Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP: fa0e82090b2814d78d88425faa93b19a

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: aa4ff1a4c9d414e78dbd2e936fe55c7a

hp QuickPlay TV Play: 9dfec814e70b14f02cc52f1fe378ae68

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar): 6e80c48fce0021889c048cf199e6de89

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

For a good 124 years, the US functioned with a system of taxation very similar to the proposed FairTax[1].  For the last 100 years or so, however, the country has functioned fairly well with the current income tax system too.  In fact, the US has excelled in world politics and economics in the last 100 years far more than it did in the first 124 years.  It has become the global economic, political and military leader during the last century.  Some might argue that the revenue the government earns (via income tax) has nothing to do with it; the mere fact that the country matured over time might be enough to explain US dominance in the world today.  However, for the government, or Congress, who benefit from the income tax system, the maturity is hardly relevant justification to weaken the position of the income tax system.

The FairTax plan proposes to replace the federal income tax, including capital gains taxes, all payroll taxes, the estate gift tax, and corporate and self employment taxes, with a single stage, 23 percent federal sales tax on the sale of all new goods and services at the final point of purchase.  No family or individual will pay taxes on basic necessities, because of generous rebates built into the FairTax plan.  Such rebates make the FairTax much more progressive than the current income tax system, refunding all taxes paid on consumption expenditures up to the poverty level for families of various sizes[2].  The FairTax is revenue neutral, that is, the 23 percent is calculated based on the expected change in consumer spending due to the change to FairTax while keeping governmental revenue the same as it is under the income tax system.

Support for FairTax has grown to a peak recently, with more than 20 members of the Congress co-sponsoring the plan introduced by Rep. John Linder of Georgia[3].  People in favour of switching to a Fair Tax have given numerous arguments against the Income Tax System that the Fair Tax solves for them.  However, they all suffer from the same fallacy.  From the very first argument given by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 21 to any argument you can find in support of the Fair Tax today, anyone has yet to mention the advantages or benefits to Congress or the US government.  Supporters of the FairTax in the enthusiasm and rush of excitement based on the advantages that FairTax will bring to them have evidently forgotten who makes the decision.

Given that in the purest form of democracy Congress and the government are supposed to do what the people that elected them want, we must understand that bureaucracy and corruption of politics make sure that none of the purities of democracy come into play.  That being said, we must understand that Congress’ most powerful resource for raising revenue on a relatively short notice as well as controlling the public is the Income Tax[4].  Now, keeping in mind these factors, if we were to look at any of the arguments in favour of Fair Taxation, they give Congress no reason whatsoever to switch from the Income Tax to the Fair Tax.

The only reasonable situation under which the Congress or US government would even consider thinking of the FairTax would be when they are told exactly what they gain from it.  If it is to their advantage to switch to the Fair Tax system, then there is a reasonable chance that they will do it.  Think of the United States of America as a big corporation and think of the Congress as upper level management.  When someone proposes something to management, they must tell them what good it will do to them.  If it is to their benefit, they declare it as being beneficial to the corporation.  If it is not to their benefit, the proposal hits the recycle bin.  Whether a decision based on such management criterion is ethical or unethical is a different argument; the unfortunate fact of the matter is that this is how the system works.  We have seen that in the business world recently (with Enron and MCI Inc.) and unfortunately the US government leads with example.  The stakeholders, or in this case the general public, do not have much of a say in how anything works.  Just as the shareholders do, the public elects the government and the Congress and is then at their mercy.

Having established that, we now need to see what Congress gains from the FairTax.  Every year, the IRS spends millions of dollars on tax audits under the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program (TCMP), trying to make sure that people pay the amount of taxes they owe.  The problem arises due to the extremely complex income tax system.  Majority of the population is not aware of whether they should file a tax return and if they should, how they are to fill out the complicated form(s) that makes the lives of even the most qualified accountants and tax professionals miserable.  In 1997, the General Accounting Office, in a tax gap report said:

“The TCMP (Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program) data showed that an estimated 33 million of the 42 million taxpayers (82 percent) were not assessed a fraud negligence penalty, suggesting that much of their noncompliance was unintentional.”

This merely shows that the income tax system has become too complicated for people who cannot afford accountants.  Research shows that even the expertise of the latter no more guarantees correct tax calculation.  In the annual Money magazine surveys 50 accountants prepare a hypothetical middle class couple’s tax return and come up with at least 45 different answers each year.  This is a major indication that the tax system is too complex for even the tax professional.

