To Pre Or Not To Pre? That Is The Question.

With the resent introduction of the iPod Touch in my household (my boss sold me his iPod Touch to offset himself getting an iPhone), I have less need for an iPhone myself. Since I am on Sprint that begs the question of whether I should get the Palm Pre.

My immediate response is… GET OUT OF MY WAY, I NEED TO GET TO THE SPRINT STORE! But will clearer heads prevail? Is the Palm Pre going to make a really good phone and provide the just the items missing from the iPod Touch?

For instance, my current data plan with Sprint covers most everything, including GPS. I would like to see that on the Palm Pre, and it could definitely influence my purchasing decision if the GPS feature is good enough to get me to forget about Garmin or TomTom.

The web browser on the Palm Pre and the web surfing experience when away from WiFi (the iPod Touch handles WiFi web surfing almost perfectly) will also be critical to my opinion of the Palm Pre.

My youngest son is eligible to turn in his Mom’s old cell phone for a new one in August. I am already eligible for an upgrade. He is thinking about the Instinct. I need to touch and feel the Palm Pre by then to see if we both get new phones.

iPod Touch… Almost New

Well, I have an iPod Touch.

My youngest son made a deal with me. If he saved for an iPod Touch I would match him dollar for dollar. He was up to about $66 dollars. I told him that tax would be part of it. He needed to save about $130 to cover half the cost of a $229 iPod Touch with sales tax.

My boss (an good friend) was contemplating getting the iPhone. What the heck.. he is an IT geek and he already has cell service with AT&T. I mentioned my deal with my son over the iPod Touch. He came to me and offered to sell me his iPod Touch if he got the iPhone. He did, so I did.

What surprised me, and my son, was that we got a 16 GB iPod Touch… for $125. I was expecting the 8 GB. What a bargain.

As my boss said… it was a win-win-win. He got an iPhone, I got an iPod Touch, and my son got an iPod Touch.

I know what I am doing tonight.

Microsoft Shutting Down Microsoft Money

Wow! I just read on PCMag that Microsoft is going to stop selling MS Money at the end of June.  This was the first I heard about this. I use Microsoft Money… 95 edition. I started suing it in the Windows 3.1 days. Here’s the story…

I originally wrote my own “checkbook” program in the DOS days because Quicken couldn’t do a couple of things I needed. In Quicken 3.0… when you reconciled your checking account against your bank statement, if you found an entry in error you could not edit it. You had to leave the reconcile function, find the order to edit it, and then start the reconcile process all over. Or… you could let Quicken enter an adjustment transaction. Neither of these options were good enough for me. Also, Quicken 3.0 had limited text “graphics.” I liked entering checks in a form that looked like a check on screen.

So I wrote my own check book program that used the extended ASCII characters to draw forms on the DOS text screens of the day. I enabled editing transactions while reconciling, and could run the entire program off a floppy if I had to (someone asked for a copy and needed to run it this way).

After 6 years of use the program started to loose transactions. I may have hit a DOS memory limit or something. I was now programming in Windows, but did not have the time to invest in writing a program in Windows, so I bought MS Money… I think it was the first or second version for Windows 3.0/3.1. It did everything my program did, but it did it in Windows graphical world. Forms for data entry and editing amounts as you reconcile. Cool!

When Windows 95 came out I was beta testing it. I also got a beta MSN account. MSN beta testers were given a free download to the Windows 95 version of MS Money… if you downloaded it from MSN within the first 60 days of Windows 95 going live.

I downloaded the install and I am still using it. That’s right… I am running Microsoft Money 95 (actually version 4.1, but the first for 32-bit Windows 95).

I tried buying Money 2000 in case the Y2K bug was going to be an issue. I struggled with Money 2000 and its browser interface until I was blue in the face. It was a huge step backward in usability. So I reloaded Money 95, restored my Money 95 data file (it was converted to the 2000 format, a one way conversion) and re-entered two months worth of transactions from my bank statements.

From February to March 2007 I compared Quicken to Money. I really, really wanted to make use of online banking. My goals were simple. 1) Connect to my credit union to balance my check book so I didn’t have to manually reconcile to the monthly statements I get in the mail, and 2) setup budgets so I can see how much money I have left to spend as the month progresses. The budget part was super easy as I setup only two categories, Bills and Other.

