Denali 5000?????

[Banister Stairwell]

I received the following email today...

*************************

Dear QuickBooks Customer,

Welcome to the _Denali 5000!_ "Denali" is the codename for our next version
of QuickBooks, and we are asking 5000 of our QuickBooks drivers to take
Denali ONCE around the track! By participating in this test, you will _help
us make QuickBooks better, get a sneak peek at the next version of
QuickBooks, and have a chance to win your choice of a 7-day trip to Hawaii
for two, a 42" plasma TV or $2,000 in cash!_

To participate in this test, you will need to download and install the Beta
version of QuickBooks, update a copy of your current QuickBooks data file,
do a few activities and then complete a short survey. You will then
uninstall the Beta version and continue using your existing version of
QuickBooks. For most participants, this will take 30 to 60 minutes. In
case you experience any difficulty, we will have a team of support engineers
available to help you.

If you are interested in helping us with this field test, please click on
the link below to complete an online Non-Disclosure Agreement for
pre-release software. You will then have access to The Denali 5000 website
where you can download the software. Because of the large file size, high
speed internet access is required. The Denali 5000 is open to current
QuickBooks for Windows users only. The online survey is the official entry
form for the sweepstakes drawing, and only the first 5,000 users who
complete the online survey are eligible for the sweepstakes drawing.

Click this link: http://beta.intuit.com/D5KSU/default.html. If clicking on
the link doesn't work, please cut and paste the website address into the
Address field in your browser.

Thank you for helping us make QuickBooks a better product for you and the
millions of other QuickBooks users!

-- The QuickBooks "Denali" Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. This notification service is not
designed to respond to e-mail inquiries.

A single prize will be given away to one Grand Prize Winner. The Grand Prize
Winner will select one of the following three prizes: a 42" Plasma Screen
Television, or a trip for two to Hawaii, or a cash prize of two thousand
dollars ($2,000). To see the contest rules, click this link:
http://beta.intuit.com/D5K/content/readme.cfm. If clicking on the link
doesn't work, please cut and paste the website address into the Address
field in your browser.

***************************

This reeks of an email phishing scheme.

"Dear QuickBooks Customer," sounds a lot like "Dear PayPal Customer," or
"Dear Ebay Customer," or "Dear Washington Mutual Customer,"....you get the
picture.

For one thing, I don't even use Quicken, much less QuickBooks. I've
subscribed to this newsgroup just long enough to post this and see what the
story is with this thing.

 

[Allan Martin]

I received the following email today...

*************************

Dear QuickBooks Customer,

Welcome to the _Denali 5000!_ "Denali" is the codename for our next
version of QuickBooks, and we are asking 5000 of our QuickBooks drivers to
take Denali ONCE around the track! By participating in this test, you
will _help us make QuickBooks better, get a sneak peek at the next version
of QuickBooks, and have a chance to win your choice of a 7-day trip to
Hawaii for two, a 42" plasma TV or $2,000 in cash!_

To participate in this test, you will need to download and install the
Beta version of QuickBooks, update a copy of your current QuickBooks data
file, do a few activities and then complete a short survey. You will then
uninstall the Beta version and continue using your existing version of
QuickBooks. For most participants, this will take 30 to 60 minutes. In
case you experience any difficulty, we will have a team of support
engineers available to help you.

If you are interested in helping us with this field test, please click on
the link below to complete an online Non-Disclosure Agreement for
pre-release software. You will then have access to The Denali 5000
website where you can download the software. Because of the large file
size, high speed internet access is required. The Denali 5000 is open to
current QuickBooks for Windows users only. The online survey is the
official entry form for the sweepstakes drawing, and only the first 5,000
users who complete the online survey are eligible for the sweepstakes
drawing.

Click this link: http://beta.intuit.com/D5KSU/default.html. If clicking on
the link doesn't work, please cut and paste the website address into the
Address field in your browser.

Thank you for helping us make QuickBooks a better product for you and the
millions of other QuickBooks users!

-- The QuickBooks "Denali" Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. This notification service is not
designed to respond to e-mail inquiries.

