Does anyone know where I could share a very large pivot table with a large group of people. I would prefer to use google spreadsheets but am having trouble getting the data file up let alone the finished pivot table (eternal "please hold" symbol). Not giving up on google spreadsheets but looking for alternatives and/or pointers.
yikes, sorry Jesse for taking so long to get back to you. Crazy offline day. I would just need to enable for all to download although it would be cool if it could just "live" there and people could interact with it read only- particularly the smaller less complicated spreadsheets.
- metalerik
I really dislike the American way of quoting prices without tax. When I have to pay for something, I mostly care about how much money I have to pay overall, and not where the money goes.
While this is not too bad when all you have to deal with is a 7-9% sales tax, it's annoying in the case of airline tickets, where "taxes and fees" may be up to 50% of the overall price.
- Tudor Bosman
They've been trying to pass a law in Canada to force airlines to advertise their fares "all-in" but the airline lobbyists are winning so far.
- Kenton
yeah the sales tax can annoy me to no end... mostly because I'm a total scrooge. Also when they add euro VAT to stuff just before checkout on Amazon, I always have to think about why the price is suddenly 25% higher (Danish VAT is 25% normally included the advertised price)
- Rasmus Lauridsen
Forcing them to add tax in will just make things cost more. Because lets say something costs $299, or $320 with tax. If they're forced to advertise total price, then guess what will happen? Retailers *love* their -9 pricing schemes. They'll raise the price to make the total have that 9 at the end again. They certainly won't *lower* the price to do that...
- Otto
Otto: the same argument applies for any change in the pricing structure. Suppose the situation were reversed: suppose prices included the tax, and retailers were considering removing the tax from advertised prices; they'd rise the price such that the new advertised price ended with a 9...
- Tudor Bosman
from Android
Tudor: I agree with your logic. Both cases are true. Which means that I'm for the status quo, I suppose. :)
- Otto
Completely agree Tudor. That was the biggest shocks when we moved to the US. Back in Turkey, everything is tax included and you know how much you are going to spend: no surprises.
- Eren Emre Kanal
<side-rant>Checked on price for round trip flight from a Calgary, Canada to LAX. IT WAS DOUBLE THE PRICE compared to LAX to Calgary. Same exact flight time, other parameters except reverse starting point that is.</side-rant>
- Micah Wittman
There's a political reason why some would want it separate: it makes it more visceral what the government's take is. You feel the sales tax as an increase on what you wanted to pay.
- Ray Cromwell
Not including the tax encourages consumption. We need the economic stimulus :).
- Gary Burd
Otto: also, people understand very, very well how to compare prices -- "lower is better". This is why a merchant deciding to include the tax in the advertised price unilaterally would lose in the marketplace; people would see their prices as higher, and would be dissuaded from shopping there, even before thinking about the fact that taxes are included. This is also why, I think, prices...
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- Tudor Bosman
Micah, an article in the Calgary Herald on Saturday had someone compare prices from Toronto to Vancouver (about $1,000.00) v.s. Buffalo to Seattle and then shuttle to Vancouver (about $500.00). The taxes are killers.
- Kenton
I don't want it to be different than how I expect it
- Mistletoe Glen
There is a big problem that can occur for the companies with this adding the tax into the price and displaying the total on the tags & advertising instead of the base price. Think about a large chain of stores with locations all over the US, where the tags and advertising are made in bulk and then distributed to stores all over the country. Or the stuff is pre-tagged at a central...
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- April Russo (app103)
That's why you abolish state taxes with a single GST
- Bryce Roney
from iPhone
Then what do you do about areas like in depressed parts of NJ where they have a 50% reduction in the taxes to encourage businesses to open shop and create jobs there, and people to go and shop there?
- April Russo (app103)
Japan made it a law that retailer must make it crystal clear if it is with or without. Lots of parentheses after prices now. In japan it's five pct consumption tax everywhere but airlines still play games!
- Rick Cogley
from iPhone
Taxes that are not separated are taxes that are not noticed (and thus, easier to raise). Take a look at gasoline taxes in the US, the amount of which few at the pump could identify if they had to. Keeping them out of the price helps to keep them lower overall.
- Andrew Leyden
If you abolished state and local sales taxes and replaced it with a single GST, wouldn't that mean that in some states that didn't have a sales tax, that consumers would be suddenly paying more? And what gets taxed? Some states would lose money if you remove the tax from some items, while other states consumers would end up paying more because items that were previously exempt from sales tax, now are taxed.
