Updating Quickbooks Forces Online Membership? 462
garyebickford asks: "I've been using Quickbooks 2001 for a long time, sending out invoices via email.
A couple of months ago it asked if I wanted to do an online update - these occurred occasionally and I agreed. There was no information regarding what the update would do, although IIRC there was some mention of 'new features' and 'improvements'. Since that time, it is now impossible to either fax or email an invoice without signing up for Quickbook's 'Online Business Member' program since it appears to use their own mail server. Membership is free for now, but the required click-agreement forces me to agree in advance to any future fees! I have no interest in letting Intuit know about my invoices and other financial information. As a result, this software is essentially useless and I must find a new accounting package. I've looked at various OSS packages but haven't found one that has developed far enough to use in this way. But there are many out there and I haven't kept up to date, so maybe someone else out there can suggest something. I'd prefer using it on Linux, of course. I'd also be interested if this loss of functionality would be sufficient to consider a class action suit to recover costs of conversion." The issue at hand is that commercial software has started to force consumers to fall into such schemes to maintain features that they already had. Today it is Quickbooks, but what about tomorrow?
I use 'FirstEdge' for OS X... (Score:4, Informative)
Also, TimeSlice for OS X is very nice, it itemizes your billing time (if you bill per hr) and exports it into CSV..
There's also AccountEdge for OS X, but it's overkill and overpriced for my simple needs.
Is there anything comparable for Xwindows? Good Q..
Workaround (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Workaround -- Uh, why pay to generate a pdf? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Workaround (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you force it to use your SMTP server of choice? Look in the exe and its other files for a string that looks like a mail server, (say smtp.quickbooks.com). If you find that, go to your hosts file and make a line
smtp.quickbooks.com aa.bb.cc.dd
where aa.bb.cc.dd is the IP of the mailserver you want to use (eg on your ISP). No guarantee but worth a try. If it really is SMTP, then the commands to send should be universal.
Otherwise, as the above poster, create a PDF and email it yourself -- there are free ways. It's not difficult to work out automated methods if you have any volume.
I've noticed this myself... (Score:5, Insightful)
change in software paradigm? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:change in software paradigm? (Score:2, Insightful)
I pay for the software, just like I pay for...I don't know...a stereo. I can open up the stereo and tinker with it, but it is already illegal for me to do that with software. I don't even own software that I buy nowadays.
Boy, the free-software ideal seems more and more attractive with every day that passes.
Easy (Score:3, Funny)
TurboTax for 2002 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
scary side effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:scary side effect (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the masses are sucked in by the slick marketing, and never give a thought as to the middleman through which they're routing all their personal financial information.
Can you imagine posting all of your income tax information on the web [securetax.com]? Apparently someone is willing to do this!
Long live spreadsheets... (Score:5, Informative)
I looked at QuickBooks, MS Money, etc and for complete control, nothing can match using spreadsheets for all the tracking, etc. One master spreadsheet for accounting gets numbers from all the other spreadsheets (sales, expenses, etc). Will I need something stronger a year or two from now? Yeah, and I'll be reading the posts right here for an idea on what I will do then. But for anyone who is a one-h@x0r shop up to a couple of employees, spreadsheets fit the bill just fine. Oh, and of course online banking (Citibank is pretty sweet and reasonable fees for corporate account).
Good luck!
I went through exactly the same thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Roll your own. If you don't understand the math it will force you to learn it. In my opinion you *should* understand the math of handling your money, especially if it's a business.
What's more, commnand line spreadsheets are readily available ( Visicalc itself is now available for download) so even people, businesses or nonprofits with little or no capital can run a spreadsheet on free antique hardware that Quicken would choke on.
I highly recommend the book "Elements of Spreadsheet Style" by John Nevison. Out of print but available used through Amazon for under ten bucks.
An older Edition of the classic book "Small Time Operator" known as the "Computer Edition" includes complete Visicalc code for all of your bookeeping needs. This is also available used through Amazon but will set you back twentysix bucks. Cheap price for avoiding the propriatary rat race and a hell of a book for anyone just getting started in their first business.