Due to such complexity, the IRS has to spend money auditing innocent individuals who are unaware of their tax liability.  In most cases, whether penalties are assessed or not, the money spent on the audit is not recovered by the amount of tax these people end up paying.  As mentioned above, 82 percent of the people’s inability to pay tax was due to their lack of knowledge about the income tax system.

The FairTax will not only make the life of the IRS simpler, but it will also mean that they do not have to spend as much money on audits as they do under the income tax system.  Under the FairTax, even if we assumed that every business in America was a retailer and required to file a tax return, no more than 19 million businesses would be required to file returns compared to over 154 million returns (of all types) filed today[5].  This would mean a reduction in the amount paperwork filed to and processed by the IRS, literally hundreds and thousands of dollars in all the excessive paper that floats around (despite the IRS’ valiant efforts to encourage people to file online).

Alongside, if every business in the country were to be audited, the IRS only has to audit 19 million businesses, there by reducing amount of audits conducted by almost 55%[6].  As of 1997, the IRS spent over$ 4.5 billion on tax audits.  Under the FairTax this figure would also be reduced by 55%, thereby making it $2.025 billion (in 1997).  Also, since fewer returns would have to be processed, the IRS would not require half the staff it requires now.  In 1997, the IRS spent a whopping $ 1.78 billion on the management of the organization itself.  These costs could be cut substantially under the FairTax (due to fewer returns needing processing), giving the Congress billions of dollars to play with[7].

However, the issue of ethics comes to mind the IRS has to lay off employees.  Such employees would now become part of the private sector, thereby, again saving the government money in the form of wages, pensions etc.  Also, because under the FairTax, what you earn will be what you take home. Americans will be able to save more and invest more. The FairTax will, therefore, dramatically increase investment levels compared to levels that would have been achieved under the current income tax system[8].  This means that the US economy would grow, thereby producing more jobs in the private sector, creating employment for the then ex-IRS employees.  Although such a transition would take time, the long term effects would benefit the Congress, at the same time helping the economy grow.

A major source of concern expressed in papers in favour of the FairTax has been the excessive amount of money spent by the private sector in complying with the IRS code.  Arthur Hall, a tax Foundation economist, estimated compliance costs at $ 225 billion for the year 1996[9].  Compliance costs have become such a massive number not because that’s what it takes to follow the tax code but because due to its complexity, “holes” and problems have been created that even the IRS and writers of the IRS code are not aware of.  Money is spent on locating these holes and exploiting them to minimize the tax liability of people.  If the tax code were simpler, there wouldn’t be as many holes or chances of exploitation or what can sometimes be classified as unintended errors by the tax professionals themselves who proudly discover such problems in the tax code (for an hourly fee that most heart surgeons charge during surgery), thus meaning that the IRS would not have to audit people who were trying to work their way around the tax code.

The FairTax makes compliance with itself relatively simpler.  A flat national retail sales tax would eliminate so much of the trouble caused by the variable income rates in the income tax system.  Moreover, the simplicity of such a system would not leave much room for exploitation of the tax code, thereby reducing the amount of money wasted in the economy on compliance with the tax code (and by the IRS to assure such compliance) and making it available for the private sector to invest in and help grow the economy.

There is, however, one problem that has been brought up in discussions that is thought of to be prevalent even under the FairTax system.  As of today, there are millions of businesses out there that misrepresent the amount of sales tax they owe to the government / charge to their customers.  The 23 percent proposed FairTax rate has been calculated keeping in mind based the sales tax that is actually reported by such businesses.  In my experience as a business owner, and as knowing others who own small businesses, about 30% of the sales are not reported[10].  This means that most businesses are actually not reporting 30% of the sales tax that they owe to the government.  Opposition to the FairTax argues that the FairTax will in no way improve such misreporting of the FairTax.  However, I beg to differ on that.

The amount of money the IRS spends on making individuals (not businesses) comply with the tax code is phenomenal[11].  Let’s assume that of the 154 million current tax payers, if 19 million are actually businesses that need to charge and report sales tax, there are 135 million individual income tax payers.  Under the FairTax, the billions of dollars saved on making these people comply with the tax code would be saved.  Since there are now only 19 million taxpayers, it is very possible for the IRS or any other tax implementing authority to track every business and all the sales via an information system that centrally holds and stores all the sales data from these businesses.  This, again, will not only mean more control for the IRS over the taxpayers (which should be heavenly for Congress), but after an initial investment it would mean an extensive amount of revenue generation.

