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Got this from an acquaintance of mine. HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER Three friends married women from different parts of the world. The first man married a Greek girl..... He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away. The second man married a Thai girl..... He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking. The first day he didn't see any results but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table. The third man married a girl from West Virginia He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table every day. The first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything either, but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down, he could see a little out of his left eye and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher. He still has some difficulty when he urinates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3vRHgxviZJk

Oh, I haven't seen that one, but Nick also has one where he does 9 blocks of Les Miserables. Here's that one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9IWAxSpgKA

After much research, testing and observation, here is what I have to share. The NDA that I signed with CCH prevents me from saying much of what I would like to say, so here is the scoop… The firm I work for and myself at my private practice are staying with ATX for 2013. This was decided after dozens of hours of trial, much research, scenario contemplation and consideration of options. I have observed that many of the problems that existed for 2012 should not be issues in 2013. The development team has been working very hard to bring a workable product to the table for 2013.

What a shame that we have lost yet another contributing and knowledgeable professional due primarily to the unprofessionalism of some of our posters. It is difficult to believe that some of the rhetoric written here would ever be verbalized in a physical workplace. The relative anonymity of this listserv has benefits but, sadly, we also are seeing some of the drawbacks. Would that we all behave in a professional, adult manner as the vast majority of us do...

Is there anyplace I can review the rules for independent contractor vs employee for CA? I have a client who is considering hiring a contract worker in CA to do some consulting, represent them at trade shows, and the like. Here in Mass., that person would most likely be considered an employee -- as we have THREE sets of rules from various agencies, all of which are more strict than the federal rules. None of the sets is easy to find. With that in mind, rather than spend hours rummaging through the FTB site, I thought someone here might have a quicker way for me to do that research. TIA, Catherine

Would just like to add that I have three Win 7 machines and they all update at different times. I never considered it a problem.

Ed, this is not intended as a 'political' issue, because frankly, both parties are guilty of playing games with the tax code, unfortunately Basically, I posted it as a reminder for us all, as we run into questions on these various tax items. But I agree, it's hard to explain why they can not at least get together on tax issues, and no matter what they end up doing, why can't they at least do something within a reasonable time frame, and stop messing everyone up with late and/or retroactive changes?

Many years ago while calling on clients in Canada, I became sick and needed medications with very limited treatment, etc. (NOTE: not life threatening per se but being a guy -- felt like it). My one client called around and couldn't get me seen. I also called around and was told basically --- wait a week, maybe we can see you then, etc. On way back to hotel I saw and then called a doctors office seen by the hotel ---- same answer UNTIL --- I mentioned all I needed was med's and my US Dr. wasn't authorized ---- person then stated "You're American?". When confirmed and that I WOULD BE PAYING AMERICAN CASH -- I was seen as soon as I could get to the office --- med's RXed, and "I'M ALIVE" (not a ghost writing this post). Point: Yes, our medical system is broken and we do need reform : opinion: NOT a 2000+ page (insert any political rhetoric) that doesn't address causes but basically just adds regulations with costs to the user WHICH COULD just as well have been done by the government telling --- here's the new rules, requirements, etc. -- don't like them --- get out of the business ---- instead of just making deals that help the insurance companies at the expense, etc. of the people. Original point: Our system is still the best out there, as is our country: we have faults, we need to work on them, given the proper leaders we will fix them. Even though without the government, I'd be on the street, I still support less government intervention and regulations that hurt the people and small business, etc. while keeping "politicians" in power, just to keep their power.

My last post was meant for the OP, but Jack, I do understand your reason and remember all too well that day in 2007 when CCH shut us out. I also hadn't logged in in a long time, but finally felt that I should when some of the problems were cropping up early on last season.

I only use this site too.

You should really sign on and see for yourself. Personally, I like it better here with the smaller and more knowledgeable group that generally doesn't ask the very simple questions. The official forum has many times the users that this forum has, some of whom are skilled while others aren't at all. Some of those people are leaving ATX for other software in the coming year. I've found that the official forum has so many posters that sometimes a post goes unanswered, not because the question is too technical, but because it can get lost in the sheer volume of posts. Also, there are those questions that are asked over and over again because program users don't read the instruction manual and don't use the search feature to find answers to their problems, many posts are in the wrong forums, and posters ask simple questions that are answered in the 1040 instructions, all making for some frustrated reading at times. However, it has its place and had some technical workarounds that might not have been posted here. I do believe that whatever software is being used, users may find it beneficial to have access to that vendor's official forum.

Thanks Judy!!

I'm not opposed to converting back. It all depends on how the software works and what the relative prices are. One never knows what can happen in business, and I still maintain you have to keep your powder dry. Besides, if the new ATX is the whiz bang program some are claiming, and if they can solve their dreadful slowness problem (BIG IF HERE), it might become something I'm interested in for other reasons. With my small number of clients, I didn't find it very difficult to simply enter everything by hand - didn't even bother to run a conversion program. Plus, the majority of my work was done on extension and that will be even more true in the next couple of years. I'm scaling back, so I expect to have even less clients by the 2014 filing season. This upcoming year is my big push to get at least 20% of them off my client list while increasing fees on the ones who are left. By the end of next year I'll see how that all shakes out.

Only if you have use for them...

My suggestion as a web developer is to always use the latest version of whatever browser you have installed. It's especially important with Internet Explorer, as it lags pretty far behind every other browser in terms of standards support. In my opinion, Internet Explorer stopped being total garbage with version 9, and has improved greatly with every version since.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779795%28v=ws.10%29.aspx JohnH please check this link. It will answer your update questions.

jshtax, I've sent you a PM concerning the conversion of files to Drake. Also, here is something else that may help you and others too. It is not necessary to open each return and perform keystrokes to find out the file names. The complete list of all the backup files that includes the client's name can be found in this directory: C:ProgramDataCCH Small Firm ServicesATX2012BackupFormset. Note that the above is a different path than the following one that only contains the lettered/numbered file name: C:ProgramDataCCH Small Firm ServicesATX2012FormsetsFormset. Other than including the clients' names, the remaining letters and numbers of the file name are the same in both sets of files.

I stopped beating my dead horses two years ago and upgraded to 7. All I can say is wow, what a difference. I loved my XP machines, but they were getting slower and more vulnerable to viruses that I finally took the plunge. No regrets whatsoever and not even a big learning curve for 7. Deb!

I would think too, that it would depend on your specs as well. Very seldom, even if bought at the same time, will you find two computer's built exactly the same way with all the same parts. I would think that the up-date could be different based on the guts of your computer.

It could be updates to other programs or hardware that is/are not present on each machine. I sometimes get updates to a monitor driver, or updates to a pointing device, network card, etc.

I'm definitely not an expert, but since you are asking a question because it puzzles you and aren't looking for specific advice on replacement hardware, I'd say that the first step would be to check each computer's Windows Update setting. It may be that the one computer is scheduled to check for updates at a different time or on a different day of the week than the other two are scheduled to perform that task.