Dave Enjoys

H&R Block offered a online application called Tango for performing federal/state income taxes (e.g. TurboTax). It was a hot commodity in the tech. realm last year (ComputerWorld, PCWorld, etc.). I used it. Unfortunately, they decided near the end of last year to disable access to the site but promised access would soon return. Now they have quietly decided not to renew Tango for this year. Okay, no big deal. But they:

• Won’t allow you to login to your account to view old data.
• Export your data in a form that is importable to any other application (e.g. TurboTax or TaxCut).

In my opinion this is a huge breach of trust on the part of H&R Block. In my mind, while this action may not be illegal it is most certainly unethical especially considering the ease with which access to this data could be provided. I planned to do my taxes at H&R Block…but I’m having second thoughts now.

Here is the <sarcasm>helpful</sarcasm> tips H&R Block offers to its former customers:

• “How can I compare what I entered through Tango last year?
  At the end of each tax season we remove the prior year interview from the Web site so that we can load the updated current year interview. Even if Tango had been released for the 2008 tax season, you would not have been able to compare line by line what had been entered in the prior year.” (why? its not like tax data consumes that much storage space)
• “How can I access my prior year(s) Tango return?
  Unfortunately since Tango will not be released for tax year 2008 this will no longer be option. To obtain a copy of your prior year(s) return you will need to contact the IRS.” (snikes! that stinks, well thanks for the form…ohh wait, “Form 4506 can be used to request a full copy of a return; however, there is a fee…”)
• “Will I be able to print my prior year(s) Tango return that I saved locally?
  Unfortunately, if you did not save a copy of your return in PDF format and you chose to save your data locally to your hard drive (versus our servers) we will not have a copy of your return.” (yes, we did let you save your data, we just won’t let you access it!)

Tags: h&r block, income taxes, irs, tango, taxcut, taxes, turbotax

A short note here….but am I the only one who noticed that there isn’t a Windows (or Mac or Linux) Kindle application? I just purchased my first Kindle book and it was wired wirelessly to my iPhone…but I’d really like to read it on my laptop. Granted, I could have bought it through another eBook provider (assuming they had the title) – but it makes most sense to buy Kindle which is portable and will be around for the long-term future…So could someone shout over to the folks at Amazon, “Great job, but…could we please get a desktop app. over here?” Thanks!

Tags: amazon, desktop, ebook, iphone, kindle

Amazon has taken an amazing step forward in ensuring the ubiquity of not only the Amazon Kindle but the reading of e-texts in general with the release of their Kindle Reader for the iPhone. This free application allows the iPhone to access all the titles currently available through the Kindle Store – a simply gigantic collection of books, magazines, and newspapers. I personally am already eager to get my hands on a Kindle, but this will get people hooked with no up-front monetary investment – and a slow draw towards the real deal (the kindle). Woohoo!

HT: Lifehacker.

Tags: amazon, ebook, free, iphone, kindle, reader, sony

DotNetNuke (DNN) is a popular open source content management system written in ASP.NET with Microsoft SQL Server as the back-end. I’ve been using it for a number of years on sites of mine like davemackey.net. I’ve been a fan of DNN for a number of years for a few reasons.:

• Open Source - I’m always a fan of open source projects, not just b/c I like a free lunch as much as the next guy but also because it allows for the project to continue on beyond the lifespan of a given individual or company.
• ASP.NET - Its only been within the last several years I’ve really begun messing around with LAMP, and for the longest time I loved ASP and then ASP.NET. Now I’ve been swung to the dark side recently, though I still find Microsoft’s development tools to be leagues beyond the open source competition (for speed of development) and still prefer developing in a VB.NET-like syntax to C#, PHP, etc. But, this habit must die…b/c everyone else is going LAMP.
• Simplicity – Compared to Joomla or Drupal, DNN is a breeze. Within minutes of installing the application you can have a full featured site up and running.

That said, I’m now leaving the DNN community (I’ll get to what I’m moving to in a few moments). Here are the simple reasons why:

• Cost – While DNN itself is open source, the Microsoft ecosystem as a whole is much more oriented around cost-based. This especially holds true for the DNN third-party ecosystem of modules and skins. Both of these would have some commercial items in a similar LAMP based project, but there would be loads of free modules/skins. Not so of the DNN ecosystem.
• Development – Feature development in DNN seems to go at a much slower pace than equivalent open source projects (though this may change with the venture capital infusion DNN recently received). One significant example is the forums module which has been without an update for well over a year and has several show-stopping bugs in the current production version.
• Openness – While DNN is an OSS project, the sharing of news about what is happening internally as far as development as well as the ability to get the latest snapshot download to run on the bleeding edge is extremely limited.

So what am I moving to? Good question. Its not Drupal or Joomla. I find both of these overly convoluted (here come the haters). Instead I’m moving to WordPress. WordPress while initially designed as a blogging platform has extended itself significantly to include most functionality that a user could want from a CMS in the core install. Thousands of free extensions make up for whatever WordPress lacks at its core. The development pace is rapid and even minor versions include massive updates (e.g. 2.7 is awesome!). The skins/modules are free, free, free and if one module isn’t receiving development there are dozens others that are.

That said, I’m not abandoning DNN completely just yet. It works well enough for davemackey.net, ocddave.com, and a few other sites. At this juncture the cost to move them over to WordPress (in time and energy) is greater than the lost features (since these are essentially static content sites, they aren’t missing out on much). I plan to in the future – as the need arises.

Tags: asp.net, cms, dnn, dotnetnuke, drupal, extensions, free, joomla, Microsoft, modules, mssql, MySQL, open source, oss, php, plugins, skins, wordpress

I read a fascinating article just a few moments ago by Green Wombat, a CNN Money Blog. This article talks about new software under development by Google called PowerMeter which allows one to monitor power utilization in your house by specific pieces of equipment (e.g. fridge, dryer, lights, etc.). Apparently there are other companies working on similar technologies – including startups Tendril and Greenbox.

Now, such a utility has a number of benefits:

• Consumers can find old, faulty, or poorly designed equipment that is draining lots of power and replace them. By seeing how much a dishwasher is costing over the period of a year one can determine whether an upgrade will actually save you money in the long-run.
• Power companies could begin charging variable rates based on demand, thus the costs at night for power would be less than during the day. This would encourage consumers to run certain processes at night (laundry, dishwasher) and pay less – which also saves power companies (they don’t have to build additional capacity to meet the peak demands of the day).
• One can locate bad habits (leaving the lights on in a given room all the time) and eliminate them – and can find out what myths about saving money we have been performing that don’t really work.

Now, I’m not exactly sure how this entire entity will be implemented. My guess is that some software will run on your computer (e.g. PowerMeter) and enabled devices within your home will wirelessly transmit their power usage data to the software, allowing for analysis over time. I’m gonna go read more about this – but if I may make one suggestion (that perhaps someone is already working on) – it would be great to get adapters that would plug onto existing devices and allow us to check power usage on devices without built-in monitoring capabilities…

Tags: future