Topics

26

General Software Discussion / Good websites/blogs/programs for managing money?

« on: October 30, 2007, 01:46 AM »

This is not really a topic for the software forum, but in my short time here I've seen this site has a lot of members who are very knowledgeable, so I'm sure I'll get some help.

I'm a software geek who's clueless about money  I can spend days and weeks on tweaking programs and searching for the perfect utility, but not so when it comes to money. Even though I make a decent living, my savings do not reflect this because they don't grow like they should. I lost a lot of my savings a few years ago in the stock market and since then have been very hesitant. Currently I've put most of it in online banks such as ING which give me higher APR but thats pretty much it.

What are some good resources you recommend? There are way too many blogs out there, I don't know where to start. I also need some software to track my money and spending - I was going to get either Money or Quicken, but there are also some free web based alternatives like Wesabe, Mint etc which look very compelling (apart from having to trust a website with my account passwords). I'd also appreciate links to some good forums for personal finance.

27

General Software Discussion / Real Player 11 is actually quite good!

« on: September 13, 2007, 04:42 PM »

I can't believe I'm saying this, I feel as if the space time fabric is gong to collapse on itself as the unspeakable seems to have happened!

Try out the RP 11 beta. I heard about it here - http://cybernetnews....and-read-our-review/. Its no longer the beast it once was, behaves nicely with existing file handlers, and has a killer web video download feature. I no longer need to try the latest firefox extensions to get youtube videos, its now literally a one-click affair.

28

General Software Discussion / Inventory software to keep track of my stuff?

« on: August 12, 2007, 09:46 PM »

My apt is beginning to look like my file system - disorganized, full of hard to find things, and not easy to navigate. I want to organize it all so everything is where its supposed to be and I can find what I need. I looked at a few programs I found by searching on 'home inventory' but most of these are designed to track the value of stuff for home insurane purposes I guess.

What I want could probably be done by a simple database. I think the program I'm looking for would let me -

- create multiple storage locations - e.g. one for each room/drawer
- create multiple categories/tags
- assign stuff freely between the 2 of them
- easily find duplicates/stuff I already own
- (optional) add pictures

Is there anything like this?

29

General Software Discussion / Experiences with TrueCrypt and disk encryption in general?

« on: August 07, 2007, 05:19 PM »

I've played with TrueCrypt but have never entrusted massive amounts of data to it. On my new pc I'm installing Vista but will not be using BitLocker since its overkill and has its own security issues, however I do want most of my data to remain safe. I'm thinking of making a huge 400GB TrueCrypt partition and just put everything in there, but I'm concerned with reliability and what happens if I lose the whole container due to a file error. Performance is not an issue from what I've seen. Whats the largest encrypted container you have used?

30

General Software Discussion / The Holy Trifecta - Indexing, Backup, Catalog

« on: May 14, 2007, 02:28 AM »

Like many users, I have terabytes of data across multiple computers and hard disks, and its becoming increasingly impossible to find stuff I need and manage it sensibly. I keep coming back to the idea that we need an integrated approach that combines these 3 areas -

- backup/filesync to backup my data. I much prefer synchronization software to just keep an exact copy on a separate disk, but the software needs to be able to track copies

- cataloging to know which media contains what

- indexing to help me find stuff quickly

Right now,  I have different apps for each of these which do not play well together. e.g. if I search for a file in my index app (Copernic/X1) I want it to tell me that its on my USB backup drive #2 and that its also backed up on my laptop. I do not want the index itself to contain 3 copies of the contents of the file. Similarly, the disc cataloging app should work with the index. Both should update seamlessly in realtime as and when different computers/disks come online, and the index/catalog itself should replicate itself. The backup program should let me select a folder to backup, then use the cataloger to track where its been backed up, and sync automatically. And of course, all of these programs should use UNC and USB device id's so they don't depend on disk numbers that can change, as well as do link tracking for moved files.

Now I know no such program exists (or does it?) so I'm looking for suggestions and workflow dieas on how best to do this.

31

General Software Discussion / Whats the best program to learn typing?

« on: April 28, 2007, 01:50 AM »

I can bear the shame no longer, and the truth must be revealed - I do not know how to touch type!

I spend the majority of my day, and lets be honest, more time I should at home, in front of a computer. I'm a programmer, and not an author, so I don't need to go 80 words/min, and I've gotten pretty good at -hunt-and-peck, but I want to learn how to type. A quick google search comes up with dozens of programs, each of which would have me believe are the absolute last word in perfection.

