Category Archives: Work Arounds
Mobile Invoicing Disappointments & Solution, Part 2
NOTE: The script mentioned in this article, PP2QIFInvoices, has been updated. See latest article here.
In Part 1, I ended with my trials and travails with importing invoices into Quicken with:
So, I almost get there with PayPal invoicing. So, life is good, right? I just enter the data into PayPal, download it and import it into Quicken, right?
Er, not quite. It turns out to not be so easy to import a CSV into Quicken, in spite of the claims, implied or otherwise, of a few of these invoicing applications.
There actually will be a part 3, because it turns out PayPal may in the future be an even better choice. Unfortunately, this will do nothing to keep Quicken and QuickBooks from sucking.
I’m serious. TurboTax is about the only product that Intuit makes that does not really suck, but even it was designed by someone one straw short of any common sense when it comes to being user friendly or even remotely unfrustrating. Most of their products are really overpriced sales gimmicks pushing you to buy even more proprietary products that will only interface in a closed system and only if Intuit thinks it can charge you an arm and a leg for. I haven’t stopped looking at alternatives, but for now I will deal with kludges to get by. Meanwhile, I still have to get invoices into this closed system.
Geek Friday: WordPress Missing Scheduled Posts
When I moved the blogs around, I had forgotten this one little detail, and so I’m going to document it. I’m on Omnis Network, but I assume this will pretty much cover anywhere. Sometimes hosting sites turn off the cron jobs that cause posts scheduled for a specific time to get posted. This is a handy feature in WordPress where you can schedule an article to be posted at a specific time. This can come in handy, say for example, you want to post up a Geek Friday post the night before so that it isn’t too early.
So, what is “cron”, why should you care, why do hosting companies turn it off and what can be done about it?
First off, the why you should care only applies if you have some interest in running, updating, writing on a WordPress site. If you are only a reader, this might not interest you all that much unless, of course, you are planning to one day host your own company or personal website/blog on WordPress. In that case, perhaps you’ll want to bookmark this post somewhere in case the problem comes up.
Workaround for iTunes Home Sharing Nonsense
Some time ago, I complained in “Review: iTunes Home Sharing Disappoints” where I listed some downers about the whole iTunes sharing of playlists. For example, I thought it was annoying that iTunes literally had to be running on both PCs for it to work. However, that was minor in comparison to not marking items as being played as it went along. So, I wound up listening to some podcasts three times before I figured out nothing was being marked as played. This isn’t such a big deal for playlists that don’t change often, but when I am on the road, I like to catch up on news sometimes.
Well, I got clued in on an iTunes feature that I’ve never seen documented anywhere (not a big surprise, as so few features seem to be). If I double-click on iTunes while holding down the [Shift] key, it will prompt for which library you want to open. So, that got me to thinking about accessing the iTunes library remotely. Would it get around these issues?
XP Repair Install Followed by Windows Activation Issues
After cleaning a virus, sometimes you are left with no choice but to run a repair installation of Windows XP. There can be various reasons for this, but it often is easier and quicker than tracking down the specific cause(s) for this. You simply put in the Windows XP CD, don’t choose “Repair” at the first screen (that is for using the Windows Recovery Console, which is something different), and when presented with partitions to install to, there should be a Repair option. Basically, it is just installing XP over itself, but this option leaves all user data and programs in place.
However, no solution is perfect, and sometimes the cure creates other unanticipated issues. Windows activation has evolved and been tweaked over time, so it is a prime candidate for munging an otherwise successful repair install.
WordPress Scheduling and Load Issues
Well, you may have noticed some odd gaps in posting lately. True, I’ve been busy lately, but I have been posting at least three times a week. However, more than a few of them were scheduled in WordPress to publish at specific times, and that has not been happening.
It turns out that some hosting sites, including mine, have been changing the permissions on the PHP file that controls WordPress scheduling because it tends to be a resource hog. According to what I’ve read, every time a user loads a page, the file gets executed! I’m not sure why that is, but it is something to be aware of, especially if you have a lot of active users. If you are into the specifics, then read on.
The Unseen Cost of Cutting the Cable (TV, That Is)
After much research, I have come to the conclusion that it is not worthwhile to try and reuse the existing coaxial cable from the cable television service in my home. I feel like I’ve been banging my head against the wall, but it really does appear that the cost is more than if I were to install some other type of cable or use wireless. In the meantime, I think I’m going to settle for getting a portable antenna for my laptop and use Boxee for much of the rest.
Here are the difficulties:
SATA and Windows XP Installation Woes (Cannot Use F6 Because of no Floppy Drive)
If you’ve installed Windows XP before, you probably have seen or heard of the [F6] function where you can load drivers at startup. The idea is that you press [F6] at the beginning of the installation when the bottom of the screen says “Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver …”, then you insert a floppy containing the drivers into your floppy drive, and then all will be well. That’s the idea, at any rate.
Well, that was all well and good back in 2002 perhaps, but over the years fewer and fewer computers have come with a floppy drive. In fact, I find it very difficult to even find floppies these days from the local stores, as it is pretty rare to get a new computer that has a built-in floppy drive. So, how to load those drivers?
Geek Friday: Dell Factory Restore When Recovery Partition Is not Available
One of the most frustrating things is needing to do a factory restore but the key combination at bootup does not work, and the factory restore is not an option from the Recovery options.
Starting with Windows Vista, Dell began using its own Imagex program for factory restores. It is normally called from PCRestore.exe which is called from the system recovery options screen. Like other vendors, it hooks in as a factory restore option.
However, what if this option is not available? This can happen if someone installs Vista or tries to fix it from DVD instead of the restore partition. A malware attack can also mangle accessing the recovery partition. The option will just not be there.
Ninite Updater Released
The folks at Killer Tech Tips write, “We’re big fans of Ninite here.” I’ll second that sentiment. They then give their review of Ninite’s latest release in “First Look: Ninite Updater Updates Windows Software At Once”.
I like to use Ninite on systems to get them initially setup or even to run updates as part of a security check. Ninite will load on applications and skip the nonsense toolbars and other crapware, as well as allow a unified installation of multiple applications without all the dreaded Next –> Next –> Next – Oh, no!! scenario.
However, if you wanted to do updates, you had to run Ninite manually in the past. Now, rather than you needing to manually run Ninite when you want to check for updates, Ninite Updater will poll every 6 hours for updates. In addition, you can choose which ones you want to ignore.
Computer Glitches and Business Innovation
The recent story on MSNBC.com “United Airlines computer glitch snarls air traffic” reminded me of a story I once heard about FedEx. I don’t know if it is true or not, but it makes you think.
Computers are pretty much what made FedEx possible, but to say it is the main ingredient in their, or anyone’s, success is to overlook the fact that companies are run and operated by human beings.
