What kind of Computer Software should I use?  Murphy's Laws: Fact 1: Hardware, software and Operating Systems need to be in perfect harmony to work well. Fact II: They never are.

OPINIONS ON SOFTWARE: Reflects the opinions of our reviewer and not necessarily those of www.smallbusinessman.com or it's staff and advisors.  Revised 08/3/2001

Dog programs receive up to four paws.

Good programs receive up to four stars.

To find your software or software category, select search from your browser menu and enter the category or title you want to search for.

Criteria is based on support, usability for particular need, interface, price and company's treatment of its customers.

Though many of these companies might like to discredit my reviews, they had better keep in mind that I have used over 200 different software programs in the last 12 years and fully understand the difference between a good one and a poor one.

ACCOUNTING and TAX Software

Andrew Tobias Managing Your Money Version 7 for the Macintosh

This is one heck of an example of a program that missed the PR bandwagon and suffered a quiet retirment as a Bank of America freebee for PC users only. The Macintosh market was virtually eliminated. I wonder if B of A planners ever estimated their customer loss potential had they offered a Macintosh version.

• Easy to use.
• Based on four modules - income, expense, assets and liabilities. Sound familiar?
• Doesn't load the system with extensions.
• Has never crashed the computer to my knowledge.
• Well designed interface.
• Easy to enter tax categories by classification rather than by IRS form number as in Quicken 2000 (which most people can't remember).
• Great easy to print reports.
• Easy to correct mistakes or change any transaction from one asset and liability to another or one income and expense category to another.
• Not so many bells and whistles, but on the other hand, who really needs them if you spend half your time recovering from a System crash or error with other programs that have them?

I never realized how much I appreciated MYM 7 until I joined the lemmings in using Quicken 2000. At that point I realized that though upgrades to my friend were long gone, this venerable old Version was not to have a reliable equal to this day.

Quicken 2000 for the Macintosh - Intuit Software

In the case of Quicken 2000 which is already at Revision three, I would be tempted to go beyond the four paws. The program is so difficult to use for the simplest transactions that the average user would be better off using a pencil and a spreadsheet. Quicken is the most time consuming product that I have had the misfortune of testing in years. The word quick in the title Quicken is a government style misnomer. The slow learning curve is only the first of many of the following burps and malfunctions.

• When the "User Guide" menu option is selected, it is unable to find it's file.
• When the file is manually found and opened, it is a PDF document with no search, clickable table of contents or index.
• Crucial items are not even listed in the old manual if you are so fortunate as to have one.
• Online help is a maze of inefficiency.
• Tech support costs you money no matter what problem you have and allows them the discretion as to whether it's a Quicken progrming flaw.
• It appears the program was a compounded upon check register in DOS to Windows, then further patched to port to the Macintosh.
• The program is so shakey that it actually shakes as it closes down on the Mac.
• Quicken adds excessive extensions and files to your system folder.
• Program crashes easily.
• Quicken does not even offer the most basic accounting categories. Unlike most other accounting programs, you don't even have an income categories account. You can't move or adjust accounts easily either. Let's say you put something into an account and decide that it was the wrong one later. Just try fixing it easily. Instead, you'll have to delete the transaction and start over. This is an error many of us will make so again, a lot of time is wasted.
• Doesn't even recognize the Mac's forward delete key.
• Can't sort by various columns i.e. sort by Payee name. This is almost unforgivable and leads to extensive work to simply find a particular transaction by a specific Payee.
• Try finding your tax category in the unexpandable window, you'll scroll slowly indefinitely and still be lucky if you choose the right one. No automation here. Maximum user brains required OR an accountant. Oh yeah. I thought that was a cost we were trying to avoid by using Quicken. Don't bank on it. Better off giving your accountant your shoe box. (That'll save you the cost and frustration of buying the Intuit tax program which is another can of worms.)

Quicken is not nearly as easy as the box cover pretends it is. I remember when it first came out as a simple checking program. At the time, I decided that it was easier to use my checkbook. Soon after, a program came out called Managing your Money by Andrew Tobias. I happily went with that and enjoyed its power and ease of use for years.

However, Quicken continued to promote itself very well while Managing Your Money seemed to stagnate on the shelves. Despite it's more well rounded activities, easy user interface and much more stable format, MYM did little to promote itself and Quicken became the dominate money management software program. However, as you can see from the partial list above, it is plagued by heart wrenching flaws. The problem is that once you spent the hours it takes to set it up, you feel somewhat compelled to stick with it and reluctant to put the same effort into another program to transfer data (which of course Quicken isn't going to easily allow you to do. After all, by the time you put in the time, you feel trapped. My best advise is to never start using Quicken. Too bad that for most users it's already too late.

