Article 144 of alt.humor.best-of-usenet: Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil Subject: [comp.admin.policy] PC vs Macintosh Sender: thespian@netcom.com (Stephanie M. Clarkson-Aines) Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 14:14:20 GMT Approved: thespian@netcom.com From: kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: A question Date: 22 Oct 93 20:39:30 GMT Lin Y. C. wrote: | Which of pc and Mac is best choice ? | I do not know really..... It really depends on what you want to do with it. PCs with their metal construction are better at holding up cars so you can work under them. Macintoshes, on the other hand, won't tire your arm as much when tenderizing meat or mashing potatoes. PCs will hold more charcoal and give you a bigger grilling surface, but some of the high-end Macs are properly shaped for this as well. And for a doorstop, you'd either want a Timex-Sinclair 1000 or and Amiga 500. -- Kenneth Herron kherron@ms.uky.edu University of Kentucky +1 606 257 1429 Dept. of Mathematics "If you ever drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let 'em go because, man, they're gone." -- -- alt.humor.best-of-usenet -- -- Funniest postings from USENET, altnet, and the worlds beyond -- -- Moderator's address: best@polaris.async.vt.edu -- Article 4449 of rec.arts.sf.fandom: Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey) Subject: Re: Cons Cashing Checks Sender: usenet@ra.nrl.navy.mil Organization: Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 22:04:00 GMT ddb@tdkt.kksys.com (David Dyer-bennet) wrote: DDB> The best scheme I've seen has the envelopes delivered directly DDB> to registration, who then do data entry, stamp the checks, make DDB> a deposit, and turn over a report to treasury. This scheme has DDB> minimal handling and minimal delay to deposit. Treasury people DDB> often seem nervous about it, but since they're willing to let DDB> registration handle the actual checks, I don't see how any risk DDB> is being added. Beth.Friedman@p5.f341.n282.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (Beth Friedman) replies: BF> The only problem I have with this scheme is one that is inherent BF> in the software, rather than the scheme per se. Occasionally I BF> have to put an amount in the computer that makes the batch BF> balance, rather than the real number. This results in an BF> incorrect treasury transmittal report. For normal conventions, BF> this only happens when someone sends in a check for the wrong BF> amount, but at WFC, it occurred when people combined banquet and BF> registration on the same check. OTOH, if the database had BF> banquet tickets included as an item, that wouldn't be problem. Yech. I had this problem entering Disclave registration for three years, and I figured out what to do about it. The real problem is that your database needs an overpayment (OP) field (use negative values for underpayment). If you don't do banquet tickets in your database, record it as an overpayment. When you transmit the list of people who paid for banquet tickets, you subtract out their overpayments. At some point, you have to do something with each OP (not just zero it, you have to collect or refund money, or at least record that you're accepting a gift or forgiving an underpayment). There is still a problem with this method, when you have (e.g.) someone who underpaid and then sent an increment check. So you also need a balance brought forward (BBF) field. At the beginning of each batch of checks, you have a program copy the current registration amount plus OP of each record into the BBF. For the treasury report, you add Registration amount plus OP minus BBF, and that should be what the check was for. If it isn't, you've got data entry problems. You need to fix these problems before you start a new batch of checks (because then you lose the BBF). What I really wanted was an account record for each person, so I could have a record with dates for each transaction, like on a hotel bill. That allows you to figure out the really weird errors. But OP and BBF are enough to deal with treasury reports. Dan Hoey Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil