I am in the middle of a coursework project, and I find the need to backup my working documents of high importance. I am aware that Office saves many copies, periodically, for backup purposes. Nevertheless, I wish to know if it is possible for Office to save the same file at two different destinations. i.e to save file.doc to C:\folder\ and Z:\folder\ at the same time, thus creating a "mini-raid" concept of backing up in different partitions or drives, in case one drive gracefully fucks up on me. The whole point is to have: a system/program , within or external to the application, whether word processing or any other form of application that saves and/or loads files to writable or re-writable media, including RAM-disks, virtual memory files and other types of virtual or real computer elements referred commonly as "memory", that can save/load: two or more mirror save files/periodical backups in perfect synchronization with one another, so as to preserve the ongoing or finished work, resulting from periodical or manual saves, in the event that one of the partitions, drives or folders: a) fails, b) is corrupted, c) malfunctions, d) or is in any other way inaccessible to regular or expert access methods in order to recover the file partially, or in whole. I find this idea to be very inrestering if it doesn't already exist in some form, so I guess I get the (c) for it too :dance: PS: I officialy state the date and the time of this original post as the first published version of this idea and claim copyright to it. (in case Microsoft or others desire to question authenticity ;p )
Being MOS certified (Microsoft Office Specalist) i am unaware to my knowlege of being able to save files into two diffrent partitions, I may be wrong but i have never come across any such option??
My thoughts exactly. I think I ll make a short stop at the US and UK patent site, although most software doesn't fall within the concept of a patent, this just might ;p PS: Thanks for your reply 3do
ITs ok Barc0de, i'm not sure about getting a patent for it but its a good idea and one i sure could use more often than not lol
No, i dont think you can get a patent for something this simple, plus the fact that the fees of owning a patent for something so trivial would be too high. Nevertheless, copyright is automatic upon conception and expression of an idea, and publishing it also helps in making a claim later on. Please check your PMs btw
Well, you have a couple of redundancy options, none of which are actually implemented in the application. You could set up an actual RAID 1/3/5/6 system (with the low cost of disks nowadays, everyone should do this) to provide immediate redundancy. You could use backup software for either full or incremental backups, but you run the risk of losing all the work between the backup periods. You could also use shadow copies in Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/scr.mspx) if you have the ability. I wouldn't spend too much time looking through patents. There are several applications which already implement the kind of redundancy you are talking about, namely high end CAD systems with elaborate check-in/check-out versioning systems.
Thanks for the information mairsil. I am unfortunately not willing to spend any more money on a RAID system. I intended this function to work on a single, application-based manner, in order for the none-sofisticated user to be able to save files in multiple destinations, in real-time, and automatically. I wouldn't classify complex CAD programs as none-sofisticated user programs either, whereas every jack and joe uses Office and similar programs PS: i don't have to look through patents, since it is essentially an issue of copyright, and unlike the monopoly that is patents, copyright is more losely defined . My description and desire to apply this to Office or similar products/application, and in general none-sofisticated programs sets it apart from the high-end CAD systems and their implimentation. For general info about copyright in the UK: http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy.htm
I think that the problem you would run into is that a RAID mirror is too inexpensive and easy to setup to make it worth implementing a application based system. Additionally, most people use multiple applications for sensitive material (e.g. important letters in Word, brochures in Acrobat, etc.), so a single application approach would leave gaps. (oh, and I only mentioned patents because you said you were going to "make a short stop at the US and UK patent site" :110
The UK patent.gov.uk site also manages copyright issues and guidlines As for having one application to do this is not what I meant. To implement this in every desirable application such as Word, Excel, Acrobat etc is the approach I suggest, and a "shinny penny" from each company's use of the copyright to yours truly
I would say you'd find it nearly impossible to put a copyright on this. Whereas you can come up with something such as a convention for a file format and dictate how it can be used and by whom (PDF for example - not many writing programs around), it is very difficult to copyright what is, essentially, an idea rather than anything physical. Programs already have the function to save, indeed to backup save every x minutes. All you are suggesting is that this is done to two different locations. You aren't suggesting HOW (e.g. in coding terms) they do this, and indeed, I'm sure this would be simplicity in itself... and they could approach it in several different ways. I really don't see how you can say it is different from the CAD program. IF you were to copyright it, they would turn around and say, "Hang on... WE had that idea first!!" Rights assignment costs thousands... especially if you're covering the US and other regions. I really can't see people such as Microsoft paying someone a shed load for an idea, when their product will still function efficiently without it. Nice idea, but I really don't see you making any money from it! To answer your original request, could you not have it so that the autosave saves to C:\backup (or whatever), and then MANUALLY save it yourself to Z:\backup every now and then, too? Having said that, I think the autosave may save over the actual file you've saved.... hmm.....
