Recent Posts

8251

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by tomos on September 23, 2009, 07:26 AM »

Trout seems to have stolen the F12 key here
-
I have a couple of apps that use F12 as a shortcut. When Trout is running, F12 doesnt work in those apps.
(This has been going on a while, I just hadnt made the effort to find out what was causing it)

I just have just four hotkeys in Trout at the moment, none including F12...

8252

General Software Discussion / Re: Manually resort files & rename according to new sequence - possible?

« Last post by tomos on September 23, 2009, 06:45 AM »

Thanks Sri

8253

General Software Discussion / Manually resort files & rename according to new sequence - possible?

« Last post by tomos on September 23, 2009, 02:53 AM »

Is there an app that can do this:

I want to 'manually' reorganise the sequence of a bunch of thumbnails, and then rename them according to the new sequence (i.e. so they will sort in the new order in file manager by name).

Using just a list view would be okay if it cant be done with thumbnail view

A renamer, file manager, or a coding snack maybe?
thanks, Tom

8254

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« Last post by tomos on September 22, 2009, 09:25 AM »

I removed the funny pictures of my dog Cliff, because he became a very heavy brain damage last night and so I had to put him down today .
I´ll never forget you after all the 13 years we had. (see attachment in previous post)

-Crush (September 13, 2009, 08:25 AM)

I very sorry to hear that news Crush

8255

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 20, 2009, 10:26 AM »

just sent some credits your way awopbamboo -
not to bribe you into more work on it but because you just saved me from having to open about 30 PDFs and print them individually

8256

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 20, 2009, 10:13 AM »

hi awopbamboo
you'll be cursing me

If you select "Shred file" (with PDFs at any rate) the files get deleted before they get printed - i.e. adobe reader cant print them.

8257

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by tomos on September 19, 2009, 04:37 PM »

Zevel,
I 'm not sure about ExifPro, I think probably it's tagging wont be what you are looking for - it is a great viewer.
Here's what I said about it earlier this year

I would say ExifPro is great for looking at an image collection that isn't organised - it loads thumbnails very quickly and has a good viewer as Jim says
but:

I discussed the matter of the IMHO way too limited tagging option with the programmer years ago. It's obviously not one of his top priorities.
Create several tag files, but not too many, don't get tempted to use tags as keywords. Use other software to add exif keywords instead.

-Maggy160 (January 15, 2008, 03:38 PM)

I think the tagging in ExifPro is to help you select images for printing or moving etc (i.e. short term, limited)

-tomos (March 31, 2009, 05:37 AM)

'Cataloging' in the programme is mainly aimed at recording images on removable disks or creating 'virtual' collections - images saved at up to 1280 x 1280 pixels

Tagging (IPTC for Jpegs): you can use keys 1 to 9 & 0 as shortcuts for the first ten tags. it cannot tag certain file types - problem here being it chokes on say, a tif file and wont apply tag to any selected files after the tif file - this probably not a problem for most people (me neither, I just happened to be testing iin a 'mixed' folder).
You can give an image multiple tags but there is no organisation/hierarchy of tags - just a list.

You can filter to in include or exclude tags; also based on a 'star' rating; include/exclude by text (partial) in filename; also by filtering rules - see spoiler below.
You can save filters based on combo of all these filters (I think that's new since last time I tried it)

Filtering rules

Image attributes:
img.date   - creation date & time (text)
img.expprog   - exposure program
img.et   - exposure time
img.expbias   - exposure bias
img.ext   - file extension name
img.fl   - focal length
img.fl35   - focal length (35 mm equivalent)
img.flash   - flash information
img.fn   - F/Stop (F Number, aperture)
img.fovc   - field of view crop
img.h   - image height
img.iso   - sensitivity
img.lightsrc   - light source
img.make   - camera make
img.metmode   - metering mode
img.model   - camera model
img.name   - file name
img.path   - complete path to the image
img.portrait   - true if image is in portrait orientation, false if it's in landscape
img.rating   - number of stars
img.size   - file size in bytes
img.srgb   - true if sRGB color space, false otherwise
img.subdist   - subject distance
img.tags   - dictionary of image tags
img.time   - creation time stamp (number)
img.w   - image width

String functions:    string.lower, string.upper, string.len, string.sub(str, from, to), string.find(str, what)

Mathematical functions:    math.abs math.acos math.asin math.atan math.atan2 math.ceil math.cos math.cosh math.deg math.exp math.floor math.fmod math.frexp math.huge math.ldexp math.log math.log10 math.max math.min math.modf math.pi math.pow math.rad math.random math.randomseed math.sin math.sinh math.sqrt math.tan math.tanh math.mod

