Category Archives: Personal Software
Some Parental Control Programs To Avoid
Someone has an older child who loves to play games on the computer. They weren’t interested so much in logging activity, filtering, and such, as much as limiting their time on it. So, I started investigating it.
Well, I found a couple of references to one that initially sounded perfect. It is User Time Control Center. According to one write-up at Softpedia;
User Time Control it allows you to set limits on how much time your child spends on the computer or online.
User Time Control Center lets you specify when exactly and how long the computer can be used and define users which will be allowed to use the computer without any limits.
If you are concerned your child may be spending too much time online or playing games – or you don’t want him/her to use your PC when you’re either asleep or away from home — this type of software offers a solution.
Well, this sounded just like what the doctor ordered! However, I first wanted to check out other reviews and such, as you never know about the companies you are dealing with. That seemed particularly important as it is written by 1st Security Software Center, a company I’d never heard of.
Well, imagine my surprise when one download site said the download file was “pulled” due to a report by McAfee’s Site Advisor. So, I checked it out. Sure enough, “1securitycenter.com” comes up as “yellow” on 35 downloadable items. It didn’t appear that User Time Control Center was one of them, but it made me leery, to say the least.
So, I was pondering if I wanted to download it or not, when the thought struck me: Why not check out StopBadware.org? Well, again, it came up yellow.
Granted, it is only yellow, but this is enough to make my blood boil. This is supposed to be security software – to protect kids! What’s more disturbing is the nature of the reports. McAfee reports that the downloads have backdoors, while StopBadware has one report of “Rogue Security”!
Unfortunately, it appears that this is not the only way to scam people out of money. I was very interested in KidsWatch Parental Controls, even though it was overkill for what the customer wanted.
Well, my jaw just about hit the floor when I read one of the Amazon customer reviews on this product! Apparently, the $29.95 is not the purchase price, but an annual fee! Furthermore, like so many others of this breed, it screws things up pretty badly and takes a lot of monkeying around to get it to work after an update.
Let’s face it, when the number of 1 star ratings equal the number of 5 star ratings, it is time to look elsewhere!
A couple that do look promising, though, are Advanced Time Control by VicMan Software and TimesUpKidz by Rain City Digital. It isn’t clear, though, if the first one is still supported or not. Looking at www.vicman.net, I cannot find it on the main page. If it weren’t for a link from a download site, I wouldn’t even know they created it (and, I’m still not certain if it is free or not).
What about your experiences with parental control software? Any good ones you’ve come across? Any dogs?
Just Say “No” To Registry Cleaners
It seems like 50% of the time that I have to fix a PC, there’s a “registry cleaner” on the system. To be fair, oftentimes the cleaner program is downloaded because there already is a problem with the machine (usually some type of malware). However, these programs can make things worse rather than better!
It’s sort of ironic that in order to use a registry cleaner, you really need to know what you’re doing. At minimum, you need to know how to backup and restore your registry. However, if you know how to do that, then do you really need a registry cleaner?
Most of the time, junk in your registry is caused by programs that don’t uninstall well. There actually are quite a few of them that leave stuff behind. For this, I recommend using something like Revo Uninstaller. If you have already uninstalled the program, you probably want to go with the paid version, though, to get rid of unwanted files and registry entries. The paid version also allows backups of the registry just in case.
Of course, it gripes me to no end that programs don’t clean up well after themselves. It gripes me even more that the worst offenders are ones that should be protecting the system, such as McAfee and Norton Antivirus. Both of these have among the worst uninstall routines of any major piece of software out there.
If a Hammer Was Software
I was up late again last night, although I turned in a little earlier. I was installing new software, trying out different things and studying software licenses.
You know the ridiculousness of software licenses never cease to amaze me. What if we treated physical objects the same way we do software licenses?
Now, I don’t want to get into the whole illegal copying argument. Let’s be clear from the get-go that I’m not talking about illegal copying of software. I understand the difference between producing a physical object and something non-physical like software.
However, in their zeal to prohibit such copying, companies have come up with various licensing schemes. What a lot of people do not understand is that you are not buying software. You are buying a license to use the software.
Imagine, if you will, that hammers had the same model that software does. I’ll readily admit that I picked a hammer because it is a tool. Software, though, is really just a tool. You pick the right software for the right job. I don’t use hammers to turn nuts, and so I’m not likely to use a word processor for spreadsheet calculations (although technology has allowed the lines to be somewhat blurred). So, for this analogy, you don’t go into a hardware store and buy a hammer. Instead, you buy a license to use the hammer.
OK, now I have a hammer … er, rather I have a license to use the hammer. Now what?
