Death And Taxes

only way to fix a broken Windows installation. 😉 Saturday I went up to San Francisco for the afternoon, and to meet up with some friends. I did end up hanging out with somebody, but not the friends I went up there to see. (We just weren’t able to connect. <sigh>) I had a great time anyway. The weather on the drive home was horrendous and I’m beginning to think that it’s about time for some new tires on Mary Mitsubishi (my car). As I got into town, Mary decided it was time for me to visit Fry’s Electronics to keep up on my computer habit. I walked out of there with $420 worth of merchandise: A new Monitor, another 512MB stick of RAM, and this year’s assortment of Intuit financial software: Quicken 2003, TurboTax 2002, and TurboTax State 2002. The monitor is BEAUTIFUL. My ol’ $10 (yes, that IS ten dollars) Viewsonic monitor has done a great job, but frankly it’s way out of focus and a bit small. This Nokia monitor is a factory refurbished model and is crystal clear. Did I mention that it’s also a 19″ with 18″ viewable? YUMMY! The RAM is identical to the stuff I bought when I put this computer together. It’s working like a charm. It feels GOOD to have a solid gig of RAM in my machine again. 😀 As for the financial software…. Here’s where it gets bad. Apparently, TurboTax does some pretty nasty things to your boot sector. Both TurboTax products were returned, unopened. As for Quicken, I gave it an honest try. My brother may have fallen in love with it, but I was VERY disappointed. For starters, I was unable to register my product. I had to use a browser to create an account on the Quicken.com website and then was unable to log in. I created TWO accounts. No dice. Without registering, I was unable to download updates to my bank account, and after many tries I decided, “fuck it!” I uninstalled the crappy software as fast as I could, reinstalled the older and better software, and returned the open-box product to Fry’s. The manager there informed me that they don’t take returns on opened software, but seeing the displeasure with the software on my face he made an exception. I am grateful. I then took my $108 refund and poured $30 of it into a much needed paper shredder. I’ve been needing one for quite some time because I’m not too fond of throwing all my visa card and ATM card receipts into the trash whole. Today’s working of my taxes helped me get some use out of it as well. (I shredded up the mistake prints and worksheets I used.) Well, that’s about it. I won’t be buying any new Quicken software for a while being as the 2000 version does the job I need it to. Now if they were to come out with a linux version of Quicken, I might just be inclined. If the folks who put together GNUcash were to come up with a palm conduit and a working palm app for me to replace my Pocket Quicken with, then I’d be a VERY happy boy and would have one less reason to boot into Windows. Anyhow, I’ve rambled on long enough. I’m going to bed now. Thanks for visiting and Keep Coming Back!!!]]>