If you want to set up a relatively simple yet powerful version control system on a Windows server, and you don’t want to spend any money on it, I recommend CVS. Start with CVSNT. Use Tortoise CVS as a front-end. Then, check this page for a quick and easy way to set up ViewCVS. Worked for me.
Category: software
Beyond Compare
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time lately looking at file synchronization software. I’ve been playing around with Vice Versa Pro for a week or so, and it works reasonably well. I stumbled across Beyond Compare today, though, and I think I’ll probably switch to that. It’s got a slightly nicer interface, and it’s got interesting scripting capabilities.
Podcasting
I’ve finally started playing around with podcasts.
Software:
– iPodder – Free, simple. Integrates with iTunes.
Sounds:
– Superburst Mixtape from Warren Ellis.
– Insomnia Radio
I’m sure there’s plenty of other good stuff out there. Just more good music to listen to in the car!
AdSubtract
Apparently I shouldn’t upgrade to the newest version of AdSubtract. Maybe I should try Privoxy?
A9 Toolbar
I started using Firefox a few days ago. Very nice. I just noticed that the A9 Toolbar is available for Firefox. I’m going to give it a try and see if I like it better than the Google toolbar, which I’d been using under Mozilla.
Changes
I decided to make a couple of major software changes on my home computer tonight.
First, I switched from using Eudora 4.3 for my e-mail over to Outlook 2003. I’ve been using Eudora for nearly 10 years now, but I haven’t bought an upgrade in a few years. The old version was starting to flake out a bit, but I really didn’t want to pay $40 for the new version when I had Outlook sitting on my hard drive doing nothing. I got all my messages from Eudora to Outlook by the recommended method of first importing them into Outlook Express, then importing from OE to Outlook 2003. That worked pretty well, and even saved my folder structure with no problems. The resulting .PST file is about 100 MB. My Eudora directory was about 90 MB, so it looks like there’s not as much bloat to Outlook as I thought there would be. I notice that Outlook seems a bit sluggish compared to Eudora, but maybe that’ll get better after I clean up the mail file a bit.
My second big change was pulling my music library into iTunes and letting that be my default music player. I, of course, use iTunes on my Mac, but I’ve been using something called Zinf on my PC. It works OK, but it’s not as nice as iTunes. I’ve had serious problems with iTunes in the past, but the current version seems to be stable on my machine. I’ve got about 10 GB of music on my PC, mostly downloaded from EMusic. I’ll probably still stick with Nero for CD burning, just because I can’t imagine iTunes could possible work better.
OneNote
There’s some interesting stuff about OneNote at Chris Pratley’s WebLog. I’m keen to get SP1 installed soon.
Mozilla add-ins
SharpReader
I’m playing around with SharpReader tonight. I’ve never been able to get myself really excitied about RSS, but I’m giving it a try. My Atom Feed looks OK in it.
Microsoft Reader
I’m very frustrated with Microsoft Reader. I wanted to start reading The Subtle Knife, book two of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, today. My little Pocket PC would not cooperate. First, MS Reader would just give me errors. Uninstalling, reinstalling, reactivating — nothing worked. Eventually, the device wound up getting stuck in such a way that I could not reset it, no way, no how. I’ve got it going again, after flipping the “last-ditch” switch that wipes the memory completely, restoring it to factory defaults. I’ve got it working again, but really I shouldn’t have to spend more than an hour just trying to get to the point where I can read a book. Back to paper, dang it.