4. Downloading, faxing, or usability issues:
If your question is not answered in this section, please visit the following area in our forums for additional questions and answers:
QUESTION 4.01:
Question 4.01: I don't have $29.95 to buy WINZIP. Is there another program I can use to unzip your electronic books and response letters that is free?
Answer 4.01: WINZIP is not the only program you can use to unzip our electronic books. If you have Windows XP, the Windows Explorer built into it has decompression utilities built in. Click here to read the procedures for using them. If you don't have Windows XP or later, then there are many other software programs that do decompression, including free ones, that will do a fine job of unzipping. You can even use WINZIP without buying or registering it, which is what we do. Below is a list of the more common software programs that will unzip/uncompress our offerings:
| Program name | URL | Price |
| 7-Zip | http://www.7-zip.org/ | Free |
| CoffeeCup Free Zip Wizard | http://www.coffeecup.com/zip-wizard/ | Free |
| PKZIP | http://pkzip.com/reader/index.html | Free |
| WINZIP | http://winzip.com/ | $29.95 |
Click here for a link to Download.com for a list of several additional freeware unzip programs.
QUESTION 4.02:
Question 4.02: I obtained an Federal Response Letter from SEDM in the Microsoft Word doc format and I need the password to edit my final copy. Can you please email it to me?
Answer 4.02: As we say in the response letter cover sheet, and the shopping cart description for each letter, the content of the response letters is copyrighted and copy protected, and this is deliberate. If there is a grammar or spelling error, then we will be glad to promptly fix that at no charge and send the revised version to you. Contact tech support at the email address provided in the confirmation email you received if you require this type of assistance. However, if there are no errors, we are not allowed to provide editable copy of the letter because this violates the copyright.
QUESTION 4.03:
Question 4.03: I obtained one of your downloadable books or other offerings and I can't download it successfully. What should I do?
Answer 4.03: Chances are that you are using either Netscape or Netzero or you have a slow dial-up line or are being impatient and terminating the download before it is complete. Below are some alternatives that will help you:
- First, try the download with Microsoft Internet Explorer instead of Netscape. Our users have more luck with this method.
- If you can't switch to Microsoft Internet Explorer, then give the download more time to finish.
- If you are using firewall or security software on your computer, then disable it completely and then try again.
- The facility you are at may have a firewall that is blocking access to our website. In that case, you may need to either tell the administrator to unblock our website or go to a different location where they don't filter our website.
- As a last resort, you can buy a USB flashdisk and visit a public library or a Kinkos store that has high speed access. You can then plug in the USB flashdisk into that computer and very quickly finish the download.
QUESTION 4.04:
Question 4.04: (1) I am responding to the Federal letter 2566. In filling out the response, there is a field for IRS Service Center Employee ID (from 2566 letter). I have looked and relooked at this letter for the employee number and I can not find it anywhere. What are some options for handling this if you were making a response for yourself? (2) The 2566 letter was signed by the Compliance Services Field Director, and it states a contact person at the top of the letter. Could the responder send the letter to the Compliance Services Field Director? (I believe this is yes, but I wanted to verify this). (3) Two separate 2566 letters were received. One for 2000 and one for 2001. Should two separate replies be sent, or one that references both letters?
Answer 4.04: The more specific the response letter is, the more attention the response will get, usually. One way to get specific information is to call the IRS 800 line and ask for the name of the person with the title on your letter at the service center you are responding to. For those who would rather not spend any time finding out who to send the letter to at the service center by calling the 800 number, then we usually address it to the title of the person who sent it on the letter. If the title isn't listed on the letter because it came from the Automated Collection System (ACS), then we just address it to "Dear ACS" or "Dear Revenue Agent". Where multiple letters of the same kind are received, what we do in our case only is send only one response letter and attach the original letters with it.
QUESTION 4.05:
Question 4.05: The DVD movie disc I received works fine up to a point and then it freezes. I'd like to be able to watch the whole movie. I think my disc might be defective. What should I do? Can I get a replacement disc?