KFG
Re:I went through exactly the same thing (Score:5, Insightful)
And I understand how to make hash tables and red-black trees, so I don't understand why anyone would bother with RDMBS when all they need is a C compiler and the gumption to "roll their own".
Of course that is absolutely, positively ridiculous. A complex program like Quickbooks isn't simply a couple of spreadsheets rolled together to give you a total, but is complete business management system.
Man in line at the supermarket. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
An outfit so small and so poor that it *needs* to run free Visicalc on an old 8088 doesn't print checks, it writes them just like most of the world does. It doesn't have very many to write either. Maybe a half dozen a month if it's unlucky.
In my last retail business (3000 square foot store) I wrote three checks a month. That's all. At that "volume" hand writing them is quicker, easier and cheaper.
Honestly, you realize hundreds of billions of dollars have been transacted perfectly well with no more "technology" then pen and ink don't you? I have a physical handicap that makes writing a difficulty and it's *still* easier to hand write small volumes of checks than print them.
When an person/outfit gets big enough that the printing volume gets large enough that there is *benifit* to printing checks and forms then they use their office suite to print them, as I already suggested. Document processors are just that, not just overbloated $400 post-it note writers. If it comes to that I first started printing checks and forms on an 8088 running Microsoft Works 1.0.
It seems easy to forget that just because new ways of doing things come up that the old ways still work just fine, and in certain situations, for certain people, are even *better* than the new ways.
The right tool for the right job, and the size of the job helps determine the right tool.
Honestly, relying on a program like Quickbooks to write a half dozen checks a month, one W2 * a year* and keep a daily transaction ledger is just plain doofey.
To equate a spreadsheet with programing and IT as some above have done is even doofier. Spreadsheets are an office app, just like a WP. Spreadsheets have been traditionally hated by the IT deparment because they were the app that took computing *OUT* of the IP department and put it on a PC on every businessman's own desk.
Accounting apps are there to save time and money. If they do neither they are less than worthless. They are NOT supposed to replace understanding of what's going on with your money. If you *can't* balance a checkbook because * you don't understand* the process perhaps business is not the best place for you.
If you *do* understand the process whipping up a checkbook balancer in a spreadsheet is barely the work of minutes. A simple, single entry, bookkeeping system is hardly the work of more minutes, even if you've never used a spreadsheet before. Double entry will take a bit longer, but then I've refered the reader to a work that lays it all out for them. All they have to do is type it in.
An office suite, ( which, again, isn't IT, it's a collection of apps for *office workers*) does everything Quickbooks does, and more (without phoning home). That's why MS was late to the "Financial management package" party. It never occured to them that anyone would want such a thing because * they had already provided one,* complete with instructions on how to use it as such.
It's called MS Office.
KOffice works just as well. Open Office works even better.
What the hell do you think is really going on behind the scenes in Quickbooks, behind all the pretty graphics and doofey interface? It's just a *crippled* office suite.
Cripple your own.
KFG
Re:Long live spreadsheets... (Score:3, Funny)
Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:5, Informative)
No tax tables makes Quickbooks about as useless as tits on a boar hog. Our CPA switched us over to Netledger at Netledger.com
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly, you have never owned a boar hog ;-)
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:2, Interesting)
Upgrades Required To Use Quickbooks Tax Tables:
- Do-It-YourSelf Payroll: $169 per year
- Upgrade To Current Quickbooks Version: $100 one-time
Great CPA you have there.
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:4, Interesting)
I would never touch any of their products again.
This is the sort of crap that lead me to Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I started with Quicken. That was such a wonderful program thru about V3.0. The next couple of "upgrades" had lots of bells and whistles that seemed nice, but I got lost in the toys and wasn't paying attention to the actual accounting. Ouch.
Then there was the matter of the "upgraded" programs crashing all the time. Sometimes I lost data, sometimes not. In any case it was a pain in the arse.
A few years later, after I had become a *nix convert, I went to work for a small company. When I started they had zilch for an accounting system. Scraps of paper. That's no joke. So the owner hires a wiz bang accountant who promptly insists on Quickbooks.
