Chromebook backlit keyboard.

Email to Bobby Payne, Chrome Unboxed website.

https://chromeunboxed.com/about/

Robby,

I've watched many of your reviews. I think overall that you do a great job but with one glaring exception. You evaluate keyboards almost totally on feel, which is overly impacted by the fact that you touch type.

Many of us must look at the keyboard to type, which makes seeing the keys clearly even more important.

I bought the Asus C434 flip because of good reviews, especially yours. You weren't nuts about trackpad but loved the keyboard, which is backlit. Unfortunately, the keys are the same silver as the rest of the unit and their lighting varies from acceptable to really bad. It's also not easy to adjust the backlighting.

I also have a Microsoft Surface laptop, which has keys with dark gray background and the light of the keys adjusts to the light in the room. It's keyboard is way better than the Asus Chromebook. I got a new Windows PC just to run one program: Microsoft Access, which is by far the best single user DBMS for any operating system. I use it for my Radical Baseball blog.

I'm accustomed to a Chromebook that is not backlit and works just fine that way.

I'm returning the Asus and will monitor new Chromebooks for a replacement for my Toshiba, which will lose automatic updating, as my primary PC. I've been a Chromebook convert for about ten years.

Kenneth Matinale

TurboTax 2018 problem: does NOT include estimated tax paid.

What could be more fundamental than determining whether retired people have already paid their income taxes in the form of estimated tax? And yet TurboTax is missing that for the 2018 tax year.

The new tax rules have resulted in a shorter 1040 tax form that has only 23 lines, none of which deal with estimated tax. Maybe that's where TurboTax dropped the ball.

The previous version of the 1040 tax form used for many years had 79 lines and included for 2017:

65 2017 estimated tax payments and amount applied from 2016 return

Even if your previous returns using TurboTax included estimated tax paid, TurboTax does not explicitly prompt you for that tax, even if you are listed as retired. That's two very obvious cues that TurboTax misses in its online system.

Despite numerous, tedious on screen cartoons that are supposed to simulate rechecking your return for ever more elusive "savings", TurboTax misses that essential item every damn time. It never prompts you for estimated tax paid.

Speaking to two TurboTax reps:

The first simply drones on about there being new tax rules, even after repeatedly being told it's not about deductions, etc. but about estimated tax paid. Finally that person sends you to an expert ... after a 20 minute wait on hold.

The expert is genuinely surprised but confirms. Then you are shown a convoluted way to find way your down in the TurboTax menus to a place to enter your estimated tax paid.

With many articles written about people being surprised that their taxes have increased after the changes in tax rules, you may think that a higher tax bill may be due to that. But it may also be due to gross incompetence by a company like TurboTax.

If you discover this problem after filing your taxes with the IRS through TurboTax, you will have to wait until March 7 for TurboTax to be able to handle tax form 1040X to amend your return because of the mistake by TurboTax. Be sure to list that as your reason for omitting your estimated tax paid. Then you have to print, sign and mail in 1040X to the IRS. TurboTax can't do that electronically.

Oh, for your 2018 tax return TurboTax will still generate those quarterly 1040-ES forms for paying your 2019 estimated tax even though TurboTax did not apply it to your taxes owed for 2018.

1&1 IONOS contradicts itself on it's website about "Private registration".

You can't make up stuff like this.

https://my.ionos.com/domain-privacy/matinale.net#open-flyin:https://www.ionos.com/help//?utm_term=164&utm_campaign=domain-privacy&utm_medium=help-and-learn&id=164&source=control_panel&utm_source=controlpanel&utm_content=article%2Bfly-in;point-to:domain-private-reg-inactive,top,true;

Private registration

If you do not want your domain contact data to be publicly available, you can protect them by activating the Private Registration.

https://www.ionos.com/help//?utm_term=164&utm_campaign=domain-privacy&utm_medium=help-and-learn&id=164&source=control_panel&utm_source=controlpanel&utm_content=article%2Bfly-in

Enabling Private Registration for a 1&1 IONOS Domain

A private registration helps you prevent unwanted promotional emails and calls. Your personal data is replaced by anonymous company data from 1&1 IONOS in the publicly accessible WHOISdatabase. Private registration is free for all new top-level domains as well as for the extensions .net, .name, .mobi, .org, .com, .biz, .info, .in, .me, .sc, .tv, .vc and .ws, but not, for example, for .de domains.

Use the following button to activate private registration. You will see the option right after selecting a domain.

Enable Private Registration

Information About the Publication of Domain Contact Details

Anyone registering a domain must include their personal details such as their name, address, email address and telephone number as domain contact details in the WHOIS database. The WHOIS database is publicly accessible and can be viewed by anyone. It is intended to provide a way for third parties to contact the domain owner, for instance, if they wish to purchase the domain from the current owner.

However, this data can also be misused for spam mails or unwanted advertising calls.

Preventing the Publication of Personal Details

1&1 IONOS gives you the option to prevent this data from being published. If you enable private registration, 1&1 IONOS does not automatically forward your customer details to the WHOIS database. Instead, we replace your details with our general company details. This service is available only for certain top-level domains.

If you activate private registration, we will forward all inquiries relating to your 1&1 IONOS domain to you, and you can decide for yourself if you wish to respond to these inquiries.

Please Note: 1&1 IONOS may revoke a domain's private registration if there is evidence that it is being used in violation of our Terms & Conditions. If this is the case, the domain owner's contact details will be reported to the WHOIS database.

---

Did this article help you?

