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876

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple means of joining images?

« Last post by rjbull on May 02, 2012, 02:44 PM »

I was going to suggest the NANY entry ImageGrid that you rejected in your initial post. [..] perhaps at some point you could spell out what you think could be added to make it do what you need

-mouser (April 30, 2012, 05:22 PM)

I tried it once, briefly, and some while back; my memory is imperfect.  AIRI, I tried adding images to it, and found they danced around the workspace.  Adding new images pushed the others to different places on the screen.  I couldn't (figure out how to) pin them in fixed locations of my choice.  Also, IIRC, it needs all the images to be the same size, which is limited.  Further features that might be nice would be a grid or dotted background for aligning images, and perhaps the ability to make images "magnetic" so that they would automatically "stick" to each other and thereafter be movable as a group, like some sticky notes programs.

877

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple means of joining images?

« Last post by rjbull on May 02, 2012, 02:38 PM »

I need to do this sort of thing all the time, exactly as @rjbull describes, and I do it in my main PIM - Microsoft OneNote

-IainB (April 30, 2012, 04:54 PM)

Does OneNote allow you to save the composite as a new image, and/or send it to the clipboard?  Is there some "docking" tool that helps you line them up?

[Edit at UK time 2012-05-02, 20:49:-]You really had fun with that, didn't you? 
[/Edit]

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple means of joining images?

« Last post by rjbull on May 02, 2012, 02:34 PM »

did any of the "panorama photo stitching" type of software apps out there meet your needs?

-skwire (April 30, 2012, 04:23 PM)

I haven't tried them - but there's a similar thread, Looking for image stitching software without processing image content, in which Carol Haynes explains why it didn't suit her needs, and I think rather the same way.  As I understand it, panoramic software expects a series of images that have been deliberately taken with overlaps, and does its best to integrate them all into one.  I'm looking for a simpler program that allows me to move images around on a grid, lock them in place, and preferably turns the ensemble into a new composite image.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple means of joining images?

« Last post by rjbull on May 02, 2012, 02:25 PM »

have you tried Serif's PhotoPlus SE? [...] I think Serif -- these days -- are a little overpriced but they do tend to chuck the odd special offer around.

-oblivion (April 30, 2012, 04:19 PM)

My impression is that if you once buy something, anything, from Serif, you'll be constantly mugged with unmissable special offers ever after.  In other words, you rarely need to buy anything full price.  Result - I have a slew of fairly recent Serif products, none of which I really use     The only one I have actually installed is PagePlus X6, which is probably usable for what I had in mind.  However, I was thinking of something smaller and simpler.

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General Software Discussion / Simple means of joining images?

« Last post by rjbull on April 30, 2012, 03:59 PM »

Please, is there a simple program that will allow me to butt-join graphic images together, much like you'd do with paper and glue?  This would be nice for things like before-and-after screenshots, etc.  The images might not always be the same size or shape.  I'd like full control over their positioning, and to save the composite result as a new graphic.

I thought this was what NANY 2012 Pledge & Release: Image Grid was, but it felt like a sliding-block puzzle and wasn't quite what I wanted.   

881

General Software Discussion / Re: pls recommend a good benign keylogger

« Last post by rjbull on April 25, 2012, 08:44 AM »

So, it that keylogger free to use?

-EmmaL (April 25, 2012, 02:04 AM)

• Emsa Save My Work
• PowerPro

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General Software Discussion / Re: CintaNotes 1.6, 10 April 2012, goes "Freemium" (pay for extra features)

« Last post by rjbull on April 24, 2012, 03:32 PM »

QuotePad (CintaNotes copycat)

-Steven Avery (April 22, 2012, 01:57 PM)

QuotePad is a re-branding of Notesholder Lite.  I think it came before CintaNotes, but the latter now seems to me the better program.  It doesn't have reminders, but the reminders in Notesholder drove me round the bend.

CintaNotes looked very good in some ways, except that it was in between everything.

-Steven Avery (April 22, 2012, 01:57 PM)

You're wanting an altogether heavier-weight program.  CintaNotes is like EverNote Light; small, fast, easy to use, fuss-free, portable if required, capable free version.  Those are its strengths.

883

General Software Discussion / Re: automate database building

« Last post by rjbull on April 24, 2012, 03:04 PM »

Ath's right, needs clarification.  Maybe an example?

Are your PDFs named according to the chemical itself, i.e. the same name as in the word list?

You can (usually) concatenate PDFs from the command line using pdftk.  So if your PDFs are named as in your word list, you could use the word list to build a batch file to concatenate them.

