What To Do With A Tax Refund

What To Do With A Tax Refund
January 1995

The gift-giving season is behind us, and the tax refund season is coming. Let’s plan what would make good use of that fat check from the IRS.

For home use, look closely at a multimedia system. The local computer vendors, superstores, and membership warehouses offer CD-ROM/sound card combination packages that open new worlds to you and your family. Many popular software programs are available in both diskette and Compact Disk (CD) format. The CD-ROM (CD-Read Only Memory) format offers about 600 Mb of storage per disk compared to a commercial diskette’s maximum capacity of 1.44 Mb.

Because the CD-ROM format stores so much information, software manufacturers include additional features for most programs when they are prepared on CD. For example, Quicken for Windows, the most popular home budgeting software, includes video and animation clips of famous financial advisors. To learn more about financial management it’s possible to watch an on-screen video of the subject right at your computer.

Some computer software, when packaged in the CD-version, includes ancillary programs that compliment the primary software. Check the software package carefully when shopping. Or better yet, ask your local computer vendor for advice.

Microsoft offers a line of programs produced under the “Microsoft Home” product line. These include Encarta 95, a multimedia combination of research data for personal use; Bookshelf 95, a collection of dictionary, thesaurus, almanac, quotations, atlas, and historical chronology. Both of these programs include wonderful color pictures, video, sound clips, and detailed text. Our office staff explored these products one day...we listened to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream...” speech, and sound bites of other famous speakers.

If you’re interested in games, I recommend Microsoft Golf, Multimedia Edition. I’m still not quite a par computer golfer, but with unlimited mulligans, I’m doing pretty well. For the would-be Marine in all of us, DOOM II is now available. It’s possible to spend hours searching for hidden secrets while killing aliens with pistols, shotguns, chainsaws, rocket launchers, and other weapons of mass destruction. For the kinder of heart, Myst is a popular game with some of the industry’s best graphics.

If you haven’t found the world of online computing yet, consider a membership with America Online (AOL) , CompuServe Information Service (CIS), or Prodigy. These information services offer technical assistance for computing as well as thousands of forums on just about all subject in which you are interested. I use both AOL and CIS for personal and professional use. Through AOL, I access the Internet, the “Information Superhighway” to request messages or data files related to whatever I’m interested in researching at the time. I “spoke” to a research librarian at the University of Chicago about the newest revision of the Chicago Manual of Style. There’s nothing like meeting the author when inquiring about a new book.

You may also want to use part of your tax refund to upgrade your current software. Consider WordPerfect 5.2+ or 6.1 for Windows. The 5.2+ version is similar to the earlier version of the same number; however, you may now share documents with 6.0 and 6.1 users. If you would like the full functionality of WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows, I think that you will be pleasantly surprised. It’s much faster than the 6.0 version, and the new look of the editing screen is much easier to use. I’m using the 6.1 version to write this article.

If you would like more information about computer software or hardware options, please send me an email message at dave@dgl.com. If you don’t understand this mail address, it’s probably time for you to learn a bit about the Internet. 1995 will be the year that business explodes onto the “net.”

David Stephen Murphy is President and CEO of Damar Group, Ltd. which presents computer training classes, publishes computer learning guides, and helps organizations do business on the Internet. The website is http://dgl.com, and Mr. Murphy may be reached at dave@dgl.com or 410.567.5366.

updated November 2, 1996
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