retro, to avoid any confusion, please go to www.patent.gov.uk . Any work that falls within those categories is automatically copyrighted and subject to protection. I usually make sure I don't speak out of my bum before I post things As such, an algorithm, described in mere words, is sufficient to be protected by copyright as a computer program or literary work (or both) under the CDPA 1988, and the relevant Directive (2001/29/EC) of the E.C What you believe to be "copyright" is what the Germans thought of copyright relating to computer programs, and thanks to the EC directive, even they have adopted the liberal approach of the UK on the subject. As a final year law student and a person doing a dissertation and a module coursework on the subject, I trust my research has been up to date and correct the "we had this first" applies to Patents, not copyrights. Regarding CAD programs, I m not certain that they perform what I speak of in detail. they may keep multiple copies in a different way most probably. Essentially the difference lies in using such an algorithm in what one would label "office" applications, eg, applications used for typing text , etc, and not for expensive and highly specialized CAD software. The speciality of such a feature in CAD programs was such that even I was not aware of tis existence, despite the fact that I do work with 3ds max etc every now and then for the fun of it. As such, the originality of my work is a product of my own needs arising from the limitations of the software used. By itself, the concept may sound familiar, as all general concepts do. But in the proper context, (i.e that of "office oriented applications" such as but not limited to MS office) this concept is unique, and thus deserving copyright in its own merit. On a final note: MS doesnt' have to pay someone millions for an idea. A copyrighted idea is worth as much as a song written by a band is worth. Meaning? it is negotiable. That's why the requirment of "assigning" (i.e transfering the rights to another legal entity) must be made in a written contract. As such, settting a price to sell to Microsoft, or any interested party is a matter of negotiation. Competing interested parties are the mechanism by which a price for an idea sky-rises. If this feature (for example) is to make the next office application (and i don't mean MS' Office alone, but ANY office, such as Star Office for Linux) popular or boost sales even marginally, even 1% sale differences would warrant at least 1.000-50.000 (random numbers with some contextual value) if not more USD for the copyright. In other words, if you present a car design and you see that identical design, or substantial parts of the design hitting the streets in the future, you have claim as long as you can prove that you were the original copyright holder of the design. Publishing materials is a way of ensuring public awareness, as long as it is stated or inferred that you are the copyright holder, including a date if possible. I personally avoid this in visual designs however because the burden of proof is difficult, since a literary work or algorithm is more easily explained throughoutly (With words) than a painting or sketch (visually). Keep in mind that settling out of court can be as profitable as suing someone for infringement of intellectual property, such as copyright.
I only brought up CAD programs because the first kind of application that I thought of which performs this function is a high end CAD/CAE/CAM application (e.g. Solidworks, I-DEAS, Pro-E). The duplicate saving function is not even a part of the CAD program per se, rather it is a function of the versioning system. While the intricate details of the file storing features are proprietary, it is easy to pick through and see how/where/when files are saved. I am sure that other versioning and check-in/check-out systems perform the same functions. You might want to take a look at how Visual SourceSafe or SharePoint (both Microsoft products) function. Here is an explicit example of how one of the CAD versioning systems I have used worked ("drawing" can be either 2D or 3D): 1) Check-out a drawing to modify. This created a local copy of the file for the user to examine and modify while maintaining a "server" copy for other users. Any given file could only be checked out by one person at a time. 2) Modify the drawing. 3) Save the drawing. Changes made to the drawing were saved to the local file as well as set to the server for storage. This allows the person who checked out the file to continue working on it, but also allows others to see the changes before the file is checked in. Since these files are typically very large, the local copy is necessary for faster processing and the server copy may take a minute or two to be updated after saving. 4) Check-in the drawing. Assuming that the file has been saved, the local copy of the file is deleted and the server copy is unlocked so that it can be checked out again. I know that I keep mentioning versioning systems, but I think those are going to be your biggest obstacle. SharePoint works with Office and there are many versioning plugins (e.g. Perforce) for Office. I can imagine that other extensible applications have the same kind of plugins. By the way, real engineers don't consider 3dsmax a CAD program :lol:
How long has RAID been around and what is it's purpose? RAID=Simple ...Why try to re-invent the wheel for zero gain?
interesting stuff mairsil I m not hellbent on getting a sum for this, my main goal in posting this was to find a solution for mirror saving within the application - as it's not possible for me to go out and buy a raid card, two hard disks etc to do a single coursework, and it's not worth it either! If SharePoint works with Office, i d be more than happy to give it a shot. My concern, as usual, is that because my PCs hard drives are considerably old (5 years and running) I m in constant fear, especially regarding files I haven't had the chance to backup. 3ds max is as far as I go into CAD, because after that, it's a totally different field, and I don't have the time nor the expertise to deal with it. Most of my family are engineers though, so I might ask them for some advice as well @Fred: Raid is simple and cheap, but relatively speaking. Having an application to save your work in progress in two different paths is cheaper than buying and configuring a raid setup, no matter how cheap that is. Besides, I don't see most consumer computers comming with mirror raid drives. Even joe public has a right to instant backups, at least regarding work-files if not his entire contents (as RAID would take care of that) PS: what i m doing at the moment is every "session" , I close my files and copy/paste to an external flash drive through a batch file I made for this purpose (who said ms-dos wasn't fun ;p )
