For telefile you gotta prepare the regular forms, and keep them w/relevant supporting docs. Without the completed return in front of you, you can't punch in the data.
Although not mandatory (an electronic copy is OK), it's a very good idea to print out your eFile return, and again you still have to keep relevant docs.
Exactly how long you have to keep them varies a bit (regulations change and some court challenges have revised the statute from time to time), but CCRA's website is reasonably helpful (considering).
I did returns as a way to make a few extra bucks while a student, and have always used SW since Tax Year 1994 (which allows about 25 returns before you have to pay a bit more for another 25). If you used tax SW to mail in a return in TY1995, Revenue Canada sent you an invitation to eFile for tax year '96; the actual tax software didn't have to support it (I guess I was a beta tester).
Now anyone can do it, but the SW has to support it.
There have always been secure online return prep sites for free, if you bothered to look; you don't have to pay for SW.
All Canadian eFile-ing requires a 128bit browser (not a problem).
eFile is free; Revenue Canada (now CCRA) wants everybody to use it, because it saves them big bucks.
Probably the biggest reason it was easier to implement in Canada than the US is because a long-standing agreement with the provinces means that the feds manage the returns for both and pay out relevant monies to the provinces (there is usually a 1 page provincial form, but it varies). Quebec is an exception, but they always are; and it's not a big deal for SW to implement that if there's only one.
I can't imagine a lot of US states would go for this, they're kind of suspicous (at best) when it comes to state's rights and the US federal gov't, and of course some states have no income tax at all.
Telephone filing is available, but if you don't like voicemail you'll HATE telefile.
Some people have suggested a "real" thief would just erase the HD and start over. And, some might.
But most thieves are dumb, or at least cheap; do you think they are going to erase PhotoShop, etc and go out and buy a copy, and then do that 20 or 50 more times? It isn't much use without apps.
If you don't leave your SW about in an obvious place, they won't have an OS install CD (to boot an iMac or any Mac made since about 1996. A boot floppy is useless; most won't boot with System 7.1, which did fit on a floppy. And if your floppy collection is anything like most people's, there won't be a decent label on it anyway. x86 is, of course, different; boot floppies are pretty easy to come by and they work).
Auto-dial 911 is A Bad Idea; they have enough trouble with users who can't figure out why the cellphone called 911 from a football game cuz the guy sat on it and it auto-dialed with "quick 911" enabled.
A periodic eMail to your own account sounds good; there is plenty of evidence there and, properly done, it doesn't compromise your own security (or risk your own life w/electric keyboards... YIKES! -I don't trust any computer that far).
"... Probably not admissible in court, I guess. Although using a stolen device for surveillance really *should* be a legal means of admissible evidence, in a perfect world:-)..."
I'm not so sure it wouldn't be admissable in court. Unauthorized taps are illegal in some, but not all jurisdictions. Also, illegaly obtained evidence is admissible under some conditions; in particular when the illegal evidence is obtained by someone who is NOT a police officer, etc.
Finally, consider this: if you use the phone or use the bathroom, this is an illegal tap. Phones are not recorders and bathrooms are not cameras, there is an expectation of privacy. But a computer can be and is an audio and video recording device, as well as a network data collector. Many computers have built-in microphones and network devices; no reasonable person should assume they don't work. In other words, there is no expectation of privacy; especially if the lawful owner has configured it to act as a remote device.
I'm sure the laywers will eventually hash this out, but I can assure you the evidence would be admissible in my jursdiction; legal or not, because I am not a cop.
The thing about the future is...
Something Could Happen.
As a business owner, you want to minimise uncertainty. Having an enterprise, large or small, run on SW that will quit working on day X brings up all kinds of previously irrelevant fears.
What if we're "going a little broke"? Will the upgrade bill (whatever it is; no certainty there either) kill us just when we need to weather the storm? Maybe everything stops, and we can't keep on keeping on while we try to figure out how to get back to profitability.