Answer 4.05: Our "How to Keep 100% of Your Earnings" DVD movie is delivered in DVD-R format. You must have a DVD player that can play DVD-R. Some stand-alone DVD players have trouble reading DVD-R movies. This is especially true of older players. The only way around this problem is to upgrade your player to a later model, or to try playing it on your PC instead of your standalone DVD player. This same problem may affect you when you try to play the movie on your PC. The DVD drive you have in your computer may not be able to properly read a newer DVD disc. Once again, you may need to upgrade your PC DVD drive in order to read the newer DVD-R movie format. One way to tell if it is a problem with the player rather than the disc is to take the disc to the computer store and try it on a few of the demo DVD player models or try it on the demo computer models. If it doesn't work on ANYTHING, then it's the disc. If you can get it to work on most of the things there, then you have an older DVD player that will need to be upgraded.
One way to correct this problem for everyone would be for us to offer the movie not in a DVD-R format, but in a regular DVD format. However, when this is done, very large volumes of the movie have to be ordered. Usually, the minimum lot size is 1,000 at a time, and we don't currently have enough volume to justify such an expense. When the volume picks up, we will take this route. In the meantime, your patience is appreciated and the situation we have now is at best a compromise.
QUESTION 4.06:
Question 4.06: I received my CD of the Family Guardian website today and it will not open. Is there something special that I may be overlooking?
Answer 4.06: The Family Guardian disk is a DVD and not a CD. As we say in the shopping cart description for the item, you will need a newer drive that can read DVD-R. A CD or CD-RW drive will NOT read the disk. Even if you have the proper type of drive, if you have an older PC that is running Windows 95 or Windows 98, then the disk will not autoboot and you therefore need to double-click on the "index.htm" file in the root directory to open it in your web browser. Only Windows 2000, Windows XP, and later will be able to autoboot the disk and start up your browser when the disk is put into the drive.
QUESTION 4.07:
Question 4.07: I lost or can't find one of the downloadable items I obtained from your website or my computer crashed and I don't have it anymore. Can you copy it back up to your website and reactivate the link so I can download it again?
Answer 4.07: If you didn't bother to back up what you downloaded before you decided to begin using it, then we can't help you. It is very inconvenient and time consuming to respond to such requests and we just have to say you are out of luck. Our downloadable items are updated frequently and chances are you are probably overdue to get a newer version anyway. It's dangerous and not advisable to use older versions. If you don't care enough to backup your data and your computer on a regular basis, then why should that become our problem and responsibility? Only the educated and the vigilant have even a hope or prayer of being free. Sorry.
QUESTION 4.08:
Question 4.08: I got one of your response letters and followed the directions, but it will not fill in the worksheet information into the letters when I hit the "Preview" button nor will the "Print" button work. What am I doing wrong?
Answer 4.08: All of our response letters require Microsoft Word 2000 or later, and also require that you turn Macro Security to LOW in accordance with the instructions at the beginning of the letter. If you do not set Macro Security to low, exit the Microsoft Word application, and then restart it and reopen the response letter, then the fields in the letter will not fill in and the "Print" button will not work. Please follow the directions at the beginning of the response letter to fix this problem If you can't set Macro security to Low, then and only then should you call us to ask for help. Also note that the "Macro" entry on the "Tools" menu of your Microsoft Word WILL NOT show up by default. You have to expand the Tools menu to see it the first time you use it. If you don't know this, you might miss that menu item. This subject is also covered in the following resources:
- Support Area, section 3.3.
- Response Letter Frequently Asked Questions page at: http://sedm.org/SampleLetters/RespLtrFAQ.htm
QUESTION 4.09:
Question 4.09: I'm having trouble viewing the Acrobat PDF documents on your website or in the response letter I got from you. What version did you use and can I get a free reader somewhere on the Internet?
