A good quicken alternative?

  • Thread starter Thread starter czqq
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The closest alternative is Microsoft Money. Unfortunately, you'll need
several freeware programs to equal the power of these two programs as they
do significantly more than bookkeeping.

Equally unfortunate is the fact that by not using one of them, you lose
access to the online extra features built in to them. Intuit & Microsoft are
smart - the online components add real extra value and can be changed,
updated, modified, or dropped as marketing pressure indicates without
waiting for a new version. Competitors who couldn't keep up (such as
"Managing Your Money", an early favorite of mine) fell by the way side.

To my knowledge no freeware even comes close to the breadth and depth of
Quicken and MS Money. A partial list of Quicken/MS Money functions:

Checkbook Mgt
Creating/Maintaining budgets
Tax Estimation/Planning
Retirement Planning
Online bill paying
Credit Card Mgt
Stock/investment research
Investment Tracking
Household Inventory

All of the above is done in a single user interface environment.
 
Apparently you didn't read the entire post. Cracking wise is much more
effective when you have all the facts.
 
Oh here we go, another pissing contest. Maybe we should get into top and
bottom posting too?
 
Not necessarily, it's too early to tell. You can't be certain until the
second or third round of exchanges. although a good pissing contest between
two well matched opponents, can be good fun and a great read. I can't
speak for Mr. Jahn, but I can certainly do a better job than the "wounded
flower" posts we've been seeing on this group lately. Pathetic. Just
pathetic.
 
Box134 said:
Oh here we go, another pissing contest. Maybe we should get into top and
bottom posting too?
Click to expand...
He's asking a question, what's the problem?

John H. E-mail: (e-mail address removed)
Website: John's Best of FreeWare: WWW:Jhoodsoft.org
 
You and I both know it's not freeware, I was stating that the only
alternative to Quicken is MS Money because:

A) It is stupid to restrict yourself to mentioning only Freeware when there
IS NO FREEWARE that will do the job in question. I believe in such cases it
is perfectly rational to mention payware that WILL do the job. It seems
ludicrous to avoid responding with info that I had; that the original poster
asked for. It also seems rude to tell that person, "I know what you need,
but I'm not telling you because it's Payware!"

Now, if you visit this newsgroup only in order to make some sort of
political statement, I can see that you might be disturbed by the mere
mention of the Great Satan, Microsoft. But many of us have things we need
to get done and we want to know what will do the job, we aren't interested
in the political purity of this newsgroup. Nor are we particularly
interested in the mental well being of those who ARE trying to make some
sort of statement.

B) It was clear from the prior responding posts that the responders really
hadn't had much experience with Quicken so they didn't know what functions
the two payware titles could perform.

This is not to demean those responders, they were trying to help. I would
be hard pressed to make good suggestions on, say, MP3 encoders, or HTML
editors though I could name some and even have even used them from time to
time. Clearly, I am not an expert on those types of software titles.
However, I think my opinions on Database packages, Office Suites, and Money
Management packages probably should be listened to. My short description of
the types of things the two titles in question was to describe the
functionality and illustrate the fact that you would likely need several
freeware titles to perform the equivalent barebones functions of Quicken and
MS Money.

I can't believe I am wasting my time explaining something that should be so
obvious. You are entitled to hold whatever opinion you want on any subject.
But I assure you, I will continue to mention Payware titles on this
newsgroup WHENEVER I feel it is appropriate. Those who don't like it are
free to filter my messages from their queue.
 
I can't believe I am wasting my time explaining something that should be
so obvious. You are entitled to hold whatever opinion you want on any
subject. But I assure you, I will continue to mention Payware titles on
this newsgroup WHENEVER I feel it is appropriate. Those who don't like it
are free to filter my messages from their queue.
Click to expand...

It's always nice to get volunteers, thanks for putting your hand up and
making this group easier to read.
 
JunkMonkey said:
My short description of
the types of things the two titles in question was to describe the
functionality and illustrate the fact that you would likely need several
freeware titles to perform the equivalent barebones functions of Quicken and
MS Money.
Click to expand...

Referring to commercial software to illustrate features desired in a
freeware program is generally considered acceptable in this group.
I will continue to mention Payware titles on this
newsgroup WHENEVER I feel it is appropriate. Those who don't like it are
free to filter my messages from their queue.
Click to expand...

This, however, is simply cluttering up the group with *totally*
off-topic discussion and is not acceptable by most. It's better to
offer to take it to email or to suggest another more appropriate
newsgroup in which to continue the discussion.

I really don't want to filter your messages since you have contributed
to this group on a regular basis. Please reconsider your choice.
 
Referring to commercial software to illustrate features desired in a
freeware program is generally considered acceptable in this group.
(2)

This, however, is simply cluttering up the group with *totally*
off-topic discussion and is not acceptable by most. It's better to
offer to take it to email or to suggest another more appropriate
newsgroup in which to continue the discussion.
Click to expand...

John,

Correct me if I misunderstand, but in paragraph (1) JunkMonkey
describes an action that he took, and you agree that it is generally
considered acceptable. In paragraph (2) JunkMonkey then states that he
will continue the action described in (1), but then you object to it.

I thought his post was helpful.
 
You wrote two words that made my eyes glaze over, Quicken and MS Money .
For shame! You bad boy!

Personally, I use Quicken. [g]

BTW, some years ago, when I was a construction contractor, I wrote a
complete program for contractors that I used for myself. It was like the
old Lotus programs. One entry would send a value to job costs, general
ledger, complete payroll withholding , estimating, engineering as in
figuring loads on beams, etc, etc. It's in DOS, visual basic and the
compiled package in DOS is about a mag long. Would that be of interest to
anyone?

Glenn
 
Vic said:
John,
Correct me if I misunderstand, but in paragraph (1) JunkMonkey
describes an action that he took, and you agree that it is generally
considered acceptable. In paragraph (2) JunkMonkey then states that he
will continue the action described in (1), but then you object to it.
I thought his post was helpful.
Click to expand...

Good point, Vic. I guess since he didn't mention what he considers
when to be an appropriate mention of commercial software and I made
the assumption that it included recommending commercial software as a
solution to a need. I hope that's not Junkmonkey's intention.
 
John Corliss said:
Good point, Vic. I guess since he didn't mention what he considers
when to be an appropriate mention of commercial software and I made
the assumption that it included recommending commercial software as a
solution to a need. I hope that's not Junkmonkey's intention.

--
Regards from John Corliss
No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware, demoware,
nagware, shareware, spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses
or warez please.
Click to expand...
 
Indeed, it was not my intention to imply that I would insert the names of
payware titles wily nilly into threads. But there are times when it is
appropriate to mention payware titles. And in my mind, when there is no
functional equivalent freeware is one of them. I think this is an area
where common sense must rule.

I also think there are going to be times when people will disagree on when
it is appropriate, so the level of objection must also be tempered with
common sense. Those who jump up barking whenever a payware title
(especially a Microsoft title) is mentioned are doing no one any favors. In
my opinion, they are restricting the dialogue, not enhancing it.

And let's face it, sometimes freeware titles AREN'T as good as certain
payware titles. We need to feel free to say that as well. ( I'd be happy
to mention a few, if anyone is interested) Constructive criticism,
reasonably presented and supported with examples can only improve the
overall quality of the library of freeware.

Regards to all,
JM
 
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