Both failed my very simple budget requirements. All I wanted to know was home much money I had left to spend of my monthly budget as I entered transactions. This was beyond either program. Feel free to read the gory details yourself.

Quicken stopped connecting to my credit union and I was forced to use Money 2007. It did not last. I was too frustrated with the reconciling of transactions. Money 07 did not allow easy tagging of categories to certain transactions it found in my credit union’s data. It would not do a good job matching up transactions I entered manually to those it got from my credit union, causing double entries and other strange anomalies. In the end it  was actually easier when I manually reconciled my paper statement to Money 95. Plus the budget feature was worthless requiring me to do double entry with my spreadsheet. Back to… Money 95.

When I abandoned Money 2007 I switch back to Money 95. I did not go back to a saved copy of my Money 95 data file. All that would get me was 12 years worth of historical transactions with no categories and no budget information. So I started a new data file.

I have been using Money 95 ever since. Things are easier. My credit union has redesigned their statements so that it is very easy to reconcile to Money 95. And I have gone to a new budget system that eliminates the need to keep track of our spending.

I call it the Cash Budget. At the beginning of the month I withdraw the cash we would use for all non-bills. Bills are mortgage, credit cards, electric, water, cable, phone, etc. Groceries also fit in with bills. I budget these only, so when I am already sitting at my desk writing checks I just enter the checks in Money 95 and my budget spreadsheet.

The cash is the key. We have a budget for how much we can spend on other things. Other things is everything that is not a regular bill. Clothes, dinners out, movies, ice cream at Sonic. Name it and it is in this section of the budget. I take the cash at the beginning of the month and put it on the dresser. We just pay cash for everything. When the cash runs out there is nothing left and we have to stop spending.

It is so simple, but so effective. I wish I had thought of it sooner. Actually, I had thought of it years ago, but was never bold enough to do it. Now we are doing it and our miscellaneous spending is much better controlled.

So… to recap… 1) the paper statements are simpler making reconciling easier, 2) the budget spreadsheet is easier with only a couple dozen items a month to enter, and 3) the cash spending is easier. All this is easier and it is now more effective than ever at managing our money.

MS Money 95, an Excel Spreadsheet, and a pile of cash each month makes for a great way to manage finances.

Bankruptcy… For How Long?

I am reading about Chrysler about to come out of bankruptcy after only about 6 weeks, with the Fiat buyout and more government money. GM just went into bankruptcy with the Obama Administration promising to push them through quickly with another $30+ Billion dollars of aid.

I don’t get it. Delphi, the parts maker that was spun off of GM and has GM as its largest customer, has been in bankruptcy for 4 years. Why doesn’t the government help them out and speed their process.

I have to say I am very disappointed with the way Obama is handling this. I am glad a new Chairman has been named for GM, but I seriously doubt an AT&T executive can understand the car business. Is this better or worse. O.K., it can’t be worse, the current leadership at GM is clueless on how to make cars people really want. They only know how to cut costs and give rebates to get people to buy their cars. I hope the ex-AT&T executive can figure out how to make cars.

It just rubs my grain that the government is taking such a large stake in this… while clearly showing favoritism to the companies that hold the most voters. How much easier does it have to be to see Obama is just protecting his re-election.

New MacBook Pros

Just like the rest of you I checked in on a live blogcast from Apple’s WWDC. I like what I am hearing about the MacBook Pro refreshes. The 15″ MacBook Pro will start at $1699. That’s a little more than I wanted to spend for my next laptop ($1,000 – $1,500), but it is low enough to put the MacBook Pro in contension. I will have to check out its specs over the next couple of days.

The 13″ MacBook Pro (yes, 13″ Pro, the MacBook label is only on the older “white” version) will start at $1,199, just a little down from starting at $1,299. I will have to revisit my reviews of reviews of 13″ laptops here. I was close to giving up on the MacBook because the last refresh, which brought us the aluminum chassis, got a slower CPU allowing the competition to catch up. I will look into the MacBook specs over the next few days and plan an update to my laptop comparison spreadsheet.

Not Enough Blogging

I clearly have not been blogging enough lately. I just checked my stats and I dropped below 500 hits per day in mid April and this blog has been averaging in the 430-450 hits per day range since then. I need to post more stuff.

I know one topic that should drive a lot of traffic. I need to load Windows 7 with the new virtual machine software to test running in XP compatible mode. Then I need to test Outlook 2000. This will probably have a lot of interest for people running Vista and still trying to use Outlook 2000.

