I've had two interesting things happen to friends computers over the past few months.

First I got an email from my friends at Tin Roof (by the way, if you want to support a great charity... this is it) telling me that she needed to file an extension on her taxes before she leaves for Nicaragua on Tuesday. However when she started Turbo Tax she was getting an error.

Further investigation by me (via a VNC connection I set up with her a while ago) realized that this was a .NET error.

Turbo Tax spit out the following error: 20888 39915.  A Quick search of their site gave this article.  Basically blaming .NET and their solution has a link to a program that totally wipes out .NET from your system so you can start over.  I downloaded the program, ran it and then reinstalled .NET and her problem was fixed (well after I ran a reboot.bat file that was in the Turbo Tax installation folder, but that's another issue all together).

Then I have another buddy who had been using a program I wrote for my church to transfer files between members of the multimedia team.  Several months ago a basic Windows component of it stopped working right.  I was at a total loss for a solution (as a simple uninstall and reinstall of .NET didn't help).  I let it drop... but I emailed him today with this fix and my hunch is, that this will get him up and running again.

What frustrates me the most about this, is that Microsoft's .NET uninstall doesn't fully uninstall itself.  Many years ago I did some work for Lexmark's All in One printers and one of the BIG things they did was make sure that their uninstall completely wipes out any record of the machine being on your system.  And really there is no excuse for any other behavior.

It has been an interesting week for me.

Started off with an old coworker IM'ing me and asking if I'd be a reference for a job he was interviewing on.  I certainly said yes, and last word I got is that he got the job.  The email I sent in reply to the email looking for feedback was a glowing recommendation for somebody who is a very skilled developer, and my first mentor in the trade.  Its good to be able to give back to him at times.

Then I was tasked with tech interviewing a candidate for a job at my employer.  First real interview I've had to do.  Was fun. In the end I love programming and talking about programming is pretty fun as well.

Next I was talking to a dad of one of my daughters friends.  He was recently back from a 10 month tour in Iraq.  He is a true, decorated war hero.  But now he has to reintegrate back into the real world.  Part of that is him wanting to get an IT job in the area.  He is interested in a newbie position, but some of his skills are a bit above that as well.  He has secret security clearance.  He'd be good for any company that needs general IT help (server setup, maintenance, deployment, help desk related work).  So if you work for a company that could honor one of our war hero's AND get a new worker at the same time... let me know and we can talk.  I have his resume on hand.

Finally came the most interesting part of the week.  We needed another .NET developer (we had hired the one I interviewed previously) for my employer and I recommended a former co-worker whom I helped train in what was nice and  good about programming.  This is a guy who at one point thought x was a valid variable name.... still can't believe that first code I saw from him... From what I can tell salary arrangements have been agreed on and if the owners of the company approve, me and this fellow will be co-workers once again. 

This final guy is one where I put my reputation on the line for him.  I am very tight lipped about my recommendations.  There are just four guys who would get my unequivocal recommendation.  There are many others who would get a recommendation on their work ethic, ability to learn, etc... but just four who I would recommend for ANY job they were going for.  He is one of them.

This is a rare double post on my site. This will be on both my Tech Blog and my Life Blog, but it is so cool that I have to share.

A few years ago, shortly after I had filed my taxes, I was looking at my paycheck and noticed that well over $100 per pay period was going to Uncle Sam... the downfall?  I got all that money back come tax time.  I had (have) pretty much a zero dollar tax liability.  So I went to our financial person and asked about lowering the amount of federal taxes taken from my check.

I was already claiming myself and my four dependents, but was still paying a ton out when there was no need to.  I was told that I can mark myself as 'EXEMPT' and then have a standard amount taken out if I want to.

So I did, I marked myself as exempt and then said to take $20 out per pay period instead of the $120 they were taking, so I gave myself a pretty sizable raise that year.  Now over the years as my salary has gone up I have raised that amount to now $40 a pay period, but after just filing my taxes... I got it all back again. Last year I paid about $600 in federal taxes... got a refund coming my way WELL above that amount.  Now it is still considerably lower then the $3000 or so we used to get back, but I figured I'd rather keep my money to myself instead of giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan.

So if you're up for giving yourself a raise, talk to your HR department about this.  They may give you a little resistance, but if you know you will get it all back... why not get it NOW? 

A few words of wisdom:

1. If you rely on the annual tax refund to bail you out of your Christmas spending, realize that this will remove that 'gift'. This is not free money, this is you just getting YOUR money earlier.

2. If you underpay throughout the year, beware... Uncle Sam can fine you!  That is why I still pay a nominal amount... just in case.

Well I've always avoided this a bit, but I am going to finally add a 'blog roll' like area to my site.  So the question is, which sites should I put there?

Now I know this blog has at least one link to it,  and I will give those sites higher consideration when I build my blog roll.

But what is your site?  I'll take a look at it and if I like it a lot (if I don't link to you, don't get upset :-), I'll link to it.   AND you'll get a free link here as well. 

Well I am taking advantage of this long weekend to clean up my PC... and by clean up, I mean reformat and reinstall essential applications...

The experience was what I expected it to be.  Installing XP, a breeze.  For all their supposed faults Microsoft does have the 'user easibility' of their install to a science.  Then I had the one problem I was expecting to have...

Installing Adobe Photoshop CS2.  I upgraded to CS2 from a 5.0 version and that just causes them fits.  It was a nightmare to call their support system, because I'm obviously (at least in their eyes) trying to pull a fast one and steal a version of CS2 (never mind my receipt that shows me actually paying for it).  But after five or six phone calls I got a person that at least would do what I told them they needed to do.  Now I'm installing Visual Studio 2005 and some other applications.

Then I finally paid up on a promise I made to a member of my church.  He is not the most computer suave and he needed help getting his new notebook setup.  So I spent a few hours doing that.  Side note: I hate computer salesmen, they took this guy and his wife for a ride.  Bunch of crooks.

Finally I got Brian Richard's computer up and running... he's a preacher, not a techy :-)  Words of wisdom... when installing updates... never, ever, ever force a shut down :-) 

But either way, I can dance!

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=9604662578
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9604597550

Well first credit to the initial finder.

This article goes over how to shave 10 hours off your work week, pretty nice list.  I think what I take the most out of it is do what you can do... now!  If its a quick task then do it.