Brendan’s Blog

My kids have lots of movies, and I quickly found that DVD movies are not kid-proof. Scratched and lost discs cost us a number of titles before I took action to protect our investment.

The process involves making copies of DVD based movies that I have purchased. I am not a lawyer, but I contend that what I’m doing does not violate the spirit of copyright laws. If anyone has evidence otherwise, send it to me, and I’ll send it to my lawyer for review.

There are several reasons why I make copies of my DVD movies:

• I’m a fan of backups. I like knowing that if a disc is lost or scratched, I don’t have to re-purchase a new copy.
• Backups made with this process start playing the real movie immediately when it is inserted.
  

  Note to movie studios: I hate the commercials that you force kids to watch before they can actually watch the movie that is on the disc. It is unreasonable to me that you block the ability to skip or fast-forward through commercials on a DVD that you charge money to buy.

  Four things are needed to make a copy of a commercial movie DVD. This is not “secret” knowledge. A quick Google search will tell you the same thing.

1. A PC with a DVD recorder. If your PC has two DVD drives (at least one of which is a recorder) things are even easier.
2. Blank DVD media. Most commercial movie DVDs use dual-layer media which can hold up to 9GB of video and audio data. Most blank DVDs for use in computers is single layer and only holds 4.5GB of video.
3. Software to disable DVD copy protection mechanisms. I use AnyDVD. Once installed, all DVDs appear to your PC as having no copy protection. AnyDVD also includes an option to skip the movie trailers. (My favorite feature.)
4. Software to compress the source video (9GB) so that it will fit onto a standard blank DVD (4.5GB). I use CloneDVD. It is very easy to use and works quickly.

Once I had all of the software installed, the following steps summarize what I do each time I want to make a movie backup:

1. Configure AnyDVD to “Remove annoying adverts and trailers” and “Jump directly to the movie.”
2. Insert the original movie in one DVD drive, and insert a blank DVD disc into the DVD recorder drive.
3. Start CloneDVD and click the “Clone DVD” button.
4. Point the software to the source DVD drive.
5. View a portion of the on-screen movie player to ensure that it found the right movie content. Click Next.
6. In this screen I don’t change anything. If you want you can remove foreign language content to save space and potentially have less need for compression. Click Next.
7. Confirm that it is writing the copy to the blank media, and will erase any temporary files from your hard disk once the process is complete. Click Go.
8. Watch the video in fast forward mode if you like, and relax. A sound will play in 30-40 minutes to let you know it is complete.

Blank DVD media can be purchased almost anywhere. You may find that some media works better than others in your recorder (DVD-R vs. DVD+R). You may also notice some media works better than others in your DVD players (like the one in your car.) Some players (usually older ones) don’t support writable DVD media at all.

If you travel much you have likely seen advertisements and perhaps even kiosks in airports for NeatReceipts. The NeatReceipts product bundles a small USB scanner and custom software tailored to managing receipts and business cards. The product web site does an excellent job of describing how NeatReceipts works.

I like the product because I hate having small scraps of paper around my desk. Receipts and business cards are scanned and organized quite easily. The included software stores all information about your receipts and business cards (both images and OCR text) in a Microsoft SQL Desktop style database. Routine database backups are done automatically according to a schedule you set. I keep my database backup file in the My Documents folder.

Receipts are quickly scanned and automatically OCR’d for the vendor and total price.  This OCR process isn’t always successful, but it is easy to make adjustments if the metadata is important to you.  Receipts are organized using folders to group them together for the same trip and/or expense report.  Printouts can contain receipt copies and a summary of the data.  For my purposes I just print the receipts without the fancy report.  The software can even arrange smaller receipts to print on the same page.

My employer uses a custom expense reporting system (as many larger companies do.)  After scanning in my receipts, I generate the official report in my employer’s system and print the report to PDF.  I then use NeatReceipts to print the receipt image(s) to a PDF file too.  Since my employer accepts faxed reports, I can then transmit the two PDF files electronically without ever generating paper.

