So I had to get a refund. Thankfully they were very polite. I did that via chat…

>> Vijay: Welcome to Quicken chat support. My name is Vijay. Please give me a moment while I review the info you provided.
>> Vijay: Hi Mike.
>> Mike: Hi Vijay
>> Vijay: How are you doing today?
>> Mike: Well…. Okay I suppose. I’m a bit disappointed.
>> Vijay: Mike,Quicken Essentials for Mac allows you to track the overall value of your investment accounts and the value of your specific holdings by automatically downloading from your brokerage. However, it will not, track investment buys and sells, some advanced investment performance reports, and it will not support manual entry of investment transactions or positions.
>> Mike: I know. I wish that had been disclosed in all the promotional material about how cool the new version is supposed to be. But it’s not. I found it in the installation instructions. I use Quicken to track my business transactions, and to track investment capital gains. I can’t use the new version. I haven’t even installed it yet.
>> Vijay: Okay.
>> Vijay: Do you want refund for the Quicken 2010 Mac Essentials?
>> Mike: I have been using quicken for over 10 years Would you please issue me a refund, and in addition, advise me when you have software that might meet my needs?
>> Mike: I’m not really sure why such a critical functionality was removed.
>> Vijay: May I know the order number?
>> Mike: One moment I’ll get that for you.
>> Vijay: Sure.
>> Mike: Your Quicken Order Confirmation QST3505106975
>> Vijay: Thank you.
>> Vijay: Please give me 2-3 minutes while I look into my resources to provide you with the right answer.
>> Mike: Please put in your “What’s New” page about the software the bit about it not supporting investment tracking anymore. That’s really important for customers to know that before they download and try to upgrade their accounts.
>> Mike: Okay.
>> Vijay: Thank you for your patience.
>> Vijay: Mike,As you have purchase the Quicken 2010 Mac Essentials today.I can not generate the refund today.I will generate the refund in the next 24-48 hours and email you all the details regarding the refund.
>> Vijay: Would it be fine with you?
>> Mike: That’s okay. I realize it has to clear first.
>> Mike: I just really hope that Intuit will provide me an upgrade path with the needed functionality. Are there plans for it? Is there a way to move my data to a Windows version perhaps that might support that type of thing?
>> Mike: I can run Quicken under Windows if there is an easy way to move the data over and if it supports investment tracking.
>> Vijay: Mike,We can not convert Quicken 2010 Mac Essentials data to the Quicken for windows.
>> Mike: what about QUicken 2007 data?
>> Mike: (I haven’t used Quicken 2010 yet)
>> Vijay: Yes,we can convert the Quicken 2007 Mac to Quicken for windows.Please follow the steps in the below link:
http://quicken.intuit.com/support/articles/getting-started/upgrading-and-conversion/469.html
>> Mike: okay. Is there a trial of that software? I would not mind trying that.
>> Vijay: Mike,We do not have trail versions for Quicken 2010 Mac Essentails.
>> Mike: Quicken for Windows
>> Mike: I can look it up on my own I suppose and see if you do. Or if it doesn’t work properly, buy it and try it and see I suppose.
>> Vijay: Mike,We do not have trail versions for Quicken for Windows .
>> Vijay: Sure.
>> Mike: Okay. It comes with a satisfaction guarantee too I assume?
>> Vijay: Yes.
>> Mike: Okay. That’s as good as a trial for me. Thank you so much. Please PLEASE tell your supervisors that dropping the investment support was a bad idea. >.>
>> Vijay: Sure.
>> Mike: Thank you and have a nice day.

I found a blog post that referred me to someone else’s ratrace with the same problem on a 64-bit system.  64-bit or 32-bit makes no difference – Microsoft’s downloads for the Management Studio just don’t include the actual software you need despite what their website says.

What worked for me, after my own hours of time wasted, was downloading and installing the Microsoft Visual Studio Web Developer Express package, which includes a download / install manager that has built into it MSSQL Manager Express.

I do wish I could bill Microsoft for time wasted!

Most people will be glad to have turn-by-turn directions on their GPS cellphones for free.  I know I will use it when I get a smartphone.  But I get a sinking feeling in my stomach when I think about it.

Recently a New York Times article published a bit about the new service:

But during a briefing with reporters on Tuesday, Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said he didn’t think of the new service as disrupting an industry. Instead, he said it is a windfall for consumers that was made possible by the increasing power of smartphones and the growing ubiquity of Internet access.

“Obviously we like the price of free because consumers like that as well,” he said.

After the briefing, Mr. Schmidt said he was not concerned that the new service would create new enemies for Google. “As long as you are on the side of consumers, you’ll be fine,” he said.

On the side of consumers.

That sounds so nice!  Who pays for all this stuff?  Consumers don’t?   Right.  At least not directly, and here’s the rub.

The people that consume the services are not the same people that directly pay for it.  That’s a problem!

Google makes the vast bulk of its googley profits by this little product called Google Adwords.  Advertising built into their online search – that right-hanging list of sponsored links.  The problem is that businesses who want to get a start online have no choice but to participate in that.  It’s the defacto standard.

Clicking once on any of those right links can add 50 cents, to upwards of several dollars to Google’s coffer.

And how are those ads placed? What determines which ads appear highest?  Well, Google optimizes the placement by which ones generate them the most money.  Clicks times Click-cost divided by impressions.  It’s a simple formula.

What it means for a small business owner, though, is sheer hell.  Or heaven.  But in the end, a business can expect to give away 40 to 60% of its gross revenue….

Google can eat more than half of a company’s gross revenue….

Not to making good products. Not to employees. Not to good materials! Not to production capacity…. but to Google.

