Scott Grizzard

Open Source Employee Time Tracking/Payroll Software

One of my biggest complaints about employee time tracking and payroll software is that, in my experience, it always lacks that one little feature that you want in it. In the end, you have to settle for something that doesn’t do everything you need, and you compensate by maintaining a separate record somewhere else.

I have found the coolest solution for that problem: open source time tracking software in TimeTrex. This software is awesome, because you get the source code, so you can add that last little feature that you want!

For example, at work, we need three features added to our time management system: 1) ldap support (so the password for the system is the same as the password for all of the other services on the network), 2) Kerberos Support (for Kerberos clients so no password has to be entered at all for domain members), and 3) the Employee ID needed to be printed on the pay stub. TimeTrex lacks these features (so do most time management programs), but you get the source code.

Programming the third item took about an hour (I had to figure out the system). The support staff at TimeTrex was super helpful the whole time (Shaun – you’re AWESOME!). I posted a how-to on the forums when I was done (here).

I gave the task of adding LDAP support to a php programmer in my group that wanted to learn about LDAP, and the task took her a day and a half. I will be posting a how-to on the forums after I polish up the documentation for it.

I haven’t had time to mess with the Kerberos authentication yet, but that has become a low priority for me since LDAP works so well.

The price was also hard to beat – FREE! We use the standard edition, which is free and open source no matter how many users you have. We have to host it ourselves, but it is very happy on the same server that serves up our corporate intranet and subversion. It was very easy to install – took me about an hour doing it the long way, including cron scripts to make automated nightly backups of all information.

(The long way requires that you knows something about configuring the database backend – either MySQL or PostgresQL.)
The pay-for version includes some client-time tracking features that we don’t need right now, but I would recommend to anyone that needs it.

All in all, a very slick application that proves that opensource works!

Book Review: Freakonomics

Freakonomics is a collection of stories using econometric analysis to explore real-world issues. It is a fun journey through these phenomena, but it is not a grand, unified theory of economics. Rather, Levitt’s only unified point throughout the book is that, if you take the right perspective, any problem can be explained.

All of the chapters are independent of each other like a collection of short stories with an introduction, so you can read the ones you are interested in and skip others. Personally, I think the Introduction, the first chapter titled, “What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?”, and chapter 4, “Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” are his most interesting.

“Where Have All the Criminals Gone?” is an exploration of why crime in the United States peaked in 1989, and steadily declined thereafter. His explanation is that abortion was made legal in the United States in 1973, and so many disadvantaged children that would have become criminals when they turned 16 were never born. His argument is convincing, and worth reading.

In conclusion, Freakonomics is not a book that will change your life, but it is a fun read. I recommend checking it out from the library and reading the chapters you find interesting, but don’t bother buying it. That stupid orange cover doesn’t look good on the shelf anyway.

Ann Coulter’s USF Visit

I think the university should not spend money to bring Ann Coulter to USF, and I think Ann Coulter should agree with my position. In a June 2005 column titled “Thou Shalt not Commit Religion,” Coulter blasted liberal (and some just-plain-stupid) speech that was paid for with tax dollars. If she is against tax paid leftist speech, she should be opposed to using tax money to pay for her speech also.

That is the core of the issue: the government placed a gun against your head and told you to give it money, and then spent the money on Ann Coulter. True, the money spent is from students’ fees; so technically, if you don’t attend USF, you aren’t paying for Ann Coulter. However, USF is a state-subsidized institution; therefore, tax dollars are being used to pay Ann Coulter.

Think of it this way: the state subsidizes university education, ostensibly because there is a public interest in having educated students. Students make a decision to attend USF based on the total cost to the student of attending, not merely on the cost of tuition. If the university did not pay for speakers, it could provide that same education for a lower total cost. The government could then educate the same number of students for a lower subsidy. Thus, the burden of payment for speakers is on the tax payer. The university even acknowledges this to some extent: the speeches are open to the public in general, not just to USF students.

If the protesters for Ann Coulter’s speech are opposed to all of the speakers paid for by tax dollars, then I applaud them. However, I think instead they are opposed only to spending the money on such a conservative speaker. What they are saying is, “We don’t have a problem stealing your money to make our views heard; we just don’t want to pass the stolen megaphone.” To this I say either, “Woe to ye hypocrites,” or in my best sarcastic and disdainful Jay Leno, “Shut-Up.”