Here is a list of just a few real heart breakers.

In MYM you actually have income accounts you deposit from into your checking account. Quicken requires that you work backwards from the checking account using negatives to show checks going to various withholding accounts. Just trying to find out how much you made this year at any given time takes an act of congress to figure out - not a plus at tax time.

When I went to the help menu, it rudely informed me that the help file could not be found. I guess it forgot to install it.

The Quicken interface is extremely unstable and therefore crashes frequently. The sloppy programming makes it a real memory hog and requires extensions added to your system. MYM did not.

One of things I like to do is look at my account on the web at the same time as leaving Quicken open. Unfortunately, Quicken hogs up the whole desktop with a background that many of us could care less about. You cannot see the web account while working in Quicken.

Quicken pretends to accurately download bank information, it does not, nor is it anything but difficult to set up, not to mention the wait while your bank tries to get an account for you.

The icing on the cake is Intuits atrocious Tech support. You must give them a credit card number and then pay for each minute you receive support from the moment you buy the program. If they deem it's a program flaw, and the key words are "they deem," the folks at Quicken may not charge you for that call (so I'm told by Quicken.) Interface problems and poor usability aspects are not considered program flaws to the folks at Quicken.

I might add that Intuit is pretty good at wasting your time with most of their programs. After all, time is money and if we calculated our time wasted with Quicken into dollars, most of us won't seen in real savings in using the program. Hopefully, it was at least fun for some poor soul and possibly classified as cheap entertainment. When one looks at it that way, the lousy $29 price tag evolving into a thousand hour project was one heck of a bargain.

Intuit is about as good an example of a backwards thinking software company as I can come up with despite its reviews within the magazines. Then again, the public was sucked in enough by their marketing to make them a very successful if not deceptive company.

I often wonder who got taken to lunch and who simply got taken. Quicken and to a big degree Quickbooks are the most over rated programs in the software industry and I highly recommend exploring other alternatives or simply using a spreadsheet program or spreadsheet paper and pencil to do your work. I can only see a program like Quicken as being a total waste of your hard earned time.

Quick Books Pro for the Macintosh - Intuit

About the only good thing I have to say about Quickbooks Pro, is that it is old enough to be somewhat simple and not quite the memory hog that Quicken 2000 is. However, beyond that, you'll have a heck of a learning curve and would most likely be better off with an inventory specific program, a spreadsheet program or a paper spreadsheet and a piece of paper.

Inventory is extremely inadequate in it's category management. Your three open fields are hidden by a button that you must press each time you enter into those fields and then to make matters worse, you lose your auto fill capabilities with those fields.  In addition no product pictures! Not very modern, eh?

DOESN'T HANDLE PHOTOGRAPHS OF INVENTORY: To really make matters excruciating, the export feature simply exports everything. I then load the data into FileMaker and add pictures in that program since Quick Books Pro doesn't handle pictures of your inventory.

SALES TAXES ARE DEDUCTIBLE IN CALIFORNIA FOR RESELLERS: However, no where in QuickBooks is this dealt with and the state requires that the exact item is accounted for (tax paid vs. tax charged the customer.) ???

In other words, if you want to waste time and spin your wheels in a mixture of programs, including using an additional program for payroll, Quickbooks Pro is your baby.

Though I'm still struggling with this antiquated beast of a program, I do not recommend it to anyone I love or like. If I were Intuit, I would think of leaving the software business if this is the best they can do after all these years.

TaxCut Deluxe for Mac - H&R Block

The Goverment has allowed these companies to profit tremendously in your need to update the program each and every year. Granted, taxes are complicated, but using these tax programs has not necessarily made your submissions any more accurate than what you or an accountant would have produced albiet the program is certainly cheaper than the accountant. Another aspect that one should think about is the conflict of interest between H&R office tax accounting and your using their program.  You may very well feel a need to see them, especially when dealing with amortization, or the very poorly supported California State program.

