Useful Programs

[Aubrey]

Karen's Directory Printer:
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp


Very useful for keeping lists of what you have on discs, or in directories. There is a save to disc option, which creates a small text file, which you can then copy and paste into something more permanent. I have used this hundreds of times in the past few years.

[bsluub]

http://download.cnet.com/Image-Tuner...-10922184.html

Image Tuner is very good if you have whole sets of high res mega pixel pics and want them scaled down to 1280x format or 1024x for example, you can also custom size.I could see no loss in quality and you can soften images or improve scale or quality of reproduction, a great way to save space on your HD.
I recommend doing testers first to find the size format you want as making a smaller copy,
of a copy doesnt seem to help picture quality.

[DubSalute]

Small program that helps keep appointments and stores reminders and notes in the form of Post-It notes on your desktop/screen.

Stickies 7.0a

Operating system: Windows All
License: Freeware
Filesize: 1MB / Memory use: 15/20MB (starts with Windows by adding itself to Start Up)

Download:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-...Stickies.shtml
http://download.cnet.com/Stickies/30...-10330903.html

After install Stickies sets itself in the systemtray, from there you acces the program and its options with right mouseclick on the yellow icon:

[IMG]http://i34.*******.com/20i82t2.jpg[/IMG]

The options of the onscreen Stickies can be accessed by right clicking on the title bar of a note:

[IMG]http://i35.*******.com/2i1doiv.jpg[/IMG]

You then can set alarm and also set that the Stickie goes to sleep (hides itself) till a set time, when that time expires the note will come onscreen again. Via program options you can set and select a .wav file to give a alarm with sound. Message formatting can be accessed via a right click on the note. Double (left) clicking the programs yellow tray icon will add a new Stickie to your desktop.

I find program realy usefull for short term reminders (you could use it as timer to cook your eggs ), long term and repeating reminders. Its also highly customizable and has plenty of options.

More screens:
http://www.softpedia.com/progScreens...hot-35349.html

Info & Features:

A computerised version of Post-It notes.

Stickies was designed to store all information in a single text-based ini file. Stickies will never support animated dancing figures, or play "Greensleeves". They are instead yellow rectangular windows onto which you can put some text notes. Once created, they will stay on screen until you take them away. Just like a real sticky piece of paper.

How to use Stickies:

If you use Stickies as a reminder program:

• Send a sticky to sleep to hide it until you need to be reminded
• Set recurring reminders to be reminded at a set time every day, week or month
• Set an alarm to have a sticky grab your attention at some point
• Change sticky colours to show different priorities, and change appearance quickly using styles
• Press and hold the control key, and then scroll the mouse wheel to make the sticky text larger or smaller
• Use bullets to make keeping a list simpler

If you send Stickies over the network:

• Quickly send a sticky back after adding some text by pressing control-r to reply
• Send stickies in secret mode to allow the recipient to choose when to call the sticky up onto screen
• Force all incoming stickies to secret mode if you prefer not being interrupted with incoming messages
• Get a task-tray balloon when someone sends you a secret sticky to see who it's from
• Set up logging so that you can keep a record of all stickies you send and receive
• Apply your style to the text you add, so you can quickly and easily see who said what when a sticky is passed back and forth in a conversation
• Set some favourite friends to quickly send to some other users or groups of users
• Set up Stickies to use an SMTP server to which it will send stickies which can't be instantly transmitted
• Set the address of another copy of Stickies on the Automation tab to keep your friends list up-to-date

If you use Stickies to store information:

• Use rolled up mode to fit as much information on screen at once
• Enable direct sizing, and scroll up and down stickies with a large amount of text on them
• Set the title bar text to summarise what information is on the sticky
• Hide and show all stickies with the keyboard shortcut to quickly bring back your information
• Store URLs on them, and then double-click the URL open it
• Make stickies transparent normally, and then turn opaque when you edit them
• Use Stickies Store to squirrel away information you don't access too often

Here are some key features of "Stickies":

• Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots
• Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and styles saved. Stickies can be resized.
• Stickies can snap to each others edges to keep them lined up
• Stickies can be transferred from one machine to another either over a TCP/IP network connection, or by using an SMTP mail server or MAPI client:
• Hierarchical friends list, which may be automatically transferred from other friends
• Play a sound file on receive
• Signature for transmitted or emailed stickies
• Favourite friends, and custom lists can be made
• Stickies can be hidden for a certain period, until a specified date and time, or to wake every day, week or month, to act as reminders.
• Stickies can have alarms set to ensure you notice them at a point you choose
• Stickies can be transferred to and from your Palm or PPC PDA.
• International language support
• Stickies is small and simple, it writes to a single text file, and does not touch the registry

New features:

• Image stickies
• Unicode titles
• "Show System windows" checkbox in Attach dialog
• Attached stickies can be set to only appear if the window is visible (not minimised)
• "Snap back to transparent" option
• Sticky ID added to properties
• 32 new API commands
• New sticky from clipboard
• Sleep until / Tomorrow added to Sleep menu
• PDA keys can now be entered in Stickies
• Text background highlighting
• stickies.1wk now written after one week of continuous operation
• Live preview of setting transparency
• Control-F now searches text within a sticky
• Stickies can be moved directly from any category to any other in the Manage dialog
• Backup function
• Drop shadow option
• Font name MRU list
• F2 edits the sticky title
• Sticky colour can be set in the Manage dialog
• Sticky colour is now shown in the Manage dialog
• New sticky "force title on create" option
• Individual Desktop stickies can be hidden/revealed in the Manage dialog
• RTL (right-to-left) default option ...