A single prize will be given away to one Grand Prize Winner. The Grand
Prize Winner will select one of the following three prizes: a 42" Plasma
Screen Television, or a trip for two to Hawaii, or a cash prize of two
thousand dollars ($2,000). To see the contest rules, click this link:
http://beta.intuit.com/D5K/content/readme.cfm. If clicking on the link
doesn't work, please cut and paste the website address into the Address
field in your browser.

***************************

This reeks of an email phishing scheme.

"Dear QuickBooks Customer," sounds a lot like "Dear PayPal Customer," or
"Dear Ebay Customer," or "Dear Washington Mutual Customer,"....you get the
picture.

For one thing, I don't even use Quicken, much less QuickBooks. I've
subscribed to this newsgroup just long enough to post this and see what
the story is with this thing.

I received the same e-mail. The fact that a Google of "Denali 5000" does not
come back with any reference to QB leads me to conclude that this is a
farce.

 

[chris_rabourn]

I am the program manager in charge of "Denali 5000" and I can assure
you that this is a legitimate request from Intuit. In an effort to get
5000 people to participate in this exercise, we are offering one lucky
winner a choice between a trip for two to Hawaii, a 42" plasma TV, or
$2,000 in cash.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at
(e-mail address removed) or call me at 650-944-2635. We look forward
to seeing your feedback!

Chris Rabourn

 

[Golden California Girls]

someone from intuit actually reads this ng?!!!

Am I having an out of body experience?

Does this mean that you are going to fix all the hundreds of bugs and problems
discussed here?

Thought so. Same answer as if the offer is strictly legit.

 

[coyboy]

I can vouch for the authenticity of the offer and yes Intuit employees
are watching and sometimes replying to messages in this forum.

 

[Ken]

What a neat idea to send the invitation to non-QB users! One can just
imagine the advertising spiel: Tested by 5000 specially selected beta
testers to ensure that you get the very best!

I'll bet, though, that not one user who has had the temerity to point
out any shortcomings in QB will receive an invitation. This is
probably the only basis for selection: Exclude those who may say
something true and nasty. Keep one's head firmly buried in the sand so
the advancing MS hurricane can be ignored a little longer.

Ken

 

[coyboy]

Actually Ken, we want users of all experience levels to participate in
this beta testing process. One of the requirements for beta testing a
product is that suggestions be submitted. We're not looking for users
to say everything is perfect. We value our customer suggestions AND
complaints. We want to find out how to improve the product so that it
better meets customer needs. The new Denali version 2006 is vastly
different from prior versions and we want your input to make it the
best it can be. The invitation is open to all. Here's a link to apply:

http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/webx/betatesters.html

 

[Guest]

We value our customer suggestions AND
complaints.

Here are some of those and I don't need to participate in any beta.

It is unthinkable that a database related application has such severe
limitations in terms of reporting (at least). In real life people
need to see their data and put it on a piece of paper however it fits
their needs and after 30 years of computer software development it is
surprising for an application like Quickbooks to be such woefully
inadequate in allowing a user to do all kinds of simple and sensible
reports.

It is inexcusable that a report on Vendor Open Bills cannot show a
column for Customer:Job. This cannot be a simple oversight because in
the previous 2 or 3 versions there have been all kinds of irrelevant
fields added in the selection list of the Modify Report window
resulting in a confusing mess of dozens of fields that most of the
time have nothing to do with the report being modified.

So, putting aside for a moment the issue of only showing available
fields that have relevance in the report being modified, what is it
that prohibits a QB developer from adding a Customer:Job field in a
Vendor Open Bills report? Whatever it is it must be something that
depends on the inadequacy of the basic software design of Quickbooks
and not something that can be corrected or added easily.

If the new Quickbooks versions start using a more sensible basic
software design built on a simple relational database model and not
an archaic convoluted mess of a flat file database that is now, there
may be hope that you can provide a useful software product for
bookkeeping otherwise trying to get user feedback on which patches
upon patches upon patches upon patches should be added on the next
version is useless and a waste of everyone's time and effort.

