Topics

101

Living Room / If I had a million dollars for Kickstarter

« on: September 21, 2012, 05:26 PM »

One way to put the national finance issues in perspective is to wonder what would happen if you took a "mere" measly million and just funded a ton of stuff from kickstarter on condition maybe to have the result Creative Commons / other licensed.

Sounds to me like you'd get more "education" than half of the wasted govt red-tape-wasted funding bills.

102

Living Room / More Facebook Privacy Invasions

« on: September 15, 2012, 01:18 PM »

Wow. They're getting sneaky-good.

*This week* I got "Is (my mom) a friend? Friend this person" from Facebook! This came through to the fairly shielded email linked to a pseudonym on Facebook. It was a random throwaway Facebook account I set up over a year ago. So who tripped what button to figure out who my mother was this week?    My real name only exists in about four places on that email account and it's purposely different from this "Web Brand" that has all of my web posts.

Some clues: it's the email account to my Apple ID, which has my full name, because that is the account that I pay credit cards on online sales. Just about on that same day I upgraded my iPhone (way overdue) to iOS 5. I also did some maintenance on some apps. *One day later* Suddenly Facebook auto-mails me "Hi, is this someone you know?" Prior to that their automailer was sending junk.

 

103

Developer's Corner / TreeDBNotes Pro Export and Search Engines

« on: September 15, 2012, 07:14 AM »

Hmm. I just noticed something I hadn't thought of before: My notes program TreeDBNotes Pro has the ability to multi bundle all updated nodes to the tree and reprocess them as a fully linked site.

However, when a user enters "FreeVoteUSA" into a search engine, they get tons of results with the nodes... but none of them have the index! This quirk of the design might just sink the site (were I actually developing it seriously!) I could always paste back links at the bottom of the nodes, but by themselves they look kinda bare with no context.

Anyone have ideas? Something like Robots.txt NoIndex every node but the index? (If that works, how do I do that?)

104

Living Room / Write until you pass out!?

« on: September 11, 2012, 06:14 PM »

One of the areas of judicial theory that has amused me from time to time is the "no cruel and unusual punishment" sections of rights. However, in this initial case specifically for ironclad Murder One with no weasel doubts, what if that requirement were lifted? Criminal "gets to do" all kinds of cruel and unusual things to his victim, and then we need to "see to his rights" afterward? One really fun case consists of "unusual punishments less cruel than the original crime". And since the original crime was something like chopping their legs off and painting diagrams with knives on the victim's chests, it's hard to get much more C&U than that.

So for the "softie" DC version of an experiment, what if the criminal were sentenced to write valid sentences until he simply passes out from fatigue? (Spelling mistakes punished on a sliding scale, no asdf asdf etc allowed, etc.)

In what is commonly called "first world problem", we get to say "nah, I'm tired, I don't want to do that". But what if you simply had to? Has anyone here ever written until they simply passed out near the keyboard?

Edit: Writing code (even with minor syntax errors, if it's still recognizable code) counts!

105

Finished Programs / DONE: Toggle X-Mouse.

« on: September 06, 2012, 05:26 PM »

A while back I commissioned (and later posted here) a super-simple Micro-App that just toggled the "show/hide extensions" part of Windows, because I found myself needing extensions doing document control and web stuff, and hiding them to do content creation.

I am interested in the same idea here, with another property. With TweakUI, I recently enabled X-Mouse like function, where the active window follows the mouse. However, that was for a specific use, namely my job search between the browser on Monster.com and my spreadsheets. The rest of the time I am discovering it gets in the way. (You can't get to dialog boxes because they vanish behind other windows.)

So what about just a binary "double click this widget" and it toggles on or off X-Mouse? The attached picture would be in the Options setting, maybe right clicking it or something. Tip: My other widget doesn't reside in memory - it toggles, and exits. I would like that behavior here too.

And yes, the number of milliseconds is intentional.  

106

General Software Discussion / Why not to bother with being "loyal" to Microsoft brands

« on: August 31, 2012, 09:46 AM »

This particular post was inspired by their Music side. We all know what happened to PlaysForSure.
This time, let's look even further to their item that cannibalized PlaysForSure - Zune.

