ForeverSave Lite 1.1 (Shareware)
Tool Force Software

If you've been computing for any length of time, you've no doubt experienced the horror of losing your work due to some sort of mishap. Be it an application crash, or a power outage, or some other unexpected event, hours of work can go up in smoke just because you forgot to select Save from the file menu. Although some application do have an auto-save feature, many don't. Sure, you could write the developers and ask if they could add this feature, but fortunately, there's a better way. Enter ForeverSave Lite.

ForeverSave Lite is an application that will occasionally save your document based on a number of different criteria. For the curious, this is enabled by selecting the "Enable access for assistive devices" checkbox in the Universal Access System Preferences. Don't worry, the installer will make sure that you have this setting enabled, and will query you for your administrator password so it can be changed. Once installation is complete, you can access the ForeverSave Lite Control Center via a handy menu bar icon.

One Save Criteria is Elapsed Time Since Last Save

To configure an application, activate the Control Center and press the plus icon to add an application. A list with the currently running applications will be shown, or you can select an application that isn't currently running.  You'll then be asked what conditions should cause a save. The first is to save when you switch away from the application by using the Command-Tab switching method. You can further qualify this behavior by stating the number of application switches before the document is saved. The second criteria is to save after a certain amount of time have elapsed. This figure can be in seconds, minutes or hours. Next, you can configure folder(s) that, if a document is stored in them, will not be saved automatically. Last, you define what should happen if a document hasn't yet been saved.

If your saving needs require more than just basic saving of documents, you may want to consider the full, paid version of ForeverSave. In addition to saving documents, the full version sports additional features including a backup system, version management, Quick Look, advanced settings and database sharing. So, make sure that you never lose an important document because you forgot to save, and give ForeverSave Lite a try today!

Have any other gadgets that help prevent disaster? Send an email to John and he'll give it a look.