- How to Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista
- British National Health Service Outrage
- It's a bad time to buy a home
- The new Investing Psychology of the Southern California Housing Market: Hunting the SoCal Foreclosure Market. The New Rules of Southern California Real Estate.
– The current L.A. median price is $340,000. We will see $275,000. It is too early to say whether we will see a 60 percent drop from peak to trough but that is possible. You need to remember, the L.A. median price in 2000 was $187,000. $220,000 seems feasible and would actually bring prices in line especially since we are dealing with Japanese style deflation right now. - Consipracies
Tax Time 2008: Free TurboTax Deluxe From State Farm Again
Last year State Farm offered free TurboTax with federal and state e-filing to all of its customers. This year they continued that offer, but limited it to their banking customers which excluded me as an insurance only customer. When I found out I applied for one of their credit cards and the other night I got it added to my State Farm account. Logged in and the link to sign up for TurboTax appeared. Yeah free filing again this year.
There was some uproar from TurboTax customers this year when Intuit tried to introduce a $10 fee to just print more than one return. You got the first federal e-file free, you could print a state return or pay to e-file it, but then any other return you wanted to do would cost $10 to simply print. People were just absolutely hammering on them in reviews. They saw their error and now you get 5 free federal e-files and you can print as many other returns as you want. If I was paying for it I might have considered switching to TaxCut.
If I can get into H&R Block’s TaxCut to do a test return I might post some of my impressions and compare the two packages.
My Home Theater Setup
Realized I never posted about what is normally a geek’s pride and joy, my home theater. It’s been done for over a year now and have gotten to really like it. Here’s the quick rundown:
- 42″ 720p Panasonic Plasma (TH-42PX77U)
- Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V Receiver
- Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player
- AV123 X-SLS tower speakers and X-CS center speaker in Palisander Natural Satin
- HTPC/PVR running Vista
- Adesso Wireless RF Keyboard with Touchpad (WKB-4000US)
- FireFly RF remote
I didn’t go the cheapest route possible, but I wanted to get the most bang for my buck. I looked for the sweet spots in terms of price and planned the system with these goals in mind:
- Finding a TV that met my expectations
- Full range speakers to avoid need for subwoofer
- Minimal amount of cabling
- Minimal living room footprint
- DVR and media capability
Solving Goal #1 – Choosing the right TV
There’s basically three types of HDTVs: LCD, Plasma, and rear projection. LCD viewing angles can be hit and miss, some panels perform better than others, but I find picture quality lacking. Rear projection sets also suffer from viewing angle problems. That left Plasma which also happens to produce a superb picture and was a bit of a premium when I bought it (about half the price now, but that’s typical of technology). Research and comparisons sold me on the 42″ Panasonic which has a really effective anti-glare coating and just overall spectacular picture quality.
Solving Goal #2 – Getting great sound without a subwoofer
A condo isn’t exactly an audiophile’s paradise. Low frequencies like to travel in all directions and aren’t really impeded by things like walls. Hearing bass thumping through the wall is not fun and I didn’t want to be that neighbor. I was able to rule out a lot of speakers since they wouldn’t cover enough frequencies without a subwoofer. I discovered the world of internet direct speaker manufacturers and finally decided on AV123’s X series speakers which feature real wood veneers and solidly built enclosures. I made the purchase without listening to them, but after many glowing reviews and personal testimonies I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. They’re big, but they produce great sound, very natural and transparent with a wide soundstage.
Solving Goal #3 – Reduce cable clutter with HDMI
If you hate having lots of cables, HDMI is a dream come true. High definition video and audio over one cable helps to reduce the clutter behind your entertainment center. The Onkyo 605 has HDMI upconversion so only one cable to the TV is needed if you have non-HDMI connections. I did run an optical cable down to the receiver to get audio while watching live TV. Using a 50′ HDMI I was able to get my HTPC out of sight and prevent more clutter. How many cables did I need for the entire system including power, HDMI and speakers? 11.
Solving Goal #4 – Keeping the footprint small
We don’t have a huge living room and it would be easy to over do it. With a couch and chair the only place to put a TV stand was in the corner. I found a minimalistic corner TV stand that would accept both my receiver and center speaker and fit in the corner well. The one thing I hadn’t really anticipated was placing the speakers on the side required pulling the stand out of the corner more than I would have liked. Even with it pulled out, the system only occupies one corner of the room and doesn’t really dominate the room.
Solving Goal #5 – Serving up fun with a Home Theater PC
I took a different approach than most people do with my HTPC; I didn’t want it in my living room. First off we don’t really have space for it and trying to silence a computer can become expensive. HDMI capable video cards are pretty common now so I did some research about long HDMI runs. Turns out 50′ isn’t hard to do with a lower gauge cable. This let me keep the HTPC up in the loft where I didn’t particularly care if it was silent. The Adesso keyboard and FireFly remote are both RF based and have more than enough range.
Footnote on HD-DVD and Blu-ray
I cashed in credit card rewards for Circuit City gift cards and got my HD-DVD player for free so I don’t really mind that Blu-ray won. I don’t buy movies so my migration will be fairly painless if I ever buy a Blu-ray player. I would have had to buy an upconverting DVD player anyways and the Toshiba does a great job with standard definition discs. If prices on Blu-ray computer drives keep dropping then that might the direction I go.
2008 Tax Time: Amending my 2007 return with Form 1040X
Posted the other day about the Saver’s Credit which caused me to do a quick return review. Turns out I didn’t report my Roth IRA contributions on Form 8880 on last year’s return. My 457 contributions were on there, but they were below the $2,000 limit so I didn’t get the full credit. I can get an additional $90 back if I amended my 2007 return and included those Roth contributions.
My returns have been fairly simple since I started working and have never had to amend a return. The process is fairly simple once you understand the forms involved. The 1040X is used to explain the differences between your original return and your amended numbers. Since the increased credit only changed a few lines it was easy enough to fill out by hand. I filled out an updated 1040 and 8880 with the correct numbers and double checked everything. Just need to send it in and I should have my $90 in a month or so.
Amending a return isn’t a horrible experience, but it is a little time consuming. It took me almost 3 hours to figure everything out and get the forms reprinted. I almost didn’t bother with the amended return thinking it wouldn’t be worth the effort. If the difference was lower then I might not of, but $90 isn’t an insignificant amount of money. For 2008 I’ll be a little more careful and double check the actual forms before e-filing to avoid amending another return. TurboTax does a pretty darn good job of filling all the forms out, but I know my tax situation best and what strategies to use.
Did things get as bad as I thought?
Back in August of 2007 I wrote this post, Someone forgot to refill the Real Estate ATM, and predicted that we would see a continued drop in prices, foreclosures would go up and so on. What I didn’t see coming was a big drop in the stock market, sharp increase in unemployment and the massive expansion of government into the financial and mortgage markets. Things are definitely worse than I thought they would be.