Mediaboss Marketing

Tim Hugo, Free File Alliance Executive Director, stated, "This program continues to be a unique and very successful public-private partnership between a nonprofit coalition of industry-leading tax software companies and the IRS to serve the American Taxpayers. Passing 50 million taxpayers served is a tremendous achievement and Free File will continue to work with the IRS to continue to improve this service for the American Taxpayers."

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said, "Reaching 50 million users and achieving $1.5 billion in taxpayer savings mark important milestones for the Free File initiative. The Free File effort shows how the public and private sectors can work together to provide a critical service to the nation's taxpayers. After 14 years, this innovative program continues to break new ground as it evolves to meet people's needs."

With just a few days left until the tax deadline on April 18th, the Free File Alliance reminds taxpayers that free tax solutions are available to all Americans atIRS-Free File Alliance. Taxpayers who earned $64,000 AGI(adjusted gross income) or less can choose from among a dozen, brand-name software products offered by leading private-sector companies for free. Taxpayers who made more than $64,000 AGI may use Free File Fillable Forms, the electronic version of Internal Revenue Service paper forms.

"Every American taxpayer can and should take advantage of the Free File program," said Hugo, "Whether you need to e-file a tax return or an extension, Free File is the fast, safe and free way to tackle your taxes. Free File is also the only place where the industry's best tax software is available at one place and at no cost. Simply visit http://www.IRS.gov/freefile and choose the software offering that fits your tax needs."

Hugo also stated that the Free File Alliance now offers taxpayers the ability to use their smart phones or tablets to electronically prepare and file their federal and state tax returns through the IRS/ Free File Alliance. This new design allows for the use of desktops, laptops, mobile phones and tablets. It can be accessed using mobile devices in two ways: (1) Use the IRS app, IRS2go, which has a link to the Free File Software Lookup Tool or (2) use the device's browser to go to http://www.IRS.gov/freefile to find the software product that matches your situation. The IRS2Go app is available for Android and iOS devices.

Free File Alliance member companies have continually worked with the IRS to strengthen the Free File program, and taxpayers have consistently reported that it is user-friendly and efficient. Responding to a 2009 IRS survey, 96 percent of users said they found Free File easy to use, while 98 percent said they would recommend the program to others.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/free-file-tops-50-million-users-continuing-to-serve-the-american-taxpayers-300439794.html

SOURCE Free File Alliance

http://www.freefilealliance.org

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Free File Tops 50 Million Users Continuing to Serve the American Taxpayers - PR Newswire (press release)

Ubuntu founder has choice words for some free software users calls them anti social and haters

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworths reappointment as company CEO has been overshadowed by some imaginative language about some people within the open source community.

Shuttleworth was responding (mostly positively) to comments about the ending of Canonicals investment Unity8, its phone and convergence shell, and the shift of its default Ubuntu desktop back to GNOME for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, when he made his admission.

Shuttleworth will take charge of Canonical in the summer as CEO, after part of a planned transition from the current boss of the firm Jane Silber.

When it emerged earlier this month about Canonicals change of direction with Unity8, Shuttleworth took to Google+ to thank the open source community for all your spirit and intellect and energy in the Unity8 adventure.

He responded to a number of comments about the decision, but when the subject turned to the Mir windowing system his tone changed.

The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind its free software that does something invisible really well, he wrote. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their lifes work and make it freely available.

I came to be disgusted with the hate on Mir. Really, it changed my opinion of the free software community.

I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream.

He also said that the haters had targeted Windows when it was mainstream, and are now turning their irrational hatred to Canonical after it went mainstream.

The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence, he said. F**k that s**t.

Shuttleworth will resume his role of CEO in the summer, after he stepped down from that position in 2009 in order to focus more on specific projects within Canonical, including the move to cloud computing.

Shuttleworth was replaced by Jane Silber in 2010, who was previously Canonicals chief operating officer.

In a blog post,she revealed that she had only agreed to take the CEO position for five years only, but this had been extended.

This is not a sudden decision, Silber wrote. Weve been preparing for a transition for some time by strengthening the executive leadership team and maturing every aspect of the company, and earlier this year Mark and I decided that now is the time to effect this transition.

Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors.

Quiz: What do you know about Linux?

Excerpt from:
Mark Shuttleworth Returns As Canonical CEO, Slams Some 'Free ... - Silicon UK

Bryan is a writer and works as the Social Media Marketing Manager of SUSE. On this blog, he seeks to highlight the coolest things happening in the Linux world.

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My life is filled with conundrums.

One of those conundrums is the fact that I spend a huge amount of my time promoting and advocating free and open-source software. Yet in order to reach a large audience with that advocacy, I end up needing to use social networks (such as Twitter and Google Plus) which arenot free software.

If I'm going to be speaking at a conference about GNU, Linux and other free software-y topics, I announce it on Twitter. And, perhaps rightly so, my freedom-loving friends toss a little (usually good-natured) mockery my way for doing so.

