Recent Posts

2951

General Software Discussion / Re: Review of File Renamers — let's make a list

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2006, 10:48 AM »

Command-line tool, Renamer, formerly BKRenamer: http://www.orbit.org/renamer/

Favourably mentioned in Mark TAW's smallwares, viz.:

a great regular expression, command-line no-install tool. BKRenamer is great when you have to do a change all the file names in several directories because it can search through subdirectories as well.

2952

General Software Discussion / Re: Review of File Renamers — let's make a list

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2006, 05:56 AM »

Personally I think Command line commands is a must if you really want to automate anything with utilities like that

-patteo (April 01, 2006, 01:09 AM)

Don't overlook Horst Schaeffer's LMOD (click DOS/BATCH, then LMOD)

Quote from Horst's Web site:

LMOD extracts data from an input source (STDIN): from redirected DOS screen output, for example, or from any (ASCII) file. The extracted information is inserted into a given text or command string, and sent to STDOUT for redirection into a file.

You may extract a complete line, a part of it (starting column, size) or words (by number), even several items from a source line in any order. And this will be done either for a single line, or for a given range of lines of the input source.

What you can do with LMOD:

    * set environmental variables with information from (DOS) screen output
    * get keyboard input
    * generate a command using extracted input data
    * generate a list of commands for each item of a given (file) list
    * extract (and modify) range of lines from a file
    * modify lists or tables, arrange columns

To set a variable: generate a SET command (or WINSET / SETX), and execute it thru a temporary batch file. This method also works under Windows NT/2000.

Special Features:

    * change case for extracted data
    * tabs (to given column) for formatted output
    * right aligned fields (numeric data in tables)
    * insert CR+LF to generate several lines for each input line
    * omit CR+LF at end of output (to append later)
    * insert line number (to generate filenames, for example)
    * insert special characters by code number or in quoted string

Redirect a DIR listing and use LMOD for file renaming.

2953

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Cataloguing App?

« Last post by rjbull on March 27, 2006, 07:55 AM »

CatDisk: I use Directory Opus, not Total Commander. I appreciate the tip, but that's a no-go for me

-moerl (March 27, 2006, 05:27 AM)

Sorry, I wasn't clear.  CatDisk is a free-standing program.  The TC plug-in is completely separate and unrelated.  CatDisk is probably the granddaddy of this kind of app with its long history on DOS before going to Windows.

Discomania... "Last updated Dec 29 1998 - Platform Win9x/NT". No thanks

"In a pinch, a stone ax still works..."    I've come across people who still like it, especially as it's free.

SOFTCAT. ...  I'll report back.

I eagerly await the mini-review 

2954

Living Room / Re: Planet Earth starts tonight

« Last post by rjbull on March 27, 2006, 07:50 AM »

Have to say though I was a bit disappointed with the Lechuguilla footage.

-Carol Haynes (March 27, 2006, 05:31 AM)

I rather thought the same.  They kept telling you the formations were 6 metres long, but there wasn't really a sense of scale.  I've seen better-lit and more impressive still pictures of British caves.  Maybe the series is trying to do either too much, or too little: it certainly majors on eye candy, but I felt that David Attenborough's own earlier series were more informative.

2955

General Software Discussion / What Changed - search for modified files and Registry entries

« Last post by rjbull on March 27, 2006, 07:44 AM »

What Changed

What Changed is a simple utility that searches for modified files and registry entries. It is useful for checking program installations. There are two steps for using What Changed: 1) First, take a snapshot of the state of the system   2) Second, run What Changed again to see the differences from the previous snapshot.

What Changed uses the "brute force method" to check files and the registry. Since it is a free tool, no support is provided. Also, as a quick and dirty utility, it might be in need of various user-friendly features, but hey, it's free.

found via TinyApps blog

2956

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Cataloguing App?

« Last post by rjbull on March 27, 2006, 05:11 AM »

A disk cataloguing plug-in is available for users of Total Commander.

CatDisk  http://www.swconnection.com/index.html
Shareware
(I'm a registered user of the DOS version, but it's now 32-bit Windows)

Disk Explorer Professional  http://www.tjelinek....tion=d&setLng=EN
Free for personal use.  Looks very powerful.

Discomania  http://www.fortuneci.../jobbs/79/index.html
Freeware

Try asking in alt.comp.freeware for more?

2957

Living Room / Re: Planet Earth starts tonight

« Last post by rjbull on March 27, 2006, 04:36 AM »

CarolHaynes,

I hope you were rivetted last night?  We've seen pictures of the "guano bats" before, but they had plenty of other things that I hadn't seen, like the Yucatan cenotes.

2958

Living Room / Re: Downloading your Gmail Account

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 09:14 AM »

The Bat! seems the favoured email client on DC, and I notice TheBat!'s Web site has a link for Lycos Mail.  Is that any kind of competitor for Gmail?  Or just mutual backscratching, as Lycos in turn recommend The Bat!?

2959

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have apps in the System tray?

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 04:30 AM »

my no-frills tastes; I was perfectly happy with the look and feel of DesqView!