What do you think the bean counters (who are running the company under court protection) are going to say to a huge license renewal when we're restructuring?
For a small business, this is really troubling stuff; all it would take is one large enterprise getting shut down (read all about it) "because the license renewal wasn't viable at this time", and the operative word will be "nix" as in "nix that, we're going Open Source now while we still can".
"... The licenses are often strict, like we only get a couple of SQLServer licenses, but in general it meets, and has met everything we needed...."
You can get beta and final SW with the MSDN subscription, and the license allows you to distribute some copies in your organisation. But the last time I read it, the SW is for testing purposes only; if you're running a business off it you're in violation (and MS reserves the right to cut you off when they find out).
Good wipe programs exist, and of course you use them. Physical destruction is one option (as many have mentioned). But there are a lot of tools everybody has to really screw with recovery; you can use them in conjunction with regular "wipe" programs.
You can create scripts that duplicate files repeatedly; use this after a wipe, and don't be afraid to run it whenever you feel like, or unattended.
Reformat the drive with a different filesystem, and wipe it again with a compatible program.
Again, go ahead and do this with as many OS-readable formats you have available. For the truly paraniod, install a different OS and play.
Wipe, defrag, and wipe again.
Use different programs/commands; individual methods may have strengths and weaknesses but when combined, the strengths are compounded.
A lot of forensic recovery relies on "bits" of files that can be recombined or simply offer clues or evidence of "hanky panky". The whole file isn't necessary; a few lines here and there can go a long way. Keep that in mind.
It may well be true that some forensic recovery is more myth than fact, but the truly paranoid thrive on myth.
I agree this is a hefty price to pay. My home setup costs:
Phone Bundle (All calls in N America 24/7, Call Display, Name Display) C$60
CableModem C$45
Satellite TV, 243 channels $C 62
That's C$167 (about US$100), Tax in.
I could add NFL Sunday Ticket and all NHL games for another $C480 (or $40/mo annualized); and I could upgrade TV to add all the channels I don't want now, including Porno, for $31/mo.
I could swich to 1.5M/384k DSL for another $10/mo., making it $C 248 (about US$ 160).
That leaves about US$ 100 for pay-per-view and premium content EVERY month (assuming I'd pay $US 20 tax for AOL/TW).
If AOL/TW can top that package, well, I'd love to see it.
"... Third, yes, it seems someone ran a script from within the microsoft.com domain. That could've been anyone in the company with a PC. My bet is on "random stupid employee". If it were an actual conspiracy, I doubt they would've done it from something within the microsoft.com domain...."
Researcher One: "I thought this was supposed to be a random poll."
Researcher Two: "It is, our methodolgy is perfect."
Researcher One: "Then why am I getting the same result?"
Umm, the gov't told the railroads to "go about your business".
Fibre was made, laid and paid for by telecos. Remember a company called Nortel? Well, Northern Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, built factories to make the fibre, and the telephone companies put it down, and paid for it. When the fibre business dried up in Canada (it was done), they changed their name to Nortel and changed the product line to the switches for all this data stuff.
The only point of government involvement was with rate regulation; the teleco's have to apply to raise phone rates, and they need to justify the increase.
"We're putting in all this newfangled cable."
"Okay, you can charge your customers more."
Well, there were a bunch of small RR's around; but going 4000 miles through nowhere wasn't their idea of commerce. For the most part (anywhere in the world)
RRs made money by trapping customers along the line and selling 'em everything they needed. Why go all that way when we can fleece the locals along our 500 mile (or 40 mile) line?
The CPR was built specifically to keep the US out of (what is now) western Canada; so giving the farm away (literally) seemed like a "fair trade" to central Canada at the time.
The California Gold Rush played a big role too; remember the Hudsons Bay Company owned the land all the way down to the Columbia River; and the Gold Rush (and the people it brought) helped the US aquire a lot of this area in what is now Washington/Oregon. So, you could say that the US did "steal British Columbia", just not all of it.
