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I have been working this weekend (not enough of it, granted) on organizing and preparing our household 2009 taxes for filing. There is plenty of time before April 15th deadline in United States, but I like to have breathing room as this process always takes way longer than one expects (and hopes). I have been self-filing via software for many years now, and this year again opted for H&R Block software for Home and Business, which is newly renamed TaxCut software from prior years.

First, I am not convinced that going through this annual ritual is good for US Residents nor US Government. Accounting is getting more complex every year, and way too many “grey” areas still exist in the code. On top of this, creative return preparers often taking on “risk” in your name, because ultimately each of us is fully responsible for their Tax return.

Solution: Fairtax.org – which sounds like a great idea to me! In fact, I say bump it up to 25 or even 30% ! It simplifies accounting for all, and should provide boost to our overall GDP, IMHO.

As an alternative, I say we should introduce government mandated accounting cloud. In fact, the two solutions aren’t mutually exclusive! Such cloud will have strict requirements for reporting directly from Point-of-sale systems, inventory systems, and other software systems companies already use in-house to track their own accounting! Only this time all these systems will be unified by single standard and have specific requirements for “calling home” to the cloud within 48 hours of transaction, for example. I know everyone is afraid of “big brother” effect, but accounting anyhow ends up being reported one way or the other, and providing country-wide standard should only help keep it all fair!

I am still blogging less in a futile effort to minimize “ramblings”. But I am out there on the Web, on Twitter and now on all encompassing Google Buzz, which you should be able to subscribe to via my Google Profile page.

Lately I use multiple browser, more so than ever, in this order: Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 64 bit.

This story unfolded literally few minutes ago, and I believe entire thing happened online within past few hours, at the most.

Some “entrepreneurial” guy registered blizzard-admin.net domain and setup a fake Login page to mimic World of Warcraft in every way possible, all in a classic phishing scheme. But, this time they took it a bit further. As I was catching up on my late night gaming, a direct message came in over from someone called “blizzrdadmin” within a Game, telling me to go to this web site to register for Rare in-game mount.

I think it took me about 2 seconds to report that account as Spammer, and from what Blizzard promised in the past, they review such complaints very seriously, often within minutes of complaining.

And here is where Google Chrome shines – I decided to still check out how clever these “phishers” were, and told my Chrome to show me the site. I was pleasantly surprised when a Warning came up, telling me to Stay Away! Excellent!

And here’s the kicker, neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer, which also contain anti-phishing technology, knew yet that this is a Phishing site! They both took me to the site…

This is just further reinforces my admiration for Chrome and I am sure I will be using it more and more as my primary browser. I don’t recall if I wrote about it before, but I also find Google Chrome under Windows 7 to be by far the fastest of browsers. I believe part of the reason is unique architecture of Chrome, as it creates separate Operating System processes for each Browser Tab or Window.

In unrelated news – I realize I haven’t been blogging much lately, apologies, and will improve!

So, we picked up this nice HP Photosmart Plus All-in-one. I can’t speak to the printer quality much, only time will tell, but I can report my initial observations around setup process:

• Without any option or checkbox anywhere, it installed HP/Yahoo Co-branded Internet Explorer Toolbar! What GIVES!? I hate those thing for so many reasons! Since when is it Ok to bundle Toolbars with Printer Drivers? Seriously, why does reputable company bundle what can only be called AdWare in a box with (supposedly) premium printer?!
• We invested a little more specifically to get Wireless capability. So I set it up in the corner of the room, on dedicated little desk. Guess What – You can’t complete Wireless setup without “temporarily connecting it to a computer via USB cable”. Huh!? Am I supposed to drag it across the room to set it up, and then back?? Luckily laptop was available, and helped the situation by installing on it first. I must say that once connected to a PC, it installed quickly and painlessly, transferring proper wireless setting to the printer over USB.
• Apparently (per documentation) only 5 home computers can use it over network. I don’t like limitations, especially Artificial Ones!!!
• They still haven’t figured out wireless scanning – if I try to click “scan to a computer” on the printer, it simply says “try doing this from a computer”. Brilliant user experience, no question.

Well, I will report more in the future. Our previous Epson all-in-one printer lasted for 4+ years, if not more. We’ll see how this one does. So far I tried printing single photo on their provided photo paper sample – unimpressive. But, I didn’t really buy it for photos, just regular round the home printing, and for kids school projects.

On a side note – I am going to resume blogging, apologies for long delay. I seem to spend my spare time Facebook games these days, and what may be accidentally left over goes to WoW.

I was holding out to play Mass Effect one for the longest time, until I finally picked it up via Steam a month or so ago. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Classic Sci-Fi adventure game with artful combat system. Story line was short, but interesting. Yes, I did get to famous sex scene, and found it to be very tasteful, much more so than one may see on occasion on broadcast TV.
So, I am one of many now looking forward to upcoming release of Mass Effect 2. This recently released sneak peak of voices and stars behind Mass Effect 2 shows you how much of a movie-like production it has become. In my mind, the fact that you get to play main character inside this vast universe of stars (pun intended) is a grand bonus that soon will be a must for most people:

What started as a simple upgrade of my daughter’s video card, turned into afternoon of sheer terror. I don’t really know if it’s nVidia to blame, or some incompetence of EA developers, but result is tragic just the same.

Naturally, after I replaced the graphics card on her Windows XP system, I updated the driver to match the newer nVidia chipset. Then I decided to test out Sims 2, her favorite game, as a final confirmation that the upgrade went well.

Only, the game didn’t start at all!!! So I proceeded to try her second favorite game, Sims 3. Same result, doesn’t start! No error, no clues, nothing!!! I proceeded to run DxDiag utility (all you do is type it into your Run prompt), and it showed that “No Problems Detected”.

I spent hours, reinstalling the game, scouting online articles for ideas. Checking settings, resetting graphics options, touring the registry. Much fun….. ..NOT! As a father, don’t you hate it when you disappoint (and UPSET) your child!!! I was really upset!

What I eventually found on Sims support site (and not main EA support site, where I went first) was Unbelievable! Latest nVidia drivers, they say, CAUSES THE GAME NOT TO START! And the only solution right now is to uninstall new drivers and roll back to August version!

Well, I can confirm now that this resolves the issue. But, what is this incompetence?! Did nVidia mess up most basic compatibility tests and unleashed Faulty drivers onto the world! Or did EA developers simply not use DirectX APIs properly?

Game on, fellow Sims lovers, and here’s to hoping EA and nVidia will get together and resolve this unfortunate disaster, via an Update (both games support auto-patching!) before major Class Action Lawsuit materializes!