Well, one licensing scheme says I cannot distribute the hammer in any fashion unless it is in its original packaging. Some electronic manufacturers have a stipulation that in order to return the product, you have to keep the original boxes and packing material. If you have a 3 year warranty (which is not unusual if you buy an extended warranty), how likely is it that the boxes will be around let alone in any decent shape? Well, after getting the install “package” for software, then the updates and the upgrades, how likely is it that the original install file/CD can even be found? So, if I want to transfer my hammer license to Fred, I have to find the original plastic wrapping (if it had any at all) and the price sticker and package it all up again to give to Fred, who is simply going to unpack it again and use it.
OK, that was a minor point, but it just points to some of the ridiculousness of the licensing scheme. Since a lot of software is downloaded, and if a customer wants me to load it on their machine, then what am I supposed to do with the original file, anyhow?
OK, back to the hammer. I go to another store, and they tell me I have to buy a different hammer for every construction site I work at. When I leave the construction site, the hammer has to stay there. By the way, the hammer is specifically engineered so that you have to chain it down and lock it at the site before you can use it. There is no portable version available! If you want to move it, you must unlock and unchain it, take the whole assembly with you somewhere else and reinstall it.
You know, some software can run off of a thumb drive. There really is no need to have to install some tools at each and every location except to generate more license fees! Yet, the public at large seems mostly oblivious to this because they usually only have and use one or two computers at any given time.
Another store says I can use their brand of hammer for free as long as it is for personal use, but if used commercially, I must pay for it. So, if I’m over at Fred’s house knocking holes in his wall (because I’m not a professional and keep missing the nail), then I get to use the hammer for free. However, if Fred offers to pay me $50, then I cannot use the hammer unless I shell out $1000.
It’s hard to knock free hammers, but this scheme is pretty contrived, isn’t it? It gets better. Because I now have to pay yearly for the privilege of using their brand of hammer.
So, I didn’t like the licensing scheme of that store, so I went to another. I had to pay for a license for the hammer, but now I cannot use it to provide a service, at all. So, now not only do I miss out on the free and have to pay to use it at all, but now I cannot even take it on my carpenter job?!!! How does this make any sense?
If hammer companies started pulling these sorts of shenanigans, the labor unions would be up in arms! Yet, the IT industry seems to just roll over and play dead.
And, I really don’t want to hear about the “free tools” and such. A casual look at some of the open source tools reveals a lot of them have similar wacky schemes. Open source just ain’t what it used to be!
Mvelopes Update
Sorry for the lateness of this post. I realize that I only have to post 3 times per week, but there are such a variety of things going on that I’ve been posting 5 times or more per week. However, I still try to get them up by 9:00. However, today I not only have a specific subject that is timely, but this week has been plagued with various things not deciding to work correctly. Earlier in the week, I had to deal with an odd hard drive issue with my desktop computer, which took away time from regular activities. Then this morning, the garage door opener decided it didn’t want to do its job again. It turned out that calling in someone with more experience was a good thing, as the gear mechanism was wearing down, which is outside my realm of ability.
I received a nice email yesterday from Finicity, the developers of Mvelopes. It was response to my 22 October blog article, “Out With the Mvelopes, In With the Quicken”, in which I explained why I switched from Quicken to Mvelopes but ended up going back to Quicken (the online version this time). In that article, I stated:
I tell you all of this because I really wanted to like this software. In fact, when it works, it works well. However, when it doesn’t work, it can really mess you up and frustrate you even more (something I definitely don’t need when it comes to finances). And, let’s face it: If you have software mess up, you don’t want it to be your financial software! The consequences can be very costly!
I meant that, too. I really wanted to like this software.
I went on to briefly explain how the balances in the accounts were not working correctly, and how I tried to explain it to the customer support person with no success.
So, I won’t mention the person’s name, as I did not ask for permission first. However, I think it is to their credit how they handled this situation. Here is the main email:
Thanks for taking the time to write about us….
I want to apologize for the frustration caused by the problem described above and our support agent’s inability to recognize the problem at that time.
The rolling balances problem has been resolved as of 11/30/2009 [sic, must be a typo as it obviously is not yet 11/30]. We did a special update to the Mvelopes application just to solve this issue. Now, when you view any range of transactions (Last 30 Days, Custom Range, etc), the proper rolling balances are displayed on the right.
If you have additional questions please let me know.
Thank you.
I did go online yesterday and verify that this is working correctly.
So, I can say truly that I write about what I’m passionate about (which, I guess, is why I have 2 current blogs). You are welcome for the review, but I would have done so sooner or later in any event, as this blog deals with technology solutions for individuals and small businesses. I also understand that people and companies make mistakes, so I will gladly accept your apology.
OK, so now I have a dilemma. I can either stick it out with Quicken, knowing full well that it will never be completely satisfactory, or I can go back to Mvelopes, knowing that it still has other noncritical bugs but at least has the right concept behind what they are doing.