From Paul Thurrott:
"With Xbox Music Coming, Microsoft Cuts Zune Features
With its coming Xbox Music and Xbox Video services looming, Microsoft this week alerted Zune users via email about a couple of music-related features that will be dropped as that latter brand is put out to pasture. Among the walking dead are Mixview and channel playlists, Zune HD apps, and music videos.

But the biggest change, perhaps involves some core Zune functionality: Microsoft is killing “sending and receiving messages, inviting friends, sharing the songs, playlists, and albums you are listening to, and viewing past play history.” These features were part of what was called Zune Social."

http://www.winsupers...zune-features-144140

Oh, I'm sorry MS Music people, you just got hosed *twice* in a decade. Let's call it a 5 year Arc.

What Apple apparently figured out that MS didn't, (and see the Linux on Desktop themes), is that *five years is too short for a full brand lifecycle.*

If you want users to be "loyal" to your brand, you can't just rip parts of "their life" away every five years. It makes cautious/lazy/jaded-cynical late-adopters like me look smart. And I'm not all that smart, not like you guys.

So now their big music brand is Xbox-music or something. Okay, Clock starts say about 2011. (Give me a year for not bothering to get swept up in early hype.) Cue 2015, they'll have something else.

I don't have time for that $hit. (Front loaded hyped sales PR machine and all.)

107

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: "Load a new browser instance with X tabs from previously located sites"

« on: August 27, 2012, 10:20 AM »

This feels similar to some of the ideas I have already seen, so if it's been done someone can point me. (MilesAhead, your stuff is ringing a bell but this feels just a hair different.)

I Do "multi-batching" of my web pages with X topical tabs on an instance, and then Y more topical tabs on a new instance, producing two items on my task bar consisting of two copies of (currently Firefox but later someone can expand this) with batched tabs according to whatever project I am working on at the moment.

I would like to be able to save something like a Firefox Icon (named as needed) that would then produce one new instance with those tabs loaded. Important: *Not* to call up any existing instance and "smash the new tabs onto it". (That tends to happen on some sites I visit.) So for example when I click the raw Firefox Icon, I get a new instance, so just have the utility have previously analyzed what sites were loaded, then just reload them.

108

General Software Discussion / Simplifying Your Computer

« on: August 22, 2012, 01:58 AM »

I just now decided to begin deleting a ton of experimental stuff from my machine. One item did trigger a threat warning (Daz studio) due to a less-than-clean install, but overall it's just because I am growing tired and can't recall what 200 programs installed at 20-per-project do anymore. Even a few DC items, fine in themselves, went. It's just that I am slowly consolidating what I do on comp-time to eventually do more off-line time.

I won't even bother listing the programs, they're just random-typical utilities and programs. I sorta only stopped at 50 because I was tired of waiting for installers today, the whole thing was urged that every time Adobe wants to update it wants to reboot, so I said "hell, if I have to reboot, let's make it good!"

Another 150 programs to go later. Anyone else have cleanup stories?

109

General Software Discussion / Firefox Spikes

« on: August 10, 2012, 07:55 PM »

For X amount of time now, I've been noticing random stalls on web activities. Lately I started putting Task Manager on, and basically every web action I do spikes the CPU. Just typing in this box does it, but the signature annoying one is scrolling pages. Basically any page I scroll shoots the CPU to some 40-90%.

What is that all about? I do know I have a sub derivative of Firefox, (originally chosen to stop a different delay recovering resources when I closed the browser) but it's like it has gotten worse lately. Anyone know if that is at all familiar to Firefox, or am I back to being the Resident Pest with an somewhat non-standard system that messes up people's diagnostics?

Anyone know of something like a hand-optimized variant of Firefox designed for pure speed?

Edit: It's almost like it's a rendering problem, moving windows around does it too.

110

Living Room / Michigan Supreme Court Upholds Right to Insult Meter Maids

« on: August 05, 2012, 01:58 PM »

http://www.thenewspa...com/news/38/3860.asp
A former Michigan State University (MSU) law student last week beat the system after taking a case arising out of a parking ticket before the state's highest court. Jared Rapp, arguing on his own behalf, convinced the justices that the ordinance used to convict him was unconstitutional.

This is one of those happy outcomes where you know Campus rules are irritating, and this guy apparently put together a perfect case and proved it.   

111

Living Room / Don Lapre died sorta recently

« on: June 22, 2012, 06:28 PM »

You may remember him as the king of late night infomercials.