Why?  Well if you and I are competing to sell mattresses, then if we want to get our site out there to people searching for mattresses, we compete against each other to see whose ad wins with optimal placement in Google Adsense.  We fight against each other to see which of us will give more profit to Google.  And the thing is, if I spend less than you do, I may get bumped off that precious first page entirely, and my sales will plummet.  Cause for an online business, particularly a new one, almost all the sales come from Google referrals.

So Google ends up with the win here. Not me, not you.  Except we get free GPS navigation on our phones! woohoo!

Google’s problem is this:

The customer that consumes their web search (the person who does google searches) is totally disconnected from the cost of placing the ad.  And the ad pricing model is built to extract the most money possible out of the business.

There’s a disconnect between the consumers of the service (the search customers), and the price of the service (as offered by the company posting the ad), and Google gets the difference.

If customers would wisen up, and just stop clicking on those ads, then Google’s money supply would go dry.  In the end, it’s the consumers that lose.  Google is cheating you by offering you all of this free stuff, and at the same time, taking the money out of your back pocket in the form of added cost of doing business that you pay to the people you buy stuff from.

Google Docs is great!  I use it every day!  It, and its other online editing counterparts, have a long way to go though to be an editor replacement for a real word processor.  Here are a few GLARING problems with it:

• You can’t see pagination when editing.  How are you supposed to tell what a printed page will look like while you’re working on your document?  I don’t see how an online app is gonna do this at all.
• You can’t define paragraph styles. That’s kind of, you know, basic.
• There’s no template support. Again HELLO!
• Zoho Writer has an equation editor, GoogleDocs doesn’t – but it’s rather important to be able to edit the equations you have if you do that sort of thing.
• Insertion of media and / or other elements like spreadsheets and graphs is lacking.  GoogleDocs image support STINKS.  You have very little placement control, you can’t control borders, or spacing around images.
• Document sections?  HAH.  Address the other issues first!

So in short, so far Zohowriter and GoogleDocs both just don’t measure up to providing even basic printed document editing.  It’s great for collaborative working.  But when it comes time to print, well, it’s time to copy out of Google Docs and paste into Word. Or Pages – I actually like that Mac program.

I really like Zoho in some ways because it has a nicer toolbar, but in general I prefer GoogleDocs.

I do think that OpenOffice is a much more viable alternative for Linux users, but using Linux for normal people still has its own issues.

It seems to me that the people that write these stories haven’t really done their homework in actually thinking about why people use word processors (you know:  Usually to PRINT) or why they want to edit documents collaboratively online (you know:  usually to share information online).  The two ways of communicating are very different.

Under the hood of your computer you say?  Isn’t that where an operating system is supposed to exist for the most part?

An operating system should protect itself from viruses.  You shouldn’t need to have to install software on a computer system to guard against unapproved subversion of its operating system.  There are two ways to make this happen:

By Design

The operating system should be designed with application structure and process structure that makes security compromise difficult. I’ve always come down on hard on Microsoft for building too much power into things inappropriately.  Like ActiveX – do you really want some website able to run software on your computer and make changes to your hard drive?  Microsoft’s learned the hard way that exposing  application power and flexibility is unwise.

Not to say that Linux and variants are immune – they’re not.  But in general, applications that you install on these machines never make any changes to system files, and if they do, you have to give them permission.

Active Analysis

Enter: Anti-virus software.  People on Linux and Macs still don’t mess with it much – they just keep their operating systems up to date.  Even so, some degree of active protection should also be built into the operating system itself.  Maybe the OS could provide hooks for third parties to better analyze data as it’s read, too, but at a very basic level, some sort of semi-competent approach to active data scanning should happen right there at the application level as a feature of the OS itself.

I mean: Come on.  Look at all the cool stuff that your computer comes with out of the box that’s part of the operating system:  Media players and web browsers and image viewers and very basic editor capability, etc.

Kudos to Microsoft for adding Microsoft Security Essentials - the first OS-provided anti-virus solution, to their suite.

For a brief two years, powerbooks were on price-per-feature par with Windows laptops even though the hardware quality of Apple laptops for the most part has been primo.  But the price comparison didn’t last long.  Even so, Macs keep a degree of resale value.  Even now, after three and a half years, my Macbook Pro 2 GHz model has a resale value of about $1000 or so not counting the fact that it has a larger hard drive in it.  But it has a bad motherboard, and flakes out a good bit. It’s the memory controller, you see.   It works as well as my own in that regard.  While I can’t replace my personal memory controller, I can replace the MacBook’s one for about $400.  That leaves me with a $600 margin still.

If you buy a new laptop every three years, and resell the old one, if you go Mac, you can get a top of the line MacBook Pro for $1000 every three years.  That’s not bad!  If you consider that Windows laptops just don’t keep that kind of resale value, the premium for a MacBook makes sense, if you like the OS.  Which I do!

So my new one came today!  A brand new 2.6 GHz 4 Gig ram thing with a swank graphics card in it.  Two grand.  My mom was here and I let her witness the whole new mac experience.  It’s very sensual.  The cardboard box feels quality. Everything about it says sexy.  Then.. “Watch THIS mom!”  I hit the on button.

The thing sits there with a white screen for 5 minutes, and then spits out a long blab of white text on a black background.  Kernel dump.  Ugh.

Oddly enough it did actually finish booting eventually and managed to restore everything from my backup!  I was amazed!  But the networking wouldn’t work, and on bootup and shutdown it always did that same kernel dump.

So… half an hour later on the phone and Apple’s sending me a replacement.  I have to wait another WEEK!  But I’m so PUMPED!  Why?

Because for the price of one mac I get to experience that new mac sensation TWICE!  YAY!