Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Vibrant Ads

Vibrant Ads are those ads that pop up in the middle of a page when you mouse over an underlined phrase. As someone who likes to "read with their mouse," it's really distracting to me to have an ad pop up right in front of what I'm trying to read.

A note to web sites: If you use Vibrant Ads, I will never come back. I acknowledge the need for ad revenue, but it's just not worth the aggravation to visit a site with Vibrant.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Quicken 2009

I started using Quicken some time back in the 90's. I don't remember exactly when, but it was somewhere around 93-94, as I got it not too long after I got my first computer. Somewhere along the line when it was time to upgrade, I switched to Microsoft Money.

When I got married, it was actually a lengthy discussion between us whether we should use Quicken, like my wife had been doing, or use Money, like me. We decided on Money, simply because I handle the money in the family, so my input weighed more on this topic. That was in 2001.

The time came to upgrade recently, and I couldn't actually find Microsoft Money in stores. I looked at all the usual places, and couldn't even find it on Amazon.com. The only place I could find it was via download directly from Microsoft. So, when I was at Costco, I went ahead and purchased Quicken 2009 due to the great price it was selling for.

Mistake.

Quicken 2009 doesn't seem to want to run on Vista. The Quicken Sidebar Gadget doesn't update properly (it shows old new information), and when you click on Savings Plan, it crashes EVERY TIME. No exception, it crashes every single time. I literally don't know what that screen is supposed to look like.

So, I went on quicken.intuit.com to look to see if there is some sort of patch or workaround for it, and it appears that Intuit does not actually provide support for Quicken. The support options are limited to problems with the download, unlocking the CD, and a community forum. I thought maybe the community forum was the place that you'd put your problem and Intuit employees would respond and then the solution would be available to everyone going forward.

After looking around the user forums, it seems to be a gather place for people to post their problems, then for other users to tell them that they have the same problem and Intuit won't respond to their requests for help.

I've had enough, it's going back to Costco. I guess I'll download the appropriate Microsoft Money version.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

DSLR Camera

I have 4 kids under the age of 6, and it seems that there are a lot of times that the point and shoot camera I have just can't keep up with the kids. I've tried several brands and models, both personally and in the store, but they all seem to have too great of a shutter "lag" to capture the kids the instant I hit the button. This has caused me to consider a consumer level DSLR. I don't know much about photography, but my understanding is that you basically buy into a system of lenses, Canon or Nikon, for example, and then you upgrade bodies down the road.

This seems like a reasonable system, although since I don't know much about photography, I'm forced to do a ridiculous amount of research to make an informed decision. As near as I can tell, the two biggest players, Canon and Nikon, have followers akin to Ford or Chevy.

Anyway, so I'm coming into a small windfall in about 2 weeks, and I think I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger on the Canon XSi. I suppose one can double think this into infinity, but I'm sure that it is more than sufficient for my needs. It really doesn't hurt that the price is down something like 40% from this time last year...


Thursday, November 06, 2008

Bitter Clinger

In light of my previous post, this mug makes me wish I drank coffee.


Bitter Clinger Mug
Bitter Clinger Mug
Buy this product at CafePress
Designed by Big Elephant

Obama

First, let me say that I didn't vote for Obama. And no, I didn't vote for the old guy, either. I was kind of discouraged by the choices this year.


The Good:

1) Everyone loves Obama. Not just people in the US, but people in other countries. Maybe that's because they figure he'll do what every other Democrat in recent memory has done and ravage our military, but whatever the reason, we could use a little good PR these days.

2) He is black. Ok, some may argue that, but who cares. I never cared about his race when I decided I didn't want to vote for him, but since apparently it's important to some people, I'm glad we can remove the supposed stigma about never having had a black president.

The Bad:

1) I work for a small company. So, even though I've personally been promised a tax break, I'm pretty sure there won't be as much money to go around when raises are due, since the owner of the company I work for is squarely in Obama's crosshairs.

2) Speaking of crosshairs... He's going to be coming for your guns. I'm a bitter clinger, so I'm not very opimistic about the next 4 years.

3) Yeah, he's a socialist. I'm not for removing incentives for success, enabling people who want to live off others, or any sort of big government.

Bump.

Steve Sack