Quicken 2010 issues

I agree totally with the views being a "downgrade". Also, even with the list view you could jump to the next month. Something you can no longer do. This seems at least for me to decrease funcitonality. I wish I would get over my obsession to have to make changes and just stick with what I have.

I don't have Q2010; but I think your "conclusions" (and "Jeff M"'s comments/"conclusions") are premature ... and probably not indicative.

If you don't have Q2010 then why did you post a comment?

Like I said: because no one proved their point.

It is clear that you do not understand logic.

If you can't prove the claim, it doesn't matter what version you are using, or what version I am using.

I'm still waiting for you to prove the point.

Apparently you are unable to do that (you definitely have not tried) ... so you want to pretend that my question is the problem ... instead of your inability to prove your case.

John:

I have a hard time understanding why you would presume an observation is wrong. I acknowlege that you are a helpful expert on the product, but it does not help for you to challenge observations when you don't even have the product.

I have since confirmed it on Quicken Live with Quicken employees answering that they did in fact remove the ability to see a monthly list from the Bills tab. The answer I was given was that it is still available through the Bills menu or "ctrl k" but it takes a few more clicks to get there. I did find a workaround where I can create a custom view on the "home" tab and then select "Bills and Income Reminders" as a module and you can get the monthly view there. From the "Bills" tab you can only get 7, 14, and 30 days forward in the list. The person that responded indicated that they were trying to clean up some of the functionality that was available from multiple locations and that maybe in this case they went too far. He offered that they may fix it in a future release.

Also, it was confirmed in Quicken Live that Valic is not supported yet in 2010...I went back to 2009 and confirmed it does work there. For some reason, several financial institutions that were working in 2009 are not working in 2010.

Jeff

I don't need the product to know that you didn't prove your point; when you make a claim, it's your responsibility to provide the evidence to prove it. See below.

It was NOT confirmed that "Valic is not supported yet in Q2010": it was confirmed that Valic has not yet done what they need to do to allow their customers to download to Q2010. It has nothing to do with Inuit or Quicken; it's a Valic decision, calling for Valic actions. Financial institutions "choose" which Quicken versions they will support. Many financial institutions have already chosen to support Q2010; Valic could have done so too, had they wanted to, or been capable enough.

You must be new here. He's Intuit's chief apologist.

sQueezBox® wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

John has an intimate knowledge of Quicken, and of how to make it do the things you might want to do. The problem with ALL software is that in order to get the most out of it, you have to think along the lines of the developers. If you tinker with the way the program is supposed to work, sooner or later you'll run into problems.

Now, if you conclude that some softwae does not perform the way you anticipate, you can ask for help, or find your own way. To attack those who help (or try to help) is not called for. But, this is usenet, be ready for anything, and wear a flame retardant suit.

John:

You must get enjoyment out of arguing. I don't. I'm looking for solutions and want to find ways to perform financial tasks efficiently with the program.

Ok...I didn't prove it. That doesn't change the fact that Intuit removed the bills list by month functionality from the Bills tab and that Valic presently doesn't download.

I thought that it would be helpful to others to post my observations so that they may be able to confirm or point out a workaround or point out the error of my ways.

They don't have to prove anything. They expressed opinions. It was based on their early experience with the program. Since you don't have that program, as you have admitted, why do you doubt them? Why do you think they have to prove something? It is your logic that is faulty. Just like anyone else here, they are free to express their opinions, and don't have to prove anything at all.

Just my opinion.

-- Jim

The secret to excellent software is for the developer to think along the lines of the users. That can be done by observing them using it, or listening to their comments and complaints, then acting on that input.

I made it clear I was expressing MYopinion (that's partly why I mentioned not having Q2010); so: others are entitled to express their opinions, but I'm not?

Obviously no one can force a person to provide evidence; but without evidence, one certainly can't complain about someone disagreeing with them. I can provide strong evidence that it is not Q2010 that is preventing Valic users from downloading; it is Valic that is preventing Valic users from downloading.

