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Folders for Gmail
I’ve been using Gmail more and more for various reasons. Most significantly, Gmail offers IMAP for free, which allows me to check my mail in Thunderbird. Generally, I’ve preferred Yahoo as a free e-mail service. One of the things about Gmail that bugged me is the lack of support for folders (at least in the traditional sense, not labels). I found a cool GreaseMonkey script that uses some JavaScript trickery to convert labels to a folder-like treeview in Gmail. It only works in Firefox with GreaseMonkey installed, but it works pretty well.
Maybe now I finally have a good reason to move away from 1and1′s e-mail service. My only head-scratcher is that some of my mail being sent through Gmail’s SMTP is being marked as SPAM. I’ll have to look into that further – it may be because I’m using a different “reply-to” address through Gmail’s SMTP, which some SPAM filters may flag.
- Folders4Gmail at userscripts.org
2007 Taxes
It’s tax time again. This is just a friendly review of some of the online tax prep service I’ve used in the past.
- TaxACT – By far the cheapest (state and federal for only $15.95). However, I didn’t think their wizard was as nice as the competition, and I think I ended up getting a larger refund with TurboTax last year. I still think it’s a decent service for the price, but I’d recommend entering your data in another service for comparison.
- TurboTax – I liked this service’s user interface better than the rest, and our refund ended up being slightly higher compared to others last year (probably due to a better understanding of the user interface). They are a little more expensive (I think it was about $40 with state). If you’re price shopping, realize that state filing is not included in their prices.
- H&R Block – About the same price as TurboTax. Their interface wasn’t bad, but I felt more comfortable with TurboTax. I did use them in 2004 because they helped me file a 1099-MISC form because I was confused on how to file it using the other services.
In the end, it might pay to enter your data into more than one service and see which one you are most comfortable with. You don’t have to pay until you actually submit, and they calculate your refund real-time as you enter data.
This Whole MySpace Thing
I’ve had a MySpace account for a little while now. Actually, I was one of the late-comers. The only reason I signed up for an account was because a friend of mine started a blog and I wanted to post replies. However, there are some really annoying things about MySpace.
First and foremost, the navigation leaves MUCH to be desired. Clicking back and forth, not being returned to the correct page after login, ambiguous layout. Also, I find it annoying when people change their background to some weird image, play music, and have other crap on the page. When I see stuff like this, I reach an upchuck factor of around 9.95.
I also find it difficult to find people. I wish they had more search options.
I noticed that posting comments doesn’t seem to work in Firefox (at least for me). This is especially odd since they make use of Kevin Roth’s Cross-Browser Rich Text Editor. I sure with they’d fix that, or perhaps it’s just me and my browser. Does it work for anyone else in Firefox?
Finally, there are some really annoying people on MySpace, and it seems most people are there to get laid by complete strangers. I know you can block them, but there is still a lot of cruft on there.
I do think it’s an interesting implementation of social networking (minus the orgy offers). I think with some work and a good UI designer, it could be better (then again, I’ve never sold anything for $580 million, so who am I to talk). I mostly use it to keep in touch with friends who post to it.
I’ve never tried Facebook, although I do finally have a University e-mail account again. Something tells me I’d be wasting my time, and I don’t like how elitist they are about requiring a school account to sign up. Maybe some day.
Credit Reports and Unsolicited Inquiries
Recently, I had reason to request a credit report. For those unaware, you are entitled to one free credit report per year through the web site AnnualCreditReport.com, a service created by the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
It’s a good idea to read your report and make note of accounts you no longer use or accounts you aren’t familiar with. You should contact the creditors of the account you no longer use, as an excess of potential debt can lower your credit score.
Don’t be fooled by web sites offering “free credit reports”. Unless it is the site listed above that is endorsed by the credit bureaus, there is a chance you will get charged through fine-line items (ie, “By accepting this credit report, you are agreeing to subscribe to our credit monitoring service free for 30 days. If you do not cancel before that time, you will be charged $x per month.)
One more thing about credit… Are you sick of receiving credit card solicitations in the mail? You can opt-out unsolicited credit checks by calling 1-888-5OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) and providing the automated message with some information about yourself (but don’t take my word for it – do a Google search to confirm this is legit for yourself).
