NTTX. One of the goals of the network is to enable more usage of Windows Azure as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering (IaaS), Cloud Computing News noted last week. Partnering companies are from 90 different countries, with 425 data centers and more than three million customers. "Our investment and commitment to azure as a global cloud platform is enormous," Microsoft cloud and enterprise marketing corporate VP Takeshi Numoto was quoted as saying. "But so is our belief in hybrid cloud and that there are going to be many, many clouds around the world due to the tremendous variety of customers and needs."

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Big data's big designs for 2014

An increasing number of tech press headlines are being devoted to the need for more data scientists, and where organizations are in acquiring such elusive talent.

FierceCIO visits the topic today as well, with an interview with data scientist Dr. Michael Wu (see related article).

There is also no shortage of predictions around big data and data analytics as we close out the year. The latest come from Capgemini's Scott Schlesinger, senior vice president for business information management.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)
 

Searching for data scientists? They come in sets of 3!

Data scientists have been called the most sought-after IT professionals of all for 2014. But that mission is distorted on two fronts, according to one current data scientist.

Dr. Michael Wu, chief scientist at Lithium Technologies (aka, data scientist), spoke with FierceCIO this week about the growing demand for data scientists, what the role requires and how organizations can best acquire such talent.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

News Scan: Cloud security; Top tech trends for 2014; more

Fears over security vulnerabilities still haunt cloud computing, according to a recent poll taken at the AWS re:invent conference last month. Approximately 60 percent of those in attendance said security concerns remain a top obstacle to cloud adoption, Cloud Pro is reporting. Large-scale hype apparently hasn't sold everyone on the cloud either, as 53 percent of attendees cited organizational resistance as the next top barrier to cloud adoption. Once an organization does move to the cloud there are still large pockets of dissatisfaction. 38 percent said they require better performance than what they are getting from cloud storage; and more than a third said that their storage provider was not being helpful enough with issues encountered.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

These tech trends will rule your life in 2014, says IEEE

FierceCIO publishes its last newsletter for the 2013 calendar year today. So it seemed only fitting to wrap up the year with the final set of predictions on what 2014 will hold in store for IT. FierceCIO newsletters will resume daily publication on Jan. 2, 2014.

In the meantime, the IEEE Computer Society has released its top 10 list of what the New Year will bring, from cloud computing trends, to mobile technology, to 3D printing.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)

Assignment: teach 15 million kids to code. Time: one hour. Begin.

While several states ponder how to best expose school children to information technology skills, last week's Hour of Code offers a glimpse at how such efforts might be approached.

The Hour of Code was held during Computer Science Education Week, and provides basic training to schoolchildren on how to perform some simple computer code exercises. The goal of the event was to see as many school children get exposed to coding as possible, and by all accounts the event was very successful.

(Read my complete article at FierceCIO)