As for Ann Coulter: don’t give the money back Ann, even if it is stolen. They wouldn’t give it back to us, but would just use it to pay some socialist to speak. We already have enough of those on campus.

This article was originally published by the USF Oracle as a letter to the editor, October 19, 2006. Discrepancies between this post and the letter are due to editorial changes I made to this post after the letter was submitted.

Is Discontent Enough for the Democrats?

Does anyone remember the newsstand from November 1994? The Republicans took the House and Senate from the Democrats, and Time ran a cover cartoon featuring an elephant charging forward, trampling over a donkey. The headline read, “G.O.P. Stampede: Special Report”.

The pundits think it will happen again – with the Democrats taking control at least of the House. This view is echoed in a front-page article in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “Support for Congress Slides Further, Dimming Outlook for Republicans.” ¹ The article states: “In October 1994, with the public fed up with scandals and his party’s failure to deliver in key areas such as health care, voters said by a six-point margin – 44% to 38% – that they wanted Republicans to take control. That compares with the 15-point margin today in favor of Democrats taking the reins.”

However, there is one big difference between 1994 and 2006: in 1994, the Republicans had a message that was something other than “Not the President; Not the current Congress”.² Today, the Democrats don’t have a coherent message beyond “not George”, and the Republicans still have a message.

The Republicans can weather the discontent if they stick to a single theme: Democrats will raise taxes.

¹Subscribers to the Wall Street Journal can find the article here.

²For a good discussion of the Republican Victory in 1994, see Dick Morris’s book, The New Prince which, while I do not agree with all of his arguments in the book, makes a good case about the ‘94 election.

Government Drug Subsidies Raise the Price for the Rest of Us

Did you know that when the government subsidizes drug costs (especially through Medicaid and Medicare), it raises the price for the rest of us? This is why.

Look at a drug under patent. The company producing that drug has a monopoly for the drug, and prices the drug accordingly by setting the quantity where marginal cost equals the marginal revenue.

In the United States, however, the government has responded to political pressure about the high costs of prescription drugs by subsidizing drugs, usually by purchasing large amounts (through Medicaid) or, more recently, subsidizing insurance companies that provide prescription drugs under a Medicare program. This raises the demand for the patented (or orphaned) drug in question. The monopoly chooses to sell more of the drug at a higher price. People who are ineligible for the subsidized medicines are forced to pay a price for the drug that is higher than the price that they would pay if the government did not subsidize the drug.

Clearly, the Drug companies would welcome such purchasing subsidies, and clearly, if a person is not receiving subsidies, then the cost of the subsidy is not only the government outlays of the subsidy, but also the higher price paid by unsubsidized citizens.

Don’t Ban Cars on Campus; Sell Premium Parking

How many times have you been late to class because you couldn’t find a parking space? If you are always on time, how much extra time do you need to add to your commute to insure that you can find a spot in time?

Some students on campus have tight schedules between class and work. Others work very late nights and would pay dearly for twenty more minutes of sleep in the morning. These students (I am one of them) are willing to pay more for parking if it meant not searching for twenty minutes for parking.

However, the editorial board of the Oracle seems to be made of another type of student: the type with all the time in the world who prefers to spend money on beer (or whatever) rather than a convenient, available parking spot. (I am referring specifically to the February 6 editorial, “University has an obligation to make parking affordable.”) There is nothing wrong with those preferences, but those of us with tight schedules should be able to park more easily than those with all the time in the world.

The new parking proposal should make a parking spot a much easier find for time-strapped students. A higher parking fee will mean two things: (1) students who don’t value their time as much (when compared to money) will buy the cheaper, park-n-ride permits, freeing up spaces for those who are willing to pay the higher price because of their time constraints, and (2) more parking garages will be built with the increased revenue.

Until there is parking to spare, the price should be raised. In the short-run, those of us who place a high value on our time will buy the more expensive permits, and have a little more time in our schedules. In the long-run, even those students who prefer beer to time will benefit because parking services will have more money to build parking garages and run buses.

The best solution would be to sell premium parking for specific times near specific buildings (like the gold lots for staff) so that students who are time-crunched could buy expensive passes for their particular class. However, that solution is a little too economically savvy for any bureaucracy.

This article was originally published by the USF Oracle (albeit, in a well-edited and edited well form) as a letter to the editor, on October 6, 2004 titled “Don\’t ban freshman cars, create priority spots.”
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