New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
in [Laptops]
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From: John Doue on 15 Mar 2010 08:18 On 3/15/2010 4:44 AM, Mike Barnes wrote: > Barry Watzman<WatzmanNOSPAM(a)neo.rr.com>: >> Some of your applications are REALLY old. Quicken 98? Really, you >> should make upgrading to later versions a bit of a priority. > > You seem to be assuming that later versions are better. After several > Quicken "upgrades" that made the product worse rather than better for my > purposes, I stopped upgrading at Quicken 6 (1997, I believe). Nothing > I've seen or read since suggests that I made the wrong decision. > Well, I believe Quicken 98 is much better :-). Seriously. I exactly see your point and sometimes, I wish I were still using Quicken 98, but I am not sure it supported various currencies at the time, and having one foot in Europe and one in the US, the first version which integrated currencies support came as a big relief to me. I forget which one it is. I evaluate each new version that comes on the market and since I exactly know what I want, it does not take me more than a day to decide if I move my data to it or not. My biggest beef with new versions is that they almost never correct previous deficiencies while making the product always more complex to use. Admittedly, my needs are fairly simple. I do not download data from by bank, since I update my accounts each day manually in Quicken (I am the kind of guy who never lets the cashier put the receipt in the bag, for fear of throwing it away later. I do not need complex reports, only simple ones ... which amazingly are the most difficult to get since no wizard is here to help). Please read and reread the points made by Barry and my comments about them. If you value the possibility of going back several years in your accounts, you may find one day that sticking to an older version like yours was not so wise. Chances are this will happen the day, you need to buy a new machine, have to move to Windows 7, and find (just a may be) the version of Quicken you have will not run with Windows 7. In that situation, you might have a rather difficult problem to solve. My suggestion is to keep abreast of newer versions and to evaluate them. I do not believe Intuit provides evaluation versions, but I know it will reimburse you if, after having bought it, you say you don't like it and want a refund. IIRC, I did it once. -- John Doue
From: Mike Barnes on 15 Mar 2010 08:59 tony sayer <tony(a)bancom.co.uk>: >In article <n32P$UTnQfnLFwYS(a)g52lk5g23lkgk3lk345g.invalid>, Mike Barnes ><mikebarnes(a)bluebottle.com> scribeth thus >>tony sayer <tony(a)bancom.co.uk>: >>> >>>> >>>>I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these >>>>concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a >>>>poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really >>>>changed that. It costs nothing to try, and if for some reason you >>>>still want to get windows you can buy it if and when you find linux >>>>isnt what you want. The days of linux being only for geeks are >>>>history. >>>> >>> >>>Second all that .. try it, you've nowt to loose:))... >> >>No *money* to lose. I'd place myself firmly in the geek category and >>once spent countless hours trying to get Ubuntu to do what I want a PC >>to do. Those wasted hours count as a loss to me. >> > >Well what couldn't you get it to do?.. My log from that time (2006) is only available from backups and I can't be arsed to restore it so my memory will have to do. I remember that the Ubuntu equivalents to Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Quicken, Microsoft Office (particularly with regard to my macros), iTunes, and Turnpike (my mail/news client) were completely unsatisfactory. There were a few dozen further applications that I never got round to looking at before I gave up. -- Mike Barnes
From: Bernard Peek on 15 Mar 2010 09:27 On 15/03/10 12:59, Mike Barnes wrote: > My log from that time (2006) is only available from backups and I can't > be arsed to restore it so my memory will have to do. I remember that the > Ubuntu equivalents to Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Quicken, Microsoft Office > (particularly with regard to my macros), iTunes, and Turnpike (my > mail/news client) were completely unsatisfactory. There were a few dozen > further applications that I never got round to looking at before I gave > up. I don't think that there have been any significant changes to the situation since 2006. I've reluctantly abandoned Turnpike, Thunderbird is a barely tolerable substitute. Open Office is acceptable for word-processing and spreadsheets, but you would have to rewrite your macros. There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access, which is all I need my Windows machine for now. -- Bernard Peek bap(a)shrdlu.com
From: Dave Liquorice on 15 Mar 2010 12:29 On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:27:11 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote: > There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access, Or Publisher, at least not from the Open Office stable. Word can be kicked into doing some things but it's not quite a nice or as flexable as Publisher. -- Cheers Dave.
From: Bernard Peek on 15 Mar 2010 12:50
On 15/03/10 16:29, Dave Liquorice wrote: > On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:27:11 +0000, Bernard Peek wrote: > >> There still isn't any sensible Linux competitor for MS Access, > > Or Publisher, at least not from the Open Office stable. Word can be > kicked into doing some things but it's not quite a nice or as > flexable as Publisher. > For what I need Scribus is fine although I also have Serif's Page Plus. It's not an OO product. It is available in Windows and Linux versions. -- Bernard Peek bap(a)shrdlu.com |