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webfarmerYesterday in a fit of fiscal semi-responsibility, I decided to sort out my financial software. Well, not really.
What happened was that I found that neither Quicken nor Microsoft Money would upgrade my accounts (for some reason I had both older - 2004 or so - versions on my desktop unit). So if I wanted to use my on-line services for syncing the entries for credit cards, and such, I knew it was time for the typical forced techno-upgrade. Since Quicken always crashed and/or went into the stupid mode for minutes at a time, and I'd had no such on-going problems with Money, I went with the moderately discounted offer that Money shoved into my face when starting the program.
For what it's worth, I did check out GnuCash before making the jump. It just didn't do it for me. Also I would have had to re-enter a lot of data and it still wouldn't sync my accounts like the other commercial apps could do. So idealism went down the tubes, once again, and about $60 will be going on my credit card towards, at least in part, solving global poverty or something.
So after downloading the latest fancy schmansy variant of Money I got the latest face push on using Windows Live ID. After checking it out a bit on-line, I came to the conclusion I could probably live without Microsoft having my more intimate details and declined on that offer. It was close though. I was maybe one click away from becoming yet another info cog in the great Gatesian machine. What's funny is they probably already have all this dope on me already. Reminded of what Scott McNealy once said about privacy at this point. "You have no privacy, get over it."
The good news came after much wizardry finally was dispatched and I was able to import my old Money files into the new variant. All my credit cards were able to connect again and upgrade. Enter happy dance here. Unfortunately, one of them only upgraded the latest 45 days instead of the full taco. I think I have a work around on this that doesn't include manual entry. Fortunately, this is an account that I only use for a handful of interactions a month so even a manual mode wouldn't be too horrible a fate to face.
The rest of the day included backing up my other laptop (the Windows part, the Linux part gets the treatment today) and waiting for my banker to call me back on an entry in my checking that has become unattached from any memory of reality. Hopefully I can sort that one out soon this morning.
Yet more fun was had when I checked on NetObject's website and they had no record of my recent order. So as Mr. Eternally Optimistic, I sent off an e-mail to "info" to see what they had to say about that. I had a confirming e-mail so I was thinking that things were probably in process at some level and just hadn't happened at the web site one. I got back a response asking for my password so they could check out their order system. I said I thought that was probably a bad approach. Fortunately not long after that I got a notice that the product has been shipped including a UPS tracking number. This morning I got a nice semi-robo response asking for the same information only differently. I was tempted but I'm letting this one drop.
Why is it that companies have this idea that providing "customer service" that pisses people off is somehow a good idea? I don't care how cheap the labor rate is on it. It's still a negative rather than a positive for the business. If people find a similar product without this kind of Mickey Mouse support do they think they're going to stick around?
At some point, maybe it will just be easier for customers to learn the English variant of whatever languages are being spoken by their tech support people. I suppose that's part of the master plan. Nothing else makes much sense.
What happened was that I found that neither Quicken nor Microsoft Money would upgrade my accounts (for some reason I had both older - 2004 or so - versions on my desktop unit). So if I wanted to use my on-line services for syncing the entries for credit cards, and such, I knew it was time for the typical forced techno-upgrade. Since Quicken always crashed and/or went into the stupid mode for minutes at a time, and I'd had no such on-going problems with Money, I went with the moderately discounted offer that Money shoved into my face when starting the program.
For what it's worth, I did check out GnuCash before making the jump. It just didn't do it for me. Also I would have had to re-enter a lot of data and it still wouldn't sync my accounts like the other commercial apps could do. So idealism went down the tubes, once again, and about $60 will be going on my credit card towards, at least in part, solving global poverty or something.
So after downloading the latest fancy schmansy variant of Money I got the latest face push on using Windows Live ID. After checking it out a bit on-line, I came to the conclusion I could probably live without Microsoft having my more intimate details and declined on that offer. It was close though. I was maybe one click away from becoming yet another info cog in the great Gatesian machine. What's funny is they probably already have all this dope on me already. Reminded of what Scott McNealy once said about privacy at this point. "You have no privacy, get over it."
The good news came after much wizardry finally was dispatched and I was able to import my old Money files into the new variant. All my credit cards were able to connect again and upgrade. Enter happy dance here. Unfortunately, one of them only upgraded the latest 45 days instead of the full taco. I think I have a work around on this that doesn't include manual entry. Fortunately, this is an account that I only use for a handful of interactions a month so even a manual mode wouldn't be too horrible a fate to face.
The rest of the day included backing up my other laptop (the Windows part, the Linux part gets the treatment today) and waiting for my banker to call me back on an entry in my checking that has become unattached from any memory of reality. Hopefully I can sort that one out soon this morning.
Yet more fun was had when I checked on NetObject's website and they had no record of my recent order. So as Mr. Eternally Optimistic, I sent off an e-mail to "info" to see what they had to say about that. I had a confirming e-mail so I was thinking that things were probably in process at some level and just hadn't happened at the web site one. I got back a response asking for my password so they could check out their order system. I said I thought that was probably a bad approach. Fortunately not long after that I got a notice that the product has been shipped including a UPS tracking number. This morning I got a nice semi-robo response asking for the same information only differently. I was tempted but I'm letting this one drop.
Why is it that companies have this idea that providing "customer service" that pisses people off is somehow a good idea? I don't care how cheap the labor rate is on it. It's still a negative rather than a positive for the business. If people find a similar product without this kind of Mickey Mouse support do they think they're going to stick around?
At some point, maybe it will just be easier for customers to learn the English variant of whatever languages are being spoken by their tech support people. I suppose that's part of the master plan. Nothing else makes much sense.
