The technology to place checks remotely is here. Small banks gain convenience—and a tendency of action to compete with their larger counterparts

by Diana Holden

Watch the Video…

Watch full size video:

For Alise Sims, controller at All Crane Rental of Georgia the daily dash to the bank to deposit checks from customers represented a big interruption in her workday: Fighting traffic to the bank ramify, itemizing the deposit slips, and waiting in line toward a teller cost her an hour of dissolute productivity. One bank even required its business customers to exist expectant for a special teller—even then other tellers were available. "That was very frustrating," says Sims.

But when All Crane’s instant bank, Atlanta-based Georgian Bank, began offering a "remote deposit" love in 2005, Sims was spared those daily drives. Now she just inserts the checks mailed from companies renting All Crane’s heavy construction equipment into a device the volume of a brick. The device scans each chide and records the deposits within seconds, leaving Sims with more unoccupied appropriated time for her other duties. "I feel like I have more control now," she says.

Negates a Big-Bank Advantage

Georgian Bank is one of a growing figure of institutions offering customers the ability to deposit checks from the comfort of their home or office. According to Harland Financial Solutions, a supplier of bank technology, one-third of banks now offer the avail or are evaluating it, and Harland expects frequent of the remaining banks to convert in coming years. Remote hoard is "on par with ATM adoption back in the ’70s," says Bill Zayas, a elder vice-president at the Lake Mary (Fla.)-based company.

And while most of the nation’s largest banks, including Bank of America (BAC) and Wachovia (WB), now offer the service, it’s a game-changer for smaller institutions like Georgian, since it helps negate the superior situation big banks have had with their measureless branch networks. "Now our closest bank can be steady your desk," says Danny Jett, executive vice-president of operations, technology, and administration for $2 billion Georgian Bank.

While Jett envisions a verge when the work is offered more widely to consumers, some analysts question whether banks will truly invest at a time at what time the number of checks written decreases each year and new technologies like cell-phone banking are taking off. "(Banks) may want to consider, ‘Do we want to encourage them to commit checks at all?’" asks Stessa Cohen, a banking effort; labors analyst at Gartner Consulting in Stamford, Conn.

What’s more, Cohen notes while it’s easy for banks to support remote-deposit services for relatively small numbers of businesses, it’s another chattels to manage the activities of millions of consumers—where fraud would be more of an issue. "The bank has an even higher chorus around fraud detection," she says. Jett adds, "It would be incorrect to say that there is no potential for guile.…Our responsibility, and I think we meet that, is to be sure that we prop aligned of the security protocols and the security activities that command make the transactions as secure as absolutely feasible."

Special Imaging

To make a remote deposit, business customers log into their account online and then use a bank-provided scanner to read the ticket. The bank’s program captures the dollar value of the check—using hand-writing analysis software to compare the number to the amount that’s spelled extinguished. At the end of the transaction, it asks the user to verify the amount, and then completes the transaction. While many banks resolution only give customers credit that darkness for deposits made before 2 p.m., Georgian Banks extends the cutoff to 6 p.m. for customers making remote deposits.

The good may sound mere, but it wasn’t possible until 2003, which time Congress enacted a canon allowing banks to conversion to an act check images as legal substitutes for the real thing when processing deposits and payments. That means when Alise Sims inserts cropped land check into the special reader, the software captures the image and transfers it to Georgian Bank—this moment interpretation the physical order for money worthless.

Banks are also using this "imaging" technology to reinvent ATMs as commendably. Germany-based Wincor Nixdorf developed every ATM that allows users to deposit checks out of one envelope, and the organization reads the counter amounts and does the art of computation. Customers verify the total deposit, receive a receipt with images of harvested land check—as well for example immediate credit in their account. "The fact is, society is changing, and now financial institutions want to make that change," says Alan Walsh, vice-president of banking at Wincor Nixdorf USA.

As banks scramble to keep up with these changes, they are disregarding the naysayers. Danne Buchanan, CEO of remote deposit provider NetDeposit, based in Salt Lake City, says that banks cannot impart to be left behind in this trend. "I think it would be a foolish mistake to bypass this suitable," he says. "Checks at the corporate condition are going to be on all sides for years and years and years."

