Why Open Source Rocks ?

Open source programs are very cool because:

❑ They are free. The greatest thing about open source software is that it is free and available to the
general public. Software developers and programmers volunteer their time to improve existing
software and create new programs. Open source software cannot, by definition, require any sort
of licensing or sales fees.

❑ They are cross-platform and “technology-neutral.” By requiring open source software to be
non–platform specific, the open source community has ensured that the programs are usable
by virtually everyone. According to the Open Source Definition provided by the Open Source
Initiative at http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php, open source programs must
not be dependent on any “individual technology or style of interface” and must be “technologyneutral.”
As long as the software can run on more than one operating system, it meets the
criterion.

❑ They must not restrict other software. This basically means that if an open source program is
distributed along with other programs, those other programs may be open source or commercial
in nature. This gives software developers maximum control and flexibility.

❑ They embrace diversity. Diversity of minds and cultures simply produces a better result. For
this reason, open source programs cannot, by definition, discriminate against any person or
group of persons, nor against any “field of endeavor.” For example, a program designed for use
in the medical profession cannot be limited to that field if someone in another field wants to
take the program and modify it to fit his or her needs.

For a complete list of the criteria a piece of software must meet before it can be considered “open
source,” or for more information about the OSI or the open source community, visit the OSI Web site
at www.opensource.org.

Tax Software 2008

Given the state of the economy, the biggest news in tax preparation software this year is something many people believe is long overdue: The ability to prepare and file your federal tax forms electronically, completely free of charge--regardless of how much or how little you make.

If you prefer a more user-friendly tax preparation and filing experience, the usual suspects are back, led by Intuit's market-leading TurboTax and its archrival, H&R Block's TaxCut, both with renewed emphasis on the Web versions, which last year attracted more customers than their desktop software counterparts (watch for our forthcoming reviews of the top five tax prep sites).

For the freebies, thank the IRS and the Free File Alliance (the tax software industry group working with the IRS to reach government goals on electronic filing)--but be aware of their limitations. If your adjusted gross income exceeds $56,000, you won't be getting the kind of tax prep software you've known--so, no interview or context-sensitive help. And while the tax services that participate in the Free File program offer state tax preparation and filing, they don't do it for free.

Still, for the first time, anyone can fill out and electronically file (e-file) federal tax forms--electronic versions of the same government paperwork you can pick up at the post office, complete with IRS instructions--for free. The forms have been available online for some time, but previously you had to print them out and mail them in. It's the ability to e-file them that's new.

If your adjusted gross income is $56,000 or less (which, according David R. Williams, director of electronic tax administration for the IRS, applies to some 90 million people, or 70 percent of taxpayers), then you can simply go to the IRS Free File page for help in choosing from some 20-odd tax prep packages available free to those who meet the means and other tests. As usual, each tax software vendor gets to identify eligible segments of the population--some will limit their offers to college kids, seniors, or servicepeople, for example--so no single program is available to more than 50 percent of the population. That's to ensure that no single tax software company gets stuck with handling all Free File users.

Also, all participating programs must now offer, as a minimum, a core collection of 24 key tax forms. In the past, Williams explains, some would-be Free Filers dropped out because the program they'd chosen lacked a certain form. The 24 forms all programs must have should cover the vast majority of tax scenarios, Williams says.
Pushing Tax Filers Online

It's no secret that the six-year-old Free File program came into being to prevent the government from offering free tax prep and e-file software. The tax prep software industry has managed to preserve a fairly lucrative business (getting wealthier people to pay for software and electronic filing) by agreeing to provide free software and filing to lower-income customers in order to help the IRS reach its goal (set in a 1998 law) of getting 80 percent of all returns filed electronically. This would save the IRS money: The agency pegs the cost of processing a paper return at $2.87, compared with 87 cents for an electronically filed return. But Williams says e-filing doesn't just help the IRS. "It has always been faster, more accurate, and more convenient for taxpayers," he says.

Still, the 80 percent goal remains elusive, although progress has been made. A recent IRS report states that a record 60 percent of returns were filed electronically during last year's tax-filing season. But rates of adoption for electronic filing are slowing--and reaching the target level will be unlikely under current conditions, the report says.

The report describes research findings on who does and doesn't file electronically. For example, although 99 percent of third-party tax preparers (accountants and other professionals) use computers to prepare returns, just two-thirds of those returns are filed electronically. And only 5 million people used the Free File program last year, a small fraction of those eligible.

One of the most interesting parts of the IRS report is its list of possible strategies for upping e-file participation. These include increased marketing efforts (both for e-filing in general and for the Free File program); expansion of Free File to include more taxpayers (although the IRS worries that this might just draw people who now pay to file electronically rather than current paper filers); new incentives such as extending the tax payment deadline for e-filers beyond April 15; and even outright cash payments.

The lure of Free File is undeniable as tax prep and e-file fees creep up. For this year, Intuit initially announced that customers for its market-leading TurboTax desktop software would, for the first time, have to pay to print out additional returns (previously, you could create and print out as many returns as you wished with a single copy of the software). After much user complaining and an effective PR campaign by H&R Block, Intuit withdrew the additional printout fees.

