Messages

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General Software Discussion / Re: Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!

« on: October 10, 2008, 05:49 AM »

Back to the original question, if you need some software for your home accounts (free) or your business (up to about 10 employees) for about $180 with nothing more to pay ever and free updates, try Acclaim Cashbook (www.acclaimsoftware.com).

The business stuff is not free but it's incredibly cheap for what you get and over a short time period you can get it to do most of the work for you. Perfect for people with more important things to do.

I'll admit to being a retired accountant. I had all my business clients using this software (even the bigger ones although they also needed some other tools). The money they had to pay attracted them at first but the ease of use kept them all happy.  As for me, I get bored easily and I'm kind of lazy so I enjoyed having very little boring stuff to do. It also allowed me time to look like a 'Business Guru" because I had lots of time to create "miracles". Much more fun.

Sorry to interrupt the tangential semantic discussion. People like me have no sense of humour.

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Living Room / Re: Advice: Never use your ISP provided email address

« on: August 16, 2008, 10:38 AM »

As usual Carol's on the ball. 

I've run my own domain for about 15 years, sometimes hosting and sometimes forwarding to an ISP account. Over time spammers forced the creation of several free accounts to sign up for stuff. This was a popular notion in those days.

The problem with that is I need to know which email address relates to which newsletter or software purchase, sometimes years later. I used to keep a copy of the registration confirmations in sub-folders of a folder called "Registrations" which was automatically backed up in several places. It worked well but I got lazy and just saved the downloaded emails in my email software. (Usually Thunderbird or variations.) This worked fine and was always backed up but I'm a backup fanatic and try out pretty much anything I find. Sometimes I sync instead of backing up which tends to lose all my email, carefully saved for maybe a year or two.

Now I use Gmail, because I can't stuff it up. It also handles spam almost perfectly. In theory I'll never lose my Registration info again!

For the last year or so I've used a free address provided by Fanmail for all sign ups, using my own domain address for people I know. There has been no noticeable spam to the Fanmail address. In fact, over many years I've rarely, if ever, been spammed as a result of signing up for something (and I've signed up for a lot).

There used to be a bit of spam due to putting a business web address in the phone book but mostly it's ISP related. The bigger the ISP I use the greater the volume of spam, and I never use or give out an ISP provided address.

For me Gmail has been a godsend. (Yahoo was far less effective.)

For anyone wondering why I now use a big ISP, no-one else can give me Wireless Broadband. Satellite is unreliable and slow and dialup is just slow. The trade off is living in a beautiful and remote wilderness. 

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Living Room / Re: Gizmo's Tech Support Alert Newsletter Merges with Windows Secrets

« on: August 13, 2008, 07:39 AM »

Now that some time has passed and there's something to form a preliminary opinion on I have a couple of comments:
1. The Livingstone style is nausiating.
2. Gizmo is still a good and useful read.
3. I'm paid up with Gizmo until May 2009 so will have plenty of time to decide.
4. I got enough laughs out of this thread to offset the negatives of the merger.
5. Numeracy is one of those things I can't count on.
6. I'm literally challenged but need a spell, now.