So a silly little note, but I updated my main website at http://mikewiacek.com. Nothing drastic, but I made the images much bigger and changed the navigation bar somewhat. If it doesn’t work in your browser, please let me know.

Like many relatively young people, my wife and I have the hope of one day owning a house of our very own.  One of the wonderful things that tries to make it more affordable is that mortgage interest is tax deductible each year.  However, figuring out exactly how much money a mortgage interest deduction puts into your pocket is somewhat tricky.  For a long time I heard different formulas for trying to figure it out.  Last week, I got fed up with it, and I sat down with the IRS 1040 instructions and tried to come up with something.

I wrote a small python script to do the work for me.  It’s not perfect, and it might be entirely wrong, but as far as I can tell, it provides a reasonably good estimate of how much money a mortgage interest tax deduction could be worth.

So, to share my work with everyone, I threw this little app together today.  It takes your expected AGI, loan amount, number of payments, interest rate, and tax filing status, and gives you a reasonable idea of what your deduction will be worth.  Again, note that I’m not a CPA and this is provided as a free service without warranty.  Please check with a real CPA before making any major financial decisions.  In the meantime, if you feel like getting an idea of what you can expect, head on over and check it out.  (http://taxsavr.appspot.com)

Hey everyone! I’m psyched to see Google Buzz taking off. If you’re interested in following me, head over to my Google Profile, and follow me.  I hope to see you soon! (And I promise I’m going to try and start writing on this blog more often.)

I’ve been watching CSI for a while now, and the season 10 premier last Thursday had perhaps one of the most visually impressive openings ever. In fact, it was all done with one take and it takes the Matrix’s Bullet Time effect to a new level. If anyone knows how this was done, I’d love to hear from you. Watch it below if you haven’t seen it yet.

When I was in high school I worked at a small startup.  Ultimately the startup didn’t go anywhere, but I made some great life long friends in the process.  Through a series of unfortunate events we lost control of our domain name, and while it’s not something like car.com or anything like that, it had some sentimental value.  I should be clear though, we didn’t loose control of it, as much as, technically lose control.  You see, back then there was rs.internic.net for registering domain names.  They assigned everyone a NIC handle like MW2782  (which was my NIC handle).  Somewhere along the line, Verisign bought Network Solutions and then spun Network Solutions off into its own company again.  They stopped using NIC handles and ported everyone over to actual usernames.  Unfortunately the person who was the Administrative Contact (i.e. defacto owner of a domain)  was no longer available and we had no idea what username or password we could use to manage the domain.  So for the past 10 years, my friend Ed has been sending a check to Network Solutions every year as they effectively held the domain hostage.  You see Network Solutions will take money from anyone, but only the Administrative Contact can manage a domain name. Ugh.

A few weeks ago I started getting the annual renewal emails from them, and I decided enough was enough.  It took many phone calls, tons of faxing, but now I’ve been able to claim ownership of the domain and move it to my account at Go Daddy.   It only took 10 years, but it’s finally back where it belongs.  To most people this is just silly, but in a weird way, it’s a symbolic triumph that makes me happy. :-)

I called up MPEX the other day to order a few extra lightstands, swivel adapters, and more.  I know they have worked hand in hand with David Hobby and have put out some great lighting kits for strobists to use.  While I was viewing their site I saw a link for used equipment.  There was some stuff on there that had amazing prices and was only used in the sense it was demo gear in their store.  I figured after spending a few weeks in my trunk, it would be scratched and dinged anyway, so who cares?  I called up and to my dismay, they had sold it already.  :-(  The gentleman I was talking with apologized for the problem and agreed to honor the pricing of the used gear, on new gear.  Yeah, how about them apples?  Now this is customer service and a type of bait and switch no one could find fault with, not even me. haha.  After he really gave me such a break, I ended up ordering more stuff that I’ve been putting off.  I ended up with a great price overall and an excellent experience.  They seem to be a bunch of straight shooters over at MPEX.  Give em a try.