Backups, Calculator anomaly

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Derek Atkins wrote:

>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.
>
>
>  
>
Quite suggestive, since something like 9 would be correct for the number 
of "rents" were the present value 10,000, the rate 6%, and the monthly 
payments around 1140. I can do THAT calc more or less in my head. Is 
this possibly a SIGN error?

I know I promised to join in the effort of looking into things like 
this, but that was back when the time estimate for getting our house 
back together was ..... well let's just say that it still isn't finished 
and all the remaining work is scattered so we have very few rooms DONE. 
No space to begin replacing books (all my computer books were in the 
room that actually burned). But I have actually WRITTEN "loan 
amortization table" programs.

So keep bothering me about this one. Hell, if somebody points out the 
specific code for this function I could look at it anyway (I can READ 
code in most any language even if not fluent enough in the language to 
WRITE effectively). Debugging financial software is what they used to to 
pay me the big bucks for.

Michael

>>  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
>>_______________________________________________
>>gnucash-user mailing list
>>gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>>-----
>>Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>>You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>  
>


-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.