Slashdot Mirror
MoneyDance 2003 Reviewed
TheMadPenguin writes "For those of you who may not have heard, MoneyDance 2003 was released on March 28th, 2003 for general public consumption. It is available for Linux, MacOS X, and also Windows. Geared toward current Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money users, MoneyDance 2003 is packed full of features. It's reviewed at MadPenguin.org."
It's not free. See Here.
However, GNUCash will run on all the platforms listed, and is free.
-twb
There is a Quicken for Mac. I use it. It's right here. Really. I will resist swearing at you and calling you names because it's Friday.
Mirror here.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
What? It's a Java application. It works the same on both systems. Heck, I've been using MoneyDance for years on OS/2 and find that it works just great. Platform should make no difference at all.
You must be thinking of something else or using a really bad JVM on Linux. Some older linuxen use Kafe as their default JVM and Kafe has lots of bugs. Perhaps that's your problem. Try it with Blackdown's JVM instead.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
... but it was from the free-money-programs-but-no-free-money dept.
I used to dual boot solely for Quicken, but that stopped years ago when they made internet explorer an integrated part of their product. I have been using Gnucash since, and with the new features in the 1.8 releases scheduled payments and billing customers for my home based business is easier than ever.
Still plan to check out the new moneydance when time (and server load) permits...
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?
However, GNUCash will run on all the platforms listed
How can you sleep at night when you tell us such lies? No where on the site do I see anything about running on Windows. If you are trying to move people from away from MS software, you have to do it slowly to give them a chance to cope.
When did you switch to Mac? I have had Quicken on my mac since 1999. They have kept pretty current, as well. Downloading financial transactions took some time, but is available in the most recent version.
This release is a real coup for MoneyDance's author, Sean Reilly. A while ago, he sold MoneyDance to Apgen. At first this worked out really well because they added a lot of resources to the project and development really took off.
.com bubble, the MoneyDance staff was slowly laid off until even Sean was let go.
Unfortunately, when Apgen's fortunes started to fade with the end of the
Like many other zombie probjects, the MoneyDance web page was not taken down and Apgen was still selling it even though nobody was home. There was no support at all. The mailing list was a scary place then. It took months for people to figure out what was going on. Apgen didn't respond at all to help requests and the list turned to a big discussion on what the alternatives were.
Somehow, Sean managed to get the rights to MoneyDance back just a few months ago and started working on the new version that he just released.
Lots of good ideas have sunk in the last year or so of economic trouble in the software industry. Most will never resurface and have been lost forever. This is a real coup for Sean and the MoneyDance users that Sean was able to resurect this fine project and produce a new version in such a short time.
The Apgen folks have been very quiet about the whole thing for obvious reasons, but I think they are an example to follow. They made a valiant effort to promote MoneyDance, but when it didn't work out they set MoneyDance free instead of locking it up and throwing away the key. For some strange reason, this isn't the norm.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
However, GNUCash will run on all the platforms listed, and is free. Actually, GNUcash doesn't run on windows, the third 'platform' listed. Unless you're using a more narrow definition of platform than most.
One of the reasons that I'm able to keep track of my finances is that there's a Palm Pilot Quicken tool which allows me to track everything I do throughout the day, even when I'm nowhere near a computer to enter the transaction. Without this tool remembering every expense was getting extremely difficult and I was considering giving up on the project.
Now, before I even consider looking at this program, does it have a similar attachment?
--
RumorsDaily
I have used MD for about 4 years. It was the final piece of software that allowed me to delete Windows for ever. I am happy to see it return back to the capable hands of Sean Reilly. Appgen did nothing with it.
I have tried GNU Cash and while they have similar features, MD is *much* easer to use. MD has *way* better reporting and IMHO continue to have better support for on-line banking.
Hard-core Linux users may like GNU Cash. I certainly support the GNU project and I am grateful that GNU Cash is a viable alternative. But, if you have been using MS Money or Quicken, you probably will feel more comfortable using MD, especially 2003.
Another bonus for MD is that it is a Java application, so it will run on *any* platform. So, if you are still a dual-boot Linux/Windows user (why?), you can run MD on either one and not have to reboot simply to balance your checkbook.
BTW - $30 is a small price to pay for organized finances.
Jeff
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
The lack of a UK Quicken version is the one thing stopping me getting a Mac. Seriously. I had other gripes before, but they've all been resolved one by one. I'm at the point where I'm considering getting one anyway and then running Quicken under VPC.
In the meantime, please email Intuit and tell them you want a version. I've done that, and got a polite response back saying that if there's enough interest it will be done. Of course, they won't know if there's any interest if nobody tells 'em...
Cheers,
Ian
I use Intuit Quicken to track investments as well as my various accounts. Although Quicken claims to export data in QIF format, some information is missed or corrupted. The article warns of possible duplicate transactions, and the reviewer omitted two of his accounts because he didn't want to fix them up manually. He speculates that the problem is with the software that created the QIF files, and I have verified this by trying unsuccessfully to import a QIF file back into Intuit Quicken.
It appears that the only reliable way to read Quicken data is by reading its native files. Considering the years of carefully-verified data I have entered into Quicken, I will wait for a replacement that reads these files. I regret that I do not know the format of Quicken's native files, or have any source for that information.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Let's face it... if you just want to balance your checkbook, you can do that in a spreadsheet.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Great program when running, but horrible to get it there.
All the other responses to this post say "just use apt-get" or "up2date" or "emerge this or that". That's all nice and dandy, but part of the freedom of Open Source is being able to compile from the source from the authors! Getting GNUCash to compile on Solaris, for example, is absolute torture. I don't want to know how much pain and suffering the people at Debian, Red Hat, and Gentoo had to go through to make their one-shot commands actually work.
IMO, the fact that GNUCash is so difficult to compile from source reflects badly upon its architecture and packaging. However, I do agree that it works well once it's in place.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Um, the previous owner of MoneyDance, Appgen, has such a program. It's called MyBooks.
$99 for a 5 user license. You can use it standalone on one machine, of course, but to get the most bang for your $99, you need to install the server version on a Linux box, and the clients on your choice of Linux, MacOSX, or Windows.
I've been running it for a year, and it's been fantastic.
I started using GnuCash a couple of weeks ago. I'm running it on a PowerMac G4 350MHz with Mac OS X 10.2.5. I used MoneyDance for about one year in 2001-2002. Then it was discontinued. With some annoying file corruption bugs unfixed and apparently unlikely to be fixed I switched back to Quicken. The current release happened after the original programmer finally got rights to the code he wrote for Appgen.
Now that I have it compiled, I am happier with GnuCash than I was with MoneyDance. One big advantage of GnuCash over MoneyDance for someone leaving Quicken? GnuCash is very good with QIF imports. MoneyDance produces way too many duplicate entries after a QIF import.
On the other hand, the lack of a GnuCash binary distribution for some platforms will push some people to MoneyDance. It took my computer over 12 hours to compile GnuCash and all of its dependencies. Loading MoneyDance took a minute or two.