BackTrack

[Ursula]

BackTrack is Today’s MacUpdate Promo. Does anybody know the application and would share her/his experiences?

http://www.mupromo.com/deal/810/5801/backtrack

http://www.modesittsoftware.com/Products/BackTrack/index.html

[zikade]

1st impression: if you have a couple of employees you certainly get a nice tool for bigbrothering them…
2nd impression: who else would need that?

[Ursula]

I thought BackTrack 5 could be useful for Scriveners searching a possibility to track and trace the different versions of a text.

On the BackTrack site you may read:

BackTrack brings Mac users a new level of safety by logging all text that is typed for all applications. The log includes the application name, window name, date & time, and how long the window was the front window. BackTrack is a useful safety utility for all Mac users using Mac OS 10.5 or greater. (…)

For example, suppose you’re working on a MS Word document, you haven’t saved the document for awhile, and Word crashes. Normally you would have lost all the text you typed since your last save, however, since the text is also in the BackTrack file, the text you typed has been saved. Simply copy the text from BackTrack to the clipboard, and paste it onto your Word document. Another example, you sent an email two weeks ago, and you’re not sure what was in the message. Since you delete all email over a week old, you can’t find the email message in your email application. What to do? Simply search the BackTrack file for the day you wrote the message!

[zikade]

Yeah, read that on their site. Mind you, I’m not into saying this software might not be useful to someone. But, considering Scrivener for one saves every time you are not actually in a typing frenzy - lets say, every two seconds if any changes were made - and it also has its own versioning I fail to see its use.
Having said that, I’d like to install this on my wifes computer, I could read anything she types; she won’t even know I would because:

When text logging is active, BackTrack displays an optional status menu and text logging status window as shown below.

The keyword in this quote is optional…
If now this software would be so kind and send a days’ keystrokes to my computer automatically, I probably would be in a paranoids’ heaven.

I’ve been pretty helpful to a whole bunch of authors in the past couple of years, maybe I should install it on their macs next time I come around seeing to their problems. I wouldn’t even have to write anymore, just copying their stuff. And, of course, all the banking they do with their computer as well.

Thats my personal big-brother-chromosome on steroids…

[Jaysen]

@zikade

I’ve been pretty helpful to a whole bunch of authors in the past couple of years, maybe I should install it on their macs next time I come around seeing to their problems.

This is a legit use WITH CONSENT.

As support person I am authorized by my company to track user keystrokes in troubleshooting. You would be surprised how many problems “go away” once folks know you are tracking their moves. Especially after they realize that we DO know.

Tech: You didn’t update the driver to an unsupported version did you?
User: N0.
T: Really?
U: No, I would never do that.
T: Odd, because the user tracking log shows that you opened the device manager, opened the device, clicked the update button, selected “Let me choose” then put in a path to the beta driver. Unless you renamed the unpacked directory to 2.4.0b.
U: You guys can see that?
T: Yes. Would you like me to indicate that you acknowledge that you updated the driver?
U: Uh. I’m in trouble?
T: Only if you answer my last question no.

Believe it or not it happens. I would do it to my mom but she got smart and goes to other folks for her tech support now.

So yes. Snoop on people whom you are responsible for, but let them know you are doing it.

[AmberV]

I agree with Zikade on this. I installed the trial a while back (version 3 or so) and while it was interesting, it was ultimately useless. Scrivener is so good at keeping stuff up to date on the disk that it is a problem solver for a problem that doesn’t exist. Sure, if I used Word to write, it would be invaluable. That and it slowed my computer down a bit.

[zikade]

@Jaysen

@zikade

I’ve been pretty helpful to a whole bunch of authors in the past couple of years, maybe I should install it on their macs next time I come around seeing to their problems.

This is a legit use WITH CONSENT.

It’s tempting. But:
I disagree. I even disagree strongly. I’m not sure I can explain it in a foreign language but I try:

Doing so seems to me like shielding them form the real world, which I think is never a good idea. Too much shielding, too much guard and suddenly the people so guarded fail to recognise a danger, even if it bit them in the… never mind. Bottom line: nothing is secure. Striving for absolute security is like stopping entropy. Don’t raise the hope of others by ‘guaranteeing’ something, it’s not certain the universe isn’t going to explode any moment.

Now, would I have to support those using windows - I did that in the past and added some gray to my hair - especially those who aren’t able to operate a toaster in the first placee…
I would probably install such a thing - if only to decipher answers like “I clicked on a window and everything went blank” - “What window?” - “Hey, you are the expert…”