I’d prefer to work with only one company when doing a particular type of thing. It seems somewhat convenient that Turbotax and Quicken both belong to Intuit, and I do payroll through Intuit as well.
So, when it came time to do Form 1099 filing, I tried to do it through Intuit Payroll. Well, guess what: Intuit Payroll doesn’t do 1099s. Dumb, perhaps, but true. So I ask Google for advice and find myself to something with the uninspiring name of “eFileMyForms.Com.”
The site seems to work fine. The hilarious part is that a couple of days later I get an e-mail from Intuit – they too offer that service. As far as I can tell, though, the only way to find it is if they e-mail you the link. (Or you can click here).
Continue reading 'Uncoordinated Companies'»
I’ve been using the Canon Rebel XSi for about a year and a half now, and it’s definitely THE camera for aging yuppies. I need reading glasses, and that makes many cameras hard to use.
The Rebel Xsi is a classic single lens reflex – SLR. The viewfinder shows you what the lens sees. It has an eyepiece adjustment so I can use the viewfinder without glasses. In addition, the XSi has an extra large display screen on the back. While I can’t use it to carefully judge an exposure, it does display the camera settings in really large type. Yuppie sized type.
[Update: there's a newer model: the Canon Rebel T1i
. This one boasts 15 megapixels and built-in High Def video capture. I haven't seen one of these in the flesh, but the PR suggests it has a comparably large dispay on the back, and the essential eyepiece adjustment]
Continue reading 'A camera for aging yuppies'»
I think chain saws gain mythic proportions in any safety-conscious household. My dad grew up on a rural farm in the early 1900s, and statistically, a farm is about the most dangerous “natural” workplace there is.
I don’t think we ever owned a chain saw. I remember my dad “borrowing” one, maybe once, or maybe it was a friend or neighbor using it. In any case, I have a stronger memory of Dad’s countless horror stories than I do of actually seeing the saw in use.
Anyway, it seemed fitting to buy Biscuit her very own chain saw for Mother’s Day several years back. An intentionally Amazonian gift. In practice, we rarely use it, but it’s there.
Continue reading 'Dangerous Yardwork'»
My secret vice is that I read adolescent fiction on my smart phone. This awful habit started years ago. I have the collected works of Louisa May Alcott and Lucy Maud Montgomery and I pore over them when stuck in line or waiting for food at a cafe.
Now I find that Bear is likewise reading reading Eight Cousins on her smart phone.
This is particularly interesting because the womens’ roles in Alcott’s fiction tend to be super-traditional, while Bear’s politics are “progressive” to put it mildly. I generally agree with both Bear’s attitude on womens’ rights and her attitude towards Alcott: who cares if her female characters are so traditional!
I think we both appreciate Alcott’s underlying themes: the pursuit of moral ideals over superficial values (despite the difference in moral values) and the fundamental rights of women to self-determination (despite the different view of womens’ roles). Alcott portrays “strong minded” women as positive role models despite the negative reactions of conventionally attractive male characters.
Continue reading 'Reading Alcott'»
There was a documentary produced back in 2002 about free software, open source, Linux, Gnu, Stallman, and Torvalds. A topic ripe with irony.
I finally saw the documentary, Revolution OS
, on Netflicks. The video is avaliable through the iTunes store and the DVD through alibris:
The ultimate moment was when Richard Stallman was given the “Linus Torvalds Award” at the second Linux trade show. So we have this scene of Stallman earnestly explaining the irony of the award to the audience of 5,000 people while two blond, Scandanavian toddlers (Torvalds’ daughters) are cavorting around the stage in the background.
Continue reading 'Linux and Gnu on “Revolution OS”'»
The Obama administration has taken a whole series of steps towards a sane defense policy. This is diametrically opposed to a foolish and expensive policy that believes any defense action or spending is good, especially if it looks aggressive.
So now we’ve eliminated a few hundred billion of spending on missile defense shields that don’t work. There’s a reason we called ballistic missile defense “Star Wars” back in the 1980s: it’s never been more than science fiction. At least Newsweek is getting it right – it may look good on a TV news graphic, but that’s not the same as working in the Real World.
Continue reading 'What? A Sane Defense Policy?'»
I’ve reverted to my preferred WordPress theme and things seem to work again. I have no idea why things got messed up and then un-messed up.
Perhaps things will Go South again in a day or two. Meanwhile let’s see if things just cleared up on their own.
I hate it when things like this happen. Computers are supposed to be predictable fergoshsakes.
At the proposal of one person, I’ve reverted to the “default” WordPress blog theme.
That’s why the site looks, well, boring now.
I’m going to see if that has a significant impact on the troubles I’ve had.
My apologies if anyone was having trouble visiting the site over the past few days. I updated to a more recent WordPress version, and it broke the site.
After poking at the problem a while, I decided to try upgrading the site’s “theme” file, which specifies the stylistic details of the site’s appearance: fonts, column layout, colors, backgrounds, and so on. The problem apparently disappeared when I replaced the theme. (I say “apparently” because the problem seems to appear, or disappear, depending on cookies and other saved state – until I’ve tried this in a few different places I’m not convinced everything is working).
Continue reading 'New Site Layout'»
Logging in is optional for this site – you don’t see anything logging in that you don’t see otherwise. You only have to log in to leave comments.
Like most sites, you can create your own user name and password to leave a comment. You may also use “OpenID” – a standard way of logging in to many sites. Several sites, including Yahoo and WordPress, provide OpenIDs for their users.
I recently tried integrating RPX – this allegedly lets people log in using their IDs from most major web sites: Facebook, Yahoo, Google, and so on. I mostly wanted it for the Facebook login. But I couldn’t get Facebook to work. It sort of “logged you in” but it didn’t seem to really let you post comments. [see update below: this is an undocumented shortcoming of the "free" or "try before you buy" service]
Continue reading 'Logging In and RPX'»
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