Any new ideas for small utilities?

[mouser]

awww.. don't go

[Scott]

I guess my thinking was that if the goal was to make startup faster, this won't do it.  It will make startup seem more "pleasant", and your system more responsive during it, but it won't make it faster.  So, I thought the suggested utility would miss the target, hence my questioning it.

The Google utility idea--admittedly strange--would certainly work.  The thing to question about it is its very necessity.  Big difference.

[JeffK]

I found this.

http://www.joejoesoft.com/sr.php

Help is negligible but it doesn't take much working out.  Can control order and speed of startup and appears to have some sort of CPU wait feature.  Source code is provided so the more astute among you can see how it's designed.

Jeff

[JeffK]

I thought of an idea.  My 16 year old daughter and I are continually coming to blows about our joint use of the computer.  Quite apart from her forgetfulness about who pays for it and is therefore entitled to use it as he sees fit, she is always complaing because I mute the sound.

She goes on, turns her music on up loud, and leaves it on loud when she's finished.  I get on and straight away I either turn the speakers down or mute it in some other way.  Whaen she returns she whinges about having to turn the sound up again.  I swear the next time she does it the speakers a re going in the trash.

What would be nice would be a preset speaker volume for each user (we have Win XP Home SP2).  When the computer is being used under my name the volume level returns to a default (for me that would be zero) and when she switches to her account it swithches to her default (set by me so that the neighbours don't complain).

Probably harder than it sounds to program.  What do you guru's think?

Jeff

[mouser]

i think such a program probably already exists;
very easy to program.

if cant find a good freeware tool to do this, submit it for this weeks upcoming 2-5 hour game and i will write it.

[wiredxd]

Hey mouser,

I've made a post in ProcessTamer regarding this and thought it might fit in here as well and here it goes. A small application that can monitor and kill a process if it is running more than what you allowed.

Example: iexplorer.exe <= 3 (allows only 3 instance of ie to run and will autokill the 4th window if it opens)

Thanks and i really like your work

[JeffK]

I thought of another one.  I want to prevent my daughter from logging into her account and shutting down the Kerio firewall.  (If it wasn't for her doubtful P2P software I wouldn't need a firewall).  I'd like to be able to hide the Kerio firewall in the system tray automatically on her account.  I've trawled the net and there are plenty of system tray managers but I can't find a simple one that will simply hide or reveal one or two icons.

Jeff

[mouser]

there are a few that do it.

i have one called "tray wizard"
you get to choose exactly which system tray icons to hide inside its icon.
very useful for clearing up clutter and showing only those you want.

but of course they arent "hidden" hidden you can still find them inside the tray wizard icon; maybe you meant to reallly hide them.

i think kerio (unless you are talking about the old nice v2.15) has a way to password protect settings that should prvent you from being able to shut it down without know the password).

[JeffK]

I found the following "startup delay" type program...

http://www.xpertdesi...sw_xecutor_info.php4

Tray Wizard seems to have been deleted from the net.  The site is dead and I couldn't find a copy.

I have the current free version of Kerio.  The password protection is only available in the paid version and having already bought Outpost through the forum I'm reluctant to part with any further firewall cash.

Jeff

[dajo]

How about a system volume scheduler? 

I hate it when I hit a web site with a loud midi background theme at 2 AM and wake up everybody in the house.

The interface could be a little line-chart, with volume % vertically and hours of the day horizontally.  The user could draw the volume level by drawing a line across the chart.

[dajo]

Whenever I disconnect my USB drive using the tray icon like a good Windows user, Windows says "Dude, you can't disconnect your drive now.  Try again later."  Well usually I am trying to disconnect my drive because I want to leave now not later.  Anyway it usually lets me disconnect if I try again immediately.  Although, sometimes it won't let go no matter what I do, and I have to shut down Windows to detach my drive safely.

So what's the idea for a small utility?  How about a usb drive disconnector tray applet that keeps trying to disconnect instead of saying "Try later"?  Or if it can't disconnect the drive, wouldn't it be nice if it would tell you why?  Like maybe you are sitting on a file, or you've got a subst on the drive or whatever.

[kfitting]

Now that is a handy utility... I cant tell you how many times I'm CADing my system trying to find and kill the process that is holding open my usb <insert hardware here>.  Even if it doesnt automatically allow you to disconnect, just a message would be amazing!

kevin

[imtrobin]

My suggestion, although may not be trival to code. I like to have desktop icons behave like the Start Menu button.. so I can categorize my desktop icons and have it open links to other programs when I click on it.

[Scott]

Shortcuts that are actually toolbars...  Cool idea.

I think you'd need to have the shortcut run an application that determined the shortcut's onscreen position, and then overlayed it with the menu.

[Scott]

How about a system volume scheduler?  I hate it when I hit a web site with a loud midi background theme at 2 AM and wake up everybody in the house.

