So I wrote a quick post about Money Plus a few days ago.  My main complaint on that post is that I could hardly find anything new that is worth upgrading for.  According to Money’s web site, all the “new” features are “Insight” this, “Insight” that.  It turns out insight is a separate executable that you have to run from the start menu.

It initially ran as a small icon in the notification area with an exclamation mark.  Hovering over it, I was told that I need to enter a password.  I entered a password and then was greeted with this dialog:

“To view information about your bills, spending, and cash flow, click the Insights icon in the windows notification area, at the far right of the taskbar. The icon will appear in the notification area whenever lnsights is running. You can set Insights to start automatically when you log on to windows so you that can quickly check your information at any time.”

I clicked OK to dismiss the dialog.  The taskbar icon changed to show the Money icon.  Click on it and you get the menu to show Insights, change settings or start Money.

Spending Insights shows you the thermometer bars for the categories you select to monitor closely

Cash Flow Insights shows you what’s going in and out of the selected account in the last 30 days.

Bills Insight shows you past due bills and upcoming bills.  Clicking on a bill opens up Money in the Bills Summary page with the clicked bill selected.

You can customize the Insights settings from the “Settings” link at the bottom of  every window.

I think the Insights feature isn’t that useful.  I would have preferred a Windows Vista gadget instead. 

Do you think Insights are useful?  Will you use this feature?  What would you rather see in the next Money?

note: don’t forget to read part 2 (link below).

I just upgraded my Microsoft Money Home and Business 2007 to the new Microsoft Money Plus (a new name for Money 2008). I got the Home and Business version as well and so far it looks identical. I actually had to go the help > about screen to confirm that I was running the new version. That’s how similar they are.

Oh wait, there is a difference, the “improved” background banking uses a huge chunk of CPU power (look at screen shot below). I had to kill the task and restart Money. To be fair the windows sidebar was using the other 40% and had to kill that too. But I haven’t had that problem before installing Money, so it’s safe to say that it is related to MS Money.

One thing I was hoping would be improved is speed/performance. Unfortunately, it’s the same problem as in 2007. For example, when I go to the business tab and click on Time Tracking, it is still dead slow in refreshing the screen – very frustrating.

Unless, I am missing something, I can’t see the reason to upgrade. I would say, save your money (real money). I am still going to buy it out of habit – I have been a Money user since 1995.

What do you think? Is it worth the upgrade? Do you plan on upgrading?

I love the new iPhoto and its new features, specially the organize by events feature. Very slick. Unfortunately, I still won’t be able to use iPhoto since it doesn’t support IPTC. I need the tags/keywords/metadata to live with the file and not in iPhoto’s internal database. This is very annoying as I would love to use iPhoto as my primary photo organizer.

I just bought my first mac a few months ago and also got an iPhone and I am starting to hate everything apple. Don’t get me wrong, I love their products and their designs but seriously a $600 phone without a tasker??? A photo manager that doesn’t read or write meta data to image files? COME ON!!!

I am starting to lean towards the conclusion that Apple’s stuff is great for beginners/dummies (no offense) but not for power/advanced users. It is very frustrating.

Digg this and hopefully someone at Apple will read it.

Look ma, no virtualisation window: at Tech.Ed Australia today, Microsoft showed its new “Softgrid” technology today that allows apps to run as if they were inside a second copy of Windows. But unlike traditional virtualisation apps, there’s no second Windows desktop getting in the way.

Microsoft jacks into the Softgrid | APC Magazine

I can’t wait to get my hands on this.  Does anyone know of similar existing product or where I can get Microsoft’s Softgrid?

[update] Here is a free for personal use virtualization software – Altiris SVS - from http://juice.altiris.com/node/86  I used it before on XP and it’s GREAT.  It says it’s compatible with Vista now, so I am about to install it and try it out.  Let me know what you think?