I yelled, screamed, jumped up and down.
We purchased and installed Quickbooks. The accountant punched in the data and we were off and running. No sooner did we get things running and, wouldn't you know it, the network portion quits on us.
You guessed it.....gotta buy a network license upgrade.
So the owner takes a loan from her mom, gets the upgrade and we're back in bidness. Until tax time.
Manditory tax "upgrade". Isn't that like a tax tax?
So she shells out more of the green, gets the tax upgrade and everything is fine for a few more months. Or so I thought.........
The boss calls me in and wants to know why my department is only doing 57% of goal. I look at her numbers, from Quickbooks, and they don't match my invoices. Not trusting Quickbooks I tracked my own department in spreadsheets too (StarOffice 5.2). Sure it was double the "paperwork" but it proved worth it.
I never did find out the whole reason that Quickbooks was losing transactions. Didn't care. That's Intuit's problem, right? Not according to them it aint.
All that money you pay them and if "nobody else is having this problem" then you get zilch, zip, nada for tech support.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on Intuit here. IMHE they are just par for the course in the windows world.
But didn't they start out as a Mac product?
What about tomrrow? (Score:5, Informative)
They will have to, once the unwashed masses become technically educated enough that they realize what is going on with this constant upgrade cycle and stops buying new products since what they have 'works well enough for me'.
The entire market is based on this deceit. and will suddenly implode..
Re:What about tomrrow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Caught in the headlights of a major trend ... (Score:3, Informative)
Is it legal?
Is it proper?
Is it worthwhile?
Perhaps you should write a little letter to your fair-trading rep or competition commissioner requesting investigation into unfair trading practices based on their market power to exclude future competitors (say ASPs).
LL
Try GNUcash... (Score:5, Informative)
- Small Business Accounting Features:
GnuCash now can be used for Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill Payment,
and using different Tax and Billing Terms in a small business.
- OFX Import:
GnuCash is the first free software application to support the Open Financial Exchange
protocol that many banks and financial services are moving to use. The development of
OFX and HBCI support has also resulted in an improved transaction matching system that
more accurately picks duplicate transactions.
Write your own or pay up. (Score:2)
Re:Write your own or pay up. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am an open souce developer and working on a project that happens to be open source doesn't give me the right not to have my work criticized.
As a software user, if I'm going to try out new software, I'd like to know everyone's opinion on it, good or bad, before I install it. It doesn't matter if the software is free and it doesn't matter if the software is open -- I don't want to create myself the hassle and the frustration of installing a software that won't work on my machine. I, for one, am glad he told us about the sound card issue (my FreeBSD machine doesn't have a sound card either) and now I can use the time he saved me to evaluate the remaining options.
Stephan
PS: As noble as your intentions may be, simply donating money may not be the most practical option for every user out there.
Forcing updates (Score:5, Informative)
To get the new TaxTables, they have really upped their subscription price to more than I think is reasonable. Also, they periodically force an update to the Quickbooks software to be able to use the new TaxTables format. So, for me to keep using Quickbooks, I would have to pay for a new (higher) TaxTable subscription and also update to a new version, which I can't justify.
I have looked at PeachTree, and it seems very usable. It's Tax Table like subscription is about the same as Intuits (around $150), but they do allow you to manually enter details if you need to.
I hate to see Inuit stoop to this, I really like their product. I used Quickbooks at version 5, and liked it. (I don't need any features now that version 5 didn't have). I just can't justify them doing these kind of things to customers, though.
