It used to be that to begin working with Quicken, you had to hand-enter all sorts of information--a process so laborious that many people eschewed personal finance software altogether. Not so today: With Quicken 2004's Express Account Setup, all you have to do is select your bank (from a list of more than 2,000), supply your account IDs and PINs, and the software does the rest! All you really need, then, to start wrangling your finances immediately is this pint-sized project-based guide to the software! Rather than cover every last Quicken feature and option, veteran author Tom Negrino selects the quickest, easiest route to accomplishing a given objective-from setting up accounts and entering transactions to writing and printing checks, scheduling automatic bill payment, and securing loans-and presents it through full-page-width screen shots and simple step-by-step instructions. Throughout, you'll learn by doing as you complete the book's projects. By the end of the day, you will have mastered not just Quicken but your finances as well!
Hi. I've been writing about Macs, other computers, and software since dinosaurs ruled the earth. OK, it's actually been since 1987. I began writing for the late MacGuide magazine, and started writing for Macworld shortly thereafter. I was a Contributing Editor at Macworld from 1990 through 2004, when they noticed that I hadn't written anything for them in the past year (I'd been really busy writing books). We parted on good terms, and I still write for them. Over the years, I've also written for most of the other Mac magazines.
I wrote my first solo book in 1994, and wrote my first commercially successful book in 1997, JavaScript for the Web, Visual QuickStart Guide, written with my then girlfriend and now wife, Dori Smith. That book has been in print ever since, though we've revised it many times to match the growth of JavaScript and other Web technologies. As you can see on this page, I've written or co-written many more books, notably on Dreamweaver, Apple's Keynote, and the Microsoft Office programs.
In late 1999, we moved from the Los Angeles area to the Sonoma wine country. It's a better place to live in general and was a fine place to raise our son. Now that he's grown, it's just us and our very excellent cat, Pixel, who always makes an appearance in each book.