You don't need a beta to know that a bookkeeping program should be
able to sort correctly. Quickbooks doesn't. You don't need a beta to
know that you should stop letting inexperienced people mess up the
user interface and force thousands of people to change the way they
use the program for no apparent reason. Why were keyboard shortcuts
deleted in a previous version "upgrade" ? Was that the result of user
feedback? Unlikely.

It will be very useful for everyone, developers and users alike, if
you start with the notion that users have common bookkeeping needs and
*then* apply your knowledge, talent and resources to meet them with
Quickbooks, rather than having completely inexperienced people coming
up with some inadequate software feature and then asking for feedback
for potentially improving it.

The bill payment process in Quickbooks is another example. Who sits
down to do bill payments in a way that the bill payment window is
useful? Nobody! And even if someone does, he/she probably has 5 bills
to pay per month. Where is the Customer:Job field or the Memo field so
that a user can tell which bills to pay by Job? Not all people do bill
payments by date, especially in Construction, an industry that Intuit
has chosen repeatedly to promote Quickbooks for.

Why not open a Bill Payment window, type in a Vendor name and see all
open bills for that Vendor, along with the all important Memo and
Customer:Job field, two fields that are ignored repeatedly in many QB
windows and reports. Or why not enter a Bill and have a button to pay
it immediately?

These are examples of very important features that are missing in
Quickbooks. And instead of coming up with something half baked and
having betas to get feedback, it would be better to start with what
users would need to do their job *and then* develop the software
features to meet those needs.

In any case, continuing to use the existing Quickbooks data structure
will make any worthwhile improvement impossible to implement, and I'm
pretty sure you know this better than me.

A data structure that takes a 185MB for a data file in version 2004
and converts down to a whopping 85MB in Enterprise 2005!!! is a
blatant display of inefficiency. Why all this tremendous waste? No
beta will ever be able to address this problem other than Intuit's
choice to put some priority in product quality instead of unnecessary
software bloat.

Why do reports have to refresh when a user changes the header? Why
isn't a header accessible with one click as before? Why can't report
filters be put on report headers automatically? Why do cash basis
reports take so long to complete? Are they searching through tons of
irrelevant data (see previous paragraph) wasting everyone's time for
nothing? Why do P/L reports have *different totals* when they show
just totals compared with when they're broken down by Job? It used to
be fine up to version 2001 I think.

Intuit can't fix these problems and dozens of others with betas. You
have to ask people what they need to run their business, then you have
to develop features to meet those needs and then you can use betas to
see if you met your goals. At this point Quickbooks is so inadequate
at it's core that any additional patch work is a waste of time.

===

 

[Ken]

The spiel at the provided link invites one to apply to become a member
of the beta test team but cautions "This is a very popular test so
please understand that applying for this test does not guarantee that
you will be selected for participation." The expected commitment is to
"actively use each version of the software when I receive it. I will
complete activities, as instructed, throughout the duration of the
test."

Presumably the new beta version is a US version and therefore users of
the UK version, such as myself, are not suitable applicants.

May I take it too that the basic design has already been decided, and
beta testers are essentially merely being sought to test the decided on
design and not to point out long-standing design flaws? For example,
the oft-heard wish, nay need, for the ability to:

1. set default options on menus, and

2. modify the default QuickReports

have either been heeded or not in the new design, and there would be no
point in beta testers re-iterating the need for these features. If my
assumption is correct, you are looking for rather low level input, and
this may not be of great interest to many users who really could have
helped you design a top quality product. Tell me if I am wrong.

Ken

 

[Allan Martin]

The spiel at the provided link invites one to apply to become a member
of the beta test team but cautions "This is a very popular test so
please understand that applying for this test does not guarantee that
you will be selected for participation." The expected commitment is to
"actively use each version of the software when I receive it. I will
complete activities, as instructed, throughout the duration of the
test."

Presumably the new beta version is a US version and therefore users of
the UK version, such as myself, are not suitable applicants.

