NudgeCast 6/25/08

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This week we're chatting about a computer reload, Optimum Voice, and an incredibly useful website that got even better.

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Jonas

Taxing Taxes

As we head into April, it's time to complete that annual, royal PITA that is better known as taxes. Of course to cut the complex task down to size, I enlist the aid of some digital help, better known as tax software. My weapon of choice is TaxCut, the perennial underdog to the better down TurboTax.

After using it, I'm starting to wonder about the wisdom of that choice. For example, the error checker was questioning values that were a resounding zero anyway so I'm not sure it's worth that much effort to fix a number that won't effect the tax anyway.

This year, there was a new feature. There is a way to be able to print directly to a PDF. This is a nice feature as I usually discover some error after the mountain of paperwork pops out of the printer. I'd like to say it worked well, but it didn't. After printing to a PDF, the TaxCut program froze. Seriously, and this error was consistently reproducible. This is rather annoying, especially given that for the number of years this has been around, I'd expect it to be more stable, especially given that I've got freeware solutions that can accomplish the same thing without crashing.

After struggling with it over the weekend, let's just say that next year I'll be taking a closer look at which tax software I'm going to be using. Taxes are difficult enough without crashing software.

Jonas

NudgeCast 2/18/08

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Talk on the winner of the next gen optical disc, Zune software shortcomings, printer advice on when to dump it, and Wisebread.com.

Cutting TaxCut

I've been a user of TaxCut software for the last few years. I had an accountant for many years, and the guy did an excellent job. One day he decides to sell the business to some youngster, and it was a disaster. The guy shows up with his notebook computer, then loses all the data and has to start again. His printer wouldn't print, and when it was all done, there were a dozen mistakes in the return. The one thing I learned from the experience was that he used TurboTax, and the next year I decided to just do it myself.

For the last few year, TaxCut has been the less painful alternative. Somewhere along the line, I registered the product as it does need some updates to have all the final tax codes incorporated. In previous years, they send me a reminder to pick up the software, like I could forget to pay my taxes.

About two weeks ago, the TaxCut folks send me a CD with the upcoming year's tax software on it. I hadn't requested it, but when I opened it I figured out that I needed to pay $39.95 to unlock it and use it. This got me curious, and wondering if this was a special deal for their loyal customers as I might expect. I comparison shopped for TaxCut Premium with State, which is what I had used in previous years.

I headed over to the TaxCut website. If I order the CD, it's the same $39.95 so that's the standard fee. I thought about it, and noticed that the software can be downloaded. Now with no CD and package, that should save some money, right? For whatever silly reason, it's the same price as well. Care to guess if I use the software online (which I don't recommend as it's way too much personal info to put into any website)? For this privilege, the cost is a not too saving $44.95, although it does include some useless extras, like a tax advisor session.


Now completely confused as to the pricing, I jumped over to Wal-Mart. The same TaxCut Premium & State I was sent can be purchased for $34.95! Clearly this is the best deal on this, and confirms why they are such a popular retailer. Holy falling prices Batman!

So, if they really want me to toss out the copy I was sent, and go and repurchase it to save a fiver than this is what I'll do next time I venture into Wally Mart. I just think this is another example of mismarketing, hardly builds product loyalty, and doesn't make any sense. When millions of TaxCut CD's are piled into landfills alongside the AOL CD's, there's no wonder why. Wouldn't it just have been more cost effective for the company to send out emails with the download link, and put the package costs towards a discount?

Jonas

Printing Labels

It never ceases to amaze me at how what should be simple turns into complicated when computers are involved. Today's case in point is trying to print a single sheet of labels.

Thinking about the new year, I decided that I would print up a sheet of some return address labels. I started with an Avery 8160 sheet that seemed just right for the task with 30 labels per sheet. I remembered the there are Word templates designed to do facilitate this, but I run OpenOffice these days (and you should try it as well) so that wasn't going to work.

I went on over to the Avery website, and they had a Windows program, Design Pro 5, that can work with all of their labels. Perfect! After a 50+ meg download, I gave it an install, wondering if it could really be this easy. It wasn't, as after installing and reinstalling, the program wouldn't open on my Windows XP Home notebook and I was back to the drawing board (or more accurately googling for a better solution).

I searched for a freeware labelmaker, and found no shortage of expensive programs. However, the free stuff was in short supply. I stumbled into Paper Label Maker, but unless you make a living in typesetting and such, don't waste your time. Rather than work through known Avery labels and such, it allows you to customize things to the hundredth of an inch,and offers no guidance. Clearly there was a better way than this margin setting nightmare.

I did find templates for OpenOffice. They're put out by WordLabel, a competitor to Avery that I've not heard of before. They did nicely have their products cross referenced by the more standard Avery numbers, and they opened in OpenOffice with no problem. You can find them here. This was the first solution that was viable. However there is even a simpler way.

When I opened the package of labels, I figured out that the Avery website offered the easiest way for the occasional label printer. It's an online service that allows you to select the label, a template, type in an address, choose an image from a gallery, and this all gets rolled into a PDF that's downloaded, and then printed.

