Archive for March, 2007

Say No to Photo ID

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

If you present your credit card and the merchant won’t accept it unless you produce photo identification, that merchant is breaking Mastercard and Visa rules. You should report such merchants to your card issuer:

MasterCard

This form (MasterCard site) lets you report a merchant who refused to accept your MasterCard for invalid reasons:

  • In order to make a MasterCard purchase, the merchant/retailer required a minimum or maximum amount.
  • The merchant/retailer is adding a charge for using your MasterCard card.
  • The merchant/retailer required identification.
  • A merchant/retailer displaying the MasterCard decal in their window refused to accept my MasterCard card.

Visa

From the Rules for Visa Merchants (VISA Site; PDF)

Q: When should you ask a cardholder for an official government ID? Although Visa rules do not preclude merchants from asking for cardholder ID, merchants cannot make an ID a condition of acceptance. Therefore, merchants cannot refuse to complete a purchase transaction because a cardholder refuses to provide ID. Visa believes merchants should not ask for ID as part of their regular card acceptance procedures. Laws in several states also make it illegal for merchants to write a cardholder’s personal information, such as an address or phone number, on a sales receipt…

According to the Visa FAQ, if you have been denied use of your VISA card for any invalid reason, or if you suspect any other type of merchant fraud, contact your card issuer. The issuer’s name and telephone number is printed on your card.

Federal Tax Return program for Linux

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

“TaxGeek is a Mozilla-based US income tax program that includes Form 1040, Schedules A, B, C, C-EZ, D, E, K-1 (1065), SE (Short and Long), W2, Form 8880, Form 8863, Form 3903, and Form 2441 with access to most other files as PDFs. It is also intended to be extensible so that developers can easily add other forms that are needed without affecting the existing file formats and stored data.”

Tax Geek on Sourceforge

How to change default thumbnail size

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

thread on the WordPress site

Flexible Upload feature for WordPress

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Flexible Upload is a plugin for Wordpress 2.0.x and 2.1 to enhance the image upload functionality.

Main Features

  • Resize pictures at upload to the size you specify
  • Let you decide whether or not to create a thumbnail and specify its size
  • Optionally incrust a watermark signature in all pictures you upload
  • Enhanced link insertion into your posts: specify picture alignment (left, right, center) - optional
  • Insert a caption for each picture (not supported for WP2.1 with Wysiwyg editor)
  • Optional support for Lightbox2 links

Flexible Upload homepage