With the current technology, it is possible and very feasible for the IRS to host a database (or to outsource it to someone) whereby they keep track of Point of Sale (POS) terminals in every store.  This would mean that every registered, legal business (at least retail) can only use sale terminals that are sold or authorized by the IRS, i.e., linked to their database so that they can keep track of every sale.  This would greatly reduce, if not eliminate misreporting of sales tax dollars.  Better yet, even if the IRS will conduct and audit of all 19 million business annually, they can make sure that these businesses are not using any unauthorized terminals.  Auditing costs for the 19 million businesses stay the same as under the income tax system (saving the money spent on the other 23 million audits as per the General Accounting Office report); the question now remains of the investment required to design such a system.  As mentioned earlier, the IRS would only spend about $ 2.025 billion on Tax Law enforcement with the 19 million businesses.  That leaves them with another $2.5 billion as of 1996.  This investment alone from 1996 should be enough to cover the cost of building such an information system.

Better yet, if the IRS out sources the productions of POS systems to manufacturers who already produce them, they can be made compatible with the new system with minor hardware and software changes.  This could also include a business opportunity for the government where they could produce and sell such units; thereby generating more revenue for itself.  19 million is a traceable number; 154 million, however, is probably not.  Also, this would only be a one time investment with relatively small maintenance costs in preceding years and if it is done right, a manufacturing business that would more than cover all such costs.

Lastly, a benefit to Congress; be it more political than practical, nevertheless, will exist with the acceptance and implementation of the FairTax.  Today, the US claims to be the closest thing to a pure Capitalist economy in the world.  One of the major determinants of a capitalist or market economy is generally consumer’s ability to use the items in demand according to his/her ability to pay for such items.  Based on that very principle, consumers should be taxed on their ability to pay for consumption of goods in the economy, rather than their investment in the economy.  The current income tax system, however, does not do that.  Whether people use the money to reinvest it into something or to actually spend it on an end product, under the income tax system they are charged income tax on it.  No matter how steeply the tax on income is graduated, it does not necessarily make an income tax progressive over the course of one’s lifetime[12].

Innocence on part of the American public, but if they were to see how the income tax system (in the American economy) violates the very basics of the (capitalist) system it claims to be best representative of, they would express such severe dissatisfaction that would make the life of Congress rather miserable (as most would think they deserve).  The FairTax solves this problem just like it does the others.  As suggested in a paper on http://www.fairtax.org titled “Fairness and Federal Tax Reform,” the author writes that:

“…the FairTax, far more than an income tax, is based on a taxpayer’s ability to pay precisely because it is based upon consumption.  Whether or not a taxpayer can consume for personal enjoyment is a more accurate litmus test for whether or not that taxpayer has the ability to pay (for consumption of goods and services produced by/in the economy).  When taxpayers do not consume for personal enjoyment, but have income, they must be saving or investing those resources.  When taxpayers save and invest, they contribute to public welfare (and they should not be taxed on contributions to public welfare).”

The income tax system is known to be in violation of the US Constitution in its purest form.  Although such a violation of the US Constitution does not concern the international community, the US claim to be a highly capitalistic and free society can come under some scrutiny due to the income tax system.  In its purest form, the income tax system is no different from the roots of communism, which gives the governing authority the ability to control the population, take their money and distribute it as they see fit.  Upon reflection of the income tax system, the US could be blamed for practicing the very idea that it has opposed over the last century; which caused it to aid other enemies of Communist Russia in its destruction.  If light were shed on such issues on the international community, it could arise some very serious questions as to the validity of the political dominance (without any military intervention) of the United States in the world today.  It is, therefore, to the benefit of the United States government to move away from the income tax system before the international community receives a “wake-up call.”  Although such political ramifications are not the topic of this paper, their mention merely shows the advantage of switching to the FairTax (which is the goal of the paper).

True as it is, there is no guarantee as to the accuracy of the numbers proposed by the evaluators and supporters of the FairTax.  However, the numbers available for 1996 and 1997 show that switching to the FairTax will not only increase the available cash to the US government, but with the predicted growth of the economy due to the increase in consumer spending, tax revenue will also increase over the years.

