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3326

General Software Discussion / Re: Requesting a comic book editor

« Last post by 4wd on January 23, 2013, 09:01 PM »

Never mind, it can't delete within the archive, (nice little explorer though).

PowerArchiver can do it although it isn't free, same with DOpus.

3327

Official Announcements / Re: January 2013 Giveaway Winners!

« Last post by 4wd on January 21, 2013, 07:18 PM »

Thanks for organising wraith!!

Also thanks to mouser and the people at Hard Disk Sentinel!

Together with the White Elephant fun, all my Christmases have come at once 

3328

Living Room / Re: PowerPwn: Power strip by day, Hacking device by night!

« Last post by 4wd on January 20, 2013, 03:39 AM »

Raspberry Pi Power Strip

3329

Living Room / Re: Internet Suicide

« Last post by 4wd on January 19, 2013, 07:00 PM »

If you want to retain your Google data in some form before nuking the account then check out The Data Liberation Front.

3330

General Software Discussion / Re: free web storage service that offers the biggest amount of data?

« Last post by 4wd on January 19, 2013, 06:50 AM »

You can get 50GB of storage at ADrive.

Basic plan has no Desktop integration, you upload/download through the web interface.

it's being launched today so maybe too busy cause of that.
It opened for me yesterday - but not today...

-tomos (January 19, 2013, 06:33 AM)

Try http://kim.com/mega/ - seems to work better than just http://kim.com, (for me anyway).

3331

Developer's Corner / Re: Extract text PDF using AHK

« Last post by 4wd on January 18, 2013, 08:31 AM »

Here's a simple AutoIt program that will let you search a directory of pdf files, (including recursive), for specific text at the end it will output a list of files that had matches - started off based on the code above.

Nothing fancy but it might get you started.

