I made the decision when I came home for the holidays to only bring my phone and just type these posts up and upload them that way. However, it does lead to me having to type a lot on a much smaller screen with only my thumbs. I am not sure if I am secretly better with this keyboard though. Maybe I should somehow have tech guys at work hook me up with an iPhone style keyboard for work- it would possibly make me more effective.
I am somewhat amazed that Google has created really effective tools for being able do these from the cloud. I have been typing all my posts first on google docs. Even though I do have Microsoft Word on my laptop- it's much harder to move between devices. I guess I could potentially use Dropbox to transfer my documents, however, I don't know if I could get Word on my phone for free. I think perhaps the latest version of Office 360 works similar to how the Google docs and sheets work- but I don't have a subscription to that.
I know Microsoft has been working hard to reinvent their applications in order to compete with free solutions that people now have access to. In fact, I hope that whoever ends up with the Quicken software is able to follow a similar path. Currently the latest version of Quicken (2016) was released last week, but, back in August, Intuit announced they would be selling their Quicken product. It makes sense- as Quicken is basically a desktop application with a very limited mobile presence. There is an app to reach your information, and you can enter some basic transactions from your phone, but it needs to be routinely accessed on a real computer several times a week in order to actually work.
Intuit already has a similar personal finance cloud based product in place called Mint, so it call sell it lower revenue product Quicken, and no longer have to deal with supporting the product that users seem to love and hate all at the same time. My hope is the new owner can replicate what Microsoft has done for its Office product- making the Quicken product a more subscription based tool that automatically updates. Clearly the ideal would be for Quicken to be somehow like these Google applications which are available for use for free, but I don't see a company purchasing Quicken only to turn around and make it available only so it can sell ads in the margins.
The greatest thing about Quicken currently is that you can keep 100% of your financial information offline if you would like. It can function on a computer that never connects to Internet and function. In addition, your information is kept by you, which clearly has its pros and cons. I have no idea if using the internet based personal finance tools like Mint and Personal Capital mean you actually own your own financial information. I realize that may sound a bit preposterous, but if it can be ruled that you do not own your email if it is held on third party servers, can the same be said for finance information held in a similar manner? I guess the important technicality here is hopefully the software only accesses bank information, but does not host it. With Quicken, you keep your information on your computer, and back it up to hopefully some other location you also own.
All that being said- since maintaining your financial information is important, and the best product available to accomplish it is currently in a state of flux- I would suggest getting the 2016 variant while it's still is maintained by its original company. Then we can cross our fingers and hope Google buys it and makes it as easy to use across multiple devices as this blog is.
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