British Columbia made a transcontinental RR a condition of joining Canada (rather than hanging out with everybody else on the Pacific coast, whom they had a lot in common with).
All of this happened after the Civil War and at least 15 years after the last attempt by the US to invade Canada (around 1848, though most history books ignore anything of this nature after the war of 1812).
Anyway, you might be glad (?) to know the RRs never forgot the old rules (avarice and greed); CPR now owns track that goes all the way from Canada, through the US and into Mexico.
A quick check on Google reveals this simple quotable, from O'Reily:
"... XFree86 was available for the Macintosh platform long before the release of Mac OS X. Various flavors existed for MkLinux, LinuxPPC, and FreeBSD for the Macintosh. Although the underlying core architecture of Mac OS X, the Darwin kernel, is FreeBSD based, no X Window server was provided...."
Just goes to show you, the "commies" up north do things different. When the CPR balked at buiding a railway, the government gave 'em the land the track was on plus a mile either side. Hell, we'll throw in the mineral rights too.
The CPR sold the land to citizens (muchos dollars) whenever it decided a town would be a good idea, and was able to become one of the biggest oil companies in Canada with just the rights to those 2 sq miles either side of the track. And it was pretty easy to make a deal for the fibre rights, because you only had one huge, fat, greedy company to negotiate with.
Getting gouged by the railways for land that the eastern Canadian government gave away is the basis for western Canada's complete mistrust of Central Canada.
So, you see, something as simple and cheap as a national data infrastructure is no biggy.
It's just not that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things, to get broadband happening in the USA.
Canada recognised the value of communications about 5 minutes after Bell's patent, and has never put it "on the back burner". It is considered strategically critical; in the US the Interstate is the "strategically critial highway".
The Russians launched the first communications satellite, but it couldn't communicate, really; it just beeped to ham radios.Canada launched the world's first telecomm bird (Anik 1) in the early 60's, and telephone/TV has been over sat for nearly 40 years.
My home province (pop 1 million, area the size of Texas, and biggest city 220K) finished the fibre install 21 years ago. We'd been watching cable for 6 years at that point.
10 years ago, a company started up (in a town of 20K) and began providing wireless TV over microwaves; you could be 40 miles from the nearest hick town and pull in your share of channels; the same ones cable offered. They offer net access now, and it's hispeed. No wires, no infastructure except towers that the phone company built 20-40 years earlier.
None of this stuff is impossible in the US; but nobody in Congress has stood up and said "We will make comm a national priority, and do what we can to remove the red tape. The providers had better step up and do their part, or get left behind".
Does AOL want broadband? You bet they don't; and with 10 million US dialup subscribers, why would they?
Some people have mentioned population density re: Canada vs USA. Certainly it plays a role.
But low-density western Canada has much higher broadband penetration than the urban beltways of southern Ontairo (which pretty much look like any fairly urban area of America).
I've been all over America. When I was in Arkansas (pop 2.5million; Little Rock is the same size as the biggest city in my province, but the surrounding area was much denser) one of the biggest things I noticed was how dense the rural area was compared to home. The average rural resident here owns 8 sections (sq miles) of land, and they get access if they want it.
Obviously there is something else going on.
Maybe the hardwired providers have decided the "easy" customers are already online, and they're waiting for a wireless technology to finish the job. Or maybe they aren't interested but at the same time, want to protect their territory so they promise "soon, soon".
I don't really know; but I suspect it's just a little more complicated than the RIAA, as nasty as they are, conspiring to keep the content offline.
If all you want to do is print, Ethernet is the (very old) solution, works fine. Could cost you too much for an Ethernet capable printer, though.
PC parallel isn't too tough to do, it's slow by modern standards, though. Most of your options will be with newer interfaces.
Wireless is OK, again you're paying money for this.
I would suggest a good old telephone interface (PhoneNet for Macs, about $20) or one of the Phone networking solutions for PCs (maybe $100). Plug the PC into your home phone lines and same with the printer, they can be anywhere phone lines can go. This works because your phone wiring/connectors should be 4-pin and the phone only uses 2.