Answer 4.09: All content on this website is produced using Adobe Acrobat 6.0. We put it in Acrobat 5.0 compatibility mode, so you will need to have Acrobat 5.0 reader or later installed. You can download the latest FREE Acrobat reader on the Internet from:
http://get.adobe.com/reader/
If you don't upgrade to the latest free version of Adobe Acrobat and try to open our files, you are likely to get very strange errors and warnings from an older version of Acrobat when you try to open or view our offerings. This happens frequently with Acrobat 4.0, for instance, and is an endless source of frustration because users ignore the directions and try to open the file without taking a closer look at their Acrobat reader first. This leads to needless trouble calls and emails that could have been avoided.
It may also be that you are using a less expensive third party non-Adobe acrobat viewer such as PDF Converter Pro (Nuance), NitroPDF, etc. Some third party programs also install substitute PDF viewer plug-ins on your browser. Chances are, the third party PDF viewer is incompatible with some aspect of the PDF file from our site, usually because it is an old version. Like the Acrobat viewer, you should make sure that you have the very latest version of this third party program. If all else fails, uninstall the third party PDF viewer program, install the free Adobe Acrobat reader and see if this fixes the problem. If it does, you need to discontinue using the third party PDF viewer program and go out and spend the money to get the more reliable Adobe Acrobat program.
QUESTION 4.10:
Question 4.10: I got one of your response letters and after I fill in the worksheet and hit the "Print Preview" button, it asks me for a "Project Password"? What am I doing wrong and how can I fix this problem?
Answer 4.10: You aren't reading and following the "Response Letter Instructions" at the beginning of the letter. Those instructions tell you to set your Microsoft Word macro security level to "Low" BEFORE you print or preview the letter. Failure to do this will cause a macro error in the code. Since the code is protected with a password and is locked from viewing, then you can't see the error but now you know its cause. Please follow the directions. For additional frequently asked questions of this kind relating to response letters, follow the links below:
- Response Letter Frequently Asked Questions, Question #19:
http://sedm.org/SampleLetters/RespLtrFAQ.htm - Support page, Item #3.3:
http://sedm.org/Support/Support.htm
QUESTION 4.11:
Question 4.11: I just received the MF Decoder CD in the mail that I requested. I don't know what to do with the CD, or nothing happens when I insert it into my CD/DVD drive. How do I use it?
Answer 4.11: The CD is supposed to autoboot and display the opening page of the browsable CD in Internat Explorer when you insert it into your CD/DVD drive. What is most likely happening is that the autoboot function is not working in your case. This happens most often if you are running security software that disables autobooting, such as ZoneAlarm Pro or Norton Antivirus. The way around this problem so that you can display the opening page in your Internet Explorer browser is to:
- Insert the CD into your CD/DVD drive.
- RIGHT-click on the "START" button in the lower left corner of your screen. A properties menu will appear.
- Left-click on "Explore" to start up the "Windows Explorer"
- Find your CD drive in the tree on the left. This will usually be displayed as something like "DVD-RW Drive (E:)" or something like that. Click on this item to display the contents of the MF Decoder CD on the right.
- Go to the right side of the screen in the "Windows Explorer" and double-click on the "index.htm" file in the root directory. This will open up the opening page of the MF Decoder CD in the Internet Explorer. The CD is browsable via Internat Explorer from that point on.
Another way to avoid having to do the above steps every time you want to view the CD contents in your browser, is to disable the feature of your computer security software that is preventing the autoboot function from working. The procedure for doing that depends on your security software and is beyond the scope of this article.
If you want to use the Automated Rebuttal Letter template
on the CD, for instance, it is listed in the second table from the top of
the opening browser page of the CD as "Automated IMF Decoding Rebuttal Letter
Template". Right click on this link, select "Save As", and save to your
local hard drive. Then open it in MS Word, fill in the worksheet, and then
customize it according to the instructions found at in Chapter 5 of the MF Decoder User
Manual. The 
MF Decoder User Manual is on the same browsable CD web page as the rebuttal letter. Next, you will
need to request your IMF files FOIA process in order to have data to enter
into the MF Decoder.