I may have solved this problem... (Score:2)
Try Compiere (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.compiere.org
AppGen MyBooks (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't you just do something like print the invoices to a PDF then email that through the mailer of your choice ? Sure beats having to move your operation and data to a new system, and with the convenient plus that if you want, as some do, you can always have a copy of the invoice exactly as it was printed.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Packet mangling! (Score:4, Informative)
firewall# iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -p tcp --dport 25 -d ${INTUIT_SMTP_SERV} -j DNAT --to ${FRIENDLY_SMTP_SERV}
It's true (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true actually... when I started my job back in September I was using Windows XP, and as there didn't seem to be any chance to switch to Linux coming soon I settled back into life as a Windows user, at work at least. Despite not really needing much software, I found I needed a truckload of commercial utilities to get anything done. We have a slightly dodgy connection, so a download manager that supported resuming (as neither mozilla nor IE appear to support this) was a must. On goes Download Accelerator. We need WinZip of course. Hmm, WindowBlinds FX looks nice (and it is nice). The BBC only streams in RealAudio so to save myself going insane I put on RealPlayer so I can listen to the radio while working.
After a month or so, I realised if I could get the Adobe SVG plugin in IE working under Linux I could switch over to it, and so I got CrossOver (patched Wine to fix some bugs [sigh]) and was very happy.
A week or so ago I rebooted into Windows, and was assaulted by raw commercialism. WindowBlinds had come to the end of its trial and popped up a window on every boot asking me to buy it. RealOne insisted on popping up adverts for its new features and offers, while cleverly not appearing to be running. WinZip of course has a nag screen whenever you run it. Download Accelerator inserts a blinking lightbulb into the system tray. It was almost physically unpleasant battering my way through all this garbage to get to what I wanted. I had become desensitised to it as I started using Windows again, then going back to it after so long was a real shock.
After a while, you realise that seemingly every Windows app comes with some extra code whos only purpose is to try and make you spend money, or sell your eyeballs for a bit. It has nothing to do with enhancing the app, and this is true even for basic must have utilities like decompression programs and audio decoders. I wish I could suggest an alternative to Quickbooks but I don't really use programs like that. Except I know support was recently added to Wine for it.
Re:It's true (Score:2, Informative)
There are *lots* of free zip utilities. (Personally I think WinRAR is much better and worth the money).
For an alternative to RealPlayer...hmmm. You got me there
WindowBlinds makes it clear that it is a demo, so complaints about it expiring are just lame. The LiteStep devs are working on skinning, and I think I saw a WindowBlinds FX clone recently (try Shell Extension city).
Its possible to find lots of freeware for Windows, you just have to look harder. Look at GNUWin II [gnuwin.epfl.ch] for some open source apps.
And make sure to download Ad-Aware [lavasoftusa.com] to hunt down those evil spy programs.
Re:It's true (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's true (Score:3, Interesting)
You downloaded each and everyone of those applications you call 'necessities'. *You* are the one who made the choice.
I personally installed RealPlayer a long time ago, and then said "no thanks", and have never used it since. Same for netscape mind you. But also, until Quicktime fixed it's horrendous interface and constant nagging, I didn't use it either.
When I setup a new Win box, I get a fixed list of administration tools for FREE (as in beer) from sysinternals.com, I get Winrar/Winzip for free with a proper nag screen that doesn't hog memory, just gently reminds you that you have been using it for the 400th consecutive day without paying. And a few open source things like wget and netcat and the like from google.
I have yet to get nags on my screen.
All I have to say is be careful what you complain about as a user, because what you want you just might get...
(Stupid) People complained about "DLL Hell" for the longest time, and now we are ALL cursed with Windows File Protection - a hybrid 'security' scheme set up so that even administrators couldn't replace/delete critical files (why? because all the stupid people ran as admin).
Complain about nagware, and who knows, maybe free stuff like Winzip and winamp will disapear too, and enter the world of Web Services.
Re:It's true (Score:3, Interesting)
Lie to them (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe that you live on a boat, and you can easily send mail via USPS but to use the Internet requires a trip to the local cybercafe, since you can't get internet access on your cell phone?
Re:Lie to them (Score:2)
Re:Lie to them (Score:2)
My bad experience with Inuit products (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My bad experience with Inuit products (Score:2)
Re:My bad experience with Inuit products (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... did you mean Intuit? Oh, well, that's different then.
Re:My bad experience with Inuit products (Score:2)
Re:My bad experience with Inuit products (Score:2)
I realize my case is a special one because I reformatted, but there was no prior warning of this product activation behaviour. I would never have installed it the first time around if I had known it had this. At least MS gives warning and a toll-free, easy method of contacting them for activation.