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. #Region ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
2. #AutoIt3Wrapper_UseUpx=n
3. #AutoIt3Wrapper_Res_requestedExecutionLevel=asInvoker
4. #AutoIt3Wrapper_Res_File_Add=pdftotext.exe
5. #EndRegion ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
6.  
7. ; Include lots of constants for GUI creation
8. #include <Constants.au3>
9. #include <ButtonConstants.au3>
10. #include <EditConstants.au3>
11. #include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
12. #include <StaticConstants.au3>
13. #include <WindowsConstants.au3>
14. #include <RFLTA.au3>    ; Recursive filelist function
15.  
16. ; If pdftotext.exe doesn't exist then extract it from within the SearchPDF executable
17. If Not FileExists('pdftotext.exe') Then
18.         FileInstall('pdftotext.exe', '.\pdftotext.exe')
19. EndIf
20.  
21. ; Global variables: inifile
22. Global $inifile = StringLeft(@ScriptName, StringLen(@ScriptName) - 4) & '.ini'
23.  
24. ; Initial search directory = users Documents
25. $current = @MyDocumentsDir
26. $_text = ''
27.  
28. _GetIni() ; Get previous directory & search from inifile
29.  
30. ; Simple GUI interface
31. #Region ### START Koda GUI section ###
32. $Form1_1 = GUICreate("SearchPDF", 354, 376)             ; GUI window name/size
33. $Input1 = GUICtrlCreateInput("", 7, 65, 250, 21)        ; Search text input field
34. GUICtrlSetData($Input1, $_text)                         ; Set with previous data if it exists
35. $Input2 = GUICtrlCreateInput("", 8, 10, 250, 21, BitOR($GUI_SS_DEFAULT_INPUT,$ES_READONLY))     ; Search dir display field
36. GUICtrlSetData($Input2, $current)                               ; Set with previous data if it exists
37. $Button1 = GUICtrlCreateButton("Path", 270, 7, 75, 25)          ; Path select button
38. $Button2 = GUICtrlCreateButton("Exit", 136, 339, 75, 25)        ; Exit button
39. $Button3 = GUICtrlCreateButton("Search", 272, 65, 75, 25)       ; Search button
40. $Checkbox1 = GUICtrlCreateCheckbox("Recurse", 272, 40, 65, 17)  ; Recurse checkbox
41. $Edit1 = GUICtrlCreateEdit("", 8, 100, 337, 229)                                ; Edit control for output, will let you copy text, (and edit it)
42. GUISetState(@SW_SHOW)                                   ; Show the GUI
43. #EndRegion ### END Koda GUI section ###
44.  
45.  
46. While 1                                         ; Wait for something to happen
47.         $nMsg = GUIGetMsg()                     ; Get any messages from the interface
48.         Switch $nMsg
49.                 Case $Button1                   ; Path button pressed
50.                         $temp = FileSelectFolder('Folder to monitor:', '', 4)
51.                         If @error <> 1 Then $current = $temp
52.                         GUICtrlSetData($Input2, $current)               ; Change input field to reflect chosen path
53.                 Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE, $Button2         ; GUI closed/Exit pressed: Write out current path/search text
54.                         IniWrite($inifile, 'General', 'Path', $current)
55.                         IniWrite($inifile, 'General', 'Search', $_text)
56.                         Exit
57.                 Case $Button3           ; Search pressed
58.                         If (GUICtrlRead($Checkbox1) = $GUI_CHECKED) Then        ; Read state of Recurse checkbox and set flag
59.                                 $_recurse = 1
60.                         Else
61.                                 $_recurse = 0
62.                         EndIf
63.                         $_text = GUICtrlRead($Input1)   ; Read search text, if empty pop up a message
64.                         If $_text = '' Then
65.                                 MsgBox(48, 'SearchPDF', 'No search text entered')
66.                                 ContinueCase
67.                         EndIf
68.                         $_pdfFiles = _RecFileListToArray($current, '*.pdf', 1, $_recurse, 0, 2) ; Call RFLTA to list all .pdf files
69.                         If Not IsArray($_pdfFiles) Or $_pdfFiles[0] = 0 Then    ; If none found, pop up a message
70.                                 MsgBox(48, 'SearchPDF', 'No PDF files found')
71.                                 ContinueCase
72.                         EndIf
73.                         Search($_pdfFiles, $_text)      ; Call Search function with array of pdf files and search text
74.                 Case Else
75.         EndSwitch
76. WEnd
77.  
78.  
79. Func Search($files, $text) ; Arguments passed: Array containing PDF path\filenames and text to search for
80.         Local $_tempFile = @TempDir & '\tempPDF.txt', $output = ''      ; Local variables: temporary txt file and output
81.         For $i = 1 To $files[0] ; First array element [0] contains number of files
82.                 $_RunWait = '"' & $files[$i] & '" ' & $_tempFile        ; Compose command for conversion
83.                 RunWait(@comspec & ' /c pdftotext.exe ' & $_RunWait, '.', @SW_HIDE)     ; Execute command for conversion with hidden CLI
84.                 $filecontents = FileRead($_tempFile)    ; Read converted PDF file into variable
85.                 $textInFile = StringInStr($filecontents, $text) ; Look for search text
86.                 If $textInFile > 0 Then ; If it exists add filename to output list
87.                         $output &= $files[$i] & @CRLF
88.                 EndIf
89.                 FileDelete($_tempFile)  ; Delete temporary txt file ready for next conversion
90.         Next
91.         If $output = '' Then $output = 'No files matched'
92.         GUICtrlSetData($Edit1, $output) ; Write the results into the edit control
93. EndFunc   ;==>Search
94.  
95. Func _GetIni() ; Reads data from ini file if it exists
96.         If FileExists($inifile) Then
97.                 $current = IniRead($inifile, 'General', 'Path', @MyDocumentsDir)
98.                 $_text = IniRead($inifile, 'General', 'Search', '')
99.         EndIf
100. EndFunc

pdftotext.exe is contained within SearchPDF.exe as a resource, it'll be extracted out if necessary.  Previous path and search are written to an ini file on exit to be used next time it's run.

Seems to work OK but no great bug finding was performed, no error trapping either.

EDIT: Cleaned it up a bit, (laugh if you like), now outputs to edit control so you can copy results, added lots of comments because mouser likes that kind of thing.
EDIT2: Tells you if no matches are found.

Anyway, I'm stopping there - you could add a progressbar, some way to cancel, better output (eg. line numbers within the file, no text within file, etc), etc.

3332

Developer's Corner / Re: Extract text PDF using AHK

« Last post by 4wd on January 18, 2013, 03:48 AM »

This might get you started, it's an AutoIt thread with source code provided so shouldn't be too hard to convert to AutoHK or just leave and modify to do what you want:

Search PDF files for specific word and delete them

It uses pdftotext.exe, (part of Xpdf distribution), to convert the PDF before searching, naturally you don't need the delete part of it - you could just change that to output a list of found files.