-longrun (March 20, 2006, 01:00 PM)

DOS+QEMM+NDOS/4DOS+DESQView was the most productive system I ever had...

2960

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Notes Snippet organizer

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 04:27 AM »

The biggest problem I've had with this program is rearranging the order of notes - It cannot be done.  I would like to rearrange notes by "drag & drop" & simply arranging alphabetically.  Can any of the other programs mentioned do this?

-skywalka (March 20, 2006, 07:10 PM)

Skywalka,

I've only looked at a few programs, but most of them allow note rearrangement.  Really, that's pretty fundamental.  Take a look at these two freewares to start with;

Treepad Lite
Keynote

Treepad comes in several more advanced payware versions as well as the freeware Lite version.  For more on this whole class of programs, look at this (very long) DonationCoder thread on notetaking software
https://www.donation...pic=2362.0;topicseen

2961

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 04:08 AM »

Black Hole Organizer has had RTF for ages, and seems to have a good deal of "mind share."  It looks more like a database for text scraps than an outliner.

I'd like to try this out, but they have no trial version.  And to be honest, it doesn't look like it offers anything special.  But that's an empty statement because you really have to just get your hands on these things to know for sure.

-superboyac (March 20, 2006, 10:54 AM)

Last time I looked, trial versions were available:

BHO main page  http://www.lincolnbe...ch.com/blackhole.asp
Download link 1 http://www.lincolnbe...each.com/blkhole.exe
Download link 2 http://www.lincolnbe...ownloads/blkhole.exe

The look-and-feel seems slanted towards a text snippets database.  Organising functions are more limited.  My main disappointments are (a) not indexed (yet, anyway) so retrieval not very fast, and (b) search logic less powerful than I'd like, as I'm looking for something to deal with very large collections of text.  However, BHO has been around a long time and seems to have a lot of followers; here's a link to "Dr. File Finder's" review  http://www.drff.net/...views/drff02-50.html  (if you think that means anything).

2962

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 03:56 AM »

for the forseeable future I will continue with Keynote. 

-kfitting (March 20, 2006, 09:05 AM)

I thought as much; there still isn't anything (that I know of) in the freeware world to touch it.

(Cost does factor in... I cant afford to spend $100 on this!) 

It's not just the cost to you, either.  If I want to share the data with other people, I need either a freeware, or a payware that includes a freely-distributable read-only version.

I'll have to figure out how to convert all my Keynote files over.

Anyone who wants to be a programming hero beloved of the people should start writing a conversion program 

PS - regarding your comment about this thread: I kind of agree with you, sifting through this is going to be hard for a newcomer.

I think I was hoping for a definitive answer, or at least a set of very clear recommendations, and there doesn't seem to be one.

Looks like someone needs to develop better software for forums too!

Hmmm...  aren't you a programmer? 

2963

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 21, 2006, 03:47 AM »

I've been thinking about this topic since the thread was stared and I think I know what I want, I just don't know what it looks like... so here it goes in words.

-Rover (March 20, 2006, 09:02 PM)

What you said sounds a lot like the sticky notes program Magic Notes

I suspect that's not really what you meant, but you might find Magic Notes  useful as a stopgap or adjunct to other things.  I seem to remember someone (kfitting?) saying they used Stickies (Zhornsoftware)  in a similar way.

2964

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Eject!

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 08:27 AM »

eject the cd.tray when the tray icon is clicked, or something like that.
But there are numerous utilities out there to do that, i think.
(can Wizmo do it for you?)

-jgpaiva (March 20, 2006, 04:58 AM)

Yes, Wizmo can do that.

2965

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 08:25 AM »

@rjbull:  Keynote revolutionized the way I work and organize things.  I totally understand that note-taking is slightly different from the writing end of things... but I dont think the two are mutally exclusive!

-kfitting (March 17, 2006, 07:22 AM)

It's just that the notes I might keep are not necessarily oven-ready for any particular use, they'll generally have to be "massaged," in which case not having them in the same application seems to matter less.  If they were all more or less ready to go, then I wonder if a single-pane ECCO-type outliner might be better.

for the type of writing I do, Keynote 1.6.5 is fine.  For notetaking, Keynote was fine, until I saw Opera's email approach.

What are you using at present?  I'm thinking that even abandoned, and lacking features some people want, Keynote is still the most highly-developed freeware of its kind, and able to compete with quite a few paywares.  It didn't quite float my boat, but I might have persevered if it had had Boolean search.

2966

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 08:16 AM »

End of thread?  Why?  How could you summarize?

-kfitting (March 20, 2006, 07:29 AM)

Perhaps you can't summarize it, after all.  Going back to Superboyac's original post, it looks like this thread is in place of a review because the field is too large.  But anyone coming here from cold is going to have a lot of reading to do.

2967

Living Room / Re: the first 20000 users - well done, mouser!

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 08:03 AM »

At this moment, 20240 members, 19224 posts.  Does anyone but me find it sad that total number of members has consistently been running at about 1,000 higher than the total number of posts?

2968

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 04:16 AM »

once Zoot can use the typical rtf stuff (outlines, bullets, changing fonts, font sizes, colored text, etc)

-superboyac (March 18, 2006, 03:07 AM)

Black Hole Organizer has had RTF for ages, and seems to have a good deal of "mind share."  It looks more like a database for text scraps than an outliner.