- April Russo (app103)
We need an augmented reality app that can just tell you as you have the camera on the price what the real price is :-) Yes lazy don't want to do my own calculations solution, but sales tax is always stupid % like 7% or 8%
- Rasmus Lauridsen
I liked it better when NJ had a 5% tax. Paid less and it was easy to figure out in your head. Now it's 7% and 3.5% in Urban Enterprise Zones.
- April Russo (app103)
April: that's a fair point; what I'm suggesting would make life harder for retailers, while making it easier for consumers. It's a worthy trade-off, in my opinion. Also, stores that operate in multiple locations already have knowledge about the local tax rules; after all, they need to calculate and remit the taxes to the appropriate authorities; that information now has to end up on labels.
- Tudor Bosman
Although big box stores would probably not be affected. The few big stores I shop at (Safeway, Walgreens, Fry's, Costco, Best Buy) don't have labels on items, but only on the shelves (except for bulk groceries and meats, which are presumably cut, weighed, and labeled in the local store anyway). And they already print different labels for different stores, because of time-limited, regional promotions.
- Tudor Bosman
Rasmus, here the sales tax is 8.25%. To compute this, divide the price by twelve, then subtract 1% of the result.
- Ruchira S. Datta
One part of the reason why they're separate is to prevent double-taxation: the revenue before tax is considered earned income, and is taxed as such, leaving the sales tax collected separate and untaxed. If they're rolled into one price, it's harder to determine if the sales tax was charged, or if the price was simply higher. Additionally, since sales tax is a levy on the consumer, not...
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- Mark Trapp
Taxes and fees are a little over $30 on my cable/internet bill, almost $60 for my water/trash/electricity. It's so depressing to open my bill to see the total, then getting to the bottom of the page or the next page to see all the little extra fees.
- Admiral Anika
Mark: they can be separate on the receipt, and bundled together on the tag. Or display both: (in small font) $35 + $2.89 tax = (big font) $37.89.
- Tudor Bosman
Tudor, the obligation is on the consumer, not the retailer, to pay the levy to the government. One other thing I'm thinking about is there is a subset of the population that's tax exempt or partially tax exempt, and would not pay the big, stated price. So then is it a discount, or was the price incorrectly stated? Is the retailer trying to tax an individual who is exempt? Leaving it up...
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- Mark Trapp
Mark: How is the tax-exempt population dealt with today? Do I go into Walgreens and show some form of ID at the checkout counter, and I don't get charged sales tax? I don't think I've ever seen this happen.
- Tudor Bosman
I know some *items* are tax-exempt (food, and possibly others, depending on locality), but that's not a problem; the store already knows which ones they are, as they levy the tax appropriately.
- Tudor Bosman
Tudor: yeah. You have documentation either on file with the store (or you bring the documentation to the register) that states you're exempt, and you wind up not paying it. NPOs, certain income levels in certain jurisdictions, and public workers in some special cases are all tax-exampt. Having worked with sales tax over the years, it's a hard concept to convey when it all goes into the...
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- Mark Trapp
Sales Tax exemption depends on various local and state laws. Stores deal with it automatically for cases where certain types of items are exempt (like food items in Kentucky are tax-free). Other cases are where items are purchased for resale, in which you generally have to set up an account with the stores in question and file documentation with them of your tax-exempt status. And that...
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- Otto
Thinking about this a little more, I guess the point I'm making is that the government only intercedes after the act of sale: that is, the retailer isn't in business with the government. The setup that exists now is that the retailer controls their business up until the point of sale, where their hand is forced to collect taxes for the government. When you change the advertised price to...
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- Mark Trapp
Mark: I can see your point, although I don't empathize with it :) Maybe it's because I lived outside of the US until 1997, and the system I describe is in use throughout Europe; it was baffling to me to not know exactly how much I have to pay until the register. Two prices on the tag would, I think, satisfy most folks: if you're tax-exempt, you pay the first one, and the second one (including tax) is in a bigger font, simply because that's what most consumers will pay.
- Tudor Bosman
It's on NBC every week, and reruns are dropped in every slot that NBC needs filler. How much more distributed can it be?
- Matthew DeVries
That reminds me of a line from Blackadder: "Sir, it appears the peasants are revolting!" Prince George: "Oh, absolutely Blackadder. Couldn't agree more. Disgusting creatures the whole lot."
- DGentry
Well, let's see... the Apple 30" is 27 inches wide, and standard ergo recommendations says you want a viewing distance of 20-40"... 6 would give you a polygon with a 23" viewing distance... 7 would give you you 28"... I'd say 7. Actually 14. Two "rows" of 7.