[Darth Incubus]

O.K., time for me to post some programs that proved so damned useful to me as limited shareware that I had to buy them. I realize that most of this thread was freeware, but I've not found freeware that will do the jobs in question.

First off is dealing with duplicate images in series. I've tried every dupe program out there in one form or another, and not one tops this one.

ImageDupeless
For Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98.

Download link for 30 day limited trialware from Download.com at CNET. The full program costs $29.95.

Here's my evaluation of the program:

Scanning Images

• The program handles JPG, BMP, GIF, ICO, CUR, and PNG files. You need to be careful with animated GIF files because the program only deals with the first frame of the animation -- .i.e don't use it on them. Its' fairly useless on small files too, so ICO and CUR files end up with ridiculous numbers of dupes on even the most discriminating settings -- that's not to say I haven't found it useful to use it on such files from time to time.
  
  Multiple folders can be selected to be scanned into a GLR file. This file is good for ImageDupeless and ImageDupeless only. You have the option of reading damaged files quickly (I always do) but if the program crashes while scanning images you ought to disable the option.

Selecting/Deleting Duplicates

• First off, you can go through the duplicates in a comparator screen and deal with them one at a time. In cases where there are some simple differences (for example, you want the smaller dimensioned images marked for deletion, you can do that. You can select the ones that have the smaller file size. You can even make selections based on a shorter or longer name. These tools aren't foolproof, so I don't find myself using them often.

Handling Series of Duplicates

• This program does something that no other duplicate finder has done to my satisfaction -- it handles duplicates in two different series of images as determined by file name. Let's say you've got two sets of images that are largely complete and in essentially the same order. 'Now the fuzzy logic of recognizing file names as a series is far from perfect, so for me the function only works about three quarters of the time. I can say with certainty that it works better for series in different folders. That's still a hell of a time savings when sorting series with different names off the usenet.
  
  When you run a duplicate scan those dupes are matched -- but those in a series give you the option of processing the whole series at once. If there are a lot of files in the series/folder, that can be a pain if you don't use the remove from series option in the context menu. Then you can decide what to do with the two series -- which one to delete, which non-duplicate images to merge into which series, and how to rename them. The series handler includes a rudimentary set of automatic tools that I have never found to work in a fashion that I find useful, so I usually end up renaming the hard way by typing in the new name.

The author of this program hasn't updated the program in years -- and hasn't made the program Vista compatible either. This is unfortunate because the selection utilities and the series comparator, while unique to this program as far as I know, could use some more work. I suspect that it will fall by the wayside as users phase out of XP forever, but for those who still have a machine running XP this utility can really help sort out a messy folder of mismatched series.

Oh, one last thing -- this program is great for consolidating new improved quality pictures with old series -- either by replacement or by merging. As soon as I get my hard drive restored and can start mining this place for larger/clearer versions of some of my classics, I'll be using the program extensively.

[Darth Incubus]

While doing a complete reinstall on my primary PC, I made the mistake of using files from my backup external drive. Thanks to juggling space for the files from my main PC, I had only ONE copy of the files on that drive. Then I compounded that mistake by using files from that drive to clean up an errant Windows 2000 machine for a friend -- the clean-up worked fine, but not before a Windows 2000 glitch whacked my directory!

I tried all sorts of freeware, including:

• PC-Inspector by Convar, which though promising in terms of being able to recover a defunct drive was never able to complete a scan of the external drive. I do have to wonder about just how efficacious a program Convar is ever going to put out, especially as freeware, as they are also in the business of recovering data themselves. Nevertheless, as far as I got I got with this program it looked promising.

I was able to recover files using...

• Recuva from Piriform (same folks who make CCleaner), but it retained next to none of the file structure and it was impossible for me to determine which files were in the recycle bin OR even deleted but not yet overwritten at the time of the directory failure. This was a mess I just wasn't too keen on sorting through.

Finally, I tried the shareware version of...

• File Scavenger by QueTek™ Consulting Corporation, which, to my amazement, I was able to recover not only my files, but my folder structure -- and avoid recovering the files from the recycle bin and those that were deleted but not overwritten almost altogether. Shareware gets you a scan and paltry file recovery, while the full program costs $49.99 (and the license apparently allows you to recover your current scan without restarting the program).

At $49.99, this is a pricey program. I managed to buy an installation disk, paperwork, and even the invoice for an old version of this program from a techie friend of mine for a song. It still worked just fine even if it was a bit less polished. I did, unfortunately, have to repeat a scan that had taken more than a day the first time.