Appgen (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.appgen.com/products/mybooks.html
It works on Windows, Linux, and Mac, will import your Quickbooks data, and you can try it free for 30 days. I've downloaded it, but haven't played with it much. Maybe other Slashdoters can attest to its usefulness.
Regards,
Chris
Accpac for both Linux and Windows (Score:4, Informative)
SQL Ledger (Score:4, Informative)
Welcome to business in the 'naughties' (Score:2, Insightful)
Now we're in the 'naughties' and the free stuff is drying up fast. Companies are realizing that to get sales and results, they need to try and lock you into their systems.
Once upon a time, banner ads worked. Now everyone's using e-mail newsletters and Flash interstitals. The connection? These forms of advertising are more intrusive, more targeted on the individual.
It's no wonder Quicken wants people to sign up. They know people like their package, and if a few people get lost in the process.. big deal. At least they'll have several hundred thousand small business owners locked into their contract.. which ensures a tidy income for Quicken a few years down the road.
A couple programs offhand (Score:5, Informative)
Then there is Gnucash [gnucash.org], that is more a cross between quicken and quickbooks. It now has invoicing in the newest release.
For a List of other packages... I really don't know much about those.
This is nothing new from Intuit (Score:2, Informative)
I got the refund on my copy of QuickTax under their satisfaction guarantee and yelled at their poor rep on the phone for half and hour. It was convenient that they had a record of my registered copies going back to 1992 and I made it clear I'd never buy another product from them.
I still use Quicken 5 and I never upgraded that because I didn't want to run financial software that was aware of the internet.
Jason
Have you considered... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Have you considered... (Score:2)
I agree this sort of game is offensive and damaging. They should try to make good for your reasonable understanding that you weren't sacrificing functionality in exchange for the upgraded features.
But customer service does occasionally
I avoid upgrades for as long as possible on the Luddite theory "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Does this remind anyone of .mac ? (Score:2)
These schemes sound like the rent-to-own scams that were popular a decade ago where customers paid 4x times the worth of various products through rental schemes. If you rented a couch for example through rent=to-own and refused to pay anymore, you would lose the couch and pay a fine for breaking the contract and all the money you invested already in it is gone. Most customers just paid through the roof so they would not lose there invested money and still retain good credit. However with proprietary file formats you lose all your data if you decide to not use the application anymore. In other words your screwed.
Whoa, here... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Whoa, here... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whoa, here... (Score:2, Informative)
Intuit is no longer a Good company. (Score:4, Informative)
Intuit installing spyware? (Score:5, Informative)
This message was recently posted to alt.comp.financial.quicken. It appears Turbotax 2002 may be installing and starting a spyware service without any notice. I just checked my machine, where I installed Turbotax last week, and indeed, this service is running:
--
Recently I found a running Service named C-DillaCdaC11BA on my Windows XP Pro system. Being an individual interested with Internet Security (viruses, etc), I naturally became concerned that my system may have become compromised. Starting my investigation revealed the associated file (called "CDAC11BA.EXE") located in the Windows\System32\Drivers directory. In addition, I found a hidden directories under the C drive. This first directory was named C_DILLA" and below it was a directory named "SafeCast Product Licenses". Contained within this directory was a single file called "BD6FD000.DAT".
I traced the dates/times the files and directories were created to the same date/time I had installed this years version of Intuit's TurboTax. This is interesting because last year's version of TurboTax did not install this application and nowhere in this year's installation did it make mention of installing it, a third-party application that attempts to hide itself and runs as an additional service! A search of Google for C-DILLA revealed the following article, entitled "C-Dilla! "Copy Protection or Spyware?". It's located at http://www.tswn.com/modules/news/article.php?item_ id=45 [tswn.com]
Nowhere on Intuit's website does it offer a description of this service or appropriate removal instructions. Is it really copyright protection or is Intuit utilizing spyware with their latest version of TurboTax?
