Quicken.com
In the late 80s Quicken was one of my favorite applications. It was a fast, reliable, DOS application that kept my checkbooks balanced. One a month a diskette arrived in the mail containing my credit card transactions. It was always complete and my accounts balanced. Every so often it corrupted all my data, but heck -- that's what backups are for. (I knew 3-4 different ways to rebuild Quicken's famously unstable database.
15 years or so later Quicken is a joke. I download my statements and the reconcile function is off by $1000 or so. Same thing happens every so often with the "fully integrated" Quicken credit card. I used to track down those things, but it was an enormous pain and the bank was always right. Intuit/Quicken extort money from banks to use their proprietary transfer format (Quicken no longer supports the old "open" xml format they once championed) and few want to bother with tight integration.
Last year I gave up. I use Quicken to download transactions (it mostly gets them straight) and otherwise I'm back to spreadsheets. I assume the banks get the checking accounts more or less right.
It's a sad tale ...
Friday, January 21, 2005
Gmail: You are currently using 146 MB (15%) of your 1000 MB.
Gmail
Hmm. That didn't take long at all! After a few months of sending my mail stream to Gmail I'm at 15% of capacity. Of course the 6367 spams in my Spam folder don't help! They count againsts my 1GB total and there's no practical way to delete them enmasse.
At this rate I'll overflow my Gmail account within another 12 months.
Hmm. That didn't take long at all! After a few months of sending my mail stream to Gmail I'm at 15% of capacity. Of course the 6367 spams in my Spam folder don't help! They count againsts my 1GB total and there's no practical way to delete them enmasse.
At this rate I'll overflow my Gmail account within another 12 months.
Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer
How to Troubleshoot Service Startup Permissions
How does anyone manage Windows XP at home? I use the Pro version, and it really expects to run within a managed LAN. It is quite awkward to do networking using XP Pro in a peer-to-peer network. Windows 2000 was easier.
In this case I needed to share a folder. I tried allowing access to the Guest acccount. Gave me the above error message. Turns out the Guests Group is not a group that XP expects to share too. Instead it provides that cryptic error message.
You can use the Windows Management Console to drill down the even more cryptic solution:
Console Root:Local Computer Policy:Windows Settings:Security Settings:Local Policies:User Rights Assignment:Access This Computer from the Network.
There one sees the list of Groups that are permitted to Access via the network. That list includes "Everyone" (not what you think) but not "Guests" or "Guest".
Rather than add Guests I backed away and added a new user in the Users group to support this sharing need.
Wow. Not only is this pretty darned cryptic, the sheer complexity suggests lots of pitfalls. No wonder XP machines are so hard to make secure (not to mention I can't run as "User" and get work done on XP, but in OS X I always run as "User" -- a basic security practice).
How does anyone manage Windows XP at home? I use the Pro version, and it really expects to run within a managed LAN. It is quite awkward to do networking using XP Pro in a peer-to-peer network. Windows 2000 was easier.
In this case I needed to share a folder. I tried allowing access to the Guest acccount. Gave me the above error message. Turns out the Guests Group is not a group that XP expects to share too. Instead it provides that cryptic error message.
You can use the Windows Management Console to drill down the even more cryptic solution:
Console Root:Local Computer Policy:Windows Settings:Security Settings:Local Policies:User Rights Assignment:Access This Computer from the Network.
There one sees the list of Groups that are permitted to Access via the network. That list includes "Everyone" (not what you think) but not "Guests" or "Guest".
Rather than add Guests I backed away and added a new user in the Users group to support this sharing need.
Wow. Not only is this pretty darned cryptic, the sheer complexity suggests lots of pitfalls. No wonder XP machines are so hard to make secure (not to mention I can't run as "User" and get work done on XP, but in OS X I always run as "User" -- a basic security practice).
Important (good) news about Pages/Keynote
MacInTouch Home Page
Nisus Express uses RTF. Mellel uses an proprietary file format. If Pages used a proprietary file format, I wouldn't consider it. It sounds like it's XML based instead. So not necessarily standard (RTF, OpenOffice), but readily accessible. That's very good news and it makes Pages a "contender".
Nisus Express uses RTF. Mellel uses an proprietary file format. If Pages used a proprietary file format, I wouldn't consider it. It sounds like it's XML based instead. So not necessarily standard (RTF, OpenOffice), but readily accessible. That's very good news and it makes Pages a "contender".
[Mitch Cohen] I was also curious if Pages uses XML. While at MacWorld I confirmed this when trying it on the show floor. I created a new simple file and saved it. The file saved is a package, which can easily be opened ('show package contents'), just like Keynote. The file body is saved in a ZIPped XML file within the package. I unzipped the file, opened the XML, and opened it in TextEdit. At least at first glance it appears to be standard XML.
[MacInTouch Reader] The answer is that Pages, as Keynote does use an xml format that is open. I, like Nigel Warren, find it useful to be able to future-proof files as much as is possible, my reason being that I work in the pharmaceutical business and we have a need to keep docs for up to 40 years, so as we move further into a digital age open and easily transferable documents are becoming a killer functionality.
[Walter Ian Kaye] At Macworld Expo, Pages was being demoed by its UI designer. He indicated that it uses the same format as Keynote. (He also liked to clone palettes by a shortcut of option-clicking on one of their tab icons, which I found cool.) I also asked about Word support. He said that Pages can read/write Word files ....
