Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

It is time for the first major give-away on this site (ever).

Intuit was kind enough to contact me and send me 2 copies of  QuickTax Standard, which I will gladly give away (since I already bought a copy for myself before they sent me these (yes, irony is a good friend of mine)).

Legalities: Please note, I do use Quicktax (and Quicken) but the copies I have I paid for with my own money (more fool me), I think these are useful tools, but I am not being directly paid to run this give-away (in fact I am out of pocket because I have to ship it to you).  I do run advertising for Intuit to sell Quicktax, as you have seen over the past few weeks, but this give-away is not connected to those ads.

How can you win one of these free copies? Well, let’s first start out with some of the ground rules:

Free Software

Ground Rules

1. I assume  you are a regular reader of this blog, so all you need to do is leave a comment on this post with your e-mail address to enter (no mailing address needed yet, just an e-mail).
2. Given this software is for Canadian Taxes, you should really be a Canadian, or have a use for it (don’t just enter so that you can re-sell it on E-bay that is just scummy).
3. Your comment needs to have a good reason why you want this software (if you say you are having problems with the CRA and are thinking about going for a short airplane trip, you are disqualified), yes, I want it is a valid reason, but so dull. Also remember I have ANTI-SPAM filters on my comments, so if your comment looks like SPAM it might not get entered (or if you are a SPAMMER!).
4. If you subscribe to my feed, you will have my undying respect and your Karmic mojo will increase 3 fold (no, you don’t get another entry, but I figured I’d beg).
5. Feel free to TWEET this (remember I am on twitter as the BigCajunMan (see the button below), and if I see you tweet this, I will add another entry in for you).
6. I hope shipping this isn’t too expensive (no it is not going to go Fed Ex or overnight, it will go via Canada Post).
7. If you are associated with Intuit or are married/related to me, you are not eligible to enter.

Contest will close on Tuesday February 23rd at Midnight.

As it is almost Back to School that means that most of the virus checking software in my house is about to expire (maybe in  your house too? Better check). The entire virus scan/Internet safety/firewall industry seems to be at times running their own “shell game” on their customers.

In our house we have been using Norton Anti-Virus ( the 360 product) and it seems to work fine in terms of protecting us from viruses and such (whether the software is a huge system hog, I will leave to other folks to discuss). I bought the package last year for my daughter’s computer that she was taking off to University and it came with a 3 computer license (i.e. I can put this 1 piece of software on 3 separate computers), so I put Norton 360 on two other computers in our house (seemed like a good deal at the time).

Time has passed and the year’s subscription is about to expire, how do I know that? The Norton software kindly reminds me every day (when you are within two weeks of expiration), which is good for forgetful folks like me, to make sure our machines are not infected with nasty malware (remember if you are connected to the web, you must have protection).

The problem I have is these reminders aim me directly at a Norton web site, where I can conveniently use my credit card and my subscription will be renewed, however, the price I pay is much more than I paid for the 3 computer software the previous year. If I look at Best Buy, Tiger Direct, Future Shop or Staples on line I can see that I can buy the software “off the shelf” for less than this renewal fee, which I think is a bit of a dirty trick.

With this in mind I started looking around at the various Anti-Virus software out there, and I decided to change my allegiances for this year and try out McAfee’s Anti-virus type software, so I went out and bought a 3 license software CD, for much less than a single renewal with Norton, and it all seems to work just fine.

I realize that this kind of practice is attempting to catch Lazy consumers at their weakest moment (when they feel they will be inconvenienced by having to think or shop around) but it still seems like a dirty trick (my opinion).

You should run anti-virus software (unless your computer never ever connects to the Internet and  you never install software on  your computer), and I think most of the manufacturers do a good job with their product, so your major differentiating point must now be price, although check with friends in the know about whether there is any performance hits for installing the software is another good point as well.

I am happy with my decision (saved me about $100 at the end of it, if I had gone with the Lazy solution), but only time will tell whether McAfee is better or the same as Norton (but it sure was cheaper for me).

Today the CRTC will rule on whether the BCE takeover bid is ok by them today. This could make the stock either leap back up to the purchase price (if the banks involved honour their previous commitment) of $42.50 or if the takeover by the Teachers Pension Fund is turned down, it could drive the stock well below $30.00 a share, since the deal would effectively be dead at that point. Stay Tuned. As a BCE Shareholder I am hoping the CRTC is ok with the takeover bid (as a personal statement).

Child Tax Credit

With my daughter turning 18 this past month, my “Family Allowance” cheque now drops dramatically (to about a 1/3 of what I was getting), which is unfortunate, but understandable too. I am still astounded that I was getting this, but then again, I never complain when money is given to me (please keep that in mind if you have extra cash and you aren’t sure what to do with it, donations to me are always appreciated).

Free Crap

For some odd reason, a few printed book publishers seem to think that it is worth sending me FC (free crap) to see if I might review their books on my web site. As most of you know, I have a reading disorder (i.e. I don’t read much, I listen to books on CD mostly), but I got another free book yesterday. I will attempt to read it and see if it is worth giving away to one of you valued readers, so stay tuned, there might be a contest coming up soon.

Server Issues

Off topic, some folks may have noticed my site has been on and off the past few days. My serving site Dreamhost is having some internal issues, which they assure me will be remedied soon, so I apologize for any issues you may have run into, and I hope you continue on as a valued reader of my scribblings (or tappings or clickings).

You would think a company would go nuts trying to make sure it’s major cash input system was fixed quickly, but evidently not in the world of the CCRA, still no word on when folks can file their taxes on line, which is annoying, because I doubt they will move the deadline for filing out, which means more filings in a shorter time and more time to get back my refund! Grumble!!!

Canada continues to sell Petroleum distillates well, with our sales overall being almost 5% more than last year at this time. Where is this going? South and to China the two great Gasoline Guzzlers on the planet, as long as Canada can supply it, I think the Canadian economy will continue to rumble along happily (as long as we don’t get invaded for our Water and Oil by some neighbouring country, but that is for another posting, isn’t it ).

Commercial software prices continue to rise? Wait, isn’t the fact that software development is being sent to “cheaper” places like India and China supposed to lower these prices? No? Hmmm…. I always chuckle when I read software development managers talk about China and India as “developing” countries. These two countries are where “Civilization” as we know it started (effectively), yet they are “emerging” nations, makes me smile. Is it cheaper to have software developed in these countries? Yet another good posting coming real soon now folks, stay tuned.

Gasoline in Ottawa continues to hover around $1/liter, even though the problems with distribution have allegedly been resolved, interesting, so why does it cost so much these days? Canada is producing more, so are the Saudis, why does it cost so darn much? (rhetorical and sarcastic are both fonts that I need to figure out).

Yup it’s gonna be a rant-ful week! –C8j

Well Stats Canada thinks so:

The Commercial Software Price Index (CSPI) is a monthly series measuring the change in the purchase price of pre-packaged software typically bought by businesses and governments. The CSPI for December was 68.2 (2001=100), an increase of 0.3% from November.

Now this is only from the government or business point of view, so it isn’t the start of some great inflationary software spiral (I hope). What’s more interesting is that software has effectively dropped in price 32% over 6 years? Now that is a discount rate I’d love to see in things like house prices and such, but I guess that is really smoking the crack to think that.

Why am I writing about this? I work in the software world my friends and this always interests me, and I also use a lot of software in my day to day life and speaking as a Minuscule Business Person, I am not happy to read this either. –C8j