"I'm Don Lapre. I made $$$$$$ out of my One Bedroom Apartment by placing tiny classified ads."  I used to do impressions of him for a couple of friends. He had a raspy voice that I think he cultivated for effect.

Except after a few bumpy years, just last year it all went wrong. He got tagged with "41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and promotional money laundering related to his Internet businesses. He was arrested on June 24, 2011, for failing to appear in court to face these charges."

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lapre

And someone def. edited his Wiki page because a couple years ago he was fighting stuff, but as of whenever that last edit went through, they decided all that no longer mattered. He committed an apparent suicide on October 2, 2011 while awaiting trial in federal custody.

And so ends a smaller chapter of early just-before-internet lore.

112

Developer's Corner / Plugins

« on: May 06, 2012, 04:14 AM »

Can a good programmer create plugins for any application? Can you just hand someone an EXE and say "write a plugin for this" or do they need API's or such?

113

General Software Discussion / Games supplying UI & App "Paradigms"

« on: April 27, 2012, 07:30 AM »

Last night I fiddled with a few more Ludum Dare games. (I'm not sure I like this year's "small world" theme, does anyone have the links to the other years?)

A couple of them led me to daydreams of crossing software with "Mimsy were the Borogoves", new apps so wonderfully strange that they are barely conceivable in today's app "paradigms". It would be fun if I had money to burn on a commission just to program as many outre features into an app that it practically becomes a Klein Bottle. (http://en.wikipedia....rg/wiki/Klein_bottle)

Anyone ever daydream of stuff like this? For example one game had you circling planets collecting rings, then when you have collected them all, you jump to a new planet, with a fuzzy physics interpretation of gravity. I can just barely imagine that being an interface to something "so simple" it becomes the new Go To idea.

114

Developer's Corner / BSOD

« on: April 26, 2012, 05:55 PM »

I was apparently rather lucky, I haven't seen a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death on MS Windows) for YEARS.

Heh - one of the Ludum Dare games just hosed me! (I forget which one since it vanished with the BSOD!)

I know they were a staple of Win 95/98/Me, but have any if you seen them much lately?

115

Finished Programs / DONE: 1-action Unzip

« on: April 24, 2012, 05:28 PM »

I'm on XP and lately I'm downloading a lot of zipped stuff. The slightly clunky design of the WinXP extractor is finally irritating me! It's between 5 and 6 clicks to unzip a file via the wizard.

What about a "Turbo-Unzipper"?

Something like click to select the file, then either a hotkey unzips it, "yes I want it here, no, I don't want to open the resulting folder." Then at the very end it does something like the Files2Folder trick and jams the Zip inside the newly created folder.

116

Living Room / Relics from a Different Time - as opposed to the new Big Brother Lockdown

« on: April 14, 2012, 03:24 PM »

It's not our imagination; or at least mine. Things WERE easier in the past.

Here's the movie Convoy which runs an entire plot line that 50 truckers could demolish the cops in 4 states and almost make it work. Today, that would call 75 DHS vehicles to declare them felons.

http://www.youtube.c...&feature=related

Top Ten product placement for Mack Trucks, Inc. though!

117

Living Room / Ad Tracking Company Explosion

« on: March 28, 2012, 04:33 PM »

 
Courtesy of Ghostery-

Skipping the big players like Google & Facebook, *two* news articles on the net produced the following trackers:

List 1
AddThis
Clip Syndicate
LiveRail
Outbrain
Quantcast
Quogo AdSonar
Unica
Vibrant Ads

List2
Audience Science
BlueKai
MSN Ads
Scorecard Reseach Beacon
Tynt Insight

Who ARE these people?!

That's the trench view of people selling you as a product.

118

Older DC Contests and Challenges / "Unconventional Encryption Challenge"

« on: March 16, 2012, 01:43 PM »

I'm giddy today. So I created a new challenge. I posted it over to Slashdot too. (Slightly reworded for DC vs there.)

I've wondered for a long time now about encryption. I think it's time to use "out of the box" approaches to encryption.

I'm certainly not in that Elite-IQ crowd but given the very nature of how the sender has a colossal advantage over the breaker, I think I could create a message that no one but the elite genius at those agencies could break. I think no one at DC is good enough to get it, nor Anonymous. Mensa might have a chance, barely.

