My  Blog is Still Here...Where am I?

My last blog entry was in January 2021, yet my blog is  still here.  I've seen too many blog posts that say I know I haven't been here in a while but I'm going to do better now.  Ironically, those are often the most recent posts on those blogs.  It doesn't stick.  I will make no such promises. 

I'm watching Game 6 of the Dallas Stars vs. Seattle Kraken.  This game is nearly over and I suspect Seattle has got this.  They will at least be going back to Dallas for Game 7. I hope the Stars can get back into this. I'm not ready for Hockey to be over.

Earlier this week, I took the SIM out of my iPhone 12 Mini and put it into a Cingular Flip IV flip phone to experiment with digital minimalism.  There are lots of good resources about using feature phones or special phones like the Light Phone to stop the endless death scrolling that sucks your time and attention.  Jose Briones is a great resource on this topic and he runs a dumbphone finder to help people find a feature phone that meets their needs. This got a lot more difficult on AT&T network when AT&T shut down its 3G network and implemented severe restrictions on the phones that will work on its network.  I didn't mind using the Cingular Flip with its T9 keypad, but the last straw was when my wife and I were driving around in my SUV and the entertainment center kept crashing and rebooting.  I Googled and experimented with different problem-solving on why the radio was crashing. It occurred to me that I had connected the flip phone to my car's bluetooth only yesterday afternoon, so I decided to try turning off the bluetooth on my phone.  Problem solved. SIM is now back in the iPhone. Experiment over.

Tax Season 2021: Late Start But No Extension

We are underway for another tax season, even though it seems like the last one just ended.  The IRS has announced that it will start accepting e-filed returns on February 12, 2021, which is about two weeks later than usual.  According to IRS Notice IR-2021-16, the February 12 start date allows the IRS to do additional programming and testing of IRS systems following the December 27th tax law changes that provided a second round of economic stimulus payments and other benefits.

There has not any talk of changing the due date past the traditional April 15 deadline. I've been a practitioner for over 35 years and many times I wished that I could have more time to file returns before the deadline.  Last year, when IRS extended the due date to July 15th, I learned the hard lesson that I really didn't want that extra time.  Let's hope we can wrap this up on time in 2021 without having to repeat the tax season from hell.  

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/2021-tax-filing-season-begins-feb-12-irs-outlines-steps-to-speed-refunds-during-pandemic

Adventures in Retro Computing

Instead of catching the COVID virus, it appears instead that I have been bitten by the retro-computing bug.  I owe this in part to discovering videos and podcasts by Brian Lunduke.

https://lunduke.com/

A blog post by Andrew Roach also caught my fancy

http://ajroach42.com/a-modern-office-with-vintage-hardware/

So from there, I started thinking about 8-bit computers and how I wanted to interact with them. Why 8-bit?  I have David Murray partly to blame:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww

David is the 8-Bit Guy and his videos explore many aspects of the 8-bit computer world, including restoration of old hardware.

The 8-bit computer of my teen years was the Commodore 64.  I've been reluctant to buy an actual Commodore 64 because of stories of boards needing to be "recapped" to replace failing capacitors and needing new power supplies.  Plus, a working Commodore 64 requires peripherals like the 1541 drive, modem, floppy disks and expansion cards to be useful.  So instead, I ended up with one of these:

https://retrogames.biz/thec64

The "Maxi" is not currently available in the USA so I bought my from the UK from this site:

https://www.shop4megastore.com/

The C64 runs on a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi and uses a Commodore 64 emulator called VICE instead of the original C64 hardware.  Still, The C64 offers a very realistic user experience that plugs into modern HDMI monitors and runs programs off a USB memory stick.  I love the C64!

Yet, still I wanted an actual vintage machine.  I decided that I would go with the Apple IIc. I liked the design element of the Apple IIc and the fact that its compact case included most of the expansion options that people tended to add to earlier models of the Apple II.  I found a reasonably priced Apple IIc on EBay after much watching and I am now in the process of setting it up and defining how I will use it in 2020.  I will be writing more about that in future posts so stay safe and stay tuned!

Tax Blogger Needed

I read the news today oh boy.  Nope, this isn't about the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, of which I'm a huge fan.  Instead, I'm referring to the news from Peter J Reilly's column at Forbes.com in Hole Opens In Tax Blogosphere - Say It Ain't So Joe that Joe Kristan was hanging up his blog was hanging up his tax blog here.

