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PDO FAQ'S
Q Why PDO over a
traditional Document/Storage management System?
A Very few if any
software packages are designed with the small office and individual user in mind that
provide capabilities of both document as well as storage management.
Ÿ Document management systems do not manage other
types of information, like web resources, cataloging of paper documents without actual
conversion to electronic form etc.
Ÿ PDO makes large amounts of information accessible,
whether it is on online media, on removable media like zip disks, floppies, CD ROM's or
the web. A user can locate and access the needed information quickly and easily.
Ÿ With large disk capacities, users can store large
amounts of information. Over a period of time, a lot of the information on a hard
disk is rarely or not used at all. It would be optimum if the space could be freed,
but the documents and files are still accessible as if they were online. The
storage management features let you move less frequently used files to offline media,
freeing up hard disk space and the document management features let you find the right
information quickly.
Ÿ PDO makes locating and accessing information on CD
ROM's and other removable media easy. Cataloged files on removable media become an
integral part of the information base. They are located and accessed in a manner
similar to information stord on hard disk. PDO prompts you to mount the media with a
volume name and label of the media on which the file is located.
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Q Can
I use PDO to backup files from hard disk?
A The archive feature of PDO makes exact copies of a
file on any other media. With Archive you can maintain multiple versions of a
file. A particular version of a file can be restored using the restore feature of
PDO. Each time you archive a file you add a description for the archived file.
When you restore a particular version, PDO prompts you to mount the correct media
with the volume name and label on the media. The advantages to using PDO to backup
files, first, the files are located as any other file, secondly, the archived
version information like date and description is maintained in the catalog making it
easier to restore the right version quickly.
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Q Can I use
writable CD's to store files?
A PDO will work best with CD ROM drives and software
that support UDF packet writing to CD's. CD-R/W media is supported by UDF packet
writing software and will work best with PDO.
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Q Can I use a
mapped drive on the web?
A As long as the drive is accessible by normal file
system, you can use a mapped drive to the web or a LAN.
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Q Why should I
catalog the contents of a floppy or other removable media?
A Once cataloged with a correct Volume Name and
Label, locating any file on that media becomes easy. You no longer need to load the
media to look for a file. All information about the file is cataloged and accessible
as any other file on the hard disk. On opening a file on removable media, PDO will
automatically ask to mount the correct media.
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Q What is the difference
between a Reminder and a To Do item?
A Though both of them have similar properties, a
reminder is no longer displayed as being active after the end date and time.
To Do's on the other hand continue to be displayed till you change its status through the
properties dialog box.
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Q What can I use
Annotations for?
A Annotations provide a convenient way to maintain a
log with any item. If you have purchased a piece of equipment, you can use
annotations with that item to keep track of warranty information, repairs or maintenance
to that item etc., another example, is you make a call to a company for customer service
or support and sometimes you get the run around, you can use annotations to keep track of
all conversations etc. associated with that call. On a reminder for a birthday for
instance, you could keep a history for what you did or what you got someone for a present,
on a To Do item you could use it to log all the activities that occurred for that To Do.
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Q Can I use Publish to
move files from one computer to another?
A When you publish items, it automatically creates a
new catalog on the target media containing all the selected items that are published.
You can open the published catalog on any other machine which has PDO installed.
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Q Can I use Publish to
archive files that are no longer needed?
A Since published files have an associated catalog,
you can delete the items from your master catalog. You could use this feature to
archive all files for some period or on some topic to another media and then delete all
the files from the master catalog.
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Q
Can I use PDO to archive my
Email messages?
A In your E-Mail software use the save
option to save selected messages to disk. Once the email messages are
saved as electronic files, you can use PDO to catalog them and use the
Archive/Migrate/Publish features to archive your email messages as any other
electronic file.
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Q
How do I register
an entire file folder or a floppy?
A You can register an entire folder by
using the "Scan for Files" feature. You can scan a folder, floppy, CD-ROM,
etc. To register files that are new and have not been registered, set the scan
for "New Files". This will display a list of all the files that have as
yet not been registered. Select the files or select all files, right click
on the selected files pane and select the register option. This will
register all the selected files.
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Q What about Digital
Photographs?
A Photographs are electronic files and you can use
PDO to catalog all photographs that either are on your computer or on Photo CD's.
The search feature will enable you to locate any photograph quickly.
Secondly, you can create new folders and make links to photographs that share a common
theme. For instance you love nature photography and over a period of time you have
photographs of birds, flowers that you wish you could group together. Using PDO, you
create a new folder for flowers and create links to all photographs that are cataloged as
flowers. This not only saves you space as you do not have multiple copies of the
photographs. Thirdly, you could then use Publish to create a collection of all
photographs of flowers to distribute to friends and relatives.
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Q Can I
secure my documents and catalog?
A The catalog can be password protected from access
by others. To secure your files and documents from access by others, you can migrate
the files from your PC to an offline media. When the try to open a file that is
migrated it will ask you to mount the media. This will protect your documents from
access by others as well protect from being deleted inadvertently or corrupted
inadvertently.
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Q What is a Document Management System?
A A traditional Document Management System is
designed to provide online access to Paper Documents on a workstation. The system
consists of backend databases to index images of scanned documents, scanning software and
tools to scan paper documents and convert them to images, and high capacity optical
storage devices to store the scanned images. This allowed paper documents to be
stored and made accessible from a workstation. Other features such as OCR, FAX,
email, etc. provide a comprehensive set for managing documents on an enterprise level.
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Q What
is Storage Management?
A A traditional Hierarchical Storage management
system is designed to provide online storage for frequently used electronic files and
documents. Electronic files and documents that are not used frequently or have not
been used lately are moved to slower access intermediate media and then moved off from
intermediate media to offline media, based on some criteria for managing usage of
different types of media. Files and documents are still accessible, only that they
may require operator intervention to make them accessible. Back To Top
Q How
do I Install PDO?
A After you have downloaded the software
to your computer, double click on the file pdosetup.exe. This will begin the
install process, accept the default choices presented to you or modify them to
complete the install process. Once the software is installed, you can use
the software from the Start menu on your system. You will be asked to
accept the license agreement before you can use the software. If you have
purchased a license for the PDO, enter the Product Key in the product key field
in the dialog box. This will enable your software either as PDO Standard
or PDO Lite. PDO Basic with restricted functionality does not require a
product key at the moment and you can continue to use the software as PDO Basic.
This may change in future versions of the software. Back To Top
Q
How do I
enable my software as PDO Standard or PDO Lite?
A You can access the software license
dialog box from the view menu. In the dialog box, enter the Product Key in
the product key field. This will enable your software either as PDO
Standard or PDO Lite. PDO Basic with restricted functionality does not
require a product key at the moment and you can continue to use the software as
PDO Basic. This may change in future versions of the software. Back To Top
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