E-filing fees are included in the cost of Web-based tax prep services, which tend to be slightly cheaper than desktop software for e-filers doing a single return. However, in figuring out the costs of tax prep, don't forget to check charges for a state return (assuming you file in one or more of the 40-plus states with income tax). In some cases, a service will throw in prep and e-filing for one state for free; others charge separately and sometimes steeply. Also, although you can keep copies and import data from a Web-based return for use the following year, import and export options tend to be limited, making it difficult to switch to a new service down the line. It's usually a lot easier to transition between desktop packages.

And as with all financial services, be sure to watch out for IRS-related phishing--e-mail that purports to come from the IRS or a tax software company demanding sensitive information. This has been a growing threat in recent years, especially at tax time.

Get some games for your IPhone - IHangman

iHangman is a true heavyweight of iPhone and iPod Touch hangman games. It boasts 15 word categories and more than 39,000 words, not to mention a dictionary with far more depth than most such games offer.

In addition, iHangman includes an optional timer as part of a scoring system that awards players points based on the difficulty of the selected word category and whether the game is being played under a time limit. This scoring system adds a competitive component to the proceedings and, at the same time, makes each individual game part of a larger quest. When you win a game you get between 1 and 8 points, and the points keep adding up until you lose. So the goal is to win consecutive games at as difficult a level as possible. These options enable you to play a casual game--or a very challenging (and frustrating) one.

In other words, iHangman can be addictive.

In iHangman's straightforward settings screen, you can choose either to bypass a time limit option, or select a time limit of 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 2 minutes. (You score one extra point for winning within a 2-minute limit, two points for winning within 1 minute, and three points for winning within 30 seconds). You can select to play in single- or two-player mode. You can turn sounds on and off. You can also choose one of the 15 word categories, ranging from "Easy" (one point) to "Standard" (three points) to "Reverse" (the words are spelled backward, and solving the puzzle counts for five points). Among the other categories are SAT words, GRE words, Sports, and Celebrities.

I found the Hard word category to be as hard as expected and the Standard category to be a bit confounding at times. Some words presented in the Standard category aren't words that are used in the average adult's standard vocabulary; they're obscure to the extreme that I had never even heard of some of the words. This poses a unique--and unwelcome--difficulty, as the fun of the game is in plumbing the depths of your own vocabulary, not in being stumped by an obscurity. I argue this because in iHangman--especially in the catch-all Standard mode--the words are presented without context, which means that there's a limit to the educated guesswork you can do.

Others may disagree, but it seems to me that when you choose Standard, that's what you should get. Some difficult terms are arguably standard, but even a word I was able to guess--calcimine--struck me as belonging in the "GRE words" category. Some others that cropped up during my playing sessions included "deliquesce," "irresolutely," and "tenthly." (The latter made me cringe as I imagined the world's worst PowerPoint presentation ...)

Otherwise, iHangman is a creative and well-executed offering that now tops my previous favorite, Hangman 1.7. It has a clean, intuitive, interface that's easy on the eyes. There are plenty of options. It even uses the accelerometer in a nifty fashion; when you're stumped by a word (and you will be), a shake of the iPod results in a pop-up dictionary definition.

Download here

iTunes Tweaks

Enable Browser View for Easier Library Browsing

iTunes' Cover Flow gets all the attention, but let's be realistic: It's a pretty inconvenient way of selecting music. Suppose, for example, you want to play all the Brendan Benson in your library. Cover Flow is useless: It's designed expressly to play an album at a time. You can switch to Grid view, choose the Artists filter, and then hunt for Brendan, but I find that a somewhat cumbersome approach.

I prefer using iTunes' browser view, which isn't a new feature by any means, but it's one I think flies below most users' radar. You can access it by pressing Ctrl-B (Cmd-B on the Mac) or clicking View, Show Browser. The result is a multi-window grid you can use to drill down into your library by genre, artist, and/or album. Click a genre in the left window, for instance, and iTunes immediately filters the artists and albums accordingly. Or, to follow the previous example, I can just scroll down the Artist window until I find Brendan Benson, then double-click the entry to queue and play all his tracks.

Prefer to stick with album art? A tap of Ctrl-G (or Cmd-G) adds artwork to the lower column, the one that lists all your tracks.
Make Text Bigger

Now that you've learned how to tap iTunes' Browser View for easier navigation of your music library, let's look at another way to make iTunes easier: by making text larger. See, I find iTunes' default font size uncomfortably small. That's in part due to my wide-screen monitor, which runs at a fairly high resolution.

Fortunately, I'm no longer squinting at my music library thanks to this simple fix:

1. Click Edit, Preferences.
2. In the General tab, set Source Text to Large.
3. In the same tab, set List Text to Large.
4. Click OK to close the Prefs window and implement your changes.

