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Ending breast cancer is a cause we can and should all support. So many families are affected by it. It’s not surprising that a great number of people get involved in trying to help. One very powerful way is in raising donations. Many thousands do it through the Weekend to End Breast Cancer®. If you check out their website, you will find that 60-kilometres weekend runs are being arranged again this year right across the country.

• Ottawa June 6-8
• Calgary July 25-27
• Edmonton August 8-10
• Halifax August 15-17
• Montreal August 22-24
• Toronto September 5-7
• Vancouver September 5-7

You can get an idea of what has been achieved by looking at the 2007 results in Vancouver. As is noted, over 2,000 participants walked 60-kilometres through several neighbourhoods around Vancouver during the Weekend to End Breast Cancer and raised $5.1 million. Proceeds benefit the BC Cancer Foundation, funding important breast cancer research, education, services and care.

If you want to get involved here in Vancouver, then the Vancouver End Cancer website provides full information. More immediately you could look at a short Video, which opens in a new window, by clicking on this button:

I’m proud to say my wife Vivianne has decided to take part in this. If you would like to support her, then you can visit her website and make a donation. Any amount, large or small, will be much appreciated. If you like what you read for free on this and the other SMM blogs and newsletters, then this could be a good way to show your appreciation. It certainly beats those [Buy Me A Beer] buttons that some blogs carry.

If you know of someone else who is participating and would like to support them, or wish to make a donation directly, then this link will get you there.

QuickTax is the Intuit Canada program that infuriated me into writing this blog post. I might have written a similar post some time back when Intuit Canada forced me to upgrade my version of Quicken, which I use merely to download my bank records. The upgrade was at full price with no recognition that I was already a customer. The upgrade had several non-intuitive features, which was not helped by an inability to access the online Help. They seemed to imply it was Microsoft’s problem when eventually customer service replied by e-mail after 48 hours and suggested a patch to give access. Life is short and one cannot blog about all egregious examples of poor customer service. .. and Mark Minasi has described well the Nonintuitive Actions from Quicken’s Maker about this Quicken forced upgrade, with many commenters expressing similar frustrations.

Then my bank encouraged me to check out the Intuit Canada QuickTax software for tax returns, with the added advantage of being able to submit returns online.

Perhaps I should have learnt. Leopards rarely change their spots. However the QuickTax offer was enticing. I did twice check with technical support on some questions I had and unfortunately on both occasions was misinformed. Surprisingly I had to call a Montreal number, 514-227-3063, which took some digging to find. From the contacts I made subsequently with this number, I was probably being redirected to India.

As suggested on the website I checked with the Canada Revenue Agency Netfile site to ensure QuickTax was certified and read the following:
*Free offering:
Each QuickTax product must be purchased and can produce a limited number of returns over $25,000. However, you can prepare up to 18 free tax returns for anyone who earns less than $25,000 net individual income per year (line 236 on T1).
This same information can also be found on the Intuit Canada website.

So having done sufficient due diligence, as we thought, we started preparing online returns. Perhaps we should have checked some of those reviews that Intuit Canada featured on the website. Here is what jord of Toronto wrote.

That is not an extreme review since more than 10% of reviewers rated the product even lower. One would have hoped that a company bold enough to call itself Intuit Canada would have produced an intuitive software. Sadly that is not the case. If only I had read what Jonathan Chevreau wrote in the Financial Post on the QuickTax package (neither quick nor painless), I could have avoided all this frustration.

Indeed by reading his article, I could have avoided an additional frustration that Intuit Canada creates. Using the online version of QuickTax, you must pay an additional fee for every tax return created. I believe his account is correct, although it’s somewhat tough to figure it out and technical support in my case gave incorrect information.

The CD versions of Quick-Tax Standard, Platinum or Unincorporated cost $40, $60 and $80, respectively, which permits the preparation of just two returns for gross incomes above $25,000, plus up to 18 Freedom returns for those with gross incomes below the threshold.

Beyond that, you can unlock the ability to process other returns for $10 extra per QuickTax Basic return or $15 extra for the other packages. So, for the 40% of its customers that need to process more than two $25,000-plus returns, it will cost more this year. Single users can pay just $20, $30 or $40, for the three Web applications, but couples will have to pay twice that to process joint Web returns.