Apparently, his Roth & Co CPA firm has joined the larger firm Eide Bailly and blogging his not part of the deal.  Joe is a pioneer in the tax blogging world and a regular read for me.  I will miss his writing and wish him all the best.  Maybe I'll start commenting on some tax cases as time permits.

Apple Cinema Display Meet Microsoft Surface Pro

Even though my Microsoft Surface Pro tablet has a mini display port, I couldn't get the diminutive windows wonder to power my 27" Apple Cinema Display (the LED version before Thunderbolt).  Fortunately, I found an economical way to get things working.  The key to success was finding the Kanex-SnapX-2x-Switcher-Mac on Amazon for about $55.  This device is intended to permit sharing of the display between two Apple computers, but it works great with one or two non-Apple devices plugged into it as well.  I've successfully used both my Surface Pro and a Samsung Chromebook Series 550 with the addition of a display port to mini display port adapter.  Not the most elegant solution, maybe, but it is a workable solution that won't cost you a lot of dough.

Video: Microsoft Surface Boot Time

Check out this short video to see just how quickly the Microsoft Surface boots up.

 

 



Microsoft Surface: More Thoughts from an Early Adopter

Today was day two of my out-of-box experience with the Microsoft Surface tablet.  Here are some quick thoughts on the experience so far:

A little personalization of home screen

• Music and Photos -- I was able to connect my phone (a Blackberry Bold) to the Surface using a USB cable.  It was easy to transfer photos from the phone to the Surface.  I could also copy music files from the phone to the Surface by treating the phone as a connected drive and dragging files from the phone to the storage on my tablet. The files were recognized by the music player app and played fine. Like others have stated, the speakers aren't that good but they'll do.  Headphones sound great.  One odd thing is that M4A (AAC encoding) files play on the Surface but you can't view the cover art while the song plays.  Cover art does show properly on MP3 encoded files.  I contacted Microsoft support and confirmed that this is they way it is.

• Scanning - There's a USB port, can I just connect my scanner and push the scan button? Sadly no.   My scanner is an Epson GT-S50 scanner that uses generic TWAIN drivers so I was hopeful it would be supported.   Definitely not, as Microsoft support confirmed.  On a more positive note, the Windows Store has an HP app called Scan and Capture that works with their all-in-one printers.  I successfully scanned a document over wifi using the HP Officejet 8600 Pro in my office.  I haven't tried yet to connect the printer to my device with USB but I have successfully printed to the 8600 from the Surface. 

• Printing - Printing is much better with Surface than with iPad or even with Chromebook. It's more like printing from a Windows computer. Even though I use HP wireless printers that support e-print and Google Cloud print, I have better control over output and the print job happens much faster than  with the other devices.  If you need to kill trees to get your work done, you'll appreciate the Surface over the iPad or Chromebook. 
• Remote Desktop Connect - If your work involves connecting to a server with Microsoft Remote Desktop, the app is included and works great! I was able to map the local storage on Surface to the remote server and transfer files.  I was also able to print from the remote server to a local printer much like I can do on a PC or Mac.  Chromebook will also print local if I use Sparkview or Ericom Access Now, but it's a more complicated process involving a separate tab with a PDF view.  Find the remote desktop connection app from the home page by swiping up from the bottom and selecting all apps.  You can drag down slightly on the RDC app icon and a menu will pop up on the bottom with an option to pin the icon to the home page.
• Typing - I bought the red touch cover with my Surface.  Yesterday, my typing was atrocious. Today it is way better.  I'm touch typing with greater speed and way fewer typos. I still have some room for improvement.  Propping up the Surface on my lap with kickstand and typing on keyboard works better than I imagined it would.
• Reader - I love the news reader app.  You can opt to pin particular publications on your home page if you want.  It is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and there's a lot of free content.

• Mail  - This app is an abomination. I can't believe this app comes from the creator of Outlook!
• One Note - I'm rediscovering this app.  It's not as touch friendly as I'd like.  Still, it's nice that the app is included.  Evernote is available for download from the Windows store if you've moved on.
• Browser - This is a one-app town.  It's IE 10 or nuthin'.  I'm okay with that for now, but I still miss Chrome.

I hope these random thoughts give you a better idea of what it's like to use the Surface tablet.  I'll post more thoughts over the next few days.