May I take it too that the basic design has already been decided, and
beta testers are essentially merely being sought to test the decided on
design and not to point out long-standing design flaws? For example,
the oft-heard wish, nay need, for the ability to:

1. set default options on menus, and

2. modify the default QuickReports

This is the first time I have ever heard about the above and to be honest
don't care if they ever become features.

have either been heeded or not in the new design, and there would be no
point in beta testers re-iterating the need for these features. If my
assumption is correct, you are looking for rather low level input, and
this may not be of great interest to many users who really could have
helped you design a top quality product. Tell me if I am wrong.

You are correct. You don't

 

[Golden California Girls]

Actually Ken, we want users of all experience levels to participate in
this beta testing process. One of the requirements for beta testing a
product is that suggestions be submitted. We're not looking for users
to say everything is perfect. We value our customer suggestions AND
complaints. We want to find out how to improve the product so that it
better meets customer needs. The new Denali version 2006 is vastly
different from prior versions and we want your input to make it the
best it can be. The invitation is open to all. Here's a link to apply:

http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/webx/betatesters.html

"Vastly Different"

Want to tick off some features?

Does it now correctly keep cash basis books? Or are you going to put a
disclaimer on the box? That it can't be used to keep cash basis books.
You would tend to think that an accounting program would keep the books
correct as input, not spit out useless garbage, but I realize your
priorities on what need to be fixed are much different than your users.

Do the attached Internet services (banking, payroll, merchant, invoice and
bill payment) of this version require early sunset of all prior versions?
We understand you have to keep all those customer service employees in New
Delhi on full employment.

Has it's interface been so mucked up that all users will have to go back
to class to get any work done? You have to add value to the Pro Advisor's
or they'll recommend the competition.

Have you changed the forms so much that we have to buy new checks only
available from Intuit to use it? We know you have got to make money, with
recurring fees.

Did you finally dump the flat file database engine and need to know if
5000 people at random can convert their files to a true client server 'nix
based multi-user relational database? Now that would be exciting news and
reason to join a beta test.

Frankly I wish Intuit would grok [1] Bruce Tognazzini; Then take a healthy
dose of NBS Special Publication 500-75 Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 80-600199. When I see this in the product, I'll have confidence in
it. Until then, I'll continue to think it is being designed by the
marketing department and implemented by the janitorial department.

Come on, spill a little.




[1] See "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein.

P.S. Sorry if this is harsh, it is just I'm forced to use your product day
in and day out and this is what happens to my personality because of it.
Frankly I'm wondering if I should talk to a lawyer about a class action
suit because of the personality change I've experienced by having to use
your substandard product.

 

[Allan Martin]

Actually Ken, we want users of all experience levels to participate in
this beta testing process. One of the requirements for beta testing a
product is that suggestions be submitted. We're not looking for users
to say everything is perfect. We value our customer suggestions AND
complaints. We want to find out how to improve the product so that it
better meets customer needs. The new Denali version 2006 is vastly
different from prior versions and we want your input to make it the
best it can be. The invitation is open to all. Here's a link to apply:

http://www.quickbooksgroup.com/webx/betatesters.html

"Vastly Different"

Want to tick off some features?

Does it now correctly keep cash basis books? Or are you going to put a
disclaimer on the box? That it can't be used to keep cash basis books.
You would tend to think that an accounting program would keep the books
correct as input, not spit out useless garbage, but I realize your
priorities on what need to be fixed are much different than your users.

Do the attached Internet services (banking, payroll, merchant, invoice and
bill payment) of this version require early sunset of all prior versions?
We understand you have to keep all those customer service employees in New
Delhi on full employment.

Has it's interface been so mucked up that all users will have to go back
to class to get any work done? You have to add value to the Pro Advisor's
or they'll recommend the competition.

Have you changed the forms so much that we have to buy new checks only
available from Intuit to use it? We know you have got to make money, with
recurring fees.

Did you finally dump the flat file database engine and need to know if
5000 people at random can convert their files to a true client server 'nix
based multi-user relational database? Now that would be exciting news and
reason to join a beta test.