All of these programs are available on Download.com at CNET, I've included the product pages as the first link of each paragraph respectively. The second link in each is to the developer website.

NOTE: All of these programs take forever to scan a large drive. All of these programs take forever to recover a large external drive. If you lose a hard drive this way, I'd start with the PC-Inspector because it promises to recover not only files but folder structure. Recuva recovers a little structure. If push comes to shove, use the trial ware of File Scavenger -- if the results of the scan look promising, you can decide if it's worth $49.99 to get your data back.

[Darth Incubus]

Here's a really weird one.

Ever worry about the data attached to those JPEG files you downloaded from usenet sources? I didn't except for one fellow who was a profligate ass in terms of at least attaching his screen name to files if not emblazoning it upon the face of the very images he posted (actually, it was the latter that really got under my skin). Well, thanks to techsupportalert.com, I've finally rid myself of at least his attached information -- though I still have to live with his stupid watermarks.

JPEG and PNG Stripper by SteeleBytes
(warning -- this guys site seems to be down a good bit, so you might end up having to use the Google Cache for the page)
Unlimited Freeware
Version: 1.5.1.53
Date: 7 October 2009
Windows: WinAll (Win95 to Win7)

Download link.

There is no review at techsupport, so all I can attest to is my own experience. The program allows you to drag and drop files or folders, handling apparently any number of subdirectories without complaint. The program strips out the data attached to the file without affecting image quality, leaving you the option of retaining data that's read only (which I didn't) and/or the file creation/modification dates (which I did).

In a folder of almost 17,000 files amounting to about 8 GB total, this program stripped out almost 100 MB of data.

I think the only potential downside of this will be searching for duplicates against recently downloaded material with a duplicate file checker. I'll also have to update my ImageDupeless (prior post) archives for duplicates, but I do that every time I make a significant addition to one of my major categories anyway.

[befuddled]

Here is a truly powerful shareware program: Total Commander from Christian Ghisler. You can find sites to download it by going to his website www.ghisler.com or searching your favorite D/L site like majorgeeks.com

I doubt this program will do everything everyone wants, but then again it might. Even though I've been using it for 9 years, I've yet to tap the full potential. It is small and simple to use but very powerful. It's the single best all around file management tool I've come across and will work on every version of Windows. When I say every version, I mean every version; there's even a version for Windows 3.1x.

It has 2 side by screens to assist copy, move, delete, search and rename files in just about anyway you can imagine. It can search for files of the same name, size and content as well as files of different names but the same contents. It can synchronize directories, and the synchronization module is also a very hand file comparison tool. There are, naturally, other modules just for file search & compare. It can search for files equal to, less than, or greater than a given size. It can search for files for a certain date or between certain days; it can search for files not older than the last last x minutes, days, weeks, months. It can even do searches using regular expressions, something I've yet to learn.

It's very powerful for file renaming. You can take a set of files, let's say 100 with those long unwieldy uninformative filenames from file hosts and rename them all (or a selected subset) in just about any way you can imagine. You can change the names,extensions. You can add counters to number them consecutively. So you start out with 100 files with long, nondescript, non-sequential names, plug in your custom starting name, add the counter, the date, time then with a click of the button, *poof* they are all renamed from names like 3647_blondebabez_054_12344lo.jpg etc to yourcustomname_001.jpg through yourcustomname_100.jpg. It also can do search and replace,and search for files containing a certain string.

It zips and and unzips quite a few compression protocols, including tar and gz files, but frequently trips on cab files.

I could go on and on. As I said, I've used it for 9 years and have yet to learn or tap its full capabilities. I paid $18 for it 9 years ago, but it might be a bit more than that by now, but worth every penny and more.

Cheers!

[ra1961]

I enjoy using this program for my pic collection;

Thumbs Plus

ThumbsPlus is a graphic file viewer, locator and organizer which simplifies the process of finding and maintaining graphics, clip-art files, fonts and animations. It displays a small image (thumbnail) of each file. You can use ThumbsPlus to browse, view, edit, crop, launch external editors, and copy images to the clipboard.

[baldie]

Originally Posted by bigerc

Thanks for all the very useful tools, I had been looking for som freeware to join avi files and burn them to DVD for ages. Even tried buying one (usually against my religion) but it packed in after a few months and refused to work.

Image grabber is also very useful, where has it been all these years when I've been toiling at the pornface!

Has anyone come across a good freeware programme for finding duplicate files (probably 1,000s of them) would definitely free up some space.

Thanks

Bigerc

This is a very good program and its free,

http://www.styopkin.com/duplicate_file_hunter.html

Works very well for me.

[groovesection]

Not a program but a neat trick to download Youtube videos without the need for ANY add-ons/software or technical knowledge

Simply add "ok" to the youtube URL before the Y of Youtube and hit the "go" button or refresh the page

So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkD_rWUiIZI

becomes
http://www.okyoutube.com/watch?v=dkD_rWUiIZI

Simple