Now the text in the left-hand menu bar should be easier on the eyes. The same goes for the text displaying your song list. Sometimes the best hacks are the simplest.
Hidden iTunes: Use Folders to Organize Playlists

Most iTunes users know how to create a new playlist: You click the little plus sign at the bottom of the screen or select File, New Playlist. You can also use features like Genius to crank out playlists at will. Of course, this kind of unfettered playlist freedom can lead to what I call Playlist Madness [cue disturbing organ music], which is what happens when your playlist list grows so large as to become unmanageable.

Fortunately, iTunes offers an easy way to tame an unruly batch of lists: folders. Here's how to tap that old standby:

1. Select File, New Playlist Folder.
2. Type a name for your newly created folder ("Alt-Rock Playlists," for example), then hit Enter.
3. Drag any playlist onto the folder and drop it there.
4. Wash, rinse, repeat as needed.

Presto! Folder-managed playlists. You can expand or collapse any folder by clicking the little arrow to the left of its name. You can also create subfolders by dragging one folder into another. This is definitely a handy way to keep your playlists bouncy and manageable.
Three Ways to Make iTunes Run Faster

I think I'm safe in saying that iTunes is the single slowest application on my PC. It not only takes a week or two just to start up, but also seems to pause indefinitely on simple tasks like switching between different sections of the iTunes Store.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to goose iTunes, to make it a little less pokey than usual. I'm not promising a dramatic speed increase, just somewhat more efficient operation.

1. Turn off Genius by selecting Store, Turn Off Genius. (Note that doing so will delete all collected Genius data.) It's a neat feature, but I've noticed that it seems awfully "busy" at times. Anything that's demanding iTunes' attention is also hurting its performance. I never thought it was that smart, anyway.
2. Select Edit, Preferences, Sharing, and then disable Look for shared libraries and Share my library on the local network. Whenever there's ongoing network activity, you can count on a performance hit. Of course, if you are sharing your iTunes library, skip this step.
3. Switch over to the Apple TV tab and disable Look for Apple TVs (unless you have one, of course). It's another case of superfluous network activity that can only hurt performance.

Customize Office 2007

As a recent convert to Microsoft Office 2007, I'm still learning my way around the interface. Obviously the biggest change involves the Ribbon, which I found daunting at first but quickly came to appreciate. It's just a smarter way of organizing various features. This week I've got tips for customizing Office 2007 apps, like adding features to the Quick Access Toolbar, getting rid of the annoying Mini Toolbar, and setting up Outlook's spell checker.
Add Features to Office 2007's Quick Access Toolbar

There are certain icons I miss from the old Office 2003 toolbar, like Print and Open. These are features I use constantly, but Office 2007 forces me to click the big Office button to access them. That's one whole extra click!

Fortunately, it's easy to add just about any Office feature to the Quick Access Toolbar, which appears at the top of the screen right next to the Office button. By default, the toolbar sports Save, Undo, and Redo icons, but you can customize it as you see fit. (I'm thinking specifically of Word 2007, but the process is the same in Excel and PowerPoint.)

For starters, click the little down-arrow on the right edge of the toolbar. You'll see a list of popular commands like Open, Quick Print, and Spelling & Grammar. Click any of them to add the corresponding icon to Quick Access. (Likewise, click any already-checked item to remove it from the toolbar.)

What if you want to add a feature that's not on the list? Simple: You can right-click almost any icon on the Ribbon (or in the Office menu) and choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar. To remove one of these custom jobs, right-click its icon and choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.
Kick Word 2007's Mini Toolbar to the Curb

As much as I like Office 2007 for the most part, a few features seem hell-bent on annoying me.

One of them is Word 2007's little on-the-spot editing toolbar, which is officially known as the Mini Toolbar. Perhaps you've encountered it: It appears when you highlight some text and then move your mouse up.

Admittedly, it's a handy addition, but as someone who's literally spent 20 years mousing his way to the top of the screen for font selection, highlighting tools, and the like, the Mini Toolbar strikes me as a Maxi Annoyance.

Fortunately, it's easy to turn off:

1. Click the Office button and then choose Word Options.
2. Clear the check box from the very first item: Show Mini Toolbar on selection.
3. Click OK and you're done.

Want the toolbar back? Ah, you don't really need me to explain that, do you?
Make Outlook Automatically Spell-Check Your E-mail

I'm kind of a spelling snob. I take pains to make sure I spell everything correctly, so it bugs me a little bit when I receive mail that contains spelling mistakes.

Well, okay, I cheat a little: I use Outlook 2007's spell-checker to give my outbound mail the once-over before sending. You can do likewise, without having to remember to click the Spelling button every time, by tweaking Outlook's checker. Here's how:

1. Click Tools, Options.
2. Click the Spelling tab.
3. Tick the box marked Always check spelling before sending.
4. Click OK.

That's it! Now, when you click Send, Outlook's spell-checker will immediately appear, giving you a chance to fix those "Hey, Rick, you are so stoopid" kinds of mistakes.

Of course, by default, Outlook uses squiggly red lines to indicate misspellings as you type, but I know many folks who prefer to just bang away at the keys and then fix the mistakes at the end.