I am currently using a software program known as Allway Sync 7.1.2 Pro.

The software allows you to automatically track changes and additions/deletions of files. I use mine to ‘sync’ my flashdrive with my desktop. The software works flawlessly and easily and allows me to be sure that I will never lose a copy of my important files. As a special educator I have report cards, IEPs (legal student related documents), lesson plans and materials. I need to know that my years of materials won’t get lost or corrupted. Recently I actually fell in a lake while fishing and I had my flashdrive in my pocket! Fortunately the drive was undamaged, but if it was ruined I am secure knowing that my files are accurately saved throughout my workday on my desktop! I LOVE this program. The program lets you set up specific folders to ‘mirror’ or ‘shadow’. The software works well with removable drives, second hard drives, networks/servers, etc. Best of all the software is FREE up to a certain level of usage. I monitor around 3,000 files so I had to pay for it, but the program only cost me $20.00! A great value for such powerful and solid software!

LDAP is a set of open protocols used to access information over a network which is centrally stored. LDAP stand for Light Weight Directory Access Protocol.

Now a directory is a specialized database designed for searching and browsing and normally has added support for basic lookup and update functions. LDAP was first designed to take advantage of the complex X.500 directory services for light weight activities. Initially, it was seen as a very good tool for email addresses lookup in the net but owing to the problem of spam, this idea was dropped. LDAP got the new life with the advent of GRID COMPUTING which is set to change the whole scenario of resource sharing over the network. The LDAP information model is based on entries which is a collection of attributes that has a globally-unique Distinguished Name(DN).

The DN is used to refer to an entry unambiguously. Each entry further has a type which are mnemonic strings, like ‘mail’ for email or ‘cn’ for common name. In LDAP, directory entries are arranged in a hierarchical tree-like structure and this structure typically reflects the geographical and organizational boundaries over which the whole grid is spread. LDAP is optimized for read access which makes it suitable for a grid environment as more often than the operations are read than write. LDAP defines operations for interrogating,adding,renaming and deleting entries and updating the directory.The LDAP search operation allows certain parts of the directory to be searched for entries matching some required criteria. It also provides mechanism for a client to authenticate, paving the road to access control to protect the information contained in the server.

When I am writing something outside of a word processor, such as a hand written note or writing in this blog, and I run across a word I am not sure how to spell, instead of loading up Word, which can take forever, I have found that it is much faster and easier to just pop open a new email message and use the spell check feature from Outlook Express.

This is much quicker since my computer almost always has a browser window open, if not Outlook Express itself. Just click “Mail > New Message” and paste in the word and bam, I’m done. No need to wait on MS Word to load with all its fancy features when all I need is a quick spell check.