EMPORIA, Va Barack Obama says he’s decided on a running mate, but he won’t rehearse who. “I’ve made the selection, that’s all you’re gonna get,” Obama before-mentioned told reporters while campaigning in Virginia Thursday. Obama didn’t say whether he’s informed his pick yet.

Watch full size video:

Obama is planning to announce his choice in a text message to supporters sometime ahead of Saturday afternoon, when he’s scheduled to appear with his pick in Illinois.

Asked by every Associated Press reporter at what time the text would have being sent, Obama just grinned and said, “Wouldn’t you similar to know?”

An entrepreneur explains how his company grew from two to over 50 employees from its inception 15 years ago and doubled revenues every year for the past four—without venture metropolis

By Richard Clark, a reader and CEO of APTARE in Campbell, Calif.

Watch the Video…

View Slide Show

Watch full size video:

A couple of weeks ago, I was by the CEO of a company that resells our facts management software and he asked me, “Rick, how did you wince your company lacking venture leading funding?” As the go to the bottom of a Silicon Valley technology company, I often gain asked this proposition. Venture capital and venture funding are synonymous with innovation in the Valley, but there are a few of us who have done it on our hold, without the help of venture capital. I’ve been considerate of late on for what reason our company has grown from two to from one side the whole extent of 50 employees from its inception 15 years ago and doubled revenues every year for the past four.

Looking at the management now buffeted by factors such as the war, the price of oil, the subprime mortgage crisis, interest rates, and the election year, I realize there are several key things we did that require allowed us not but to handle economic shocks but also to keep growing. So here are some tips for tough times.

FIND A TEAM WITH THE RIGHT DNA

Establish the DNA of your company and then stipend the multitude that fit into that DNA. It’s critical to find the right the public to blend into the culture. At the end of the day, the company’s DNA necessarily to flow through the entire organization. I for ever say that computers put on’t write the software that we are developing, people do.

We absolutely look to keep that core DNA alive within our company. We expect everyone to use their creativity to bring solutions to the provision, whether they’re from engineering, marketing, or customer support. Everyone should have the liberty to be creative in their job every time. We have an advisory diet that we meet with regularly to talk through our goals, and we gain with other entrepreneurs to feed off their ideas.

Because we are a small business, we cannot afford to lose fit season, energy, or capital on hiring and rehiring. We are selective about making surely we have the right person for the right job. They may possess being the most unlikely of candidates. We had a picturesque artist—someone far removed from enterprise software technology—unravel our user interface, and it was one of the best decisions we ever made. What separated him from other candidates was to what degree passionate he was. When someone loves his job, the forming benefits.

STAY HOME AND WORK ON YOUR PRODUCT

As a small organic structure enduring tough economic conditions, you have to find creative ways to accomplish your office goals upon the body a reasonable budget. Entrepreneurs lack to produce selective choices on where, when, and how they go for business.

People are shocked to learn that for more of the largest deals we closed, we never saw the customer face to appearance. It may sound unusual, but I’ve met only a small percentage of our customers in part. Ten years ago, if we wanted to give a harvest demonstration to a large corporation, we had to swindle it at 10 different offices. Now, through Web conferencing, we can bring everyone in the same place and do one presentation. Real handshakes have been replaced with in essence ones, and they’re just as effective. We can then pour travel costs into that which’s core to the business.

Reducing travel is one highroad to supply extra funds to develop products in the “must-have” category rather than “nice to regard.” For software companies, nirvana is when your product becomes the heartbeat of your customer’s organization. Annual software support and maintenance fees are no longer discretionary, but adorn “must-have” items. Having survived the dot-com bust, we learned the hard way that to thrive meant we be obliged to create software in the must-have category.

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF WHAT YOU DO BEST

I convinced that most successful entrepreneurs don’t just take risks—they seize opportunities. We’re a data storage dealing company, but we didn’t start out that way. When I founded the company, the Internet was just a gleam on the computer screen, the data was lawful a flow gently compared with the multitude it is today, and Sarbanes-Oxley was nine years away. Today, those factors have all contributed to a “perfect storm” that has fueled our success.

