It’s super cool that we’re featured on the homepage of Safari Extension Gallery!

I liked this tweet:

Our team put an enormous amount of effort into making this happen, with help from Apple. Very cool!

1 Patent. 2 Pending. Cool!

First, select the Style that you want to use. I usually use MLA.

Then, put your cursor where you want to insert a citation, and click the following:

The next step is pretty simple – just fill out the resulting dialog with the source information. Be sure to look through the entire list of types of sources – there’s quite a few!

For this example, I’ll just use a basic book. First click edit to enter all the author names:

Then, fill in the rest of the template. Note that at the bottom, there’s example text to help you figure out what to type. (This is a lot more useful for more obscure formats like web pages.)

Ok. That’s it! Now when you get back to your prose, you can customize your citation. For example, you might need to add a page number:

To add more citations of this source, just go back to the Insert button:

Now that you’ve added all of these citations, this is how you generate a Works Cited list automatically:

Once the Works Cited list is entered into your document, you will need to “update” it periodically by clicking on update:

At a minimum, you should click update before you print/submit the document. Personally, I click update every time I add a citation. Note that new citations will not be listed unless you click update!

Finally, a lot of the power lies here:

When you click on that, you get this:

As you continue to add citations, a library of sources will appear here. You can also import sources from other documents. For example, you can open an existing Word document, copy the sources into your Word’s “Master List”, and then use them moving forwards.

I hope this helps!

A few years ago ago, I bough this flashlight (this is actually v2):

Amazon.com: Fenix L2T 2 Level High Performance Cree LED Flashlight: Sports & Outdoors
Fenix L2T 2 Level High Performance Cree LED Flashlight

This light quality from this flashlight is pretty stunning. While the beam size cannot be changed like a maglite, the distance is pretty awesome. Also, the light temperature (color, not “ouch this is hot”) is far higher allowing you to see more.

There are flashlights that have even brighter beams, but they tend to require hard to find batteries. This uses standard AA batteries. I use Energizer Lithium batteries, which last forever, and more importantly, have an incredibly slow discharge rate. I think the batteries I have in this flashlight are from 2007 – and there’s still plenty of juice (and they haven’t leaked out like some Duracells recently did in one my remote controls. Yuck.)

When I first bought mine in 2006, they were pretty hard to find. They were only on specialty sites. It’s cool to see that these now available even on amazon – and at a pretty good price.

Highly recommend.

Today, I went back to Costco to talk to an Assistant Manager. Unfortunately, he had to talk to the Optical Manager first, who had just left for lunch. So I waited. I talked to her, and her manager and in the end, at my insistence, they agreed to refund the lenses and the frames.

Wow.

Even though I won’t buy lenses from them (while I was there, I talked to someone else who said they had to have lenses redone!), I certainly am glad that Costco did right by me.

Thanks Costco.

I bought frames for glasses online, and decided to try getting lenses from Costco. Generally I’ve had very positive experiences with things Costco, but at this point, I would not recommend buying lenses.

Here’s what I got when I picked up the glasses today at the Costco in Mountain View:

When I dropped off the $171 frames, I paid $132.97 for the lenses. I was pleasantly surprised at the price – but I was rather surprised when I picked up the glasses and instantly noticed these damages on the perfectly new frames. The large chip is especially noticable!

I complained to the Optical Manager. And then when things went down hill. All paraphrased:

Manager: Costco’s policy is that we’re not responsible for damages to frames that you bring in.

Me: No one ever told me that.

Manager: Yes they did.

Me: No they didn’t. If I did, would I be this surprised?

Manager: <Shows me a paper saying that Costco’s policy is to not be responsible – with a marked area at the bottom for “Customer’s Acknowledgement”>

Me: I never signed that. I was never informed of this policy.

Manager: Let me look.

Manager: <spend the next 3 minutes looking. Customer next to me tells me that she usually buys frames from Costco, and gets lenses elsewhere because they tend to cut corners and make mistakes>

Manager: Yours isn’t back from audit yet. (???)

