by on February 6, 2009

Tab Mix Plus: A Must-Have for Firefox Powerusers

I had finally had it with scrolling back and forth with the Firefox tabs tonight. I am working on a 12″ widescreen laptop monitor, which is far more scrolling than when I’m upstairs on my 22″ widescreen. I was doing theme and plugin searching and finally ended up with over 30 tabs open. That was the last straw, and I wish I’d hit that point 5 months ago.

I did a Google for “firefox tabs multiple rows” and was immediately pointed to the Tab Mix Plus Firefox extension.

This little extension has eliminated all of my dislikes I experience with being on the computer ALL DAY. Check it out and take care of these issues, too:

  • Tabs to open next to the one you’re on rather than all the way at the end of the list.
  • Multiple rows of tabs rather than scrolling.
  • Stopping the annoying blank tabs from downloads, like from Gmail.
Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , ,
by on February 4, 2009

Addicted to Mafia Live!

photo6I downloaded the most addictive iPhone/iPod Touch app ever: Mafia Live. It’s a real-time, live community game where you can be attacked and attack other players in an MMORPG sort of way, only without the graphics.

You get equipment to perform mobster jobs and be equipped to attack and defend against attacks. You also buy real estate to gain income to counter the expenses of maintaining your gear. The sad part is that I’m earning money while asleep and getting attacked all night until my health is too low to be attacked, so I lose quite a bit before I wake up. Oh, well – it’s fair because it happens to everyone.

If you have Mafia Live! on your device, my Family Code is: 119-321-356

photo5

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , , , ,
by on February 2, 2009

The End of an Era… Again… Leaving iThemes

istock_000003721281xsmall-flipFive months ago, I left the nest of my last job to the vast expanse of the start-up business to enter at the ground level. Life was, and still is, exciting every day: meeting customer requests, helping teach people how to use FTP and WordPress, and hopefully generating more income for the company by upselling and holding enough hands to create a fanbase.

Today, this morning around 11:00, the era as Customer Support Manager of iThemes came to an end. For now, I’m shocked, hurt, and all of the other things that come with losing your job, but I do have good company as I am reminded of a post a while back from Bryne Reese, who was let go from Six Apart: A sad departure from Six Apart and looking to the future.

The good news first: we still have 12 months of COBRA left, my moonlighting is doing quite well, so while I look for another job, we hopefully aren’t going to drain much of our rainy day savings, and I got a decent severance package to allow me some time to get my bearings. With such news, there is usually an influx of work that comes in with news of one’s free time, so I hope that is the case for me as well.

The bad news is a tad more complex, as it primarily deals with emotions and history. I really don’t want to go back to my last employer for a number of reasons, but they had the best darn insurance and benefits package I’ve had. I also don’t want to be in that profession any more now that I’ve finally started to make a name for myself in the WordPress and online publishing industry. I’ve got clients, references, and testimonials out the wazoo, and I’m excited to exercise those with my full-time attention now, but feeling the responsibility to get a “real job” and get a salary again. Monster.com isn’t very likely as an option because I was working in an English degree, but still have about 20 hours left to go, and my area of expertise is computers, which often require a computer science degree to land a desk job.

My mind is going 1,000,000 miles per hour with plans, ideas, and ways to keep our heads above water. I’m certain it won’t be a problem… I just don’t know what path to take right now. Looking at this on the home page, it’s such a stark contrast to yesterday’s post, it’s unbelievable what a day will do.

In the meanwhile, if you have any site needs or know anyone who needs a professional, easy-to-use site, please head over to JessePetersen.com and check out my testimonials and services.

Filed Under: Current Events, iThemes Life, Personal
by on February 1, 2009

Buying Our House: Best Thing We’ve Done

2860957_thumbnailI believe we have all of our W2s and 1099-MISC forms in now, so I started filling in our stuff using TaxCut Online, as I’ve done for the last 2 years. I believe our witholding woes are that even though we both file as 0 dependents for our payroll deductions, the deductions are based on each of our estimated annual income, which is way short of our combined annual income, which clearly bumps us into a whole new league of tax torture. As soon as I added my wife’s income, we went from getting a ton of money back to owing a smidgen of money.

My next tactic was to try to file as Married – Separately. Huh-uh. We were going to owe something in the neighborhood of $4k and I freaked. I started going through all of the questions in the software to find deductions and credits when I came across the First-time Homebuyer’s Credit. Ooohhhh. Much better. With that beautiful improvement, I switched the filing to Married – Filing Joint and we struck gold, and I haven’t even entered anything about using our third bedroom and Internet for office work, since I work remotely for iThemes.

We are estatic; it’s the single biggest windfall we’ve had and places us in the few Americans who have 3 months of living expenses saved for a rainy day… if the numbers hold up when I’m done with all of my calculations.

Next year will be better, though: a full year of mortgage interest, mortgage insurance, COBRA, home office, tithe, and more. Deductions and credits galore! Now I know how homeowners get rich when they are fiscally responsible and remember who their money belongs to.

Quote of the day before I found the homebuyer credit:

We’re too poor to be this rich if they’re going to tax us this much!

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: , , , ,
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