TurboTax:Important Information About Your 2007 Tax Return

So I have been doing an intermittent series on using technology to improve your life. Here’s a case where relying on technology could seriously mess you up…

I received a free CD from TurboTax in the mail with their latest software. Pretty cool idea: it’s free until I decide to file. I used TT last year, so I figured that I would go ahead and use it as I wanted to get started on my taxes early to do some planning for our finances. So I start working through it and filled in my income, investments, etc. It then takes me to the “Federal Review” and tells me I owe a freaking large amount of money! I am trying to figure out what happened when I realize that I never entered in any of my deductions! We have several big deductions include mortgage interest and charitable giving, so I’m figuring I somehow missed it. After spending an hour or so looking for it I cannot find it! I finally gave up and sent an email to TurboTax support.

Today (a week later) I got the email shown below with the subject line shown at the top of this blog post. I don’t know how widespread this was, but this was a huge blunder by a very well-known company.

Dear David Bourgeois:We have important information about your 2007 tax return.The TurboTax Home & Business software you installed did not include some of the functionality designed to help you with your deductions and credits. We’ve corrected the issue, but you must update the software next time you use it in order to ensure you claim all of the deductions and credits you deserve.If you have not yet finished and filed your Federal return, please update your software and complete the Deductions and Credits section: Step 1. Go to: (specific URL here) Step 2. Follow the instructions for a One-click Update. Step 3. Click on the Deductions and Credits tab: Step 4. Complete the Deductions and Credits section and finish your return. If you have already filed, please call (888) 777-4160 at your earliest convenience. We’ll walk you through the process of amending your return, if necessary, and answer any other questions you may have. We are committed to helping ensure that you receive every deduction to which you’re entitled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Sincerely, The TurboTax Team

Did anyone get caught by this and actually file? This could be a huge black eye for Intuit!

“Your Google account has been suspended”

Can you even imagine seeing those words? They send shivers down my spine. danah boyd over at her blog tells the story of a friend of hers who had this happen: mail, calendar, documents, social network (Orkut)… All because the person accidentally gave out some information to someone they shouldn’t have and had their account hijacked.

A couple of lessons to learn. First, if you (personally) use an online email/calendar/document management tool (such as Google), are you prepared if, for some reason, they block access to your account? Second, if you as a ministry use a vendor-supplied web site or an ISP, are you prepared if, for some reason, they block access to your account?

This gives a whole new meaning to backing up your data! I, myself, have always thought that I was rather smart for using an online email system such as gmail (and on online calendar and document tool) because then I can get to my stuff from wherever I want, as long as I can get a net connection. After all, Google is never going to die, right? But I never thought about the idea of Google canceling my account for a reason outside of my control.

Of course, there are several solutions to this problem: you can set up a mail client to keep a copy of all your mail and sync your calendar with a client package. Or you can even have one mail account forward all messages to another. But it is much more difficult to synchronize all of the customizations you have made (labels, categories, saved searches, etc.). Several interesting solutions to this have been suggested over at Lifehacker, so if you are interested, check them out.

Using Technology to Improve Your Life

Recently, I questioned whether technology was really morally neutral. For much of my life I have seen technology as a tool for progress, for improvement. In fact, I am focusing much of my time right now into research on how technology can be used to improve the ministries of churches and missions organizations. I am generally an optimist when it comes to technology and think that it generally has a positive influence on society, so it was somewhat of a revelation for me to consider that technology is not morally neutral, but may in fact be morally negative.

So lately I have been thinking about the technology I use day to day in my life and wondering what sorts of effects it is having on me. More specifically, how is it affecting the things that I value most highly: my faith and my family. Is it improving or detracting from my day to day relationships with my God and those I most love?

In this post, I want to focus on a positive impact that a specific technology is having on my relationships. Specifically, I want to focus on my High Definition Dual Digital Video Recorder Satellite Dish Box. So, what is the positive impact that this is having on my relationships? Besides allowing me to watch my beloved Lakers and Angels in glorious high definition in surround sound (not to mention “24”, if it ever returns to the small screen this year!), it also allows me to decide when I want to watch.

You see, it is not the high definition or the Dolby 5.1 surround that improves my relationships. It is the DVR. I can now be intentional about what television I watch. There are two specific uses for this that have greatly improved my relationships, specifically with my family. First, I can time shift. This time of year, I love to keep up with the Lakers, college bowl games, and the NFL playoffs. But the rest of my family does not. So I can now record the games during the evening and watch them after everyone has gone to bed. The dual receiver function of our box also comes into play here: I can record the game on one receiver while we watch something else on the other.

The second way the DVR improves my relationships is that we, as a family, can select the shows we want to watch ahead of time and then sit down when we have time and watch them (and skip the commercials as well). It allows us to be highly selective of our time in front of the television and it gives us the chance to decide based upon what we are interested in, not based upon what’s on right now.