Re:Intuit installing spyware? (Score:2, Informative)
It isn't spyware and no spyware finding software (that I am aware of) will report it as installed spyware.
Without the C-Dilla service running any program that authenticates through it will fail to start.
Re:Intuit installing spyware? (Score:5, Informative)
So, does intuit track your usage? probably. That is exactly what we used it for.
Business plan... (Score:3, Funny)
2. Sell popular software program
3. Force fees on users after the fact
4. ????
5. Profit!!!
Actually, I guess in this cause you can skip number 4 entirely.
quickbooks sucks... yes sucks (Score:2)
The new web version requires Windows. Yes, Windows. Not even Mac users can use it. It uses ActiveX for no apperent reason. All of the functionality could have easily been done in HTML with a tiny bit of JS. But they made ActiveX a requirement.
If it's so obviously unnecessary, why would they limit their available customers and produce a seperate Mac version? Here's why.
Quickbooks want's to be an ASP. It's in fashion. They start to design a web version. Microsoft threatens them (because it's in fashion), as there are millions of computers that payed $300 for Windows just so they can run Quickbooks on top of it. Quickbooks ensures Windows will still be required, by an ActiveX dependency.
Microsoft maintains monopoly. User gets screwed.
From the company bringing you product activation.. (Score:2)
You'd think they'd learn that this crap is losing customers.
I been foolin wit these jokers for a while now... (Score:2)
In any event, you can usually get the updates from their website if you are 'Sherlock' enough. Thus, you don't have to use the auto- weputyourfinancialinfointoourbagoftricks update junk.
Of course this is with Quicken and YMMV.
I just can't believe you have to do _anything_ online to use your non-online software.
Perhaps they subverted you into using an online version? I think intuit has online versions of all their money packages and sometimes the offline versions turn themselves into web-forwarders to the online versions if you are not careful.
Why in the living HELL would I wan't to _PUT_ my money online????? I mean my whole portfolio? I simply can't imagine why.
This is nothing... (Score:5, Informative)
If you had read Ed Foster's column in InfoWorld... (Score:5, Informative)
Twist in Intuit's crippleware techniques doubles the cost of its tax-table service (4/27/01) [infoworld.com]
Intuit is up to its old tricks: Adding taxing burdens on its QuickBooks clients (3/17/00) [infoworld.com]
There is another column by Foster -- the #1 and only consumer IT columnist of whom I am aware -- on the practice of making QuickBooks users transmit invoices using Intuit's servers but you'll have to find it yourself.
Peachtree Accounting (Score:2)
It is unfortunate that Intuit is alienating its customers to the point of them turning to other accounting apps. When that happens most companies tend to migrate to the most visable Platform out there, which is usually Microsoft. It wouldn't suprise me if in two years Intuit Sues Microsoft for being a accounting software monopoly instead of Intuit listening to their own customers and giving them what they want.
zerg (Score:3, Funny)
Always have a fallback plan. (Score:2)
That goes as much for home accounting as it does for the space shuttle's life support.
There is a difference between using a computer system and relying on one. As soon as you rely on it, you open yourself up to disaster if it stops being reliable.
In most cases, you don't have to actually buy the alternative solution straight up; the important thing is being prepared for a situation where you might need it.
Why upgrade? (Score:5, Informative)
I upgrade *ONLY* when I encounter either a major bug (meaning "uncircumventable") in what I already have, or what I have simply cannot do what I need it to.
For my web-surfing machine, I run W2K. I will *not*, *ever*, upgrade to XP simply because it doesn't do anything "new". Perhaps I will need to upgrade to the next version of Windows someday, but considering Microsoft's (and most companys') release habits, I doubt I'll need to for at least a few more versions. Hell, I only upgraded from NT4 because it had poor PNP and high-end multimedia support (which I don't really consider a "good" reason, technologically speaking, but when I couldn't run 90% of modern games or get any new hardware, I didn't have much choice). Before NT4, I used DOS (the entire Win95 line quite simply sucked, and amazingly, seemed to get progressively *worse*, not better).
