"In praise of Karen" OR "How do I keep all this stuff safe?"
Karen is female. Apparently.
Ok - not the most earth shattering statement on the face of it. But at the deepest recesses of my geeky side, there's something delightfully, elegantly well designed, useful and thought-through about
Karen's Power Tools and I was curious about the name.
If you don't know them you are missing something highly useful to you, and that's any 'you' who uses a computer. This isn't specific to video.
Her tools do seriously useful stuff under the bonnet of a computer in an elegant, safe, clear and easy to use way. They are for anyone who's ever wanted a computer to just work, dammit. Or who wants and easy way to copy and archive stuff. or move large amounts of data around. or - why can't I just have a list of those files to print out? Is that website working (yours or any other)?
Ok - so we're talking hard-core teckie stuff? So is that unusual coming from a woman? Is that what's surprising about Karen being, er, Karen?
It's not that unusual to have female about in nerdy land. not these days, so that's not my first reaction.
It was more like you can see that where Karen is coming from feels like a female point of view. Maybe I'm imagining something here. But can there be something specifically 'female' about a bunch of computer tools?
It feels like she's looked at her
Windows computer and wondered why it doesn't just do stuff that are blindingly obviously stupidly necessary.
So you want me to keep backups - why doesn't it come with a good utility to do just that?
So, she seems to be saying - I could do that - make some utility that will do that solidly and well. And, hey - I've got a good idea - why not throw in a way to keep a check on two different changing sources and work out what needs to be copied between them to keep both up to date, without wiping anything useful? Neat.
Want to keep track of stuff? Why can't Windows just print out a list with all the files on the computer, or on a particular area or folder of the computer? Hey, why not be able to customise that list?
Ok, ok, I'll quit with the list before your eyes glaze over. Those are my two favourites. Net monitor is pretty useful. There's other stuff. Snooper is classic Mom keeps an eye on the kids stuff. On the other hand, I have no idea what Hasher does. Have a look for those and
more.
So is there something clear, practical and female about that? Do Gates et al need to get a bit more in touch with their feminine side?
There's inconclusive research to explore about gender and styles of learning, preferences for right and left hemispheres and modes of perception, language or communication strategies, multi-tasking, subject area preferences, 3d perception and manipulation. All that kind of stuff. Perhaps at most it adds up to a random pattern of tendencies that just about remain just about discernibly constant between cultures and through history?
If there's anything in those kind of differences, I don't know. I'm reluctant to stray into essentialist explanations, as I think you can tell. ;-) They probably have a quality that's also shared by a lot of men.
Whatever - it's a useful suite. And free. Which is good. And here's the lady in question. All hail Karen. Praise Karen.
Which reminds me.
I'll have to sing the praises of the delightfully named
CCleaner at some point in the future. Yes that's "Crap Cleaner", and no, it's not one of Karen's tools. I can't see her choosing that name, somehow.
Dreamed up by one of the lads, then. ;-)
And sure enough - it does what it says on the tin, without fuss, in a straightforward way. Just like a man. Also free. Also highly recommended. And this one does it's share of the housework. In fact, that's exactly the point of it. How's that for surprising?
