Topics

1

General Software Discussion / Searching a Text-Table tool...

« on: July 27, 2009, 07:23 PM »

Hi,

I often have to insert tables into plaintext emails. Formating them in a texteditor is very time consuming. I found a nice tool on the Mac and wonder if there is something like this on windows. Any ideas?

thanks and bye
Andreas

2

Found Deals and Discounts / Regex Buddy for 19$ at Bitsdujour (only today)

« on: November 18, 2008, 03:54 AM »

http://www.bitsdujou...software/regexbuddy/

3

Developer's Corner / Is it possible to change to working directory within the running programm?

« on: June 11, 2008, 01:17 PM »

Hi all,

I have to write a tool which starts and runs on the shell (cmd.exe). It does some logic, takes some input from the user and finishes. Right before it finishes it should change the directory from which it was called. I have no clue if this is even possible. I tried to get the parent process and alter it this way, which results in crashes... 


C:\Home>my_tool.exe 
   ...doing some stuff...
   ...doing some stuff...
   ...doing some stuff...
   ...some user input....
   ...doing some stuff...
   ...finishing...
D:\Data\Documents>


Any Idea how to do this?

4

Developer's Corner / I got an idea for Website / Webservice - comments please

« on: May 08, 2008, 06:10 AM »

Hi,

I got a new display (the wonderfull Dell WFP3008 ). It turns out, that the brightness of it is way better than the one from my old 19" CRT. After working a few hours with it, I had to change all my colorschemes to darker ones. I did this for:

• Notepad++ (HTML, JS, CSS, PHP, SQL)
• PHPEdit (PHP, SQL)
• Eclipse (Java, Ruby)
• Visual Studio (c#, XML)
• e-Texteditor (HTML, JS, CSS, PHP, SQL, XML)

and it took a lot of time...

So the idea is to create a Webpage where users can add their colorschemes, save it in a editor-neutral format and generate colorscheme files for different editors / IDEs. I don't know if anyone would use such a thing, but I would be glad if I had found one

Comments, Suggestions, Yes, No 

5

Developer's Corner / How to divide an image into random sized parts?

« on: April 03, 2008, 06:29 PM »

Hi,

I want to divide an image into random sized parts. I need this for some kind of puzzle game I'm writing with a friend. Dividing an image into even sized parts like this:

[attach=#1][/attach]

is not a problem at all. But how could I divide in into randomsized parts like this:

[attach=#2][/attach]

The algorithm I'm searching must be capeable of slicing any image in a variable amount (which is set by the player) of parts. The resulting images (parts) should not be smaller than X pixels and not larger than Y Pixels. The parts may not overlap each other. I have no idea how to do this.

6

General Software Discussion / Searching a tool to calculate checksums without taking metadata into account

« on: March 27, 2008, 11:41 AM »

Hi,

I need a little (commandline) tool or library to get the MD5 (or any other) Hash form MP3, FLAC, OGG and Monkey Audio Files. It should provide the checksum for the Audiotrack only, not the whole file. I have the problem of having a lot of playlists and (unsorted) files. When I move and  rename the files, the playlist couldn't find it anymore. To solve this, I wrote a script, which scans my music folder and look for a special ID3 Tag which identifies the track. Then it regenerates the playlist. This basically works, but it involves to many manual steps to get the GUIDs (Global Unique IDs) into the tags, so I would like to replace the GUID with the AudioTrack-Hash. I can not use the whole file for hashing, because I have ID Tags which get updated everytime I listen to it (playcount, last_played). Anyone know such a tool?