Now this was as easy as it gets! However there was one gotcha. When I went to print the PDF, the printer software decided to be "helpful" and downsized the image to 96% of the original. While the printing ended up on the labels, they are not perfectly spaced, and the monogram letter gets cut in a few spots by a hair.

Still, all things considered, this is a fun and easy project that can make your mail more professional in an hour or so of time invested.

Happy 2008!

Jonas

PS: One TechNudger is suggesting Maestro Label Designer, an online software tool similar to Avery tools. I gave it a quick look, and unfortunately it doesn't have the templates listed by the Avery code number. Other than that, if you can match it up it looks fine, but I see no advantage over Avery's online offering. Thanks for the tip!

Frustrated Editing PDF's

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult simple things sometimes become ridiculously complicated. Here is today's case in point. Using my new Canon scanner I decided that it would be a great idea to scan in a few pages of a book for later use for a trip I'm considering. I decided to build the pages into a multipage pdf which the included software can do, and I've accomplished before. It simply scans the page, asks if there is another, and I did this for the ten pages. Unfortunately, it doesn't show a preview of each scan.

I then went into the Presto PageManager program to see that the second page was cut off, and I had missed a page along the way when the phone rang. So I rescanned those pages and figured I could merge those into one pdf with the additional pages. So far, so good.

I quickly realized that while Presto PageManager can combine the pdf's into one, I can't go in and reorder the pages individually- in other words inserting the missing pages where they belong, and swapping in the cut off page for a better one. Should be simple, no?

I hypothesized that there must be some nice free utility out there just waiting to help a guy out of this likely common situation. After some "googling," I ended up on this page. I tried several of the software packages on the page, but none did the trick. While creating a pdf from a text or word file is no problem, and even merging and watermarking pdf's, the kind of simple editing I'm after is simply elusive. Of note, PDF Tools 1.2 was a nice little utility to keep in mind, and probably the best of the bunch, and did finally get the job clumsily done.

What finally worked was that PDF Tools enabled me to split the file open with each page being a bitmap image. Then in PageManager I was able to reconvert these individually into new single page pdf's. As a separate step, then I had to rename each pdf with a page number so they would be in the correct order. After this step was done (are you getting sick of this yet?) then I rejoined the files into one big pdf, in the correct order.

Ahh, finally success! Well actually, when I opened the final pdf I noticed that the text was no longer sharp and looked like it had jpeg compression artifacts, although it was still readable. By converting into a lossy bitmap compression the image quality clearly took a hit.

Like I said, sometimes things that should be simple just get way too complicated. I suppose the next time I attempt something like this, I'll save each page as a separate pdf, and review the quality of each before the merge as "an ounce of precention is worth a pound of cure."

--Jonas

PS: If anyone knows of a decent pdf editor that can do what I'm describing without all of these steps, I'd love to know about it!

Addendum:

After kicking this around a while, and based on the comments, I figured that there had to be a way to do this with Linux somehow. I turned to TechNudge's own Linux expert, Oldster, and this is the sage wisdom from the elder open source one:

I was thinking about the XPDF reader and realized I had tried it at one time and discarded it in favor of KPDF. Both of these programs are available in the repositories that come with the version of Linux that I prefer, namely PCLinuxOS. They are installed easily using Synaptic. Just takes a couple of clicks and they end up in the office/publishing file. I far prefer KPDF. It will do anything that XPDF will do and in a more intuitive manner with a better looking GUI and shows thumbnails of the pdf document pages on the left side of the screen. The font is easier to read in KPDF also, at least for me. I suppose it comes down to a matter of personal preference.

Once again, we have an example of Linux offering an option that Windows makes way too difficult. I tried the XPDF program for Windows, and I couldn't get it running. Too bad that there is no port of KDF to Windows. Too bad I'm currently left out of the Tux crowd.

Audio & Video Resource

It's a consistent challenge to find high quality software for your PC. This is especially true when looking for useful apps for both audio and video. Sure, there's plenty of stuff to be downloaded, but it can get expensive quickly. I often try to find freeware first, as I'm not sure how much I'm really going to use the program anyway. Sometimes I simply like downloading the software and playing with it, and then I'll come up with a use down the road.

Lately, I've been noticing that more and more of the audio/video apps were not freeware, or at least the ones that seemed to run ok. As our media moves increasingly digital, I find myself with an interest in these types of applications.

I recently stumbled on a neat website, Doom9, that has a whole page of links to the types of downloads I'm talking about. Actually, I had heard of them a while back, but had forgotten about them. While I'll be reviewing some software as time goes on in our reviews section, in the meantime, I wanted to share the whole page with you.

From what I've seen, most, if not all of it is freeware. I needed a new DVD player, as for whatever reason PowerDVD which came with my drive kept playing discs without audio. Rather than troubleshoot it, I decided to look for a replacement. I was surprised at a whole list of choices under Media Players, and went with the Media Player Classic One. Not only did my audio return, but I found a whole new list of stuff to play with. For yhose looking for any type of converter, ripper, or player, then Doom9 is a comprehensive starting point.

Doom9

--Jonas

PS: This is where I give the disclaimer that (a) I haven't test all of this software so proceed carefully and at your own risk, and (b) make sure you own any disc you plan on ripping and restrict its use to your own listening and viewing.