I wrote CaseNotes back in nineteen-canteen when I worked at another lab, and for some time now I’ve been frustrated at not being able to keep it up to date after I left. However, I now have CaseNotes back under my control and have released a whole load of updates, most of which were based on many users very helpful suggestions.
So what’s new?
Just about everything – the old version used a proprietary binary file for storing your case data and this occasionally caused a few problems – so I’ve moved away from that to a standard SQLite database. This has made development much easier and has also made CaseNotes much more stable.
On top of that, I’ve added a spelling checker, a graphical check-list builder so your notes can include a check list, a template editor so you can store often used snippets of text and simply insert them into your notes with two clicks. I’ve beefed up the audit logs and made the tamper warnings much more robust too – so if you’re in a lab that is ISO17025 compliant, or you’re moving in that direction, CaseNotes can help you prove to auditors that your notes are both contemporaneous and write-once, secure from editing later or other unwanted modifications.
CaseNotes continues to be free!
We have no plans to ever charge for CaseNotes and I fully intend to keep releasing updates as and when new features are added.
Finally – we do take data protection seriously – I hate as much as you do, getting spammed by vendors who have taken down your email address and contact details as part of a registration process. So, we undertake to never contact you for any reason other than to provide you with a download link when you provide us your details. It’s really useful to know how and where CaseNotes is being used, so I would appreciate you filling in the download form accurately, but understand if you work for an agency where that is problematic.
Anyway, enough rambling – go grab a copy of CaseNotes and have a play – don’t forget to read the manual, it’s got a lot of useful and practical information about using CaseNotes in your lab.
It’s at the CaseNotes Download page.
Enjoy and happy forensicating!
By John Douglas – Technical Director, First Response