Sunday, May 04, 2008

Taxes and rebates again...

Before the end of 2007, I had my tax software and all of the usual free stuff (after rebate). Noticed that the "deals are fewer" and the tax software offered less add-ons. Many of the items that H&R Block Tax Cut gave rebates on (Will Power, it's Deductible) are in the box are not offered.

The new offer is to have them give you a "second look" by a tax professional. I usually buy the one that has the e-file fees already in the bargain, so the free after rebate e-file is also not required. This year was just rebates for Norton AntiVirus and Microsoft Money. Staples had a nice "easy rebate" worth $10 off, that was nice and paperless.

Hopefully no one is waiting for a deal to do their taxes for last year!

Is U3 4U?

The computer in your hand may be smaller than it appears! Just a quick note that your next computing platform could be smaller than you expected. Software is readily available to use on the little "flash memory" drives that rivals the functionality of the bloated applications on your computer. You may be surprised to find out that many of these are free or at a much lower cost than the desktop products they could replace.

U3 is a mobile computing platform that allows you to carry your applications on a USB drive and launch them on any PC. So wherever you go –your office or home, an internet cafĂ© or business center – you can take your favorite software as well as your data files. With U3 technology, a USB drive is more than a storage device – its’ a smart drive.

SanDisk has a new Cruzer Titanium Plus USB flash drive offers an automatic and seamless online back up option with device password protection and hardware AES encryption so you can easily access your files on the device or online.

You'll still need some desktop computing platform, and not every Operating System is supported, but for a decent Office Suite, Antivirus, Password Manager, or Utility application, it's hard to beat the price!