Tag: Quicken

My secure rig is an old PowerPC Mac Sawtooth G4 with a 1 GHz Sonnet processor upgrade running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8—slow by modern standards, but steady and altogether safer than many boxes out there these days.
It is perhaps the old security by obsolescence theme.
People work all their lives trying to earn enough bank in the name of security.
Then there are folks like me, who say security is relative.
We have social media.
And we have social security.
Some are frightened by the prospect of social security going away.
As a boomer it’s part of my expected funds available at retirement.
I’ve joked in the past about always needing to work and the new retirement being working until you drop.
Heck, I can be lazy and not feel like doing anything some days.
I have a KVM switch that permits convenience and allows me to get my “bold” on.
The KVM switch is a piece of hardware that affords me the ability to share a monitor, keyboard, mouse and sound system between two computers—in my case, the old Mac G4 and an eMachines T6528 PC running Windows 7.
Yes, that’s an old rig to be running Windows 7 on.
But with its 3 GB of ram and AMD processor, it actually gets the job done quite capably—I can watch the latest, greatest, anything flash-wise on the net—with no problem while still doing something else on it.
I have iTunes running on both machines.
If I’m conducting online banking, I’m on the Mac—I will eventually leave the Mac’s security for the latest version of Quicken running on a PC—most likely at some point. After all, Quicken 2007—sadly the Mac’s latest version of Quicken, won’t be supported forever.
When writing the blog, I can go either Mac or PC, but I like the comfort and feeling the Mac provides by allowing me access to its built-in dictionary software while working in Mac Microsoft Office Word 2008.
The KVM switch definitely gives me the best of both worlds and I’ve been enjoying this setup for quite some time.
The G4 has four hard drives comprising three operating systems (including OS 9.2.2 which I rarely use anymore and one hard drive is partitioned between that classic Mac OS and OS X Tiger 10.4.11), a Time Machine 300 GB backup drive, 2 GB of ram and the aforementioned 1 GHz processor upgrade.
When I’m mobile, I have an Asus laptop running Windows 7 64 Bit.
The point in all this is that we have a stock offering of do’s and don’ts in our lives.
We go with what is familiar and comfortable.
When it comes to moving, I like paring down before doing so.
It’s becoming crunch time for me here in Colorado, as my trek to Kentucky will be undertaken in less than ten days now.
I’ve gotten rid of quite a few things in recent days bulk-wise and will continue to shed more in the next couple of days.
I’m trying a moving container solution for the few things I will be moving there—they drop off the storage unit, I pack it with my few belongings, secure it and they haul it away.
This way I’ll be driving my car across the country—much more fun than driving a moving truck and towing it; just wasn’t into it for many reasons.
We do what works best for us.
I flirted with the idea of shipping the Mac–$50-$85 by some estimates and more than the machine is actually worth. I will either pack it in the storage container or take it with me in the car—same thing for the PC. All my other computer equipment and peripherals will be packed as best I can in the container, and I will hope for the best.
At the end of the day, I’ve been very happy with the progress I’ve been making move-wise. A lot remains to be done. It is exciting, tiring, stimulating and fatiguing simultaneously.
That’s never bothered me too much, though, especially since I’ve been waiting to make this move all my life.
My machines and guitars will survive the trip, no doubt.
My clothing will make it there, too.
I pared down and am continuing to eliminate, all unnecessary items for the move across the country.
The old adage home is on my back feels apropos. When I came out here all those years ago there were no computers with me—only a guitar and some clothes tightly packed in a 1983 Toyota Corolla.
Déjà vu in geographical reverse, with a few concessions to life lived in the form of modest possessions acquired along the way stored in similarly modest fashion, has this journey feeling very much like going home.