Okay, they're not in the US. If you can find info about them in the US press, that probably means they have managed to get on the US media's radar screen, which indicates at least something is going on (could be good or bad).
No US info? Consider that normal for a foreign firm. Find out where the head office is; (you are mostly interested in what country).
Do a search on a nation-specific website. For example if it is UK based, you should start at a UK search site (or a UK home page of your favorite search site). If you know that it's Canadian (for example) you should try "insert-your-favorite-search-site-here.ca" to see if it has a page. Just about every nation on earth has it's own dot-something so don't assume no dot-com means no web presence.
Is it public? Find out the stock symbol but don't waste your time searching Nasdaq or NYSE, work on the country's national stock market(s). The stock might be over-the-counter, etc.
Where do they get their money? If it's venture capital, go to the VC firm's site and read what they say (have your bullshit filter on).
Search for the head office's city, get into a local page and poke around. Check out the local paper, business links, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Search journals in the related field; if there is big news there will be something there and even if it is international in scope it could be months or years before the US media figures it out. Ever notice how often mainstream media gets a science story wrong? That's because they don't pay attention to the journals until some editor tells them to. And somebody's got to tell the editor first.
Are they associated with a University (most biotech should be, somewhere along the line). Check out the University's reputation in the field, find out if there is a link with research, money, alumni, etc.
From Quicken Canada's website:
"... Thinking
Get in the habit of thinking in terms of after-tax dollars, instead of gross income. This way you'll work with money you actually have to spend and you'll also become more aware of how much you lose to taxes. To calculate after-tax dollars, use an estimated average tax rate based on your last tax return. Average tax, expressed as a percentage, is the total amount of tax you paid divided by your total gross income, multiplied by 100. For example, if your gross income was $30,000 and you paid $5100 in taxes last year, your average tax rate would be ($5100 ÷ 30,000 x 100) or 17%, which means roughly 17 cents of every dollar goes to taxes...."
I'm not in a "low tax bracket". I am a few K away from the highest bracket (I'm in 26% federal/11% provincial) but that doesn't mean I paid 37% of my gross in income tax. I paid 16.3% of gross.
What does Quicken report as your tax paid as % of gross?
"... The only thing I disagreed with in your previous comment is the premise that continuous spectrum sources are better than fluorescent. Incandescent tungsten lighting doesn't match solar spectra any better than the worst fluorescent...."
That statement is simply laughable. I hope you don't read by the light of the "worst fluorescent".
MTOPS (Millions of Theoretical Oprations Per Second): is a calculation of theoretical performance for computers (uses a formula).
MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second): Derived from a program (benchmark) run to simulate actual use.
Often MIPS and MTOPS are considered equally valid measures of computing power; athough MTOPS values are "bigger numbers" so naturally they would be preferred for marketing.
They needed some reasonable measure; I suppose the calculated value is less ambiguous than a benchmark (computer program).
"... Relatively few people as a percentage of China's population can afford to buy anything of any significance...."
I think you missed the point. Even though only a small % of Chinese can buy home PCs, when they buy 7 new PCs for every 10 sold in the US the potential for sales is fantastic; US firms want in on the action.
If you have a demographic for your product that would double your US sales volume, would you care that only 5% of the nation fits the demographic?
Slashdot Mirror
For telefile you gotta prepare the regular forms, and keep them w/relevant supporting docs. Without the completed return in front of you, you can't punch in the data.
Although not mandatory (an electronic copy is OK), it's a very good idea to print out your eFile return, and again you still have to keep relevant docs.
Exactly how long you have to keep them varies a bit (regulations change and some court challenges have revised the statute from time to time), but CCRA's website is reasonably helpful (considering).
Actually, I've been eFile-ing for years.