So, here’s a thumbs up to technology, at least this time. As I come up with other uses where technology has an impact on my family or my faith, I will post them here. What about you? Have you noticed technology’s impact on your family or your faith? Let me know in the comments.

I am George Jetson

Did you used to watch The Jetsons as a kid? As a lover of sci-fi, it was one of my favorites. The visions of the future were somewhat idealistic, but in the sixties this was how Americans saw the future. And one of the best parts: a robot maid. Well, now I am part of that future: we now have a Roomba.

A Roomba is, quite simply, a robot vaccuum that scurries about the house and cleans your floors. It “learns” where the walls are and covers the floor several times, stopping and circling whenever it finds lots of dirt. When it’s done, it re-docks itself in it’s base station to re-charge. You can even schedule it to vaccuum during the middle of the night.

The results so far are mixed. The room we have it cleaning is a large “great room” with tile floors. This room gets quite messy every day, what with five (soon to be six, gulp!) kids.When it can complete its job, it does well, but several times it has gotten stuck on rugs with loose threads or turned up corners. However, it does entertain the kids (and scare the cat) quite well.

I am George Jetson!

Is computer technology morally neutral?

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This phrase has been uttered by those supporting the right to own guns as a way to quickly summarize the argument that it is not the gun, by itself, which causes harm, but instead it is the person using it. They see guns as morally neutral. Those arguing the other side, in favor of more restrictions on gun ownership, point out that a gun makes it much easier for someone to do something morally problematic; someone who only would have punched someone is now capable of killing them with less effort. Both sides have a point, and they are both correct: guns don’t kill people by themselves and guns do make it easier for someone to kill someone. This argument has been going on for years and I am not going to solve it here. But I am going to add a twist…

In my MIS class a couple weeks ago we were discussing the question: “Is computer technology morally neutral?” This is something I really had never considered before. Isn’t the computer just a tool, like a hammer or a notebook or a calculator? In researching this further, I came upon this quote (taken from religion-online.org):

Our technology is a tool, yes, but all tools allow the user to do certain things and not others. The tool, in a sense, encourages the user to undertake some tasks and exclude others. Some people have bought the notion that our tools are morally neutral; they argue, for example, that the hydrogen bomb is neither “good” nor “bad.” It is rather a tool which we put to either good or bad use.

– J. David Bolter

In thinking about this further, I can start to see how computer technology could be considered morally problematic. For instance, take hypothetical person “Rob”. Rob likes music, but he would never go into a music store, put a few CD’s in a bag, and then walk out of the store without paying. But then Rob was introduced to file sharing over the Internet. It was so easy, and he wasn’t hurting anyone, so he started downloading just the songs he really wanted. Or take Rick, a Christian young man trying to walk the straight and narrow. Rick would never think of buying a Playboy magazine or renting an adult video. But then he got his computer…

It gives one pause…on the one hand, it is still the responsibility of the sinner and we will be held accountable. Yet on the other hand, the existence of the computer was what enabled the sin to take place…

What do you think? Is computer technology morally neutral?

 

Part of MacNation

If you’ve been following this blog, you know I was looking to switch from a Windows laptop to a Mac laptop. I finally made the switch in August to a MacBook Pro and couldn’t be happier.  I still need to use Windows once in a while for the courses I teach here at Biola, I also had Windows XP installed. I use the “Parallels” software to access my Windows platform and I have been truly amazed at how well it works. I can now have both Mac and Windows applications running side by side (in “parallel”) and switch back and forth between them seamlessly.  XP and OS/X share the same folder structure so I don’t need a separate Windows and Mac area on my disk.  I also do some consulting where I need to connect to a server via Windows remote desktop software over a VPN – and it works perfectly.

I believe that I am part of a larger trend of previous Windows users moving to the Mac platform. Hmm.  And Apple’s stock has gone from $88 to $188 in the past few months, too.

Getting Things Done in the Four Hour WorkWeek

As part of my planned switch to a Mac, I have switched to gmail. Overall, I really like the way gmail functions, especially the ability the use of labels instead of folders and managing email threads as one “conversation”. As part of this switch, I moved my personal management tools (email, calendar, to do) from Outlook to Google. The switch to gmail and Google calendar was pretty straightforward (I even found tools to sync with my PDA), but the “to do” list switch was more difficult. I looked around the web for web-based to do lists, but none of them really gave me what I was looking for. I then stumbled upon the methodology called “GTD” for “Getting Things Done”.

