Medlin Software, Dennis

Can parents show the provided more support for the TY than the jail? (I suspect you can find a document showing how much the jail "accounts" as their daily "room & board" cost.)

New one on me, and I have a CDIB card... There are likely things to consider if living on/near and working on a reservation. Pub 8845. Never living on/near a reservation, I have no actual experience with this.

No option for employers. Refer to the link in my earlier message (Notice 1036). No different that deciding to use 2004 withholding calculations because your employees "like" a big refund check. Don't worry about what the employees want, that is for the employee and their tax person to figure out. As an employer, you have only one choice, withhold based on the current methods from IRS (your state, etc.). Added: Employees, should they do nothing (like submit a new W-4), will be getting the Jan, Feb, and part or all of March's value of the credit as part of their tax return.

The "advance" release of the calcs/tables: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/n1036.pdf After a quick check on the changes, it appears the calculation change is "12 month" based: M-2, 5k per month old - 495 FWH new - 429 FWH diff - 66 66*12 = 792 (close to the 800 number) Implement 3/1/9, couple pays 666 less FWH Implement 4/1/9, couple pays 594 less FWH I point this out for those that counsel customers to the minimum legal withholding. It will take full year figuring and W-4 adjustments to receive the full benefit through paychecks. I suspect the IRS used 12 month calculations to avoid having to come up with a new set of bracket dollar levels for 2010 (other than index adjustments) instead of the most accurate method for 2009. This is "safer" as it does not appear to cause under withholding since there is a 2 to 3 month "buffer", depending on when the employer implements the new calculations. Dennis

Santa Cruz, where one can still grab the brass ring.

Napa... 1849 - Napa County is formed as one of California's original counties. 1897 - Last public hanging in California is at Napa Courthouse. Billie Roe is hanged for the 1891 murder in Napa of Lucina Greenwood. 1915 - The loudspeaker (Magnavox) was invented in Napa by Edwin Pridham and Peter Jensen. Calistoga Speedway (Napa County Fairgrounds)

Think as if all media will fail (it will) and all computers will fail or "walk" away. Multiple backups stored in multiple locations are a must for "real" backups. Make a recovery plan and test it! Can you recover from a media failure? From a power outage? From a computer failure? From a computer theft? If you can't get to your computer's location for several days? If your phone is out of order for a day? If your internet connection is down?

I saw one article using the figure of ~850 being the average CA refund for individuals. Instead of loaning CA the money through over withholding, what about lowering your withholding by your last year's refund? I just don't get using a tax payment as a no interest savings account. I'd rather have just enough withheld to avoid penalty, and pay a little on filing if I have to. I guess my point is anyone complaining about needing their refund should have looked at their withholding, especially since the CA budget "crisis" is not "news". They may enjoy more regular income over getting their earnings months later. The real pain is for those depending on a state funded check, like foster parents!

I would certainly make a backup ASAP. I too saw something about the LE of a drive being about 3 years. I typically now have two, the old one to keep copies, and the new/current one. For the old one, I turn it off through the device manager, or even physically unplug it - until needed. Drives are relatively cheap, maybe you could consider getting s spare/replacement now, and using it in your new computer as well.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

W-3/W-3 printing information is in IRS Pub 1141. The short version: Laser printer if using approved software, can print on plain paper. All other situations, use pre-printed forms. Since you sound as if you have a jet printer, you have to use pre-printed forms.

No one makes money "racing". In racing industry money can rarely be made - selling advertising :D

