Online vs software for financial management

Microsoft is discontinuing MS Money, which I have used for years. When the online features of Money 2004 expired, I just deactivated the online features and manually exported my accounts into the program. Though I can probably use Money 2004 indefinitely without the online features, Microsoft recommends using my own bank's features or Bundle.com. My bank does not offer interactive features. Quicken is another option, or Intuit's online program Mint.com.

I tried both Bundle.com & Mint.com, and I think Mint.com is much better

Advertising

I have to choose an advertisement and write a psychology paper about the ad.  I try to tune out advertising to whatever degree I can ignore it, but for this assignment, I have to actually pay attention to ads. Thankfully, there are plenty of YouTube ad videos available. A classmate suggested that I pick a product I like and find an ad for it.  I'm going to use a cat food ad, target audience: women over 35 who are pet lovers.  I could easily write about what annoys me with internet ads. I wish someone would invent a "rollover blocker". Especially for the ones that roll out when you get close but don't actually touch with the curser. I liked the Kodak printervention rollover. It did not rollover until I actually put my curser on the ad. The video was a parody of an infomercial/intervention reality show and the other tabs used a side by side comparison between the Kodak model and an HP model.  I could relate to both the high cost of printer ink, and, as an addictions counselor, the parody of intervention strategy.  It got bad reviews, though.  Most people saw a wannabe infomercial announcer and the environmentally negative "ink sink".  I agreed with the reviewers about the ink sink.  I would like to find a similar comparison with the cost of using a Canon printer.

Windows 7 Back up & Restore

Before I upgraded to  Windows 7 I found a decent free disk image back up program called Macrium Reflect, though I did not reinstall it after the upgrade.  The Windows 7 Back-up & Restore appears to have more features than XP Back-up & Restore, including the ability to make a disk image and a restore disk.  There may be no need for a 3rd party program.  My 80 gig external hard drive does the job, but with only enough storage to hold one image & back-up for the desktop & laptop.