Monday, March 17, 2003

Intuit Can Drop Dead -- 4:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I yanked my Windows hard drive out of my main box, so I am 99.5% Microsoft-free. The only thing that remains is Media Player 6.4 that I run via the Crossover Plugin. I decided to fdisk that old drive and reinstall Windows 98 on it for my kids' box. I was also going to put Quicken 98 back on it so I could do my finances.

Apparently, Intuit no longer gives out registration numbers for Quicken 98. As far as they are concerned, I either need to put up with the registration nagging, or upgrade to a newer version of Quicken. I didn't realize I was renting the software when I bought it. I had signed up for a Quicken credit card last year mainly because they offered a free copy of Quicken 2002. Flash forward 10 months and I still don't have my copy. I called them (again) today and now they're saying they don't have any record of such a promotion. Bastages.

It appears that they have now forced my hand. I'm going to have to force myself to get GnuCash to work. I prefer the way Kapital works, but it likes to crash far too often. This is one of the great benefits of free (as in freedom) software. You're not trapped by the whims of some corporation.

J.t.Qbe comments: Hey A.T., you can have my copy of Microsoft Money 2003 if you want it. . .

Really though, you know better than most people that when you "buy" software, you don't really own anything except a pretty box and a CD. And that's the problem with tying up your data in proprietary software: who owns your data? Who controls your data?

The Master comments: This is one of those things that really irritates me about software vendors. If I use their product, and there are really no time-sensitive issues (so, this doesn't apply to virus software :-), I should be able to install and use that product forever, without their attempting to force an upgrade on me. What if I don't want to run your new version, it crashes and is no better than the one I'm using now? Gimme my *!$# serial number and butt out.

News for 03/17/2003

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