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Track My Own Files Site Update 2019-08-28

Status Update

I have just acquired a new, cheap but really good performance for its price, compute server, from DreamHost. This new compute server is for hosting the micro-service part of the system. Apparently, my current managed VPS would not allow me to setup docker on it. It is mainly just optimized for web hosting. But with this new compute server, it should provide the needed hosting performance needed for the Free Service. So at least that part is ready.

Why did I choose DreamHost

Because DreamHost is of really good performance for its price and their support is really helpful. By the way, if you are looking for a server for your own personal micro-services, I could only recommend DreamHost. If you should choose to do so, please do use my affiliate link to DreamHost. Do not worry, It would cost you the same. But it would help me so much with the commission that I could get from leading you to them.

So what is taking so long

I will have to apologize for the delay. I realized that I will need to modify the code a bit to accommodate multiple users. My sincerest apologies, for when I designed it, it was originally made for just 1 user, me.

If in case you really need the system now

If you need the system now, just leave me a comment below on this post. And provide me your name, email, the OS where you are planning to use it on. Do not worry the comments are all moderated so only I could see your comments. So nobody else could see the email address and anything else that you post there.

But if you could wait just a few more days

I should be able to get the Free Service up and running in a few more days. Because once the Free Service is up, it is the easiest way to test out the system. As you would NOT need any server to host the micro-services for you.

Please leave a comment about your OS

Once the Free Service comes online, I will be creating a series of blogs on how to use the system. If you could just leave me a comment of what OS you are using, that will be great. So that I could prioritize the blogs based on demand. You could choose to leave your email there or not. But if you need a quick response from me it would be best to leave me your email there.

Why Comments, why not the contact us page

Well, I have still to make the form for the contact us page. As I chose to set up the Free Service first instead of the contact page. Apologies, I am just a lone developer setting up everything, and web design is not really my forte, yet.

What is Track My Own Files

Just in case you are still not familiar about what this site Track My Own Files is all about. Just check out my first blog Track My Own Files site is now up.

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Track My Own Files site is now up

What is Track My Own Files site all about

Track My Own Files is a Cross-Platform Open-Source File Tracking System designed to track files on active, inactive (removable), local and/or networked storage devices.

Why would this matter to me

  • Well, if you sometimes find yourself making backups of files either on the same machine, or on another machine, or on removable drives, and after a year, or even sometimes just a week, you finally find yourself not able to remember where you placed your backup or maybe even doubting if you had backed it up in the first place. Then this should matter to you.
  • Well, If you sometimes find yourself constantly running out of space, only to find that you have been keeping multiple duplicate files, regardless of whatever file type, on several locations on the same machine. Then this should matter to you.
  • If you are the type of person who shoots a lot of pictures or videos, and after consuming the whole capacity of the SD card would swap it with a new fresh one, and at the end of the day would copy the contents of the SD to a larger drive but leaves the original on the SD as backup. But after accidentally deleting or modifying the copy, would try to go through all of those backup SDs trying to find that one file. Then this should matter to you.
  • If you are the type of person that needs to constantly keep track if there are a sufficient number of backup copies across multiple machines and/or removable storage devices. Then this definitely should matter to you.
  • If you are the type of person that keeps track of a file’s file integrity via md5, sfv or sha1 to sha256 checksum. then this definitely should matter to you.
  • Well, If you sometimes find yourself suddenly loosing a storage device either due to file system corruption, viruses, drive failures, and have spent some time just agonizing in not knowing what was the contents and if there are any important files in there, or just want to know if there are still enough adequate number of backups, after such an event. Then this is definitely for you.

How can I access this service

Designed around a micro-service architecture and accessible via REST API, Command Line (CLI), and probably later via WebUI (depends on demand).

As I am still setting up the site, I will be creating a series of blogs to provide instructions on how to use the system.

What was the reason for creating Track My Own Files

I created this system because:

  • I too had suffered the loss of losing several Hard drives, and would even until now I would still wonder if the file(s) that I have been looking for was in that drive or not.
  • I too had been keeping track of file integrity, ever since I learned the CRC checks are not enough to verify if the backed-up file or disk is indeed still being read correctly or was downloaded correctly or had not been tampered with.
  • I too had come across the need to free up a lot of space by finding all those duplicate files caused by my eagerness to just backup the whole drive into a larger drive each time I would need to reinstall my machine again.

What was the reason for starting up a whole site

As I said before I have suffered, and maybe there are others who have also suffered as I have or maybe is still suffering. And just maybe this is what they need or maybe this could prevent such a loss. I honestly do not know, but what I do know is that this system had helped me a lot and I will continue to use it from now on.

Another reason is that in the next couple of blogs I will be teaching how to set all of this up (both client and server), but there are also those that will not be able to completely set all of this up (maybe just the client part) and that is okay, because once I could manage to squeeze in the time or even better if there will be a lot of demand for it, I could set up a Free Service. Which should be enough for those who would want to quickly try it out or even those who would actually just use it for their own personal use, for as long as I could manage to maintain it.

Of course, if ever I would make it to the point where I would deploy such a Free Service, there will be a reasonable limit. I apologize in advance but my resources are just finite and the Free Service will need to have a limit to avoid abuse or just to give others users a chance to use it with hopefully minimal degradation, but I will try to make the limit more than enough for the average user if I can.