THE DROPBOX BACKUP EDITION
19 JANUARY 2012
EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM … BUT ONLY IF YOU HURRY
Discount Pricing on 2011 Tax Printers Ends Jan. 31!
What’s better than getting a good deal? Getting an even better one! But you must act now! Our special early bird pricing ends Jan. 31! Get a jump on tax season and order your Federal and State Club Tax Printers from ICLUBcentral today!
The software retails for $89.99 (a fraction of the cost of a professional tax preparation service), and many discounts are available. Order today if you want to take advantage of the lowest pricing. And remember — StockCentral members receive the lowest prices on the Club Tax Printer programs! For more information, visit ICLUB.com.
If you are like the wise owl and you already have your copy of the No. 1 tax preparation software for investment clubs, you can download the version for Club Accounting 3 from the ICLUB.com website, or click the Taxes tab in myICLUB.com to access the online version. CDs will ship later in the month. Keep your eyes on the Gazette for the latest updates!
On to more of this week’s headlines…
DON’T LET ALL YOUR HARD WORK BE LOST
Backup! Backup! Backup!
You’ve heard the mantra for real estate agents: Location. Location. Location. Computer users have their own mantra, and it goes like this: Backup! Backup! Backup! If you’ve found yourself procrastinating on this task, Sean Pulrang, a member of ICLUBcentral’s outstanding Support Staff, has just the “ticket” for you — and it’s free!
“I’m a little surprised with myself that I haven’t written anything about this before, but I was reminded today about the importance of making a backup that isn’t just to a folder on your desktop,” Sean writes in The Toolshed. “I’ve done a piece before (Support Ticket 14) on some standard steps for making backups with Club Accounting, Toolkit, and the online accounting.
"As Russell Malley noted at the time, it’s also a good idea to have a backup that doesn’t sit just on your computer. He suggested to e-mail yourself a copy of the file. While this is an excellent idea, the trouble (as with most exercise programs) is in keeping to your schedule. With that in mind, I’d like to suggest a piece of software I’ve recently started using on my computers, which is Dropbox.
“It’s a free service (up to 2 GB of storage) that allows you to make a backup both into their online servers, and also to other copies of the software. One of the nice touches about this is that the company has written editions of the software not only for Mac and Windows, but also for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and most of the phones using Google’s Android service.
“Aside from having the software available on a wide range of computers and devices, the thing I’m finding most handy about this is how it appears, and is used on the computer. When you install the software, it appears as a folder on your computer. Since Windows recognizes it as a folder, so does Club Accounting, and so does Toolkit. This means you can tell either one to make a backup to your Dropbox folder.
“The magic part of the software runs in the background, so as long as you have an Internet connection, anything you put in the Dropbox folder on your computer will get copied over to their server, and from there on to your other computer, phone, iPod, etc.”
For good measure, here is a link to the Security section of its website.
STOCKCENTRAL RATIO ANALYZER UPDATED
Issue of Updating Company Data Resolved
Here’s a hot-off-the-presses update from StockCentral founder Doug Gerlach:
“The StockCentral Ratio Analyzer is a tool designed to help you dig deeper into a company's financials in an easy-to-understand format. After we changed our data stream last year, we ran into problems with updating company data used in Ratio Analyzer, which we have just resolved. All of the changes are behind the scenes in the 'guts' of the program — the front-end user interface remains the same.”
Note: In the process, we have had to pull the Cash Flow Ratios section from the tool temporarily. We hope to have it restored in the next couple of weeks.
TODAY'S ENTIRELY RELEVANT QUOTATION
"Creating backups is like eating adequate servings of fruit and vegetables every day. ... Everybody knows they should.
But most fail to do so.”
— T.E. Ronneberg,
Sydney, Australia-based writer and Web developer