Eric

Got the site all connected up to an anti-spam service provided by the forum software vendor, and it seems to be working.  Three attempted registrations auto-banned from the site in the first few hours after the site came back online.   NO SPAM FOR YOU. ONE YEAR.

I'm going to hide any responses given here, so answers aren't easily noted by spammers.

Also, if there are any suggestions for new tax related security questions that are asked during registration, send them to me in a private message.   A good security question is: One that a tax preparer would find obvious Preferably something that is specific to tax preparation, and not general knowledge in Russia which is where a lot of these spam accounts come from. One that can only be answered only one way, or only a few ways.  It would be obnoxious to be asked a question, only to be told that your answer is wrong because you worded it slightly differently.  Answers given must match my pre-defined answers EXACTLY for them to work.  Answers that are common abbreviations, or numbers work well

To start off, I'd like to thank you guys for your patience over the past couple days. The extended downtime was 100% my fault. I always create a database backup for the whole site before performing an upgrade. I always do a manual software upgrade too, and this time I figured I'd give the automatic one-click upgrade feature a try. You know that feeling you get just as you realize that something bad has happened and it's about to cost you a lot of time, and it all could have easily been avoided? Yeah, about 1/3 the way through the software upgrade, some nasty database errors show up, and after pounding my fists on my desk like a child, I got to work. In case you missed the updates while the site was down, here they are: And now here we are. So welcome back everyone, I have learned my lesson about skipping database backups. PS - To anyone who registered over the past couple days, I apologize, your account has been deleted along with the 80+ spam accounts that were registered during the same time frame. We don't normally get more than 1 or 2 daily registrations, so rather than inspecting every single new account's IP address, I just deleted them all. You'll need to register again.

Sorry, not an ATX user, but nobody has responded yet.  Why are you exporting returns to localhost over HTTP? Can't you simply choose a regular file path?  

Anyone else think an ACA forum may be necessary, much like the software issues forum we had before?  Maybe wait and see if the ACA questions start piling up?

Our path through space is corkscrew-like, but relative to the sun our path is still a simple orbit. And not only is our solar system circling the the Milky Way, the whole galaxy is flying through space. I've never seen a visual representation of our path with the solar system's movement factored in--neat!

Only half? That's amazing.   1 in 4 Americans don't understand that the Earth orbits the Sun.   The average American reads at something like the 7th grade level.   I don't think there's a statistic about what American's don't know that could possibly surprise me.  Especially something like this.  Our healthcare and tax systems are harder to grasp than differential calculus.

They're right.   Technically, Windows 10 is the same major version as Vista, part of the 6.x series.  So yeah, you could call it Windows 8.2.  Or Windows Vista 4.  Or Windows 6.4.   Microsoft hasn't used actual version numbers for the names of their operating system releases since Windows 3.11.  The name of Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 have been marketing driven--the numbers don't mean anything.

I've done a little maintenance.  Not sure if it's improved anything or not since I couldn't reproduce the issues in the first place.     So if anyone is still experiencing weird behavior, please let me know!

I didn't think that refreshing would fix the issue--actually, I was wondering if visiting the page a few times would produce random results with every page load.  Just trying to narrow down where the problem is.

I keep refreshing the page to see what shows up on the topic list, and then looking at the topics, and it's always accurate.   Not being able to reproduce a thing is really frustrating.    For those of you who see mismatched information in the topic list... does it ever change if you just refresh the page?

Rita, that is beyond weird.   Everyone should see the same list of topics, with the exception of hidden topics that only moderators can see.  I can't even begin to explain why some people wouldn't see random threads.   I've got a couple minor forum software updates to do, and I'll try to tackle them tonight.  There could be some short downtime during the update, but probably no longer than 15 minutes... I'm not really very optimistic that it'll change anything, but we'll see.

Margaret, are you still having any issues?   Also, just another tip more related to the email you sent, if there is a specific topic you want to follow closely, click the "Follow this topic" button at the top of the thread.  It'll send you notifications when there are replies.

About the downtime, that was scheduled server maintenance, but it was brief.  There could have been a couple of weird hiccups on either side as services came back online.   As far as marking a forum read... I'm sorry, that's weird.  It works for me.  I'll keep trying to reproduce the issues.  What browser and version are you using?   Also, if you do mark a forum as read, and then you come back and items are bolded again (but there aren't new replies) maybe try refreshing the page.  Also try Shift + F5  or Ctrl + F5 to do a hard refresh, which should rule out any browser cache issues.

