[geeks] a warning to the self assured

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, Brian Hechinger wrote:

> if it can be made so that it is useful for both business and personal finances
> (i have no use for business, for example) and will have a companion PalmOS

There's really no difference, except that you don't have to deal with payroll,
AR, and AP.  But, if you want a checkbook-keeper instead of accounting software,
this won't be what you want.

> app that i can run on my handspring, it would RULE.  Quicken does this, but
> i don't run windows, i need a unix version.

The goal is accounting as a service.  Sort of like how you have a web server
and a mail server, you'll have a money server (or server hive).  I'll probably
do the initial frontend in Java just because the company that's paying[1] me
to do this needs Windows and Mac and Unix frontends.

I'll probably also do a web-enabled frontend but I'm categorically opposed to
web-based applications that really don't need to be web-enabled.  I might just
leave that as an exercise for the reader.

A Handspring frontend wouldn't be difficult, but you'd have to be connected
to the 'Net, and I'd have to (or someone else would have to) port OpenSSL or
an equivalent library to PalmOS.

Now, realize I'm talking about at -least- a year down the road here.
Probably longer, as I plan on resuming college in August.

--Jonathan
[1] For tiny values of "paying".  It boils down to them prepaying for a
    license to help fund the development.