Then when you get the FOIA responses back, you must enter the data into MF Decoder and
let the program find the illegal activities. All this is documented in the MF Decoder User Manual,
which you should read thoroughly. The process of writing rebuttal
letters is also covered in Chapter 5 of the MF Decoder User Manual.
Please be a good citizen by resisting the temptation to contact us and force
us to hold your hand and walk you through all the steps, because we are
simply not equipped with the resources for providing large-scale technical
support and it will significantly interfere with our ability to improve
and expand the information and tools available on this website to everyone.
GOOD LUCK!
QUESTION 4.12:
Question 4.12: I am having trouble with the MF Decoder Import function and the Automated Rebuttal Letter. Both are asking me for a password and there is no place to type them in.
Answer 4.12: You are not following the directions in the MF Decoder User Manual or on the Rebuttal Letter:
- MF Decoder: The MF Decoder User Manual, section 2.2.4 says you MUST create a shortcut to start the program and start it from the shortcut instead of clicking directly on the file in the Windows Explorer. It even warns you that the Import function will not work if you don't do this, which is exactly the problem you are having. Obviously, you aren't reading the manual. Please read chapter 2 completely and follow the installation instructions there and this problem will go away.
- Rebuttal Letter: The first step in the Automated Rebuttal Letter instructions at the beginning says that you must set Microsoft Word Macro Security level to "LOW". The problems you are having is a symptom that you didn't do this. See our Support Page, Item #3.3.
QUESTION 4.13:
Question 4.13: I am having serious trouble faxing to your fax machine. Your fax machine drops everything after page 10, or doesn't receive all the pages I sent.
Answer 4.13: One of the following problems is the cause:
- You are not following the procedures for faxing New Response Letter
requests to us. This procedure requires that you use our Fax Cover Sheet and
follow the instructions for faxing on that sheet. These procedures
indicate that you must break your fax into sequential groups of no more
than 10 pages and fax each separately. They also require that
you fax in high resolution mode. You are trying to send more than
10 pages at a time and our fax machine throws away everything after
page 10. Please follow the directions.
- If the above doesn't fix your problem, then it is likely that you
have an older fax machine that is not compatible with the newer fax
protocols used on our fax machine. You can solve this problem
by:
2.1 Trying a different resolution mode, preferably high resolution mode, and resend the document in sequential groups of no more than ten pages at a time.
2.2 Trying a different fax machine of a friend or business associate or going to Kinkos and faxing from there.
- Your call waiting may be interrupting the fax transmission and garbling it. For instance, you may be faxing on a phone line that has call waiting and in which someone tried to call you while you where faxing this. When this happens, the "click" or "beep" that happens on your phone line interrupts the fax and causes pages to be dropped and garbled. Please make sure that you turn off call waiting BEFORE you begin your fax transmission so the transmission doesn't get interrupted or garbled by an incoming call.
- You may have a noisy phone line that is corrupting your fax transmission. This happens frequently, for instance, in isolated rural areas where the phone lines are long. The only way around this problem is to fax from a phone line closer to the Central Office (CO) of the telephone company. You can do this by trying a different fax machine of a friend or relative or business associate, or by faxing from a Kinkos store.
- If none of the above fixes work, the last resort to get us the document you want to send is to use your scanner and PDF software to scan in the document and make it into a PDF. Make sure you use the Black and White, 300dpi mode so that the size is minimal but resolution is decent. Then you can email us the PDF as an attachment. This is the preferred method, actually, for sending us documents. Our favorite PDF software is Adobe Acrobat Standard edition, which is about $200.
QUESTION 4.14:
Question 4.14: Are the forms available on your Forms Page usable in a legal proceeding and are they admissible as evidence? Your Disclaimer says they are only usable by the authors themselves and not other readers and that they are religious and political beliefs that are not admissible as evidence.