This is different from "certifying it unbreakable". I'm avoiding that trap. Just "Sufficiently hard".

Any takers? It might even be fun if someone has Academic connections. My overall concept is so good I think I could stump almost all of the Non-Gov Professors too.

Anyone interested, reply here. I'll reply with a watered down "easy version" just to be sure someone's not trolling me. (Also it forms a weak version of a test.) On the (slim?) chance that someone gets it, I'll produce a couple of the real corkers. I'd stake up to $100 of my own money through a certified neutral holder. Not that it's "worth that little", just saying I'm not trolling, this concept is so good nobody but the absolute best will figure it out. It's a new METHOD of encryption, so it's probably even NP-Hard (I'm probably using that term wrong) as a class so that "almost unlimited" examples can be created.

119

Living Room / RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 12

« on: March 15, 2012, 08:05 PM »

See, the Tin Foil Hats were RIGHT. Don't we owe them an apology for 20 years of ridicule?

Try this one:

http://news.cnet.com...opyright-by-july-12/

Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon are among the ISPs preparing to implement a graduated response to piracy by July, says the music industry's chief lobbyist.

"Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software. Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures. "

LAST JULY. It's now March. See how short the Net's attention span is?

"Supporters say this could become the most effective antipiracy program ever. Since ISPs are the Internet's gatekeepers, the theory is that network providers are in the best position to fight illegal file sharing. CNET broke the news last June that the RIAA and counterparts at the trade group for the big film studios, had managed to get the deal through--with the help of the White House. "

"Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating. "

"The partnership with the major bandwidth providers was years in the making."

120

Developer's Corner / Potential Commission: "Super WebPage Post-Processor"

« on: March 11, 2012, 03:50 AM »

Okay gang, having made friends, fans, the token enemy, and a donation, now it's time to see where the economics of this site are.

I spent all night testing out about fifteen web author tools and only one came marginally close to something that I would like.

After years of writer's blocks and short attention spans, I finally stumbled upon the "Tree Pads" as a tool that creates nested nodes of notes and can power-export the entire database as a dynamic web page.

Trouble is, it's just a bit bare. It would be nice if those pages were end-capped by some templating.

In a sense, it's a third cousin type app to my PGN processor, in that it should be just straight text manipulation tucking the note into a web template. So that's why I say "It isn't that hard" - sure there are quirks, but the concept feels simple - take X supported template, drop the note text into the middle of it, and resave the file, and recurse for all the eligible files in a folder.

In a minute I'll post a brutal sandpaper-rough example of the output from the only program was was even in the ballpark.

I'd peg the value to me at about $50.

Anyone interested?

121

Living Room / Canadian SOPA-clone looming!

« on: March 09, 2012, 02:51 PM »

http://www.canada.co...d/6272576/story.html

"OTTAWA — The Conservative government is set to reveal whether it's going to tighten copyright legislation that could affect how consumers share content online.
With three attempts to update Canada's copyright law since 2008, the end is near with amendments expected to be introduced Monday at a special House of Commons committee studying the legislation."

http://www.michaelge...ntent/view/6366/125/
Closing Time on C-11: Help Stop the Final Push for SOPA-Style Reforms & Efforts to Gut Fair Dealing
Thursday March 08, 2012
The long road of Canadian copyright reform is nearing an end as the Bill C-11 committee concluded hearing from witnesses yesterday and indicated that it will begin a "clause-by-clause" review of the bill starting on Monday. While there will still be some additional opportunities for debate - third reading in the House of Commons, Senate review - the reality is that next week's discussion will largely determine the future of Canadian copyright law.

http://openmedia.ca/SayNo
Dear Parliament: Say no to the Internet Lockdown

Somebody wake up Freedom-Cody!

122

Screenshot Captor / "Auto Copy Selected Area?"

« on: March 07, 2012, 03:07 PM »

Hi Mouser and gang,

I currently use Snippy for "my screen capture needs". You click Snippy, You draw your area, (depending on OS hit Control-C to copy). My output target is currently Stickies, but that could change/tandem depending on what all Captor does.

Is there behavior like this currently there? I don't want to try to remember the "alt-shift-something" type of combo I think it currently asks for.

Ideas?

123

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: "CopySmart"

« on: January 04, 2012, 07:07 AM »

Here's a fun idea!