For a complete list of functions and documentation check www.lua.org

then there's editing of 'File Info'

File information is saved in the XMP format (XML-based), defined by Adobe Corporation. This data is either embedded in photos (in the case of JPEG files) or written to a stand-alone XML file accompanying photograph's file (raw formats).
...
File Info Tool can operate on the currently selected photograph (its name is shown in the window's caption). However if multiple images are selected before entering File Info dialog, then the same set of information will be applied to all of them when the user presses ‘Save to All’ button:

You can save templates for this data with shortcuts Alt+1 to 9

hope that helps,
Tom

edit/ PS have you also seen this thread: Basic Question on Photo Tagging

8258

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 16, 2009, 07:46 AM »

XP home SP2 but otherwise uptodate

As I said above, I have had problems before with file association which I suspect are related to Directory Opus (version 8 ) which replaces Windows Explorer on my machine. (Explorer still runs but Dopus intercepts calls to Explorer and replaces it then - this shouldn't effect SDRP (?), but I wouldn't know!)

8259

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 16, 2009, 06:06 AM »

I seem to have sorted out my file association problems. Double click a tiff or tif file now opens in paint.

Unfortunately SuperDuperRoboPrinter (can I call it SDRP from now on?!) still doesnt work for tiffs.

• Open SDRP. Remove .tiff from the list of extensions.*
• First attempt with just one tiff file in the monitored folder, nothing happens.
• Second attempt, it opens again in the windows viewer.

This probably related:
I notice that removing the extension from the list of extensions doenst stick - if I click "save settings" and reopen SDRP, .tiff is there again. Ironically though the tiff files I have - they have a .tif extension (just one 'f'). I dont know could that be a factor - I dont think so but..

8260

General Software Discussion / Re: Freeware Image Organizer (Especially Tags/Keywords)?

« Last post by tomos on September 16, 2009, 03:00 AM »

I will uninstall both and continue searching.

-zevel (September 16, 2009, 12:18 AM)

keep up the good work, thanks
(guess who hasn't had time to check out all these apps )

8261

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Fundamentals of Productivity: Think!

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 02:52 PM »

Well I found the stuff about Steve Pavlina and other self help 'gurus' good. It is an interesting topic.
What's often not considered is why people are so desperate for all this self-help - the answer to it all is presumably there in the answer to that question. Not that that helps us a whole lot!


A few more thoughts/comments:


Steve's "You attract what you're signaling" could just as easily be interpreted as 'if you're happy, you'll be successful'* which again isn't a whole lot of help to the unhappy of the world. But I suspect it's nearer the truth than his version . .

* I personally don't consider making excessive amounts of money as being what success is about - but making enough money is definitely a part of it.


Re your classification of self-help persons:
I personally do believe that life is great, but I just havent figured out how to consistently enjoy it, to really live it. Their instruction (according to you) is: "so you just have to believe!" which reminds me of the whole positivity slant that you hear so much about (or used to at any rate). For example: repeating positive 'assertions' (or whatever you want to call them) reminds me of the way people used to wear perfume instead of washing - you have to remove all the negative first. I probably dont even need to say 'first' there - if you remove all the negative claptrap in your head, what's left - an open neutral person. Sound to me like the way to go

Why dont we all do that then (me too) ?  I think because a lot of us dont know how to say 'No'. Because we've been programmed all our lives to do what our parents want (or maybe our parent's did the opposite and pampered to our every wish which is no help either) programmed  to conform to school and society. Some rebel, but still dont really know how to say a simple 'No'. They're mostly reacting, not really rejecting.
So, what's with the 'No'?
- It's about defining our limits with others, but much more importantly, it's about defining out limits with ourselves. It's about saying to ourselves "No, I don't want or need to indulge in this unhelpful behaviour, or that way of thinking, (or whatever)". If we are lucky enough, our parents were able to give us helpful limits, to show us the way. But most people I know haven't had that luxury (me included).

hmmm I should go off and practice what I preach


PS. Paul, some things arent clear above - it's not clear for example when the quotes from app103 end and when your comments begin. It's not made clear in the Pavlina part who is making the comments - if they are mixed (i.e. from the article and the related comments and maybe yours as well?) it would be helpful to state that at the beginning.

8262

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 08:15 AM »

... If I remove tiff extension from the list to print with windows image viewer, the file simply opens in the viewer and nothing more happens ...