Negatives:

• Installs only at the top level of your hard drive.
• Rebate coupon requires orignal receipt that you may need for other purchases' rebate coupons. It's a slick rebate trick that demonstrates that H&R block is not above being tacky (after all, look at the condition of their average office carpets). And Don't throw away the box! you need to cut out the bar code from the bottom to send in your own envelope with your own stamp. This reminds me of those "You won a prize" contests where you have to do everything but stand on your head to fill out the 3 x 5 card. If your time is worth anything, these rebate schemes will definitely try your patience and leave you hating the software manufacturer. Add to this the "allow 10 weeks for delivery." clause and most of you will have forgotten that you ever had a rebate coming. Perhaps that's what H&R is hoping for?
• Of course, if you have a slow modem, you're going to have to start the download of the required update that evening, because it's likely to take all night to download.  You'll end up doing your taxes the next day if you're available.
• Right after the update, the program began misbehaving and crashing constantly.  Who knows what it was conflicting with.  There may be a few more hours invested here if you can't function. At first it wouldn't even open.  Throwing out my finder prefs or opening from an older operating system seemed to do the trick.  Would you have figured that one out?
• You may end up trapped with this program next year, if you want it to utilize this years data. So choose wisely.
• You get a free copy of the state tax program (if you're among the lucky states) providing you use your own envelope and allow 3-weeks for delivery. Guess you have to wait to do your taxes. Why couldn't you get it online? Granted, you can pay $9.95 to have it shipped immediately. On the other hand, if it's free, why wasn't it shipped in the box with the other CD????? All together, with the registration, the State Tax and the rebate, I'm up to 3 letters to TaxCut. Bet they have a deal with the US Post Office.
• LIE #1 - The box advertises, "Easy as 1-2-3." So far, they've used up the 1-2 and 3 and I haven't even started using the program.
• Refund if not satisfied within 60 days of purchase would be good, but the Mafiosos have already given themselves a way out. If you already sent in for the rebate, you no longer have the required UPC code from the bottom of the box, so I guess you're SOL.
• You may end up trapped with this program next year, if you want it to utilize this years data. So choose wisely.
• Help screens suggest a worksheet on the right, but there is no worksheet on the right.
• There is also an abundance of wrong line references and spelling errors (which I can relate to) showing a rushed and inaccurate piece together of the program.
• Navigating is still a chore and you'll find yourself where you don't want to be often.
• SAVE YOUR WORK OFTEN.  This is a crash intensive program.  If you insist on using this program, here's there help number.  Good luck.
  (800) 457-9525.

Positives:

• Electronic Filing was better this year than at any time in the past although the IRS didn't set it's clocks for daylight savings and will reject all returns filed after 11 p.m as having been dated incorrectly.  Why doesn't that surprise us?  Likely, if you start in the morning, you'll be lucky to get done around this time so be wary.  If you do finish earlier, than it is also likely you were a candidate for "phone filing" and would have been better off doing your taxes that way rather than wasting your money on this program.  Either way, don't forget to write it off.  I did.

DATABASE and SPREADSHEET Software

Excel 97 by Microsoft on Windows NT

The program would seem to do everything but brush your teeth with the powerful features and pivot tables. However, it is also one of those programs where the moon and sun have to be in perfect alignment with the stars in order to work. It will go down on you at the blink of an eye and then go down when you need it the most. This is no place to store your important data that you need at a moment's notice.

• When using the "insert comment" feature, program exhibits occasional permanent bizarre unprovoked behavior leaving the user incapable of entering data into fields.rendering the database all but useless.
• When attempts are made to remove the offending omment (once located), the illegal operation message appears as the program crashes without saving any data. Nor does it recover the data upon reopening.
• Constant crashes on some NT systems, especially when trying to delete comments.

In conclusion, if you need reliability, this is not the program to use on this platform, especially in an office situation where you don't have immediate access to Microsoft technical support. The irony is that most large corporate environments are so saturated by Microsoft that they require its use. Tough luck, eh? Just don't bet your life on a project due by a specific time or you might have to be one of the potential many that might say, "I was canned because of Microsoft."

FileMaker Pro for the Macintosh - Claris Software

• Internet setup is challenging
• Rebate program is designed to keep you from getting your rebate. Staff is very unhelpful and you will jump through many untimely hoops only to find out that they won't send it. It's another joke program where you should get the discount at the checkout stand or else.

GAMES

POD RACER for Win 98

Crashes often but sure is fun when it works. I like to use it with my cheap Comp USA wheel. You can tell I'm just an amateur gamer.

INTERNET RELATED SOFTWARE

FETCH 3.03 for the Macintosh

FTP upload and download application: OLD RELIABLE, SHORT ON FEATURES but WORKS, WORKS, WORKS.

