What is For the Record?

Get all your affairs in order for when you die.  A checklist and record of things you may have forgotten.

Insurance, wills, inventory, holdings, etc.

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There are times when we all wish we had our lives better organized. This is as true of the compulsively organized as it is of the haphazard, file-it-in-piles people. Our lives are intimately tied to the papers and forms that document our possessions, plans, wishes — our very existence.

Since organization is what computers are all about, you could create a database outlining what things arc and where they lie in the general scheme of things. Creating such a database is a fairly straightforward but extremely time-consuming project. Not only will you need to be well-organized (so that you cover everything) but also you'll need plenty of time — both to design and fill in the database.

Fortunately for us, For the Record exists. For the Record is a database specifically designed to keep track of your legal, financial, and personal records. It's by Nolo Press, the publisher of many excellent books and programs on legal advice that are useful to both lay people and lawyers.

For the Record consists of a program disk and a book that is both manual and text on personal-record keeping. It's obvious that a tremendous amount of effort went into the design of the program and the writing of the manual.

This program is not very advanced as Mac databases go, but it’s superb for the job it was designed to do. And it follows the Mac interface well; operation is intuitive. There's also a Help menu that lives up to its name.

Start by selecting an entry screen from a master screen that lists 27 major record categories. These range from Emergency Information to What's Owed You, Burglar Alarms, and Estate Matters/Will. Filling out the screens and moving between them is simplicity itself. Each screen can have a pop-up noleeard attached. That's useful if you run out of room in any of the fixed-size fields.

Much of the data you'd enter in For the Record is sensitive and should not be stored openly. To ensure confidentiality, the program allows simple password-locking of all screens. The manual warns you that a determined hacker could break the passwords, but casual (or nonhacker) browsers will be kept out. The passwords seem reasonably secure to me; it took more time than it would normally be worth to get into a locked screen.

One of the strengths of the program is its printing abilities. You have no choice of report style, font, or formatting; you just specify what to print, and For the Record prints it rapidly and nicely Since these reports are for you or people who are handling your affairs, that's just what you need.

The program is weak when it comes to linking your records. Each screen has a cross-reference button, but clicking that merely brings up a dialog box suggesting other categories to check. You'll find yourself entering the same information in several screens, having to retype it all in each time. There's no way to import or export data. There's also no Save command. The program saves automatically every line you leave a screen, which seems safe enough, but I'd like a manual Save option.

The manual, which is divided into four sections, is as much a reference book on record keeping as a manual. The very large first section not only covers record keeping in depth but also frequently gives legal advice. One of the authors of For the Record is a practicing attorney, and the legal advice is of the same high quality found in all Nolo books. An attorney friend of mine took a long look at For the Record. She said that while she didn't always agree with the advice given, it was never wrong. Being a lawyer herself, she would approach some things slightly differently.

The manual focuses mainly on explaining to you what records should be stored where, and why. The next section of the manual is on estate planning, a Nolo specialty. This is an excellent treatment of a sobering subject. The last two sections of the manual are a well-written but rather ordinary computer-program manual.

Filling out a database in For the Record takes a lot of time and effort. But it's time and effort well spent; your records will be in order and easily accessible. You can rest assured that your affairs can be well handled if something happens to you.

Hirame, Ellen. (February 1989). For the Record. MacUser. (pg. 82).

Download For the Record for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

• Macintosh 512KE or later

Note:  Macintosh II and MultiFinder friendly

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II