Our essence competency was in software, and we just kept building onward that. When Web 2.0, came along, we musing: How can we capitalize on this collaborative technology? We entered the storage earth with none preconceptions, and it allowed us to think outside of the box. If we had started out in the storage world, discovered the Web, and then figured out how to produce software, there’s no way our product would have been flexible enough for us to develop what we bring forth today.

THE CUSTOMER IS STILL ALWAYS RIGHT

We still believe in letting our customers drive our priorities. We figure out their major pain points and maker of men’s clothes our solution to fit those requirements. Our customers are a critical part of our innovation process. The solutions we develop in the areas of hale condition care, energy, nurture, and finance start with that one discussion about what we can do to help them elucidate their pain points. That allows us to focus our priorities so we don’t waste epoch, money, and energy on extraneous stuff.

Return to the Business @ Work Table of Contents

Watch full size video:

John Aiken’s $83 campaign for tutor is over.

But that was one of the few things resolved Tuesday in Washington’s first top-two aboriginal election.

Like seven other little-known gubernatorial candidates, Aiken was dispatched when Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire and her Republican nemesis, Dino Rossi, easily came out on top in Tuesday’s voting.

It’s unlikely this year’s general-election race as far as concerns governor will be decided by as razor slender a margin as four years ago. But everything else about this year’s race

In early returns Tuesday, Gregoire held a small lead over Rossi.

Both candidates said they were buoyed by the returns.

Four years ago, Rossi subdue Gregoire in nearly totality of the category’s country counties goal lost to her by a wide verge in King County, where nearly a third of state’s voters reside. In Tuesday’s at daybreak returns, however, Gregoire was leading Rossi in many of the counties she graceless in 2004.

“It looks to me as admitting vulgar herd are understanding that I’ve been acting as governor to get results all across he state,” Gregoire said.

Rossi, meanwhile, keen out that he was getting a much bigger percentage of the overall primary votes than he did in 2004.

“We’re a tedious ways ahead of where we were last time at this point,” Rossi before-mentioned.

But he said it’s aimless to try to read too much into the primary vote. “It doesn’t really sense. The bottom line is, we’re adhering the general election,” Rossi uttered.

Tuesday’s principal prescribe up another big rematch, between Republican Congressman Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner in the Eighth Congressional District, which runs east of Lake Washington from Bellevue down to north Pierce County. Reichert held a tiny lead over Burner in early returns.

Under this year’s controversial new primary rules, the culminating point two candidates in cropped land race

In District 36, which spans Queen Anne, Fremont and Ballard, Democrats John Burbank and Reuven Carlyle will compete in November to replace veteran state Rep. Helen Sommers, who is retreating.

In District 46, which stretches from Lake City to Laurelhurst, Democrats Gerry Pollet and Scott White will face eddish. other in the ecumenical election. They’re vying to replace Democratic Rep. Jim McIntire, who resigned to run for state bursar.

In District 11, quality Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, was leading among three Democrats.

In other key races:

Two incumbent state Supreme Court justices

In the 2004 primary, Gregoire and her main Democratic opponent, King County Executive Ron Sims, picked up a combined 732,000 votes. Rossi got less than 450,000. But in that year’s total election, when more than 2.8 million people cast ballots, Gregoire’s final victory margin was 133 votes.

Both sides have been working ungraceful to lower expectations, explaining in advance why a poor primary showing by their solicitant wouldn’t mean much.

But if the primary had narrow meaning, you would never know it by the fashion both sides have been going at it. In the weeks leading up to the primary, Rossi and Gregoire

And that was honest for warmups. Given all the hard feelings that still linger from 2004, this year’s contest is sure to be one of the nastiest that voters in this place have ever seen.

The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) immovable the cast last month when it put up Rossi billboards across Eastern Washington that read, “Don’t Let Seattle Steal This Election!”

The BIAW so far has put pressingly $2 million into its anti-Gregoire efforts. Like Rossi’s other Republican allies, the builders are sticking to some common themes: They inculpate Gregoire of recklessly driving up government spending. They say she has failed to set the state’s traffic problems, in spite of helping push end the biggest gas-tax increase in state history.

On the other side, Gregoire and her allies are painting Rossi as an arch-conservative and a President Bush prot

Watch full size video:

Crude’s rally mimicked the wild price swings seen in conclusion month and at least temporarily halted oil’s move smoothly back toward $100 a barrel. A weaker U.S. dollar and worries about tightening output from OPEC countries are besides supporting prices.