7

Unicode Image Maker / Some Ideas

« on: January 22, 2008, 06:59 AM »

Hi Mouser,

I searched the web today for a tool but couldn't find anything usefull, but I think UIM could be modified to do the job. I don't know if you are still develop UIM - if not - no problem, I will find something else... OK, the problem is, that I have to do some webdesign work. Most of our clients donut want their email in plain text (because of spam bots) on their imprints (which is mandatory in germany). So I'm sitting here, firing up Photoshop, type the address, save as... close photoshop - starting Photoshop takes about 80 seconds, typing about 5 seconds So my Idea  was to find a tool which allows me to create Images from the commandline (I know ImageMagick - but don't like the results when dealing with text). I think about something like:

[Select]

UIM --text="[email protected]" --font="verdana 12px #000000" --background="transparent" email.png
UIM --text="Demoheadline" --font="verdana 22px #ffffff" --background="#0000ff" headline.png

This should result in 2 images, cropped to the bounding-box of the text, if not different specified. For handling the format, you can use a subset (font, background, width, height, textalign, padding, margin, text-decoration) of the CSS syntax which should be familiar to webworkers and css parser are available. Maybe this whole Idea is a completely new tool, but I thought UIM would be a nice foundation to build up on...

8

General Software Discussion / Searching a commandline NNTP client

« on: January 03, 2008, 07:52 AM »

Hi,

can you recommend a commandline NNTP client (or simply a script)? It should support downloading the complete messages, not only headers, and store it in a standard fileformat like MailDir, MBox or an DB like MySQL. I want to get rid of my news in Thunderbird and have a way to automatically download it via batch or some other scripting language. Any suggestions?

thanks in advance
Andreas

9

General Software Discussion / How do you archive your Email or MBox2CHM?

« on: December 11, 2007, 09:20 AM »

Hi,

it's already December and I would like to archive my old Emails at the end of the year. I got about 4.5 GB of emails from the last 10 years - which make Thunderbird really slow. I would like too keep all the mail from 2007 in the client and archive older mails in some (still accessible) way. The problem is that Thunderbird keeps all mails in the MBox format what basically means one large file per folder.

I thought about these options:
1) Create a Filter to get all older Emails in a separate folder. This Folder could be compressed and backup'ed right away. MBox is plaintext so it is some way of search able but not really good readable and 100MB+ textfiles are slow when opened in an texteditor.

2) Just like 1) but transform the the MBox into Maildir - which stores mails as individual files. This solves the search and open issue but makes it really hard to find replies and followup's

Both "solutions" lacking the ability to handle attachments

My perfect solution would be as follows:
Create one CHM-File (Help File) per Folder per Year and keep the "reply-structure". CHM provides search, Index and HTML View - which would be simply great. I haven't found a tool to convert the MBox to CHM (only an Outlook Plugin). Does anyone know such a tool or another good solution? If no tool is found, I will go to code one by myself...

10

General Software Discussion / Searching a "Filesystem based event trigger tool"

« on: August 31, 2007, 09:35 AM »

Hi,
I'm searching a tool, which acts like a "email-filter-rules" but on the filesystem level. I think a few example help to understand what I mean:

• I download a new credit card bill from my banks website. I review it and put it than in the folder "D:\docs\bills\mastercard\". The tool would recognize the new pdf in the folder and would run a batchfile to gpg-encrypt it and the wipe the pdf.
• I store my ripped CDs as FLAC (lossless), but my Mp3 Player dont support it. I want to copy the FLACs to a folder and automatically run a FLAC2MP3 conversion, copy it to the player, delete the MP3 from the filesystem
  
• I load photos from my camera to "I:\Fotos\Inbox\" - the tool runs and makes me Thumbnails and stores them in a folder, archives the original Fotos in a Folder, starts uploading the Pics to Smugmug and sends a mail to people a list
  

Ok, this sound very complex, but I think the tool wouldn't be to hard to code.
It has to monitor the Folders (like FileSystemWatcher Class in DotNet), when a new File is preset check if the preconditions are ok (for example filetype = pdf) and then run a couple of Batchfiles or scripts one after another. The tool only have to call the Scripts...

Before I start writing it myself: Do you know a tool which can do this? OpenSource prefered

11

General Software Discussion / DVDProfiler 3.0 is finally out !

