Archive for the ‘Free Software’ Category

CashApp Will Now Do Your Taxes for Free, and It’s Actually Legit – VICE

Tax season is here, folks, and even if you think that Uncle Sam eating 40% of your lunch is a steaming pile of nonsense, you still have to pay. After all, as the old adage goes, three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes, and long Furby guiding you across the River Styx in the afterlife. Dont freak out yet: Tax Day (April 18 this year) is still over a month away, so if all of your receipts and invoices are crumpled up in a shoebox documents safe under your bed, youve still got time. Traditionally, youd either have to pony up for an accountant, or shell out for some legacy tax software to have the privilege of giving the government your money. However, in the year of our Lord 2022, the good people at Cash App are offering a simple, elegant solution: Theyll file your taxes for free.

Yep, you read that correctly: Cash App, the app best known for helping people pay back their friends for weed and tacos, now offers Cash App Taxes (formerly Credit Karma Tax), a fast, easy, and 100%-free way to file both your federal and state taxes, even if you're taking deductions or credits, or have a uniquely complex tax situation. Millions of people have already used it to file for free (including one friend of Rec Room, who said it was very easy, very legit, and that they got a great return), and it currently has a 4.8/5-star rating for its service. Most people can file their taxes in minutes, the website reads. Not only is it fast and easy to file with us, it's completely free from start to finishno hidden fees, charges, or surprises. And frankly, we're in need of making this whole thing as easy as possible.

The only thing you need to do is download Cash App to log in and start filing with Cash App Taxes. (If you don't already have Cash App, creating a free account to get started is a snap.) Plus, if you deposit your refund directly into Cash App, you can get it up to five days faster compared to many banks, according to the site. You also dont have to worry about your taxes or personal information being secureCash App Taxes uses 128-bit or higher encryption to protect the transmission of your data, has a dedicated on-site security team, and supports two-factor authentication with authenticator apps.

Whether youre more than happy to fork over some of your hard-earned clams to Uncle Sam to help build schools, repair roads, and fund government projects across the country, or youre Googling how to start an offshore shell corporation as we speak, Cash App Taxes is there to help you settle your account with government, for free, because as weand some of historys most notorious criminalsknow, the IRS does not fuck around.

File your taxes for free today with Cash App Taxes.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story.

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CashApp Will Now Do Your Taxes for Free, and It's Actually Legit - VICE

The Best Free Invoice And Billing Software Of 2022 – Forbes

Invoice Ninja is a feature-packed free invoicing software that makes it easy for you to manage billing for multiple clients and even multiple businesses. You can create an unlimited number of quotes and invoices, but the free plan limits you to 50 clients. Add a logo to invoices to add professionalism, but youre stuck with the Invoice Ninja branding, too.

A unique feature of Invoice Ninja is that it allows you to send invoices for multiple businesses, so you can manage billing for all your businesses or clients businesses with one free account. Like most of the best free invoicing software, Invoice Ninja lets you use payment gateways such as WePay, Stripe, Authorize.net and PayPal.

If you find the limitations of the free plan too restrictive, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans, which are affordableat $10 to $14 per month. The paid plans also include payment reminders, reporting and a branded URL, so customers can pay via a link.

Who should use it:

Invoice Ninja is a good choice for any small to midsize business, but its best for individuals who run multiple companies and need to invoice for each oneyou can do so for up to ten businesses from one account.

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The Best Free Invoice And Billing Software Of 2022 - Forbes

New Jersey-based POS Solutions Announces Five Million In Free POS Software & Hardware To Local Restaurants That Are Raising Money For Ukrainian…

New Jersey-based POS Solutions Announces Five Million In Free POS Software & Hardware To Local Restaurants That Are Raising Money For Ukrainian Relief.

ROCKAWAY, NJ-March 14th, 2022POS Solutions, the leading provider of point of sales solutions to thousands of tri-state restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and more, announced their free POS software and hardware for any restaurant, small business, or organization, raising money for the millions of displaced Ukrainians.

We are extremely proud to work with area business owners to boost their efforts to help the over two million Ukrainians that the ongoing conflict has displaced, stated Chris Sasso, President of POS Solutions. We are helping restaurants and businesses who facilitate the collection, processing, and disbursement of customer donations and helping the brave people of Ukraine, he concluded.

ABOUT POS SOLUTIONS:

Since 1978, POS Solutions has been providing restaurants, bars, and thousands of small businesses to accept and process credit cards and contactless payments. They serve businesses in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Florida, with plans to expand in 2022. Based in Rockaway, New Jersey, POS Solutions employs over 40 local residents and offers tech support in both Spanish and English.

POS SOLUTIONS MISSION:

POS Solutions is dedicated to providing the best in POS solutions software, hardware, and service and giving back to our communities and customers through charitable giving.