Me: I’d like you to replace this frame.

Manager: We can’t. We don’t carry it.

Me: Ok, I’d like you to pay me for this frame. That’s $171.

Manager: I can’t do that. Let me give you a 10% service credit.

Me: Uh, 10% of $133 is $13. Are you kidding? That’s not even close.

Manager: I’ll give you a refund on the lenses.

Me: Ok now we’re getting somewhere.

Manager: <takes out screw drivers>

Me: Wait a minute. I expected you to give me a refund and for me to keep the lenses.

Manager: I can’t do that. Costco’s policy is that we’re not responsible for damage.

Me: Ok, try putting yourself in my shoes. I drop off these frames. They’re perfectly new. You put a big scratch in them. You don’t tell me your policy. You don’t even have me sign it like you’re supposed to. And now you’re telling me you’re not responsible? How is this fair? You really can’t order them to a supplier?

Manager: <spends 2 minutes looking through the computer to see if they carry it. Nope.>

Me: I would like a credit of $171.

<Award silence as I count 20 mississippi>

Manager: I’ll meet you half way. I’ll refund half your money.

Me: <I’ve been at costco for over 30 minutes now and need to get back to work for a meeting>. Fine.

Manager refunds $66.50

Frankly I’m not sure if I got “justice” or not. And to the manager’s credit, she didn’t accuse me of bringing in chipped frames to begin with. The fact that there’s this giant chip on my new frames irks me. What would you have done?

I would’ve been content to let this drop… until I got home tonight and under some bright lights looked more closely. This is what I found:

Apparently they didn’t manufacture left lens correctly. I’ve had a lot of glasses in my lifetime, and I’ve never seen so much lens overflow the frame on the outside – especially since the right side was done correctly and I have nearly the same prescription in both eyes.

And I think that it is because the lens wasn’t manufactured correctly that the screw won’t join the two parts together anymore. It’s only a matter before the screw falls out and the lens falls out. Won’t that be a fun while driving!

It’s clear that someone was pretty frustrated with this before me, since they left a pretty big scratch while trying to screw it in.

So it appears that I will be returning to Costco to kvetch about this issue tomorrow. I don’t understand how someone could say their job was complete, when they couldn’t even screw the frames back together.

This is incredibly disappointing.

This is not an April Fool’s Day joke, though the healthcare systems, policies, and frameworks in our nation might be considered to be one. Every election cycle, I hear a lot of silly “silver bullets” – For example: “If only we got rid of trial lawyers! Healthcare would be cheap and affordable!” (not really) or “Let’s copy France!” (wouldn’t work for us)

I’ll probably blog about this a bit more in the next few months, but I’d like to start by recommending this episode of Frontline. Personally I think it’s best viewed online.

Sick Around America
As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses—potentially forcing millions more Americans to go without health insurance—FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation’s broken health care system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Jon Palfreman dissects the private insurance system, a system that not only fails to cover 46 million Americans but also leaves millions more underinsured and at risk of bankruptcy.

The first act (out of 5) features something I can relate to:

At its best, American health care can be very good. For Microsoft employee Mark Murray and his wife, Melinda, their employee health plan paid for eight years of fertility treatments and covered all the costs of a very complicated pregnancy. "If it wasn’t for our health insurance," Murray says, "we wouldn’t have a baby boy right now." The Murrays’ medical bills totaled between $500,000 and $1 million, and their plan covered every penny.

But beyond large, high-wage employers like Microsoft, FRONTLINE learns that available, affordable, adequate insurance is becoming hard to find. Small businesses face a very bleak outlook for finding and keeping coverage. Coverage is becoming more expensive and less comprehensive, with high deductibles, co-pays and coverage limits. Georgetown University Research Professor Karen Pollitz explains that for many people, the current system is "like having an airbag in your car that’s made out of tissue paper: I’m so glad that it’s there, but if I ever get in a crash, it’s not going to protect me."

