Archives for Category "Technology"
September 27, 2007
Quicken 2007 - Buggy - Simply Appalling
We "upgraded" to Quicken 2007 a few months back and I've been meaning to rant about it ever since. It is appallingly buggy. Straightforward functionality - such as the simple income v. expense graph on the front page - is broken, for example, and as far as I can tell, unfixable. It doesn't seem to be *losing* data, but it is not displaying it correctly at all and does not seem to present any options for doing so. There are interface glitches, the color choices are poor (and unchangeable as far as I can tell), and the font is too small, in addition to the incorrect data displays. And I'm not trying to (and won't) do anything complicated with it.I am just horrified that it was released in this state and think the software developers who shipped this monstrosity of an 'upgrade' should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves. I sent off a comment/bug report a few weeks back and have not heard a peep. The more time goes by without a bug-fix upgrade, the more tempted I am to try to revert back to Quicken 2004, but I'm not sure that will be possible.
I really cannot convey the depth of my outrage over this buggy, poorly-designed piece of crap. TheGuy and I have each been using Quicken since the early 90s and the current version does LESS for me (and what it does is BROKEN) than the version I had in 1995!
<=> | Comments: 3 | in: Technology
August 25, 2007
New iMac
In 1990, I encountered my first desktop Macintosh computer. Having only used Windows (DOS and 3.0 or whatever it was way back then) previously, that Mac was a revelation. It had purty fonts and an easy to understand interface. It was the first computer I ever used a mouse with! It looked something like this.Ever since, I've been dying to have my own desktop Mac. But, after college (during which I just used computers in the labs) neither my research nor my work really required it. I should note that 1990 was also when I was introduced to UNIX (another amazing technology.) I bought an iBook back in the early 2000's when OS X arrived (terminal windows? emacs? on a Mac? Oh bliss..) But still no desktop. In 2004 I bought a sexy little Powerbook G4 to travel with and to carry around the house. Still no desktop.
Yesterday, 17 years after that first exposure, I finally acquired my very first Mac desktop. My new computer looks something like this:
This is really the most fun I've had with a computer in years, if not ever. The new iMacs are SWEET. Highly recommended. Two thumbs up!
<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Personal Organization / Technology
August 18, 2007
Hate Must be Taught, After All
Hate must be taught, as the saying goes, and it's not just children who can be taught to hate. A little while ago Rick Perlstein wrote an all-too-familiar lament about his older relatives being fed a diet of viciousness and hate through avenues such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and being taught to hate ... people like him.She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.A little while ago I was sharing a related lament with one of my relatives and something occurred to me. Not only do we live in one of most prosperous nation-states in one of the most prosperous times that has ever been, with luxuries inconceivable just a century or two ago, we also live in a time where the most sophisticated and most effective propaganda machines ever to be constructed are at work every minute of every day. Most of the time these machines are aimed at reinforcing capitalist myths and emptying wallets, but a significant sliver of this newly-developed propaganda capacity is in the service of an ideology focused on fostering divisiveness and contempt for others. So, while I am appalled at the unthinking repetition of insidious wingnut memes that I hear all too often, I'm also sympathetic. It is very difficult to resist the propaganda even when it's transparent ("buy this beer and beautiful blonde women will have sex with you"), and much more so when it is meant to fly under the radar (see Frank Luntz's entire life's work, for example) and masked in a veneer of patriotism.
I'd look out of [my grandmother's] eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
Sara over at Orcinus had more to say about the grandma-snatchers and a proposed solution:
Perlstein's article has prompted a flood of comments, here and elsewhere, from anguished progressives whose mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents once instilled them with their liberal values -- but are now estranged from their families and lost to the right-wing airwaves. It's as though, while we weren't looking, the body-snatchers snuck in through the pipe and made off with their votes, their brains, and (occasionally) their money.
[...] America's elderly have been frightened by media fearmongers for as long as there's been TV -- and possibly (for those familiar with Father Coughlin), for as long as there's been radio. This is a fine old tradition, the natural outcome when the elderly are left alone too many hours each day with only a box for company. But it's not inevitable. There are things we can do about it.
[...] Most of us are very cautious and circumspect about leaving our children's developing minds to the tender mercies of the media. Those of us who care about the elders in our families might be equally vigilant about their media diets as well. We do not have to take the political hijacking of our seniors lying down, or assume that's just the way it is. We just have to do what we do with our kids: make sure they've got consistent access to appealing, age-appropriate media that gives them hope, confidence, and truly balanced ways of seeing the world.
<=> | in: Federal Politics / General Musings / Media Dysfunction / Religion & Politics / Republicans / Technology
July 23, 2007
Blackberry Problem - Hep me, Lazyweb?!
For some strange reason, as I just twittered, my Blackberry - as of about 10:30 yesterday morning, has stopped receiving mail on my Pair.com (uncorked.org, etc.) accounts. It's still on the Internet, still gets Outlook (work) mail, still gets gmail (through the gmail app that I installed), but isn't getting any of my other personal email.I have no idea why - I haven't been messing with settings or anything like that. I went into the mail setup app and everything seems normal.
Help me, lazyweb, help, help! What other kinds of troubleshooting could I do?
<=> | in: Technology