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New Jersey-based POS Solutions Announces Five Million In Free POS Software & Hardware To Local Restaurants That Are Raising Money For Ukrainian...

TMS 2.0 is finally here and its free – FreightWaves

Shippers and brokers are traditionally forced to use off-the-shelf transportation management systems because they cannot afford to build their own TMS.

These systems come at a steep cost despite the growing number of TMS solutions on the market, many fall drastically short of expectations and are prohibitively expensive.

Whats needed is a freight management solution that does it all, but is scalable and affordable perhaps even free.

This is the goal of MVMNT, a Chicago-based FreightTech startup.

MVMNT founder and CEO Michael Colin drew from his logistics background and passion for fintech to create a freight management solution that addressed the many inefficiencies and pain points that hinder this industry.

When booking a load, youve got your TMS open on one window, youve got your email open on another window, and then youve got a Chrome browser open with like 15 tabs, Colin said.

In this emerging era of streamlined freight technology, using three monitors at once just isnt the answer.

Its a transportation management system, right? Youre supposed to be able to manage all of your freight in it, Colin explained. You shouldnt have to use external, individual subscription-based software solutions built 15 years ago to do your job.

From carrier procurement to pricing, load dispatching to making payments, MVMNT is the all-in-one freight management platform that encapsulates what a TMS should be.

We dont charge for connections made on our platform, he said. Were not in the business of making decisions for our customers; were just in the business of helping facilitate those decisions and making them quicker and more efficient.

MVMNTs free-to-use model takes capital constraints out of the equation when it comes to choosing freight management software.

If youre a small brokerage, not only do you have to think about making money but you also have to think about cash flow, Colin said. Transportations an industry where cash flow is incredibly important.

Colin stressed that cash flow goes beyond the books it can better position companies to make a direct impact in the market.

Cash flow is not just an accounting function by being able to pay your carriers quickly, you drive stronger retention, get better rates and are more competitive in the market, said Colin. Our QuickPay-embedded financing solution brings the benefits of paying carriers immediately to small and medium-sized businesses that otherwise wouldnt be able to.

He described MVMNT as unlike other free-to-use products, many of which sacrifice quality for accessibility.

We really want to make sure that this isnt true for our platform, Colin said. The ability to build something very strong that solves end users problems while also being free I think thats a really powerful combination.

Colin founded MVMNT in response to the challenges he faced at a large freight brokerage in Chicago. As then-director of business operations, he was frustrated with a number of technology constraints that made things inefficient.

What MVMNT has created is a reverse-engineered TMS, dubbed TMS 2.0, one that Colin said hed love to have used when he was in the trenches. The platforms familiarity and simplicity among industry leaders has quickly led to its widespread adoption. In just two years, over 30,000 carriers have joined the platform.

Weve redefined what your TMS should be able to do and found a way to give it away for free to everyone in the market, Colin said. And unlike many startups trying to enter the space, we are building MVMNT from the inside out as industry operators that believe in a strong command of operations via technology.

Click for more FreightWaves content by Jack Glenn.

The leading voices in supply chain are coming to Rogers, Arkansas, on May 9-10.

*limited term pricing available.

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TMS 2.0 is finally here and its free - FreightWaves

Tesla fired an employee after he posted driverless tech reviews on YouTube – CNBC

John Bernal, the creator of AI Addict on YouTube.

Courtesy: AI Addict

Tesla has fired a former Autopilot employee named John Bernal after he shared candid video reviews on his YouTube channel, AI Addict, showing how the company's Full Self Driving Beta system worked in different locations around Silicon Valley.

Following Bernal's dismissal, Tesla also cut off his access to the FSD Beta system in the vehicle he personally owns, a 2021 Tesla Model 3, despite having no safety "strikes" in the software. He still has FSD, Tesla's premium driver assistance software. Tesla's technology does not make its cars autonomous today.

The FSD Beta option can best be summarized as a set of new driver assistance features that are not finished or fully debugged. Chief among them is "autosteer on city streets," which lets the car navigate around complex urban environments without the driver needing to move the steering wheel. Customers must first have FSD, which costs $12,000 up front or $199 per month in the U.S., and then obtain and maintain a high driver-safety score, as determined by Tesla software that monitors their driving habits.

Although Tesla did not put details into writing saying why he was fired, Tesla and other Silicon Valley companies often foster a culture of loyalty. Internal criticisms may be tolerated, but criticism in public is viewed as disloyal.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Bernal's situation.

Bernal started working for Elon Musk's electric vehicle maker as a data annotation specialist in August 2020 in an office in San Mateo, California. He was dismissed in the second week of February this year, after having moved into the role of advanced driver assistance systems test operator, according to records he shared with CNBC.

