dasBlog has
native ability to automatically upload embedded pictures when posting via
email. This is really nice and painless. Scott Schecter has
nice post about integrating flicker with dasBlog.
I used to
maintain a picture archive that I wrote for my website. Mine worked well but
just the ROI was limited based upon the effort I put in it. However, flicker
is much nicer and more importantly has the bandwidth. Their pricing structure is extremely
reasonable.
I have been reading through the Narnia books. I am now
on “The Dawn Treader” which is pretty good. To my amazement, I
came across the phrase “do the needful.” I immediately had
flashbacks from a project I had worked on last year in which two guys
constantly used that phrase. I have never heard of anyone using that
phrase before…nor did anyone on my team. With a little Google Foo, I
found out it is a little more wide-spread. This guy goes into a long
dissertation and analysis about the saying.
He thought this was just common among people who use English as a second
language. My theory is that it is a
British English thing because of the use by C.S. Lewis. And specifically many people from India
learn British English vs. American English.
Regardless, still begs the question: where is the noun?
Here’s more info about Ellison Onizuka of the Challenger. This is taken from my fraternity’s “Wall of Fame“
Today
marks the 20′th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I was home sick that day and remember
watching it live on TV. I was in the 6th
grade. I imagine this was the first
national tragedy that I remember. I
remember flipping through the channels and nothing was on except soap operas
and this was in the days of 12 channels.
So I decided to watch the launch.
I recall that these were very frequent and routine. I remember that these became some anti-dramatic
that many stations stop covering the launches.
Later
in life, I went to college to become an engineer and joined my fraternity. As a freshman, I remember learning our
history and learned this:
Ellison Onizuka colo69 flew on Discovery as a mission
specialist in January 1985 and lost his life in the Challenger accident in
January 1986. The United States Air Force’s Onizuka Air Station was located in
Sunnyvale, CA. (The station is now closed). An episode of Star Trek: The Next
Generation mentions a (fictional) shuttlecraft named after Brother Onizuka.
Pasted from <http://www.triangle.org/about/notable/index.cfm>
Small world.
Last
night, I had a wonderful time attending my third Father-Daughter dance. It is always very special time. It was held at the school that my daughter
attended pre-school last year. Her
current school does not have one. I
think my wife will organize one next year.
Interestingly
enough, it was renamed from “Father-Daughter Dance” to the
“Sweet Heart Dance”…an obvious turn towards to politically
correctness. However, I didn’t see any
Mother-Son couples.
This
year, they added some balloon hung from the rafters of the gym that were to be
set free during the last dance. However,
a malfunction (broken strings) reduced the dramatic effect. They had to get some ladders out and swing at
them with a broom or something in order to set them free. I immediately thought of the “balloon
malfunction” during the Democratic Convention:
Don
Fischer, DNC Convention Manager:
“Go balloons, go balloons! Go balloons! I don’t see
anything happening. Go balloons! Go balloons! Go balloons! Standby confetti.
Keep coming, balloons. More balloons. Bring it- balloons, balloons, balloons!
We want balloons, tons of them. Bring them down. Let them all come. No
confetti. No confetti yet. No confetti. All right, go balloons, go balloons. We
need more balloons. All balloons! All balloons! Keep going! Come on, guys, lets
move it. J*sus! We need more balloons. I want all balloons to go, g*dd*mmit. Go
confetti. Go confetti. More confetti. I want more balloons. What’s happening to
the balloons? We need more balloons. We need all of them coming down. Go
balloons- balloons? What’s happening balloons? There’s not enough coming down!
All balloons, what the hell! There’s nothing falling! What the f*** are you
guys doing up there? We want more balloons coming down, more balloons. More
balloons. More balloons.”
Yesterday, I got my 1098 for my mortgage and decided to do my taxes. I typically do them early…mainly, because I typically get a refund. My taxes are very simple and easy to do.
The first year that I did my taxes, I did them manually. It wasn’t that bad but I wouldn’t do them that way every again. Ever other year, I have always used TurboTax. Each year, the software got incrementally better.
This year, I used H&R’s TaxCut. The day after Thanksgiving, Staples ran a special where if you purchased TaxCut + State for $30, you got Microsoft Money 2006 Deluxe for free and also a free shredder. I couldn’t pass up this deal so I gave TaxCut a chance. I figured it doesn’t really matter and all of these packages are about the same and after I used it once I would never use it again.
I soon found out how immature the product it was. I also found it confusing the message that H&R was sending. It seems like they were always encouraging you to complete your taxes using the application and then bring them into one of their regional offices. I guess I am using the application so that I can just get them done. If I wanted someone to do them for me, I would bother with the program.
Also, I was constantly getting lost in the app. Usually in a “next, next, finished” application, you can hit back and go back 1 step. Actually, this one would take back to the previous section or somewhere else. Also, they had “sub” screens that sometimes only available by hitting “begin” instead of “next” ….kinda unpredictable.
It prompted me to update the program multiple times in the same session. I found this irritating. I did the update right away and it worked. But then it said, I need to download a patch for Money 2006 separately. Considered these were bundled, I found this disturbing. Why couldn’t this update automatically happen within Money or Taxcut. It instructed me to go to the website. I finally found the link by searching their FAQ’s.
Something else peculiar was this warnings that it found on my taxes. It didn’t like my FICA and SS withholdings. It said that they were too low and should be a specific % of your wages. I did the math my self and my values were a penny below.
When I finished, I was very surprised that no save as PDF option was available. I guess I took this for granted. When it printed the returns, it would print directly to your printer instead of giving you the print dialog box. In order for me to print to Acrobat, I had to change my default printer. Finally, they give you the optional of printing supporting documentation. The forms spanned pages and layout and page breaks were all messed up.
At least it’s over and I am getting a refund.
