YNAB 3

Here's a great budgeting program that I have used for the past 2 years now (2008 and 2009). They are just getting ready to release a new version with some great features in it. The thing I really like about this is that it shows you a BUDGET, not just what you have spent. The YNAB program has a whole set of rules and such that "just make sense" and are similar to my money beliefs anyway of not spending more than you make or more than you have budgeted for.

If you sign up for their public beta you get a break on the software. If you help spread the word you could win a free copy too. At any rate, worth the price, this beats Quicken hands-down because of the budgeting and sure beats a spreadsheet--which is the way Jessie started with YNAB years ago.

You can view it all here.

Quick General Post on some technology

Hmm, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. Of course no one is reading, so it does not matter :-) Let's see what's new in my technology world in the last several months, here's a quick recap:

• Had unreliable home phone service with ViaTalk, so I switched back to Vonage. Much happier now, have actual and real customer service when needed! I talked them down quite a bit on the connection fees and such.

• Purchased a 4GB USB memory stick a while back, but jeepers, there are much larger ones that are affordable out there now.

• Spent quite a bit of cash on some upgrades for home. Got a larger monitor for the desktop and some new software. Purchased an HP Windows Home Server that I quite enjoy. I really like it for the backup capabilities of all of my home videos and photos.

• Looked into the new Intel i7 quad-core chips and thought of building/ buying a new desktop with one of these new powerful chips in it. Decided to wait a year until they come down in price.

• Looking into a laptop upgrade. I noticed a few people now have the "mini's" or the very small 7 to 10 inch screen laptops. They all say they enjoy the portability of these and the 'go anywhere' aspect. One guy at work got out his large, paper Franklin planner and it was larger than the mini that had exponentially more information on it.

• Looked into solid-state drives and where that is going with laptops. Decided I want to buy a 17-inch laptop sometime. The laptops seem to come with two drive bays now so I could get one with a 7200 RPM hard drive now and add a solid-state drive to it later. My laptop "wish list" got long and extravagant, so I'll wait on that for a while as well.

That's about the latest. If you are actually reading this, cool! Leave a comment about your technology questions or products, maybe it will inspire me with a new post, finding the time to write it is the challenge right now.