The Muse

I spend a lot of my day looking at a computer display — like most of you, I imagine. One of many considerations when spending a lot of time in front of a computer is eyestrain. Rest breaks (10 seconds looking at a far-off object every 10 minutes, for example) are good practice, and there are plenty of widgets and programs to remind you to do this – but what about reducing the causes on the computer’s end?

F.lux (Mac, Windows, Linux) does that. With the help of geographic location data and (if you use a Mac) the ambient light sensor, F.lux adjusts your screen to match the light in the room. This isn’t simply about reducing brightness. F.lux handles multiple factors (e.g. color temperature) to make your screen easier on the eyes.

Small changes such as this should go a long way in reducing eyestrain. I’m 27, I’ve worn glasses since middle school, and am just starting to adjust to contact lenses. My optometrist recently recommended reading glasses when working on the computer or reading to help take the load off my contact lenses. It’s a small change, but it’s helped my eyestrain. F.lux is one more tool in the arsenal.

        

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Today I played with the “tags” field in Moneydance. It’s the counterpart to Quicken’s “classes” field.

In Quicken, I had two classes for our two vehicles. I did that primarily to track fuel consumption, as I was curious to see the difference between my Accord and my wife’s Civic Hybrid. I didn’t put much thought into classes beyond those two. When I saw the “tags” field in Moneydance, I immediately thought of how I’m used to tagging things – Delicious bookmarks, Wordpress posts, iTunes songs, Journler entries, et cetera. That made the wheels start turning.

As of right now, I’ve added two tags: “vacation” and “fuel hedge fund.” Money I’ve pulled into a couple of savings accounts expressly for some upcoming vacation time is tagged…vacation. The fuel hedge fund is one of two automatic transfers to online savings (FNBO). As it’s an internal transfer (two Moneydance accounts), I can’t subcategorize it – so tags work perfectly. (The fuel hedge fund is the difference between the amount we’ve budgeted for gas and how much gas actually costs. I analyze this each month and adjust the transfer amount accordingly. This prepares us for price increases at the pump. I borrowed that idea from Ramit Sethi.)

Oh, about the fuel consumption – my wife spent about $1000 less on fuel last year than I did.

        

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I posted yesterday on my new finance tracking software, Moneydance. This is a follow-up post.

After transferring my accounts from Quicken to Moneydance, I spent a good bit of time making sure everything transferred correctly. Minus a few snags in my investment accounts, everything went smoothly.

Initial impressions:

• I find the home/root screen to be the most useful portion of the program, aside from my next point. Quicken was able to give me an accounts window, but it just didn’t provide the information in a meaningful way. Now I have one screen with my accounts grouped by type, a transaction calendar, investment watch, quick budget analysis, and reminders.
• Extensions make Moneydance the Firefox of finance software. Other users develop extensions to make the program better for them, which helps us all out. My favorite is the Credit Card Paydown Calculators. It calculates the payoff time for all active credit cards, given any sort of variable you want to throw at it.
• The interface has an OS X feel that Quicken could never muster. Moneydance is written for OS X, Linux, and Windows, and seems to have a native GUI for each platform.

This is $40 well-spent.

        

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After using Quicken for several years, I’ve come to the point where it’s no longer much use to me anymore. We have so many different accounts in our household (multiple savings, checking, investment, etc), and Quicken just doesn’t lay it all out in a way that is helpful. The last Mac version seems very half-hearted, and with Quicken, there’s no such thing as an upgrade. One has to buy the full version every time.

I’ve been looking for Quicken alternatives for a few days. I’ve tried a few and settled on Moneydance. As I get more familiar with the program, I’ll post my observations. So far, I’m impressed with its interface. I want to be able to see my financial health at one glance, then drill down for more specifics. This is exactly how Moneydance is set up.

        

fowlerjk life finance, money, software