I believe that switching to the FairTax brings more than financial advantages to the Congress and the US government.  It will validate many claims that the US makes in the international world about being fair, just and providing a free environment for its people.  More than that, it might give Congress the respect and willingness to comply that it would like from the population.  In that scenario, they do not need the control and power that income tax system (in the opinion of most free citizens) unnecessarily gives them.

I wrote this paper in my junior year at university.  I still believe that fair tax is probably the fairest and best way to go with today.  Living in the UK, you really learn to appreciate the US tax system, fair or not, it certainly is a blessing compared to this country.  In the UK, the government takes approximately 57.5% of your disposable income in the form of PAYE, National Insurance and VAT.  There are other additional taxes and payments that are imposed on UK residents, with the net tax for some totaling about 65% of gross income earned.  Is it just me, or does that reflect on the lack of the British people to protest?  You decide!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Works Cited

[1] Origins of the Income Tax.  Research and Support.  Americans for FairTaxation http://www.fairtax.org/origins.asp.

[2] The FairTax and the Federal Revenue Income Tax: A Comparative Analysis.  Americans for FairTaxation. http://www.fairtax.org.   For further information plese see, “The FairTax Plan,” Americans for Fair Taxation.

[3] Picket, Joseph.  Slay the Withholding Beast.  June 5, 2003.  http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/guest_commentary/fairtax.htm

[4] For more information refer Dr. Scott Butterfield and his cynical lectures on Income Tax.  College of Business, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

[5] See SOI Bulletin, Winter 1998-1999, table 12, p. 210.  Note:  Sole Proprietorships with less than $ 2,500 in annual receipts excluded since the de minimus rules in the FairTax would not require most of them to file returns.

[6] (42million -19 million) / 42 million x 100 as per the General Accounting Office Data.

[7] FY 1997 IRS Budger Request.  IRS Fact Sheet # FS-96-06.  IRS News Releases.  February 03, 1996.  http://www.unclefed.com/Tax-News/1996/Nrfs96-06.html.  © 2002, National Tax Services, Inc.

[8] Jorgenson, Dale W.   Ph.D.   The Economic Impact of Taxing Consumption. Harvard University, Testimony before the Ways and Means Committee, March 27, 1996.

[8] Jorgenson, Dale W.   Ph.D.   The Economic Impact of Fundamental Tax Reform.  Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, June 6, 1995.

[8] Jorgenson, Dale W.   Ph.D.   The Economic Impact of the National Retail Sales Tax. Harvard University, November, 1996.

[9] Federal Tax Compliance Costs Climb to $225 Billion.   Tax Features, Tax Foundation, March 1996.  See also, Match 20, 1996, Dr. Hall’s testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.

[10] Personal Experience, it does not get any more authentic than this.

[11] The exact figure would be some part of the $ 4 billion spent; however, there is not enough information available to compute it.

[12]Kahn, Joseph.  Examining a Change to a National Retail Sales Tax Regime: Impact on Households.   Decisions and Ethics Center, Stanford University, unpublished draft position paper, November 1996.

Say what you must, the truth is that the goal of businesses and management accounting or financial planning and analysis is to maximize profits.  For most businesses, most SMEs especially, the goal is to minimize profits.  If you’re taught at university, school or professional accounting training that the the ultimate goal is to maximize profits, well, then, you’re being taught wrong.  More likely, you’ve also the heard the statement about watching out for the stakeholder.  Well, sometimes it is in the stakeholder’s favour to not show a profit.  It’s all about perspective.  For many small businesses, a profit means a hefty tax.  A loss means money well spend t on your needs and not on paying money to the government.

The fact that financial and management reporting can actually point to opposite things as being beneficial for a business is representative of how misleading accounting and finance terminology and theory can be.  Just take management reporting, and you can read and write books on the difference between a budget and a forecast.  Some have decided, for better or for worse, which is which.  But for those of us who are more open minded, there are questions that lurk around this discussion that really don’t have an answer.