884

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by rjbull on April 23, 2012, 02:31 PM »

Just started "Operation Napoleon", by Arnaldur Indridason.

Just finished "Mortal Engines," by Philip Reeve.
Far-future science fiction?  For children/young adults?  This one is great.  It deserves all the prizes awarded to it.  Adventure, energy, betrayal, revenge, romance, loyalty, engaging characters, a complicated villain, an unexpected denouement.  I couldn't put it down, and immediately requested the next in the quartet from the library.

885

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Swift To-Do List 7 Standard FREE today 2012-03-26 Only on BDJ

« Last post by rjbull on April 19, 2012, 07:18 AM »

I have reverted to paper

-urlwolf (April 08, 2012, 03:14 AM)

urlwolf, do you have a system?  Now that I don't run a PC all day every day, I'm using paper more, and interested in better non-computer methods.  At present, it's usually random scribblings on bits of paper, and needs improvement.

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General Software Discussion / CintaNotes 1.6, 10 April 2012, goes "Freemium" (pay for extra features)

« Last post by rjbull on April 18, 2012, 04:34 PM »

Apr 10, 2012 — First Commercial Release! Version 1.6
License change notice: with this version, the licensing model changes to "Freemium". Basic functionality (which covers all features of version 1.5.7) continues to be free, but the new commercial features require buying a Personal or Company license.

    * Multiple notebooks support. (Commercial) Feature

      CintaNotes now has the "File/Open" and "File/Save As..." commands, and also has the recently opened files list to easily switch between different DB files. The name of the currently opened DB file is displayed in the main window title (unless it is "cintanotes.db").
    * Ctrl+Enter shortcut to paste note text into currently active application. (Commercial)Feature
    * Exporting notes to HTML format. (Commercial)Feature
    * Tag sidebar can now display tag usage counts. (Commercial)Feature

      This allows you to easily see which tags are underused and can be merged or removed. Tag count display can be turned off in Options/Tags menu.
    * Unified and consistent search behavior: Search behavior is now unified and consistent. "Exact search" mode has been removed. Instead there's an option to search inside words. Now you can always use the logical operators: space as AND and '|' as ORFeature

      If you need to search for an exact quote, put it in doublequotes, like this: "to be or not to be".
    * Support for mixed case tags.Feature
    * "Cut" command for notes, and custom clipboard format to transfer notes from one notebook to another while keeping text formatting.Feature
    * New "Help/License" dialog to manage product licensing: The dialog includes ability to automatically fill licensing data from clipboard and also via clipping.Feature
    * Tag sidebar can now be resized with the mouse.Enhancement
    * New Options/Tags submenu to configure tagging options.Enhancement
    * New option: "Options/Clipping/After Clipping/Assign currently active tags"Enhancement

      When this option is on, newly clipped notes are automatically assigned tags which are currently selected on the Tag Sidebar.
    * Note editor: Alt+C now works as shortcut for "Cancel".Enhancement
    * Ctrl+U shortcut for displaying untagged notes.Enhancement
    * Last used export format is now remembered in settings.Enhancement
    * Main menu reorganization. "Note Appearance" menu item moved to the Options menu.Enhancement
    * The executable is now signed with a digital signature.Enhancement
    * Proper metadata and version information in the executable.Enhancement
    * Note export dialog now includes the "Export scope" groupbox.Enhancement
    * Ctrl+Home/End in search box to focus note list and go to first/last note.Enhancement
    * Eliminated possibility of painting artefacts on window maximization.Fix
    * Full-text search was not working for East-Asian languages.Fix
    * Searching for "-a" lead to a "Malformed MATCH expression" error.Fix
    * Search could produce wrong results if query contained punctiation or delimiter characters.Fix
    * Copy/pasting note in the notes list lost text formatting.Fix
    * Pasting text in main window didn't recognize links.Fix
    * Removed redundant formatting tags in exported XML file.Fix
    * Non-ASCII characters in page URLs were corrupted on clipping.Fix
    * USB stick could not be safely removed after note import or export.Fix
    * Restoring focus after clipping was not working in Opera.Fix
    * Note editor: wrong window position after being mazimized.Fix
    * Note editor: lower pane height changed on Ctrl+S.Fix
    * Note editor: applying formatting cleared existing formatting.Fix
    * Note editor: pressing Enter twice didn't cancel bulleted and numbered lists.Fix
    * Note editor: Undo behavior was incorrect after pasting text from clipboard.Fix
    * Note editor: pressing F7 when Link is empty opened Windows Explorer.Fix

Personal license is $9.99, more for commercial license, one year of free updates included.

