Ready to file your taxes?   Sid Gudes may be able to help you.  Sid has also provided this helpful tax tech tip for filing your own taxes online for free.

Tax Preparation Services.  Don't let the IRS stress you out! Get your records together for us, and we'll do the rest.  Maximum refund, electronic filing.  See our web site at www.CougarSolutions.US/TaxPrep.  Contact Sid Gudes in Vallecitos, 505-595-4800.

How to File Tax Returns for Free
Prepared by Cougar, Inc.
February 2019

​The IRS provides an online free filing service, in conjunction with tax preparation
software providers who are part of the Free File Alliance, provided that you meet the
requirements for free filing. These are typically:
- Gross income must be less than $66,000 (some providers have lower limits)
- Some providers have minimums for income (e.g. must be at least $9,000)
- Some providers only support a certain age limit (e.g. 21 to 50)
- Some providers only offer certain state returns and not other states
To file a free tax return, use the following instructions. WARNING: do not just do a web
search for “free tax filing”. This could lead you to a rogue web site that will steal your
identity. Use only the IRS-approved site shown here.

1) Go to https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free.
2) Click on the [Start Free File Now] button.
3) Fully read the information there, especially the information about fees for filing
state tax returns. Choosing a vendor who states “Free for any state return if you
qualify for the federal return” will help ensure the filing is completely free.
4) Click on the chosen vendor and start the tax preparation process on their site.
If a tax preparation vendor tries to charge you for something at the last minute, you are
always free to stop that return and go to a different vendor.
Free filing is done completely online. Make sure to print and keep detailed copies of the
tax returns and supporting data for your records, and keep your W-2, 1099, and other
forms used to prepare the return. Most free filing vendors delete the online copies of the
returns after a few months or a year. To be safe, keep your copy of the return and forms
for 10 years.

Happy Filing!

CJ Bondy
​
If you know the name of a file you are looking for it's always been pretty easy to search for it if it was saved in another location but you can also look for documents by contents.  For instance if I know I wrote something in word last year about "Abiquiu Studio Tour 2018", I can search that and all the documents and emails that term was used in would appear.  (hint... it would be a long list) but you can also use natural language to search your PC or Mac contents.

Trying to find files tucked far away in folders across your Windows PC or Mac can be time-consuming. So, try using Windows Search/Cortana on Windows 10 or Spotlight/Siri on the Mac to find what you're looking for. Just type in your query. Before long, your PC or Mac will find what you need and you'll be off.

Cortana in Windows 10 and Spoplight (or Siri, if you want to talk) are both smart enough to understand natural language searches. So, for example, you can say "show me photos from last week" or "PDFs from December."   

On Windows 10, Cortana is that search bar in the lower left.  Type in what you want.  See those icons at the top,   You can search in apps, in documents or the web.  Once you find what you are looking for click on it and it will open.

In Spotlight click in the upper-right corner of the menu bar, or press Command-Space bar.  Enter what you want to find. You can search for something like “apple store” or “emails from emily”.  To open an item from the results list, double-click the item.

I kind of like commercials. I always have, don't know why. Anyway, there was a commercial on TV with Danny DeVito, he's showing how to organize receipts for his taxes. He takes a picture of it and them crumples it up and tosses it away.

I hadn't thought much about that, except that I like Danny DeVito commercials, don't know why.

As it's tax season, I was reading about some apps that do this very thing, and I put it all together in my wee brain. It's probably too late for 2018 taxes but some of these apps sound amazing. If you save receipts and put them in a shoe box for later, then this might be useful for you. I have a link to an article that reviews 10 apps, right about HERE. 

I love looking around for tech tips. I don't always write about stuff that happened to me 'this week', though those are the easiest tips to come up with. But I do actually still enjoy reading about computer technology, and I don't know why.

Backups are something I remind people to do, an awful lot. Not in every column, but probably monthly. There are so many ways to backup data, and lots of media. You can copy & paste to a thumb drive, you can run the OS’s built-in program or app, you can offload data to a cloud server or backup service. Many options are free, or relatively free, and some cost money for space.
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Something to remember is that, generally speaking, your programs won’t be saved, and usually not the operating system. This isn’t necessarily a big deal, as you can re-download programs and apps, and install them. The operating system isn’t likely that difficult to come by either, so even if you need a new hard drive, the computer is still likely recoverable.
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What I find the trickiest issue in recovering from a hard drive crash is the email. If you use Outlook, the email may be recoverable via the .pst file that Outlook creates, if the data is retrievable from the bad hard drive. If you use imap, typically the mail is all still on the server your mail is delivered to, so just setting up your client (your email program) will recover the email.

Some people use their email as a file storage system. You can create folders outside the server’s email system and store things both locally on your computer and on the server, or just locally. If all the mail is still on the server, it’s easy to get back when setting up the new hard drive. If your mail is just on your computer, and the hard drive is not readable, then it’s all gone.
Whatever email client you use will have the ability to create backups of your mail and of your address book. Make sure you save them somewhere other than your computer. How often you make backups is up to you, but please, make a backup.