Taxes

 It was gruesome!  Not because I couldn't do them, but because all the computer stuff was "off".

Last December, the laser printer stopped printing in color.  I haven't solved that yet.  But last week, it stopped printing at all.  Just kept saying "load paper".  Which I did without it working after.  And just before tax time of course.

I use H&R Block software (for about 10 years).  Never a problem.  I just check off boxes and add a few numbers (and they are very good saying "enter number in box 1A here").  And that sure helps.  I have index stocks, and (for example) one question is "foreign taxes paid".  Like I have any idea what that really means.  But they do.  So I go to the my index fund site and they tell my a number.  I add that to H&R.  

At the end, they do a review for inconsistencies.  If there are any, they send me to the place to review the numbers.  If not, my taxes are done and I just hit "print".  I like to send printed tax forms; it's just easier in some ways.

But here's the problem.   As I mentioned, my printer stopped working.  And H&R Block software said I had no internet connection.  Which was ridiculous.  I had just downloaded the software on the internet, I got an email confirmation security code from them, and my email is working just fine.

But I couldn't get to their help site online "no internet connection", according to them.  So I couldn't finish my tax forms, couldn't ask for help, and I couldn't even print out a filing extension form!  The printer call number said queue was an hour at best.  And I tried that one before with no success.  H&R was worse.  Not even a guess as to wait time.

I spent the entire past few days trying to fix problems.  It's maddening.  Trouble-shooting company sites send you around in circles.

But I finally solved the immediate B&W printer problem so I could at least print out the tax extension request forms from direct Federal and State sites.

That was only because it finally occurred to me to download the printer manual and search it.  Sure enough, it solved the problem.  Not that it was easy.  The manual addresses several models and even for my own, the displays didn't exactly match the instructions.  

Part of the problem is that my Canon printer can be used as a network printer and the defaults are set for that.  Stuff like needing a network ID and "secure printing".  Undoing all that was a real bad day!  The settings are so individual-unfriendly, you even have to specify the weight and brightness of the paper!  I suppose that makes sense on an office network where everything stays the same.  But sometimes I buy cheap paper.  

I did get that all undone.  But why did it work so well for 4 years and then suddenly stop?  Probably an update aimed at office network printers...

I hope I never have to do it again.  But the joy I felt when seeing a short document print out was HUGE!    

JOY!  DANCING!  GLEE!

Now I just have to get the color working again..  But B&W was enough to print the tax extension due-date forms, and that gets me time to deal with H&R Block software problems.

Still, I had to send Federal and State checks.  I had 2 forced withdrawals from my Govt Thrift Saving Plan and didn't anticipate that.  So I owe more than usual.  But the TSP  told me; I just didn't realize the tax consequences.

Live and learn.  But at least I solved a couple of computer problems.  That deserves a steak dinner.  And I don't care if it is actually 11 pm just before I have this post scheduled for "tomorrow", I'm going to cook one and eat it watching some superhero movie!  I'll catch up on the veggies tomorrow.

Feeling good...

Problems

They say it never rains but it pours.  So true.  Nothing horrible, but it is like "being nibbled to death by ducks"...

Camera -  I lost my simple point&shoot digital camera a week ago.  I've looked everywhere (except, obviously, where ever it actually is).   When you start looking in the refrigerator and oven, you know you have run out of places to look!

It is possible I dropped it in the recycle bin or something, but I doubt that.  So, when I find it someday I'll laugh.  Binq likes to carry pens and shove things off the table, but I don't think she could manage a camera.  If I ever find it, I will post about it.

Meanwhile I ordered a replacement (same model).  Simple point&shoot types are getting hard to find.  The brand names have all upgraded to fancier ones with controls and features I don't need (and are much more expensive)...

Cable Set-top box -  A few weeks ago, the On Demand feature of the cable box stopped working.  The cable company sent a replacement.  I set it up today and went through all that annoying set-up procedure.  But it works again.  The displays are rather different though.  

I was happy with the old displays and I can't see any actual improvements.  Why do things change like that?  I'm big on "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  I assume they have made it easier to rent movies and add channels (profit drives change I guess).  But since I virtually never actually buy or rent movies I don't care.

The problem is that they wanted the old box back by today.  But there were only 3 addresses listed and the nearest one is 15 miles away.  I hate driving!  But I found "more addresses" and one was in my town.  So I drove there.  

No luck there.  They are only for wireless services.  I mentioned the website.  They said, "yeah but that's an error".  So I reluctantly decided to drive to the 15 mile away location.  Which led to the next problem...

