Recent Posts

2301

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by rjbull on April 24, 2008, 03:49 AM »

Where I'm coming from: I'm a registered user of LinkStash and I'm pretty happy with it, but I still use 1.7.3 because it's the last version that works for me on my Win98SE laptop.  Current version with more features is 2.0.9.

According to Linkman's homepage, Linkman is compatible with "...Internet Explorer 3.x-7.x, Firefox 1.x-3.x, Netscape 3.x-7.x, Mozilla 1.x, SeaMonkey 1.x, Opera 4.x-9x, Avant Browser, Neoplanet, Netcaptor, MyIE2, [and] SlimBrowser...".

-KenR (March 17, 2008, 02:04 PM)

At home, I also use K-Meleon, which isn't on that list.  I can partially integrate it with LinkStash by stealing the entry for Mozilla and pointing it to K-Meleon's .EXE (there's a separate entry for Firefox), and LinkStash will send the entries, though it can't grab URLs from K-Meleon.

You can export the links to other programs and even create new export templates

This is a weakness of LinkStash.  HTML output only.

The needs improvement section

To some people, Linkman's biggest problem is the fact that it does not have an internal browser and that you must use it with another program.

That's not a bug, that's a feature    It would make for a much bigger program, and how many more browsers does one need?

A related set of programs is designed to check websites and see if they have changed. Website-Watcher and Check & Get are examples [...]

What I would love to see is an integration of these two classes of software. While Check & Get currently comes the closest to this as it stands, I prefer to use Website-Watcher and Linkman for these tasks. That means I need to keep the links synchronized between these two programs, but it gives me tremendous flexibility in website monitoring and organization/searching of bookmarks.

Disagree strongly.  You'd end up with a bigger program with very much bigger footprint for its data files, make portability much more difficult, and while I may like to bookmark lots of links, I don't necessarily want to routinely check them.  In other words, I see this as two separate functions I'm happy to keep separate.  Different folks...

How does it compare to similar apps 
[...] 
The developer of this program has always responded to me within a few hours whereas neither of the developers of other programs ever has.

LinkStash is still in development - the latest .EXE is dated 2008-03-03.  I've occasionally used the forums for support, but haven't needed e-mail.

In my opinion, there is no competition between Linkman and the competitors.

Power users like more power...  I don't need all the extra power, but I consider LinkStash to have two particular advantages for me:

LinkStash EULA: 3. LICENSE GRANT

XRayz Software hereby license use on (A) your own personal computer(s), desktop(s) and/or portable(s), or (B) multiple users on a single computer, but not both (A) and (B). Usage on a LAN or in a server/workstation environment requires that each workstation accessing the software must be licensed.

In practical terms this means the software can be used by a single user *for personal use* on the work computer and the portable computer for that user only.

I would really recommend that Linkman's author reconsider license policy, at least to the extent of offering a discount license bundle that allows one person to own a home, work and portable license, and not have to pay for three at full price as I presume is currently required.

... Take LinkStash and your bookmarks with you on a portable device such as a USB pen drive.
[...]
All bookmarks are kept together in one single file, easily fitted on the average floppy diskette. This means your bookmarks are totally portable and can be taken to and from work, and easily synchronized between computers.

Which is really nice for moving bookmarks around.


KenR, LinkStash's bookmarks file can be optionally encrypted, and it also has a KeePass-like passwords function where passwords only are encrypted in an otherwise unencrypted file.  I'm surprised that Linkman doesn't offer those; did you overlook them in your review?

2302

General Software Discussion / Re: title bar shortcuts

« Last post by rjbull on April 23, 2008, 10:44 AM »

If I understand what you want, PowerPro can do it.  I have it set so that one or more buttons pop up on the title bar of particular windows.  Most of mine run window-specific scripts, but you could use them to launch programs.

If you get interested in PowerPro, make sure to look at the Yahoo! Groups.  There are two, a main group and a beginners' one.

2303

Post New Requests Here / Re: DONE: File Search and Replace

« Last post by rjbull on April 22, 2008, 10:51 AM »

Did nobody think of using XXCopy "the boldly extended xcopy?"

[Select]

/U  Updates the files that already exist in destination.

/S  Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.

/Y  Overwrites existing files without prompt

2304

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by rjbull on April 21, 2008, 04:10 AM »

BTW, EverNote allows you to display your list in other ways, not only chronologically. If you go into view-->note list, and click on the "title" heading of the note list, all notes will be ordered alphabetically by their title.

-Armando (April 19, 2008, 11:49 AM)

I wish EverNote had some kind of bulk title renaming feature much like a file renamer.  If you make several successive clips from different pages of a particular Web site, you may end up with several note titles that are either the same, or look the same as they're very long with the differences invisible because the field isn't wide enough to show them.

2305

General Software Discussion / Re: Q-Dir (File Manager)

« Last post by rjbull on April 18, 2008, 03:44 AM »

There are two shareware file managers that feature multi-directory views that I am aware of

-Darwin (April 17, 2008, 03:49 PM)

I would mention softwareaholics anonymous, but it's a bit like throwing stones while living in a glass house... 