INTERNET EXPLORER 4.5 for the Macintosh

Web Browser: I don't remember when the last time was that mouseovers were visible or when I can fill out forms on the net. This program is so corrupted that I use Netscape for thta type of stuff. If you have a Mac and you can't see mouseovers on www.smallbusinesman.com, let me know. Maybe we can solve what Microsoft can't or maybe they're sabotaging the Mac users of planet Earth. Only Bill's hair dresser will know for sure.

NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR 4.5 for the Macintosh

Thanks to microsoft mess ups, this makes a nice free alternative. It's not as user friendly as IE 4.5 for the Mac when IE 4.5 is working. However, since IE 4.5 still can't load forms properly or see mouse overs properly, it gets the single lone star. Come on guys! Can't we tighten up the programming just a little. Still a super memory hog.

OUTLOOK EXPRESS 5.0 thru 5.01 for the Macintosh Couldn't make up my mind. Depends on what day I use it.

Here's a program that has a neat spell checker. Other than that, it has actually become more difficult to use and watch out OS9'rs! Hold on to your shirt and pray! Your message files don't back up easily and get corrupted even more easily, not to mention How do you back up your email or get mail from Netscape after the download. Whatever you do, don't move files. It corrupts them like it's nobody's business. Also, after the slew of patches, etc. don't count on security here if you work on top secret projects. Apparently it never really is. Watch your mail. It can auto download just about anything on you. I upgraded it's rating due to the fact that I like it's spell checker. By the way, where is Outlook for the Mac or is nobody talking? What do you expect for free -- certainly not technical support which is certainly not free!!! Still a super memory hog. Watch out for the auto update feature if you try to run it with extensions off!!! It'll update the heck out of you.

OFFICE ADMINISTRATION SOFTWARE

Presto! BizCard for the Macintosh

This is one of the biggest jokes in the industry. By the time you scan your business cards into the scanner and then correct the gazzilion errors in the OCR version, then import the results into your contact management program, you will find you could have entered four times as much data by doing so into your contact management program directly. As with most current OCR and Voice Recognition Software, they are usually if not always, more trouble than they are worth and I would certainly never pay for them until OCR improves and as of the Millennium it has not.

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Linux

Still going through installation on mine so most of this is based on hearsay. Got a live tech support at no charge first try. Without a doubt this has the best soul and pricing of all the new operating systems I've played with. What a deal with all the extra software. Red Hat and Corel versions have been the most highly recomnended and guess what. You can use that old 486 PC again! This is the OS that I root for! Yeah! Still too young to build up stars.

The only thing I found nice was the price, however, I still haven't received the replacement software the company promised, and it still doesn't work after days and days of effort.  This is not for the faint hearted and possibly only good for techies that miss the days of DOS and UNIX simpler (yet more complicated to learn) platforms.

MacOS 8.1

Probably the best MacOS since 6.5. However, it's still sensitive and doesnt' run in protected memory.

MacOS 9

It's back to the good old days. No wonder Apple won't support it on clones. Here's software that'll crash you until the cows come home. What a mess. Wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. Multitaksing helps.  

However, one does have to consider that despite the demise of most proprietary operating systems and hardware, the future is again calling for centralization mainly because the public is tired of dealing with such a hodgepodge of companies and products that fail to work well together.  Mac is heading back into the direction of hardware and software centralization via the internet, to attempt to bring back some simplicity while lowering consumer costs further.  You will soon be able to use internet based software that you won't have to buy or own.  Apple already supports a shopping cart system that is web based and extremely interesting.  Time will tell if everyone owns a mac and uses the net software rather than software on their own computer.  OSX, when it arrives, may very well bail the world out of this dilemma and their three paw rating.  Can Apple pull it off?

MacOS 10 MYSTERY SOFTWARE OF 2000

I thought I heard all the rumors.  However, when stories regarding the new mult-tasking Mac OS10 drift my way, I take them with a grain of salt.  "Did, Bill Gates step down at Microsoft to figure out a system to compete with OS10 because OS10 is supposed to be so hot?".  

Windows 98

Programs don't crash the whole computer as frequently as on the Mac. However, trying to figure serious problems out still requires a degree in computer science. Lot's of diversity here when matched with various brands of hardware though. Multitasking helps.

Windows NT 4.0

They keep telling me how great it is, but I have never been that convinced. It's still buggy. Ask any coorporate tech support person--they'll support me on this. ANYTHING BY MICROSOFT IS BUGGY!!! However, the mult-tasking and somewhat protected operating system  helps you keep on working through most program incompatibilities.

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