MendoClick™
Keeping Track

After I had archived enough that I no longer remembered where I put the old files, I considered various methods for tracking them. Even figured at subminimum wage, my time was worth more than the cost of catalog software. An investigation of reviews narrowed down the prospects between WinCatalog Lite and another shareware program. I chose the former because I found the website easier to read and hoped that would be reflected in the software and its documentation.

I was not disappointed. WinCatalog Lite is incredibly easy to figure out and use. According to the manufacturer, "WinCatalog Lite supports CD, DVD, diskettes, hard drives, ZIP and jazz disks, removable and network drives, Memory Stick cards and any other storage devices that can be accessed as drives."

You feed the CD's (or whatever) into your drive and have this program add them to the catalog en masse. Simply click the "add new volume" icon, choose the drive location, and select a few options:

• "Extract description for MP3, HTML etc." Any description embedded in MP3 files or HTML page titles appear as a comment next to the file name and the other attributes (size, type, modification date, and on which media the files are stored).*
   
• "Scanning archives contents." Selecting this causes zip files within the catalog to act like folders; simply click them and the files within are shown.
   
• "Retrieve audio CD track names from the Internet." This feature is like that used by CD playing programs.

The whole point of this is to enable searching for files by various useful criteria without having to put any media in the drive until you know exactly where the files are. You can also add keywords and descriptions for each file to help you find them later. Searching the catalog is extremely fast and easy.

Other features include:

• Built-in tracking for lending disks complete with a contact list for your borrowers.
   
• Multiple catalog capability.
   
• The ability to import a volume or folder from another catalog into the one you have open.
   
• A Windows Explorer style of interface where the volumes and folders are listed in the left pane with greater detail in the right.
   
• The option to add comments for an entire volume or folder (as well as for individual files within them).

All in all, a fine product.

Microsoft, Windows, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, and Microsoft Office are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.