You have a file or folder with a number in it. You want to make a whole bunch of template files and folders. So you copy it, right? Only instead of File1 File2 File3 File4, you get File1, File1 (copy2), file1-copy-copy-copy(2) etc! Yuck! Because you then have to go rename them all.

What about a utility that lets you select a file or folder, pick the digit to increase, then names all the new copies after that?

Suggested features: Definitely keyboard support! The whole idea came from banging Control-V on my files and folders. I don't think I want to over-write Control-V. It's not clear why it needs a control-anything at all! What about the Tilde key? ` I can't even remember the last time I used that key for real.

124

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / NANY 2012 Release: Chess PGN File Processor

« on: December 24, 2011, 04:34 AM »

((I seems I still get to be a NANY! Cheers to Mouser!))

NANY 2012 Entry Information

Application Name	Chess PGN File Processor
Version	RC2 / Final
Short Description	Did you ever look at the colossal waste of space PGN files take? You only want to take a 10 page printout with you, not 100! Plus you get to save Trees!
Supported OSes	Windows XP (Unknown on Vista or 7)
System Requirements	Only Tested on XP but I will try to test it on Windows 7 soon because I have one at work.
Commissioned by TaoPhoenix
Description	PGN is Portable (Chess) Game Notation, which is an overgrown text file with certain conventions. It's supposed to let programs read in text files of chess games and display the moves and background info. The trouble is, it takes up a huge amount of space. I used to study chess in bars and I'd just want to take a nice batch of games on a printout to look at, and spill milk on, then throw it out afterwards, except for the one page with the good game on it that I'd shove in my pocket. Ever seen a PGN file? Here's one. [Event "It (cat.14)"] [Site "Hastings (England)"] [Date "1992.??.??"] [Round "11"] [White "Suetin Alexey S (RUS)"] [Black "Shirov Alexei (LAT)"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "C78/11"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bb7 7.d3 Be7 8.c4 b4 9.Ba4 d6 10.d4 O-O 11.d5 Nb8 12.Nbd2 Nbd7 13.Re1 Nb6 14.Bc2 c6 15.a3 a5 16.b3 cxd5 17.exd5 Nbd7 18.Nf1 Qb6 19.Ng3 g6 20.Ng5 bxa3 21.Rxa3 Rfc8 22.Be3 Qc7 23.Bd3 Nc5 24.Bf1 Rcb8 25.h3 Bc8 26.Qc2 Rb7 27.Rea1 Nfd7 28.N5e4 f5 29.Nxc5 Nxc5 30.Bd2 Rba7 31.Ne2 Bd7 32.Nc3 e4 33.Nb5 Bxb5 34.cxb5 Bf6 35.R1a2 Be5 36.Be3 Kf8 37.Qc4 Ke7 38.b4 axb4 39.Rxa7 Rxa7 40.Rxa7 Qxa7 41.Qxb4 Qb6 42.g3 Kd7 43.Qa3 Kc7 44.Qa8 Qb7 45.Qg8 Kb6 46.Qd8+ Qc7 47.Qa8 Qb7 48.Qd8+ Qc7 49.Qe8 Kb7 50.Qc6+ Qxc6 51.dxc6+ Kb6 52.Bc4 d5 53.Bxd5 Kxb5 54.Bg8 h5 55.Bf7 Kxc6 56.Bxg6 h4 57.Kg2 hxg3 58.fxg3 Nd3 59.Bxf5 Ne1+ 60.Kf2 Nd3+ 61.Kf1 Kd5 62.g4  1/2-1/2 Yeesh. Lucky to get three of those on a page, and the entire right side of the page looks like the Sahara. How about this? Suetin, Alexey - Shirov, Alexei : Hastings (England) 1992 1/2-1/2 C78/11 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O b5 6.Bb3 Bb7 7.d3 Be7 8.c4 b4 9.Ba4 d6 10.d4 O-O 11.d5 Nb8 12.Nbd2 Nbd7 13.Re1 Nb6 14.Bc2 c6 15.a3 a5 16.b3 cxd5 17.exd5 Nbd7 18.Nf1 Qb6 19.Ng3 g6 20.Ng5 bxa3 21.Rxa3 Rfc8 22.Be3 Qc7 23.Bd3 Nc5 24.Bf1 Rcb8 25.h3 Bc8 26.Qc2 Rb7 27.Rea1 Nfd7 28.N5e4 f5 29.Nxc5 Nxc5 30.Bd2 Rba7 31.Ne2 Bd7 32.Nc3 e4 33.Nb5 Bxb5 34.cxb5 Bf6 35.R1a2 Be5 36.Be3 Kf8 37.Qc4 Ke7 38.b4 axb4 39.Rxa7 Rxa7 40.Rxa7 Qxa7 41.Qxb4 Qb6 42.g3 Kd7 43.Qa3 Kc7 44.Qa8 Qb7 45.Qg8 Kb6 46.Qd8+ Qc7 47.Qa8 Qb7 48.Qd8+ Qc7 49.Qe8 Kb7 50.Qc6+ Qxc6 51.dxc6+ Kb6 52.Bc4 d5 53.Bxd5 Kxb5 54.Bg8 h5 55.Bf7 Kxc6 56.Bxg6 h4 57.Kg2 hxg3 58.fxg3 Nd3 59.Bxf5 Ne1+ 60.Kf2 Nd3+ 61.Kf1 Kd5 62.g4 1/2-1/2. (Look! I can modify the characters per line to fit forums!)
Features	When you want to study an opening, often you only want 1 side's wins. For example, if you are studying the King's Indian Defense, you want Black Wins to know what to do right. You can then look at the other results to know what goes wrong. I also threw in some silly UI themes, like the Green & Black Matrix colors and Commodore 64 (called Blue & White). Others: Old Macintosh, Midnight Hacker. : )
Installation	It's just an .exe file, so you run it. I like Simple.
Using the application	Check out the Move Filters. A lot of chess files have silly broken fragments, so you can specify "minumum 20 moves" etc to filter out the junk. Also, Draws annoy me, so you can delete those too! (Yes, my example is a draw! The long draws are okay. It's the 18 move Grandmaster Draws that suk. So you can remove those either by Draws or by Move Count.)
Uninstalling	Just delete all the original components in whatever folder you put them in.
Known Issues	This seems to be "RC2" according to my notes, I think I lost the Final copy, so I think there are minor bugs left, maybe with player names processing, and elsewhere. I think there's a bug with long names like De La Bourdonnais.
Screenshots	See Below for the Screen shots.

