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Vote! (beehaw.org)

Vote. Need I say more.

36
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

I need to change ISPs and need to find a new email provider. This time I want to move to my own domain which I purchased through Namecheap and I do not want to use another ISP's email system nor do I want to use Google, or Microsoft since I am Linux (and Android too) based. I would like this to be US based or at least have a strong US presence so obvious choices like Proton Mail, Mailfence, and Mailbox.org are out. I would prefer it interoperate well with FOSS software too, I use Thunderbird and K-9 Mail for example. Also so want them to be trustworthy, have good security, and have good OpSec with respect to their their servers and service.

After looking I find three I am considering and they are quite different:

  • Fastmail. Long history. No PGP support but they do have their own domains one can use also.
  • Namecheap Private Email. Uses Ox App Suite, may support PGP, and quite new. I think you have to have your own domain (not sure).
  • Forward Email (forwardemail.net). A forwarder with IMAP support. You supply the webmail if you want webmail, but otherwise it should work fine with IMAP and normal clients.

So questions:

  • Any thoughts and experience, pros and cons with the above 3.
  • Other better ideas.

So thoughts? Thanks.

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

Well I finished my taxes this year and they are finally accepted. Every year, we look at the market and the issues and decide on what provider to use. So here is a summary of our experience. Happy to hear your experiences too.

Over the years I have used TaxCut/H&R Block, TaxAct, FreeTaxUSA, and now this year OLT. They all have done the job, but they have all had issues too. I left the PC version of TaxCut/H&R Block (often considered the #2 software out there) in 2003 primarily because I wanted to move to the Web and use Linux. It was also a huge cost savings at the time. My last H&R Block return was $61.30, and TaxAct was $17.90 in 2003. We used TaxAct (maybe the #4 tax provider, and #3 provider in the high-end market) for many years, but their price hikes over the years were way beyond simple inflation and sanity. By 2020, our last return cost $134.90. They also had issues with calculating underpayment penalties so we sometimes payed penalties when we did not have to. If they had just followed inflation that $17.90 in today's dollars would be $30.16. So I strongly believe that paying more then $30 regardless of how complex your taxes are is a rippoff. So in 2021 we moved to FreeTaxUSA (FTU) which was $21.98. As far as I know they are the #3 tax provider and the #1 value player. We actually like them quite a lot. The main issue we found was their treatment of MN Exempt income from mutual funds is a bit suspect though it can be worked around. The other issue we had was particular to this year. Turns out that we needed K1 support with certain boxes and codes, and the state part of that which for us is MN KF. FTU just could not do it. So we tried OLT. The cost of OLT was $15.90. What I really appreciate about OLT is support of a wider range of filing situations for a price under $30.00. Also like their lack of games including no price tiers based on your return, and being able to see your whole return before paying. What I am less sure of is thier MN state returns. My experience is that you may have to know what your doing and know to manually enter certain things, and manually override others for MN State returns. I had no particular issues with Federal though. So it seems like OLT is good for more complex returns for people that know what they are doing. Overall I liked OLT because of many added capabilities and I do hopefully know what I am doing.

I'll close with the list of tax providers I personally considered in the order of decreasing market share based on relative web traffic: TurboTax (60%), H&R Block (23%), FreeTaxUSA(7.4%), TaxAct (6.4%), TaxSlayer (2.3%), OLT (0.59%), 1040 dot com (0.48%). I did not seriously consider CashApp Taxes, FileYourTaxes, 1040Now, eFile Express, IRS Free Fillable Forms, or Sprintax for various reasons. I also did not consider TaxHawk or Express1040 or consider them in my web traffic estimates as they are from the same company as FreeTaxUSA which is more well known. I wanted a provider with fairly good support, that had some popularity, had a reasonable reputation, could file taxes of reasonable complexity, was focused on US residents, is web based and can use with Linux and Firefox, and could file my state return. I also wanted a provider for under $30 which left only FreeTaxUSA, OLT, and 1040 dot com on the list.

Anyway, hope someone finds this somewhat interesting or useful. Best to you all.

5
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

I have one mutual fund where cash dividends (there were no short gains this year) plus Box 7 (Foreign Tax Paid) is not equal to Box 1a (Ordinary Dividends). I have never seen such a thing before. Talked with the mutual fund company and they say it is correct. They claim in this case it includes and "interest adjustment" as well so that Box 1a = cash dividends and short term gains + foreign taxes + interest adjustment.

What exactly is this interest adjustment. I'd like to know for two reasons. One is an accounting one for my accounting program, and the other is tax and anything I should know about it for tax purposes.

Maybe I am just confused but if it appears as a Ordinary Dividend I would think it would it would either mean I get some value for it be it a pass through tax credit (like Foreign Tax paid), a basis change (like a reinvestment), or maybe something that has accrued (something earned but not yet paid). As it stands, it seems like I am paying tax on something I get no benefit from so it kind of blows my mind.

So I am confused. What is this thing. The fund is T. Rowe Price International Stock.

Thanks.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 31 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Supply chain attacks also show one reason that using older software like Debian stable may be a better plan for things that matter. All new software versions need some time to be tested and vetted.

It also shows the importance of security in depth. That less is more in terms of code dependencies and complexity. That knowing dependencies is as important as knowing your code.

I would consider the xz incident to be a success. The supply chain attack was found pretty rapidly. We have already seen many of these and we will see more. Ones I remember off the top of my head include Linux Kernel, NodeJS, Python PyPI.