If I can get some free time I will try that. But I have to do a lot of prep work. First I have to install Outlook on Windows XP and set it up with an e-mail account. Then I have to send mail to and from it, and create a few contacts. Then I have to backup the data for that. Then the actual work begins by installing Windows 7, setting up virtualization, install Outlook 2000, and finally import the XP/Outlook generated data.

That will take several hours. I am hopeful it will work a lot better than Outlook 2000 on Windows Vista.

Hypermiling

While going to Fort Worth I decided to test my own hypermiling techniques. I wrote about these techniques before I ever heard of the term hypermiling. I called my techniques Deceleration Management.

On the way up to Fort Worth we were driving with my in-laws (in separate cars). I took the lead most of the way and using my radar detector I tried to keep our speed at about 80 the entire way. Granted, trying to maintain 80 was not easy because of traffic, but we were close. This was the only part of driving that was not including in the hypermiling. After all, the best gas mileage comes from going slower.

However, I never used cruise control and I milked that gas pedal for every chance I could. My wife could not even tell i was doing this, that’s how subtle I was with the gas pedal. Leaving from my house I reset the mileage computer and when we arrived at my brother-in-law’s house after 3 stops, I showed an average of 31.7 mpg. This was with out 2007 BMW 335i with an EPA rating of 17/26 city/highway. That means I beat the highway mileage rating by over 5 mpg! Not bad at all.

On the return visit I was trying to make much better time. With two very short stops the mileage I got from the hotel to home was 27.6 mpg. Still better than the EPA, but I was averaging closer to 90 mpg whenever traffic would allow, and frequesntly bursted to that speed when traffic cleared the way.

Zune on TV in Lo-Res

We went to Fort Worth over this weekend for a graduation. I didn’t think I would have time to do much of anything, but at the last minute while packing my suitcase I threw in the cable to charge my Zune 80. I figured I would use it in the car ride their and back, and might need to charge it.

At that moment I figured I should load a couple of movies on the Zune and take my “camcorder” video cable to hook it to the TV in the Hotel room.

I did this literarlly 5 minutes before leaving. I quickly tagged the Bourne Series of movies and started a sync. I had to cancel the sync after one movie because everyone was already in the car. Boom, one movie and a cable and no testing. Not a good way to go.

I connected the Zune to the TV when we got back to the hotel and I was able to watch The Bourne Identity on the hotel’s TV. All went perfectly. But the reason for this post was the movie file/quality. I did not have time to plan for this so I synced up the version of The Bourne Identity I made for watching on my Zune. That means it was a 320 x 240, low resolution copy of my DVD. It looked surprisingly well on the widescreen LCD TV in the hotel room. I was actually impressed. I thought for sure it would look grainy and pixelated. It looked excellent.

I am planning on taking the Zune to the coast next week for our annual trip to Rockport. I will plan the movies this time. I love my Zune.

Clean Your Pools In The Winter

Well, I just finished getting our above ground pool cleaned for summer use. During the winter a LOT of Mountain Cedar “dust” and Live Oak “debris” got into our pool. We did not vacuum it in a timely manner and this gunk stuck to the liner. I tried scrubbing the liner using Scotch-Brite pads with my feet, but it was not even close to enough.

I had to completely drain the pool and use a very harsh Scale Be Gone chemical with various scouring pads to get all the gunk off.

But the pool is clear and looking as good as ever now, with a week to go before my sons are on summer vacation.

This is the second time we let the pool get this bad. Clearly we did not learn our lesson the first time. Hopefully this winter we will maintain the pool during its unused months.

Chevy and Cadillac ONLY, I Said It First

I just read in Automotive News they think GM only needs Cadillac and Chevrolet. Too bad I said it first. My article on GM’s Brands came out yesterday (even though it is dated June 1, I published it on May 31st).

I believe you can cover the market well enough with a mass market brand (Chevrolet) and a luxury brand (Cadillac). You don’t need Buick to muddy the waters between those and GMC does nothing but compete against Chevrolet for truck sales.

This means all those Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealers should be the dealers that close. Sorry, but that’s what its going to take… assuming GM can be saved.

GM has just a little more than 3 years to fix itself, bankruptcy or not. Obama will do whatever it takes to keep GM afloat… until he gets re-elected. Then GM is going to be on its own. No more help from the government.