Answer 4.14: Any information signed under penalty of perjury as either a "Declaration" or which is also notarized and therefore constitutes an "Affidavit" is admissible as evidence in a legal proceeding. What makes them admissible is that they are signed by an authenticated person under penalty of perjury. Whether it actually gets admitted is at the discretion of the judge. Since our forms and other materials do not come with such a signature included, then they are not admissible as evidence UNTIL you, the user, sign them under penalty of perjury and/or notarize them and submit them to the court. At that point, they change character from religious beliefs that are NOT admissible as evidence under F.R.E. 610 to a legally actionable fact that IS admissible. Your signature under penalty of perjury is what makes them admissible. Since only you can provide the signature, then only you can make them admissible. This is emphasized in the SEDM Disclaimer itself, which says:
"Because everything on this website and all communications associated with it are religious speech and beliefs, none of it is admissible in any court of law pursuant to F.R.E. 610 unless accompanied by an affidavit from a specific person attesting to its truthfulness and accuracy."
The authors prepared these forms only for their own personal use. Any other other use is at the discretion of the reader, and it is the exclusive choice and responsibility of the reader as to whether they are appropriate for use by persons other than the original authors. However, the authors have used all of these materials in legal proceedings and as legal evidence at one point or another by adding their own signature to the forms. The determination of whether they are appropriate in your own case is ascertainable from the form itself, which contains hyperlinks to all the statutes and regulations indicated on the form itself so that you can verify the applicability of the appropriate statutes and regulations to your own situation. Since we don't give legal advice, then we can't advise you whether the form is appropriate for your own use so please don't contact us to ask.
We hope this clarifies your confusion and answers your question.
QUESTION 4.15:
Question 4.15: The PDF documents and forms on your website are password locked and copy protected so that they cannot be edited or changed. Can you give me the password so I can either edit it or make it into an editable Microsoft Word file?
Answer 4.15: Nearly all of the PDF files and forms available on this website are deliberately password locked and copy protected. We do this for a number of reasons:
- We don't want third parties stealing or hijacking our intellectual property and putting their name on it or taking credit for it.
- We don't want people to change our documents and introduce flawed arguments into them that will discredit us by connecting us with any of the following flawed arguments.
- We want to encourage people to share their research with us. If the changes you want to make are positive, by doing them on your own and not sharing your discoveries with us, you deprive others on this website of the benefit of those discoveries. This ministry is based on collaboration and sharing and helping and loving your neighbor, not selfishly only thinking about or helping yourself.
- We want to ensure that everything we do is subject to extensive
peer review.
"Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counselors there is safety."
[Proverbs 11:14, Bible, NKJV]
If you:
- Identify a typographical or grammar error on one of our documents.
- Identify a factual error in one of our documents.
- Want to make suggestions about how to improve any one of our documents.
- Want to reuse content found on one of our documents in a new type of form or legal memorandum.
..then you can do one of the following and your feedback will be taken seriously, researched, and quickly added to the document as time permits:
- Send us a message on the Contact Us page with your suggestions.
- Post your suggestion on our Member Forums. Note, however, that you will need to become a Member and consent unconditionally to our Member Agreement, Form #01.001 in order to post to our Member Forums or to read most of the information that is available there.
Remember: Unto he much is given, much is expected. We want you giving back to this ministry with your research, your time, and your donations:
"But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work."
[2 Cor. 9:6-8, Bible, NKJV]
QUESTION 4.16:
Question 4.16: Sometimes when I click on a link that take me to a page within your bookstore, I get the following error message. Is there a problem with your server and can you fix it?
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, xxxxxx@sedm.org and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.0.50 (Fedora) Server at www.sedm.org Port 80
Answer 4.16: This problem is due to defects in the server software hosting our account. These problems happen very infrequently and we have no way to eliminate them because we don't have any control over our ISP. If you have this problem, simply refresh your screen reload the page again and the page you tried to display will come up correctly. Sorry for the inconvenience.
QUESTION 4.17:
Question 4.17: I went to a copy or duplication center (such as Fedex/Kinkos) to print your materials for my reading enjoyment. They said that they cannot print or duplicate your materials without your explicit written permission because otherwise, it might violate the copyright. Where can I find that permission on your website?
