Author Topic: My favorite software! What's yours? (Read 234214 times)

zridling · « **Reply #200 on:** July 15, 2007, 09:59 AM »

Although it doesn't do the same tasks, Autoruns was updated this past week to run in Vista.

mackal · « **Reply #201 on:** August 23, 2007, 08:44 PM »

Ooh, great list! Let me list mine, maybe I'll learn of some related/better tools. (I'm a tool junkie).

ESSENTIAL
- FARR, obviously
- Directory Opus - Explorer replacement, file management
- Notemap2 or Brainstorm - outliners
- PowerPro - swiss army knife, sort of
- Vim and/or Emacs - programmer's editors
- Zoom player - video player
- Faststone Image Viewer - image viewer
- safarp - uninstaller for Windows

IMPORTANT
- Super Flexible File Synchronizer - file synch
- Picasa2 - photo org
- ExamDiff - file comparison, esp text
- NOD32 AV - anti-virus
- Comodo Personal Firewall - firewall
- Opera - browser
- AutoHotKey - global key binder/scripter
- Console2 - dosbox/cmd replacement

ad-min · « **Reply #202 on:** September 10, 2007, 01:15 AM »

Here are my favorites:

> XYplorer (http://www.xyplorer.com)
> The Bat (http://www.ritlabs.com)
> Treepad (http://www.treepad.com)
> IrfanView
> Calendarscope (http://www.calendarscope.com)
> Jetico Firewall, BestCrypt (http://www.jetico.com)
> MailbagAssistant (http://www.fookes.com)
> BootIt NG, Image for Windows (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com)
> Bookmark Buddy (http://www.bookmarkbuddy.net)
> ShortCut (http://www.typer.de, I think the homepage is only in German but the program is also in English)
> PC-Adressz (http://www.hastasoft.de, only for the German speaking guys here)
> TrafficMonitor, SuperSpamKiller (http://www.trafficmonitor.de, http://www.superspamkiller.de, only for the German speaking guys here)

Curt · « **Reply #203 on:** February 16, 2008, 03:54 AM »

I used a lot of space to tell you that a earlier version of Startup Delayer didn't work for me, so I really should tell that the present version, build 130, is working without any errors at all.

----------

Xion Player from the same company was updated today, and a great audio player it is becomming.

Xion Audio Player version 1.0 build 94 has been released!

With 150+ fixes, changes and optimizations including lower CPU and Memory usage, don't hesitate to download now! There are plenty of new features for skinners with more changes to come!

You can download this release from the product page: http://www.r2.com.au...page=2&show=xion

or from the Official Xion Audio Player website: http://xion.r2.com.a...ex.php?page=download

Release Notes for this build can be found here: http://www.r2.com.au...amp;vrn=xion_v1.0b94 here
-r2

PaladinMJ · « **Reply #204 on:** February 16, 2008, 05:12 AM »

Integrates nicely with FARR - just add your RoboForm directory to FARR and you can launch automatic logins directly - a massive timesaver at work where there are passwords for almost every system.
-BrokenNails (July 02, 2007, 12:00 AM)

I added the place my passcards are stored, and when I type donationcoder in and click the rpn file it launches RF as if i wanted to EDIT the passcard. Is that they way you meant, or is it possible to have FARR launch the site and RF login with the passcard?

nosh · « **Reply #205 on:** February 16, 2008, 05:24 AM »

Some gems discovered over the past month or so, all of which have already been mentioned on DC:

zridling · « **Reply #206 on:** February 24, 2008, 10:42 AM »

Lately, I've really enjoyed editing movies with TMPGEnc 4 XPress. Easy, works with a lot of formats, and keeps file sizes smaller than normal (with the right codec, xvid being my fav).

Curt · « **Reply #207 on:** February 24, 2008, 11:10 AM »

Lately, I've really enjoyed editing movies with TMPGEnc 4 XPress.
-zridling (February 24, 2008, 10:42 AM)

It is nice to know that at least someone (used to) have some money...

rjbull · « **Reply #208 on:** February 24, 2008, 02:22 PM »

> ShortCut (http://www.typer.de, I think the homepage is only in German but the program is also in English)
-ad-min (September 10, 2007, 01:15 AM)

Looks like a text completer or abbreviation expander? Is that right? Is it payware or freeware, and which versions of Windows does it run on?

Thanks...

Curt · « **Reply #209 on:** February 24, 2008, 06:03 PM »

a text completer or abbreviation expander?
-rjbull (February 24, 2008, 02:22 PM)

- both.

Is it payware or freeware?
-rjbull (February 24, 2008, 02:22 PM)

- both

which versions of Windows does it run on?
-rjbull (February 24, 2008, 02:22 PM)

- all

Lite Personal is free, Personal Plus is €16 once, with optional €8.25 per year/updating. Lite is max 15 macros and for max 5 machines. The free lite is missing a few features like drag&drop, text storage, or what it was and I don't know.

