Maybe you should check out Windows RG as an alternative.
At least for US taxes, the main brands of tax prep software are available as either a downloadable installer (used to be a CD) that installs that year’s EXE onto your PC, or as a web site that just requires a browser. In the end you still get the datafile that’s your underlying data and resulting return as well as the pdfs of what the paper would look like that you can print, snail mail to the authorities, etc.
I too am conservative about my tax prep and will use the download and install EXE method this time. But it’ll probably be my last. Not due to any incompatibility, just moving ahead with the times. The app seemingly confers no advantage over the website.
That’s an interesting option. My preferred tax prep software doesn’t have that feature but Intuit’s TurboTax does (they have a version for Canadian tax returns that’s certified for online CRA filing). I’m not particularly worried about security as I presume Intuit is a reputable company. My preferred software for many years has been from an Ottawa-based company that initially offered their software free for personal use, because they got all their income from business tax prep and consulting fees. It’s very easy to use, certified for online filing, and has never let me down.
However, I’m currently resigned to the fact that sooner or later I’m going to need Windows 11 anyway and I wouldn’t mind a cool new laptop to help me gradually migrate while I continue to use my beloved Windows 7 desktop… Dell currently has several suitable models on sale. Sadly, what with paying for my son’s new Macbook, Ukrainian plumbers, Snowplow Guy, Christmas expenses, and other recent drains on my finances, it’s a bad time for a semi-major purchase. I’m currently enlisting the aid of massive quantities of vodka to help me make a decision. 
Are they seeds from products where they are on the outside? The bagels and such? 
Whats the old joke about finding a worm in your apple? What’s worse is finding half a worm.
Uh, why not?
- yes
- no
- no
- roasted on an open fire. Well done, blackened (I assume) to burn off the fur.
Look, I don’t recommend it, but I am in the “try everything, once” school of thought.
Carrying on from earlier rants, the massive amount of vodka to bolster my resolve has done its work. I have just ordered a new Dell laptop, taking me into the miserable but necessary world of Windows 11 and other newfangled nonsense that I don’t want but have to have.
Which leads me to a new rant. Part way through the purchase, I get a pop-up that “the bank wants to verify your identify” and asks which method I want to use for two-factor authentication. For convenience, I choose “email”.
Sure enough, I get an email seconds later. The email says “sorry,. but we’re no longer sending verification passcodes to this email provider”. The email provider in question is the largest fucking ISP in Canada. Ah, but I know the problem. Said ISP are incompetent cheapskate dumbasses who have outsourced their email service to Yahoo, which has achieved the near-impossible – they are even more incompetent than the ISP itself. No doubt the target of endless successful hacks.
You, of all people asking that? Didja only bake cakes?
One can barely see the top (& sometimes bottoms) of the bagels there’s so much caraway, poppyseed,. garlic or salt on top of 'em.
Hold the entrails & season it & maybe I’ll try it…unless I’m in a survival situation but in that case beggars can’t be choosers.
I walk/run, a lot & I'm not a treadmill fan, either. We are in the middle of an Alberta Clipper & it's very windy too (sustained in the teens, gusts into the 20's). Usually that wouldn't be a big deal but I'm sick. Any other time of year, I'd say eff it & go to a gym but right now is the height of Resolutioner season. I **hate** resolutioners!
Ah, I miss the deli where I worked for about two years. We had real bagels, boiled not steamed. And I liked the Hannukah bonus.
A very upsetting call at work-
I am currently on the phone with a woman who wants to renew medical assistance. This is routine. She has currently moved back in with her parents. Her parents are immigrants who seem unfamiliar with American culture and bureaucracy. They are also, especially her father, extremely angry. Her father, again an extremely angry man, refuses to give any of his information. To complete this unfortunate woman’s renewal, I need to know how much each of her parents receive in social security retirement each month. Since they are on Medicare, I need to know their Medicare ID numbers. These are easy to find. When you get the letter saying you will be getting Medicare, it includes a red, white and blue card. That card has your ID number in big, easy to read print for those with poor vision.
Her father yelled at me, yelled a lot more at her, and keeps insisting that his daughter is not part of the house. I keep explaining that if she is living there and not paying them rent, she is legally a part of the house hold and so I need some information on every member of the household. Her father keeps insisting that she has mental problems and that he will take her to a women’s shelter.
Her father just spoke briefly with me. He yelled and said I should hang up. He is cursing in the background. The caller is in tears,
I do not know what to do. I cannot submit a renewal without that information. I feel very sorry for this woman.
I was going to suggest putting a form letter in each broken mailbox for each box owner to sign and drop off at maintenance demanding repairs.
Then I remembered your other thread with your imploding printer, and I had to chuckle at the unfortunate timing.
But still; if 90% of the work is done for the other tenants (fill in the blank, same form for everyone), and maintenance gets flooded with requests at once, it becomes perhaps worthwhile to repair all boxes in one go rather than coping with individual requests. Repeat once a month as necessary.
