Mel in Hawaii

And here I had the air conditioner running yesterday... I remember back in the old days, coming down stairs and opening the garage door to find that you couldn't put a finger out the door because of the snow drift. And I am not talking about some wimpy 6 or 8 foot garage door as I grew up in a gas station. Shoveling/plowing snow before we went to school is NOT one of my fondest memories of Maine.

Basically the search algorithm ignores words less than 4 characters, such as a is no on at etc since they usually don't mean much and it cuts down on the amount of information the program has to index which means faster searches. You will just have to rely on what comes out when you search on 'head of household' instead.

I would unplug your fax machine from the phone line, it may be hanging onto the line and not letting it drop. The fax on the OTHER end wouldn't matter, you can leave your phone off the hook and it won't affect the other guy. The 'static' it hears from the DSL line may actually be what is causing the fax to stay on the line. Do you have a filter on the the phone line after the dsl modem and before it plugs into your phone system?

Nope, NOT a part owner... I left ATX 9 years ago Booger, but I WAS there when it was a card table in the living room at the very beginning. Want an explaination of why I am in Hawaii... I married a girl from Hawaii and she couldn't handle the cold weather of Maine, so I left ATX and came here trying not to have my family split up. But now I am here because my kids were born here. I certainly don't have $$$$$ to throw around, that's for sure. After going through having your disabled wife attempt suicide multiple times, a divorce and trying to be a parent by yourself doesn't leave much room to be rich. As far as a beta test, I have a program running... BUT it's severely lacking. It puts a form on the screen, calculates, saves/loads and prints... BUT there is a long way to go. I need to build a depreciation module, forms dependancy, efiling module, tons of forms, come back to you guys for suggested 'must have' features. When I am ready, I will have a board just like this one except closed for people to download and try from, but it takes a while when you are doing most everything yourself. Trying to decide on what is the minimum features that it must have that first year is hard as I would love to have it all, but it's just not going to be feasable. Things like W2/1099 stuff just won't make it that first year for sure. I also don't want people testing too early as I will spend all my time chasing bug reports that will likely be straightened out long before I get it ready for real.

There are 2 development groups. Forms designers (FL) and program designers (ME). SW moved to Florida YEARS before I left (but HE was never in Maine at all except on a business trip or visiting GW, one in the same really), that didn't mean that Caribou was all sales and tech after the FORMS designers left. The problem I was discussing at the time was a programming issue, not a forms design issue, that group is still in Maine... If you don't believe me, go revisit some of CCH's own comments about them keeping the developers on in MAINE. Same building, different group.

I love how someone told me to take off the chicken suit and that William still has the same pull as he used to, only to hear this. I was making a comment about him not being in the same building as the developers anymore and you all know that someone standing over you always gets more grease than someone calling you on the phone, not saying he had been demoted or anything. I actually wasn't trying to say the sky was falling in that specific post, just trying to defend William. I know, some of you are tired of me posting here... I will try to keep my comments to myself from now on unless it is something I can specifically help with. It's hard though as I really have a strong feeling about this company as it's more like a family to me than anything else, otherwise don't you think I would have given up on it after not working there for 9 years? Nope, I can't help with this either, but if they do let William go and still keep the ATX program, I personally think they have made one HUGE mistake. Of course, I could see where he might not have wanted to relocate, so maybe it was his own decision maybe?

KC is a moderator, she can change just about anything she wants.

Why couldn't you just mail a second copy with a signature on it rather than waiting? I do like the efile route though. Personally, I don't see how you are liable if the customer doesn't sign their return. They are supposed to review it are they not? (Sorry, not a CPA, just what I would have done.)

I wouldn't blame William, he probably has nowhere near the pull with the developers as he did before when he could walk down the hall and stand over them until he got the answer that was in the customer's interest. I would trust William's word before I would trust anyone else, he was just that kind of guy BUT he does have to rely on other people's words too.

AHHH... dot matrix... I can remember talking to someone who wanted to strip all the formatting out of the return because they were using an overlay, is it possible that might have been you? It could be done and we had an undocumented macro that did it back then, but the dot matrix printed forms were actually acceptable as long as it was a 24pin printer. Some of the 8 pin printers would work, but it didn't look 'pretty'. Then again, dot matrix users used to have to 'adjust row heights' to 'shrink' the forms to print on one page too. Yup, you had to buy Excel or Lotus and we pushed the Excel as it was the one that had the least issues... I can remember having a discussion with one person who thought we were pushing that version because we were making a bigger 'markup' on selling MS Excel itself, but the truth was that we sold it at cost so you could use the tax forms. Things greatly improved when Excel and Lotus were removed from the equation, although several preparers were adamant that it wasn't. The monkey suit ads were actually GW. He starred in ALL of the ads at the beginning that actually had someone in it unless SW was also in the ad. I tried hard to stay out of the ads, but eventually Greg Jackson, the guy responsible for creating the later ads, actually cornered me and got a picture of me in one of the catelogs that had just about everyone working there at the time. Jamie was a very popular person in the catelogs, she was in quite a few.

I really used to like those Radius Pivot monitors we used in the trade shows. They were heavy as all get out, but when you wanted to switch to full form view and still be able to read it, they were really nice. Then we learned you could use the radius driver with a regular 17" monitor and just turn the monitor on it's side and get the same effect. Here you go again, making me think about the old days... Those were good times back then.