Frankly I wish Intuit would grok [1] Bruce Tognazzini; Then take a healthy
dose of NBS Special Publication 500-75 Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 80-600199. When I see this in the product, I'll have confidence in
it. Until then, I'll continue to think it is being designed by the
marketing department and implemented by the janitorial department.

Come on, spill a little.




[1] See "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein.

P.S. Sorry if this is harsh, it is just I'm forced to use your product day
in and day out and this is what happens to my personality because of it.
Frankly I'm wondering if I should talk to a lawyer about a class action
suit because of the personality change I've experienced by having to use
your substandard product.

Not that I want you to get rich, but I will testify on your behalf that you
are not a likable person.

 

[coyboy]

I definately grok (also a Heinlein fan) what you mean, golden girl.
Unfortunately, I am proscribed from enumerating any new features of the
Denali version of QB's as it has not yet been released. I would just
encourage you to apply for beta testing to find out for yourself and
then you will be able to get your feedback directly to the product
development folk. Plus, at the end of beta, you will get a free copy of
the release version.

 

[Golden California Girls]

I definately grok (also a Heinlein fan) what you mean, golden girl.
Unfortunately, I am proscribed from enumerating any new features of the
Denali version of QB's as it has not yet been released. I would just
encourage you to apply for beta testing to find out for yourself and
then you will be able to get your feedback directly to the product
development folk. Plus, at the end of beta, you will get a free copy of
the release version.

I would but for one little problem. Company policy strictly forbids the
installation of beta software. It's a firing offense, without written
permission. And they won't let me take the company file home because that
is a different kind of security risk. I hope Intuit can get enough people
in the class that have enough IT smarts to ban beta software, because I
think these would be your highest quality data points.

 

[Allan Martin]

I would but for one little problem. Company policy strictly forbids the
installation of beta software. It's a firing offense, without written
permission. And they won't let me take the company file home because that
is a different kind of security risk. I hope Intuit can get enough people
in the class that have enough IT smarts to ban beta software, because I
think these would be your highest quality data points.

Give us a break. No one would actually run the beta version on their actual
production system.

 

[Golden California Girls]

Give us a break. No one would actually run the beta version on their actual
production system.

And you have a spare CPU just sitting around that none of your employees is
using and the time to reinstall everything on it. Oh yeah, and a QB key. Got
to have that so the software license audit people don't get upset. Oh don't
forget you'll have to call IT to get that spare system privdegeles to get to
the QB directory on the server to copy the file to the local hard drive. Then
you have to break the net connection so the system is isolated. IT will have
to personally verify this. Now you can run the install program and not really
worry to much about what might happen in the beta code. Sorry Allan my company
is in business to make products not do free beta tests for Intuit. And rules
for the protection of data, not just QB's data, are rather strict.

 

[Allan Martin]

And you have a spare CPU just sitting around that none of your employees
is
using and the time to reinstall everything on it. Oh yeah, and a QB key.
Got
to have that so the software license audit people don't get upset. Oh
don't
forget you'll have to call IT to get that spare system privdegeles to get
to
the QB directory on the server to copy the file to the local hard drive.
Then
you have to break the net connection so the system is isolated. IT will
have
to personally verify this. Now you can run the install program and not
really
worry to much about what might happen in the beta code. Sorry Allan my
company
is in business to make products not do free beta tests for Intuit. And
rules
for the protection of data, not just QB's data, are rather strict.

Well I own my company and I make the rules.

 

[Ken]

Don't bother to apply to become a beta tester; they apparently closed
the list some time ago.

Ken

 

[Guest]

Don't bother to apply to become a beta tester; they apparently closed
the list some time ago.

No 1 Prerequisite for all beta testers: They have to agree to accept
that Checks and Credit Card charges are listed as transactions having
an Open Balance in Quickbooks.

Utter incompetence.

==

 

[Allan Martin]

No 1 Prerequisite for all beta testers: They have to agree to accept
that Checks and Credit Card charges are listed as transactions having
an Open Balance in QuickBooks.

What are you babbling about?