Donor Tracking Notebook
Maintenance Donor Tracking Notebook
MaintenanceThe Donor Tracking Notebook is a database application. The database engine that it uses WILL damage the database files, making the data unusable in some cases. These cases include, but aren't limited to: turning off the power when the computer is writing to disk or at other critical times in the process, turning off the power or resetting the computer without doing a normal system shutdown, and operating system crashes. Because of this, and because of the possibilities of user error, malicious software, and hardware failure, it is a REQUIREMENT that you back up your data. Just imagine yourself trying to recover and reenter all of the data from nothing, and I think you will agree that the insurance of periodic backups is well worth the effort.
While it is a good practice to keep a backup of your Donor Tracking Notebook installation files just in case you need to reinstall the system on another computer or recover from losing everything on a hard disk, you can download a new copy from http://eBible.org/dtn/ or the backup site, http://mpj.cx/dtn/ (assuming those haven't both gone away, which could happen). You address list and donation records, however, are not so easy to replace. You should back up all of the files in your database directory (by default, this is the "db" directory under the program installation directory, but you can change it with the system configuration dialog box) at least once a week. If for some reason the current files become corrupted, you can move the current files to another directory and restore the files from your most recent backup. This backup should be to someplace besides your current hard disk, such as to floppy disks, tape, a writable CD-ROM, or a networked hard disk on another computer. It is better to have the data on a removable medium that is stored separately, since that way if the computer is stolen, destroyed, or attacked by a virus, the data that is stored separately (like on a tape or CD-ROM in a safe or another building) is likely to still be OK.
In addition to the above backup, DTN offers to make a backup of the database files every time you exit the program. This is not as safe as the removable media backup recommended above, because it can't recover from some kinds of problems, but it is easy and a good supplement. You should answer "yes" to this question unless you are sharing the database in a networked environment, and someone else has Donor Tracking Notebook open at the same time. When you do answer "yes," please make sure that the backup operation is complete before shutting down your computer.
DTN does this extra backup by creating a .zip archive of the database files in the db directory (or whatever directory you have configured your database files to be in), and placing it in the "bak" directory under that directory. The .zip file is named "dtnbak01.zip" if this is the first day of the month, "dtnbak02.zip" if this is the second day of the month, etc. If there is already a backup file by that name (presumably from last month or earlier on the same day), it is replaced. If you ever need to recover data from one of these files, you just have to move the current database files out of the database directory and unzip the files from the backup file into the database directory. You can use any standard .zip file utility to do so, including InfoZip, WinZip, PKZip, and the Microsoft Plus .zip compression folders feature.
At the bottom of the Address tab page (you may have to enlarge the window or scroll down to see it) is a "Find strange data" button. This button will help you find incomplete or poorly formatted addresses. (It may falsely accuse non-USA addresses of being "strange"). It also removes spurious punctuation in the addresses. (The U. S. Postal Service prefers no punctuation in addresses except for #.) To use this button, start with the first address record, then press this button. If the address goes to something besides the last address, look carefully at it to see what might be missing or wrong (i. e. the state or zip code). This catches things like the wrong number of digits in the zip code, but doesn't tell you exactly what test it failed. If the address is a non-USA address, having this function stop on it doesn't mean the address is wrong.