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Item: FlashBack 1.1 Manufacturer: Aladdin Systems Price: About $70 |
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This is just a little Flashback Logo.
This is the program's window. You have three ways to display the tracked files. You can list them by application, file, or revisions.
This is the settings window. Notice the save trigger, number of versions, and save frequency.
This is the last prompt when deleting a file. Double check your selected files. |
Introduction FlashBack is the program of choice for retrieving previous saved copies of documents. This program can save you tremendous amounts of time. If you accidentally saved over your work, this program will bring it back. Details FlashBack can be a very neat program, but you have to know how to use it. Before relying on the program, make sure you know what you're doing. Unlike the 200 page manual for StuffIt Deluxe, this 40 page manual is easy to follow. After installing, you have the option of making FlashBack one of the startup items. This can be very helpful for you and you don't have to worry about launching the program. Plus, FlashBack only uses about 640K of RAM on a PPC. Quite worth it. Once the program is running, it will not track all of your files. To make FlashBack track your files, you need to tell it which files to track. This is better for a number of ways. You can drag and drop the files into the program's window. Also, each time a revision is made, it takes up some hard drive space. Obviously, the larger the revision, the larger the file. FlashBack only saves the revisions, not another new file. This does cut back on the file size. Each file has a status. If the tracked file is on a removable storage device, the status will be a warning icon. However, as soon as the storage device is connected, the status will become normal. Also, you have control over the revision of files and the tracking of files. You can add and delete files at will. You can also remove revision files by simply deleting them. The original will not be deleted from the hard drive. To open a revision file, simply double click it. If you want to open an older revision file, it may take longer to open. Since FlashBack only saves the changes in the files, it needs to construct the file based on all revisions and the main file. If you opened the first revision out of fifty, it would take longer. The first is the oldest, and the fiftieth is the newest. Details: Settings The settings for FlashBack can be automated for easy use. You have options on how you would like FlashBack to make revision files. A common choice would be to make a revision every time you save the file. But, you could set it to every time the file is modified and closed. Or, you could even set it to a specific time interval. Save revisions every five minutes, five hours, five days, etc. But remember, each revision takes hard drive space. If you set the maximum number of revisions to 50, and you save 50 revisions, the oldest one will be removed. The oldest revision file will be trashed to make room for the new 51st revision file. This feature will keep the revisions under control. Although you can set the maximum number to 999. Conclusion This program is quite nice for tracking revisions of files. But you must make sure that you have selected the files to track and that the program is running. You also must set the settings to your desires. Once you have everything set, you can depend on FlashBack. Rating 
7/10
This review was published by the CCPlace Staff. No duplication of this review or any part of this review is permitted. |