- Ken Sheppardson
It's really the 360 degree chair/desk rig that's the hard part, btw.
- Ken Sheppardson
Doesn't that leave you stuck inside, Ken?
- Tim Tyler
I too thought it was Al Gore & a post about his many computers' effects on global warming!
- beersage
I think the right number ignoring cost is the same as the right number including cost -- the massive energy consumption exerts downward pressure, just like the cost. But now the ideal number of 30" monitors if you ignore both cost and the effect on the environment...well I still think it's 1. Doing what Al Gore's doing here, to me, is like sitting in the very front row of the movie theatre.
- j1m
30" monitors are very effective internal wall insulation.
- Bernie Goldbach
I think maybe a 10' high by 30' wide wall of them would be about ideal. I can't decide if I would want the wall to be linear or circular, though, or what kind of seating choices I would like.
- ⓞnor
He should convert all those books and papers in his office into electronic format. Use his bookcase as a monitor wall with nine 30" monitors. A setup like this would rock: http://friendfeed.com/imabone...
- imabonehead
Put some of them on a hinged or sliding wall and the trapped problem goes away.
- Andrew C
I just hope his computer desktop isn't as messy as his actual desktop.
- j1m
I am only staring at two at the moment... (actually 2x30"+23"+20")
- Paulo Gaspar
I was thinking of some sort of turret-like setup where you climb up into the ring of monitors... or better yet: hydraulics
- Ken Sheppardson
Yes, ideally you'd want something that would make Professor X jealous. Maybe they could fold down from a petal-like ring arrangement from the ceiling.
- Andrew C
Aha... or think Darth Vader meditation chamber.
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken, now I'm picturing Al Vader surrounded by monitors, hilarious!!
- Lo
I'd say 3. Anymore and you'll start neglecting one of them.
- Mr. Gunn
Empirically speaking, zero. I've stopped plugging my laptop into my 30" monitor at work. All the windows get messed up. Plus, I have this theory that sticking to a single laptop screen helps me focus better.
- Jim Norris
Fighting climate change one flat screen at a time. Just think how much power he is saving when he turns it all off to go out. Does he have eyes in the back of his head or is the TV on just because he hates polar bears?
- John Cooper
Jim, I agree with you. When I had two monitors, I used one for actual work and the other for mail, friendfeed and other distractions. I do prefer using a 24" screen to my laptop screen.
- Gary Burd
@Jim, personally, I find that my laptop screen is too confining. I plug into a 23" LCD at work. I use the LCD for TextMate and a couple of Terminals, then I keep a browser open on the laptop for testing and search. That works really well for me. If all I have is my laptop screen, I spend a lot of time Alt-TABing between apps.
- Jason Huebel
I've settled in on a 3-screen setup: Center (24") has 2-4 terminal windows, either half of 1/4 of the screen each; Right (22") has a Chrome window, IM, and often a couple more terminal windows monitoring processes or logs; Left (20") has either media player software or live.twit.tv in a Chrome window :-)
- Ken Sheppardson
Ken - Are you using any special software to organize the windows on your screen? I'm using a 30" monitor at work as my main screen and my 17" laptop screen as my secondary. On the 30" screen, I use a proggie called WinSplit Revolution to split my screen into sections. It's a lifesaver. Keyboard shortcuts automatically move and size the focused window to any portion of the screen you choose.
- Curtiss Grymala
No, Curtiss. I've tried different apps over the years, but nothing ever really clicked. However, I just discovered that the Windows key plus arrow keys in Windows 7 will now resize windows, e.g. Win+Left expands the window to the left half of the screen, Win+Left again moves it to the next monitor, etc.
- Ken Sheppardson
Nice. That's kind of the way winsplit works, except it uses ctrl+alt. Ctrl+alt+left moves window to left monitor, ca+rt moves to right screen. It also uses ctrl+alt plus any key on the number pad to move the window to any quadrant/half of the screen.
- Curtiss Grymala
from iPhone
That's because everyone ran to Greader which has a long way to go before it can live up to FF. Conversations on there are way too hard. Worse than Twitter.
- Kimber Scott
If I ran the world...this would get you a 6 month prison sentence.....
- Stephanie Segel
Our local SCCA chapter has several loaner helmets painted that color. Thefts went down dramatically compared to when they were just black.
- dthree
I'm not so sure. I once saw an old VW bug with a "Girl Power" bumper sticker being driven around by some skin head looking dudes.
