Beyond Compare 3

A substantial part of a developer’s job seems to be the logistical details of getting ‘it’ from here to there. When you run a team the problem becomes larger. Even with source control, there are documents that should be updated that aren’t and things that should be done that are missed. The two tools that I use these days are Beyond Compare from Scooter Software for files and folders and Red Gate’s SQL Compare for databases. The former is dirt cheap, the later has gotten more expensive over the years.

I’ve used Beyond Compare for a number of years now and have always been impressed with the comprehensive but simple nature of the software. You can open the UI for the first time and stumble around for about 5 minutes and know what you’re doing. In addition, the support is truly outstanding. Getting upgrade keys and information about the product reminds me of working with the the auto shop I have been going to for 10 years or more. I walk in and they know me by name even if I haven’t been around for 6 months. They give me exactly the services I need, listen carefully to any concerns I have and refuse to charge me when out of the ordinary things happen. Scooter Software’s licensing model is very straight forward for a single developer: As long as I’m using it personally, I can put it wherever I want. I have it on my personal dev box, my wife’s machine and my company dev box. If I ever get rid of the company box, I’ve got a note-to-self to remove it. Simple model based on trusting your client.

I also use Beyond Compare to keep my local backups up to date. In all the time that I have been taking digital photographs, I think I’ve actually deleted a half dozen. Needless to say I have thousands. Before I set up with carbonite.com, I used a rotating system of 2 external hard drives. I keep one attached to my local machine and one in the fireproof safe. I put all new images on my local internal media drive and then do a compare on the external, moving anything that doesn’t exist over. Then, every week or so, I swap the drives in the safe and do another compare. It takes a minute or two and I know that all the pictures and movies my family has are protected in the safe. My wife’s machine also gets an occasional copy of all images and movies so she can show off when she’s out and about doing FCC related stuff.

I wish I had done that for my Silverlight program. If I had I wouldn’t have lost 3 months of work due to sheer stupidity and a WD drive that went thud…

At any rate, I highly recommend both of these companies and their products.