smart computer use?

What the hell is Page’s Law? Guys at Google can make their own laws. This one makes sense though:

Put really simply, what this means in the real world is that the performance of a PC and other devices constantly increases. So why do PCs never really seem to get faster?

Well, call it Page’s Law. Page’s Law was actually coined by Sergey Brin, who dropped in at the tail end of a Google press conference, and was asked about the pace of software and Web development.

“Page’s Law is sort of the opposite of Moore’s Law,” Brin said. “Page’s Law says that every 18 months software becomes twice as slow.”

Yeah.

Long story short, this software works really well for me.

I had been looking for a free piece of software to basically sync certain files from one computer hard drive to another, allowing me to back up and sync files automatically on a schedule.

I’ve used other software in the past to achieve this, but had never found one that I liked particularely well. Or, should I say, I had never found one that seemed to work particularly well.

Recently I found Karen’s Replicator.

The Replicator is currently on version 3.6.5 as a write this. It has been updated as recently as Nov 2008 so that’s always a good thing in the world of software! You never know when a favorite piece of software might no longer work or be supported any more!

From the Replicator web site:

Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen’s Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network.

Options include repeated copies at intervals as short as a few minutes, or as long as several months, copy only files that have changed, and the replication of folder and file deletions.

New features allow you to specify which files should not be copied, and also which days a file should be skipped!

Sounds pretty much like what anybody would expect from Backup/Sync software.

Now, to my experience with the software.

I’ve been using it for about 1 month. It’s run great (I’m using Vista) and has not caused me any problems whatsoever. It has been working exactly as advertised. It syncs up my files with a backup on a nightly schedule. When the machine that my files are getting backed up to is not available, the Replicator remembers that and attempts to sync again automatically when able. I like it!

Now I don’t have to worry so much about backing anything up. Really, when you think about it, automating backups is the only way to go. That way you don’t have to think too hard about it and it just happens.

I always like it when I’m using software and I see a little humor mixed in with honesty. A great example of this would be a small line of text I just saw in the new 2.5 version of Wordpress regarding having to manually update your site for daylight savings time.

I like this type of approach from developers of software. It shows that they recognize this issue, they explain what to expect from the current version of the software, and they humble themselves in the eyes of the users all in one shot. It even got me to chuckle a bit.

Good stuff.

I just finished reloading the main desktop machine in my home studio. My main machine is an old-school 2.5 gig Pentium 4 with about 768mb of RAM.

It’s not a fast machine, really, but it’s not a slow machine either. It was built about 5 years ago, and it’s been used as a web development machine ever since.

I reloaded this machine with Windows XP Professional. It’s a good operating system. Windows XP seems to be at it’s peak, so it’s a confident system to run on a machine. Windows XP is also lighter on system resources than Windows Vista, so I am opting to use XP on my older machines to ensure that they still can run at a nice clip.

The reload of Windows XP went too smooth. All I needed to install after the reload was:

• UltraEdit
• FileZilla
• Winamp
• AVP, erm, I mean AVG anti-virus
• Mozilla Firefox

And now I’m pretty much set.

This machine hadn’t been reloaded for a couple years. It was running all kinds of crazy software and had been put through the ringer resources-consumption-wise. I am glad to now take this old machine and put it in my home office/studio. The machine won’t be asked to do much other than ftp some files and serve as a code editor. It might also get some minor Flash work thrown at it. There may also be some blogging. But, there isn’t anything that I’ll demand of this machine beyond what it can handle.

I might also try to run Unreal Tournament GOTY Edition on this one. This machine was pretty much built to spec to handle UT GOTY Edition. Nothing new though, gotta stay with the old-school games on this machine.

I had the feeling that this might be the last time I load Windows XP onto a machine. Anything new I buy or use will more than likely have Windows Vista or some form of Linux on it. All my Windows XP machines seem to be at their final stage right now.

We’ll see, I guess. What will become of Windows XP?

Seth Godin makes a great a great point in his post about Data vs Software, claiming that we’re finally on the cusp of seeing web-aware software and applications that live on the web.

I’d love to see that. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. Now is as good of a time as ever. I would love to have applications that reference the vast amounts of data available on the web to make use of the application much easier.

Just think of all the times you’ve been using an application and you’ve had to hop onto the web to download and manually retrieve information or add-ons to the app. Most apps could benefit from a little bit of data retrieval from the web, making use of the app easier. ThinkGeneology.com has a great related article about the convergence of web software and desktop software, touching on the topic of Rich Internet Applications. Good stuff.

Back to Seth’s post, if you’re looking for a good source for seeing what’s available for Firefox add-ons, he’s got a great link in that post as well. Check it out.