Enter Google Calendar.

Google Calendar is a full featured calendar, capable of being updated anywhere from the internet, by anyone that you allow. It will send email or text messages to remind you of appointments, etc. and provide for single appointments or reoccurring events.

If you don’t currently have a Google Calendar, sign up with Google and give it a try. Its free….and soon an option to display your calendar directly in ShopFileR.

Your Google Calendar can be displayed along with your favorite links and contacts. It is an option however, and if you don’t want it, you don’t have to turn it on.

For more information on Google Calendar, click here… http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/about.html

More features added to ShopFileR 2.1

In 2.1 we are adding some trigonometry so you don’t have to do it yourself.  ShopFileR will calculate triangle sides and angles, circle radii and circumferances, rectangle diagonals, and arc radii, and more.  Its a start and more may be added in future versions.

Also, anywhere in ShopFileR where you have entered an address of a contact, customer, etc, we have added two Google Map buttons.  One uses Google Maps to pinpoint the location of the address and the second button will display the map and directions from your location to the address.

Planned release for ShopFileR 2.1 is sometime during October 2010.

You can now capture web addresses directly from your browser by double clicking on the ShopFileR icon in the Windows system tray, pressing the ‘Insert Link from…’ button, or from the clipboard. Its now a lot quicker and easier to capture web addresses while you are browsing!

Web pages can now be saved to your ShopFileR database for offline viewing or future reference in case the page is changed or dissappears. This is great for saving forum messages that tend to go away after a period of time. Even the pictures on the web page are saved!

If your PC or laptop has a microphone, you can record notes directly from the Front Page, in the Notes, Projects, or Tool sections to voice annotate any entry. Voice notes can be played back directly from ShopFileR. This is ideal for making voice notes when discussing a project, etc.

A couple of fun tabs can be optionally added to the Front Page. A ‘Weather’ tab simply displays the current weather for your location and a ‘Stock Market’ tab will give updates on whatever (NYSE) stock ticker symbols you would like to see. Both the weather and stock market data are updated approximately every 10 minutes when they are being displayed. You do have to activate these tabs and provide your location and any ticker symbols you would like to see. Check the ShopFileR help for more information.

Again, thanks for using ShopFileR!

The new fractional calculator is almost ready.  We are now working on the Help topics.  For those who don’t need a fractional calculator, there is an option to keep the origional decimal only calculator.

Other changes to ShopFileR include changing the time display on the main window to conform to your Windows setting.  If your Windows is set to display time in 24 hour format, then ShopFileR will recognize that and display the time appropiately.

The $ currency symbol has been removed in this next release.  It is planned for either this next release, if time permits, or shortly after to format all currency fields based on your Windows settings, including your currency symbol, decimal, and thousands seperator.

A ‘Print’ button has also been added to the individual ‘Note’ page.

One of the really nice uses I have for the ShopFileR notes section is to save my favorite recipes.  I added a ‘Food’ Category and put my most used recipes under that category.  They are easy to find and, when I need them, I just hit the print button to print off a copy to cook from, then when all done, I toss the printed copy.

Storing recipes this way makes them easy to find, convenient, and kept (and backed up) with my other important information.  

The next version of ShopFiler due to be released in January will include my favorite  Chili recipe as an example note.  

Also, in the next version, the Calculator is being updated to allow the entry of, and calculation with, fractions.  As an example, “how many strips of wood 1 5/16″ wide can be riped from a 7 1/2″ board given a saw kerf of 1/8″ ?”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all!

I typically will setup a new project in ShopFileR then spend some time searching through the various woodworking sites and forums for pictures of similiar projects and gather construction and finishing ideas.  I save the ones I like, as part of the project, either as a web link, or as an .mth file, possibly with comments for later reference.  I also include links to the various suppliers that I may use when purchasing materials for the project, along with keeping an ongoing materials list and notes on the project. 

Its a nice way to keep all the links and information relating to a project together, especially when I need to go back a year or so later and remember, for example, how the finish was done or where to buy matching hardware.

Projects can now be archived, removing them from the normal Project listing. All information on the archived project is retained and additional menu items have been added to list Archived Projects, Active Projects, and All Projects.

Information on individual projects can now be exported to a text file.  This text file can be imported into a word processor and reformated into an invoice, project record, etc. Data exported for the project includes project notes, material list, (including individual material cost and total material cost) and Time Tracking including total hours and total cost per hour.

Pressing the Export button now gives the option of exporting to XML or to a text file.

To upgrade your ShopFileR to the new version…FIRST DO A BACKUP OF YOUR SHOPFILER, then go to Help/Check the Web for Updates and “download and install” the latest version.  A very simple process.

2. I had collected most of the manuals for my tools in pdf format and was having trouble keeping track of them, plus I needed a tool inventory with pictures, serial numbers, history, cost, etc for insurance purposes.

3. I was collecting quite a few forum  messages and pictures on various projects, jigs, hints, etc that I want to save for future use. Organizing and finding them again was beginning to be a real problem. Plus, on many forums, the pictures are not hosted on the forum but other sites and tend to disappear. Messages also are deleted after a period of time.

I started saving the messages (and other important links) that I wanted to keep as web page .mht files, which saves the entire web page, pics and all, in a nice concise format. I added the ability to ShopFileR to keep track of them.

4. I wanted to be able to take all this stuff with me when on the road in case I wanted to peruse a manual, work on some plans for future projects, have all my woodworking internet links available, etc. ShopFileR will copy itself and everything in its subfolders to a memory stick or another PC. It will also zip itself for backup purposes and optionally make the zip file self extracting.

So those were the biggies for me, but I ended up adding a bunch of other stuff as well, with the idea of the program living on the old pc in my workshop, with a backup to my home office pc.

Thanks for taking a look…You are welcome to download and give the program a try.  If you have any questions or comments please send us an email. 

I  am especially interested in hearing your comments if you decide not to download it and give it a try, or if you do download it, and don’t like it.

http://www.ShopFileR.com

Download it and give it a try.  We welcome any comments pro or con on the program.  Let us know what it is missing or what you would like to see added or changed…or if you even find it useful or not.

Feel free to post any comments on this blog as well.

Thanks for taking a look!

We are in the beta process of ShopFileR – Desktop software for the workshop to help organize  all of the electronic information that we tend to accumulate for all of our tools, projects, forum messages, pictures, etc.

More information on ShopFileR can be found at www.ShopFileR.com.

The expected release date for ShopFileR is the first half of September, 2007.