Thursday 30 January 2014

taxing

Today I am doing my tax. It's a fairly straightforward business model, but even so it's a bit tedious. To make matters worse, I can't find much of the stuff I need. There should be an envelope full of reciepts. There should be my 2012/13 diary.

Bren pointed out that I'd done all the sums for our working tax credit back in June. All I had to do was find the old spreadsheet and I'd have all the information.

I got a new PC a couple of months back, but the old computer has just sat in here, gathering dust. I'd removed the sound card, but apart from that, it should have needed just the application of a power supply and monitor lead.

Instead, it gave a long sustained beep, and I could get no picture on the screen, not even the BIOS screen. I checked where the power cables were going inside the case. Both hard drives were connected to both a power supply and an IDE cable, but no matter how much I tried moving things around, taking bits off, putting bits on, I got absolutely no further.

Then I remembered I had bought an external connector. It connects IDE/SATA hard drives to a USB port. I could access my old hard drives using my new PC.

Unfortunately, to do this, you also have to provide power to the hard drive. The kit comes with a 4 pin connector (and about 2 inches of power lead) but there don't appear to be any spare sockets to plug this into in my new computer's drive bay.

The whole experience is compounded by an extremely cramped working environment.

This boring post reflects my life today.

driving lessons in North Wirral? learn to drive in Hoylake? driving instructor in Birkenhead?

3 comments:

Pete said...

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/factsheet/three-line-account.pdf

The above link may save you a massive amount of time and money.

Paul said...

In, Out, and In minus out...

But the figures I give still have to be accurate. So I go through my diary, page by page, and work out exactly how much I've earned. I list my reciepts, and go through my bank statements to get an accurate figure for my outgoings. Then I give HMRC the 3 figures they're after.

Paul said...

As far as the computer stuff goes, I managed to get it all sorted out by using a power supply from inside the old PC's case, but connecting to the new PC's USB port. The file I was looking for didn't appear to be there, but there were other useful things there. I decided to copy the whole lot over. The constant strident tinny beep was infuriating, and I had no way of turning it off, but it was done in the end. Bren found my reciepts by looking in a place I'd given a less than thorough search of, and I found my diary in an obvious place.

I've kept all my old knackered hard drives. I might just buy a large capacity conventional sata drive, or an external drive, and see what I can get from them, now that I have the means of doing so.