I did returns as a way to make a few extra bucks while a student, and have always used SW since Tax Year 1994 (which allows about 25 returns before you have to pay a bit more for another 25). If you used tax SW to mail in a return in TY1995, Revenue Canada sent you an invitation to eFile for tax year '96; the actual tax software didn't have to support it (I guess I was a beta tester).
Now anyone can do it, but the SW has to support it.
There have always been secure online return prep sites for free, if you bothered to look; you don't have to pay for SW.
All Canadian eFile-ing requires a 128bit browser (not a problem).
eFile is free; Revenue Canada (now CCRA) wants everybody to use it, because it saves them big bucks.
Probably the biggest reason it was easier to implement in Canada than the US is because a long-standing agreement with the provinces means that the feds manage the returns for both and pay out relevant monies to the provinces (there is usually a 1 page provincial form, but it varies). Quebec is an exception, but they always are; and it's not a big deal for SW to implement that if there's only one.
I can't imagine a lot of US states would go for this, they're kind of suspicous (at best) when it comes to state's rights and the US federal gov't, and of course some states have no income tax at all.
Telephone filing is available, but if you don't like voicemail you'll HATE telefile.
Some people have suggested a "real" thief would just erase the HD and start over. And, some might.
But most thieves are dumb, or at least cheap; do you think they are going to erase PhotoShop, etc and go out and buy a copy, and then do that 20 or 50 more times? It isn't much use without apps.
If you don't leave your SW about in an obvious place, they won't have an OS install CD (to boot an iMac or any Mac made since about 1996. A boot floppy is useless; most won't boot with System 7.1, which did fit on a floppy. And if your floppy collection is anything like most people's, there won't be a decent label on it anyway. x86 is, of course, different; boot floppies are pretty easy to come by and they work).
Auto-dial 911 is A Bad Idea; they have enough trouble with users who can't figure out why the cellphone called 911 from a football game cuz the guy sat on it and it auto-dialed with "quick 911" enabled.
A periodic eMail to your own account sounds good; there is plenty of evidence there and, properly done, it doesn't compromise your own security (or risk your own life w/electric keyboards... YIKES! -I don't trust any computer that far).
" ... Probably not admissible in court, I guess. Although using a stolen device for surveillance really *should* be a legal means of admissible evidence, in a perfect world :-) ..."
I'm not so sure it wouldn't be admissable in court. Unauthorized taps are illegal in some, but not all jurisdictions. Also, illegaly obtained evidence is admissible under some conditions; in particular when the illegal evidence is obtained by someone who is NOT a police officer, etc.
Finally, consider this: if you use the phone or use the bathroom, this is an illegal tap. Phones are not recorders and bathrooms are not cameras, there is an expectation of privacy. But a computer can be and is an audio and video recording device, as well as a network data collector. Many computers have built-in microphones and network devices; no reasonable person should assume they don't work. In other words, there is no expectation of privacy; especially if the lawful owner has configured it to act as a remote device.
I'm sure the laywers will eventually hash this out, but I can assure you the evidence would be admissible in my jursdiction; legal or not, because I am not a cop.
The thing about the future is...
Something Could Happen.
As a business owner, you want to minimise uncertainty. Having an enterprise, large or small, run on SW that will quit working on day X brings up all kinds of previously irrelevant fears.
What if we're "going a little broke"? Will the upgrade bill (whatever it is; no certainty there either) kill us just when we need to weather the storm? Maybe everything stops, and we can't keep on keeping on while we try to figure out how to get back to profitability.
What do you think the bean counters (who are running the company under court protection) are going to say to a huge license renewal when we're restructuring?
For a small business, this is really troubling stuff; all it would take is one large enterprise getting shut down (read all about it) "because the license renewal wasn't viable at this time", and the operative word will be "nix" as in "nix that, we're going Open Source now while we still can".
"... The licenses are often strict, like we only get a couple of SQLServer licenses, but in general it meets, and has met everything we needed. ..."
You can get beta and final SW with the MSDN subscription, and the license allows you to distribute some copies in your organisation. But the last time I read it, the SW is for testing purposes only; if you're running a business off it you're in violation (and MS reserves the right to cut you off when they find out).