For email, I use Calypso (well, mostly, I use Elm, but for my junkmail account I find it easier to get it via POP and just let the nice filters strip out 99% of the spam). Calypso, for those who don't know it, still uses a text-only interface (basic support for HTML/RTF, but the only email I get in HTML consists of spam, so I don't really care 'bout that).
For compiling under windows, I still use Borland C++ 5. I suspect I'll have to upgrade when 64-bit chips hit the mainstream in a year or two, but at the moment, that 6-year-old compiler does the job just as well as anything I could go out and buy today.
The "solution" here seems obvious. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Don't get me wrong, I have no strong love for "retro" computing (except classic console video game emulation ). But of the programs I regularly use, not a single one has made any real improvement in half a decade.
And now, we see companies moving toward *decreased* functionality in their programs, along with non-permanant licenses to use them. Explain how that benefits me?
Re:Why upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe one reason... (Score:2)
Hopefully this makes sense...never good to post on Slashdot...
Article on Linux Accounting Pkgs (Score:4, Informative)
Richard Stallman told you this would happen. (Score:5, Funny)
SQL Ledger and Nola (Score:3, Informative)
This is only the beginning (Score:3, Informative)
1) Forced registration and machine-specific activation, or the program stops running after X times.
2) Forced collection of personal details during registration. In fact, if you just tell it your phone number, their automated system will tell you your address (unless you have an unlisted number).
3) Forced telephone reactivation upon reinstallation. You can't reactivate over the Internet (this only works for the first installation).
4) No right to sell your legitimate, boxed copy of the software to someone else if you no longer wish to use it (Kapital is the same in this regard, despite the company's claims).
If you give them a fake name and address, you'd better remember them, otherwise you won't be able to reactivate. And, for your information, there is no QUICKEN.INI workaround in the Australian version, and no "cracks" available.
Don't be surprised if us Aussies are a test market for this, and the rest of the world is next. I switched to GnuCash, but as far as I can tell, most other users have been perfectly willing to take it up the arse.
I used to work for Intuit (Score:5, Interesting)
Web Based Accounting Software (Score:3, Informative)
Registration bypass key (Score:5, Informative)
For other than XP:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intuit\QAgent\Guid
"AppID"
"AppName"="Quicken for Windows"
"AppVer"="11.0.0.0"
"Enable"="Yes"
"M
"SubAppID"="2"
For Windows XP"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2B30D0-E0A2-11D2-
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2
@="Quicken 1.0 Type Library"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2B30D0-E0
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLi
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Qu
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2
@="1"
[HKEY_CLASSES_
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Qu
Two items. (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Change. Use Peachtree (I've had it for years, works great) Like Linux? Use VMware.
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Informative)
Of course back up all your Quicken files, blah, blah, blah.
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Informative)
I've also been looking for a good OSS solution, but have come up short (I'll post separately on that subject).
Re:Easy... (Score:5, Informative)
You have to keep that information updated.
hard (Score:3, Informative)
Quickbooks is not a real app, it is a collection of scripts that runs in an IE window. Using 98lite to uninstall IE ruins your QB install.
Now get off your ass and help write a Linux equivalent. +3 my dying backside, you're a nitwit.
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Funny)
You mean like what you do with Windows?
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Common sense (Score:4, Insightful)
updates are not optional (Score:3, Informative)
Ever price QuickBooks checks? 4 times as expensive as generic Quill. Fun, eh?
There is *NO* substitute for QuickBooks. We can't get the Linux based developers off their KDE vs Gnome kick, so we are stuck. Has any Linux developer ever finished any project?
Re:updates are not optional (Score:3, Insightful)
Someday all these chickens will come home to roost, as more and more people realize that "upgrading" means being required to buy into a glorified leasing program to keep functionality. More and more people will stick with what they have in lieu of surrendering ones autonomy to ones software provider.
Re:Common sense (Score:2)
Quickbooks is a very evil program. I still use it only because I have little choice. It is cheap and we don't have time to develop our own.
Re:Free as in Beer Software to replace Quickbooks (Score:4, Funny)
ostiguy