A free alternative to Quickbooks, at least for techies

I have been neglecting accounting for quite a while now. My wife and I have recently started two new businesses that will need two new accounting setups ... this was going to be too expensive with Quickbooks, which was charging us $80+ per month for two companies.

I tried Zoho, an Indian alternative that's listed at $9 per company per month ... but it seemed clunky and I wanted to find something else.

I wound up with LedgerSMB:

After using it for a day, I can see it as something I can make work for my businesses ... and my non-tech-capable wife. But do keep in mind:

1. It's a Linux thing; some of the documents say "If you get this working on Windows please let us know how you did it." It's supposed to work on Mac too, but I didn't try that. I installed it on a little Mint Linux machine I've had on my home network since last year, and that worked (mostly) fine.
2. There is a partial Docker setup which for those who are more Docker-capable than I am currently might be just the ticket. But for some reason they don't include Postgres in their Docker setup but require you to do that separately.
3. So I used the "quick install guide" ... which took most of an entire day. The programming language is Perl and there are a lot of Perl modules to install. The two Dumb Problems I had to overcome were:

• They recommend the "fast Perl web" thing Starman ... but the configuration file that runs it specified /usr/bin/starman when it was really /usr/local/bin/starman.
• They have a suggested setup with Starman reverse proxying to a web server: Apache or Nginx.
• I picked Nginx ... then they have this suggestion for Let's Encrypt, a free SSL cert setup from eff.org ... I tried that and used the "automatic Nginx" option that seemed to work. But when I tried to connect to the server via https, it didn't work. On investigation I found that the Let's Encrypt certbot does not work on a private IP address (as I use on my home network) ... and there is no error message saying that ... I eventually realized I just needed to do the self-signed certificate trick, and that was the last step getting it to work.

Usage requires more accounting knowledge than does Quickbooks; you need to know what account to debit and what to credit, for example. But there is a templating system to set up common transactions to be reused.

More details as I know more, but so far so good!

Peoples' Pharmacy quotes Lancet Study: Saturated fat is OK!

I recently came across some prime beef at Costco:

It was completely delicious, as I expected ... and a new study confirms accumulating evidence that it's better for my health than carbs!

Put down that Twinkie, soldier, and grab a burger (skipping the bun)!

Bon apetit ...

Why I started wearing a wristwatch again after years of not doing this

I was visiting my sister-in-law and her husband in Michigan last month. My father-in-law died in 2014 and my mother-in-law earlier this year, and my wife and my sister were going through some of their effects. This included a Timex Indiglo, which had belonged to my father-in-law:

It was still running ... and keeping nearly perfect time!

And ... I had just missed an Amtrak train from not having the time easily glanceable on my wrist, so ... I"m getting used to this again.

It "takes a licking and keeps on ticking" indeed ...

The 21st Century Bank Robbery: how to keep your Bitcoin stash from being part of it

Some friends and family have been accumulating various amounts of Bitcoin recently:

I just read a disturbing article on how easy it is to drain a bitcoin account that's set up with 2-factor authentication via text message.

One part of the solution: use other 2-factor authentication ... for example, Google Authenticator, which I already had set up on my phone for another site and which I easily added (just by scanning a barcode) to Gmail. I then removed the text-message authentication step.

Now all I need is a bunch of bitcoin! :-)

If you are keeping bitcoins, best not to let Coinbase or another exchange keep the keys for you. Keep the keys yourself ... I know this is all confusing, but a good book on the details is:

New bank refunds ATM fees ... and expects a tip!

I heard an advertisement for Aspiration on a podcast and wanted to try it:

They claim to refund all ATM fees worldwide, and in return they try to get you to give them a tip!

Sorry, bank, no can do ... Tips are going away even in restaurants so your timing in this is hilariously bad ...

But! Thanks for the ATM rebates as long as they last ...

Recent (2017) nonfiction I've enjoyed

I saw a review of this one somewhere:

This gives an extensive look not only at the government's use of these fringe subjects, but CSICOP and fellow travelers trying to debunk the whole subject. But the government has been using this stuff to get intelligence value it couldn't get any other way. So it does apparently work!

I mentioned this to a friend who suggested this one:

This is the story of a skeptical but open-minded psychologist who uses a map dowser to find a stolen object of her daughter, which prompts her to launch a years-long investigation of the subject. She also reports on the skeptics alliance and their opposition to such research. This section was the highlight of the book!

Another from Annie Jacobsen:

This give DARPA's background from its origin through the present day. Many know that DARPA is behind the Internet, but that's not its primary purpose: military technology. Jacobsen's final section on autonomous killer drones is especially good ... and scary!

Finally, another cautionary note, this from my favorite economist:

This one's pretty technical, but his point has always been that standard economic models don't capture the real economy. And his answer is, of course, no.

These four are well worth reading ... enjoy!

Audiobooks from the King County Library: my first experience

I've been a happy Audible subscriber for some time, typically with a subscription for 1 book per month. Occasionally I'd rip quickly through a book and take the 3-books-for-$35 deal they offer ...

But I recently tried my local library's audiobook system.  It's misleading:

It says "MP3" but it's actually a file ending in .ODM. A little Googling around shows that it works with a phone app called Overdrive:

It's a little bit strange to use, having you choose your local library and only then start downloading the book that you checked out. After you get it set up, though, it's terrific: automatically downloads several CDs worth of a book to your phone so you can play it all the way through without changing disks.

My first experience of this format was a book I read years ago:

I had previously learned that I tend to skim fiction and I get a fuller experience in audio, and this experience confirmed that analysis. I didn't remember half of the details, just the high-level overview.

So despite the slightly clunky interface, this is well worth trying ... I returned The Stupidest Angel so grab it quickly!