Receipts go in… reimbursement comes out via direct deposit.  Perfect.

In addition to receipts, the software does a good job of importing business cards.  Cards scan quickly into the same database that stores receipts.  After importing you can choose to synchronize your scanned cards to your Outlook Contacts.  This process worked easily for me, and even added missing information (like mailing addresses) to my existing Outlook contact records.

I have also used the included scanner to scan handwritten notes into Microsoft OneNote. While the scanning software controls are better suited to receipts and business cards, it does take in loose paper easily and the scanning device is small enough to stick in my laptop bag if I wanted to take it with me.

So is it worth the retail cost of $200? If you travel for work and/or accumulate lots of reimbursable business receipts it may be.  I purchased mine through Amazon.com and paid only $170 with shipping.

An ISO image file is a duplicate copy of a complete CD or DVD disc saved in an industry standard format. Storing frequently used CD/DVD discs as ISO image files on your hard disk is an effective way to keep your most important software organized and easily accessible.

I create ISO files of every computer CD and DVD that comes across my desk. Driver discs and software discs alike are stored on my desktop PC’s large hard disk. Whenever I need to reinstall software, or simply reinstall a driver, it is easier for me to find the correct ISO file than it would be to find a physical disc.

ISO Recorder is a free add-on to Windows XP and Windows Vista. It will allow you to create ISO image files from CDs you already have. It will also write an ISO file to a blank CDR. Note that ISO Recorder is not designed to make image files of protected disks, like games or movies, which incorporate copy protection techniques. There are utilities that offer that capability for a fee such as CloneCD.

ISO files are even more useful when combined with an ISO mounting utility like Virtual CloneDrive. Virtual CloneDrive allows you to mount an ISO image file as if it were inserted into a virtual DVD drive. Virtual CloneDrive can mount ISO image files of either CD or DVD discs.

The combination of ISO Recorder and Virtual CloneDrive is very useful and best of all — free!

Mozy is an on-line data backup tool. It runs in the background on your PC and transmits encrypted & compressed backups of your data files to a secure remote data center. This allows you to recover deleted or corrupted files without having to worry about traditional daily/weekly backups to disk.

The service is free if you have less than 2GB of data to back up. For $4.95 a month, you can backup up as much data as you can fit on one Windows PC (and fit through your Internet pipe.)

I have been using the paid version since I read a review in the Wall Street Journal last December.

Features include

• Open/locked file support
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption
• 128-bit SSL encryption
• Automatic or scheduled backups
• New and changed file detection
• Block level incremental backups
• Bandwidth throttling
• File versioning
• Public or private key encryption

Do you use more than one computer? If you do, you have probably struggled with a method to share or synchronize files between them. I have been using a tool called FolderShare to synchronize files between my various PC’s for several months now. I synchronize My Documents, IE Favorites, and work-related project folders between my home desktop PC and my work laptop. It works over standard SSL ports, so you can use it nearly anywhere.

UPDATE: Microsoft re-branded FolderShare as Windows Live Sync since this article was first written.  The functionality is almost identical, and the service is still free.

Microsoft purchased FolderShare back in November of 2005. It has been free to use since then.

This is how the tool is described on its website:

FolderShareTM is a service that allows you to securely keep files synchronized between your devices, share files with friends or colleagues, and remotely download your files from any web browser. FolderShare consists of two components – My FolderShare and the FolderShare Satellite.

My FolderShare: Configure and manage your account from here.

• Go to www.foldershare.com from any web browser and login to access your “My FolderShare” page.
• From here you can do any of the following:
  • Setup devices to sync or share with
  • Invite others (via email address) to share your files
  • Manage your account – upgrade your subscription, change your email address or password
  • Get help
  • Download the latest software

FolderShare Satellite: The software you need to install on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with.

• The FolderShare Satellite will run in the background when you are online.
• As you update shared or synced files, it will automatically update them on the other devices connected.