Code reproduced below, not tested by me, (although I'm thinking this might be something useful....hhmm...off to the Bat Cave   ).

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. ; Written by DavidFromLafayette & wakillon
2. ; http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/127980-search-pdf-files-for-specific-word-and-delete-them/
3. #include <File.au3>
4. $current = "r:\updatecd\gcr_document"
5. $ext = "*.pdf"
6. $_pdftotextPath = 'c:\gnuwin32\bin\pdftotext.exe'
7. $_OutPutFilepath = 'C:\temp\file.txt'
8. _FileCreate($_OutPutFilepath)
9.  
10. Search($current, $ext)
11.  
12. Func Search($current, $ext)
13.  
14.         Local $search = FileFindFirstFile($current & "\*.*")
15.         While 1
16.                 Dim $file = FileFindNextFile($search)
17.                 If @error Or StringLen($file) < 1 Then ExitLoop
18.                 ;ConsoleWrite('-->-- $file : ' & $file & @CRLF)
19.                 If Not StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($current & "\" & $file), "D") And ($file <> "." Or $file <> "..") Then
20.                         $_RunWait = '"' & $_pdftotextPath & '" "' & $current & '\' & $file & '" ' & $_OutPutFilepath
21.                         RunWait($_RunWait, '', @SW_HIDE)
22.                         $filecontents = FileRead($_OutPutFilepath)
23.                         $ObsoleteinFile = StringInStr($filecontents, "Obsolete")
24.                         If $ObsoleteinFile > 0 And $ObsoleteinFile < 100 Then ; check to ensure Obsolete is on title page
25.                                 ConsoleWrite("Obsolete in File" & $file & $ObsoleteinFile & @CRLF)
26.                                 FileDelete($current & '\' & $file)
27.                         EndIf
28.                         FileDelete($_OutPutFilepath)
29.                 EndIf
30.                 If StringInStr(FileGetAttrib($current & "\" & $file), "D") And ($file <> "." Or $file <> "..") Then
31.                         Search($current & "\" & $file, $ext)
32.                 EndIf
33.                 Sleep(1000)
34.         WEnd
35.         FileClose($search)
36.  
37. EndFunc   ;==>Search

3333

Living Room / Re: Name 1 Technological Feature That You Think Is Good

« Last post by 4wd on January 16, 2013, 10:22 AM »

.... and what height they can descend to before they run into mountains.

-Fred Nerd (January 16, 2013, 05:27 AM)

I think I would have used the word avoid in there somewhere.

3334

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by 4wd on January 16, 2013, 05:50 AM »

3335

Living Room / Re: win7 + external HDD

« Last post by 4wd on January 15, 2013, 06:22 AM »

Inquiring minds and all that....what happened?

3336

Living Room / Re: SGS3 Advertising Fail

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2013, 05:07 PM »

Power glitch at the store? Lazy employees that pulls plugs instead of proper shutdown?

-f0dder (January 14, 2013, 06:40 AM)

Um... shouldn't a tablet type device having a battery negate those options? *Shrug* I got no problem calling it a crash ... Shit happens, Ya know?

-Stoic Joker (January 14, 2013, 11:29 AM)

Sure, if it was a tablet - that thing looks more like a man-sized advertising flatscreen (driven by some commodity windows software) with a tablet/phone-like frame on it?

-f0dder (January 14, 2013, 12:29 PM)

And here I was just thinking it was a mockup of the soon to be released Win8 based SGS7...

3337

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by 4wd on January 13, 2013, 05:13 AM »

It's a Model 8 Mk IV, it uses a 1.5V D cell and a 15V "x" cell - I can use a battery pack made of 3V lithium cells to replace the 15V, (eg. 5 x 2032).

