Backups, Calculator anomaly

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

4,294,967,287 looks amazingly close to 4,294,967,296, which is
2^32.  In fact, it's 2^32 - 9.  I'd guess a buffer overrun somewhere.

-derek

Quoting JUNIPER <snijuniper at comcast.net>:

>   Sound advice. I save GC to a desktop "Finance" folder, and copy from
>   time to time to a desktop "backup" folder. Everything is also saved to
>   an external hard drive, plus I save critical data every so often to a
>   removable SanDisk, which I keep stashed away from my desk. I also
>   consider storing saved data outside the house. (Years ago I learned a
>   painful lesson about the importance of backups!)
>   On another matter: Tools -> financial calculator anomaly... Trying to
>   find out how much sooner my mortgage would be paid off by increasing my
>   payment, no matter what values I use I get an enormous and wrong
>   "payment Periods" result. For example, entering $10,000 as the "Present
>   Value," 6% as the interest, $1139.15 as the payment, and zero as the
>   "future value" I get 4,294,967,287 "Payment Periods." In fact, no
>   matter what values I use I get results of 4 1/4 billion or so.
>   Steve J
> Message: 11
> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:27:23 -0500
> From: Mike or Penny Novack [1]<stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com>
> Subject: Re: Can't Parse
> To: Elizabeth Dodd [2]<edodd at billiau.net>
> Cc: [3]gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Message-ID: [4]<474C1B3B.4040806 at mtdata.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Some general comments
>
>
>>> Trying going "to a backup file and then move it OUTSIDE
>>> your ~/.gnucash tree and then File -> Open it" resulted in the same problem
>>> as before, but just on chance I tried something else and it worked fine.
>>> Instead of trying to open GC via a data file or via the desktop icon, I
>>> went to "Applications" and "Office" and tried it from there. It not only
>>> opened immediately, but with the latest data.
>>>
>>> "All's well that ends well!"
>>>
>>> Steve J
>>>
>>>
>
>>
>> I could only guess that there was a save to the *right* place which 
>> has saved
>> your bacon.
>>
>> Does the FAQ say "Before upgrading, make a backup of your precious data" ?
>> As someone who "lost'" 7 months of data in a hard drive crash I know 
>> this all
>> too well. Re-entering data is very painful and that nearly happened to you
>> here.
>>
>>
>
> 1) There is no particular reason for you to be having your books (and
> the logs and the backups) in any of the GnuCash directories. Just
> because that's where GnuCash would have them by default isn't relevant.
> If you specify some other directory in which to save the books when you
> first create them...
>   a) The directory you specify for that is where GnuCash will place the
> backups and logs every save.
>   b) That directory will be on the list of places you can select when
> from within GnuCash you use "open". May need to scroll down to see that.
>   c) Having them elsewhere makes it much safer when you alter the
> software. But doing this was sort of automatic for me. In this case I am
> maintaining books for an organization so of course wanted the data kept
> in a directory devoted to that organization's data.
>
> 2) ALWAYS backup all your user data before any software change.
> Actually, you should have some regular frequency of doing backups even
> if no software change. You decide how much of your data you can afford
> to lose/replace --- a month's, a week's, a day's, etc. This advice is
> not specific to GnuCash.
>
> References
>
>   1. mailto:stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com
>   2. mailto:edodd at billiau.net
>   3. mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>   4. mailto:474C1B3B.4040806 at mtdata.com
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available