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!

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.