Car - I have a 4 year old Subaru Forrester (great car normally).  But I don't drive much these days (about 4,000 miles in 4 years).  A couple months ago, it wouldn't start.  Weak battery.  I don't drive long enough to rechrge the battery, I suspect).  Fortunately, I have a trickle-charger from when my 15 year old Toyota Highlander started having the same problem, so I recharged the battery overnight and the Forrester started right up.

Which was fine for 3 weeks.  Now it needs to stay on the trickle-charger all the time (it is addicted?).  And also fortunately,  I have a portable power pack (bought for an old troublesome riding mower I no longer have).  I keep that  in the car and fully charged now for when the car battery is dead while I'm out shopping.  I've helped a few people start their car with that in parking lots.  

So I visited the cable company store that wasn't the right one (see above).  I debated whether to drive there today or just go home.  I decided to drive to the cable store.  But the car wouldn't start (again).  I had just recharged it!  I'm glad i had that portable power pack in the car.

So I decided this had to end.  I drove to the dealership (jump-started it with the portable power pack) and explained the problem, noting that I did not drive much.  So I couldn't tell if the battery had gone bad or it was a bad alternator/charger/generator/whatever (I'm not a "car person").  And since I was there, to do routine maintenance like oil/filter, tune-up, etc.

They will call me Wednesday sometime in the afternoon after they have checked out some "charging parts". 

Computer Printer - I don't print much, so those inkjet printer cartridges dry up before they are half used and got expensive.  So several years ago, I decided to buy a color laser toner printer.  Worked great for 3 years.  The toner is slightly more expensive, but the toner is good nearly forever.  I did the math...

Well, last December, when I went to make my own holiday cards for family, friends, and fellow cat-bloggers, the color stopped working.  Canon support had me try all sorts of things, but couldn't solve the problem.  They finally said to just try new toner.  I did, and that didn't solve the problem.  Well, I do most of my printing in black&white anyway.

Last week, it kept telling me it was out of paper.  I added an inch of it.  Still reported the same problem.  So something new is going wrong.  Well, the printer is very specific about what kind of paper is in the tray.  I don't need "the best paper".  There are detailed settings about that.  And getting through the menu about that is maddening.  Sometimes, I don't even know what the paper definitions mean.

Part of the problem is that I seem to have bought a printer intended for office use.  It took a week after I bought it to figure out the default settings were "network".  When I solved that, I could print.

These new problems are (so far) unsolvable.  I think I need to delete then reinstall the printer.  Which, as I recall, was a real pain.  And it means rediscovering all the setting adjustments I made to convince the printer that it isn't part of an office network!

I'm not looking forward to that.  But I have to do it soon, because I can't print anything! 

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I'll post about any good news when I get any...

Printers Drive Me Crazy

 I don't print a lot of color images or documents.  But I do usually make my own cards for the Winter Holidays and for family birthdays (it is actually quite easy to do in Excel and if anyone wants a general description, I'll be glad to email them).

But I had problems with color printing last December and I am having them again.  The Printer Gods seem to hate me!  Different printers, but same non-results.  I made both Family and Cat cards for this year, but all I get is grey and some pale yellow.  

I spent an hour on the phone with a very helpful Canon agent.  He had me try everything about the laser toner printer (a Canon 644 Color Image Class) that I could do (short of actual mechanical repairs).  Eventually, he concluded it had to be the toner cartridges.

My printer status said they were still half-filled, but I suppose even toner doesn't last forever.  I went out and bought new ones the next morning.  I put them in today.  Black actually works, but no colors.  I tried to copy a magazine cover because that is completely within the printer.  No luck.  I made a Word document that repeated "This should be in X color",  repeating it for all the standard rainbow colors.  

That just showed black as normal and pale yellow.  I'll have to do some research (and find the printer manual).  It is quite maddening.

So I have a small box of commercial cards for family and close face-to-face friends (many of whom don't use a computer, so I can't email them e-cards).  I'll be sending e-cards to everyone on the Cat-Blogosphere card exchange list this year.

Ann, of Zoolatry, sent me a nice graphic I can use.  She does such wonderful work.  I'll send out a email with that incorporated into it.  But I better do the smail-mail cards first thing in the morning.  My fingers don't work very well in the evening (after a long day's use).

I need to mention that my email address on the card exchange list is wrong.  I'm sure it was my fault when I signed up for the list this year.  But it should be "verizon", not "verixon".  If you got an "undeliverable" notice, that's why.  Sorry about that...