-dajo (July 03, 2005, 03:25 PM)

That's a cool idea for a utility.  There is a kludgy workaround, using Task Scheduler:  Run a utility that can alter the volume at whatever time(s) you want.  I use Task Scheduler to run NirCMD whenever I've stepped away from the computer for long enough, using the command line nircmd.exe setsysvolume 10000.  You can also have it mute the volume.

It may also be a good idea to put such a shortcut in your Startup folder, or run it from HKLM\...\Run.

[AbteriX]

> Any new ideas for small utilities?

I had one.
I found no little nifty GUI utillity for to close an application
by name or handle at an given time.

I had to wrote an batch and use an other timer tool.
Maybe this is an idea, or have anyone such an tool?

I searched something like this:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Project name [        INetRadio ]   [Save] [Load]
--------------------
Windows title (with regex )   [ INetRadio* ]  [list current titels...]

Program handle   [      ]   [list current handles...]
--------------------
( ) close only first occurrence
( ) close all match
--------------------
(x) Close in [ 45]   [Minutes] (Hour, days)

( ) Close at [21:59]   [Daily,Weekly, Monthly]

(or use a kind of cron syntax)
--------------------
Check if closed every [ 45]   [Minutes] (Hour, days)

[X] Kill after [ 3] Minutes if not closed
--------------------
( ) Execute this after schedule   [    shutdown.cmd]  [...]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is my batch

[Select]

This work for me (on Win2000), maybe not for your environment !?
Be carefull.

If you want, copy and paste this code in an text file,
name it what you want with the extension .cmd (or .bat for Win98)
and use your Win Taskplaner to schedule this batch.

NOTE: we need pv.exe (PrcView command line utility) from Igor Nys, found at http://www.prcview.com/
Download and unpack PrcView.zip.
Copy pv.exe in an folder in the path, or in the folder of this batch.cmd

This batch could be used for all apps, that's why there are further infos in it.

Enjoy.

[Select]

@echo off
:: stopScreamer.cmd
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Little batch to close any application (Process) with an scheduler               June 2005 by Stefan
:: NOTE: we need pv.exe (PrcView command line utility) from Igor Nys, found at http://www.prcview.com/
:: Download and unpack PrcView.zip.
:: Copy pv.exe in an folder in the path, or in the folder of this batch.cmd
:: Then use Windows Taskplaner or your favorite cron utillity to schedule this batch
:: (to close the process on a time YOU want)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:: which process to close or kill ?
:: wrote the process name behind the equals sign '=' in the line below

set processname=screamer.exe

:: thats all you have to do, just save and than schedule this batch or start it per double click
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



:: now it's my part from here, hands off !



:1: first we look if the process is there or not, to avoid error messages of the pv.exe
pv.exe %processname% >nul
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto _ERROR_MESSAGE

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:2: than we try to close (end) the process
pv -close %processname%

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:3: now we wait 5 seconds (-n 5) to allow the process to terminate
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 5 >NUL

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:4: let's take a look if the process is not follow our advise and is still running
pv.exe %processname% >nul
::
:: if it not run, we go to an success message
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto _OK_MESSAGE
::
:5: else we kill the process, no mercy! (Note: lost of current data may occur)
pv -kill %processname%
goto _END

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:_ERROR_MESSAGE
ECHO           !  !  !  A T T E N T I O N  !  !  !
ECHO We have no process found with the given name: %processname%.
ECHO That means %processname% is not running
ECHO or you have maybe an typo in this name, please check this, i give up.
goto _END

:_OK_MESSAGE
ECHO --------------------------------------------
ECHO Done. %processname% is not running anymore.
ECHO Bye.

:_END
set processname=
:: Note: delete PAUSE if you need no infos any more
PAUSE

-
iam dream about something like this:

[Carol Haynes]

kind of large monitor, say, 19" or above. you do something common like deleting a file, maybe dragging it into the recycle bin and then a confirmation box pops up in the middle of the screen which has to be acknowledged with a click (or by hitting a key).

the annoyance is that my mouse is nowhere near the box that needs confirmation - it would be better if the box in question opened up under where my mouse cursor is positioned (wherever that may be) then i can just click and carry on.

i know there is the option with some utils to have the mouse cursor jump to the button that is in focus but i find that sort of thing really interrupts the flow of using the interface.

-nudone (March 17, 2005, 05:49 PM)

Hitting Return does it for me ?

[nudone]

Hitting Return does it for me ?

using your thumb to hit 'Enter' on the numerical keypad is even quicker as your mouse is likely to be about 2 inches away from it (unless you are left-handed).

i'd still like the diolog boxes (etc) to come to me and not me to them.

[Carol Haynes]

Ozzy1, the startup app does sound useful actually..  but sounds like it might be tricky to do properly.. maybe someone can tell us about any success they may have had in the past with apps that change the order or delay of startup programs..

-mouser (April 16, 2005, 05:56 PM)

Perhaps a utility could be built that grabs and deletes all non-essential utitiles from the normal startup locations. This list of startup programmes could be used for the basis of a list of apps that could be editied in therms of order and delay and then started one by one in the set order ?? It could be run periodically as new apps are installed to grab new startup items.