Buy used.
I have bought a few old, "surplus" computers from the local University Surplus Assets dept.
Not once, had even a cursory attempt at cleaning the drive been made.
Good wipe programs exist, and of course you use them. Physical destruction is one option (as many have mentioned). But there are a lot of tools everybody has to really screw with recovery; you can use them in conjunction with regular "wipe" programs.
You can create scripts that duplicate files repeatedly; use this after a wipe, and don't be afraid to run it whenever you feel like, or unattended.
Reformat the drive with a different filesystem, and wipe it again with a compatible program.
Again, go ahead and do this with as many OS-readable formats you have available. For the truly paraniod, install a different OS and play.
Wipe, defrag, and wipe again.
Use different programs/commands; individual methods may have strengths and weaknesses but when combined, the strengths are compounded.
A lot of forensic recovery relies on "bits" of files that can be recombined or simply offer clues or evidence of "hanky panky". The whole file isn't necessary; a few lines here and there can go a long way. Keep that in mind.
It may well be true that some forensic recovery is more myth than fact, but the truly paranoid thrive on myth.
I agree this is a hefty price to pay. My home setup costs:
Phone Bundle (All calls in N America 24/7, Call Display, Name Display) C$60
CableModem C$45
Satellite TV, 243 channels $C 62
That's C$167 (about US$100), Tax in.
I could add NFL Sunday Ticket and all NHL games for another $C480 (or $40/mo annualized); and I could upgrade TV to add all the channels I don't want now, including Porno, for $31/mo.
I could swich to 1.5M/384k DSL for another $10/mo., making it $C 248 (about US$ 160).
That leaves about US$ 100 for pay-per-view and premium content EVERY month (assuming I'd pay $US 20 tax for AOL/TW).
If AOL/TW can top that package, well, I'd love to see it.
"... Third, yes, it seems someone ran a script from within the microsoft.com domain. That could've been anyone in the company with a PC. My bet is on "random stupid employee". If it were an actual conspiracy, I doubt they would've done it from something within the microsoft.com domain. ..."
Researcher One: "I thought this was supposed to be a random poll."
Researcher Two: "It is, our methodolgy is perfect."
Researcher One: "Then why am I getting the same result?"
Umm, the gov't told the railroads to "go about your business".
Fibre was made, laid and paid for by telecos. Remember a company called Nortel? Well, Northern Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises, built factories to make the fibre, and the telephone companies put it down, and paid for it. When the fibre business dried up in Canada (it was done), they changed their name to Nortel and changed the product line to the switches for all this data stuff.
The only point of government involvement was with rate regulation; the teleco's have to apply to raise phone rates, and they need to justify the increase.
"We're putting in all this newfangled cable."
"Okay, you can charge your customers more."
Well, there were a bunch of small RR's around; but going 4000 miles through nowhere wasn't their idea of commerce. For the most part (anywhere in the world)
RRs made money by trapping customers along the line and selling 'em everything they needed. Why go all that way when we can fleece the locals along our 500 mile (or 40 mile) line?
The CPR was built specifically to keep the US out of (what is now) western Canada; so giving the farm away (literally) seemed like a "fair trade" to central Canada at the time.
The California Gold Rush played a big role too; remember the Hudsons Bay Company owned the land all the way down to the Columbia River; and the Gold Rush (and the people it brought) helped the US aquire a lot of this area in what is now Washington/Oregon. So, you could say that the US did "steal British Columbia", just not all of it.
British Columbia made a transcontinental RR a condition of joining Canada (rather than hanging out with everybody else on the Pacific coast, whom they had a lot in common with).
All of this happened after the Civil War and at least 15 years after the last attempt by the US to invade Canada (around 1848, though most history books ignore anything of this nature after the war of 1812).
Anyway, you might be glad (?) to know the RRs never forgot the old rules (avarice and greed); CPR now owns track that goes all the way from Canada, through the US and into Mexico.