I once told a student that if after qualifying as a licensed accountant, if he could tell me whether a forecast drove a budget or a budget drives a forecast, he can consider is CIMA qualification to be a useful one.  But I can tell you, the chap has no chance of convincing me which should come first.  Some say that a forecast is simply an extension of past activity, while a budget is a defined plan of what the business plans to accomplish, spend, and do within a specified time.  But what really drives this budget?  Isn’t it supposed to be a sales forecast?  Or a forecast is based on the plan of what you can be expected to produce in a certain year.  Would you like to expect sales based on production capacity, or would you like to drive production based on expected sales?  No CIMA, ACCA, CPA, ACA, CMA, CFM or CFA qualification will discuss any of this, because the true, always right, never wrong answer to this question is “it depends.”

It depends on what?  Well, on whatever you want.  The preference, thought and management style of the management of a specific company drives the creation of budgets and forecasts, and there’s really no ‘right’ way to do this.  Yes, there are certain accepted formats to prepare a budget and a forecast, but let’s face it, the integrity of a document such as a forecast or a budget, which really has a subjective head or a subjective foot, is total speculation.  Think of it as a vicious circle.  Once you’ve decided which comes first, either the budget or the forecast, each item has to be revised based on actual performance compared to both budgets and forecasts, resulting in what is termed as a flexible budget.  So, not only can a budget drive a forecast, but a forecast drive a budget, and each figure can change, with the change be driven by actual activity.

Make sense?  Fear not.  The point of this article is not to explain budgeting or formatting.  Accounting, despite what many say, is an extremely inconsistent field, and no amount of experience can make just anything right.  There is no necessarily right process, especially not for all user groups or all audiences, hence the variations in the kinds of accounting you see today:  financial, management, environmental, forensic and systems to name a few.  The trick is to understand your business, and realize whether working on a budget driven from forecast model (a more of a just in time operations management approach) is better than the conventional “let’s churn out as much as we can” ideology, which can be very costly unless you have someone along the likes the Walmart or Carrefoure to forecast the unloading of  your budgeted production.

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP: 0ee85220ce383584180b9899b653881d

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: 112a5bd8db6e6d7d2d34e952e4239092

hp QuickPlay TV Play: fdc9d9b46d68d850cafafbb664ff6845

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar): 1bf5dd5506d723ee0c3fce03f560e882

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

It is interesting to note that this same difference is also reflective of the general educational ideology of both countries, and pours into the business and corporate culture. That said, it is safe to say that public accounting certifications in both countries, the Chartered Accountancy (ACA) licensed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in the UK and the Certified Public Accountant (CPA), licensed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in the US, follow a rather similar pattern. They start with pretty basic level papers and work their way upto technical financial accounting with the ultimate goal of preparing you for conducting audits, and work experience is a requirement before you can even sit for some of the papers.

However, when it comes to management accounting certifications for industry, there is a massive difference in the way the two countries market and manage the qualifications. In the UK, CIMA, ACCA, AAT etc. are all guaged toward accounting and non accounting college majors / graduates alike. They start with the basic, classic, outdated financial and cost accounting concepts, and work their way up to fancy financial and management reporting. The early papers are a waste of time for students who are accounting majors in university, the these certifications don’t give it any value. There are no experience or educational requirements before you can sit for the exam. The exams are driven to help you memorize concepts, rather than understand and apply them. The study material is not very practical in approach, and as a whole, the quality of business relevant financial education you get from these certifications in the UK may not really be that good. However, they are still considered vital to the stamped-paper, bureaucratically obsessed, paper-pushing UK market.

In the US, however, the standard is different. Take the Institute of Management Accountants, for instance. They offer to Financial Management Certifications: the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) and the Certified Financial Manager (CFM). Both Certifications require accounting degrees (like the CPA) or several years of experience in the accounting industry. The reason: Management Accounting Certifications are not geared toward non-accounting majors. The content is technical, and the idea is to further train accountants help enhance their knowledge and application of management accounting concepts and financial accounting regulations. With that in mind, the IMA does not flood you with waste of time, silly, O’Level based accounting papers that discuss the basics of debits and credits. For both Certifications, the IMA has a total of 6 papers you need to pass. However, and this is where the primary difference flows through into corporate America, you need 78% to pass IMA exams, whereas you need only 50% to pass CIMA papers? Why? Well, it would seem like CIMA is just trying to churn out accountants; people who can do the basics of accounting. IMA, on the other hand, is aiming for financial managers: accountants who understand the ramifications of various financial and management accounting principles.