The first act covers the best possible scenario – working for Microsoft. Where there are practically never any co-pays. (Pharmacies tend to do a double-take.) I call the Microsoft health Insurance plan, the “gold plated, c-level exec plan”. I feel very fortunate that my family receives coverage through this plan.

From there, the episode goes downhill. Fast.

Let’s be clear – there are no easy or cheap answers to solving our nation’s healthcare woes. There’s no silver bullet. And I hope we as a nation have the will and resolve to make improvements. But there’s not a lot of hope:

But consultant Laszewski wonders if Americans have the will to make it happen. "Every doctor I meet says he’s underpaid. I’ve yet to meet a hospital executive who thinks he or she can operate on less. I have yet to meet a patient who is willing to sacrifice care. So we have this $2.2 trillion system, and I haven’t met anybody in any of the stakeholders that’s willing to take less. And until we’re willing to have that conversation, we’re just sort of nibbling around the edges."

What I noticed tonight is that TurboTax seems to change the number of shares behind the scenes in the Original Purchase Lots of the Capital Gains Worksheet.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you sell 1000 shares of Test.

Now, let’s say you enter the purchase information as such:

You enter the purchase transaction using the “price per share” method, entering 500 shares at 10 each. If you click continue, then view the Capital Gains Worksheet, you will see this:

Ok. That makes sense. But let’s say you go and enter your purchase information in a different way:

You enter the purchase transaction using the “total purchase price” method, entering 500 shares for a total of 5000. If you click continue, then view the Capital Gains Worksheet, you will see this:

Observe that the number of shares is now 1,000. Why is that the case?

You might say “Big deal! The Total Cost” is the same!”

Unfortunately, because the number of shares purchased is the same as the number of shares sold, any information you add about reinvested dividends will be ignore, leading to an incorrect cost basis – both in dollar amount, and in break down of Long Term vs Short Term.

Perhaps I’m mistaken – I’m just bleary eyed from doing too much lately. That said, I was able to repro this using a clean TurboTax 2008 return – twice. Could someone double check my work?

Eagle Creek UnderCoverTM Leg Stash

Usually people wear money belts, but it gets somewhat uncomfortable after a while – especially if you end up working up a sweat. Plus, it’s kind of awkward taking things out of there as you need to lift up your shirt.

The UnderCover Leg Stash has 2 elastic bands that velcro’s around your leg. Nothing around your middle. Hurray! It’s very discrete and retreiving things isn’t a big deal.

There are two downsides though:

1. If you don’t secure the velcro properly and tightly, it tends to slide down. But that’s easily remedial.

2. It only works if you travel to places that are cold – after all, you need to wear long pants to cover it.

To me, hands down this is the far better choice.

Spain

• Why Spain in January? First of all, It wouldn’t be 100 degrees. The thought of schlepping around in such heat is not much fun in my book – I remember struggling to see the reclining Buddha and other sites in Bangkok because of the weather. Also, it’s off peak – it’s great never having to make reservations, wait in lines, or be stuck in crowds. Finally, prices for hotels were pretty awesome.
• Bring an Ethernet cable. At our hotel in Barcelona, my PC wouldn’t work with the wireless. At the Madrid Iberia Lounge, they have a lot of stations for you to plug an ethernet cable into.
• High speed train from Barcelona to Madrid was great – but here’s a tip, don’t try booking your tickets on http://www.renfe.es/. It’s great to find information about trains and their schedule, but it is impossible to book a ticket from America. Just look for the phone number there and call them directly. You’ll even get the fares that are on sale.

