ToolWatcher

I went and got the Diff add-on for FileHamster and then I had to do some research on Diff utilities. I will put up comparisons at a later date after I mention some of the runners up. For today I am going to announce my winner. As was given away by the title, WinMerge is the winner. As a utility to compare a file revision to a current version of one of my files in FileHamster it of course works perfectly. It goes far beyond that use as well.

WinMerge will let you diff individual files as well as entire folders which is always nice. They have the ever popular drag and drop functionality for opening files to compare. Of course you also get the ability to merge differences over to the other file and save the changes too.

I was already well impressed with Winmerge as I used it with my backup management. But then I found some plugins on their site. They have plugins that enable me to compare backup versions of my Excel files and my Word documents. That was the icing on the cake.

For comparing changes in your text files Winmerge is my definite pick. It is a perfect utility to use with the diff feature in my windows backup software FileHamster.

I found this great utility a while ago and think it will be a fitting first tool to set my sights on. It is called FileHamster. This program allows me to use a lot of other utilities that I have found in conjunction with each other for managing my different projects. I use it for my audio and video projects, as well as my website projects. I have been saved quite a few times from my own foolish self (and not the good kind of foolish).

FileHamster was originally introduced to me as a backup program. When I think of backup programs I think of massive storage and keeping copies in a different locations like using a Maxtor program or an online backup like Mozy. I checked it out and found FileHamster to be much, much more. I like to refer to FileHamster as a performance enhancer. As I work it saves each revision and allows me to go back and restore to older versions when I have badly screwed up some of my old PHP,  HTML, CSS, .wav or any other kind of file that it is possible for me to destroy beyond all recognition. As if that is not enough FileHamster has additional utilities that let me do all kinds of things from the interface. I can zip your “revisions” so as to save space. I can assign a diff program to different files which will let you view differences in versions. I can upload my modified web pages to my FTP automatically with each change. I can even assign a batch file to run and convert my .psd files to png’s or jpg’s automatically so that I don’t have to save each format from within Photoshop. I just save the psd and my other formats are created.

There’s a wealth of information that I will spend quite a few posts on because there are a great many features in this program to go over. It is one of my favorites. So be on the lookout and try to keep up.