CompuServe Messages

Pat Thanks for the reply. My message was a little tongue in cheek as you keep referencing DTP, which is typically an acronym for DeskTop Publishing, rather than DTS, which is the acronym for DeskTop Set. That said, and I mean this as a comment rather than an attack of any kind, you stated that Address Book had trashed your data, and that this experience, judging by forum messages, was not uncommon. With the proviso that I am not intending to flame you, I took exception to that, as you appeared to imply that Address Book had spontaneously trashed your data, and that others had had their data spontaneously trashed by Address Book. Lost data of any kind is unacceptable, I agree. But if I had tried to export from Address Book and the process had been less than ideal, I would have done it again. Specifically, I would have run File Doctor, which amongst other things purges entries made in the btrieve file format that have the appearance of being deleted, and effectively have been deleted, but still physically lurk until purged. As to all types of data not being exported, this has as much to do with the ability of Address Book to export as the receiving file format's ability to import; many types of information can be associated with an individual entry in Address Book, far more than SideKick, for example, can accomodate. I put it, with respect, that your specific experience cannot be described as Address Book trashing your data; it may not have exported as you would have liked or even as it should, but that is I think very different from trashing your data. After all, at that point your data still existed in what was to Address Book pristine condition. You mention the examples of LeGrande Saunders having his Reminders wiped out and Benjamin Swanson having his Calendar data trashed. I don't have those messages to hand, although I will look them up if you would like me to read them, but as your experience was with exporting from Address Book, as LeGrande's experience was with Reminders, and as Benjamin's experience was with Calendar, there is, as far as I can tell, no pattern, other than that all three were using DTS; certainly the problems were with different modules. Does this mean all modules are suspect? You may well say yes, and you may well be entitled to say so, but I would emphatically say no. I have been using DTS for three or so years, and have never lost data to it. I don't push it to the limit — I'm not that well organized, although all my addresses, phone numbers and appointments are in it (I have no hesitation entrusting my data to DTS and therefore have no paper backups) — but I do use it extensively and have become a very knowledgable user. There are of course honest to goodness bugs in DTS, as there are in all applications, but to my knowledge there are no bugs associated with any modules that cause data to be trashed. There are user and hardware errors (in my experience, the two most likely sources of error when using mature products, such as DTS), and there are even peculiar causes and effects associated with DTS, although these are more likely to lead to a surfeit of data than a loss. That's a long way of saying that I believe your conclusion is flawed, or that you rolled a number of unrelated, isolated problems experienced by individual users into one and extrapoluated them to encompass the whole program. In my experience, that does DTS a great injustice, as it is almost certainly as stable as any major application, and blows the likes of PackRat 5.x away when it comes to stability. But having said all that, I'm glad you like SideKick. I am personally partisan in favor of DTS, but it is more important that you have a product that meets your needs. I did take a look at SideKick when it came out, not because I was looking to change PIM but because I like to see what's out there (I do use InfoCentral, for example, to track some of my work, so I'm not a total DTS bigot, although as a PIM I would recommend DTS over any other product I have used). Personally, I didn't like SideKick as it seemed limited in scope, and as it seemed all-consuming; that's one of the key reasons I like DTS: its modularity. And yes, it (DTS) is kind of sexy (it has the best icons I've ever seen, and they were this good before other vendors realized icons could be cool). Mostly, though, I like it because the Calendar looks like a calendar and the Address Book looks like an address book; very easy concepts for me to grasp.<g> As to 16 year old girls…well, I have a two-year-old daughter, and nowadays whenever I look at a woman under, say, 30, I keep seeing not the girl/woman but the anxious daddy sitting at home, wondering what's happening to his precious baby. So good for you; wy wife tells me I should follow your lead…<g> Good luck with SideKick. I hope it continues to meet your needs. David