Replies

I bought my last HP (MFP) printer a few years ago. By which I mean, I’ll never buy an HP printer again.

I’m hopeful that Ben’s advice will fix the recurring “off-line” problem. HP, of course, doesn’t refer to a static IP address but to a “manual” address.

I ran into the same problem with computer not showing up in the Network section and also use the \\ workaround. I’m glad to hear it’s not just a problem for me or my home network.

Kudos to Susan! This post is absolutely the best explanation of the several articles I’ve read.

Her first paragraph explains in simple terms what happened — something that countless other writers couldn’t do. She got past the mumbo jumbo of corporate speak, which other technical and mainstream writers seemed to accept.

9 users thanked author for this post.

Steve, jburk07, rc primak, SueW, ChrisAVWood, Mr. Austin, rbailin, windbg, RetiredGeek

Thanks for a timely reminder.

I’ve switched all of our financial statements to electronic delivery because of concerns about mail delivery. Mail delivery time is unpredictable at our house. It’s anywhere between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. with delivery after 7 p.m. not unusual. It’s hard to march out to check the mailbox more than once on a cold, windy, dark winter night.

For federal income tax, for years we’ve filed electronically and received a refund –or made a payment– electronically. I wish it were easier to file electronically for state income tax. There’s an additional cost (for us) to file electronically, and it’s impossible to do so some years because of one “not typical” form that doesn’t change how much we owe.

I was never a fan of Intuit or Quicken. I was a happy user of MoneyCounts until Intuit bought Parsons Technology, discontinued its software, and graciously offered to sell Quicken to MoneyCounts users. That’s how I became a Quicken user 30 years ago.

Like Will, I think the UI has not improved in a long time. While the program’s features have grown, they are much more that I need.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find an acceptable substitute that meets the needs I do have — including access to all that historical personal data. Running Quicken is one reason I stay with Windows instead of migrating to Linux.

A while back, there was an interesting comment on the Quicken user forum. It was something like: Quicken is just keeping the desktop version going until the old people like us who use it die off and everybody is on an online tool.

I used a paid version of AOMEI several years ago. It seemed to work OK. However, I gave it up out of uneasiness over its connection to China. As Ed Tittel asks in his article about Microsoft PC Manager in this edition, “Do I want a ‘Chinese connection?’ ”

Does anyone else share this concern about AOMEI? Am I too cautious?

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

dutchjim

Compared to HDCleaner, which Deanna recommended last October, is Temp_Cleaner GUI better and a replacement for HDCleaner (or BleachBit for that matter), or is Temp_Cleaner GUI more like an alternative?

I had liked that HDCleaner was identified as portable.

Back in the day, our IT department forced us to use IBM DisplayWrite on PCs — mostly because “it’s compatible with the mainframe.” Users hated it. In those days of standalone DOS PCs, users could install any software for which they had the diskettes. Soon enough, WordPerfect began popping up and became the de facto standard.

As others noted, I always thought (and still do) that WordPerfect was superior to Word.

WP was too slow to adapt to Windows. (They produced a version for OS/2, though!)

Of course, MS was the first to package separate programs into an “office” package, selling it to IT departments as easier to maintain and easier to use because the programs would have the “same interface.” Ha.

Then, there was the ribbon… For me, the worst thing was the loss of multiple custom toolbars. Before the ribbon, I had my own toolbars that gave me easy access to whatever function I needed or information I wanted to see. With the ribbon, even with the quick access toolbar, when editing or formatting a document, I still have to make multiple mouse trips to the ribbon to do so many things.

I’ve used Thunderbird at home for many years, and it’s worked OK. As others have noted, the ability to backup email accounts is great.

One area Outlook out performs Thunderbird is in formatting emails. Outlook can be a pain, but it shines when you want to apply more than bold face or underline to text.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Bill C., Kathy Stevens, Cybertooth

I use Softmaker Office, too. Began using it several years ago when I didn’t want to pay the high cost of Office and hated the ribbon and its lack of tool bars. I’ve just begun to experiment with Libre Office on a Win 7 PC.