I, personally, have been disappointed with the content of CIMA in the UK. You walk away with very little, and the education is highly impractical for business purposes. IMA, on the other hand, focused on know what you did well, and the exams were based more on your understanding and application of concepts, rules, and regulations rather than committing concepts and definitions to memory. I would say the IMA definitely offers better knowledge in less time and challenges you more to succeed while providing more practical and corporate education. CIMA content desperately needs an overhaul given the state of the business world in the 21st century.

I must admit, however, the Brosnan was probably my favourite Bond before Quantum of Solace.  He brought a certain level of sophistication and style to the character, and that was very important.  Until now.  From start to finish, Quantum of Solace is packed with fast-paced, aggressive action that truly delivers an unforgettable cinematic experience.  The action, the toughness that this Craig version of James Bond emanates is so powerful, that it renders the women and gadgets of the Brosnan era irrelevant.

And that, truly is the status given to both women and gadgets in this movie.  Dealing with the current topic of corruption and keeping the planet eco-friendly, women no more take a center stage in the works of 007. The movie is focused more, on some level, on the politics, and on other, really on what the work of a spy like assassin really is.  Daniel Craig, in this case, executes it to perfection.

I’m not here to give away the plot, so I won’t discuss the details of the film.  However, I must say that Quantum of Solace does not disappoint.  In many years, this is one movie which not only delivers on a story-line, but proves to be a hard earned action movie delivering the entertainment you would expect from the likes of MI-6, that is, James Bond.  Well worth watching in the Cinema, this movie will certainly change the Pierce Brosnan persona of James Bond.

Worth mentioning here, that even though the title song had an okay beat, it was the most disappointing part of the film.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

There may have been an outage for a few minutes while we were making the move, and I apologize for inconveniences that may have caused.

With the server change completed successfully, we will roll out the new site design over the next few days, along with several new articles and sections to the website.

As you may already have seen, the photo gallery has disappeared, and the blogrush feed is also gone.  Blogrush, unfortunately, decided to go out of business today.  This should mark a sad day for many bloggers, especially those of us who actually used it to drive some traffic.

Nonetheless, keep visiting for newer articles, better QuickPlay downloads, and other useful accounting, finance, small business content.

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP: 71bf5438e287b676b65f91320788e0cf

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: 389881f80cef69cf11e049020bb42946

hp QuickPlay TV Play: c7a9eb04db2467354c86ba5513112699

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar):1a1d1b36dc5d7f675651f1346abbf2b1

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

Also, now that the website is turning around over 17,000 unique visits a month on average, and given the downtime, bad download speed and connections that we’ve been getting, I’m finally moving to a new host. I’ve been getting some traffic from digg.com, and every time that happens the site times out for a few hours; that’s just not acceptable.

With all of this in mind, the new Asifism.com will offer a much sleeker design, with easy to navigate menus (in addition to the existing navigation), new dedicated accounting and finance and small business sections, and enhanced reporting functionality for those who would want to advertise.

Other changes to the web site will include removing the photo gallery section, introducing an online store, improved speed and faster downloads. The website will first be moved over, followed by the new design which may be rolled out to each section of the site separately (as these new sections become available).

Stay put and keep visiting!

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP: 519af9776c0c5824c715e8169a79adc3

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: 4304a9ca5c60a06a3087e4d65d960adf

hp QuickPlay TV Play: 654d46783bae28b075de1be4929e30da

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar): 1cbbc474ea915ed9b90084e37e12df69

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

However, I miss publicizing how pathetic the world we live in has become, hoping invain that maybe those of us who can afford to will take a step to curb the pitiable existence or retreat from the disaster that has become society.

I have previously been very critical of Britain. Cost of living, bad customer service, miserable people, etc. etc. But what has frustrated me most about this country, especially in the city of London, is the widespread level of incompetence and plain evil in the acts of the millions of people who inhabit the streets of London.

For those of you who are familiar with Ayn Rand, her philosophy of objectivism, and her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged, you may agree with me when I say that it is highly likely that Ayn Rand is looking down upon those of us who have an IQ of more than 50 with a cynical smile over her face suggesting, if not saying,”I told you so.” Her depiction of the world, and in specific New York City in Atlas Shrugged, so accurately depicts the current state of affairs in present day London (and possibly the rest of the world) that it is sadly fascinating.

