Follow In Bank Footsteps

The bank ripoff of the taxpayer is continuing and becoming more brazen.
Some banks are prodding the government to let them use public money to help buy troubled assets from the banks themselves.

Banks are going to buy their marked-down "assets" (junk) with taxpayer financing. Find how the buying/bidding will be done, and outbid the banks when they are bidding on their own junk.

Manual Page Update Service

Often governments have manuals of codes and specific sections/pages need to be replaced. Some software manuals, particularly for government custom software, also use the page replacement method.

There are services that will take the new text, determine which pages to replace, and provide the replacement pages with instructions on how to replace.

There could be an opportunity for reducing the price of the service, along with increasing service (publishing manual on website).

Program Management Software for Literacy

Student data entry, tracking, workflow for literacy. Is there really enough money in this area to profitably run a business? Is the money in the consulting?


Literacy, Adult and Community Education System (LACES) software is a completely new application designed for the particular needs of state-level and local providers of volunteer literacy programs, adult basic education programs, and correctional education.

For example, the task of data entry has long been major issue for local agencies. LACES permits simultaneous data entry by multiple staff. LACES is interoperable with other systems and allows data to be imported or exported. LACES is designed to work with technologies that can improve the speed of data entry, including telephone touch-key, voice recognition, bar coding, and scannable forms.

Both state agencies and local providers are concerned with the quality of their data. LACES includes validation of data entry that goes beyond simple numerical range-checking. LACES has a business rules engine that encodes and enforces institutional/organizational policies. Aside from common-sense rules like preventing double enrollment in classes, LACES is designed to provide users with feedback designed to ensure:
Proper student eligibility
Appropriate short- and long-term goals for participants
Tracking of participant activities spanning multiple activities
Appropriate assessments are given
Outcome reporting

LACES measures program performance outcomes, including:
Retention of participants in programs as measured by contact hours
Employment of participants
Reduction in public aid to participants
Increase in pre- to post-test score of participants
Attainment of GED
Discipline referrals
Partnerships with, referrals to other programs, certified service providers
Meeting local, state, federal educational standards
“Side” metrics: drop out, graduation rates

Established in 1995, LiteracyPro Systems is the nation's leading developer of program management software for educators of adult and family literacy. Has 1,000 non-profit and government agencies in 40 states.

ASP.NET 2.0, C# and XML, SQL Server 2005, IIS web server, html, CSS, ajax, ASP .net, xml, Logi XML reporting tool / Active reports

Stock Trader Accounting Software

Consider good trader-tax accounting software such as GTT TradeLog (sold by this writer’s company) or Gainskeeper. The Tax Guide for Traders also provides annual accounting formulas.F


TradeLog
This is our flagship product - all the other products below are versions of this product. If you are an active trader and you did more than 1500 trade transactions in a single year, then this is the product for you.
$297.00/year unlimited records
$60/year for 200 records

GainsKeeper is offered free inside some online broker's websites.
Investor150
$69
Includes 150 transactions and 15 BasisPro calculations

Trader1000
$179
Includes 1,000 transactions and 40 BasisPro calculations

Trader3000
$359
Includes 3,000 transactions and 75 BasisPro calculations

Trader5000
$499
Includes 5,000 transactions and 100 BasisPro calculations

TraderElite
$659
Includes up to 100,000 transactions and 150 BasisPro calculations

GainsKeeper Trade Buckets
10 Trades $9
50 Trades $29
100 Trades $49
500 Trades $119

VPN Service

The Pirate Bay is planning to launch a paid VPN service for users looking to cover their tracks when torrenting. The new service will be called IPREDator, named after the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that will go into effect in April. IPREDator is currently in private beta and is expected to go public next week for €5 per month.

Loan Servicer Scraping

Scrape info about home loans from the conglomerate loan servicer.

Web Radio FM ReBroadcaster

Small device with one of: ethernet, wifi, USB.

Device boots and logs on then plays whatever music streaming stations have been set up: pandora, rhapsody, last.fm, etc.

Device uses low-power FM to broadcast whatever is streaming so people can listen via their existing stereo gear.

Device programmable from computer when plugged in to USB or network. So device should do DHCP to get on network.

Device will have no buttons nor display. Possibly could have on/off switch, network activity LED, broadcasting LED. Also possibly a button to cycle through pre-programmed profiles (effectively changing the streamed content).

Make money on the hardware. Make it "open" so others can modify and upgrade the firmware.

This should be much cheaper than the all-in-one boxes for $150+. $200 wifi radio.

This FM transmitter is $70.
This transmitter with a multitude of adapters is $99.

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Add-on subscription (or free for one year, or supported some other way) service to manage the device online from a web page. Allow "channel" change and subscribing to data feeds that will be read over the radio. A full-scale daily programming set up by the person.

For example, stock market data every 15 mins, music from some channel the other times, alerts read out for certain things (stock price changes...), weather in the morning on the hour...

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Costco is selling "Creative Labs Sound Blaster SB1170 Wireless System for iTunes Transmitter & Receiver" for $199.99. Includes USB stick with antenna, and receiver with speaker. Streams " iTunes music, Windows Media, Internet Radio or any audio from your PC".

US Mint Authorized Dealer

Due to the spreads on eagle coins and the rationing of supply from the US Mint, being able to buy at US Mint prices is a license to print money at no risk.


http://usmint.gov/consumer/index.cfm?action=AmericanEagles
Be an experienced and established market-maker in gold/platinum and/or silver bullion coins.
Provide a liquid two-way market for the coins.
Be audited annually by an internationally-accepted accounted firm.
Have an established broad base of retail customer base in which to distribute the coins.
Have a tangible net worth of $50 million for Gold and Platinum Eagles, and $5 million for Silver Eagles. This requirement may be met using letter of credit.
Have sold over 100,000 ounces of gold bullion coins over any twelve-month period since 1990. (This criterion is for becoming a United States Mint Authorized Purchaser of gold bullion.)

For the Silver Eagle, we charge the United States Mint's Authorized Purchasers the price of silver plus $1.50 per coin premium. Minimum ordering requirement is 25,000 coins.
For the Gold Eagles, we charge 3%, 5%, 7% and 9% premiums for the one, one-half, one-quarter and one-tenth ounce coins respectively. Minimum ordering requirements are 1000 ounces.
For the Platinum Eagles, we charge 4%, 6%, 10% and 15% premiums for the one, one-half, one-quarter and one-tenth ounces coins respectively. Minimum ordering requirements are 1000 ounces.