Over the years, a few social networks have sprung up that are a bit more free software-basedor, at least, open source. Yet none of them has really captured the interest of the broader publicsomething necessary for what I do. Diaspora is a great example of one that showed great promise but never really took off. (It still exists, but without the audience numbers and/or growth that is needed.)

Then along comes Mastodon, which describes itself as the following:

"Mastodon is a free, open-source social network. A decentralized alternative to commercial platforms, it avoids the risks of a single company monopolizing your communication. Pick a server that you trustwhichever you choose, you can interact with everyone else. Anyone can run their own Mastodon instance and participate in the social network seamlessly."

Open source (and up on GitHubusing the AGPL license), check.

Decentralized, double check.

And the web UI is actually quite nice looking. Simple, peppy and column-based. In my short testing time thus far, I'm finding Mastodon rather enjoyable to use.

As of this writing, there may not be millions and millions of users, but the number appears to be growing quite rapidly. Articles on this little, up-start social network seem to be popping up on tech websites far and wide.

Getting started with Mastodon is fairly simple. Check out a page showing some of the various instances of Mastodon that are runningpick one that seems good to you, and sign up. Most instances can talk to each other seamlessly, though to my understanding, some can choose to talk only to people on your own instance server.

Then start looking around for some friends to follow. Feel free to take a look at who I currently follow in case any of these folks interest you as well. (Or just start by following meIm downright delightful.)

As far as mobile clients go, many folks seem to be using an Android app by the name of Tusky. I tried it out briefly (I have only one device that uses the Google Play Store), and it seems to work pretty well. However, it would be nice if such an app were available on F-Droid (or directly from the developer website) so I don't need to rely on the Play Store.

Will Mastodon take off and become the next Twitter? Will it fall short of that but still build a significant enough user base to keep itself useful and active? Who knows. But the design looks solid, the approach something I can support. So, I sure hope so.

And, at least for the time being, I'm going to be using it.

Bryan is a writer and works as the Social Media Marketing Manager of SUSE. On this here blog, he seeks to accomplish two goals: 1) To be the voice of reason and practicality in the Linux and Open Source world. 2) To highlight the coolest things happening throughout the world of Linux.

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MastodonThe free software, decentralized Twitter competitor - Network World

The previs software was developed as an internal tool by Artefact after the company couldnt find suitable off-the-shelf software that allowed them to iterate quickly during the production of vr projects. They say:

Storyboard VR works in a similar way to traditional storyboard techniques by creating static frames that roughly block in a scene. Designers and developers can easily import assets from existing drawing tools and position them while inside vr to quickly test and iterate. And, just like traditional storyboarding, users can create multiple scenes to test the flow of the experience. An incredibly lightweight app, Storyboard VR takes only a few minutes to get acquainted with.

Significant interest from the vr community has led them to release the software for free publicly, in the hope that it will promote experimentation across industries and organizations and inspire and accelerate the development of new experiences in this emerging medium.

While the software is available at no cost, Artefact warns it is an unsupported alpha application, so bugs and other issues may exist. Although we use Storyboard VR in our daily work at Artefact, the company further says, we have no immediate plans to continue to update and develop the software. The software is only supported on HTC Vive and requires Windows to run.

A demo of how to build a scene can be seen in the video below:

See the original post here:
Artefact Launches Storyboard VR, Free Software for Prototyping Interactive Animation Projects - Cartoon Brew

Shuttleworth said he became "disgusted with the hate on Mir", which has changed his opinion of the free software community.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu developer Canonical, has condemned some in the free software community who he believes hate everything that's mainstream.

Shuttleworth aired his grievances in a Google+ post in which he initially thanked contributors to Canonical's soon-to-be abandoned Unity desktop interface, but which he later used to criticize the "antisocial types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream".

The question that triggered Shuttleworth's rebuke asked whether Canonical will continue its work on Mir, its desktop display server and alternative to Wayland.

Canonical had hoped Unity would bring convergence to desktops, tablets and phones, but last week Shuttleworth said next year's release of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will revert to the RedHat-backed GNOME.

A Canonical spokesperson told Ars Technica that going forward with GNOME and abandoning mobile would necessitate quitting Mir and replacing it with Wayland.

Shuttleworth acknowledged in the original GNOME announcement that the community took Canonical's work on Unity as "fragmentation not innovation", while manufacturers didn't take up the implementation.

"I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear," he said.

But Shuttleworth's reply to the question about Mir's future suggests he's deeply disillusioned with how some members of the community went about that process, given the work that goes into making free software available.

He clarified that Mir actually does have a future in IoT projects where it's being used as a compositor, but complained the "Mir hate-fest" was being steered by "muppets" with political objectives. Shuttleworth labelled opponents of Mir the Open Source Tea Party when it first released the software.

"The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind -- it's free software that does something invisible really well," he wrote.

"It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available," he continued.

Shuttleworth said he became "disgusted with the hate on Mir" and that this changed his opinion of the free software community.

"I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply antisocial types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream," he wrote.

"When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too.

"The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. F*** that s***."

Read more:
Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: Free software zealots are antisocial muppets who love to hate - ZDNet