Blog'ins of Randy Hayes - All Comments

re: Can't Get Enough of that SBA - Sharing Templates

Robert Blanch — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 17:30:12 GMT

Please give Office Accounting 2007 Beta TR a try. You can download it for free from: http://connect.microsoft.com/OfficeAccountingBeta. The new version addresses a large number of issues and missing features in comparison with competitive products. There has also been the addition of some unique features for a product in this marketplace, and you will probably continue to see feature leadership in Office Accounting 2007 in a number of key areas going forward. With regards to the security issue with the Word templates, that will be addressed in the release version of Office Accounting 2007. It is not fixed in the BTR edition. You will be able to completely run the product without being an administrator. Note the problem only occurs for users wanting to modify the Word templates, since the product only reads from the directory under Program Files. Therefore the administrator role should only be required to modify the Word templates, but not use them properly within the product after the templates have been properly setup.

re: Can't Get Enough of that SBA - Sharing Templates

rhayes — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:03:18 GMT

In slight defense of Microsoft (which I hesitate to do since they violated their own rules), the only thing that is a problem is the user files they store in the Program Files folder. When looking at other accounting apps, they seem to require admin for a totally different reason (things in the machine registry, windows system files, etc.) - that is totally uncalled for.

SBA is a weak product in comparison to QB at this point. I personally believe it will change over time (hopefully a short time). What still attracts me to it is that it is a .NET application, it has a .NET based SDK, and it is SQL DB based. From an expandability stand-point, that is critical for implementing customer needs. As odd as it is to say, it is in a sense "non-proprietary". With QB, making a customer change, enhancement or improvement is near impossible, difficult at best.

Unfortunately, many of the "changes" that our customers are looking at - while easy to say, "sure that can be done" - are things that are already found in a competing accounting app. Hopefully that balance will change.

re: Can't Get Enough of that SBA - Sharing Templates

Joe Brinkman — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 06:34:28 GMT

What is it with small business accounting packages and requiring admin priveleges: first Intuit and now Microsoft. I really feel for you having to use SBA. I have used QuickBooks for a while now and tried SBA this spring. I found SBA was a real weak attempt at building a QuickBooks clone.

Link Listing - September 7, 2006

Christopher Steen — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 02:45:16 GMT

I have seen the light and it is called MbUnit [Via: James Avery ] Can't Get Enough of that SBA - Sharing...

re: Take two asprin and call it a day with SBA

Dan Kahler — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 13:25:17 GMT

Nice work getting that resolved! Install/reinstall situations like that are miserable. I had a similar experience this week installing Virtual Server 2005 R2. Although failure for my install was different - goofy permissions on an Xml2.DomDocument.4.0 reg key, which kept getting reset/corrupted during early stages of the Virtual Server setup routine - I couldn't get MSMXL 4.0 and 6.0 uninstalled and reintalled to fix the original problem without using RegMon. It's a godsend, and one of least 8 SysInternals tools are in my regular rotation.

Link Listing - August 31, 2006

Christopher Steen — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:38:48 GMT

"Beginning Ajax With ASP.Net" Released [Via: Michael Mahemoff ] Take two asprin and call it a day with...

Link Listing - August 30, 2006

Christopher Steen — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 03:30:39 GMT

Using the TreeView Control and a DataList to Create an Online Image Gallery [Via: ] SQL/.NET Job with...

Link Listing - August 23, 2006

Christopher Steen — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:11:54 GMT

SharePoint developer tips and tricks [Via: ] Great tips for getting the best performance out of your...