Getting Things Done is a methodology for managing all of your daily activities in such a way that you always know what you should be doing at any time and in any place. Here is a flowchart of the overall process. If done correctly, this can then free your mind from worrying about what you “should” be doing and let you be more productive. It also allows you to find time to relax and not worry that you are forgetting something. I have begun using this methodology and it does seem to help. What has been really helpful, however, is the gmail add-in that is available to support using this methodology. Using my email, I can track everything I have to do and instantly bring up a list of all my outstanding tasks at any time. The tasks can be grouped by location (things to do at the office) or by project. I think it will take a while for me to master both the methodology and the use of gmail to support it, but I am excited by the prospects of managing my tasks this way.

As part of my research into task management, I also came upon the Timothy Ferris’ book The 4-Hour Workweek. The point of the book is to teach us how to get out of the daily grind, reduce the time commitments we have to work, create income streams, and allow us to spend our time pursuing the things that excite us. This book had some very interesting ideas about how to streamline your life, but I had a problem with its overarching premise: that the goal of life is to fulfill yourself by pursuing that which is exciting. As a Christian, I see our goal in life as glorifying God, seeking out His will for our lives, loving Him and loving others. But it did make me think about how we Americans fall into a pattern about how we live our lives and never dream big. Why wait for retirement to do things we could be doing right now?

After I read both of the above books, I realized something: they both are about the same thing. Both books are about how to make our busy lives easier to live. I can take lessons from both authors and make them my own. From GTD, I can learn how to organize my life so that I can focus on the tasks that I should be doing and serve the Lord more effectively. From The Four Hour Work Week I can learn how to ask some bigger questions about life. It made me think about the possibility of doing the unconventional, such as taking a year off to travel the world with my family. I will take principles from each to help me understand how I can serve the Lord in the best way possible.

Pretty good for someone who was just trying to switch to a Mac…

Switching to a Mac

My Dell laptop is a god dog. I have had it for a couple of years courtesy Biola University and it is running slower and slower and slowwweeerrr. Right now, for example, to start up my laptop, log in, bring up email and a browser takes approximately 10 minutes. To open an email attachment in Word takes two or three minutes. When I try to play music or a video and open a new application, the media begins stuttering.

I have worked with the anti-spy anti-ad anti-virus software as well as the registry to try and figure out what is going on, but to no avail. I am sure if I really wanted to spend the time, I could get it fixed. But I don’t want to spend the time, I just want it to work. I have heard from several sources that this is “normal” for Windows (especially heavy users like myself) and that the best solution is to reinstall XP from scratch.

I teach a class here at Biola with all my senior information systems students in it. I told them about my problem and several of them immediately told me that I should switch to a Mac. Then I noticed something: of the seven students in the class, five of them use Macs. The two Windows users were indifferent about it.

Now that Apple has put Intel processors in the Mac, this is a viable option for me. I need Windows for three functions: 1) Outlook email/calendar/task management and PDA sync, 2) Microsoft Access (I teach a class where we use this), and 3) my consulting work. Now, with the Intel Mac, I can use “Bootcamp” or “Parallels” to run these Windows programs on the Mac to solve #2 and #3. But what about #1? I leave my email up all the time and sync with my PDA constantly, so running Outlook on the Mac makes no sense. Again, back to my students. Their recommendation: switch to Gmail. So, I have begun researching Gmail and it seems that I could conceivably ditch Outlook for Gmail and use a third party software to sync with my PDA.

Will I do it? I don’t know yet. I will probably begin the GMail transition after school lets out next week so I can get rid of Outlook anyways. Who knows, that may solve some of my performance problems right there! The switch to the Mac make take some time, especially with my consulting work. And as a business professor, I will always have to be conversant in the Windows world. I’ll update this blog with my decisions and progress over the next couple months.

What were they thinking?

I just read the Frank Hayes column in Comuterworld on FEMA’s disasteraid site. For some inexplicable reason, FEMA is requiring the use of IE6 to apply for disaster aid. Hayes’ article does a good job of blasting FEMA. But I’d like to also add my $.02. In the review process for making this decision (assuming that a review process was used), did they even think of the fact that, in a major disaster, schools are often used as shelters and that many schools have only Apple Macintoshes? Or that a disaster victim may get set up on a low-cost Linux/Firefox PC?

When I went to the FEMA site to check on this myself (posted photo), it turns out that you don’t even see the browser compability error until you are already three screens into the process!

Society’s Reactions to New Technologies

Check out this great article in today’s USA Today about nanotechnology. Kevin Maney points out how our reactions to new technologies as society follow cycles. He points out how important the “naysayers” about a new technology are, and that, even when maybe they seem a little wacky, they should at least be listened to. A great followup to the article is this news story in the LA Times on legislation regarding the use of RFID on people.

As a Christian, I feel that we must stay informed on these issues. To misuse a technology and then claim ignorance later is unacceptable.