A quick check on Google reveals this simple quotable, from O'Reily:
..."
x fr ee86_install.html
"... XFree86 was available for the Macintosh platform long before the release of Mac OS X. Various flavors existed for MkLinux, LinuxPPC, and FreeBSD for the Macintosh. Although the underlying core architecture of Mac OS X, the Darwin kernel, is FreeBSD based, no X Window server was provided.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2001/07/17/
Just goes to show you, the "commies" up north do things different. When the CPR balked at buiding a railway, the government gave 'em the land the track was on plus a mile either side. Hell, we'll throw in the mineral rights too.
The CPR sold the land to citizens (muchos dollars) whenever it decided a town would be a good idea, and was able to become one of the biggest oil companies in Canada with just the rights to those 2 sq miles either side of the track. And it was pretty easy to make a deal for the fibre rights, because you only had one huge, fat, greedy company to negotiate with.
Getting gouged by the railways for land that the eastern Canadian government gave away is the basis for western Canada's complete mistrust of Central Canada.
So, you see, something as simple and cheap as a national data infrastructure is no biggy.
You got a microwave tower within 40 miles or so? The technology is there, others are doing it. It doesn't have to be hardwired.
Can't access the towers (they're owned by the phone companies). That's a different problem, and it takes politics, not money, to fix it.
It's just not that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things, to get broadband happening in the USA.
Canada recognised the value of communications about 5 minutes after Bell's patent, and has never put it "on the back burner". It is considered strategically critical; in the US the Interstate is the "strategically critial highway".
The Russians launched the first communications satellite, but it couldn't communicate, really; it just beeped to ham radios.Canada launched the world's first telecomm bird (Anik 1) in the early 60's, and telephone/TV has been over sat for nearly 40 years.
My home province (pop 1 million, area the size of Texas, and biggest city 220K) finished the fibre install 21 years ago. We'd been watching cable for 6 years at that point.
10 years ago, a company started up (in a town of 20K) and began providing wireless TV over microwaves; you could be 40 miles from the nearest hick town and pull in your share of channels; the same ones cable offered. They offer net access now, and it's hispeed. No wires, no infastructure except towers that the phone company built 20-40 years earlier.
None of this stuff is impossible in the US; but nobody in Congress has stood up and said "We will make comm a national priority, and do what we can to remove the red tape. The providers had better step up and do their part, or get left behind".
Does AOL want broadband? You bet they don't; and with 10 million US dialup subscribers, why would they?
Some people have mentioned population density re: Canada vs USA. Certainly it plays a role.
But low-density western Canada has much higher broadband penetration than the urban beltways of southern Ontairo (which pretty much look like any fairly urban area of America).
I've been all over America. When I was in Arkansas (pop 2.5million; Little Rock is the same size as the biggest city in my province, but the surrounding area was much denser) one of the biggest things I noticed was how dense the rural area was compared to home. The average rural resident here owns 8 sections (sq miles) of land, and they get access if they want it.
Obviously there is something else going on.
Maybe the hardwired providers have decided the "easy" customers are already online, and they're waiting for a wireless technology to finish the job. Or maybe they aren't interested but at the same time, want to protect their territory so they promise "soon, soon".
I don't really know; but I suspect it's just a little more complicated than the RIAA, as nasty as they are, conspiring to keep the content offline.
The first thing you need to do is create separate virtual partions. This makes everything that comes next easier.
OSX on one, OS9 on the other, Linux on the rest is one way to go.
A lot of Linux/UNIX can run in OSX, including Xwindows.
Virtual PC is a reasonable option if you need Windows compaibility. Go with YellowDog Linux (or Mandrake, Debian, FreeBSD, etc) if you don't.
Some HD space would be nice, but not absolutely essential.
I currently have OSX/OS9/YDL 2.1(2.4.10 kernel) running native and Win95/98/XP running via Virtual PC5 (connectix). Works fine.