Multi-directory views are a nice extra for occasional use.  Normally, I don't think I can keep track of more than two directories at a time     XYplorer's tabs are a nice way of keeping others close by, and so are Total Commander's tabs, and its Ctrl-D change directory menu.

2306

General Software Discussion / Re: Q-Dir (File Manager)

« Last post by rjbull on April 17, 2008, 09:58 AM »

I took a very quick look; it's definitely one of the souped-up-Explorer ones, as opposed to Norton Commander ones.  Most unusual feature seems to be up to four directories on one screen.  The only one I've seen with more is mtExplorer with up to six, and free and portable, though its feature set is minimal.

I don't think I'd use Q-Dir partly because it seems not to have a built-in file-finder, something I expect in a file manager.  Depends on what you want.  If you stick to freeware, it's up against very capable alternatives such as XYplorer, which is based on file-finding.

2307

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 14, 2008, 10:36 AM »

Other than that I think MemPad is the strangest program I can think of. You have to forget everything you ever thought you knew about how to create a note, in order to use this weird program! Or were all of my problems with MemPad maybe because of unavailable hotkeys, or my unstable PC? Hmm...

-Curt (April 14, 2008, 08:41 AM)

No problem here with Alt-Ins or Ctrl-Alt-Ins?  And you have the two buttons just to the right of the "NEW:" button?

2308

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 11, 2008, 04:52 AM »

Mempad's lack of unicode is a deal breaker for me though. And the author said it was an incredibly hard thing to implement it in mempad and couldn't promise it in future release.

-najja (April 10, 2008, 04:39 AM)

Unicode doesn't bother me, but if you use other than European languages, I suppose you have little choice 

Did you look at the minipad2 mentioned in this DC thread?  I don't know it has Unicode, but it's made in China, so presume Unicode is necessary.  I can't access minipad2's Web site at present, though.

2309

Coding Snacks / Re: IDEA: Ability to set certain programs/windows to open and close in unison

« Last post by rjbull on April 11, 2008, 04:43 AM »

when AU3 Spy gets focus, you can press the down key to select all text.

-lanux128 (April 10, 2008, 10:47 AM)

Thanks!  I didn't know that.  DC's a great place for sharing know-how 

another good alternative is AHK Window Info 0.9 which is being actively developed by toralf at the AHK forums.

Thanks again...  I sometimes use ShoWin or WinScraper, but they don't always work.  The Window Info built into PowerPro also doesn't have a way of saving the data automatically, thought there's a script to do it that I haven't tried.

2310

Coding Snacks / Re: IDEA: Ability to set certain programs/windows to open and close in unison

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:47 AM »

you can use the "AU3 Spy" program that is available with Autohotkey.

-lanux128 (April 09, 2008, 09:20 PM)

Lanux128,

Is there a direct way to save the AU3 Spy information to a file?  Or do you just have to run the mouse over the AU3 Spy window to mark the text and save it via the clipboard?

2311

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:38 AM »

One of my absolute favourites was just updated, rewritten from scratch:

Some features that will appear in future versions: support of portable mode, search through the whole database, automatic backup, Drag&Drop of Notes on the tree.
/quote]

And, may I add, it still pops up like a flash... 

http://softvoile.com...load.php?s=news3.0fn

-Curt (April 09, 2008, 05:20 PM)

Absence of "search through whole database" would be a deal-breaker for me.  As things stand, Horst Schaeffer's MemPad has all those features (as far as I understand them) except drag & drop.  That is - small, free, fast, portable, hotkey to toggle between full screen and tray, search entire database, and you can encrypt your files if you want to.

2312

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2008, 03:33 AM »

And the ability to see two directories side by side is a very key thing to me...

-wraith808 (April 09, 2008, 06:19 PM)

It's invaluable when you want to compare directories.  Twin-pane Total Commander has very good compare and synchronize features.

2313

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Instant Text V Pro - more than the usual features of a text expander

« Last post by rjbull on April 08, 2008, 06:04 AM »

Going back to the original topic - who'd have thought of that?     I see Instant Text has a per-user license, see their ordering page.  That makes the steep price rather more tolerable.

2314

General Software Discussion / Re: Your experiences with disc catalogers and most wanted/used features

« Last post by rjbull on April 07, 2008, 10:02 AM »

Lazycat [...] Try to get V1.2beta.

-Crush (April 06, 2008, 09:03 AM)

Do you have a link for that, please?  I only seemed to find 1.1a.

2315

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great *FAST* HD search tool!

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 09:53 AM »

see this post https://www.donation...49.msg86938#msg86938

Is locate better than XYplorer or not? What is the difference in their implementations? This is intriguing. If it turns out that a file manager indexes files as well, then it might be easier to use that one combined utility!...

-vixay (March 27, 2008, 05:50 AM)

Theyr'e different...  Locae32 is indexed, XYplorer has very good non-indexed search.  So does Total Commander, but someone still wrote a plug-in to use Locate32 inside TC, presenting results in a TC pane.