Mac serial number database
Klantenservice: Serienummers
They solicit information on systems, then provide a way for others to query that db.
They solicit information on systems, then provide a way for others to query that db.
Macintouch: Mac Mini is pretty good, the G5 is pretty bad (hot)
Performance Comparison: eMac G4, iBook G4, iMac G5 and Mac Mini
Why does only Macintouch do these kinds of evaluations? Here's the conclusion:
Ric did miss a key point -- almost everything that's true of the Mac Mini is also true of the G4 iBook. The main drawback of the G4 iBook is its slow graphics card and the inability to drive an external monitor at high resolutions. If Apple does a G4 iBook refresh in the next month that issue will be resolved.
The other part of the story is that the G5 is a crummy CPU. Hot and not all that faster than a G4. It really feels like a desperate marketing gimmick. There's reason to hope that the next generation IBM replacement will be better, but we're talking 2006. The good news from my perspective is that the inability to replace the G4 means Apple systems have a longer than usual lifespan (software vendors have to write to the G4 standard).
For anyone needing a machine and not doing video editing, the Mac Mini looks awfully good. For video editing the slow hard drive is a problem on the iBook and the Mac Mini. The (yech) eMac is a good solution, or a G5 iMac (toggle to high performance when doing video editing -- shades of toggling my original 8086 PC!), or a refurbished 1.8GHz PowerMac (need to have a monitor, takes up lots of room).
Why does only Macintouch do these kinds of evaluations? Here's the conclusion:
The iMac G5 is a wonderful system, and we'd rather pay a few hundred dollars over the cost of an eMac to get one, but all the Apple hype about the G5 falls a little short when you see the low-cost eMac, with its slower G4 processor, pushing the iMac G5 in performance. The eMac is actually faster in several real-world situations, and that raises serious technical questions that long to be answered.
Adding the Mac Mini to the mix really changes the equation. For far less money than an iMac or even an eMac costs, you get excellent performance, silent operation and the ability to drive a big beautiful monitor of your own choosing, a critical feature missing from all but the Power Mac and PowerBooks. The Mini's one weakness is disk performance, which may make the eMac a better choice for video editing or heavy audio work, but it shouldn't be an issue in too many applications. For general home or office use, the Mini is perfect.
If you want the ultimate in performance - or multiple large screens - the Power Mac G5 is the way to go, although we have some concerns about reliability with the liquid-cooled 2.5GHz model and would probably stick with 1.8- or 2.0-GHz systems.
PowerBooks are nice, but pricy. The big advantage you get for the extra price of the 12' PowerBook is the ability to drive a larger external screen in dual-display mode (up to 2048x1536), although the built-in screen has the same 768x1024 resolution as the iBook.
The 15' PowerBook is an ideal mobile machine, and it can drive a big external screen on a desktop and use FireWire 800 to get disk performance more on par with a desktop computer's. This lovely laptop costs about four times what a Mac Mini costs, however, making it an expensive option for its portability and performance, and it's not as compact as the jewel-like 12' models or Mini.
The 17' PowerBook strikes us as an expensive alternative to the iMac with better portability and battery power.
One last factor is the G5's support for 64-bit processing, which is supposed to get a boost with next year's Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger'. Theoretically, this may be an advantage for the iMac and Power Mac G5 models, but the real-world advantage for general applications is questionable at this point.
Ric did miss a key point -- almost everything that's true of the Mac Mini is also true of the G4 iBook. The main drawback of the G4 iBook is its slow graphics card and the inability to drive an external monitor at high resolutions. If Apple does a G4 iBook refresh in the next month that issue will be resolved.
The other part of the story is that the G5 is a crummy CPU. Hot and not all that faster than a G4. It really feels like a desperate marketing gimmick. There's reason to hope that the next generation IBM replacement will be better, but we're talking 2006. The good news from my perspective is that the inability to replace the G4 means Apple systems have a longer than usual lifespan (software vendors have to write to the G4 standard).
For anyone needing a machine and not doing video editing, the Mac Mini looks awfully good. For video editing the slow hard drive is a problem on the iBook and the Mac Mini. The (yech) eMac is a good solution, or a G5 iMac (toggle to high performance when doing video editing -- shades of toggling my original 8086 PC!), or a refurbished 1.8GHz PowerMac (need to have a monitor, takes up lots of room).
Thursday, January 20, 2005
AppleCare alternative
MacInTouch Home Page: "just read the fine print for my Visa card and discovered the 'Performance Guarantee' that, for a fee, will extend the manufacturer's warranty for items bought with the card. For about $180, my PowerBook repairs can be covered for four years, compared to $349 for three years of AppleCare. Of course, you don't get the one-stop phone assistance and 'peace of mind'.
The phone operators says that the insurance can be bought anytime during the first two years (which are covered automatically by 'Extended Warranty'), and that failed batteries are covered."
There are serious issues with AppleCare. Apple has outsourced its repair services to some marginally incompetent partners. This might cover repairs by private sources.
The phone operators says that the insurance can be bought anytime during the first two years (which are covered automatically by 'Extended Warranty'), and that failed batteries are covered."
There are serious issues with AppleCare. Apple has outsourced its repair services to some marginally incompetent partners. This might cover repairs by private sources.
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