We've been discussing these notetaking software for a while now, and this thread has become quite lengthy.

Maybe it's time for an executive summary and <END OF THREAD> ??

2969

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Eject!

« Last post by rjbull on March 20, 2006, 03:56 AM »

I'm using AbsoluteControl for that task

-brotherS (March 20, 2006, 02:44 AM)

People might like to know about Wizmo from Steve Gibson  http://www.grc.com / http://www.grc.com/s...egibson.htm#projects

Features:

• blackout
blackout monitors(s) while leaving them on.

• desktop
blank monitors(s) to the desktop color.

• blank
Activate system's screen blanker.

• autoblank=
Enable/Disable timed blanking.

• monoff
Power off system monitor(s).

• standby
Place the computer in standby mode.

• hibernate
Cause the computer to hibernate.

• logoff
Logs off the current user.

• exit
Exits from Windows.

• reboot
Exits then restarts Windows.

• open
Opens/ejects system's CDROM.

• open=
Open/eject specific drive.

• close
Closes system's CDROM.

• close=
Closes specific drive.

• volume=
Set system's audio volume (0-100).

• mute=
Enable or disable the system's audio.

• play=
Play the specified wave file.

• wave=
Set the wave volume only (0-100).

• shake=
Specify mouse sensitivity.

• quiet
Suppress Wizmo's action sound.

• graviton
Activate the built-in screen saver.

2970

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 17, 2006, 04:14 AM »

I've toyed with the idea of getting InfoSelect over the years, but I can never quite get past how breathtakingly expensive it is. However, it has a lot of features that I think are pretty useful and unique. Many of these are PIM features like ticklers and reminders, and so are probably not germaine to this discussion.

-Jimdoria (March 16, 2006, 04:04 PM)

jimdoria,

I had (still have) both Memory Mate for DOS and Info Select for DOS.  I came to prefer the more basic-seeming Memory Mate for its clean simple interface, even though Info Select even then had more features.  Windows IS has vastly more features than I understand, let alone want, and I'd be perfectly happy to leave reminders and such to separate free or cheap applications.  But I'd certainly be interested to see a cut-down notekeeping-only version of Info Select at a much lower price.

2971

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 17, 2006, 03:59 AM »

Right, but dont forget outlines!  I did my college papers in Keynote...

-kfitting (March 16, 2006, 10:57 AM)

kfitting,

The truth is, I discovered outliners too late to have an impact on the way I work, and I think I've come to view notekeeping as a separate activity from the "creative" writing  (making use of said notes?) aspect I associate with outliners.  Also I like WordStar-style editors for bashing out text, and am just too unwilling to change.  Just my mental blocks, I suppose.  They say middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist change places...

2972

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 16, 2006, 10:50 AM »

- You know what you want but not where to find it (search)

-kfitting (March 16, 2006, 08:48 AM)

That's where I usually am.  Much of the text is short items, a few paragraphs.  It can be anonymous, or have up to several authors and corporate affiliations, and one or several journal references (e.g. when the same news item is printed in several magazines).  So I need a database, but one that's much more freeform than usual.

I rarely need structure 

2973

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

« Last post by rjbull on March 16, 2006, 04:09 AM »

I really feel we gotta get out of the whole tree-heirarchy thing. 

-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:36 AM)

Don't forget that originally, Mouser wanted this thread to concentrate specifically on tree-hierarchy programs...
https://www.donation...62.msg16164#msg16164

Subtle distinction between Zoot for text and AskSam for documents.  I usually deal with short pieces of text, just a few paragraphs.

Seems to me that ECCO doesn't have a lot of spiritual descendants, in that there aren't very many single-pane outliners around.  Nearly everyone seems to have gone for the two- or occasionally three-pane look, which is a pity.  It would be nice to have a little more choice.

2974

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have apps in the System tray?

« Last post by rjbull on March 16, 2006, 03:46 AM »

i'm still learning to *harness* the powers of AHK... ;-) so I'm keeping AllChars as a backup...

-lanux128 (March 15, 2006, 06:17 PM)

Ah, yes    I wonder how long before someone writes a GUI interface for hotstrings in AHK, after the "Instant Text" text expander idea?

Katmouse is a mouse-wheel enhancer.

OK, thanks.

The computer I use most is at work.  It has three Altiris icons (corporate snoopware), WinZip (I prefer to use Total Commander), McAfee antivirus (I'd prefer something else, but OK), then ClipCache, Magic Notes (sticky notes), PTFB (Press That Freakin' Button), Qsel (program launcher) and Stickies (sticky notes from Zhornsoft, under trial).  That is, half the programs I don't want, but have no choice...

2975

Site/Forum Features / Re: new forum feature - spoiler tag

« Last post by rjbull on March 15, 2006, 04:35 AM »

done.

-mouser (March 15, 2006, 04:13 AM)

Hmmm.  Gives the lie to this, then 

How many C programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Spoiler

Only one.  But nobody else can ever change it again afterwards...