One very fine feature is that you can use the hotkey * - which today's Giveawayoftheday, Typing Assistant, won't let you. This will make it so much easier to come up with nice unforgettable hotkeys.

Edited2: ~~Oh, and the program is 100% in German. No English~~...

ad-min · « **Reply #210 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:20 AM »

Oh, and the program is 100% in German. No English...
-Curt (February 24, 2008, 06:03 PM)

Just go to Allgemein > Lokalisierung (General > Localization) and switch from Deutsch to English. But - as far as I know - the help file is only in German.

I tried a LOT of applications of this kind, but Shortcut is - in my opinion - by far the best one.

Curt · « **Reply #211 on:** February 25, 2008, 02:22 AM »

Oh, and the program is 100% in German. No English...
-Curt (February 24, 2008, 06:03 PM)

Wrong, Curt!
Allgemein (General) > Lokalizierung (Localization) > Deutsch / English

Sorry!

Edit: However, this does not apply to he pre-made macros, they are all in German.

rjbull · « **Reply #212 on:** February 27, 2008, 03:39 PM »

Just go to Allgemein > Lokalisierung (General > Localization) and switch from Deutsch to English. But - as far as I know - the help file is only in German.

I tried a LOT of applications of this kind, but Shortcut is - in my opinion - by far the best one.
-ad-min (February 25, 2008, 02:20 AM)

Hmmm... Good software coming out of Germany, e.g. Horst Schaffer's programs, but I think I'd rather wait until everything has an English translation, including the licensing terms.

Curt · « **Reply #213 on:** April 09, 2008, 05:20 PM »

One of my absolute favourites was just updated, rewritten from scratch:

Flashnote 3.0 beta appeared. Program is rewritten from scratch. So, in spite of it is thoroughly tested, it has -beta prefix.

I need to tell that program has features available only in 2.x branch now. I have not added anything important. Among new functions I can mention that now you can move Notes up/down on the tree. This branch will be further developed. There will be new versions, but I do not promise to make them soon.

Some features that will appear in future versions: support of portable mode, search through the whole database, automatic backup, Drag&Drop of Notes on the tree.

At the same time Flashnote is not going to turn into PIM.

Note for the users of current version:

Flashnote 3.x converts your database into the new format automatically. Backup of current database will be created before that. But all Settings you should make again.

Thus you can return to using Flashnote 2.3 and the old database. In this case infomation saved in version 3.0 will be lost.

In spite of the above I advice you make backup of the "C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Application Data\flashnote\" folder (or where you store your database).

Hope you like new version. All your comments are greatly appritiated.

And, may I add, it still pops up like a flash...

http://softvoile.com...load.php?s=news3.0fn

rjbull · « **Reply #214 on:** April 10, 2008, 03:38 AM »

One of my absolute favourites was just updated, rewritten from scratch:

Some features that will appear in future versions: support of portable mode, search through the whole database, automatic backup, Drag&Drop of Notes on the tree.
/quote]

And, may I add, it still pops up like a flash...

http://softvoile.com...load.php?s=news3.0fn
-Curt (April 09, 2008, 05:20 PM)

Absence of "search through whole database" would be a deal-breaker for me. As things stand, Horst Schaeffer's MemPad has all those features (as far as I understand them) except drag & drop. That is - small, free, fast, portable, hotkey to toggle between full screen and tray, search entire database, and you can encrypt your files if you want to.

najja · « **Reply #215 on:** April 10, 2008, 04:39 AM »

oh my! I just emailed the author of flashnote to suggest the global search feature and he/she promptly replied that he/she will add it in the next release.

Mempad's lack of unicode is a deal breaker for me though. And the author said it was an incredibly hard thing to implement it in mempad and couldn't promise it in future release.

BrokenNails · « **Reply #216 on:** April 10, 2008, 05:28 AM »

Integrates nicely with FARR - just add your RoboForm directory to FARR and you can launch automatic logins directly - a massive timesaver at work where there are passwords for almost every system.
-BrokenNails (July 02, 2007, 12:00 AM)

I added the place my passcards are stored, and when I type donationcoder in and click the rpn file it launches RF as if i wanted to EDIT the passcard. Is that they way you meant, or is it possible to have FARR launch the site and RF login with the passcard?
-PaladinMJ (February 16, 2008, 05:12 AM)

Sorry 'bout the late reply - no doubt you've figured it out already, but if not:

You just need to go to RoboForm Options | Login Browser and check the box for "Default Action for RFP file (Passcard) is Login".

rjbull · « **Reply #217 on:** April 11, 2008, 04:52 AM »

Mempad's lack of unicode is a deal breaker for me though. And the author said it was an incredibly hard thing to implement it in mempad and couldn't promise it in future release.
-najja (April 10, 2008, 04:39 AM)

Unicode doesn't bother me, but if you use other than European languages, I suppose you have little choice

Did you look at the minipad2 mentioned in this DC thread? I don't know it has Unicode, but it's made in China, so presume Unicode is necessary. I can't access minipad2's Web site at present, though.

