Bing Highlights for Safari is out! Here’s the announcement on the Bing community blog. Here a mention in Apple’s press release for Safari 5.0.1.

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!

Microsoft Word has a powerful Citation/Source manager that can really help you save time by automatically generating a Works Cited list – which otherwise would be a real chore.

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!

I happen to have an interest in flashlights. I’ve always liked Maglites because of their quality build, but I was never particularly thrilled with the level of light.

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.

So yesterday I posted about my terrible experience buying lenses for frames from Costco.

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.

UPDATE: Costco resolved the problem. See http://www.decheung.com/2009/08/costco-does-right-follow-up.html

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.

Ever since I went to Hopkins, I’ve had an interest in issues surrounding healthcare policies. Although I never took any courses in those topics, I became familiar through coverage in local publications. Lately, the topic of healthcare has become even more important, more personal to me.

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."

I was doing my taxes in TurboTax Premier 2008 (with all the updates) tonight, when I noticed something unusual. Ever since the IRS “helped” me find a bug in TurboTax a few years ago, I’ve been very cautious – double, triple checking my work.

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?