- Kevykev
Except that for a thief to steal this, they would have it stripped back and turned into a real Ferrari in around 30 minutes flat (including travel time) so I don't think it would be that much of a deterrent. ;)
- Travis Koger
With no API access this doesn't make a lot of sense. And if apple wanted you to build web apps they would provide an equivalent experience.
- Todd Hoff
meh, i get the quirks guy's points, but that doesn't mean that the app store approval process isn't broken - if webapps were able to get into the appstore so that they can be "purchased" through the apple system AND without any approval process then webapps would be on a level playing field with native apps.
- Chris Heath
i think one of the biggest reasons to build a native app is to get into the appstore so you have the exposure... people can just search for you in their a lot easier than they can google for you (especially when they don't know they're looking for you in the first place)
- Chris Heath
on the flip side of things, if you were to develop a webapp (and wanted to make money from it) when you charged people for access to the webapp you get to keep all the money (which is a a lot better than giving 30% to apple) but then again you aren't getting the exposure that the appstore gets you
- Chris Heath
This part is exactly right: "The fundamental problem on the iPhone is not Apple’s App Store approval policies, but the iPhone developers’ arrogant disdain for Web technologies. That’s nothing new. Most X developers (for any non-Web value of X) live in mortal fear of the browser as a development platform. As a long-time browser researcher I can confirm that their fears are not entirely...
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- Chieze Okoye
I've started programming in WebOS, and I'm not a rockstar programmer or anything, but I can tell you based on me just poking around with js and stuff (and talking with my "hardcore" programming friends), that most of the BS talk about the web-tech programming is founded on ignorance and arrogance, just like this author asserts.
- Chieze Okoye
ChromeOS requires WebApps - No native apps at all. Is their process broken too?
- Cliff Gerrish
Cliff, ChromeOS sits on completely agnostic hardware. The iphone contains a panoply of sensors and service related data. To do most anything interesting that uses the capabilities of the iphone you need access to the APIs. This is said to be the reason Google doesn't want Android on Chrome OS, it makes things messy.
- Todd Hoff
To offer a counter-point, Palm has done a pretty good job making the hardware sensors and what-not accessible from Javascript with their WebOS APIs.
- Chieze Okoye
That Apple doesn't would seem to indicate something?
- Todd Hoff
From comments: "Desktop vs the web will be the battle of our time, methinks. At least for the next several years as desktop-based developers slowly realize that they're going to need to confront the perceived failings of the web rather than reject the web as an app platform in its entirety." http://www.quirksmode.org/blog...
- Micah Wittman
Todd: so when netbooks get accelerometers, 3G connections, etc -- will we still call the hardware "agnostic?"
- Cliff Gerrish
I don't know Cliff. It seemed like they were pretty serious about keeping a separation. If they do get new capabilities the OS could use them but will they expose application level bindings? Hopefully not like ActiveX. They could safely offer it through a Chrome/Javascript sandbox, which would make sense for them. It just wouldn't be portable, which also seems a goal with the strict HTML 5 adherence.
- Todd Hoff
Is the point 'strict HTML5 adherence' or simply to move apps and files up into the cloud with multi-platform/browser compatibility?
- Cliff Gerrish
OK, Apple's still at fault for making the App store such an integral part of the phone. Otherwise the App store wouldn't be good visibility at all. As much as I have issues with webapps not quite being as good as desktop ones in some areas, I think the real issue was that Apple didn't want to depend on web visibility for their apps, probably because the notoriously paranoid Apple didn't want to have a weakness in case there was a handheld vs. desktop struggle they found themselves in.
- Mr. Gunn
I did that, but I was heading vertical, school had a vaulted ceiling and I went running, stepped on a chair right were it dropped, on impact both shoes fell off, one hit a guy in the face.
- Jimminy Fuller
wonder if that kid had aspirations of being a stunt guy... "dignity, always with dignity" ;)
- alphaxion
If I weren't afraid of going right through the wall, I'd probably still try that. I know I would have done that (and did similar things quite often) when I was much younger.
- Curtiss Grymala
This is still superb this morning after. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Defining the line between brave and stupid?
- Eoghann Irving
If I did that, first the wall would collapse, and then the floor. (So, you see, it's not that I *couldn't*... I just choose not to, for the protection of others.)
- Mark "DerBingle" J
You're right. I don't have the guts...and I'm proud of that.
- Tammy Marshall
"Since the site's acquisition by Facebook this summer, I have not talked much about my thoughts on the future of FriendFeed, aside from the initial response saying it was not "dead". There hasn't been a major compelling event to do so, but it keeps coming up, so I thought I would share my thoughts, in light of what we've seen since August."
- Kol Tregaskes
from Bookmarklet