3338

General Software Discussion / Re: Regular Expressions (help)

« Last post by 4wd on January 13, 2013, 04:58 AM »

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. #Region ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
2. #AutoIt3Wrapper_UseUpx=n
3. #EndRegion ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
4.  
5. ;$inclip = "***CONTRO*** February 28, 2010 at 5:18am"
6. ;$inclip = '01.02.2010.05.18'
7.  
8. HotKeySet('^#!2', '_Doit') ; Win+Alt+Ctrl+2
9.  
10. While 1
11.         Sleep(1000)
12. WEnd
13.  
14.  
15. Exit
16.  
17. Func _Doit()
18.         $inclip = ClipGet()
19.  
20.         If StringLeft($inclip, 12) <> '***CONTRO***' Then
21.                 $outclip = StringRegExpReplace($inclip, '(..)\.(..)\.(....)\.0?(.+)\.(..)', '\1_\2_\3 , \4_\5')
22.         Else
23.                 $outclip = _Valmorphanize(StringMid($inclip, 14))
24.         EndIf
25.  
26.         ClipPut($outclip)
27.         Sleep(50)
28.         Send('^v')
29. EndFunc
30.  
31. Func _Valmorphanize($temp)
32.         Local $hour = StringLeft(StringRight($temp, 7), StringInStr(StringRight($temp, 7), ':') - 1) + (12 * (StringRight(StringRight($temp, 7), 2) = 'pm'))
33.         If Not Mod($hour, 12) Then $hour-=12
34.         Return StringRegExpReplace($temp, '.+\b.\d+, (\d{4}).+:(\d{2}).*', StringFormat('%02s', StringRegExpReplace(StringMid($temp, StringInStr($temp, ' ') + 1, 2), '([,\s])', '')) & '_' & StringFormat('%02s', Int(StringInStr('JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec', StringLeft($temp, 3), 1) / 3) + 1) & '_\1 , ' & $hour & '_\2')
35. EndFunc

3339

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by 4wd on January 13, 2013, 01:22 AM »

Let's move onto something else food related then



Always handy, the Titanium is even better.

3340

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 10:42 PM »

Mmmm, AVO!



Now, if only I could get batteries for it....

3341

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 10:36 PM »

Been using such a [different than mouser's] liner for a couple of decades (I bake a lot).

-barney (January 12, 2013, 09:20 PM)

Well with a half-life of several thousand years I'd expect it to last

BTW, I work it out to ~2.5 cents a time for the foil, (30m roll @ $2 / 400mm each time), changed at ~6 month intervals here, (don't use the oven much - microwave and stove-top Bessemer are much more efficient energy/cost-wise), so I'm good for 300-400 years before I'm losing out to a $20 gizmo.

3342

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 09:03 PM »

Tinman, why are you trying to ruin a perfectly good, high-tech, possibly toxic, $20 gadget with an 8 cent just-as-good solution?  Are you trying to make me look foolish?

-mouser (January 12, 2013, 07:22 PM)

Actually, that 8-cent solution will cost more, considering the longevity of the $20 gadget  .  (Well, depending upon how much you use the oven  .)

-barney (January 12, 2013, 08:23 PM)

Yes, but with recycling the 8-cent solution just keeps coming back 

3343

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 06:25 AM »

The potential difference (voltage) across the tip and ring wires is usually around 50vDC when the telephone is not being used (i.e., is "on hook"), and this drops to drops to around 6vDC when it is in use (i.e., is "off hook").

These voltages could be quite handy! I recall seeing one early example of a nifty and compact digital phone with several memories (presumably a hot new feature at the time it was designed) that seemed to have no independent power supply of its own, and was completely parasitic off the phoneline's DC supply. It worked very well too. I think it's illegal to attach such parasitic phones to the PSTN now though.

-IainB (January 12, 2013, 02:30 AM)

Telstra' standard rental phones, (earlier T200 & T400), used the DC in the phone line to keep their memory backup charged, (capacitor if IIRC), thousands of these phones are still in use in Australia - I've got two.
AFAIK, they're still legal - Telstra only replace them if they're faulty or if you want the latest and greatest T1000 phone, (for $20 which I'm too cheap to pay for ).

3344

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 01:10 AM »

I'm going along with IainB on this, it does sound like a dodgy earth, (or earth<->neutral connection).

If they've tied the USB shield to the printer frame along with earth/neutral then it's probably picking up a slight leakage current through the AC wiring.

Antenna sockets on the backs of TVs are a really good place to get hit with this 

Working in Telstra, getting zapped was pretty much par for the course - working on the Main Distribution Frame in close proximity to 25-50 subscriber lines, any one of which might get an incoming call....90VAC doesn't exactly tickle.  The worst part is it would cause your hand to jerk back...into the block of connections behind 

Then you were always wondering if some faulty piece of mains connected subscriber equipment was feeding 240VAC back into the line.