Hoping to do better next year!  😞

A Minor Computer Win

1.  I bought a color toner printer 2 years ago.  I don't print often, so the old color ink-jet printer cartridges dried up before being used up.  And at $50 for a whole set of cartridges was annoying.  I read that toner lasts forever, so I bought one.

It has been difficult to use.  Apparently, it is intended for multiple user office use.  I did not know that at the time.  It has many functions and setting designed for office use and you almost have to be an IT person to understand them.  Just getting it to merely print seemed like an insult to it.

I succeeded (sometimes, after struggling), but never knew why.  A few days ago, I wanted to print out my vaccine record (flu, covid and others) from a govt website.  I could NOT make the darn printer print.  I searched all over the commands and settings, to no avail.  

But I noticed one setting that said "network".  I unclicked it.  IMMEDIATELY, it printed out my document. Glory and Hallelujah,  all I had to be was just "myself and no other users".   Two years fighting with it and one click solved it all!

2.  I have a really nice keyboard (dasKeyboard).  The letters seem slightly embossed.  I wear out certain letters on standard keyboards fast, so I appreciate that.  But it uses 2 ports and I struggle with that.  I have an added multiport connector

Not this one, but one like it...  Even that didn't allow all my cables.  But it works for devices not used all at the same time.  So I unplugged the 2 port keyboard from the direct computer connection and moved it to the multi-port.  Obviously, it worked.  And I even (somehow) have a free port.  I haven't figured out the "why" of that yet.

But Yay!  😎

Two problems solved in one day.  Now, if I could get Safari autofill to work, I would be thrilled...

Printing Passwords

My printer is trying to drive me crazy!

All I wanted to do was set up my user names and passwords safely.  And to me, that means beyond "password managers".  I'm kind of primitive.  I like mine completely offline.   So I set up a spreadsheet on my old offline Mac (used for some old games I like) and printed them from there years ago.

Over the course of time, there have been many password changes and my scribbled changes finally became unusable.  There is just "so much" space on a page and "so many" arrows you can draw to the new ones.  And most of the sites were old or no longer visited.

So I decided to redo it all.  First. legal size paper gave more columns.  Second, wider rows give more room for written changes.  Setting up the spreadsheet was easy.  Filling it in was easy.  I got rid of a decade of scribbles and 2/3s of the sites I visited.  And using the Excel sort function (A-Z) made them easier to find.

But I still had to print the spreadsheet.  My old color inkjet printer cartridges were all dried up.  So I had to move the spreadsheet to the online Mac.  Naturally, I disconnected the internet connection before moving the saved spreadsheet to the Mac with the laser printer.  There isn't much point in saving passwords if you allow the file to be stored online!

Computers hate me.  The flashdrive wouldn't load in the newer (temporarily offline) Mac for 30 minutes.  I tried everything.  Finally got it to be recognized after enough restarts.  Made sure the spreadsheet was still legal size paper settings and one-sided printing (my Mac is convinced I want 2-sided printing by default).  

And it wouldn't print!  Well, OK, I didn't know where to stick legal sized paper in.  This laser printer is new to me.  I only bought it because the color toner doesn't dry up like color inkjet cartridges do.  Actually, it does "too damn much".  There are 3 places to put paper, and the display menu is designed for a genius (which I am not).  And there were a couple of odd pieces of plastic with it that I didn't know the purpose of. 

Good, Bad

The bad news is that I had to struggle through my tax software with the old Mac Mini.  

The good news is that it still worked.

The bad news is that the taxes were hard as hell because I needed a statement from my Credit Union and my password wouldn't work.

The good news is that the Credit Union emailed me the statement.

The bad news is that it needed a paasword, too and in a pdf format my computer refused to open..

The good news is that I got it open in Preview "eventually".

The bad news is that I couldn't print the whole page full size (needed a magnifying glass to read the numbers).  

The good news is that the numbers were about right.

The bad news is that my inkjet printer decided to run out of ink.  

The good news is that I finally found the dedicated printer cable for the "new" color toner printer that has been sitting around for a year refusing to connect to the Mac Mini.

The good news is that it worked (after "many bad words" at the "add a printer app").  

The good news is that the toner printer printed out the Credit Union statement, full size.

The bad news is that it was so unexpected to work, I almost had a heart attack when it began to print.

The good news is that I completed and printed my tax forms.

The bad news is that I owe some additional taxes to Federal and State.

But in general?  More good than bad.  The color toner printer works great.  Loud, but who cares?  And my taxes are done.  I'll call that a "win".