http://www.vouchon.com/profile/stuboo/ http://www.vouchon.com/post/paying-an-accountant/ It's not cheap but a good accountant is well worth the money. My wife and I have been using an accountant to prepare our taxes since we got married. My wife does a great job tracking our income and expenses and the accountant takes that information and gets us the largest possible deduction.You mentioned in an earlier comment that you're self-employed and this does complicate things a bit - because it gives you more options for deductions and structuring. Our cpa charges between $200-$300 to prepare our taxes each year.Besides that, if you plan to stay in business for yourself, you need an accountant you can trust. S/he will be able to help structure your business on the front end so that you save the most on taxes, fees, expenses, etc. Hope this helps! stuboo 2007-02-17T05:07:44Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/wordpress/ I know Wordpress is not a traditional CMS, but for most sites, it does the job. I only know a bit of php, I can customize Wordpress any way I want - and make it do just about anything. The most recent version of WP (2.1) even has a few extra features built in that make it more like a cms and less like traditional blogging software.For what it's worth, I've installed and used, joomla/mambo, drupal, webedit (by interspire), phpnuke, wordpress, and moveable type.I prefer WP but I realize that it's not perfect for all cases. In my opinion, though, if I came across a project that I couldn't do with WP, I'd have a cms custom coded for the site. Hope this helps! stuboo 2007-01-26T08:03:22Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/giving-more-away/ I won't go into all the reasons I think folks should give to charity, I'll just stick to this one.Charitable giving is a great way to save money on your taxes and put your money to good use as well. Gifts of highly appreciated assets (like stocks or bonds with high appreciation) are the best assets for giving and will likely save you the most in taxes. I would also recommend budgeting your giving each year so that you know how much you plan to give away and which organization you plan to give it to. Many people who itemize their taxes make the mistake of giving several small (<$100) gifts each year and fail to list them under itemized deductions. Give regularly or in large chuncks to make tracking your deductions easier. If you'd like me to keep going, just say so in a comment below :) stuboo 2007-01-24T18:47:58Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/almonds-as-a-healthy-snack/ I'm a big fan of eating a handful of almonds for a snack. They taste fantastic and they have just enough fat in them to give you a "full" feeling. Raw almonds are the best for you because they have undisturbed omega-3 fatty acids but I'm also a big fan of the roasted & salted ones from Emerald. When roasted and salted, they're not the best health-wise snack, but they're certainly better than chips. stuboo 2007-01-24T18:38:46Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/genographic-project-participation-kit/ I realize Christmas is many, many days from now, but there are other opportunities for gifts - right?The Genographic Project Participation Kit from National Geographic allows you to swab your cheek for a DNA sample and submit it to the lab for either mitochondrial dna (mother's line) testing or Y-chromosome (men only - father's line) testing.The site says, "Your results will reveal your deep ancestry along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. Your results will also place you on a particular branch of the human family tree. Some anthropological stories are more detailed than others, depending upon the lineage you belong to."Check it out. It's a good present for guys and girls alike. stuboo 2007-01-23T05:35:44Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/giftscom-helping-find-a-good-gift-for-a-guy/ I've seen similar "find a good gift" websites in the past but it looks like gifts.com finally got it right. As a quick test, I ran myself through the quick "gift finder" and of the 12 items that showed up on the front page, I already have (or have done) at least 4 of them - and all of the others were pretty cool by my standards. stuboo 2006-12-22T12:15:32Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/mr-coffee-12cup-programmable/ I was planning to recommend the Mr. Coffee 12-cup coffee maker that I own until I saw that nearly every one of the 168 reviews on amazon said it leaked! For what it's worth, I've had mine for about a year and it hasn't started leaking yet. It makes good, quality coffee and has timers that let you know when the coffee is finished brewing and when the warmer plate is going off. If I reviewed it on amazon today, I'd have to give it 5 stars (but I probably won't review it until it starts leaking :) ). stuboo 2006-12-21T14:33:48Z http://www.vouchon.com/post/an-excellent-website-statistics-script/ If you're in the market for a real-time statistics tool for your website and you're running php/mysql, look no further than Shaun Inman's Mint. Beautifully designed and written with a built-in API that allows developers to include their own functionalities, Mint can do nearly everything you can imagine - all for $30 per site. Usability expert and design guru David Seah says, ". . . I dropped Mint and tried surviving on Google Analytics and the free version of Statcounter. That experiment has ended today, and I’ve decided to reinstall Mint."This is not a paid advertisement. I just like Mint so much that I'm happy to VouchOn it! stuboo 2006-12-20T08:19:31Z