Barcelona

• Did you know that they speak/write/read Catalan first, then Spanish, in Barcelona? Some signs can be confusing – “Why can’t I understand what it is saying? Oh! It’s in Catalan, not Spanish.”
• We purchased the 4 day Barcelona Tourism Card. I would not recommend it as it’s incredibly hard to get the maximum benefit from it – though I suppose if we had picked it up at the airport and used it on the bush that would’ve helped recover some value. But with luggage that’s no fun either.
• Most guide books warn about crime and sketchiness in La Rambla. A few people I spoke to were victims of crime in Spain. Maybe it was because it was January, but things weren’t particularly sketchy to me. But then again I grew up walking by 1980’s Columbus Park in Chinatown (it was a lot like today’s SF Tenderloin.)
• http://www.calpep.com/ is a great restaurant.

Figueres

• As a side trip from Barcelona, we went to Figueres to the Dali museum. A pretty surreal place. It was very easy to go there by train, and following the street signs through the town to the museum was manageable. We did not bring a map. Note that there are no signs that tell you how to get back to the train station – so pay attention as you go to the museum. It’s about a mile walk, and rather pleasant.
• The Dali museum is rather surreal.

Madrid

• A great guide for Madrid that’s free: Mariblel’s Guide to Madrid.
• Learning from Barcelona, we wisely did not purchase the Madrid Tourism card.
• We did purchase 5 day unlimited ride metro tickets, and I’m not sure that was a great value either. Actually, I’m not sure we even cleared 10 rides per person in the time we were there, as things in central Madrid are fairly compact! In retrospect, I would’ve just purchased 10 ride tickets and refilled as necessary.
• We stayed at the Best Western Atlantico. Great location – very convenient to the Metro. We were able to walk to the various museums, Plaza Major, the Royal Palace, and more. (Hence the above bullet point about buying a 10 ride metro card instead!) The hotel offers free transfer from MAD airport (we did not take them up on this as we came via train) and charges 6€ per person for rides to the airport, which was handy.
• Note that this hotel may not be for everyone. There’s two things I can think of: it is basically on Broadway (NY)/Market St (SF) – so if you’re not into the “when I step out of my hotel, I step into a giant crowd of people walking” this may not be for you. Also, the first room we got (416) had two beds and was very small. So small that you really couldn’t lay open two 26” suitcases. I managed to do it by balancing one on top of the minifridge. Personally, I don’t have a problem with small hotel rooms since after all this is a European city. But that some Americans go to the supermarket in vehicles larger than this room – again, not for everyone. That’s an exaggeration, but now that I think about it, the only time I had stayed in a room smaller than this was at the Sheraton NY (or was it the Sheraton Manhattan? I always get them mixed up). Other Manhattan hotels had larger rooms. Eventually we were able to switch to another room, which turned out to be accessible and was far larger. Note that noise was not a problem in either room as the windows opened up into interior areas. Also, perhaps this was just because it was Winter – but in both rooms the air conditioning system was pretty much inoperative. (It got really warm.)
• Botin restaurant, which is the World’s Oldest Restaurant was great. I would strongly recommend their suckling pig. The skin was amazingly crunchy. We also ate at a chain called Museo de Jamon – which roughly translates to “Museum of Ham”. It’s actually a deli with an restaurant area – so you can watch the action. Fun.
• We had a churro with hot chocolate at Chocolateria San Gines near Puerta del Sol. I think the place opened in 1894. You go, pay 3.50, get a receipt, give the receipt, then get this a small stack of churros and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is basically molten chocolate – kind of like the goo inside a chocolate lava cake if you’ve ever had one. The churros are very greasy. Together, it’s a great combination:

• I enjoyed the Reina Sofia art museum the most, followed by the Thyssen, and then the Prado. Personally, I felt that the Prado had one too many instances of different takes of “La Sagrada Familia” (The Sacred Family).
• Restaurants at the museums are very, very good. We were quite shocked and surprised.
• The locations of the El Cortes Ingles are surprisingly close together.

Ok, there’s plenty more, but I’ve gotta go back to work and school.

