TurboTax Web vs TurboTax Desktop

I just finished filing my 2006 taxes, an activity made significantly more difficult by TurboTax. The desktop edition of TurboTax was unable to update itself, on my PC running Windows XP, despite hours and hours of trying. The one-click update didn't work; it didn't give me any feedback at all about whether it succeeded. The manual update looked like it worked, but the application kept telling me that I needed to get updated forms, which were not yet available from TurboTax. In September of 2007, the software promised that the forms would be ready by January 12, 2007. Er, what? In October of 2007, I got email from TurboTax saying that those forms were now ready -- bizarre since everyone else needed these forms in April 2007. (I'm not talking about obscure forms here; just Schedule C.) So I try again to update my desktop TurboTax, and once again it fails. I go through some insane machinations from the support site ("open the command prompt and run this command: ping -mysterious -incantation) to discover that my fragment size was insufficent. More TurboTax forums, and I learn that I have to set the MTU size on my router. Joy, joy -- my cable gateway (blazingly fast, blazingly expensive) doesn't allow the user to set the MTU. I don't blame Cisco, here -- I blame TurboTax, for not being able to cope with a net connection that handles everything else I throw at it. BitTorrent? Fine! Downloading 50mb installers? Fine! Sustained ssh connections for days? Fine! Downloading tax forms: nope. Ridiculous.
At this point I mailed Intuit for support. They got back to me a few days later, and told me to do the things I had already done, which I had explained in my support request that I'd already done them. They told me to call them for support during business hours. I have a job, people. TurboTax was supposed to be convenient and there was supposed to be readily available technical support.
But I needed to get my taxes done, and I could see that getting on the phone with them wasn't going to be helpful. I realized that I could avoid this subtle network incompatibility if I used the web-based TurboTax. Alas, web-based TurboTax can't import an incomplete return from desktop TurboTax, so I had to re-enter all my information. The tab key didn't work as nicely to move between fields as it did on the desktop application, but it was usable. After spending an hour or two filling out forms, my taxes were submitted and accepted.
The lesson for TurboTax is... if connecting with your big fragment sizes fails with a desktop application, try making the connection over http or https. Yes, even desktop applications can connect over http.
And: Intuit, make live tech support available by phone 24/7 before October 15, not just before April 15.

GORE OBAMA CLINTON CLINTON

Al Gore for President.
Barack Obama for Vice President.
Bill Clinton for Ambassador to the United Nations.
Hillary Clinton for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Wes Clark for Secretary of State.
Dennis Kucinich for Secretary of Labor.
Ron Paul for Secretary of Homeland Security.
John McCain for Secretary of Defense.
Max Cleland for Secretary of Veterans' Affairs.
Jerry Brown for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Michael Pollan for Secretary of Agriculture.

another reason to love OS X

At home, I put my macbook pro on the left of my widescreen monitor. At work, I put my macbook pro on the right of my 19" monitor. My mac automatically recognizes not only that I have hot-swapped a DVI monitor, but also which monitor I have plugged in, and where I last positioned that monitor. For total icing on the cake, I can configure the relative virtual vertical position of the two monitors, so that I can move the cursor straight across from the top of my laptop screen to the middle of the external display.
I love you, OS X. You complete me.

doctors with cel phone

Metropolitan Medical Group is the practice I've been looking for. Check this out: I emailed my doctor a question about a prescription yesterday. Nothing urgent. He emailed me back, at midnight on sunday, saying he would call the pharmacy in the morning. The next morning he called me to tell me he had called the pharmacy, and told me to call him back on his cel phone if there were any problems. There was, in fact, a problem -- the pharmacy wanted to fill the wrong dosage -- so I called the doctor back on his cel phone. He answered, he knew exactly the medication and dosage we were talking about, and said he'd call the pharmacy and straighten it out right away.
And then, while I'm composing this entry, the receptionist called me to let me know that the doctor had talked to the pharmacist himself and made sure that the dosage would be correct. This is unheard-of service.
Boutique medicine? Hardly! I pay a yearly fee of $79, and they take my insurance, so it's $20 per visit. They usually have same-day appointments, with a PA if a doctor isn't available, and their office is three blocks from my house. Amazing.

quick slow-food oatmeal

I have discovered the perfect quick slow-food breakfast. I take a half cup of steel-cut organic oats, add a half cup of water, soak overnight, then microwave it in the morning for two minutes. I add some maple syrup and cream, and it's dreamy. It has way more heft than instant oatmeal, it's super-fast, and it's incredibly inexpensive.