Over the last couple of years while using Linux, I've slowly become better at what could loosely be described as "hacking".
I mainly focus on stuff that is Palm related, mainly trying to integrate some of the command line tools available for Linux->Palm connectivity with some well known Linux applications.
Pilot-Link read-expenses -> CSV Perl Script
This is a wee Perl script I have written that uses "read-expenses" from the Pilot-Link utilities. The "read-expenses" app produces an output from the built-in Palm Expense app. This script turns that output into a .CSV file. I had looked at all sorts of chequebook/money manager type apps, & then realised for the most part in terms of managing your finances, with online banking etc these days & automatic payments/directs debits etc, you actually KNOW whats going out on a weekly basis. Be it your mortgage, whatever. What is the killer is those expenses that come out of that money thats "left over" - managing them as to not be spending money beyond your budget. The Palm Expense app is perfect for that! This way you recording far less transactions as to not make it such a pain in the arse todo.
Now I can open up the OpenOffice spreadsheet, run some automatic SubTotals functions on the CSV file, to get some idea what my weekly/monthly misc expenses are going on!
Make sure you have Perl installed on your PC. This script uses the Term::Clui module, so download that from CPAN
All you need todo is make sure that the script is in your path (i.e /usr/local/bin) and run "chmod +x" on it, making sure you rename readexpense.txt to readexpense.pl. You will need to change the paths in the script to suit your environment.
A good complement to the Palm Expense app is a nifty DA called Expense Summary DA . This gives you running expense totals by month/category/type. Makes the Palm Expense app quite a powerful tool!
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Thats all folks at the moment! If I come up with anything else I'II post it here.
HHGTTG & Douglas Adams at his best! Very sage advice!