I would not over blow this. Security is an ongoing activity and all security is porous.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 28 points 7 months ago

Yes. This is why I would never use an iPhone. Closed walled garden. Cannot even load apps from other repos.

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

Any ideas for alternative US tax forums or discussion boards similar to say Reddit Tax? Ideas?

6
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

Wondering if anyone here has used and what their experience has been. They do not appear in the lists of commonly hyped providers most of the time.

Normally I use FreeTaxUSA, but this year after entering most everything I found out it did not handle Estate state pass-through withholding.

So I spent yesterday on OLT entering everything again. They seem to handle more stuff at the cost of more complexity. Anyway got it all in this time. Still waiting for some final source documents but may file with OLT this year.

Anyway, wondering if anyone has done a full prep and filing with them and their experience. Thanks.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 43 points 8 months ago

I am not sure why anyone cares. As far as Reddit, I moved on last year.

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

Does anyone have thoughts or experience with the fundraising site: https://app.oath.vote .

The article talks about it but I have not tried.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 36 points 9 months ago

Management greed, stupidity, and self serving is perennial. Nothing new there.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 98 points 10 months ago

Firefox is far from irrelevant. Pure stupid click bait. Market share of courses is a sad thing and may lead to irrelevance when most web sites stop supporting. In the late days of Netscape and the early days of Firefox that was the case... lack of website support. I am just starting to see that again.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I totally do not get why people have to try to prove to themselves that masks do not work. More than likely they do especially if you have a new good well fitting mask changed frequently and you use and change it properly. There is also the question who it helps more, you or the people around you.

A huge problem during the pandemic was mask availability, and people using them properly even if they had a supply to do that which mostly no one did. So result of mask use is a good question but it may say nothing about how well masks used properly work.

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[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People keep talking about going to another platform. Personally I think a better idea would be to develop lemmy to deal with these issues. This must be a fediverse wide problem. So some discussion with other admins and the developers is probably the way to go on many of these things. Moreover you work with https://opencollective.com/, can they help. Beyond this, especially CSAM, there must be large funding agencies where one could get a grant to get some real professional programming put into this problem. Perhaps we could raise funds ourselves to help with this too.

So frankly I would like to see Beehaw solve the issues with lemmy, rather then just move to some other platform that will have its own issues. The exception may be if the Beehaw people think that being a safe space creates too big a target that you have to leave the Threadiverse to be safe. That to me seems like letting the haters win. It is exactly what they want. My vote will always be to solve the threadiverse issues rather then run away.

Just my feeling. There may be more short term practical issues that take precedence and frankly it is all up to you guys where you want to take this project.

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submitted 1 year ago by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

Anyone having issues with Jerboa on Beehaw today? Mine just opens and crashes. Did the clear cashe and storage thing. No effect. Have not tried reinstall.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 105 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the heads up. Short answer for me is that I joined for a civil place on the Threadiverse not a walled garden. So if you guys leave the Threadiverse I will have to find a new home.

So I think you all will need to decide where to take this community. I will understand whatever you all decide. Just please communicate it clearly when the time comes.

Thanks for all of the hard work you all have done and are doing.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is the thing about Chrome and the whole Chromium based ecosystem. Why on earth would anyone use a browser from an Ad company.

By the way. They are planning on putting it in Android apps too. So there one gets little choice. A non-starter like Apple where you cannot even load your own apps and app stores or Android from an Ad company where you can with effort at least choose your own software and even image your own OS.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Relax. Just use a different server. May not be exactly accurate either. How in the world do you have any idea who uses what server. I have never used this server.

One way is join the FSF and use their server. There are others or host your own too. The load and cost needs to be spread anyway.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 44 points 1 year ago

Great example why guns are just bad. To many impulsive and abusive people with them. More guns, more death.

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It was always kind of a scam. Computers always had color temperature settings. It is a sad fact that they use to all be set to around 9300K color temperature which is very unnaturally blue. Best color rendering is actually 6500K and people like me always reset them once purchased. You can also set them lower then that too say 3400K too.

Reason device makers used high color temperature was showroom. Two displays side by side, the lower color temperature will look yellow and no one will buy it. All about customer manipulation and marketing. As an engineer this always bothered me. Sell something not configured correctly to get the sale.

The one way lower color temperatures are better is that the eye is not as well corrected in the blue so vision should indeed be sharper with Amber sunglasses for example. There is some science behind that. Same for sleep issues. Lot of the other stuff seems more marketing and questionable.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

I have been noticing that Google Play is overrun with adware, trialware, and freemium kinds of apps. Really hard to find FOSS and truly free apps.

Curious about best strategies to sort though Google Pay. I typically start with F-Droid and AlternativeTo to find apps then try to find them on Play.

Ideas?

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

I've been looking at options for controlling my Ubuntu Media Center computer from Android. Mainly Mouse, but Keyboard is good too. Looked at a lot of stuff but the most interesting ones were:

So in short I found KDE Connect was the most obvious but I really liked how XMouse worked in terms of ease of setup and simplicity. Frankly probably would have used it if it was in Play too.

I was thinking that BlueTooth would be better and more universal. The issue I found was FOSS apps seem to be missing and I could never get the one freemium app I found to actually work. This seems to be an area that needs a good FOSS alternative that actually works. Let me know if you have any idea of other options OR why I loose the data stream somewhere between the bluetooth stack and the Linux input subsystem.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by furrowsofar@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

Always love when self agrandized authorities act like idiots. Feels like the box wine wins wine competition article.

I have a friend that does photo competitions. They say winning is more about knowing the judges than anything else.

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furrowsofar

joined 1 year ago