Went to the Jeff Hawkins talk at stanford today…
Wow.
Phenomenal talk. He is an excellent speaker and he really nails the topic. I think he is definitely on the right path.
You can read his latest book, OnIntelligence, to get the detailed low down.
Archive for February, 2005
Did My Taxes - A Record for me
Just finished my taxes last night. This is a record for me. I usually wait till April. Another first is that I decided to use an online service to file my federal taxes. I don’t think the reason I finished early is because I used an online service, though. It was just because my taxes were so much easier this year. (Note, last year I used California’s Calfile for my state taxes) I wouldn’t use the online e-file for my federal, but it is the only way to get a refund in a decent amount of time.
So, I went to the IRS site and looked for a filing company that was online and free. Essentially, there are the little guys and a few big names. The big ones are TurboTax, H&R Block, and TaxAct. I chose TurboTax on the notion that they probably have figured out the bugs by now. Almost all of them say that they file for free, and they do, but they don’t mention that they will try to upsell you or charge for a state filing.
So, I chose TurboTax online, went through the whole process. It took quite a while, they ask a bunch of questions and really try to upsell you in the end. It took like 10 ’skip this please’ clicks to finally get close to the part where they actually send your data. I also chose the ‘Skip the State Return’. It is interesting to note that they don’t mention that they will charge you for the state filing if you get to that point. Another interesting note is that they will force you to enter your ‘registration’ for use of the free eFile option. (i.e. they want your contact info so Intuit can spam you). No matter, I have many special email addresses. Overall, they did a good job on form entry and help, and it was a solid app. Unfortunately, it took what felt like 10 minutes just to get through all the meaningless upsells at the end to finally file my taxes.
After that was done, I did the California CalFile online filing. This is essentially a free TurboTax done by the state government. I highly recommend this service. If you aren’t a graphics/industrial design snob, you will find this to be a solid web app. I went through it in under 15 minutes. I feel so much better about using a computer to send my info and getting that immediate acknowledgement. This is the way most interactions with the government should be.
Rant: Why is it that the IRS continues to force us to use these non-free corporations for something they should provide for free? I think California is the shining example again of how to do eGov right.
Bottom line: I filed my federal and state taxes completely free and will have my refund fast. I used the excellent California CalFile system again, it’s a great system. The IRS should make Federal filing free.
Ok, so here is a question: Wifi and Bridging
It’s 2005.
So, my question is this. Can all the Wifi Access Points out there do meshing? How about just plain old briding. I remember Intel pushing pretty heavily that they were going to introduce some technology that would allow PC’s to act as repeaters for Wifi connected devices so you wouldn’t have to string AP’s everywhere? Of course, quite a while back they also said they were going to create a real-time executive that Windows or any OS would run on. They were going to use this for doing neat time-sensitive, cpu intense signal processing things like: being a soft modem or being your sound card.
Me. I just want to buy a Netgear or Linksys AP and then connect a few computers to it. I want the AP to automatically connect to my existing Wifi network and act as a bridge. See, my house is old, and running wires in the mud under the house is extremely difficult. The roof isn’t an option either, it is an old house built in the late 1940s. Wifi has been awesome.
So, do any APs do this? Is it a standard?
Ok, upgraded to Wordpress 1.5
Ok, I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 1.5, AND I’ve got the comments back on.
It really bugged me that I didn’t have comments. People actually left some great feedback.
Also, I’m not so sure about this new theme. It’s a bit too blue. I will say this, though… the new Wordpress and this theme are quite advanced in the HTML/CSS sense of the world. It all looks super clean.
Funny Internet Videos
These aren’t roll on the floor laughing, but they are amusing enough to blog about.
The other one is: The House of Cosbys
Why slashdot has gone to the idiots…
This recent article is a story on slashdot, which is basically a link to some guy who got Debian Linux running on a Mac mini.
This is just pure Linux religion and the promotion of it. Sickening. Why would someone run a less innovative OS on top of a machine with a valid, licensed copy of OS X???? Haven’t they heard of ‘cheap PC’s? This is insane.
I think the slashdot editors got a kick out of posting this to the apple section.
This got me thinking. Why do I keep reading this? Essentially, I just want the odd news bit. I’ll bet I can get better Apple news via RSS from somewhere else. Anybody know of some good blogs/sites that have relevant Apple news? (Not too high frequency?)
Why isn’t port 25 blocked yet?
Really. Why hasn’t this been done yet? If there is any ISP or web-hosting facility that allows customers to connect to port 25, they are doing a dis-service to the internet at large.
Also, why isn’t everyone just using SPF? I notice that gmail looks at this. I like that they are taking a leadership position on this. Hopefully the switchover will happen soon. I’m ready for it.
Don’t like the word ‘Mull’
I just want to state that I think the word ‘Mull’ is annoying. As in this recent WSJ headline: “Microsoft Mulls Sony Partnership”. Just the motion your mouth and tongue have to make to pronounce it is disturbing.
