Greg In The Desert

Truth Or Consequences, NM blogger Mikey Sklar came up with a metal bowl and Alfa WiFi adapter
to scan for an open wireless networks when his internet went out.

We suffered from two disastrous outages last week. First a data line was cut somewhere north of TorC and south of Albuquerque. We had no cell service (AT&T) or any internet in all of town for a full work day. Nobody could use credit cards, ATMs, or even purchase gas. This was closely followed with our home internet connection dying. I called the cable company on day 3 to complain and they fixed it almost immediately. The issue was a dead amplifier used to boost the signal to all the trailer hookups on our property. In order to keep our sanity through this week of dead connections I rigged up a 1W Wi-Fi card to pickup the free internet signal in a nearby park about a 1/3 of a mile from my home. I was blown away to discover 50 other Wi-Fi networks being available at the same time. About 50% of those are open or using easily defeated WEP. I highly recommend picking up a 1W alfa card for less than $40. Now I just need a bigger dish. Works fine with all platforms and has a recent driver release for OS/X which makes it much easier to use.

I am setting at PDX (Portland International Airport) near my gate for a flight that leaves later today. I arrived this morning for quick work related business. Somewhere at the security checkpoint at Phoenix International Airport and boarding the plane to PDX I lost my ID.

I didn’t find this out until I was in my Rental car getting everything ready to drive off. It turned out to be a very stressful day. Obviously rental car companies will not allow you to drive off without a drivers license. I have to thank my good friend Mustafa for coming down to the airport to get me and take me to where I needed to do my official business.

He brought me back and I approached the TSA officer and told them I lost my ID at Phoenix. They took me aside, teased that the rubber hoses were over there, and asked to look at what I did have.

I pulled out everything in my wallet with my name on it, he looked it over and then I found my Costco card that had a picture on it. A crappy picture but it was something. That was it. No further pat down, not special baggage checks. I supposed bad guys don’t walk around with worn out credit cards, Costco cards, voter and library cards. He also quizzed me on some items in my checkbook.Despite the bad reputation TSA gets, I have never had a bad experience with any of the officers.

If they didn’t find my drivers license in PHX, I have a real pain to go through to get a replacement. That’s a story for another blog post.

If your like me and are a Quicken fanatic and are like me a Mac user, then you have most likely been anticipating the latest version of Quicken that was due to be released summer of 2009.

I have bad news for you. An Intuit Quicken blog post says that the next version of Quicken for Mac (Quicken Financial Life For Mac, or whatever they call it) is now slated for February of 2010. It was first supposed to come out in 2008, then 2009 and now 2010.

Intuit will release a new version of Quicken for the Mac platform in February 2010.

I don’t know why I’m having a hard time believing Intuit. They must have one programmer who is new to Mac programming working on Quicken for Mac.

The one killer feature that keeps me using Quicken 2007 is the integration with financial institutions. I can write checks and schedule transactions with all of the banks and credit cards I use and have all of my information in Quicken up to date. I almost never have to visit the individual website of any of these banks and rarely write a paper check.

There are a number of better application than Quicken for the Mac but none of them have this integration with banks that is a huge time saver.

I have attempted to sign up with Intuit to be a beta tester for years and have never been selected. They have a new program called Quicken Inner Circle that might get me closer.