pool@milton.u.washington.edu (Jonathan Pool) (07/25/90)
Today I received the corrected version of MacTools Deluxe Backup from Central Point Software. The bug that saved the wrong folders in "setups" when you have more than 1 folder with the same name has apparently been fixed. However, beware of a possible misunderstanding of how this feature works, which I believe is not clearly explained in the manual. When you want to regularly back up the entire contents of some folder, you might think you can do this by selecting that folder and saving the selection in a setup, then opening that setup each time you want to back that folder up. This is wrong. What you are really saving is the list of all the files that were in that folder when you saved the setup. If you later add any files to the folder, they will not get backed up! Thus, unless I misunderstand this program, it offers no way to save a selection of whatever the contents of a given folder may be at the time of each backup. Given how I would guess most people manage their files, this seems to me a not very useful scheme. But then, I mustn't know much about most people, since Central Point accompanied their update disk with a note saying that the wrong-folders bug was "unlikely to affect most people".
aslakson@cs.umn.edu (Brian Aslakson) (07/25/90)
pool@milton.u.washington.edu (Jonathan Pool) writes: >.... >When you want to regularly back up the entire contents of some folder, >you might think you can do this by selecting that folder and saving the >selection in a setup, then opening that setup each time you want to back >that folder up. This is wrong. What you are really saving is the list >of all the files that were in that folder when you saved the setup. If >you later add any files to the folder, they will not get backed up! Thus, >unless I misunderstand this program, it offers no way to save a selection >of whatever the contents of a given folder may be at the time of each >backup. Given how I would guess most people manage their files, this seems >to me a not very useful scheme. But then, I mustn't know much about most >people, since Central Point accompanied their update disk with a note saying >that the wrong-folders bug was "unlikely to affect most people". Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... -- Macintosh related: mac-admin@cs.umn.edu All else: aslakson@cs.umn.edu
cckweiss@castor (07/25/90)
From the recent traffic, it sounds like CPS has been shipping Mac Tools Deluxe. I ordered the upgrade about six months ago, got two postcards telling me that the product would be shipped 'as soon as the last few bugs are out', and that's it. They haven't cashed my check, but they haven't shipped my software either. Anyone else got a problem with CPS delivery schedules? Ken Weiss cckweiss@castor.ucdavis.edu
pool@milton.u.washington.edu (Jonathan Pool) (08/21/90)
Central Point Software telephoned me today to say that it has now improved the Backup program of MacTools Deluxe in two wonderful ways. (1) It is now possible to save folder selections for future use, so the entire contents of each selected folder is backed up, not just the files that were in the folder when it was originally selected. (2) If during a backup you happen to insert a defective disk, or if while the program is writing to a disk it encounters a disk error, the program no longer aborts the entire backup job. Instead, it lets you continue the job starting with the file that was being backed up when the error occurred, using the next disk. Central Point said it would send me a copy of the improved version for testing. If this turns out to be true, then much to my amazement Central Point may have leapfrogged over Microsoft in the complaint-to- upgrade-turnaround-time race.