887

General Software Discussion / Re: The best soft for web surfing automation

« Last post by rjbull on April 17, 2012, 04:27 PM »

What do you want to automate?  Will WebSite-Watcher do enough for you?  Features list includes: 

Automate checks and tasks with the integrated scripting language
A simple yet powerful scripting language lets you automate specific tasks. For example to check bookmarks, create a report and send the report by email without having to execute all these commands manually step by step.

888

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: new FastPaste 3: 60% off

« Last post by rjbull on April 14, 2012, 02:52 PM »

I am not into clipboard managers too much (I'm not sure what I am supposed to manage)

-Steven Avery (April 14, 2012, 01:29 PM)

Think: extender or enhancer.  Programs of this type keep your earlier clips in a kind of database, so you can recall them at will.  Permanent clips for boilerplate text.  Extra features like reformatting text etc.  For good examples, look at mouser's CHS or at ArsClip.

this looks like it might carry over more into form filling or phrase choosing.

-Steven Avery (April 14, 2012, 01:29 PM)

I wondered about that.  Many clipboard extenders can fill in forms as long as you organise things first, i.e., you always paste into a standard form.  I doubt this is a competitor for RoboForm, that can figure out what goes where in a form and fill it in for you, but just asked that question on Bits du Jour to find out for sure.

889

General Software Discussion / IsoBuster 3.0 released

« Last post by rjbull on April 13, 2012, 04:10 PM »

A rare release of a new version of IsoBuster:

I am glad to be able to announce the final 3.0 version release of an exciting new IsoBuster. Excited because this new version, besides optical media (CD, DVD and BD) now also supports Flash drives, Media cards of all sorts and makes, Jaz, Zip, Floppy drives, Hard Drives etc. To top it of, there is now also brand new NTFS support !

To try and pour it in a list, here are the newly supported disks / drives:

    * Thumb / Flash drives
    * SD disks / drives
    * Compact disks / drives
    * MMC disks / drives
    * SSD disks / drives
    * Jaz disks / drives
    * Zip disks / drives
    * Floppy disks / drives
    * HD disks / drives
    * And more ...

And here's the newly supported File System:

    * NTFS

On optical media (CD, DVD, BD) we are accustomed to the concept of Sessions and Tracks. On all these newly supported disks, logical volumes (file-systems) are put into Partitions, not Sessions. IsoBuster supports, just like you were used to with Sessions using IsoBuster:

    * All Windows / DOS / Macintosh / HFS Partitions are immediately shown
    * All the file-system(s) in those partitions are immediatly shown
    * You can use all the features you normally would use on tracks and sessions, but now on partitions.
    * You can do data recovery pretty much the exact same way as on optical
    * Forensics investigators will love the easy overview of all partitions and all file systems
    * See sector per sector content with Sector View
    * Extract portions of the media
    * Support for UDF, FAT, NTFS, HFS(+) on any partition
    * Etc.

(announcement here)

[Edit at UK time 2012-04-14, 20:34:-] I forgot to add: it's a paid upgrade for users of version 2, with discount for now. [/Edit]

890

General Software Discussion / Re: Rightnote, commercial alternative to abandonware Keynote

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2012, 03:42 PM »

it is everything I've wanted in an organizer (minus a nice calendar system and easy, yet powerful web clipping like Surfulater

-vegas (April 10, 2012, 05:46 AM)

I haven't tried Surfulater, but I thought RightNote Pro's Web capture and clipping options weren't bad?  Pity the options screen can't show what hotkeys are currently set, but that's apparently a Vista/Win7 problem.

[Edit at UK time 2012-04-15, 21:55:-]
I changed my mind somewhat.  RightNote's web clipping isn't as streamlined as, say, EverNote 2.2.  [/Edit]

891

General Software Discussion / Re: yet another file manager thread...

« Last post by rjbull on April 10, 2012, 03:32 PM »

[...] TC advantages:

• plugins - amongst hundreds of them content ones are used by me the most. They not only give nice column views [...]
• *.ext - It may be just me but I don't like to have full file names: name must be in separate column and name only. I like to group files by their types

-fenixproductions (April 09, 2012, 05:38 PM)

I struggle to set "nice column views"   

For grouping files, I usually just sort by extension.

892

General Software Discussion / Re: yet another file manager thread...

« Last post by rjbull on April 09, 2012, 03:32 PM »

I can't imagine working without my beloved ZTreeWin. If you're keyboard freak like me, I bet nothing can beat it regarding the speed and effectiveness of work.

-yksyks (April 09, 2012, 12:29 PM)

Console mode makes it amazingly responsive.  Generous license, too, and so is the license for Total Commander, no upgrade fee in 13 years.