Answer 4.17: Our Digital Millenium Copyright Act/Copyright Page, Section 9 addresses this issue. This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) also constitutes our written consent for you to print or copy any of the free materials available on this website, so long as they are not being sold for profit. Your word to the copy center that the item you intend to print is not from our Bookstore and that you are not selling them for profit constitutes our permission for them to print or copy any of the free materials on this website without contacting us to obtain permission to print it. Below are some helpful tips for getting the cooperation of the copy center and avoiding conflict over whether you are violating the copyright:
- Print out the following and take them with you before you go to
the copy center to print:
1.1 This FAQ.
1.2 If you are printing a Bookstore item, you should also print out the Order Confirmation Email you obtained when you ordered the item from our Bookstore.
- When you get to the copy center, show them the above items and explain that you are printing an electronic item that is either free off our website or was obtained from our Bookstore for the suggested donation indicated.
- If the copy center has concerns or questions, please show them the web address usually in the footer of the document pointing to our website (http://sedm.org) and then direct them to this Frequently Asked Question page to read this FAQ on our website.
- Please do not call us or allow the copy center to call us to obtain permission to print or copy our free materials, because you already have it with this FAQ.
- For the purposes of this FAQ, "free materials" include anything
that is NOT available through our Bookstore, such as anything
appearing on any of the following pages of this website:
5.1 Sermons page.
5.3 Forms/Pubs page: Anything not marked "Bookstore" or "Member Subscriptions" in the Source column.
5.4 Litigation Tools page: Anything not marked "Bookstore" or "Member Subscriptions" in the Source column.
5.5 Exhibits page.
- Some of the information contained on the Forms page or the Litigation Tools page directs you to Bookstore items. If this is the case, they are NOT "free materials" as defined in this FAQ.
- In the case of items available through our Bookstore that do not qualify as "free materials", you need only show a copy of your Order Confirmation Email to the clerk received via email from SEDM in order to print or copy the materials.
QUESTION 4.18:
Question 4.18: I faxed my Membership Agreement in recently. Why didn't you email me the password to the Member Subscriptions area yet?
Answer 4.18: You are confused about the differences between being a Member, and participating in Member Subscriptions. These two things are entirely and completely separate. Being a Member is free and only requires you to fax in your signed Membership Agreement. The Member Subscriptions Area, on the other hand:
- Is a fee based service available only to those who make a suggested donation to our Bookstore.
- Is only available to those who sign, fax, and consent unconditionally to our Member Agreement, Form #01.001 prior to making the suggested donation to join the subscriptions are.
- Can be joined by following the directions below:
Member Subscriptions
You do not get a free password to the Member Subscriptions Area simply by faxing your signed Member Agreement, Form #01.001. We also warn you of this at the bottom of our Member Agreement with the following language:
Submitting this Member Agreement does not in itself obtain access to our Member Subscriptions Area. You must follow the procedures on our Member Subscriptions Page (http://sedm.org/Subscriptions.htm) in order to gain access.
In the future, please pay more attention to the Member Agreement and these FAQs and try to find your question in the FAQs table of contents at the beginning before you ask a question that has already been answered.
QUESTION 4.19:
Question 4.19: When I click on a link on one of the pages such as the Forms Page, I get a username and password prompt. Am I doing something wrong?
Answer 4.19: You aren't doing anything wrong. You tried to access premium content on our website that is reserved only for those participating in our Member Subscriptions and didn't notice that you had. On the Forms page, the second column indicates the "Source", which means the location of the file you clicked on. If that column indicates "Member Subscriptions", it means you need to sign up for the Member Subscriptions and obtain a username and password to access the item. After you obtain the username and password, type it in once during any session, and indicate that you want the browser to memorize the username and password, that warning message will go away until you exit and then restart your browser again. Simply being a Member and faxing in your Member Agreement, Form #01.001 doesn't guarantee access to our Member Subscriptions area. This is a premium service available only to those who follow the directions on our Member Subscriptions page.