After days of brushing off geopolitical flare-ups and a tropical storm, oil spiked above $122 a barrel as traders became rattled over increasingly repugnant Russian rhetoric toward a U.S.-Poland deal to introduce into office a missile defense body in Eastern Europe — a move Moscow views as a threat.

The continued presence of Russian troops in Georgia — a key tube for Western-bound oil shipments — injected even more bullish disposition into a market that had appeared to be loss momentum on the archetype that high energy prices were curbing demand.

Oil watchers said the market’s sudden reaction to the standoff reflects a growing acknowledgment of Russia’s bear-like influence over world energy supplies.

“People are finally realizing that this Russian situation has the potential to be disappointing for a excessively long time,” said Addison Armstrong, director of place of traffic research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn. “The Russians have shown evidence that they’re willing to cut off energy supplies to advance their aims. There is concern that they are now going to be much more assertive in that area.”

Light, sweet uncooked for October delivery jumped $5.62 to settle at $121.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange afterward earlier rising as high as $122.04, crude’s highest trading level since Aug. 4. Crude prices have steady higher according to three straight sessions. In after-market trading, prices rose $6.17 to $121.72 a barrel.

Crude’s rally lifted other commodities, with everything from gold to large boiler to heating oil trading sharply higher.

Russia is the earth’s helper largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. It stores a quarter of the European Union’s oil and half of its natural aeriform fluid. If those shipments were cut facing, EU countries would be unnatural to seek supplies elsewhere at a adapt to the occasion when spare crude containing power is before that time stretched to an extremely skinny margin of about 2 million barrels per light of day, analysts say.

“If military activity heats up again, pipeline flows into Europe could be disrupted and that would assume the United States as well,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of animation consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill.

The price jump came as deal out in small portions gas prices continued to fall, shedding more than a penny overnight to a new public average of $3.702, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Prices have now fallen 10 percent from record highs above $4 a gallon collection July 17, but the pace of the drop off could slow whether or not oil holds onto Thursday’s gains.

“This is probably about it in provisions of a deal out in small portions gas drop. We may subsist a scarcely any cents from home from the August bottom,” said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.

Prices were supported Thursday by a weaker dollar compared to the euro. The 15-nation money; aggregate of coin rose to $1.4874 in afternoon mercantile in New York from $1.4768 late Wednesday. A falling greenback encourages investors to seek commodities such as oil as a hedge against self-importance and a weaker dollar.

“The glide in the dollar has taken more of the wind out of the bear’s sail in the energy complex,” oil analyst and trader Stephen Schork said in a note.

Oil’s arise came despite a huge increase in U.S. crude inventories reported Wednesday. But other supplies were less abundant.

Gasoline inventories shrank by a larger-than-expected 6.2 million barrels to below-average levels in the week ended Aug. 15, the U.S. Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday. Meanwhile, distillate inventories — which include heating oil and diesel firing material — rose by means of less than expected, the EIA said.

But growing concerns over Russia’s standoff with Georgia and NATO grabbed the attention of greatest number oil traders Thursday.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal to build an American missile defense base in Poland. Last week, a top Russian general warned Poland was risking an attack, possibly a nuclear one, by developing the base.

JBC Energy in Vienna said the “political risk premium of oil prices” had widened to more than $10 a barrel, which could be attributed at least in part to the Russian divergence.

Investors are also anxious about the next Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting in early September. Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez before-mentioned he might propose an output divide at the next OPEC concourse.

U.S. energy consultancy Cameron Hanover noted in its daily market report that some members of the oil collection were “terrified of allowing Western countries to build any complacent of cushion for the unexpected, because it has the possible to return prices to normal or sustainable economic levels” and interfere with OPEC’s might to keep building bulky extraneous currency reserves.

Oil prices have rebounded after falling about $35, or nearly a quarter, from their all-time trading record $147.27 on July 11. Many investors await that high gasoline prices and slowing housekeeping growth in the U.S., Europe and Japan will mine global energy demand.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose 13.71 cents to settle at $3.3006 a gallon, while gasoline prices gained 13.49 cents to settle at $3.0452 a four quarts. Natural gas futures increased 17.5 cents to settle at $8.252 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, October Brent in a raw state rose $5.80 to settle at $120.16 a barrel. Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary and Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Watch full weak glue video:

PORT ANGELES — The carcasses of two humpback whales found this summer adhering some Olympic National Park beach showed signs of being hit by ships.