What finally prompted me to write this article is the incident in London where an incompetent London Borough Council and its single digit IQ employees gave away a 7 bedroom GBP 12,000 per month house to a single Afghan mother with seven children with a net compensation of GBP 170,000 per year. To top all this off, the mother of 7 equated this waste of hard earned taxpayer money to winning the lottery and declaring it her right to have this house, with her probably shame of a son stating they had to turn down other houses because he needed room to park his car. Worst yet, this is a house that the Council should have been paying GBP 4,000 per month for, but because of their plain stupidity (the low IQ comes to mind here), they ended up paying some landlord GBP 12k per month.

In all fairness, in a society and city where people have some form integrity, the council employees should be dragged out to make an example of, the Afghan family should moved into a 1 or 2 bed council flat (with the sons put to work) and the landlord should be made to pay the GBP 8,000+ rent plus interest back to the council for extortion. But of course, all that would happen in a society where integrity and morality were important. In London, and in the UK, apparently, they are important no more.

Parliament is voting on whether parents should be allowed to slap their children. What a world! The police in this country is afraid of dealing with the children, the teachers in schools are petrified of children, and now, even the parents are not allowed to discipline them. Does anyone else see a problem here? This is supposed to be a first world country that others are supposed to look up to, yet the young and future of this country seems to lie in peril, crime, racism, and incompetence.

It is true, as was seen in Atlas Shrugged, that weight of the world, or the weight of any one society, is carried by the few in that society who really know what they are doing. 99% of the people are simply coasting along, mooching off of others, fighting, stealing, simply living. It is the 1% that strive to make a difference, and it is that 1% that makes the world go round and makes sure that the economy keeps ticking and 99% of the slack is able to eat three meals a day.

Today, the world has come to the point where politicians make meaningless statements in fancy language without saying anything of substance or dealing with any of the issues at hand. Take the presidential debate in the USA; it was a mere mudslinging content, and although Barrack Obama from time to time gave out some substance, ultimately, none of the important questions were dealt with. It has come to the point where politicians and people alike thing that throwing money and grandeur at a certain problem will resolve it. Pumping GBP 500 billion into the British economy will help save the banks; pumping US $ 700 billion into the US economy will help save the banks, but Ealing Council’s overspending to get someone a 7 bedroom, GBP 1.2 million is absolutely fine.

It is this mockery by government, this misuse of power, the pathetic attempts by futile minds to divert the attention of the simply minded population from the issues at hand (like possible corruption at councils, etc.), that so accurately resembles Rand’s depiction of the government in Atlas Shrugged. People who were absolutely incompetent were put in positions of power and paid massive amounts of money to basically talk shit and waste taxpayer money, running the country into the ground. That’s what Ealing Council here has done. The result, in a decent society, would be that the resident’s of that particular council stop paying all Council Tax. A government that misuses the power and money given to it should be stripped of all power and money. What ultimately happens is that the people who are paying the most amount of tax withdraw themselves from that society, thereby crippling the council or government. Of course, that happens where people have shame, morality and integrity. In Ealing, apparently, they don’t. I presume there are thousands of people paying massive amounts of rent in Ealing who cannot afford to have a car, when some stupid kid has the ordacity to refuse free housing because he cannot park his car.

To top it all off, these are supposed to be Muslims. Lashes then, is what such people who steal from others would deserve under Islamic Law. Maybe I haven’t gotten to the stage of withdrawal yet, but when I do, there may be nothing more entertaining than watching a society of incompetence and character flaws that struggles to survive when you can just sit back and watch. Disaster, for even something on such a small scale, if it continues to evolve, is inevitable.

I’m still not sure why Council Tax makes sense in the UK. The culture of something for nothing is what has killed this country, and it seems like nobody really cares about the country. Not the government, not the citizens, not the residents. Everybody is here to make a quick buck and nobody cares about the land that feeds them. Alas, this behavior will bring Atlas to his knees, even if he was simply shrugging in Rand’s depiction of the 60s.

I’m not even going to get into more details about how the financial rescue plan will or will not help the economy. At the rate of incompetence and corruption that’s currently rampant in this society and among others worldwide, I’m not sure if those who make up the Atlas in today’s world will put up with the weight of the world for too long. The lights may go out when Atlas Shrugs, but who knows what will happen when Atlas is brought to his knees.