Updating Quickbooks Forces Online Membership? 462
garyebickford asks: "I've been using Quickbooks 2001 for a long time, sending out invoices via email.
A couple of months ago it asked if I wanted to do an online update - these occurred occasionally and I agreed. There was no information regarding what the update would do, although IIRC there was some mention of 'new features' and 'improvements'. Since that time, it is now impossible to either fax or email an invoice without signing up for Quickbook's 'Online Business Member' program since it appears to use their own mail server. Membership is free for now, but the required click-agreement forces me to agree in advance to any future fees! I have no interest in letting Intuit know about my invoices and other financial information. As a result, this software is essentially useless and I must find a new accounting package. I've looked at various OSS packages but haven't found one that has developed far enough to use in this way. But there are many out there and I haven't kept up to date, so maybe someone else out there can suggest something. I'd prefer using it on Linux, of course. I'd also be interested if this loss of functionality would be sufficient to consider a class action suit to recover costs of conversion." The issue at hand is that commercial software has started to force consumers to fall into such schemes to maintain features that they already had. Today it is Quickbooks, but what about tomorrow?
TurboTax for 2002 (Score:2, Interesting)
It's true (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true actually... when I started my job back in September I was using Windows XP, and as there didn't seem to be any chance to switch to Linux coming soon I settled back into life as a Windows user, at work at least. Despite not really needing much software, I found I needed a truckload of commercial utilities to get anything done. We have a slightly dodgy connection, so a download manager that supported resuming (as neither mozilla nor IE appear to support this) was a must. On goes Download Accelerator. We need WinZip of course. Hmm, WindowBlinds FX looks nice (and it is nice). The BBC only streams in RealAudio so to save myself going insane I put on RealPlayer so I can listen to the radio while working.
After a month or so, I realised if I could get the Adobe SVG plugin in IE working under Linux I could switch over to it, and so I got CrossOver (patched Wine to fix some bugs [sigh]) and was very happy.
A week or so ago I rebooted into Windows, and was assaulted by raw commercialism. WindowBlinds had come to the end of its trial and popped up a window on every boot asking me to buy it. RealOne insisted on popping up adverts for its new features and offers, while cleverly not appearing to be running. WinZip of course has a nag screen whenever you run it. Download Accelerator inserts a blinking lightbulb into the system tray. It was almost physically unpleasant battering my way through all this garbage to get to what I wanted. I had become desensitised to it as I started using Windows again, then going back to it after so long was a real shock.
After a while, you realise that seemingly every Windows app comes with some extra code whos only purpose is to try and make you spend money, or sell your eyeballs for a bit. It has nothing to do with enhancing the app, and this is true even for basic must have utilities like decompression programs and audio decoders. I wish I could suggest an alternative to Quickbooks but I don't really use programs like that. Except I know support was recently added to Wine for it.
change in software paradigm? (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you considered... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whoa, here... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Caught in the headlights of a major trend ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:2, Interesting)
Upgrades Required To Use Quickbooks Tax Tables:
- Do-It-YourSelf Payroll: $169 per year
- Upgrade To Current Quickbooks Version: $100 one-time
Great CPA you have there.
Re:It's true (Score:3, Interesting)
You downloaded each and everyone of those applications you call 'necessities'. *You* are the one who made the choice.
I personally installed RealPlayer a long time ago, and then said "no thanks", and have never used it since. Same for netscape mind you. But also, until Quicktime fixed it's horrendous interface and constant nagging, I didn't use it either.
When I setup a new Win box, I get a fixed list of administration tools for FREE (as in beer) from sysinternals.com, I get Winrar/Winzip for free with a proper nag screen that doesn't hog memory, just gently reminds you that you have been using it for the 400th consecutive day without paying. And a few open source things like wget and netcat and the like from google.
I have yet to get nags on my screen.
All I have to say is be careful what you complain about as a user, because what you want you just might get...
(Stupid) People complained about "DLL Hell" for the longest time, and now we are ALL cursed with Windows File Protection - a hybrid 'security' scheme set up so that even administrators couldn't replace/delete critical files (why? because all the stupid people ran as admin).
Complain about nagware, and who knows, maybe free stuff like Winzip and winamp will disapear too, and enter the world of Web Services.