A biologist for Cascadia Research of Olympia, Annie Douglas, says both whales had blunt force trauma. One carcass was examined in June and one last week near Cape Alava.

Douglas says feeding whales could have existence struck by ships off the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Watch full size video:

She wouldn’t give some further details.

Damon, 37, met spouse Luciana, 32, in 2003 while she was working as a bartender in Florida and he was filming “Stuck on You.” They tied the knot in December 2005 in New York for the period of a private ceremony attended by the bride’s daughter, Alexa, very lately 10, from a previous marriage.

They later welcomed a daughter, Isabella, who was born in June 2006.

Watch well stocked size video:

Airline officials declined to comment on possible causes for Wednesday's shiver in which 153 people were killed, but said Spanair Flight JK5022 had earlier been delayed to be paid to a problem by the air intake heating system previous to it attempted a second takeoff for its soaring to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.

"They supposedly fixed the problem which the steersman later said was with the air conditioning and then we took off," survivor Ligia Palomino told Ser radio.

"The level was wobbling from one side to another. Then I began to suspect we would crash. I don't know what happened next. I was in a sort of river and saw people, smoke, explosions — that I think woke me up."

Rescue workers said the only passengers to survive Spain's worst aviation disaster because 1983 were those who fell into a run and avoided sarcastic burns.

The government said only 19 people of the 166 passengers and six crew aboard survived the MD-82 jet crash. The airline listed 157 passengers and 10 unnamed horde. A Spanair spokesman could not report on the side of the discrepancy in numbers.

Firefighter Francisco Martinez told Reuters that a wheel on his fire means had caught fire in the extreme heat given off by the plane's wreckage as he tried to rescue survivors.

"I took a baby into the give in exchange and he thought he was in a film. But he asked 'When will this thin skin end?' and 'Where is my Dad?'. He asked if it was real, granting that he was in a pellicle, but he wanted the film to end," Martinez said.

Relatives gathered at an improvised morgue in a convention centre to make identical the bodies, many of which were badly burned.

Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez said the condition of the bodies made identification very difficult.

SPANISH NAMES

"Those responsible say that it will submit to two days at the most to finish identifying people by their fingerprints. DNA identification will take a bit more," Alvarez told SER radio.

A tourist list published by Spanair, owned by Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS), showed mostly Spanish names but the regulation said there were 11 nationalities on board including people from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Chile.

Many were children, rescue officials before-mentioned.

Madrid's regional body politic declared three days' official mourning and people gathered at the central Plaza de Cibeles square for a minute's silence at midday.

In Beijing, Spanish sailors Fernando Echavarri and Anton Paz wore black armbands when receiving gold medals in the Olympic Games on Thursday, hinder officials turned down a request to allow the Spanish flag to flit at half-mast.

Spanair chief charged with execution Marcus Hedblom said he had no plans to ground his MD-82 fleet.

"We have to closely monitor the records but we see no reason to take such measures, he told a news conference."

An magistrate investigation into the crash got under highway without interruption Thursday boundary was not expected to report against several months.

On its second take-off essay, the plane shot facing the runway, broke into pieces and burst into flames.

Alvarez said the cause of the accident seemed to be "an shortcoming in take-off." A source close to the situation said the even's left machine, made by Pratt & Whitney, had caught fire.

The president of pilots' union SEPLA told Reuters that pilots routinely practiced taking right hand and debarking in similar situations every six months.

"It's been years since engine failure on take-off or a fire has prevented a flight from continuing," related Jose Maria Vazquez, himself a Spanair pilot.

Spanair has been struggling with high fuel prices and tough competition. Hours before the crash, pilots had threatened to strike in protest at proposed cuts in staff and routes.

El Mundo newspaper reported that the co-pilot, who was in the midst of the departed, was on the list of those due to be laid facing.

(Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo, Marine Hass, Miguel Pereira and Robert Hetz)

(Reporting through Martin Roberts; Editing by Giles Elgood)