All good stuff Joel. DLL's can be in the application's folder - which is still searched by Windows (different order for some versions of Windows, used to be app folder first in all cases). We use a few self made DLL's and install them only in the app folder so we can update them as needed. Not "Windows" preferred, but the easiest way to service our customers. You do need to be careful of DLL naming to reduce the chance of someone else using the same name. We do allow data in different folders than the app, but for support purposes, it makes it difficult to help when someone cannot find their data. We built a search function for just such cases which has reduced/shortened the number of help calls. Windows has made it so easy for people not to understand computer workings, we spend as much time teaching/preventing as programming. I use an online service for external backup. It is easy to setup an exclusion for exe/dll files then tick off the folders I want to backup. Same for my on site backups. I just don't feel safe with all data in one location. For instance, file naming has no standard and I do not want a file from one app to cause a problem with another. (Goes along with the issue of Windows system restore grabbing/restoring too many files because of the way it grabs files by file extension.) Even worse is when someone restoring simply restores everything instead of just what was lost (restore the entire my documents folder instead of just one set or app data). (rant alert) The top problem I just can't overcome is those that "think" they have a good backup system in place - typically someone whose IT person set it up - who never test restore, then call because the backup they thought they had was garbage. The next problem - maybe tied for #1 and usually part of #1 - is support "experts" who take the chicken way out and tell their client they have to reformat their drive. It happens so often one has to make two observations - these "experts" have no idea what they are doing and getting the computer to boot makes them feel like a hero, or they do know what they are doing and how much they will earn by causing their customer to have to find/recreate/restore the data and programs the format caused. Remember - if you have not actually tried restoring your data and seeing if it restores correctly - "you have no backup".

When you get ready to start having others install your program, things like this come up often. Vista has even more issues (permissions) for developers to deal with. Long ago I started doing things my way. Never use the registry for anything (other than things I have to stick in there to keep Windows from messing my program up, like to not include my things in the system restore). Use my own folder off the root for programs and data (customers can override the default, but it is MUCH easier if we do not have to search their drive for missing data). Program and data in one folder, or at worst, data in a sub-folder of the program's folder (makes backup and data locating much easier). Make automatic and difficult to find (read as harder to delete) data backups for the customer, but let them access it through a menu when needed. I could go on forever at how simple is always best, no matter what some push as the "standard".

Mel, The 512 limit applies only to FAT16. Fat32 and NFTS do not have a limit on the root other than the limits applied to any folder (which is >65k depending on length of names). "FAT32 is more flexible. The root folder on a FAT32 drive is an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere on the drive. The previous limitations on the number of root folder entries no longer exist." "The NTFS limits are described in the NTFS Technical Reference at http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServe...3.mspx?mfr=true. You'll need to scroll down to the table named "NTFS Size Limits." The limit is 4,294,967,295 (232 minus 1 file) files per volume. There isn't a limit on the number of files *per folder* on a volume. However, if you consider the root of the volume to be a folder, then this limit will apply to the root folder itself. " There are GOOD reasons for putting things in non "standard" places (standard according to MS). For instance, if you use the automatic shadowing or a system restore in Windows, you may cause more problems than you were trying to solve. Relying on Windows to know which files should or should not be backed up is foolish imo. The worst case - and one I have to deal with from customers - is when someone does a system restore and their data gets corrupted because only some of the files were saved/restored by Windows.

I am not finding anything in the IL site allowing exclusion of this for IL purposes. Such amounts are clearly added to federal wages for tax purposes (usually just on the W-2 for employer paid amounts). IL clearly says to "...withhold Illinois Income Tax if you are required to withhold (or have a voluntary agreement to withhold) federal income tax from payments..." Without further direction I would say: Employee deduction - reportable and taxable Employer contribution - reportable on W-2, subject to IL tax. Not clear if you must keep up with the employer contribution on a per check basis and withhold - for federal you can add it on the W-2 and leave it up to the employee to adjust their withholding or make up any difference.

Deadline is end of March. Accuwage is available (free) to test your efw2 file "before" you submit it.

Thanks for the kind words. Any questions re Medlin, feel free to e-mail me directly. [email protected]

Date on check is constructive receipt for payroll purposes (for example). First date recipient could have had access to the funds. On the other hand, I know of a company that holds checks for a month or more to delay reporting income at the end of their accounting year. Was audited and there were no problems - and it "was" noticed there was zero income in late November and early December and a huge spike in January. From the recipient's end, how the heck was the auditor going to get hold of the checks from the sender? All they could use were the deposit records... My personal choice is if getting a 1099, you pretty much use what is on the 1099 or fight to have the 1099 changed or to explain the 1099 is incorrect. Consider cost of battling a 1099 to any savings by defering income. If not getting a 1099, the choice is yours, 2007 or 2008, whichever suits the needs of the recipient.

