Family and Finances
My oldest son was home for the week-end. We spent time watching Battlestar Galactica 2.5, taking in Stranger Than Fiction, playing Gears of War and we both played as part of a worship team for a church on Sunday.
I spent the remainder of the time working through the finances. I had to call time on my Mac for my personal financial management. I could not get Quicken for Mac to do what I wanted it to do. I loaded up Quicken 2007 XG on my Vista PC, exported the Quicken data file from the Mac, imported into the PC version and made the requisite updates.
I love the Mac platform. It is what a computing environment should be: well designed and easy to use. However, there is no comparison between the Quicken software on the two platforms. Quicken for the Mac is a dog’s breakfast. The worst software experience I have endured in a long time.
I really wanted it to work. And I gave it my best shot.
Issues? First off, the Mac version is not Canadianized. You have to use the U.S. product and set the country preference to Canada. Which is okay except that not one Canadian financial institution is online with this version. Instead of downloading transactions directly to Quicken, you have to launch a browser, login, download an export file, import the export file, and go through transaction by transaction. Yuk.
Getting the investment portfolio updated is just as bad.
By comparison the Windows version is a delight to use. I have no idea why the software is not the same from a functionality perspective on the two platforms. It is quite staggering the difference in capabilities.
Quicken on the PC is just a far better experience. Much more usable and more capable.
Did you like Stranger than Fiction? I saw it last night and thought it was brilliant! Anyways, when I worked at Staples I often heard people complain about the very same thing. It is very unusual. Maybe the issue is that few businesses use Macs in their offices (I don’t know this for a fact, I’m just hypothisizing) and so the corporate market isn’t there. Still, very weird.
p.s. Feel free to expand on the Gear of War gamming, I’ve only seen the previews of it and it looks amazing!
Stranger Than Fiction was a brilliant work. I really enjoyed it.
Personal Financial Management has always been weak on the Mac side, particularly for Canadians. Oh well.
Gears of War is a great gaming experience. Definitely not recommended for younger gamers. The language and the graphics are pretty strong.