-tomos (September 15, 2009, 06:49 AM)

unfortunately this still the case.

Gotta say here that my (image) file associations have often been problematic (I suspect Dopus8 complicates things but not sure) - now I cant seem to get the PAint association to stick. Photoshop does work as default programme (i.e. it opens the file) but with that set as default, your app still opens the file in Windows Viewer (with no further action).

Will have another look later today, thanks for the help!

8263

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 06:49 AM »

For PDF's it works very nicely

 . . but unfortunately with tiffs - they get printed to fullpage size, regardless of the actual size of the image (I havent tested any other image files but presume it's the same)
When I open the print dialogue box and look at the print queue, I see:
Full page print. I presume it's using the 'Photo printing wizard' (XP home) which doesnt give an option to print at actual size

If I remove tiff extension from the list to print with windows image viewer, the file simply opens in the viewer and nothing more happens (I must check file associations again)

8264

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: SuperDuperRoboPrinter

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 06:26 AM »

last version is much better awopbamboo
At the moment though, it prints everything in subdirectories as well - even without 'Include Subdirs' ticked

8265

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Fundamentals of Productivity: Think!

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 06:09 AM »

Mucho apologies Paul!
I missed (or read but glossed over) the guidelines at the very top of post one.

I'm very interested in the topic too so I'll shut up and read the rest of the article

8266

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Fundamentals of Productivity: Think!

« Last post by tomos on September 15, 2009, 04:32 AM »

Thanks Paul.

to clarify to anyone who's confused:
I sent Paul a PM looking for clarification about a lot of things in the article up to the Steve Pavlina bit.

I'm afraid after reading that much, and reading your last post, I'm still unsure what the post is about. There were key sentences and lists that I didnt and still dont know what they refer to - you say in your last post that Cons refer to the idea you had (which I'm trying to figure out)
"Basically, all the cons are addressing the guidelines of each thread unless stated otherwise." The guidelines being/meaning?

You say you want it to be ambiguous - it is - to the extent that it quite opaque to me at any rate. Maybe if I had sharp academic reading skills (I think you quoted me above saying I have more the opposite!).

My main point though, was that if you want people to read such a long post, you need a clear summary at the beginning. Otherwise I believe you are very quickly going to lose almost all readers.

P.S. the stuff in your last post about addiction/habits etc. is very interesting btw

Edited for emphasis

8267

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: What do you do to bypass the actionable necessity?

« Last post by tomos on September 14, 2009, 05:59 PM »

Paul
I'm no expert (more the opposite!) in productivity or it's 'methods'.

I believe Forster suggests to start by saying/writing:
Think about X (we'll say it's an idea for a book). And then I guess you'd do the GTD thing of figuring out the first step, but hopefully the thinking bit would help you be realistic about the idea..
as opposed to:
Start my book

In my time I've had some ideas that are pretty big but also pretty 'unactionable' for various reasons. But I suspect at the end of the day, if I really wanted to write that book or illustrate the other one or whatever - I would do it. I would make it so I could do it, even if the obstacles (lack of time/ lack of money/ lack of experience/ lack of talent even) seem insurmountable.

I dont think any productivity or grading system would help or hinder much with going for that big project - but as you say it could help sorting them out.
Me, I could do with all the help I can get - I'm at a sort of crossroads where my main work of the last 15 years seems to be petering out & I don't mind from the point of view that I want to do something different. But I dont know what exactly. And while I *might* not have the luxury of choice, I obviously going to have some sort of influence with my thoughts (be they positive or negative) and my ideas. (and my ToDo lists? lol)

Maybe we should/could think about this practically - Skwire is on fire at the moment - maybe he or someone could throw together an app where one could brainstorm to-do-ideas and somehow rank them - I'll have to think some more about this.
Any thoughts on how ideas could be ranked - to be honest at the moment I cant really see a piece of software being able to manage this.
What do you think? I guess you Paul were talking about this on a different level than "what will I do with my life!" - my post just kind of veered that way unintentionally!

Any other ideas out there?

8268

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows Image Editor than can pull image from command line url?

« Last post by tomos on September 14, 2009, 02:41 AM »

I don't know of any desktop one that can do that but SUMO Paint can (pretty cool online image editor too)

-app103 (September 13, 2009, 12:42 AM)

looks impressive

8269

Living Room / Re: Looking for help with a Logo

« Last post by tomos on September 13, 2009, 02:37 PM »

I think you've figured most of this out Veign:
a file from Photoshop with a font will be a bitmap (pixel) image (i.e. non-vector). So a photoshop file is no good to you (even if saved as EPS)

If you have the font you need to use it in some vector programme that can make an EPS file. I have illustrator but unfortunately have temporarily uninstalled it (long story) so probably cant help.