And while you are thinking about it, take a few minutes to restore the files to a temporary filder and see if you can open them. It will give you a little peace of mind, or at least a chance to change your backup procedures before restore is needed.

I don't use that software... What about using the software on another drive so you can peek at what is contained in the "missing" configuration? (Make a small backup using the same settings you had on the old computer.) It may be there is information saved for every file and/or folder, but maybe you get lucky and only some generic stuff is saved like whether or not the compression is on or not. What I am getting at is maybe you can recreate the missing file close enough to get it to work with your existing data - and that if your lost data is important enough, it may be worth it to try.

Being the type that has to know, I found the following discussion: Iomega User Community There is a poster that has come up with a way to restore without the configuration file. (added: of compression was in default, which is on, but ratio set to none) === "Hi guys, I had a similar problem. I backed up all my files using the data backup mode in iomega automatic backup pro. It was on default settings which is compression on but compression ratio set to none. Went I went to restore the files the iomega program couldn't find the configuration files. I have a written a program which is still a bit rough but will basically copy all your backed up files to a new location strip off the "0." off the start and the ".IAB" off the end. It also strip the first 17 bytes off the start which seems to have done the trick and restored all my files. If any of you guys have the same problem drop me an email at my username at hotmail.com with Iomega in the subject line and I'll send you a copy or the source code if you want. I haven't written any error handling or stuff yet but if your desperate I'll send you the work in progress." === There may be other solutions available if you search longer.

For those already taking cards, do some research into how many non-qual transactions you have (higher rate). There are soem specific requirements you can look at to get the best rate. For instance, a 0 in the sales tax field can cause the transaction to be non-qual even if all other requirements are met. A teaser rate from a processor may just be for certain very specific transactions. Costco/Nova is who we are using at present, and is pretty straight forward as to what it takes to get their best rate.

Check with Costco (uses NOVA) if available to you. Very competitive rates, good customer service.

Belt & 'spenders - I confess. Wore them before but for special use (race car pit crew, lots of stuff to carry on a belt / in pockets - scrambling around car is not the time to have pants fall). There are those who have lost data - and those who will soon. Not so much my own trouble (I learned pretty fast the first time I had a problem), but I get far too many (one is too many) support calls from people who have no backup, one backup which has nothing of value or was from the 1900's, and some that wonder why our software does not "send" data back to us to keep for them! I read something not too long ago about hard drives more than 3 years in use can have a very high risk of failure. As computer improvements sort of slow down compared to what we need (less rush to get the latest/fastest) more people may be using older computers. I don't necessairly do all the things I mentioned on a daily basis. I have done all of them at some point. For me, backing up source code and being able to recover it is my financial survival (the kids seem to like eating on a regular basis). Second would be internet access (web site, tech support, credit card processing, etc.). Voice phone is third. It is all about risk level. Until you test a recovery situation, it is hard to be accurate with your personal risk level (meaning how much time/effort are you willing to put into recovery assuming you can even recover). Work wise, our software has easy to use backup methods which keeps the last 20 backups automatically - because end users mostly think one backup is enough. We also make an automatic backup at program close (keep the last 20 sets of these as well) in case there is a power outage. When asked by a customer, I describe backing up as backup as often as you are willing to spend retyping. In other words, never backup if you don't mind starting from scratch. Backup monthly if you don't mind reentering a month's worth of data. Backing up (at least our software's data files) takes SECONDS. Backing up every 20 minutes is not a time waster, and gives you a chance to refocus your eyes for distance and stretch a little. Personally, I don't backup more than once a day. I code pretty slow (meaning way more time thinking and planning than typing), and yes, a couple of times in 25 years I have had to Groundhog Day due to computer/power issues, not enough to worry about backing up more often. The one part of this topic I am leaving untouched is privacy/security. I'll leave it up to others to decide how backing up may put client data at risk and the means to attempt adequate security.