« on: April 17, 2007, 06:40 PM »

a new version of the best DVD Manager has been released  After 2 Years of silence and no public release, the new Version 3.0 is out. The price remains the same - 30 $ for lifelong updates (one-time fee). If you have an extensive DVD Movie Collection check out http://www.invelos.com (the new Homepage) I absolutely love this tool 

12

General Software Discussion / Lookinjg for a "FTP-Size" tool

« on: March 17, 2007, 09:18 AM »

Hi,

I need to check some FTP-Quotas. Is there a Tool which connects to the FTP-Server, lists the files and sums up the filesize? In the best case it runs from the commandline and exports the file -> size list in a Excel importable format. Any suggestions?

thx
Crono

13

General Software Discussion / How to clone large HDDs?

« on: January 28, 2007, 12:48 PM »

Hi Guys,

my primary HDD with the OS's installed (XP and Debian) is slowly, but surely, going to die. my HDD-Life SMART Monitor tells me it is 74% OK which is for me way to low for ignoring it I got a second - unused - drive (self model). I want to put it in my external case 1 and the new HDD in the external case 2 and copy it (Lowlevel) with my laptop 1-to-1. Is this possible (with all the partitions an the bootmanager...)? If the  Linux Ext3 partition is the problem I would leave it, but Windows should be cloned the the other disk. Backing up an image to DVD is not an option (160 GB) an a total new Installation should also be avoided. Any Ideas?

14

General Software Discussion / Time Tracking Tool lost...

« on: December 31, 2006, 10:24 PM »

Hi,

I lost a Link to a very interesting tool. The tool is a Timetracking app, which takes periodically Screenshots for you. With this Screenshots you get  a complete "working day history". Does anybody know this tool. I think I read about it in december on Lifehacker, Downloadsquad or the DC Blog - but I cound't find it anymore...

happy new year

bye bye
Andreas

15

General Software Discussion / Any way to "tag" files in Windows ?

« on: October 09, 2006, 10:58 AM »

Hi folks,

Im searching a way to tag all kind of files in Windows Explorer. Example: I listen to a lot of Podcasts, so I want rightclick on one MP3 File and apply "toListen" to it, to differ from old and new ones... Or add "*****" for high rated files... Do you know an App which provides me this features?

16

Developer's Corner / WANTED: Delphi guy for tiny app

« on: September 19, 2006, 02:17 PM »

Hi Coders

I have a question which doesn't really fit to the Coding Snack section, so I post it here.
Has anyone of you expirience with "Absolute Database" from ComponentAce (Delphi / C++)? The Download for personal use is free, but it does not work with Delphi Personal Edition (which is the only one I have). I need a simple commandline App, which allows me to connect to a DB, fire some queries and getting back the resultset. Background info: I use a PIM which does not offer automatic exports and syncing. But I know that the Data is stored in an AbsolutDB Database. ODBC is not an option . I figure something like this

[Select]

export -dbfile="../../pim.db" -queryfile="../export.sql" -outfile="../export.xml"

The Outfile could be as simple as

[Select]

<resultset>
    <row>
        <column_name1>value</column_name1>
        <column_name2>value</column_name3>
        <column_name3>value</column_name3>
    </row>
</resultset>

So the question is: Did anyone know a tool which provides me this? Or is someone in the right mood coding the little thing?

17

General Software Discussion / Any webserver-desktop-logfile-analysis-Software recommendations?

« on: September 07, 2006, 05:34 AM »

Hello everyone,

Im searching a programm for analyse my Apache-Access Logfiles. On the server Im using http://www.awstats.net/ but I want something which is not web-based. Any recommendations?

18

General Software Discussion / Searching Shell Extension to Filter filelists

« on: June 28, 2006, 05:56 PM »

Hi,

Im searching for a Windows Explorer extension, which allows me to "filter" the "details"-view. The best case tool would add a textbox on top (or bottom) of the Explorer-Window. When Im start typing a pattern (like: log*.txt) into it, it will hide all Files which doesen't match this pattern. Do you know something like this?

bye
Crono

19

General Software Discussion / Microsoft Office 2007 public Beta out now!