If you don't like my opinion, you are entitled to refute it, but not to censor it. I have no problem if someone finds my opinions wrong and demonstrates the error. I also have made mistakes when commenting on versions of Quicken that I DO have. What does that mean in your logic?

On the flip side, I have helped people solve problems who were using versions of Quicken that I don't have over many years ... and that even includes Q2010.

How could I possibly do that, if it's so critical that I actually have the product? Here are a few hints: I understand the concepts; I have a good grasp of Quicken's "philosophy"; and what no one seems to have considered: I have already read hundreds of posts from folks that do have Q2010, including Intuit employees, beta testers, and others.

Obviously several posters in this thread haven't given the issue much thought, since no one has offered any evidence to prove my opinion was mistaken, but are fixated on the fact that I don't have Q2010.

The trouble with that theory is that all people don't think alike. There is no way to amalgamate all their wishes into a single product that perfectly satisfies everyone; people's desires are frequently contradictory.

Something that is (sometimes painfully) obvious, if you read all the posts on a product like Quicken.

Somebody has to have a view, a vision, of how things should work so that the greatest number of people will be able to get the most use from the resulting product ... and that's not going to be the users, directly. Their desires can, and must, be considered ... but someone else has to put it all together.

There never has been and never will be a product that satisfies everyone ... though almost every day, I read posts from some people who think that isn't so. If a product doesn't work the way they want it to, they call it a bad product ... they could care less that the thing they don't like, someone else loves; or that the thing they can't live without would cost so much money to provide that the product would fail to sell ... might even go out of business ... like Money. I believe that if some ex-Money users got what they wanted (Quicken to work just like Money), Quicken would follow Money down the drain much more quickly that it will otherwise.

I'm afraid there's a lot more to it than listening to users. Something by the way that I'm reasonably certain that Intuit does (and other manufacturers do too), but not only gets no credit for, but gets derided for the results of following up on those studies of user desires. A user only wants the developer to listen to "them", not to other users. When Intuit does a study and determines that a particular feature gets terrific responses from significant percentage of potential users, then implements that feature; there will be a chorus of users writing to say they have never seen anything so terrible, and how could Intuit possibly put that stupid feature in Quicken ... not realizing that Intuit already had good evidence that a preponderance of users would like it ... and not caring if most users actually liked it.

The people who bad mouth products get much more credit than they deserve; I think most of the folks that like a product do not bother to even read what others have to say, much less take the time to help prove them wrong.

My experience is that small software development groups like Intuit once was, often encourage the developers to listen to user input. As the product matures, and the group grows, the developers become more and more isolated from the total product, and the users. In some cases, developers are not permitted to speak with customers directly.

Eventually in many cases, some of the software development gets farmed out to China, India, or some other cheaper development location. Then, only one or two of the original group are retained to interface with the new developers. This further separates the developers from the users. At that point, in order to protect the intellectual property, each group of developers only sees the code for the part of the product that they maintain. That is when inconsistent interfaces start to appear. So, for example, you can see your bills for next month from one view, but from another view, you can only see this month.

Incomplete fixes get introduced, so downloads that were failing may start to work reliably, then be broken in a slightly different way with the next update, as I have experienced with the quote download problem that I have been seeing. It becomes harder to fix problems, as symptoms change with each update.

I'm hoping that the changes going on in Intuit leadership will get them once again working on Quicken, as it appears to have been neglected for several years. As recent versions have emphasized changes to appearance over functionality. Who knows, if they get their act together, they may even put in decent support for US Savings Bonds. But, for such a rarely held investment type, perhaps their just hasn't been any demand.

John, you have helped many people with their Quicken problems. Of that there is no doubt.

In this case, you responded to a post by "Bobster" who complained that with the new release, there was no way to see their bills for various months, when they had been able to move from month to month in previous releases. You didn't ask for evidence or input. You said that he was "premature and not indicative".

Then, you went on to say that no one had proven their point, and that others did not understand logic. You said "If you can't prove the claim, it doesn't matter what version you are using, or what version I am using."

You were not asking for evidence. You demanded proof.