For the last 8 years, I had been using a Eureka that was kind of like a Dyson in that it didn’t use a bag and had a visible dirt compartment that can be emptied out. I thought it was doing a pretty good job based on the stuff I saw it collecting. I vacuum about once a month, so I thought our apartment was pretty clean.

Well, like everyone else, and like all those cliche stories, I was thoroughly surprised when I used the Dyson for the first time and saw how much it collected. What was most significant was the fact that it was sucking up some of the new carpet fuzz that I thought I was done vacuuming up about a year and a half ago. Wowsers!

So why did I pick the DC-17 versus the DC-14? Mostly because it came with a few more attachments, and the price delta wasn’t all that large (especially after the coupon!). Also, I had heard it does a better job of scrubbing carpets.

The things I like the best about the Dyson?

• It empties a lot cleaner than the Eureka I had.
• There are no filters to replace.
• It vacuums a lot better.

I highly recommend it!

It looks like this particular gas pump at Shell in San Carlos wasn’t feeling so well. At least it wasn’t a BSOD like I saw on one of those giant LED panels on 880 last Friday!

One day I calculated that this program was costing me about $2.23 per minute of class time. However, in reality, I’ve spent closer to about 18 hours total per week on class related things, so perhaps the real cost is about $1 per minute. Either way: is it worth it? Absolutely.

To date, I’ve taken:

• Economics for Business Decision Making [aka Microeconomics]
• Organizational Behavior
• Financial Reporting [aka Financial Accounting]
• Marketing Organization and Management

Already I’ve used some of the concepts I’ve learned in class, at work – hence, the benefit of doing this program part time. I was skeptical at first, but it really does happen.

Some other observations:

• I significantly underestimated the amount of time necessary for homework and group projects.
• Gas is cheaper in Berkeley.
• I’m very glad I picked the Saturday option – though this means I don’t really have much in the way of weekends, I spend less time commuting.
• It’s very refreshing to talk about something completely different other than software, and other work-related things. Very refreshing. Sometimes it feels like I’m living two lives!
• I hope to attend more extra-curricular events next year. There are constantly so many interesting talks going on, especially with this current financial crisis. But getting to Berkeley by 6pm is sort of hard!
• 238 between 580 and 880 is scary due to construction and very narrow lanes. A tractor trailer big rig almost ended my career last Friday.
• I’m glad I work for an employer that allows for a more flexible work schedule.
• I’ve met a lot of great friends through this program. And they’re not all engineers!

Well… now a 6 week break until the Challenging Semester begins. The classes are very quantitative heavy. The fact that there’s a review class for one of the classes next semester is a sign – so has the flurry of e-mails explaining the tutoring policy.

A friend of mine asked me: “How do you manage to go to school, go to work, and stay married?”. My answer: “They’re all graded on a curve.”

I still find it hard to say “Go bears!” with zeal though… this has been quite the change from being at Hopkins… working on it!

Targeting Your 401k – WSJ.com
Tax breaks alone hardly explain the popularity of 401ks. Over the past 30 years, the number of individuals covered by them nearly trebled, up to 65 million accounts, while the number under defined-benefit pension fell 30%. People are attached to their 401ks because it is their property, which they can carry with them to new jobs unlike traditional pensions, manage as they see fit and bequeath to heirs.

My interpretation of this snippet is that “401k’s are popular not just because of the tax breaks, but because it is the property of the person.” Is that your interpretation?

If so, that’s pretty silly. It’s not like employees have a choice of whether they get a 401k or a pension plan – they get whatever the employer offers them, and few offer pension plans anymore.

Here’s another interesting snippet:

The main liberal objection to 401(k)s seems to be that they let average Americans control their own investment decisions for retirement.

I think there’s actually two issues here:

1. Is it really true that the main liberal objection to 401k’s is because it allows average Americans to control their own investment decisions? Are there other objections? I don’t know.

2. This supposes that it is a good thing that average Americans control their own investment decision for retirement. Is that really true?