I found this site - http://typing-softwa...are-definitions.html, which compares some of them.

32

General Software Discussion / Thoughts on backup software

« on: February 23, 2007, 04:27 PM »

I want backup software that will keep track of my files and when they were last used (NTFS last accessed timestamps). After a certain threshold, the files would be backed up to another location, BUT, and here's the imp bit - a stub would be left on the filesystem that would look like the real file to the OS, and thus to any program. When someone tries to access the file, it could either be read from the backup location (if online) or the user would be prompted to connect to the correct media.

I should be able to define folders and time limits for specific filetypes, so I can say that anything I haven't seen in 4 months in c:\Movies can be archived, but My Documents should always be available.

Another imp feature I find missing from backup software is that they don't track media. External USB drives and optical media both have unique id's, so instead of asking me to insert drive K: the program should be able to detect if I attach the right drive, no matter what drive letter is assigned.

So I'd be able to say that I want all my movies and music backed up to my 250GB usb drive. The program would keep track of what needs to be done, and whenever I happen to connect it, the files would be backed up.

I know backup like this exists for corporate use across multiple platforms in SAN's, but haven't seen anything for the home user. IMO, combined with CDP (continuous data protection), like what FileHamster provides,  this is what's needed for backup to become mainstream and not just be used by tech savvy people.  Instead, backup programs today present a bewildering array of choices - full or incremental, where to backup, how often to do it, proprietary formats, compression levels etc. No wonder most people don't use  them.

Backup software should detect if I have extra space available (on a different partition, disk, NAS, whatever), ask me if I want to use it as backup location, and never bother me again. We now have revision tracking built in to the OS (Vista's Previous versions, Apple's Time machine), there's no reason not to have automated backups that are set-and-forget.

Am I being overly optimistic or does something like this exist?


Edit - the motivation behind this is the philosophy of 'throw away anything you haven't used for a year', or at least put it away in storage! And this is the concept on which modern computing is built - virtual memory, paging, on demand loading, smart pointers are all implementations of this idea. So as a programmer, I can't help but feel this way

33

General Software Discussion / Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« on: February 19, 2007, 12:20 AM »

All I want from an image organizer is -

1. Fast and reposnsive. I'm working with over 10k pictures
2. Ability to select a folder in the tree view and see all pics in that and its subfolders
3. Tagging support for XMP and IPTC. Import and export
4. A proper way to organize/filter views based on tags
5. File monitoring for new folders/pics
6. A nice UI with support for multiple zoom levels

I've tried nearly everything out there - Photoshop Elements 5, AcdSee, Picajet, IView etc. This category can be divided into 2 segments

- the lightweight viewers such as XnView, FastStone, IrfanView
- full blown organizers like the big 3 above
- other apps like Picasa, Corel Paint Shop Pro etc

So far, Photoshop Elements is the only one which offers halfway decent support for organizing based on tags, but of course Adobe support only XMP and nearly everyone else likes IPTC. PE is also about as fast as a hippo crawling through molasses while drunk. It also has some really neat 'features' such as maintaining its own album db which is not in sync with the filesystem, taking forever to add 'watched' folders, slideshows taking up 100% cpu and so on.

I mean, all I want is say XnView along with the ability to filter based on tag combinations. I don't want/care about a million different image editing tools (I have Photoshop for that) or slideshow effects. Picasa has a nice UI, is lightweight, but is completely braindead about tagging. Also, its amazing that not a single program seems to support #2. I also want some software to add picture tags directly from Explorer, at the file and folder level - i.e I want to be able to say - tag all pics below this level with 'xyz'.

Is there anything else out there?

34

General Software Discussion / In search of a more structured Microsoft Word (for collecting documents & notes)

« on: January 06, 2007, 06:42 AM »

My dad currently keeps all his data in a bunch of Word doc's. This includes all his personal as well as work correspondence and he also has a huge (1000+ pages) files in which he writes and maintains poems. He uses this as his scratchpad for new ideas as well as to copy and paste from his email.

I'm trying to find some software which will help him organize all this. Most importantly, I'd like him to stop using huge Word documents to store and find info because they are not at all well suited for the task, and if the file is damaged he'll lose everything.

But at the same time, the replacement can't be something which is too techie and is hard to use. It has to be free-form enough to let him use it without having to click around or understand a lot of jargon.

Right now I think my best bet is OneNote but I'm not too sure if its a good fit for large amounts of data.