No one tried to censor you. They and I simply asked why you took such a strong position on something that was just an opinion. Demanding proof, and calling other censors seems like a bit of a strong reaction, considering the original claims could very well be valid.

Because of your regular contributions, you seem to take an ownership position in this newsgroup, and in Quicken. You sometimes become defensive when it isn't necessary. That is much like another who shall remain nameless. He also used to help many Quicken users. I no longer see his posts. Maybe you are taking it too personally. Or, maybe not. That is for you to determine.

Jim:

I'm actually impressed with Intuit at the moment. I posted the same problems over on the Quicken Live site and three different employees (I'm assuming developers) posted replies to the Valic issue and one employee (who was clearly a developer) walked me through all of the workarounds for the bills issue and admitted that "we tried to make the product less complex by eliminating features that appeared in multiple places, but we may have gone a little too far in this particular case." He even then offered that "We'll take your feedback into account and we might address it in a patch or future release."

So, very unlike the response I received over here, Intuit seems to have deployed a team of folks to answer questions and listen to feedback on the 2010 product. Thankfully, Quicken has offered an alternative forum to this one.

Jeff

If you go back and re-read from the beginning of the thread, I think you'll see that by applying my remarks to the wrong posters and treating my remarks made in separate posts to separate posters as if they had been part of one reply to one poster, you have altered the context of my comments.

My first reply was not to Bobster and was not "strong", or defensive. I thought the two first posters (Bobster was not one of those) had not done much research when they commented; my own readings about Q2010 and previous knowledge of Quicken in general suggested they might be jumping to conclusions ("premature") and that their observations might not be representative of the product (not "indicative"). They sounded like first impressions that had not been followed up on; and I was suggesting they might have different thoughts if they spent more time researching. Nothing there for anyone to get excited about.

I said I did not have Q2010, in part expecting that either of those two posters could provide some evidence that they had attempted to look deeper, to prove me wrong or discover that I was right; or just ignore me, if they wished.

I was prepared to do more research, if they had indicated interest; and in fact, I did more research anyway. I already was reasonably certain, for example, that Q2010 was not preventing Valic users from downloading, and I subsequently found that confirmed by Intuit. I also had ideas about the Q2010 user interface - the new UI - and had some reason to believe that users could get the wrong impression if they were too quick to judge what they were seeing. People have reported things missing in Q2010, only to be shown that they weren't really missing after all ... they just weren't necessarily where users were looking, or they needed to change a setting or two to see them.

I wrote one mild sentence (that began with, "I think"); there was nothing malicious in it, and it was borne of my experience, knowledge, current readings and some educated guesing; I don't see anything in it for anyone to get upset about. If I was wrong, all anyone needed to do was to submit evidence demonstrating that I was wrong (or even evidence of having looked further into the matter) - oops there I go, looking for information again. But if one disagrees with me but can't, or won't, provide evidence to disprove my point ... why should one then get publicly upset with me?

Bobsters only statement (one sentence) in this entire thread was that I should not be commenting because I do not have Q2010; and that did get my hackles up: his comment was uncalled for (you made the same mistake). But my response to him conflated my reaction to his comment with the assumption that he was supporting the original two posters ... while not providing any evidence to demonstrate that they were correct in their conclusions. So I included comments in my reply to Bobster that probably just didn't belong, since my assumption may have been false. But my post was not a response to the two original posters, just to Bobster who, given the content of his only sentence here, isn't actually a part of the real discussion.

It's not possible to take any "ownership" of a newsgroup; and I haven't the desire anyway. If I wanted something like that, I'd be setting up my own web site, or blog, or what have you. There are one or two things that I am passionate about, and since I post frequently and am in the minority much of the time, I'm sure that it stands out. I publicly question certain of the explicit, and implicit, assumptions that have appeared in the hundreds of thousands of posts on Quicken that I have read (there are times when silence is tantamount to agreement) ... and naturally, people don't like their assumptions questioned. But that doesn't indicate that I think I own anything but my ideas: the only person I know I speak for is me; you won't find me acting as if I speak for others.

John P needs to stop eating cat food and get back on his meds.... This happens about once per month.