Yes. In fact, we encourage you to do so. An unregistered copy of CheckBook will allow you to create an unlimited number of Accounts with up to 50 Entries apiece, which you can use until you are sure you are ready to register.

No. CheckBook has not been designed for stock portfolio tracking.

No. This is a feature that we are very interested in providing to our users. If you would like to see this functionality in CheckBook, please drop us a line at feedback@splasm.com.

No.

Please send us an email outlining your feature request and some specific examples of how you would use the feature to feedback@splasm.com.

You can download CheckBook in Disk Image format at http://www.splasm.com/downloads/checkbook/CheckBook.dmg. Double-click the file to reveal a window named CheckBook X, where X is the version you have downloaded. The window will have three icons inside: ReadMe, CheckBook and Applications. Drag the CheckBook icon to the Applications icon, then select the Eject option from the File menu. You will find CheckBook in your Applications folder.

Disk Image files are special files that allow us to deliver CheckBook in a single package that acts very much like a CD or USB drive. When you double-click a Disk Image, your Mac reads the file and places a new icon on your Desktop that looks just like a hard drive icon. This is known as a Disk Image. If you open this new icon you will see the actual files we want you to have - the ReadMe and the CheckBook application. While you can use these files directly from the Disk Image, it is best that you copy the CheckBook application to your Applications folder on your hard drive and use it from that location. Once you have copied CheckBook to your Applications folder you can safely eject the Disk Image by dragging its icon to the Trash. If you like, you can save the Disk Image file for future installation of CheckBook.

Each update is designed to completely replace previous versions, so download the latest version of CheckBook at http://www.splasm.com/downloads/checkbook/CheckBook.dmg and overwrite your existing copy. Your registration for CheckBook 2.x entitles you to all updates before CheckBook 3.0, so feel free to download and install the latest version at any time.

No. Each update is meant to replace your previous copy of CheckBook, and will update your Accounts and Preferences (which is where your serial number is stored) automatically. You will not be asked to enter your serial number again.

First, make sure CheckBook is not running on either Mac. Then, copy the following folders to the same locations on your new Mac:

/Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/
/Users/[your username here]/Library/Preferences/Splasm/

Please use the Backup Accounts... menu option from CheckBook's File menu. We recommend storing your backups periodically on another disk, such as a CD-R or CD-RW, so that your data will be safe in the event you need to reinstall Mac OS X or your internal hard drive crashes.

First, make sure CheckBook is not running. Go to the /Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/ folder and rename Accounts.plist to Accounts.plist.old. Then, copy your backup to the same folder and rename the copy to Accounts.plist. It's best to copy your backup because you want to protect it from any mishaps during the restoration process. Launch CheckBook and verify your data appears as you expect. If everything shows up correctly, you can safely remove the Accounts.plist.old file.

Yes, CheckBook creates an automatic backup once per week. It names each backup with the current date and version of CheckBook, and compresses the file so that it takes up very little hard drive space.

Here's how to restore an automatic backup:

1. Quit CheckBook.
2. Go to /Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/ and rename Accounts.plist to Accounts.plist.old.
3. Select a backup to restore. Go to /Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/Backups/ . This folder contains weekly backups that should be named something like Accounts_3_13_2008_2.0.plist.Z. The first three numbers are the month, day and year the backup was created. The last number is the version of CheckBook that created the backup. The best candidate to restore from is usually one that has been modified within the last week or so and is larger than the older backups. If you are in a situation where your original Accounts file was accidentally moved or removed, there may be a very recent backup that is smaller than the other backups. It's probably a backup of an empty Accounts file, so keep looking at the backups until you find the most recently modified file that is larger than the others.
4. Copy the selected backup to the /Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/ folder.
5. The backup file you just copied to the CheckBook folder is in Unix compressed format. Simply double-click the backup file and Stuffit Expander should expand it for you. You should now have a new file with the same name as the backup but without the .Z at the end.
6. Trash the backup copy. It is very important that you trash the copy you made, not the original backup, which should still be in the Backups folder.
7. Rename the expanded backup file to Accounts.plist.
8. Launch CheckBook and verify that your data appears correctly.

Yes. CheckBook should function on non-English systems. The text of the application will not appear correctly but the general functionality should remain intact. Also, CheckBook respects the date and number formats selected in the user's International Preferences, so Entry dates and amounts should be shown correctly.

CheckBook requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 and a display with a resolution of 800x600 pixels.

We recommend Mac OS X 10.4 or later and a display with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels.

CheckBook is not compatible with Microsoft Windows or Linux.

Yes. The regular download is a Universal Binary and will run natively on PowerPC and Intel Macs.

No. CheckBook is only for Mac OS X.

Yes. CheckBook supports the QIF file standard, which Quicken can export to. CheckBook allows you to choose which Account you would like to import, the date format of the Account and how to rearrange some of the incoming fields to be more compatible with how CheckBook presents your Entries.

Probably. CheckBook can import statements in the OFX, QIF and CSV/TSV file formats. It's likely your online bank supports at least one of these.

Yes. CheckBook can export to QIF, for import into other personal finance applications, and to tab-delimited text, for advanced analysis in a spreadsheet.

Kinda. CheckBook provides QIF Import and tab-delimited text Export, which may be suitable for your particular PalmOS or PocketPC application.

Yes. Types are customizable per-Account. The options for managing your Types can be found in your Account Options, which are available by selecting Edit Account... under the Account menu.

Occasionally, in earlier versions of Mac OS X, the Help Viewer application will have an issue loading an application's Help files. The workaround is to "reset" the Help Viewer's memory, after which it will work correctly. To do this, you need to remove one or more files associated with the Help Viewer. This should not harm the Help Viewer in any way, but it will cause it to temporarily forget about any third-party applications' Help content. This content will return when you next select the Help option from each application's Help menu.

To reset the Help Viewer, first quit CheckBook and the Help Viewer, then remove the following file:

-  /Users/[your username here]/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpui

If you find that CheckBook's Help is still blank, quit CheckBook and the Help Viewer again, then remove the following files:

-  /Users/[your username here]/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpui
-  /Users/[your username here]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.help.plist
-  /Users/[your username here]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.helpui.plist
-  /Users/[your username here]/Library/Preferences/com.apple.helpviewer.plist

For additional information, please see Apple's support article, "Mac OS X: Can't access Help content, or content is blank or missing links" at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25667.

You can use CheckBook on another Mac, as long as you respect your license agreement. The single-user license states that you are licensed to use CheckBook on only one Mac at a time. Make sure each copy of CheckBook using the same serial number is not running on more than one Mac at any given time and you're welcome to copy it to as many Macs as necessary. The family pack license expands the number of Macs you may use CheckBook simultaneously on to five (5).

Here's how to transfer the data back and forth:

Make sure CheckBook is not running on both the source and destination Macs, then copy the folder where CheckBook keeps your Accounts data from the source Mac to the same location on the destination Mac.  The folder to copy is located at /Users/[your username here]/Library/Application Support/CheckBook 2/.