Software hall of fame
Resources
Windows
- Uploading/downloading files through the command-line: Curl
(to upload a file to a password-protected FTP server: curl -T C:\myfile.txt
ftp://login:passwd@ftp.acme.com/mydir/)
- Downloading streamed video: GetFlash
- Displaying IP address and other configuration infos as wallpaper: BGInfo,
whoami
- Cloning partitions or whole hard disks: Terabyte
Image for DOS (works even with 2003 Server), Paragon, 7Tools, Drive Snapshot, Acronis,
DriveImage XML,
- File management: Windows Commander (and its image viewer add-on Imagine Version)
- FTP client: FlashFXP, LeechFTP,
FTP Explorer, AceFTP
- IRC client: HydraIRC
- Desktop tools: Winroll
(rolls windows into the title bar with a click)
- Command line tools: CMDTools
- E-mail: Eudora (although it got a bit unstable since release 5.x,
and still no real support for IMAP), Pegasus, The Bat
- SPAM filter: K9, SpamBayes,
POPFile
- WYSIWYG HTML editor: Namo WebEditor (Clean HTML code, loads fast, no
fuss)
- GUI designer: LucidSpec
- Automatic file backup: SyncBack,
SecondCopy, 12Backup,
BackupXPress Pro, Justin's
PathSync
- Text HTML editor: Hippie98
- HTML to CHM compiler: Web
2 CHM
- Web browsing: Opera (MDI windows,
fast, more stable than IE or Netscape)
- News reader: Free Agent or Gravity
- Text editor: UltraEdit, PSPad
editor
- System inspection: Everest
- Offline web browser: WebCopier,
Wget, HTTrack
- Download manager: wget, Net Transport,
FlashGet
- Mail server: Mercury MTS, hMailServer
- CD ripper: Exact Audio Copy
(EAC),
CDex
- Sound editing: CoolEdit 2000,
Kristal Audio Engine, Audacity,
REAPER
- Sound player: XMPlay (free, light,
easy to use, supports plenty of sound formats through plug-ins), Media
Player Classic (Real
Alternative codec to read RealAudio files), VLC
Media Player
- Music file tag editor: Mp3Tag,
Mp3 Tag Tools
- Telnet : CRT (plain telnet) and SecureCRT (SSH) from VanDyke
- ZIP and CD labelling: ZIPLabel
- Windows programming: PB/DLL from PowerBasic,
Delphi from Borland
- Windows software installer: NSIS, ZipInstaller
("installs and uninstalls applications and utilities that do not provide
an internal installation program")
- EXE compressors: UPX, PECompact,
MEW, Petite,
PackMaster, Exe32pak,
EZip (Read pe
compression test and Windows
'executable' compressors)
- DLL bundlers (Why not
use an EXE compressor?): PEBundle,
EXE Bundle, Thinstall,
PGWare Alloy, Packer
Molebox, PKLite Pro (added compression
options over PKLITE and no runtime royalties), Petite,
PECompact2, AppPackager,
VB-PowerWrap,
BitArts
Fusion,
- DLL Dependency lister: DependencyWalker,
DLL Demon, DLL
Explorer
- Disk imaging: Ghost,
Acronis
TrueImage
- Making images of floppies: WinImage
- Drawing diagrams: SmartDraw
- DOS shell: 4DOS and 4NT from JPSoft
(eg. copy ftp://ftp.somesite.com/*.* c:\myharddrive)
- Personal Information Manager: EccoPro,
Lotus
Organizer
- File compare: (Freeware) FCompare, (Open-source)
Winmerge,
ExamDiff, BeyondCompare (ideally, supports editing
and search/replace)
- File search and replace: SCR
- Checking the time in different time zones: World
Time Clock, SymmTime, Microsoft
Time Zone
- Time/calendar replacement: LClock
(won't run if your task bar is not located in its default location at the
bottom of the screen),
Railendar,
DateInTray,
AlfaClock
- Outliners: Action Outline,
TreePad (Overview
of Windows Outlining Programs), MyInfo,
KeyNote, Bitsmith
Software's Personal Knowbase
- Office suite: OpenOffice
- Web content filter: (deadware as of May 2006) Privoxy,
(deadware as of May 2006) Proxomitron,