2316

Find And Run Robot / Re: Passing text to batch file.

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 03:31 AM »

brimstone,

I take it you're talking about the LOGECHO.COM in Horst Schaeffer's freeware batch file enhancer collection PBATS?

2317

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2008, 03:26 AM »

Now assign Ctrl+U to it and you feel real good.

-DonL (April 03, 2008, 10:38 AM)

Done!  It just gets better and better!   

One small thing; if I go to Help -> About, XYplorer shows my registration details, including the full plain text of my license key.  Did you intend that, as it's then  possible for someone to sneak a look at my computer behind my back and copy the key?  I'm more used to seeing the key hidden, or at least masked with asterisks.

2318

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2008, 10:28 AM »

So it works as expected?

-DonL (April 02, 2008, 09:53 AM)

Yes!  Full UNC filename+path now copied to clipboard, e.g

[Select]

\\gbmnppfs001\groups\technical\Library\Articles\The_European_Ink_Report_March_2008.mht

Many thanks!   

I'm now a registered user   

2319

General Software Discussion / Re: Download Demons...

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2008, 04:06 AM »

there is nothing really that different about the different download managers, they all do segments, browser integration and even look about the same.

-MrCrispy (April 02, 2008, 11:22 PM)

The differences can still be important, though, like whether they support proxy.pac files or not     And IDM has a nice extra, a Site Grabber feature to grab entire Web sites for offline browsing.

2320

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 09:42 AM »

I think the for-pay version should have full UNC support, as XYplorer is a good tool for sysadmins, the more so for being portable, and they would really need that.

-rjbull (April 02, 2008, 03:44 AM)

I think so, too, and added it. Check out the next beta version available in the user forum.

-DonL (April 02, 2008, 04:37 AM)

Thanks!   That's great 

2321

General Software Discussion / Re: Download Demons...

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 04:05 AM »

IDM Con's:

-Falcon_four (December 27, 2007, 05:22 PM)

Doesn't work with proxy.pac files, either 

2322

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 02, 2008, 03:44 AM »

Okay, just to make sure: You are talking about the command File / To Clipboard / Item Path/Name(s), right? And there should be one more: File / To Clipboard / Item UNCPath/Name(s), which of course only makes any sense when used on mapped drives. That should be easy to add...

-DonL (April 01, 2008, 05:33 AM)

Yes!  I just wanted to be able to clip names+full paths to the clipboard to e-mail to other people in a form most likely to work for them, whatever their local drive mappings.

I should confess...  I'm not a registered user of XYplorer (yet), and I wouldn't expect all features to be present in the free version.  But, I think the for-pay version should have full UNC support, as XYplorer is a good tool for sysadmins, the more so for being portable, and they would really need that.

2323

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by rjbull on April 01, 2008, 05:27 AM »

UNC no, the rest yes. Simply hide the columns or drag them to the order you like.

-DonL (December 11, 2007, 04:42 AM)

Thanks, DonL!

Suggest you consider UNC for the paid version,  though.

-rjbull (December 11, 2007, 05:55 AM)

You mean to automatically translate the mapped paths, or to add another column for the UNC versions of the mappings?

-DonL (April 01, 2008, 01:22 AM)

I should have been clearer in the first place...  If there has to be a choice, I presume I'd have to plump for the latter.  The scenario is that on the network at work, I need to know what the UNC versions are so I can paste them into e-mails, so recipients can be sure of getting a clickable link to the target file.  That's all, really.

2324

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by rjbull on March 14, 2008, 05:52 AM »

One thing to note about Seeker is that it DOES search within files, which may be why it was taking longer than SearchGT.

-Darwin (March 13, 2008, 03:49 PM)

For speed in looking inside files, you'd have a hard time beating BareGrep Pro or plain BareGrep if you don't need the integrated viewer.  Plain strings or regexps, but sadly no Boolean searching.

2325

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by rjbull on March 14, 2008, 05:48 AM »

Singing the praises of an app that a software addict such as myself can't actually try out is like waving a red flag at a bull.

-Darwin (March 13, 2008, 04:02 PM)

Back in the DOS days, I tried a lot of shareware.  The scenario was often that I'd try several things in one session, only looking at them superficially, and binning them rapidly if they didn't solve the immediate problem.  Then, a few months later, I'd have a slightly different problem, and think hmmm, didn't that such-and-such program say it did that?  And re-test as appropriate.  Because it was DOS, uninstalling almost invariably removed all traces of the program and one could start an evaluation period all over from scratch.  I wasn't trying to rip anyone off, but I don't usually have time or inclination for exhaustive tests, nor can I always see ahead to the next problem.

But the Windows Registry has changed all that.  Software producers have a means of ruthlessly and mindlessly enforcing their policies, as if I had a continuous 30 days or whatever to test their software.  In other words, it's a damn sight harder to test software than it used to be, and more expensive.  I don't really have an answer to that, but miss the good old times...