CPA Firm Technology Blog

Is QB 2008 Not Working on Your System? A .NET Issue May be the Reason

A NON-SECURITY WINDOWS UPDATE THAT WAS DISTRIBUTED BY MICROSOFT THIS WEEK MAY CAUSE QUICKBOOKS 2008 TO STOP OPERATING.

If you're affected by this problem, when you launch QuickBooks you may see the QuickBooks Splash Screen for a second or two, but the software doesn't open. Or, you may see an error message referring to the Web Connector failing to initialize, and the software won't run.

This problem may also be affecting Lacerte and Pro Series software (not a good week for that to happen). This could also cause a problem for users who are trying to install QuickBooks on a computer that received this Windows update.

Do NOT uninstall and reinstall QuickBooks (and disregard any advice from a technical support person to uninstall and reinstall). This is not a QuickBooks file problem that requires reinstallation to cure.

The problem is a .NET 2.0 problem arising from this latest Windows Update.  Microsoft moved this .NET 2.0 Service Pack 1 into the “high priority and critical” section of Microsoft updates.  This means that more people updated than would have if it had remained lower in the priority sections.

If you're running QuickBooks 2008 on Windows XP, you can uninstall and reinstall .NET 2.0. If you're running QuickBooks 2008 on Windows Vista, you cannot uninstall and reinstall .NET 2.0, but you can fix it.

Step by step instructions on replacing or repairing .NET 2.0 for Windows XP and Windows Vista are available at the following URL:

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1009275

Gadget du Jour: Hot Swappable USB 2/SATA Drive Dock, Discussion of Virtualization

In October of last year, one of the big gadget sites (Engadget, link here) mentioned a SATA hard drive connector which permitted users to "dock" their 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive in a stand similar to the docking stands you can get for your iPod.  It was a nice concept, and since it was teaching season, I looked into ordering one.  At that time, the stand was $50, and the shipping was like $56 - clearly outrageous-  so I passed.  Fortunately, I wasn't the only tightwad geek who was desiring this nifty little toy, and Circuit City has picked up a version of it for their online store:

This device is a paltry $40 (before a $10 rebate which expires on 4.30), so it's on my short list for when I buy the next gadget for the office.  Unfortunately, I think I'm going to be slammed with the other new gear I'm expecting, as well as the configuration of my 1U Sharepoint server in the office so I can learn more about that technology.

I've also been working on Virtualization quite a bit lately.  I'm carrying couple of Western Digital 250GB 2.5" HDD's with me so I can have Virtual Machines to use when demonstrating various applications.  So far, I have the following apps in VM's:

• Full CCH ProSystem fx Suite of Apps
• QuickBooks 2008 and QBES 8.0
• Peachtree 2008 Quantum
• Office 2007
• Office 2003

I'm also collecting some nice VM's from vendors, including the Interwoven Worksite demo I got from them during a face to face in Chicago last week, and a Dynamics GP VPC which I have downloaded from the Microsoft Dynamics  partner site, aka PartnerSource (sorry, guys - it's Dynamics partners only).  Very, very cool.

The nice thing about working in a virtualized environment is that you can run it on a PC that doesn't have all of your programs installed.  Once I've made the full transition to VM's, if my laptop broken down, I could borrow or buy a new PC with lots of RAM and run all of my apps for teaching off of the virtual machines.

VM's aren't just for demos, though.  I ended up also using a VM for my production tax environment this year.  While I didn't do many returns, I wanted to go ahead and keep the app installation and configuration I had on my old laptop in XP Pro when I made the switch to a virtualized environment.  All I had to do was download a tool from the VMWare website which converts a physical installation of software on a physical hard drive to a virtual hard drive (VHD) file which can be used with the virtual hardware created by VMWare and MS Virtual PC.  While my tax software vendor said that my current year tax software was compatible with Windows Vista (which I'm using as the base OS on my two production machines), they were making no guarantees on the back year stuff.  I did read that some people were using back year versions of my tax software on Vista, but I decided to go ahead and stick with the XP installation, with the thought being that I would be better off not having to wrestle with the expected configuration issues when I tried to run these infrequently used yet eseential program on a Vista machine.

Until next time, happy trails from the road. 

(blogged from Atlanta Bread in W. Columbia , SC on the way to the K2 Team Confab in Savannah this week)

Mobile Broadband Kicks it Up a Notch

As many of you know, I am a loyal (paying) Sprint customer, and have used a variety of their cards since they rolled out EV/DO service about a year and a half ago. I am usually home a lot during the winter months, and have recently started venturing out of my winter hibernation cave to go back to my life of roaming the earth and through it searching for the best accounting technology. I have noticed a significant increase in the speed of Sprint’s mobile broadband service since I last talked about it last year. Where your average city would have a download speed of 500-700K and an upload speed of 70K last year, I’ve been seeing speeds of 1.7-2 Mbps down and 200K upstream. Since these are as good or better than those received by low end DSL, Ma Bell has to be shaking in her boots(!).

Last Result:
Download Speed: 2111 kbps (263.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 282 kbps (35.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1631 kbps (203.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 218 kbps (27.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 1654 kbps (206.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 220 kbps (27.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

BTW, I did these tests at 7:15A, a time when many road warriors are using their aircards to check e-mail and surf the internet in preparation for another busy day on the road. Website used: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

Google Announces Low-Cost HSIA

http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

BTW, happy April Fools day.