Fortunately, you can find cheaper alternatives at Canada Revenue Agency’s NetFiling site (www.netfile.gc.ca). One alternative, UFile.ca, is still available for $16 for the Web version and $30 for the CD.

Intuit Canada may feel they are being reasonable in all this. After all you don’t need to pay if you try the product, find you don’t like it and decide not to use it for your return. Given that you have invested a great deal of time in entering data at that point, that’s a tough decision. In addition they suggest they will probably give you your money back in the very small print.

6. Try QuickTax for 60 days. If you are not 100% satisfied, simply e-mail quicktaxonline@intuit.com within sixty (60) days of purchase to request a full refund of the purchase price. Please provide your order number (see confirmation of purchase screen) and the reason our product did not meet your needs.

If Intuit Canada was at all customer-centric, they would realize what an extremely poor job they’re doing with their QuickTax online software.

Related: QuickTax Disappoints

Today is Earth Day: a day that requires us all to do some thinking. Earth Day certainly grabs attention now to an extent that Gaylord Nelson could hardly have imagined in 1969:

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

The method for getting the message across has certainly evolved. As Reuters points out, Google has gone green and so have dozens of comic strips while President George W. Bush opted for a traditional tree-planting on Tuesday to mark Earth Day, an environmental event that has become increasingly political and corporate. Google.com’s online search site features a lush logo with letters made of moss-covered boulders, a tree sprouting from the “L” and a waterfall flowing beneath it.

A great many people are getting involved. For example, Earth Day Canada is a national environmental communications organization mandated to improve the state of the environment by empowering Canadians to achieve local solutions. However the Rockford Register Star of Rockford, IL raises a provocative question,

Wouldn’t Gaylord Nelson be proud of all the fuss made about Earth Day?
Not really. Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, never meant for today to be the Hallmark holiday of the environmental movement. He never meant for Wal-Mart to adopt the slogan “Earth-friendly. Budget-friendly.”

Even tougher issues come up when you remember that it’s not just your corner of the Earth. We’ve really got to try to find solutions that work for all of Earth’s inhabitants. The production of biofuels, often suggested for a green planet, illustrates the difficulties. The Gazette suggests it’s time to scrap the ethanol boondoggle.

Government-funded conversion to “biofuels” such as ethanol is scarcely helping with energy efficiency and is exacerbating a global food crisis. It’s time for Canada to reverse course on this failed approach.

The pendulum is swinging strongly in the other direction. Last fall Jean Ziegler, the UN’s “special rapporteur on the right to food,” claimed it was a “crime against humanity” to divert corn from food to fuel. That claim resonates more loudly this spring, because of fast-rising grain prices - and resulting unrest - around the world. The enormous investment in biofuels in the U.S., the European Union, Canada and elsewhere is fuelling a food crisis in poor countries.

The Telegraph highlights Food shortages and asks how will we feed the world?

A global food shortage threatens the lives of millions. Steep rises in the price of staples such as wheat and rice are having an even bigger impact on poor countries.

Venezuela’s oil minister might be accused of bias in proclaiming in Rome that Using Food to Make Fuel Is `Criminal’. However he may well be right.

“Look at the effect it has, the craziness,” Rafael Ramirez told reporters today in the Italian capital, where he is attending the three-day International Energy Forum. “All countries, and particularly in Latin America, have problems with food stuffs. It is such a bad idea to use foodstuffs for fuel, it is criminal.”

As each of us does our bit for Earth Day today, we should not forget all our neighbors in this global village.

ReadWriteWeb seems to have created quite a furor in publicizing the views of start-up entrepreneur Russell Beattie.

The former Yahoo! Mobile evangelist announced today that he’s calling it quits for his company Mowser because the market for mobile browsing is taking a fast turn for the worse.
“I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to.

In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP mark-up, no JavaScript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time.”

Many others disagree. Greg Sterling proclaims The ‘Mobile Web’ Is Dead, Long Live the Mobile Internet.

The iPhone and its clones, mobile usability improvements from search engines/portals and pure-play mobile companies, together with flat-rate pricing will drive mobile Internet adoption. Time is the “X-variable.” But it will happen. I guarantee it.