125

Finished Programs / SOLVED: Excel Page Spinoff Generator

« on: December 15, 2011, 05:48 AM »

Suppose you have a big excel worksheet. You're tracking the overview data of something. Then a subsidiary page would cover the details.

It would be useful if you could select X rows, and then the utility spins off brand new workbooks (or tabs in the existing workbook) based on that index file, *with that line of data in the workbook*!

Think about it. Let's say you have 100 CD's in your collection. Select all the rows, have a way to pick the file name, (maybe "choose columns 1 and 4 for the file name) and Zoom! You now have 100 spinoff workbooks. Then you can go later and add song names, and comments, and band members etc.

Or, at work, you have all the Potential jobs, and then you spinoff pages to track them separately. Do y'all know how many HOURS that saves over "Take blank workbook, copy and paste the file name, open it, copy the data row, close it."

I could see this mattering for text files too.

Not sure what funny name we can/should add to it, I giggle a little that it's like the page is "breeding like rabbits or bugs", or maybe "Nova" where it explodes. If it's robust, it can spinoff thousands of new workbooks.

Quick features would also be "Explode Tabs Into Workbooks", and do it in reverse, "DeNova Workbooks into Tabs."

In case someone is missing the 1-up Combo here, you can run a directory-reader (like Karen's), which then gives you a giant text file output, import the text file into Excel, do Select All, hit Nova, and then you have an Excel tracker page for every file on your system.

Not sure if that's easy enough to be a "snack", I dunno how hard making Excel utilities its - at its core this idea only has about 4 features and maybe 3 settings. (There's always room for features if someone wants to make it a Meal instead of a Snack, but no need to feed the football team either. Very simple second generation features would be like "Data-Cell order in original source --> data order in output page", to cover the case that in the original super index the data could be huge, maybe 20 columns, then you only need columns 1 4 2 13 8 in the spinoff page.)

((Random shout out to Anand plugging Paste Text Like, I Proper Cased some stuff in this post. Whee!))