SyncEXPERT

Get productive when class is back in session with StudyRails, a webapp that tracks your time and notifies you of upcoming course assignments via email or text message. When you receive new class assignments, enter them into StudyRails and designate slots of time to study for the assignments. The webapp will notify you prior to the assignment via email or SMS. Additionally, StudyRails can send mentors (and even parents) your classes and upcoming assignments for added motivation. Finally, when you’re in the middle of studying, StudyRails will block distracting web sites and applications so that you can focus on the required tasks at hand.

Add An Assignment

If you have an assignment, you can either click on the class time that the assignment is due or click on “New Assignment” to update the information. In this area, you can designate the amount of time that you estimate it will take to complete the assignment and add milestones if necessary.

Study Time

With StudyRails, you can either set aside blocks of time for completing a particular assignment or for studying for a particular quiz or exam. If you plan on studying for three hours on Tuesday night for four upcoming assignments, StudyRails will do the math and figure out how to best allocate your time. Simply drag your mouse over a block of time and StudyRails will do the rest.

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Make your life simpler by assigning things you repeatedly do to certain keys (or key combinations). Alternatively, create a key for characters that you use frequently, but that your keyboard does not have (eg, the euro character). You can even configure the software to automatically expand your abbreviations so that you only have to type the short form, and it will expand it for you.

All these, and more, can be accomplished with the free software on this new page.

SyncToy 2.0 has just been released to the Microsoft Download center. SyncToy 2.0 for Windows is available as a free download and is an easy to use, customizable application that helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers. SyncToy is powered by Microsoft Sync Framework and is yet another example of how Sync Framework helps to create end-to-end solution for enabling synchronization of any content or data.

Based on the feedback from the SyncToy Forum and Windows XP Professional Photography web site, the following features were added to this release of SyncToy:

• Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition. 
• True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions. 
• Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching. 
• Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden). 
• Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off. 
• Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points. 
• Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface. 
• Re-Architect Sync Engine: The SyncToy engine has been rearchitected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases. 
• Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single, file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation. 
• Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder. 
• 64-Bit Support: SyncToy now has a native 64-bit build (x64 only) for 64-bit versions of Windows. 
• Folder pair rename 
• Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents created under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded. Usability improvements for the sub-folder exclusion dialog. 
• Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from MyDocuments to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. 
• Setup Improvements: Integrated setup with single self-extracting archive file and no extra downloads if you already have .NET Framework 2.0 installed. Enabled silent install for the SyncToy Installer file (see readme.txt file for more information).
• Removed combine and subscribe actions.

SyncToy 2.0 is available for download from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en

Liam