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On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:41:53 +0100 John Hansen <whitover-1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Jonathan Roberts wrote: > The Windows programmes which I need to use are: > > TaxCalc No replacement but, IMHO, it's a useless program on Windows anyway. It just takes money from your wallet to do what you could do yourself quicker, more accurately and with less hassle. I used it for a couple of years until I realised that I had already done the calculation before the TaxCalc CD arrived. I use a simple spreadsheet now, doing the normal tax calculation that you see at the end of something like TaxCalc, just better. ;-) Problem with TaxCalc is a common problem with commercial software: It's not good enough just to give the user an update file to migrate from 2005-6 to 2006-7 where the only things that change are the personal allowances etc. because the user isn't likely to pay enough for that to justify producing a whole new release with shrink wrapping etc.etc. No, it has to be NEW and IMPROVED and WHIZZO and have way more eye candy than can possibly be justified and ALL NEW eye candy just because this year's colour is green instead of orange in order to artificially inflate the price. Forget the awkward fact that with a 5kb update file you could use the edition from last year. It all delays the release of the program, so I gave up and now I update my own calculation direct from the www.hmrc.gov.uk website. There is very little information that needs an update from 2005-6 to 2006-7 "per user" but each update is very specific to one geographical / political unit. There is no overlap between the tax systems of any two countries and a nightmare of hassle if a user gets the wrong update for their location. This makes it a less than enjoyable area for volunteer programmers. > Fairshares (by Updata) Various online services are the best bet here. Once you get data into a GNU/Linux financial manager like GnuCash, the prices can be updated internally. > Autoroute Google map, multimap: online versions, basically. The problem here is the sheer amount of data that needs to be updated continuously - the opposite extreme of the TaxCalc problem. To collate that data on an ongoing basis means employing people to do it and that means one of two things: Either you put all the data somewhere central (www) and let everyone use the one copy providing they put up with some ads, or you package the data monthly (or more often) and push it to the user as an update. It's very hard to do that for all distributions and it tends to be labour-intensive so there would tend to be some form of registration and charges. Some applications just don't work on the desktop (and never did IMHO). The web is just the best solution for tasks that require constantly updated information. Autoroute was updated, once a year - if that? Why? because it is a lot of work getting all that updated data onto every desktop more often than that. (I also think that some desktop based applications can never work on the web but mentioning that just upsets Kai who considers the desktop a dead end.) ;-) > Quicken Discussed before. > are no doubt excellent but do not allow me readily to transfer my > Quicken files. I'm afraid you are asking for the impossible. I really do advise you to forget QIF and start from this financial year or last in a new file. If for no other reason than that your Quicken files are full of errors. The other option is some form of virtualisation, VMWare etc. Haven't used it myself but others here have, IIRC. Kai will be pleased because most of your Windows needs can actually be met by online services, the HMRC tax website to replace TaxCalc, take your pick of online share services, there's a wide range of route planner websites too. It just leaves financial records. I can honestly say that importing your Quicken data into any other program is only going to give you grief. You'll spend YEARS picking up errors in the imported data. It is far quicker to learn a new program and do it properly from the start. Quicken is like a bad teacher - the longer you go along with it, the longer it will take to relearn how to do it properly. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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