Indeed it’s more fundamental than that. As AmediaCirc.US points out, It’s Not The Mobile Web, It’s The Web. Just see the comment from Dean Collins to understand the possibilities. What we really are discussing is the Ubiquitous Web that the World Wide Web Consortium has promoted so strongly. If you really had any doubts, then check out Google’s philosophy.

Google’s goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information, whether they’re at a desk in Boston, driving through Bonn, or strolling in Bangkok.

Their fifth ‘truth’ reads as follows:

You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile and unwilling to be constrained to a fixed location. Whether it’s through their PDAs, their wireless phones or even their automobiles, people want information to come to them. Google’s innovations in this area include Google Number Search, which reduces the number of keypad strokes required to find data from a web-enabled cellular phone and an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers. This system opens up billions of pages for viewing from devices that would otherwise not be able to display them, including Palm PDAs and Japanese i-mode, J-Sky, and EZWeb devices. Wherever search is likely to help users obtain the information they seek, Google is pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions.

With supporters like that how can the mobile Web fail?

NoFollow is one of the most contentious tags around. That is because Google has suggested it be applied to all paid links from web pages. It does have a more acceptable usage in attempting to remove the incentive for spammers to add comments to blogs. That is why Wordpress automatically applies the NoFollow tag to links in comments.

Matt Cutts has set out the Google position on the NoFollow tag, and it certainly does not imply that all comments should have the NoFollow tag applied. Recently John Mueller was one of the Google experts in an online chat and the NoFollow tag came up in the discussion. This is followed up in a Cre8asite Forum discussion on When To Remove Nofollow From Blog Comments. For both Elizabeth Able and Donna Fontenot, removing the NoFollow tag selectively seemed to be a preferred route. They recommended using the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin. This can be set so that the NoFollow tags are removed after a visitor has made a certain number of comments.

In researching this, the WordPress Codex provides an explanation of Nofollow. Here is some of what is mentioned:

Despite nofollow’s Google backing, there is some very strong criticism from the overall blog community.

• Prepare for more comment spam, not less
• NoNoFollow
• DoFollow No Nofollow Community has been established on Bumpzee, as a means for people to find information on Nofollow / DoFollow and find other blogs in the same niche with which to interact.

To disable nofollow, use one of the following plugins:

• DoFollow
• Follow URL

An excellent and more complete discussion of the issue is given by Andy Beard in his Ultimate List of DoFollow & Nofollow Plugins. After reading all this we settled for the tried-and-true DoFollow plug-in mentioned in the WordPress Codex.

SMM DoFollow Policy

Our policy is to encourage more valuable comments by offering their authors ‘linkjuice‘. This is more generous than the approach of the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin. At the same time, we accept the burden of removing spam comments. The Akismet plugin already does a good job of removing most spam comments. Other comments are deleted if it is felt that they do not merit being seen by other readers of the blogs. It’s a kind of Tough Love policy but hopefully everyone wins.

Given the safety concerns of using a cell phone while driving, the words of that old Paul Evans song from the 60s (Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat) may strike a chord or perhaps a ringtone is now more fitting.

Nuance Mobile and TeleNav have just made it a whole lot easier. They’re encouraging you to throw your maps away. They do this by delivering speech-enabled GPS navigation to mobile phones. Here is part of their description of what they offer:

Using the Nuance Mobile Speech Platform on select devices, TeleNav now provides the ability to enter destinations for driving directions and business category searches by voice, so that subscribers no longer need to use a telephone keypad. Users can simply state the destination address, or select from a database of more than 10 million points of interest by stating a category, such as “pharmacy,” or by stating a specific business name, such as “Walgreens.”

Mobile users can conveniently access TeleNav GPS Navigator on a device they already carry with them and receive information in real-time based on their current location. Voice destination entry, which makes navigation services easier to use on mobile phones, has the ability to significantly enhance an already fast-growing market for mobile navigation. Industry analyst firm, In-Stat predicts that the total number of mapping and navigation mobile phone subscribers could exceed 70 million worldwide by 2012.

It certainly seems to be the right time for such voice technology.