As a lifelong car enthusiast proud to be working at Tesla, Bernal put in an order to buy a 2021 Model 3 with a long-range battery a few months after he began working there. He took delivery of the car on December 26, 2020.

He says he bought the car in part because Tesla offered employees free access to FSD then worth $8,000 as a perk. Employees had to agree to give the company the right to collect internal and external vehicle data in exchange.

Amazed by what he saw as Tesla's "potentially life-saving technology," he started the AI Addict channel on YouTube in February 2021 to show what the public version of FSD Beta could do.

Most of the AI Addict videos show Bernal driving around Silicon Valley with a friend in his Tesla, using the newest released versions of the FSD Beta software.

Bernal was not alone in posting his experiences with Tesla's experimental software. Tesla FSD Beta users like Dirty Tesla, Chuck Cook, Kim Paquette and many others rush to review each new release on their channels.

When the company fired Bernal late last month, his written separation notice did not include the reason for his firing. It came after one of his videos depicted a drive in San Jose where his car knocked over bollards while FSD Beta was engaged.

Bernal says before he was dismissed, managers verbally told him he "broke Tesla policy" and that his YouTube channel was a "conflict of interest."

Bernal said he was always transparent about his YouTube channel, both with his managers at Tesla and with the public. His online resume on LinkedIn, for example, always listed his Tesla employment right alongside his YouTube channel name. Bernal said he had never seen a policy barring him from creating car tech reviews on his own time using his own property.

A copy ofTesla's social media policy, provided by a current employee, makes no direct reference to criticizing the company's products in public. The policy states, "Teslarelies on the common sense and good judgment of its employees to engage in responsible social media activity." It lists social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, LinkedIn, WeChat and personal blogs, but does not specifically mention YouTube.

Bernal said he never disclosed anything in his videos that Tesla had not released to the public. "The FSD Beta releases I was demonstrating were end-user consumer products," he said.

But his videos did sometimes show problems with Tesla's FSD Beta system.

In March 2021, for example, AI Addict posted a video entitled "FSD Beta 8.2 Oakland - Close Calls, Pedestrians, Bicycles!" that showed his car experiencing several "disengagements." That's where FSD Beta required Bernal to take over steering manually to avoid danger. At 11 minutes and 58 seconds into the video, the Tesla FSD Beta system begins to roll into an intersection just as a vehicle is crossing in front of Bernal's Model 3. He narrowly avoided hitting the other car.

That video has since racked up around a quarter million views.

After it first ran, Bernal told CNBC, "A manager from my Autopilot team tried to dissuade me from posting any negative or critical content in the future that involved FSD Beta. They held a video conference with me but never put anything in writing."

According to an analysis of his channel by CNBC, roughly ten of 60 videos he posted revealed flaws in FSD Beta. Three of the videos focused on other Tesla topics and didn't discuss FSD Beta, while another three focused on other automakers' electric vehicles and were not Tesla-related at all.

Bernal shared screenshots and photos that indicate his FSD Beta access was revoked by the company after he was terminated, even though he had not gotten any "strikes" for unsafe driving or improper use of the system. Generally, FSD Beta users are allowed several strikes before access is revoked.

Losing FSD Beta access in his own car has curtailed his ability to create reviews of the system. However, he has attained access to other vehicles with FSD Beta enabled, and plans to continue his independent research and reviews.

Bernal knew he might attract attention by posting honest FSD Beta reviews. But as long as he was truthful, he said, and given his generally favorable views of the technology, he thought Tesla would allow it or at least formally tell him if he needed to stop before it ever came to his losing his dream job.

He told CNBC, "I still care about Tesla, vehicle safety and finding and fixing bugs."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently labeled himself a "free speech absolutist." But his car company has a long history of asking customers and employees not to speak publicly about problems concerning their cars or the business.

For example, like many large companies, Tesla requires its employees to sign an arbitration agreement committing to resolve conflicts with the company without public lawsuits. Employees or temps can legally challenge and sometimes get released from the mandatory arbitration and go on to have their day in court, but those instances have been rare.

Tesla also used to require customers to sign non-disclosure agreements in exchange for service.

When FSD Beta first rolled out, as CNBC previously reported, the company asked drivers who enrolled in the early access program to be selective or refrain from posting to social media.

Federal vehicle safety regulators worried that the practice could have a chilling effect and hide critical safety complaints from the agency. They initiated a probe into the FSD Beta program as a result.

By September 2021, Musk said at a conference that the company shouldn't have any restrictions like that at all. He said at the Code Conference during an interview with Kara Swisher that FSD Beta testers were "not really following it anyway."

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Tesla fired an employee after he posted driverless tech reviews on YouTube - CNBC