Um... ATX never had overlays that I know of and I was there when the first ads were published offering it for commercial sale... You sure you were using ATX to do that or were you using ATX AND another program that required overlays? Anyone remember the monkey suit ads?

As always, KC hits the nail right on the head. There is always so much of a support rush right at the beginning, usually just things like 'where's my code' but still. Having two call centers for a couple months would have been a very good thing.

Not a garage door, but I have a remote for my TV in the living room that when I hit the right combination of buttons will cause my car to lock the doors and honk the horn to let me know. It got me so paranoid for the longest time, but eventually I figured out that I shouldn't try skipping past the 'You are a criminal, we know you are, so stop copying our movies' message on the DVDs.

Maybe they don't realize that part of the installation code is actually random and then that computes into the check digits along with the rest..

Just another 'loan in disguise' if you ask me... Any time the government pays out something, it's taking out a loan that we as taxpayers will have to repay. If I wanted to borrow some money, let me do it.

With at least one of you being a lawyer (I am not btw, and he might not have moved over to this board), I find it wierd that no one has pointed out the problem with changing the rules AFTER someone buys the product. You talk about being locked in, beyond the refund period, but if a car dealer sells me a car that has a stereo and then after I pay my money, he goes out and removes the stereo from the car, isn't there something wrong with that? Personally I would have the guy arrested for theft and then sue them for my money back on the car. I see the same issue if you are sold a program with 'No Hidden Fees' that doesn't list a $10 charge for bank products... Can't you go back and get those charges nullified? Someone must have the advertisement that lists the 'No Hidden Fees' somewhere. If they won't, wouldn't it be time to start talking about a class action lawsuit? Granted, maybe somewhere it was mentioned, but let them show you where and then go show the judge what ATX presented you and what you were ultimately given, I bet he will side with you. Another person mentions that ZillionForms won't efile... I don't remember it ever being efile capable for free, you had to pay back then. Am I to understand that you can't efile at all with Zillionforms? I don't know, but if that's correct, wouldn't that be the same issue? (I haven't worked at ATX in 8 years, so don't know the true capabilities.) Not to stir up trouble, but I keep seeing all the complaints, there has to be someone with the guts to stand up to them and get good answers for everyone. Just because a company buys out another doesn't mean they can change the rules. They bought all the assets and liabilities from the existing company, and if it says no hidden fees, then that's a liability that they bought. The company I am working at now bought a company that had an unknown liability for a chemical spill, that doesn't mean that they aren't required to clean it up (which they are doing btw), and I bet they would have been hit hard if they had tried to walk away from it. Granted, customers who purchased after the change wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but the others would. Right? Or am I wrong? This is only my oppinion, I am not a lawyer and am not attempting to give legal advice.

Cristy222, You don't know how many memories that brought back to the early days of ATX and the things customers would send back in the postage paid reply envelopes we would send out. One person taped a reply card to a cinder block (I was the one who picked it up at the post office no less), another shredded the 3.5" disks and mailed them back to us and one person sent back some 'unmentionable' items. The 3.5" disks were from the time period before we started shrink wrapping and before CD's and the guy said he didn't want pirated software, as if the company that produced the software would 'pirate' their own software. I can still remember the look on the girl's face that opened the package with the 'unmentionable' items in it. In today's environment they would be called biohazardous materials, back then it was just plain gross. All of this didn't cost them a dime, but that cinder block cost ATX plenty, which in turn requires the company to up costs to everyone over time. Sorry for putting my nose in, but it did bring back some memories.

And I bet the copier STILL spat out a paper that said 'Hes lying'. (I know, I was just being funny.)

Miskeyed phone number perhaps?

How do you divide 365 by 2 and end up with an even number?

That would mean that there would be no ability to take your laptop on the road to your clients house right? Wouldn't that cut out a lot of customers and then add in a ton of other support issues all related to specific ISP's. Plus you wouldn't want to be in TX, as they are contemplating charging by the amount downloaded...

How about you charge them in 1950 dollars instead and then adjust for inflation to show them what it's really worth. (just joking)

Hmm... I too know of someone who has theirs, she was asking me what to do with it just yesterday.

Ok guys, I don't need any more encouragement... I will get a team together and get a program underway. ATX guys, I would like to know the period of time of any non-compete in the severance, I don't want any legal nightmares so I will do the programming with a team that hasn't worked for ATX or in a long long time (aka me). Once any non-compete has expired, then we can get you back into the loop if you wish. I spent the night jotting down tons of ideas to add to my notebook of things that I would like the program to eventually have, how it should work, etc. I want to keep size down so I will be dumping the spreadsheet based mode (also to aleviate any legal nightmares). I think this will actually allow some nice features into the program such as being able to go either forms based or input based based on a user preference, customizable input and some real nice potential features for forms updates in letting you know better how the updates will affect prior returns. I know, keep the program simple at first to get it out in a timely manner, but I want to build in the ability as I am designing things especially if it won't really affect much. File formats and early decisions have a way of locking you in, it's best to put some real good thought to them. Oh, my fortune cookie today "People are waiting for a cue from you"... I wonder what's that all about.