In fact, this Wall Street Journal article from August 2008 tells the tale where 401k’s went horribly awry, forcing taxpayers to bail out teachers:

Seventeen years ago, West Virginia school employees joined millions of workers nationwide in a shift from a pension plan that guaranteed a monthly check, to a retirement-savings plan that would make the teachers, bus drivers, custodians and other staff responsible for their own investment accounts.

“It was horrible,” says Judy Hale, president of the West Virginia Federation of Teachers union. Most felt poorly informed, and they invested too conservatively, putting the largest sums of money into a fixed-rate annuity, a safe but low-yielding option that typically is inadequate for building a nest egg. As employees began to retire, most balances were pitifully small. So on July 1, after a vote authorized by the state legislature, 14,871 school employees, or 78 percent, switched to the old-fashioned pension plan.

After the vote, teachers were “jumping up and down and crying in the halls,” Ms. Hale says.

The school employees put their mistakes behind them, but their experience stands as a cautionary tale for employers and employees across the country. As large numbers of workers are starting to retire with 401(k) or 401(k)-like plans to support them, what happened in West Virginia is a window into exactly how things can fall apart for workers, and it serves as a wake-up call for figuring out how to avoid having plans go as badly off track as this one did.

[snip]

The West Virginia plan initially offered stock and bond mutual funds, a money-market fund, and an annuity, in this case from Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co., or Valic, a unit of American International Group Inc. In addition to the Valic annuity, current offerings include funds from Capital Group Cos.’ American Funds unit, Federated Investors Inc., Fidelity Investments and Franklin Resources Inc.

From the start, most employees favored the annuity. Some say they were swayed by Valic’s sales force, which included former educators and school employees who went into the schools during the workday to talk about the option. “These people came during your lunch or during your planning period basically to sell the program,” says Debra Elmore, a third-grade teacher in Ansted, W.Va.

Ms. Elmore acknowledges knowing little about investing. “Oh, Lord no,” she says. “I had no idea.” She set up her account so that 85 percent of her contributions would go into the fixed-rate annuity. “I just thought, ‘Well, these are safe. Let’s stay there.’”

Here’s a pretty interesting list of interviews about how 401k’s came to being. Some snippets

The 401(k) plans were originally introduced as supplemental plans. No one ever said, “Oh, let’s end these traditional pensions and replace them with 401(k) plans.” What happened was these 401(k) plans came in at the same time the stock market took off. People liked them because they liked having their own accounts that they could look at, and they liked being able to control their investments, particularly in an environment where stocks go up every year. And employers liked these plans because they didn’t have to worry about the risk and what it might do to their earnings. …

Apparently, the 401k was a one line change to benefit a few execs at a certain company.

On the other hand, 401k’s are better for people who change jobs regularly.

Suffice to say, there’s plenty more to 401k’s, the pros, the cons, the possible reforms than exist in the soundbites you hear in the news and from politicians.

Gov’t offers little help for stuck air passengers – Yahoo News
A federal task force approved voluntary guidelines Wednesday for airlines and airports dealing with passengers stranded for hours on the tarmac but produced no fixed limit on how long they can be delayed before being allowed to leave planes.

Passengers who had hoped for stronger protections were left empty-handed by the guidelines.

…

The task force report recommends that:

_Airlines update passengers delayed on tarmacs every 15 minutes even if there is nothing new to report.

_A secure room be provided for passengers from diverted overseas flights so they can avoid having to go through security checks when reboarding an aircraft to their final destination.

_When practical, refreshments and entertainment should be made available to passengers confined aboard aircraft awaiting takeoff.

_Airlines should make reasonable efforts to be keep airplane restrooms usable.

…

Ruden said his main objection is that the task force does not ask Peters to require airlines and airports to develop contingency plans.

I must say, I’m pretty disappointed. Those are not exactly the sweeping reforms I was looking for. Here’s to 2009 being another interesting year for the air travel experience.