893

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: OpalCalc 1.41

« Last post by rjbull on April 09, 2012, 03:25 PM »

As for WJJsoft's freeware calculator, wow what a find, how obscure is that one?! I hunted for ages to look for a Soulver type calc, and you may have found another one [...]Do you have the install exe per chance?

-Twinbee (April 09, 2012, 09:09 AM)

Yes I have the file, which is no-install, but skwire beat me to it    And I'm pretty sure I heard about it here on DC myself 

894

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: OpalCalc 1.41

« Last post by rjbull on April 08, 2012, 04:26 PM »

Before OpalCalc, it turned out nothing on Windows like this existed.

-Twinbee (April 07, 2012, 04:56 PM)

Erm, Hyperionics freeware Free Math Calculator is basically similar - but it's console mode...  WJJsoft's freeware calculator is based on a similar approach, but doesn't have as much functionality (and seems to be gone from their Web site, too).

895

General Software Discussion / Re: yet another file manager thread...

« Last post by rjbull on April 08, 2012, 04:11 PM »

My first file manager, in early DOS days, was Xtree Pro.  When I wanted archive capability, I moved to a non-standard twin-pane file manager, Stereo Shell.  When StS ran out of steam on bigger discs and directories, I changed to freeware File Wizard, a Norton Commander clone with some extensions for LFNs etc.  By the time FW ran out of steam on even bigger discs and later versions of Windows, and didn't gracefully handle admin rights, even I had reluct antlyto accept the reality of Windows, and on the recommendation of my Fidonet sysop went for the superb Total Commander, the first thing I found that made using Windows almost semi-tolerable.  I've remained faithful for about 13 years.  NBut, I also have licenses for ZTreeWin, a native Windows 32-bit console mode extended descendant of the XTree concept.  That was primarily a nostalgia trip, but it's a very capable and responsive file manager.  Finally, I have a license for XYplorer, which I found extremely useful for file finding duties on the network at work.

In short, I use what I do because in a sense I always have.  The ones I use now are mainly lineal descendants of ones I used before, apart from XYplorer.

896

General Software Discussion / Re: Text replacement app for Windows?

« Last post by rjbull on April 08, 2012, 04:01 PM »

if the user is looking at the keyboard, much typing can be for nothing because Windows is waiting for the user to respond to the pop-up box.

-Curt (April 08, 2012, 12:13 PM)

This is true, but it's less of a problem if the box pops up at the cursor, as it does with Typing Assistant, to name one I know a bit.  It's also worth knowing that the Big Daddy of the genre, Instant Text, doesn't do that, it has its suggestions window attach under or beside your main application window.

There have been many DC threads on text expanders before...

897

Coding Snack Guidelines / Re: Idea - Paste utility...

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2012, 04:29 PM »

Do you mean something that pops up with a series of pre-defined "fixed" texts, as it were?

If so, maybe TypeItIn?  It's $19.95, and I've suggested it on Bits du Jour in hope of a future discount.  The last free version is here: TypeItIn v2.0. 

Or, Ka Type In, which is freeware anyway, though getting a little old.  So are Solway's Cliptext (and limited to 10 clips) and Multi Clipboard.   In fact, I seem to remember I couldn't get either of those last two to work on Vista Home Premium.

You can do it with PowerPro too, if you can figure out how.  I used to use PowerPro (on XP) to make buttons that appeared on the title bar of TED Notepad only when it was editing a particular file: clicking them dropped down menus of text strings.

[Edit at UK time 2012-04-04, 22:34:-]
Afterthought; suggest you investigate the freeware Text Editor Anywhere which allows you to readily tranship text between Web text boxes and your favourite text editor, so you have all the power of your editor readily available.  I almost invariably use it for my forum posts.
[/Edit]

898

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2012, 03:42 PM »

PerfectDisk is my favorite defragger by far and I've tried them all (and try out every new version their competitors release).

-Innuendo (April 04, 2012, 03:29 PM)

Including Puran Defragmenter, which I've seen good comments on?

899

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to control program

« Last post by rjbull on April 04, 2012, 06:02 AM »

Just checked in PTFB Pro; it turns out you don't even need an external scheduler.  It has a mini scheduler built in.  See screenshot attached.

900

General Software Discussion / Re: A New ArsClip for the New Year (2012)

« Last post by rjbull on April 03, 2012, 04:29 PM »

I think that's a large part of why I like ArsClip is that the basic features are so obvious and easy to use.  On the other hand, it sometimes feels like it's hiding its light under a bushel by making the more advanced features slightly too hidden.