Greg In The Desert

I purchased a reconditioned cordless Dewalt combo tool set (hammer drill, Circular Saw, Reciprocating Saw, Flexible Floodlight) well over ten years ago. The tools have been one of the best tool investments I made and they have performed perfectly over the years.

Except for the batteries. They no longer hold a charge and it’s time to replace them. My options are:

• New OEM batteries, throw out (recycle) the old batteries. A two pack of official DEWALT DC9096-2 18-Volt XRP 2.4 Amp Hour NiCad Pod Style Batteries from Amazon are $119 (about $60 each) and they hold 2100MAH of power.
• Have them rebuilt by someone like voltman batteries. They offer a higher capacity rebuilt NICAD battery of 3300MAH for $79.99 each.
• In 2007 Dewalt came out with the DEWALT DC9180 18 Volt Nano Tech Battery Pack. This battery is a replacement Lithium Ion battery that work in older Dewalt tools like I have. At Amazon, one battery costs about $111 (and I will need to buy a new charger).

I do not buy things on price along. So what performance metrics can I look at?

Comparing the two NICAD options, the rebuilt NICAD batteries are a better deal since I would be getting considerable more amp-hours for a little more money. Plus, I already have the chargers so there are no additional expenses.

Comparing the NICAD vs the Lithium Ion, the Lithium Ion weighs less than the NICAD. I love my Dewalt tools but they are heavy and the NICAD batteries are about 2.5 lbs vs 1.5 for the Lithium Ion batteries. Eliminating a pound off the weight of the tool would be good my tennis elbow.

For other performance information on NICAD vs Lithium Ion, I found a helpful FAQ on the Digital Reality Crew forums which has some comments from an experienced user. A few things I’ve noted is that the Lithium Ion battery will not loose power while being unused where a NICAD will, the Lithium Ion has slightly less capacity than the NICAD and the NiCad battery will fade as it looses power but the Lithium Ion will just shut off.

Based on this information I am heavily weighted toward the Lithium Ion option (one with a battery charger). Is there anything else I should consider?

I have a love/hate relationship with Quicken. I love it’s features and capabilities, I hate it’s bugs and UI and poor quality from Intuit. Looks like they are addressing these issues. ArsTechnica visited the Intuit booth at Macworld and found a whole new Quicken like application called “Quicken Financial Life for Mac”.

The 1.0 release will focus on core features: cashflow, downloading, taxes, budgeting. It will not work well with investments, being limited to tracking your holdings. As an example, I own 1000 shares of Apple (I wish), and that’s worth $180,000 or whatever it is at the end of the day after downloading security info. Why the feature retrograde? Because QFLM is a whole new application—Cocoa from the ground up. It’s a Universal Binary that takes advantage of Leopard… though I forget to ask if it is Leopard only. I’ll update on on that. Intuit is currently looking for beta testers, so now is a good time to sign up… somewhere. You can do it here. It’s your fault for not being here.

They say it’s not feature comparable to the current version of Quicken, but it seems to have the features I’m interested in. I would sign up to be a beta tester if I could figure out where. I’ve signed up many years before but they have yet to ask me.

I’ve been a long time user of Intuit’s TurboTax (formerly MacInTax). 2 years ago I paid a tax consultant a lot of money to have them save me no more than TurboTax would have, therefore I love it even more. I have a lot of tax “situations” that require I use all kinds of funky forms but TurboTax makes it easy for me to understand the various options.

I’m aware that Intuit has been blasted for their policies. I can’t disagree with those criticisms, but there’s really isn’t any decent competition. Nothing beets Quicken on the Mac. H&R Blocks Tax Cut makes a good attempt with their tax software but it’s still not quite there.

You can get a pretty good price if you order via Amazon, where I just did. Here’s the differences between the various flavors of TurboTax.

TurboTax Premier 2004 Win/Mac ($69.95 – $20 mail in rebate) – It includes everything in Basic, plus extra tools and tips for maximizing tax savings, including investments, Schedule C business taxes, 401(k) plans, and rental property.

TurboTax Deluxe 2004 Win/Mac ($39.95 – $10 mail in rebate) – Basic gives you the extra guidance you need to claim more deductions ? and reduce your risk of an audit.

TurboTax Basic 2004 Win/Mac ($19.95) – 1040EZ.

If your just filing the 1040EZ, you can likely skip the $20 software and file for free. But if you need to fill out the long form the software is worth the investment, and you can write it off for the next years tax return. Also check out Yahoo’s Tax site for some other alternatives.