Here’s the rub, though. My experience is that Quicken’s customer support isn’t necessarily better. I’ve been around the block with them as well in the past, and it even seems in the meantime of 18 months, they still cannot get some things right, either! I recently reported a very similar problem as to one I had with the PC version, and it became very time consuming. In the meantime, they closed the ticket on me.
Am I just being naive, or shouldn’t it just plain be easier to report and have a bug verified?
I’m constantly being told that customer support, or rather the lack thereof, is the major reason customers switch to other brands. Yet, when it comes to software customers, in spite of all the great advances in technology, it seems like customer support is still working in the Middle Ages. These are only 2 examples of it, too!
In the end, it really does seem like this is a case of all else being equal. So, if I go for cost, Quicken wins hands down because it’s free. However, if I go for features, Mvelopes wins hands down because it enforces proactive budgeting. This isn’t going to be an easy choice, obviously. Although, I will say that Finicity’s email shows they do care, which is a big plus for me.
My wife called, and I told her about the garage door and this, and she promised me we would discuss it all tonight. Since tonight is her Jazzercise class, I hope it isn’t one of those hasty topics that gets discussed just before bolting off somewhere else. Those usually don’t work out in the long run.
Out With the Mvelopes, In With the Quicken
I used to use Quicken with regularity. However, there were some things that could’ve been improved. The main thing I did not like was that the software was on a PC. That means it took some maneuvering to get it to work on 2 PCs, as my wife usually uses the desktop and I use the laptop. What I really wanted was something online.
If I was going to switch, I was going to go for all of the features I liked. I like the idea of envelope systems of budgeting. Basically you create spending categories and a budget for each category. So far, that’s pretty much any personal financing software.
However, in an envelope system, you assign so much from each paycheck to those categories for spending. In the old days, they would take literal envelopes and place literal cash into those envelopes. Then, when you bough groceries, you would take the grocery envelope with you to the store and spend from that envelope. When you went to the movies, you would take the entertainment envelope with you to the movies and buy tickets and popcorn from that envelope. Once the money was gone from the envelope, it was gone.
So, in an electronic version, you divide up your pay and assign a certain amount to each “envelope” or category. Once it reaches $0, you’re done. It forces you to not only plan (budget), but it gives you a concrete way of knowing if your budget is really working or not.
I know Dave Ramsey has Dave Ramsey’s Personal Finance Software on his website, but it is not online. Therefore, while it has desirable features, I would still be stuck with how can I use the software at home and on the road and not lock my wife out of it.
Well, that’s what attracted me to Crown Financial’s Mvelopes system. I believe in Crown’s ministry, which is to enable people to not be in bondage to debt. When you don’t have debt, you can use money for what God intended it to be used for. My wife and I signed up for it the beginning of last year.
I tell you all of this because I really wanted to like this software. In fact, when it works, it works well. However, when it doesn’t work, it can really mess you up and frustrate you even more (something I definitely don’t need when it comes to finances). And, let’s face it: If you have software mess up, you don’t want it to be your financial software! The consequences can be very costly!
Well, the straw that broke the camel’s back was earlier this week when I couldn’t figure out why my bank account was showing in the red for all the transactions. I even set the time period back one year, and it was showing me red for the entire year! Now, I think I would have known about it if that were true. I even suspect that the bank would have closed my account before an entire year went by.
You would think that the customer support agent could have clearly seen that. Well, you would be wrong. I cleared all the transactions I could, and the problem persisted. I was told to wait until the next day so all pending transactions could clear as well. You know, I just don’t know why that would affect my daily balance, but I can tell you that it doing so is a bug! I even explained what appeared to be happening. As the screenshot below shows, it assumes a $0 balance at the beginning of the display, no matter what the set date is, and it begins to add or subtract from that:
However, I could not get the customer service agent to believe that there was a problem, just as I could not get a previous one to believe that there was a problem with their memorized payee function in Firefox.
At any rate, I no longer care if it is a “financial ministry” or not, seeing as there is nothing about ministry in buggy software that could potentially screw up your finances!
So, what do I do? Fortunately, Intuit now offers Quicken Online for free. No, it is not an envelope system, but at least I have always trusted their software to work as advertized. I am familiar with it, and it is online to boot, which was the original problem in the first place.
You are probably asking by now if there aren’t any other online envelope systems. Actually, after the last issue I couldn’t convince Mvelopes’ customer support of, I did go looking. The problem? A lot of it just doesn’t feel right, and it is put out by people I don’t know.
Geezeo seems to be one that, while it doesn’t use envelopes, it does promise to track your spending by categories. The information on the website really is too sketchy to be able to comment as to whether this is proactive like in an envelope system or reactive like Quicken.
Buxfer seems to be about the same. It sends alerts when you get near your spending limits, but again that is reactive not proactive.
About.com also lists some in their article “Budgeting Software”, which seems to need an update. I just don’t know if I’m ready to put out more money only to find out it doesn’t work, though.