If all you want to do is print, Ethernet is the (very old) solution, works fine. Could cost you too much for an Ethernet capable printer, though.
PC parallel isn't too tough to do, it's slow by modern standards, though. Most of your options will be with newer interfaces.
Wireless is OK, again you're paying money for this.
I would suggest a good old telephone interface (PhoneNet for Macs, about $20) or one of the Phone networking solutions for PCs (maybe $100). Plug the PC into your home phone lines and same with the printer, they can be anywhere phone lines can go. This works because your phone wiring/connectors should be 4-pin and the phone only uses 2.
Okay, they're not in the US. If you can find info about them in the US press, that probably means they have managed to get on the US media's radar screen, which indicates at least something is going on (could be good or bad).
No US info? Consider that normal for a foreign firm. Find out where the head office is; (you are mostly interested in what country).
Do a search on a nation-specific website. For example if it is UK based, you should start at a UK search site (or a UK home page of your favorite search site). If you know that it's Canadian (for example) you should try "insert-your-favorite-search-site-here.ca" to see if it has a page. Just about every nation on earth has it's own dot-something so don't assume no dot-com means no web presence.
Is it public? Find out the stock symbol but don't waste your time searching Nasdaq or NYSE, work on the country's national stock market(s). The stock might be over-the-counter, etc.
Where do they get their money? If it's venture capital, go to the VC firm's site and read what they say (have your bullshit filter on).
Search for the head office's city, get into a local page and poke around. Check out the local paper, business links, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Search journals in the related field; if there is big news there will be something there and even if it is international in scope it could be months or years before the US media figures it out. Ever notice how often mainstream media gets a science story wrong? That's because they don't pay attention to the journals until some editor tells them to. And somebody's got to tell the editor first.
Are they associated with a University (most biotech should be, somewhere along the line). Check out the University's reputation in the field, find out if there is a link with research, money, alumni, etc.
That should get you going.
From Quicken Canada's website: ..."
"... Thinking
Get in the habit of thinking in terms of after-tax dollars, instead of gross income. This way you'll work with money you actually have to spend and you'll also become more aware of how much you lose to taxes. To calculate after-tax dollars, use an estimated average tax rate based on your last tax return. Average tax, expressed as a percentage, is the total amount of tax you paid divided by your total gross income, multiplied by 100. For example, if your gross income was $30,000 and you paid $5100 in taxes last year, your average tax rate would be ($5100 ÷ 30,000 x 100) or 17%, which means roughly 17 cents of every dollar goes to taxes.
I'm not in a "low tax bracket". I am a few K away from the highest bracket (I'm in 26% federal/11% provincial) but that doesn't mean I paid 37% of my gross in income tax. I paid 16.3% of gross.
What does Quicken report as your tax paid as % of gross?
"... The only thing I disagreed with in your previous comment is the premise that continuous spectrum sources are better than fluorescent. Incandescent tungsten lighting doesn't match solar spectra any better than the worst fluorescent. ..."
That statement is simply laughable. I hope you don't read by the light of the "worst fluorescent".
MTOPS (Millions of Theoretical Oprations Per Second): is a calculation of theoretical performance for computers (uses a formula).
MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second): Derived from a program (benchmark) run to simulate actual use.
Often MIPS and MTOPS are considered equally valid measures of computing power; athough MTOPS values are "bigger numbers" so naturally they would be preferred for marketing.
They needed some reasonable measure; I suppose the calculated value is less ambiguous than a benchmark (computer program).
Same formula + same architecture = same result.
New benchmark + same architecture = ?
"... Relatively few people as a percentage of China's population can afford to buy anything of any significance. ..."
I think you missed the point. Even though only a small % of Chinese can buy home PCs, when they buy 7 new PCs for every 10 sold in the US the potential for sales is fantastic; US firms want in on the action.
If you have a demographic for your product that would double your US sales volume, would you care that only 5% of the nation fits the demographic?
You're right, but probably a typo or oversight. Canada is a Tier 1 nation.