« on: May 25, 2006, 06:02 PM »

Just downloaded it - havent got time to try it right now. I will test it on this Weekend (cant hardly wait ) The Interface Video Demo on channel 9 was great - go and get the Beta2 at: http://www.microsoft...beta/getthebeta.mspx

The Beta Version expires 2/2007

bye bye

20

General Software Discussion / We need here a better Syntax Highlighter

« on: May 08, 2006, 02:58 PM »

the [ code ] Tags just arent engough for a Site with a lot of Code. There should be at least Highlighter for the languages in the Coding School section... what du you think? Is there a "Code Highlighter" out there, which can export its code to BB Code as well?

21

General Software Discussion / virtualplastic.net recommends DonationCoder.com

« on: April 27, 2006, 08:01 PM »

Just found this: http://www.virtualpl...omments.php?news=113

Donation Coder Highlights
I feel a variety of apps at Donation Coder are worth mentioning here. Several are similar to requests I've seen on the forums, or even other apps. Here are a few worth checking out:

Dkmy: "Hide or show the close box of a window to avoid accidental closure"

HideDesktop: "Hide the desktop icons when the mouse is elsewhere."

StartClock: "Shows the current time in the start button, and date and more in the tray."

FadingTaskbar: "Change the transparency of the taskbar."

Kansas: Switches the shell to explorer and logs off. Designed for those testing out alternative shells. (scroll down on page or d/l here)

LaunchBar Commander: A program launcher. Might be skinnable. I haven't tries it yet, but this may warrant a full new post.

22

General Software Discussion / Your favourite Windows Shell Enhancements

« on: April 13, 2006, 08:00 PM »

Hi,

just wanna know your favourite Windows Shell Enhancements. Windows Shell Enhancement are tools which integrate directly in the Windows Explorer. I have only running 3 on my machine but I find them tremendously useful.

1) PixVue (http://www.pixvue.com/) - let you add and edit EXIF and ITPC Data directly through the Explorer. After the Installation the Explorer is capable to read such metadata and displays it in the "details" view - so you can sort images by their keyword for example. PixVue offers even more functions such as "Galleries" and Slideshows...

2) FirmTools ShellExtension (http://free.firmtool....com/shellextension/) for displaying image previews in the contextmenu (usefull when you have dozens of images laying around on your desktop)

3) NTTools - offering "CopyFilename" and "Open Comandline here" functions - very very handy

I think there are a lot of other Extensions out there - which do you know, and / or use?


ciao
Andreas

23

General Software Discussion / Searching a good Screenrecorder

« on: March 29, 2006, 05:38 AM »

Hi,

last weekend I wrote about 45 pages documentation on a Typo3 project with tons of screenshots. It took me the whole Saturday and Sunday. It has taken only 1 - 2 hours, if I had the chance to record me steps through the Interface. Earlier this week I found a free version of Camista Screen Recorder (an old version) which doesn't meet me requires. I surfed around the web and found TurboDemo which looks great, but costs a gigantic amount of money . So the question is: Do you know any Screenrecorder with a reasonable price, which produces interactive Flash Movies and allowes me to annotate the Clicks?

thanks in advance

bye
Andreas

24

General Software Discussion / Free (and opensource) Hotkey Tool - Tip!

« on: March 09, 2006, 08:21 AM »

Hi,

today (30 min ago) I found a really cool Hotkey Tool. Check out http://www.qliner.com/hotkeys/ ( http://qlinerhotkeys.sourceforge.net/ )

I love the concept of assigning Hotkeys to the [win]+X Button. Holding [win] for 5 Seconds will bring up a Software Keyboard with all assigned Shotcuts. I instantly fell in love with this feature :-). I'm going to write (at least a mini) Review when I gained more "hands-on" experience with the tool... The coolest thing since Screenshot Captor 

bye bye
Andreas

25

Screenshot Captor / IDEA: Add Commandline Support

« on: December 29, 2005, 08:59 AM »

Hi Mouser,

what do you think of adding some commandline options to SC? It would be nice to capture sreenshots via a batch file. Nothing to complicated - just something like

[Select]

ScreenshotCaptor.exe -f"screenshot1.jpg"

for taking and saving the screenshot. I think this should be really easy to implement and would be very usefull. I think of building an application like "Browsershots (http://browsershots.org)" on a remote Win98 system...

bye bye
Andreas