No. 1&1 IONOS support people just mindlessly repeat that their company is European and is GDPR compliant. Hey, read your own documentation. Here is today's exchange of emails:

from:		hosting@ionos.com
to:		ken
date:		Jan 6, 2019, 7:46 AM
subject:		C123456789
mailed-by:		ionos.com
signed-by:		ionos.com

About your concern even if we change domain name status into public the name and the information on your domain name will be 1&1 Ionos due to GDPR rule.
____________________________

from:		Ken
to:		hosting@ionos.com
date:		Jan 6, 2019, 8:01 AM
subject:		Re: C123456789

Send me the link to the exact text of this specific GDPR rule and quote it.
___________________________

I'm still waiting.

I'll send the link to this post to hosting@ionos.com, etc.

1and1.com
Gunter Eberling, VP 1&1 IONOS

Gunter Eberling, VP 1&1 IONOS, is support@ionos.com your personal email?

Note, especially the date and TIMES:

1&1 IONOS Inc. sucks for being "GDPR compliant". SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 2019 11:34 AM my post
____________________________________

from: 1&1 IONOS Customer Service <support@ionos.com
to: Ken
date: Jan 5, 2019, 3:02 PM
subject: C123456789: Are you satisfied with our services?
signed-by: ionos.com

Dear Mr. Matinale,

Thank you for contacting our Customer Support on 12/29/2018. I hope we were able to assist you with your concern.

My name is Gunter Eberling, Head of Customer Satisfaction. My team takes care of ensuring that you are provided with adequate support. It is very important that we review our performance and work on improving where we can. So, with that in mind, I'd like to ask a favor.

Could you please take a moment to rate your recent experience with our customer support? The link below will take you to a short survey that will help us judge whether or not we are meeting your expectations.

Take the short survey
_________________________________

Uh, no, Gunter, I think you and your company suck and your support is less than adequate. You obviously didn't read my post today. Nor my previous answers to your survey, which contain links to my posts about the problems. You continue to put your name on messages but do not read replies. I've sent links to my posts to your "team" in email replies, too. I found you in linkedin.com:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-gunter-eberling-2571a768/?originalSubdomain=de

Dr. Gunter Eberling

VP Customer Value Management at 1&1 IONOS SE
Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany

Customer-driven people leader with focus on CRM, CX, Marketing, Sales, Digitization. Worked in Consulting, Telecommunication, Dialog Marketing and Internet Industries.
____________________________

And you're a doctor. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, who is not GDPR compliant: What's up, doc?

I just sent the link to this post to support@ionos.com.

1and1.com
Gunter Eberling, VP 1&1 IONOS

1&1 IONOS Inc. sucks for being "GDPR compliant".

from: hosting@ionos.com
to: presenter.case@1und1und1.org
date: Jan 5, 2019, 11:07 AM
subject: C123456789 Re: CP-Feedback us COMPLAINT
mailed-by: ionos.com
signed-by: ionos.com
Dear Kenneth Matinale,

Thank you for contacting us.

It is very important for us to answer all your questions quickly and to your satisfaction.

We are a European Company we are GDPR compliant...

from: Ken
to: hosting@ionos.com
date: Jan 5, 2019, 11:18 AM
subject: Re: C123456789 Re: CP-Feedback us COMPLAINT

"GDPR compliant" does NOT mean that you can force me to hide my domain registration and admin information from Whois searches. You have no common sense. That's why I'm eliminating my personal domain and going through the huge inconvenience of informing EVERYONE that my lifetime email ID is going away and to please use my new email, which is not based on my personal domain. All thanks to the European company IONOS that took over 1and1, which had been doing a good job of hosting my personal domain for several years and forwarding my email to a generic outside free email company, which I will now use in the open.

I'll post this most recent example of a ridiculous exchange between me and an IONOS "GDPR compliant" person.
___________________________

GDPR prohibits publication of website registration and administration data. TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2019
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now intimidates web hosting companies concerning Whois searches.

from: hosting@ionos.com
to: me
date: Jan 1, 2019, 5:36 PM
... our company is a GDPR compliant. Therefore, all customers who have domains and accounts with us must comply with the said policy as well. If you wish to publish your personal information as the owner of the domain for the public to see, you can out your information on your website instead.

Technical Support

1&1 IONOS Inc.
_____________________________

GDPR compliant is a euphemism for mindlessly rolling over to a European bureaucracy ...

1&1 IONOS never notified its customers about this and the matter is little known or understood inside 1&1 IONOS. All they do is act like robots and repeat that 1&1 IONOS is GDPR compliant.

GDPR: Europe regulates the world's technologies it lacks the imagination to create. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2018

1and1.com
Gunter Eberling, VP 1&1 IONOS

GDPR prohibits publication of website registration and administration data.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now intimidates web hosting companies concerning Whois searches.

from: hosting@ionos.com
to: me
date: Jan 1, 2019, 5:36 PM
subject: case
mailed-by: ionos.com
signed-by: ionos.com

... our company is a GDPR compliant. Therefore, all customers who have domains and accounts with us must comply with the said policy as well. If you wish to publish your personal information as the owner of the domain for the public to see, you can out your information on your website instead.

Technical Support

1&1 IONOS Inc.

_____________________________

GDPR compliant is a euphemism for mindlessly rolling over to a European bureaucracy that is beyond the jurisdiction of the United States and has momentum to intimidate U.S. tech companies in ways big and small, dumb and dumber.

1&1 IONOS has a setting for domains that it hosts asking the domain owner if the registration and administration information should be public or private. However, that setting must be left over from before GDPR added it to its sphere of influence. Now, no matter what the domain owner wants, the domain owner information will not be made public for a Whois search. The public/private setting deep inside the domain settings at 1&1 IONOS is irrelevant.

1&1 IONOS never notified its customers about this and the matter is little known or understood inside 1&1 IONOS. All they do is act like robots and repeat that 1&1 IONOS is GDPR compliant.

GDPR: Europe regulates the world's technologies it lacks the imagination to create. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2018

1and1.com
Gunter Eberling, VP 1&1 IONOS