I don't think you can guarantee no problems with any system configuration given the state of the software over the past couple tax seasons.   Jack feels pretty strongly about Windows 8, but I believe it's entirely due to the new user interface elements, and not the performance of the system or software issues.  The full screen start menu, the "charms" bar that appears when you move your cursor to the right, etc. That's the stuff that people are complaining about.   As far as how the software will run, I don't think you would see any difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

It's a cut-throat market.  A lot of people starting out figure they can just do a little searching to find a company offering service for a the lowest price possible, and fail to take into account things like long term contracts, cancellation fees, misc. service charges, other hidden fees, and actual quality of service.   I think you usually can avoid a lot of issues by just going to a local credit union and seeing what they offer.

The only benefit to using an iPad / iPhone (as far as I know) is that there are few variations of the hardware, so there are more accessories available to fit that hardware (like that weighted stand)

I've only heard good things about it.  My parents paid an early termination fee for their POS system and switched everything to Square.  Got rid of their cash register and terminal in their store and replaced it with an iPad with weighted stand (that incorporates the swipe doodad) with a bluetooth cash drawer and receipt printer.   My dad, who is... uhh... not very good with technology, was able to figure it all out very quickly. 

Something got sideways in cyberspace is a pretty good way to put it.   Unfortunately, I was powerless to do anything but wait, so the what and when were limited to "pacing back and forth pulling my hair out" and "all day yesterday"   I feel bad for the poor support techs at the data center.  They had to answer to thousands of angry website developers, who were getting pressure from their clients.  I imagine that's what tax season at CCH has been like for the past couple years.

Howdy, It's been a rough 24 hours.   I have very few details at this point about what is going on -- the data center where my server lives had/is having some very serious issues, possibly related to some bad OS/software updates.   My entire server was inaccessible for about 12 hours yesterday, then it seemed to be working fine for about 6 hours, then went down again for a short time yesterday evening.     The data center assures me that they are doing everything they can to restore normal service, but they are working server by server and they maintain hundreds, if not thousands of them.   So, my apologies for the downtime from yesterday, and for whatever additional hiccups we have ahead.  Once they have finished their work, I expect them to share the details of the outage, which I'll post here.   What a nightmare.  I may start shopping for a new hosting provider.  Again.   PS - Of all of the sites hosted on this server, this is the one with the most frequently updated database.  If you notice any missing posts, threads, etc, please let me know.  

Political views regarding gun ownership aside, I'm curious to know why anyone would take part in such a thing.   I mean, guns aren't cheap.  Even my little .17HMR rimfire rifle cost more than $500.  My handgun cost twice that, and hunting rifles can easily go for three times that much.  I'd need to have quite the tax return to make it worth trading one of them for tax preparation services.  I have two guns that I didn't pay anything for, one belonged to my maternal grandfather, and the other to my paternal grandfather--I wouldn't trade them for anything.     Are there people out there with unused guns just hanging around the house?

It's crazy how many times this has happened recently.   Maybe it's time for me to start using Google Wallet or Apple Pay or whatever.  I've had to replace my debit card 3 times in the past 5 or 6 years as a result of these kinds of things.   At least with Google Wallet (not sure about Apple Pay, which is new), your full credit card number is never transmitted to the retailer.  Google having my credit card info is no doubt more secure than every retailer getting it.

  It meets all of the requirements, except for "quad core" because it uses a low TDP cpu, so they're dual core only.  That's pretty standard for laptops, though, and shouldn't be an issue.    Before buying one for business use, I'd definitely go try it out first, especially if you're a decent touch typist.  As someone who types better than 85wpm, I personally found it frustrating.

    Could it be that different people might value different things in a laptop? Perhaps someone else would feel that a laptop without a number pad is a toy.  Or a laptop without two internal hard drive bays.  Or a laptop with a screen smaller than 17". Or a laptop that can't last 10+ hours on a charge.  Or a laptop without a dedicated video card.     I looked for quite a while for a good convertible laptop/tablet hybrid with an active digitizer, but never did find one that really fit all of my needs (that I can afford).  For me, a Surface Pro or a Thinkpad Yoga would be excellent for note taking, drawing quick flow charts, sketching website layouts, etc.  In my opinion, the CD is the new floppy, and I'm thankful that my laptops don't have the bulk and weight of an optical drive that I personally have no use for. The Wacom digitizer and pen would be a thousand times more useful to me.   If someone is looking for those pen features, but a comfortable tablet form factor is less important, I'd suggest looking into the Thinkpad Yoga.  It's a bit bulky/heavy for use as a tablet, but it'd work well on a table top like that.    EDIT: I think you can only get the Thinkpad Yoga with the digitizer/pen directly from Lenovo's website, not from retail/online stores.  Last time I looked, the model that you could get from Amazon was without the pen.   There's also the Fujitsu T904, which had everything I wanted, but it's out of my price range.  Extremely nice though.   EDIT 2: If you don't care about the pen, and just want a hybrid... well, idunno what to tell you.  It seems like you have to choose between a decent tablet that turns into a crappy laptop, or a decent laptop that turns into a crappy tablet.  I don't know that you can have the best of both worlds.