I'm not too well up on fonts - what is that one? Is the font freely available?
If I could get the font I could possibly do something in Freehand but cant guarantee - it's an older programme & doesnt like lots of modern fonts ..

For printing (professionally) a high-quality PDF with fonts embedded would probably be at least as good as an EPS but maybe not for the other uses you plan

8270

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 37-09

« Last post by tomos on September 13, 2009, 12:15 PM »

#4 it's really shocking what they did to that guy . .

#3 I read some stuff objecting to the google books a good while back, but it was very vague & I couldnt really understand the problem but when I read this it certainly seems an improvement

8271

General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?

« Last post by tomos on September 11, 2009, 03:31 AM »

The upgrade pricing is available now (for FileHamster) - you enter  your e-mail address and are presented with upgrade pricing. I *think* I sprang for the developer version last time around and I am very impressed with the pricing that I am being offered for an upgrade. Even the Enterprise package is VERY reasonable. However, I'm curious to hear from anyone that has installed the new version? I uninstalled FileHamster some time ago in the course of troubleshooting an (as it turned out) unrelated issue and have never reinstalled it...

-Darwin (September 10, 2009, 05:57 PM)

Here's a thread in the FileHamster forum about upgrading Updates for Plus
I was happy enough too about price offered (I'm not sure does it depend on how many plugins you bought before) - bought it (but cant promise Mike when I'll get around to installing it!)

here's the link to check upgrade pricing
http://filehamster.c...e&action=upgrade

and another CPU test here

How to reproduce 80-99% cpu usage:

Almost clean virtual machine (XP SP3 updated last week), Default installation of new filehamster trial (downloaded today):
Options -> Suspend notification bubbles
Extra addons: none
Watch folder properties: All default except: MaxRevisions=30, ShowBubble=false

Now copy c:\Program Files\ in the watched folder...

Screenshots http://img529.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=filehamster1.png

-gizmoz

8272

Find And Run Robot / Re: I think I'm missing the basics

« Last post by tomos on September 10, 2009, 05:30 PM »

type aplugins - you get a list with key letters

If you press enter, Options opens on the plugins page, you can get more info there

8273

General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?

« Last post by tomos on September 10, 2009, 02:20 PM »

Advanced corresponds roughly to the old Developer Bundle (not the +Plus version), but also includes replication, diffing and zip support (I don't think those plugins were in the Dev Bundle).

-mwb1100 (September 10, 2009, 12:47 PM)

when you put it that way the 'Advanced' pricing is quite good/fair - especially if you use any of those plugins. The zip plugin was always free IIRC

I still think the basic is a waste of time cause it doesnt even have the zip capability

8274

General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?

« Last post by tomos on September 10, 2009, 06:37 AM »

They also have just announced new product tiers: Basic ($29), Advanced ($79, but currently at $49), and Enterprise ($99). Not sure they compare to the old scheme. Is Basic = old "free", and Advanced = old "plus" (was $30 or so)? Seems quite a price hike if it is. (Haven't visited their web site for a long time, so I might have remembered the old price wrong. Sorry if that's the case.)

-mwang (September 10, 2009, 04:45 AM)

they havent setup the upgrade path yet so it's not fully clear

'FileHamster Advanced' (currently $49) is "Comprised of the old FileHamster +plus features [i.e the old paid version] and nearly all of the plugins"
Some of the plugins cost (when you got them separate) - I bought one for $10 or so.
But with this repackaging (it seems to be simply a repackaging ) you dont have a choice - you are basically paying for all the plugins

The new basic is the same as the old +Plus (paid version) but without any of the plugins - no zipping of backup would be what I would mainly miss - to me it's asking a lot to pay (anything) for any backup programme that doesnt zip your backups... but maybe I've been spoiled?

8275

General Software Discussion / Re: Grpahic Design question: Services and prices?

« Last post by tomos on September 08, 2009, 05:15 PM »

It sound to me like the images are going to be very important though - I have absolutely no idea about share/prercentage etc but just throwing that out there.
A book could have a wonderful idea but if the visuals arent eyecatching (doesnt have to mean 'tasteful' or even necessarily high quality) you're in a different league . .

True, luck must play a big part in success - it sounds like something interesting but I wouldnt have a clue about that market