Curt · « **Reply #218 on:** April 11, 2008, 08:13 AM »

Unicode doesn't bother me, but if you use other than European languages, I suppose you have little choice ... Did you look at the minipad2 ... I don't know if it has Unicode, but it's made in China, so presume Unicode is necessary.
-rjbull (April 11, 2008, 04:52 AM)

It is my sad experience that Unicode is not Unicode... I have tried many programs written by non-English Europeen or Asian authors, but never the less many didn't FULLY support Unicode, even if characters from their own language were supported. Apps from German Horst Schaeffer supporting the special German character ß all right but not the special characters æøå from the neighbor language Danish, is just one example.

f0dder · « **Reply #219 on:** April 11, 2008, 08:33 AM »

Sounds like those programs haven't been Unicode then, Curt. It's funny to see programs that are mostly Unicode, but fail on things like capitalizing non-ASCII characters (like æøå).

Curt · « **Reply #220 on:** April 14, 2008, 08:41 AM »

Mempad's lack of unicode is a deal breaker for me though.
-najja (April 10, 2008, 04:39 AM)

MemPad has all those features (as far as I understand them) except drag & drop.
-rjbull (April 10, 2008, 03:38 AM)

We now know that MemPad both supports Unicode, and has Drag&Drop.

I am very sorry for assuming that because I once tried a program from Horst that didn't support Unicode, then none of his programs did. I was wrong: ALL his programs for Windows 32 BIT supports Unicode! Sorry I implied otherwise - and Thanks to rjbull for the PM!

... Actually, all my Windows programs support all characters that can be found in Charmap.exe (the programmer does not have to take care about this). And MemPad, for example will change "æøå" to uppercase without problems.

Windows also supports character sets like Greek or Russian in single byte, non-UNICODE mode (many MemPad users), but UNICODE, of course is absolutely necessary, if you want to mix different character sets. My windows programs even work under a chinese emulation (though there are some problems with search functions..)

My old DOS programs, however, are limited to the DOS character set, and uppercase functions are somewhat limited.
-email from Horst Schaefer

Other than that I think MemPad is the strangest program I can think of. You have to forget everything you ever thought you knew about how to create a note, in order to use this weird program! Or were all of my problems with MemPad maybe because of unavailable hotkeys, or my unstable PC? Hmm...

edited for insert from Horst's email

paulobrabo · « **Reply #221 on:** April 14, 2008, 10:26 AM »

I use mempad as my all-round note-taking thingie, and don't think it's strange at all. Its text-only approach fits my needs completely.

The latest version has customizable hotkey support (if for for hotkey you mean a shortcut to evoke and send back the application to the tray).

I didn't think I could live without Keynote's tabs, but boy was I was wrong.

rjbull · « **Reply #222 on:** April 14, 2008, 10:36 AM »

Other than that I think MemPad is the strangest program I can think of. You have to forget everything you ever thought you knew about how to create a note, in order to use this weird program! Or were all of my problems with MemPad maybe because of unavailable hotkeys, or my unstable PC? Hmm...
-Curt (April 14, 2008, 08:41 AM)

No problem here with Alt-Ins or Ctrl-Alt-Ins? And you have the two buttons just to the right of the "NEW:" button?

muntealb · « **Reply #223 on:** April 14, 2008, 11:11 AM »

However, regardless of what the program's author says, Mempad does not fully support Unicode. The romanian letters Ș and Ț (S and T with comma below) cannot be written inside Mempad, the software displays question marks instead (??). It's the sign that Unicode is not fully supported. From the notetakers only NoteCase and Flashnote are fully compatible with Unicode.

http://notecase.sourceforge.net/

http://softvoile.com/flashnote/

hoshi · « **Reply #224 on:** April 14, 2008, 12:04 PM »

We now know that MemPad both supports Unicode, and has Drag&Drop
-Curt (April 14, 2008, 08:41 AM)

MemPad does not support UNICODE, I am sorry to say (I am the author).

UNICODE uses a multi byte code that covers all languages of the planet, and even allows displaying Chinese, Russian and English on the same page. For a programmer this is more difficult to handle than ANSI, which stores all characters in a single byte.

ANSI includes the standard English character set (first half of the 256 codes) as well as a set of special characters that can be configured through Windows' regional settings. The "Western" set includes all sorts of western european special characters (see Charmap.exe).

Windows programs usually handle all these characters, including conversions upper/lower case. For regions like Russia or Greece the "Western" set is replaced with a regional set, which works nicely, and still supports ANSI English, but you cannot mix Russian and German umlauts, for example.

Programs without UNICODE support can even handle Chinese or Japanese, because those Windows versions have emulations that support 2-byte codes and pretend it's normal single byte code. However that is likely to fail on memory string operations.

BTW: Another issue is the OEM character set ("DOS") that is used for Windows console programs ..

horst