Maybe. This building management really does seem awful to deal with, but collective negotiations can be useful.
I should add-
The mailboxes are built in to the wall in the first floor hallway. The front door of the building can only be opened by entering a 4 digit code into a keypad. So, the situation isn’t too bad. Packages are routinely left just inside the front door… I have not had a package stolen yet. In my last apartment, I had at least 3 stolen in the first month. Still, I would prefer a mailbox with a door and a working lock. I have no idead how long it would take to repair or replace the door. A chimp with a Philips head could replace the lock in a few minutes.
Oh God, how I hate playing health care roulette.
I had to pick up a new prescription, having no idea what it would cost, if my insurance would cover it, or even if the pharmacy would link it to my insurance without prompting.
I go to the pharmacy, I even let someone go ahead of me because I thought I might need time to straighten it out.
I give my name at the pickup counter and express my concerns. She says she’ll scan it to see what my cost is.
She says …….”sixty-seven”……I’m thinking that’s kind of a lot but I could be worse I need it, have her check the insurance was it not covered……then she says “cents”. I think she left that pause on purpose.
I think my sigh of relief was audible throughout the store.
I had my credit card in hand and no loose money in my purse, so I just went ahead and ran the card. I did comment “If I had known, I would’ve grabbed some loose change from the car console”.
Probably not a rant because it has a happy ending, but I hate the process and I hate that the same medication might actually cost the next customer $67 or more, because that’s our health care system at work.
The good news: My new laptop just shipped, and arrives Friday!
The bad news: Clicking on the tracking number takes me to a Dell sign-in page, and I never created an account. Trying to create an account with my email address as they suggest produces an idiotic error message “Something went wrong. Please try again after some time.”
I’m remembering that Dell’s web services have always been flaky. A friend also recently bought a new Dell laptop, and the purchase included an expensive version of Office. Rather than coming pre-installed as in the good old days, she instead got a link to download it. Clicking on the link went to a Dell website which produced a brilliant result something like this: Unexpected internal server error 97E
I suggested she call Dell support. The call went to someone in Hyderabad who could neither speak nor understand English, but was willing to work in Dell’s call center for 10 rupees a month. Getting no help at all from that source, for lack of any alternative she just tried again, and this time it worked.
In my case, I happened to know that Dell always shipped with Purolator, so I tried the tracking number on the Purolator site, and it worked. (I initially said it’s not giving me a lot more info than the estimated delivery date, but I now see that there’s lots of details about the package’s location.)
So what does it say about the weather in Hyderabad and how ling it’ll take for the mule train to get it to you?
Fortunately, Hyderabad is only involved if I ever need support, which I pray I never will. The package appears to have originated from a local warehouse.
Truth be told, Dell support isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just a crapshoot. Back in the days when they provided Windows and utilities install CDs, I called them when I needed one of them and my son had, typically, lost it. The machine was no longer under warranty (and it’s not really their responsibility anyway if you lose stuff) but they sent a replacement CD anyway as a goodwill gesture.
I feel slightly embarrassed. I have dealt with Dell over the course of many years and I should have realized that I already had an account! My first thought was that it’s unfathomably stupid to not provide a proper error message like “account already exists”. It seems particularly dumb to tell you to try again later for a condition that’s never going to change!
But Dell seems rather security-conscious – they use two-factor authentication by default – so maybe they’re following the old security principle of “if there’s possible hanky-panky going on, give the bad guy as little information as possible”.
I felt the same on the Mac side. I finally bit a pair of bullets and upgraded to a MacBook Air (last year’s model, on sale at Amazon) and a new used iPhone.
But I can run an up-to-date OS on both now. I miss some of my vintage software that was never intended for the 21st century, but I’m coping (barely… I miss my flying toasters, dammit)!
I’m discovering that a lot of my problems stem from that. I’m trying to figure out how to be cheap except when it impacts the efficiency of my life (and my wife’s patience).
May we all learn to deal with modern tech, and keep up with the times!
I am unsure if this laptop is Windows 11 compatible. As I have written before, the trackpad is wearing out. The hard drive had to be replaced a year or two ago. I am a cheap man and I dislike change. Otherwise, I probably would have bought a new laptop already. I will also need to buy an external DVD drive. I should probably get an external hard drive for back up at that time too.
I also need to buy a new computer/laptop this year as my 9 year old computer cannot update to Windows 11. Not looking forward to all of that. I am technically proficient but hate the never ending slog of setting everything up again.
I was going to do that soon but have decided that’s a future me problem.
Hey, that brings back fond memories of Windows 3.1! I had the flying toasters screensaver, too.
I’m under no illusions that I’m actually going to like Windows 11. It’s a utilitarian necessity and I suspect that the new laptop probably won’t be used very much as long as Windows 7 continues to more or less work. I love the Dell Optiplex desktop business computer it runs on and the large Dell Ultrasharp 24" IPS monitor (1920x1200) it runs on. If Windows 7 really starts to lose a lot of functionality I might see if Windows 11 can successfully install on it as a dual-boot option.