January 21st, 2006 
Online Services - General 
Tags: advice, credit report, money, Online Services - General, more... TaxAct.com
It’s time to file income taxes again. I thought I would just pop in and make you aware of TaxAct.com, a service that allows you to submit your taxes online like TurboTax and H&R Block. I’ve tried all three services online, but this year I’ll probably choose TaxAct again because it was quite a bit cheaper that the others – only $15.95 to file federal AND state. The wizard didn’t seem quite as polished as TaxCut or TurboTax, however, I was able to get through it without much trouble.
So how do you file your taxes?
1and1.com
I’ve been using 1and1.com for a couple years now to register “lesser” domains where I didn’t need the extra DNS features or WHOIS protection. Since my previous e-mail provider recently died on me, I was looking around for a new one. It’s been incredibly difficult to find a provider that supports at least two e-mail boxes on a single domain of my choice and charges less than $40/year (most charge $25-$40 per address).
Although I had tried 1and1.com e-mail hosting in the past, I wasn’t impressed. Desparate for a bargain, I decided to give them another look. They only charge $0.99/month for a 2GB IMAP account with webmail. Pretty cheap. I tried it again and found the experience more pleasant than the last time. Although their control panel still sucks, it’s been improved since the last version and is at least bareable now. Although I prefer Horde, their webmail interface is adequate.
They do create a strange random username for your e-mail boxes, although you get to choose the password. Also, it took me a long time to figure out which MX records to use. I found it nowhere in their documentation, and their support never replied. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue.
In the end, it’s a sweet price with the features I need, and the server speed isn’t bad. Their support is non-impressive and their control panel sucks, but for the price, I think it will be swell.
In the process, I also noticed that 1and1.com now offers WHOIS protection for free with domain registration, which is only $5.99! It doesn’t have complete DNS control, but offers a single A record (for a web site) as well as up to four MX and backup MX records. So if that’s all you need, it’s not a bad deal with the free WHOIS protection. For my domains where I want more DNS features, I usually go with namecheap.com.
Yahoo and MSN Messenger to Communicate
According to this article, Yahoo and Microsoft have agreed to make their IM clients interoperable:
“Beginning in the second quarter of 2006, customers of Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger programs will be able to exchange instant messages, see the presence of their contacts, share emoticons, add friends from either service and make PC-to-PC voice calls, Yahoo and Microsoft said Wednesday.”
That’s pretty cool, as I think I like the Yahoo Messenger client more than the MSN client. I’ve just always used the MSN client because my buddies all use it, and I don’t like having a multitude of IM clients installed on my machine.
Slashdot Now Using CSS
Well, I don’t know if hell froze over or if pigs can now fly, but I checked Slashdot today and noticed that they have finally upgraded their site to use CSS for layout. It looks pretty good! It also appears that the Slashdot Rendering Bug is no longer an issue. I find it amusing that Slashdot provided a solution for this bug before it was fixed in Firefox. The bug has been present in Firefox for quite a long time. I remember experiencing rendering problems since at least 0.7.
Update: While browsing the comments on Slashdot, I found an interesting article entitled, Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful, which describes why you should use HTML 4.01 instead of XHTML.
AllOfMP3.com
I found a really sweet music service called AllOfMP3.com. They even give you a free download when you sign up. The cool part is that when you find a track you want to download, they let you select the format (MP3, WMA, OGG, MP4, and several lossless codecs like FLAC) as well as the bitrate to encode at! Once you purchase it, it encodes it online using your encoding settings and then puts it in your download locker when completed. So far, I’ve found most of the music I’ve been looking for (however, I usually like pop, hip-hop, and R&B, so no big surprise there). I really like that I can download a high quality file in the format of my choice without having to convert it. Oh, if you didn’t catch on yet, it’s DRM-free. 
Battle of the E-mail Providers
Searching for an e-mail provider that offers the most bang for the buck is a daunting process. There are several good commercial providers (MailSnare, FastMail) that offer great features for varying fees. Recently, Google has thrown fuel on the fire by offering a free 1GB e-mail account, which required competitors like Yahoo and Hotmail to follow suit with their own offerings. None of them are perfect. Whether it be expensive, lacking features, or it just doesn’t feel as comfortable as Exchange, the hunt continues.
Recently, however, I found a cool little online service for accessing your Yahoo or Hotmail account via IMAP, called IzyMail Online. Now you can use your favorite IMAP client to access your free e-mail account. The service is only $10.95/year for a single account. I think it’s cool because I get the powerful web interface of Yahoo Mail at a price cheaper than most commercial offerings.
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