Re:Quickbooks disabled? noooooo...... (Score:4, Interesting)
I would never touch any of their products again.
I used to work for Intuit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's true (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Write your own or pay up. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am an open souce developer and working on a project that happens to be open source doesn't give me the right not to have my work criticized.
As a software user, if I'm going to try out new software, I'd like to know everyone's opinion on it, good or bad, before I install it. It doesn't matter if the software is free and it doesn't matter if the software is open -- I don't want to create myself the hassle and the frustration of installing a software that won't work on my machine. I, for one, am glad he told us about the sound card issue (my FreeBSD machine doesn't have a sound card either) and now I can use the time he saved me to evaluate the remaining options.
Stephan
PS: As noble as your intentions may be, simply donating money may not be the most practical option for every user out there.
This is the sort of crap that lead me to Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I started with Quicken. That was such a wonderful program thru about V3.0. The next couple of "upgrades" had lots of bells and whistles that seemed nice, but I got lost in the toys and wasn't paying attention to the actual accounting. Ouch.
Then there was the matter of the "upgraded" programs crashing all the time. Sometimes I lost data, sometimes not. In any case it was a pain in the arse.
A few years later, after I had become a *nix convert, I went to work for a small company. When I started they had zilch for an accounting system. Scraps of paper. That's no joke. So the owner hires a wiz bang accountant who promptly insists on Quickbooks.
I yelled, screamed, jumped up and down.
We purchased and installed Quickbooks. The accountant punched in the data and we were off and running. No sooner did we get things running and, wouldn't you know it, the network portion quits on us.
You guessed it.....gotta buy a network license upgrade.
So the owner takes a loan from her mom, gets the upgrade and we're back in bidness. Until tax time.
Manditory tax "upgrade". Isn't that like a tax tax?
So she shells out more of the green, gets the tax upgrade and everything is fine for a few more months. Or so I thought.........
The boss calls me in and wants to know why my department is only doing 57% of goal. I look at her numbers, from Quickbooks, and they don't match my invoices. Not trusting Quickbooks I tracked my own department in spreadsheets too (StarOffice 5.2). Sure it was double the "paperwork" but it proved worth it.
I never did find out the whole reason that Quickbooks was losing transactions. Didn't care. That's Intuit's problem, right? Not according to them it aint.
All that money you pay them and if "nobody else is having this problem" then you get zilch, zip, nada for tech support.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on Intuit here. IMHE they are just par for the course in the windows world.
But didn't they start out as a Mac product?
new business plans (Score:1, Interesting)
I spent about a year of my time (after work and weekends over a few years) writing my own product. Professional marketers told me that I would not make money from sales, and they were correct.
Nobody wants to buy software anymore; the old model of 'sell, install and forget' is uncool now. Maybe this is from bad support, expensive and mandatory upgrades. Maybe they are afraid that there is an open-source equivalent they have missed and will appear foolish if they pay for it.
So the lesson for me is; give the software away and try to sell services around it, just like QB and MS are doing.
Re:Workaround (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you force it to use your SMTP server of choice? Look in the exe and its other files for a string that looks like a mail server, (say smtp.quickbooks.com). If you find that, go to your hosts file and make a line
smtp.quickbooks.com aa.bb.cc.dd
where aa.bb.cc.dd is the IP of the mailserver you want to use (eg on your ISP). No guarantee but worth a try. If it really is SMTP, then the commands to send should be universal.
Otherwise, as the above poster, create a PDF and email it yourself -- there are free ways. It's not difficult to work out automated methods if you have any volume.
More Intuit BS (Score:2, Interesting)
If my experience is any indication, the company has been pulling such sleazy "forced upgrade" tactics for awhile. A few years back I bought Quicken 97 to balance my checking account. It worked fine up until earlier this year, when I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled the OS and had tor install the Quicken as well.
For the installation, I had to (re)register the product electronically. Trouble is, Intuit had long since cut off its end of the registration process for the '97, and , as a way of user support in the FAQ, mentioned only that users should upgrade (i.e. buy the new version).
Bloody hell. I spent $80 for the damn software, I have no use for the additional bells and whistles and it really pisses me off I can longer use this software that I purchased! I went back to using plain spreadsheets and I can gaurantee that under no circumstances will I ever purchase some product by this company. Greedy fucks.