An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

Most of you may not know it, but there's a whole world of apps out there that are slowly making their way onto the N900 from unexpected directions (ie not the OVI store.)

I recently was looking at solutions for moving away from Quicken, which I've used for years to manage my finances. Sadly, they're more interested in charging me (and my bank) for access to their "special" middle-man data servers than providing updates and features that would get me to buy the new version. Instead they started building planned obsolescence into their programs so one has to update every three years, weather they add features or not. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for something, but I'm continuing to shell out money on a repeating basis, I expect new features or fixes.

I looked at Homebank, GnuCash, and a slew of others, and finally found MoneyDance. It's nice, does what I want, and doesn't have a built-in self destruct timer. One other nice feature is that it's entirely written in Java, and runs on any platform Java runs on, including Linux, Mac, Windows, or the N900! All I had to do was install IcedTea6 from extras and untar the linux-based tar-ball from their site.

As you can see, it looks a little crunched on the screen, but there's something to be said for being able to have a full featured money management suite you can pocket and take with you. Plus their licensing scheme is flexible, so one license will cover your desktop(s) and your portable(s) for one user. They also have pgp encryption options to protect the data file, and the same data file can be used across platforms (so putting it in MyDocs and sharing via USB works fine).

This is one "app" you won't find in the OVI store, and it's not targeted at the N900, and requires no changes to use it. But it is one more example of what makes the N900 shine when it comes to freedom of choice.

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

Good day woody14619!

Could you help me? How do I run the MoneyDance the N900?

I have already installed the application manager at icedtea6, already downloaded the Linux's website MoneyDance and uncompressed. But still can not run the program. How should I proceed? :confused:

Grateful.

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

First thing, where did you uncompress it too? I would suggest using xterm on the device and uncompressing the tar file directly into a folder in /opt. On my N900, I extracted it to /opt/moneydance

Then in xterm, you can just try running /opt/moneydance/moneydance and it should work just fine. I have a shortcut on my desktop by copying an existing shortcut and editing it with a text editor.

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

Woody14619 Hello!

Thank you for your feedback, but I have to bother you again. I did the steps instructed, unpacking the file in / opt / MoneyDance. But I am not able to run the / opt / MoneyDance / MoneyDance.
To run the file, I used the following command:

/home/opt/Moneydance # ./moneydance

But it is returning the following error:

/home/opt/Moneydance # ./moneydance
Preparing JRE...
Bin/unpack 200: Line 1: Syntax error: “(“unexpecter)
Error unpacking jar files aborting.
You might need administrative priviledges for this operation

How I know nothing of Linux, if you can help me, I shall be very grateful.

Have a nice day!

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

Well, I'll be! I've used Moneydance for years on my desktop machines but never thought to try it on the N900. That's pretty cool. I'm going to have to give it a go when I get home.

This would have come in handy when I was on travel for several weeks a while back.

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

Did you install some other java vm? I never see "Preparing JRE..." Try the following command:

The reply should be:
If it's not, then you have some other java runtime installed. You may have to re-install icedtea, and/or remove the other java package? When you got Moneydance, did you get the Linux version, without any Java runtime packages? Because that's what you want, not one with the runtime stuff...

@bobh: It's nice, the only real problem with it is you can't right-click, so some of the items in the context menu are hard or impossible to get to (like show matching transaction) turns out you could always do this, see below. But most of the functionality is there, like adding transactions, viewing history, etc. Great for entering check data on the road, and checking balances with auto-update. :)

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

you need make moneydance a executable!
use WinSCP
go to "opt"
and right click on money dance folder
properties
don't change group, owner value!!!!
change only the 2nd and 3th red square
sorry for my English
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/541/25218070.jpg

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

You can't right click (press and hold untill it changes from left to right click) in java progs?

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

No.. Not unless they code the app to work that way specifically, using Maemo extensions.

But there's a work around in Moneydance for ledger items: If you want to get the right-click context menu, you can select the item you want to right click, then click on the header up/down arrow set. It's highlighted in the screen shot attached.

Re: An alternate "app" for money managment on the N900
 

first of all, thank you woody for brining this application to the forum's attention. i am however having some problems in regards to it's stability. i can execute the program alright and it seems to run ok; the problem is that it seems to like to quit frequently, usually by clicking on a menu or trying to access account information. this happens about 90 per cent of the time making this application almost unusable. i was wondering if anyone else is/had been experiencing similar problems and if so, what they have done to overcome them. thanks in advance.

btw, my
returns
and i am using Moneydance 2010r3 (build 757)