@Fred: Just as a matter of interest, do you have an RCD, (safety switch), installed ?

3345

Living Room / Re: New Desktop parts list (RFC)

« Last post by 4wd on January 12, 2013, 12:40 AM »

The software is simple Audacity, and I only use about five features - the stuff I do is pretty simple, but I do a decent chunk of it.

-TaoPhoenix (January 11, 2013, 08:19 AM)

I might be wrong but I don't think Audacity does any hardware accelerated processing, (ie. it doesn't make use of any DSPs), so the CPU will be doing it all.

-4wd (January 11, 2013, 08:52 PM)

Hmm, so while the sound card has some abilities, are you saying I'm not seeing them?

-TaoPhoenix (January 11, 2013, 10:36 PM)

Pretty much, it'll just be using it for playback like any normal Windows program.

If you read here you can get direct access to the hardware for low-latency effects but you need to compile Audacity yourself in order to get it, (propriety reasons).

According to this page, on the Audigy you will only be able to apply any effects through ASIO across the stereo output whereas later models, (Audigy 2), allowed you to apply them on a per channel basis but it does list some software that can use the ASIO drivers.

3346

Living Room / Re: New Desktop parts list (RFC)

« Last post by 4wd on January 11, 2013, 08:52 PM »

The software is simple Audacity, and I only use about five features - the stuff I do is pretty simple, but I do a decent chunk of it.

-TaoPhoenix (January 11, 2013, 08:19 AM)

I might be wrong but I don't think Audacity does any hardware accelerated processing, (ie. it doesn't make use of any DSPs), so the CPU will be doing it all.

3347

Living Room / Re: New Desktop parts list (RFC)

« Last post by 4wd on January 11, 2013, 06:36 AM »

LookInMyPC is free, easy to use, and doesn't need an airline pilot's license to figure it out. It can create a comprehensive hardware profile report. It does a lot more too.  It's a nice utility to keep on hand.

-40hz (January 10, 2013, 05:56 PM)

Okay, here is my report. I turned off a lot of obvious stuff like browsers and hotfixes to keep it short.

-TaoPhoenix (January 11, 2013, 05:08 AM)

Looks like it's an old, (by today's standards), Creative SB Audigy card that's been added - whatever software you're using is most likely leveraging the DSP on it.

Most modern CPUs would probably at least give it a run for it's money, especially given they can probably utilise their onboard stream processors to do the job.

3348

Living Room / Re: New Desktop parts list (RFC)

« Last post by 4wd on January 10, 2013, 07:48 PM »

SIW is very easy to use. There isn't a free version any more but you can find the last free build at:

www.oldversion.com/windows/siw/

-Carol Haynes (January 10, 2013, 06:32 PM)

That appears to be build 0916, (Sep 16), a later version could be available at PortableApps, 1029l (Oct 29).

The last Home Edition one from the SIW website is even later, 1029r, but it needs to be installed and comes with OpenCandy.

3349

General Software Discussion / Re: Spider Oak Purge

« Last post by 4wd on January 09, 2013, 03:54 AM »

I'm liaising with Spider Oak to try and sort the purging issue.

-CleverCat (January 09, 2013, 02:37 AM)

What happens if you try the specific example they have ?

--purge-historical-versions d60,m6,y

3350

General Software Discussion / Re: A new harddisk for my old notebook?

« Last post by 4wd on January 09, 2013, 12:20 AM »

For (not even guaranteed) transfer to a new computer, you need such 50$-for-just-one-transfer sw

-helmut85 (January 08, 2013, 06:37 AM)

Can't you just do a whole disc image to an external, swap the HDD, boot off the Paragon recovery CD, restore the image to the new HDD ?

That's the way I've done it for the last 8+ years or so - bonus is I get a backup and prove that it works.

here, it's important to not recreate your previous 60 giga (or whatever) partition on the new hdd, but to use the whole capacity of your new hdd (didn't get an answer ho much space will finally be addressed, controller-wise, but see below)

Not really an issue since you can use one of the many free partitioning programs to resize the partitions afterwards as you see fit.