HTTP Monitor
- Network tools: NeoTrace
Pro (graphical traceroute with map)
- Sniffers: Wireshark (ex-Ethereal), Fiddler
(for HTTP; Requires .Net 1.1), TCPTrace (not as good as Fiddler, but Win32
app), Live HTTP Headers
extension to FireFox
- A no-thrill PHP/MySQL based forum: John's Discussion
Forum (idea stolen from Joel Spolsky's site), FruitShow, Vanilla,
bbPress, PunBB
- NTP Client for Windows: Mini-Sunclock,
Automachron
- Light-weight FTP server for Windows: Buffy,
FileZilla, Bison
- Disk usage to see what's filling up your hard disk: SpaceMonger,
Treesize
- Batch renamer: Oscar's
File Renamer, Renamer (bkren
"(.*)\. (.*)\.ogg" "\1 - \2.ogg") and ReplaceEm
(accross files), Peter Parkani's brename
(to rename files and append an increasing number), Flexible
Renamer (GUI)
- Create a wallpaper with the host's name and IP addresse with Whoami
- Bootdisks a go-go
- Converter to PDF: FinePrint (Windows printer driver) and pdfFactory
(add-on application) from FinePrint
- PDF Viewer: Foxit
PDF Reader (smaller, faster than Acrobat)
- Timer: Multitimer, Time
Cop
- File scanner (to extract all strings from a binary): AnalogX
TextScan
- Desktop web server: Uniform
Server (LAMP; Get
AMPed over Uniform Server and Build a Data-driven Web Site in Nothing Flat),
Abyss, Lighttpd, TinyWeb
- Tinyapps ("a guide to very
small software for your PC")
- Server monitoring: FREEPing,
Quick Ping Monitor,
- Demo recording: Wink, Camtasia,
Democharge,
BBFlashback,
Demo-builder, Adobe
Captivate
- Edit pictures: PaintShop, ThumbsPlus,
IrfanView, ImageMagick, Photo Gadget
- Single-EXE web server: AnalogX
SimpleServer:WWW, Simple HTTPD,
Linux
- Office applications: StarOffice
and OpenOffice, Applixware,
KOffice, Hancom,
Gnome Office, WordPerfect
Office, Cybozu, Lotus Domino,
Siag, ThinkFree,
gobeProductive, Software602
Pro PC Suite
- File manager: Midnight Commander, KCommander
- File backup/syncing: sitecopy,
unison, rsync, wput
(same as wget, but to upload files), cURL
("curl is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax,
supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, GOPHER, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP.")
Platform-independent
Tip & Tricks
Removing copy protection from a PDF file
- Install GhostScript and its GUI GhostView
- Open the PDF file in GhostView
- File > Convert, and saved as eg. DUMMY.PDF
The contents of DUMMY.PDF can now be copy/pasted :-) Alternatively, use xpdf
and a patch
Uploading files through FTP with ncftpput
http://www.ncftp.com/ncftp/doc/faq.html
http://www.ncftp.com/ncftp/doc/ncftpput.html
"C:\Program Files\NcFTP\ncftpput.exe" -R -u mylogin -p mypass ftp.acme.com
/source/c *.c
Uploading files through FTP with cURL
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/faq.html
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manual.html
Uploading files through FTP with wput
for %%f in (c:\sourc\*.c) do wput -vN %%f ftp://mylog:mypass@ftp.acme.com/source/c/
Errors:
- 1. Logs off after each file
- 2. Seems unable to tell if remote file is newer or older. Only depends
on timestamp (not reliable)
ImageMagick
Here's how to resize a bunch of pictures under Windows using ImageMagick:
for %%f in (*.jpg *.jpeg *.gif *.png) do "C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.3.0-Q16\imconvert.exe
%%f -resize 50%% +profile "*" test\%%f"
"The system cannot find the path specified."?
Opera 9.w
To disable the dragging of objects (eg. pictures, links), something I find
very annoying, edit opera6.ini in your profile, go to section [User Prefs],
and set Enable Drag=0.
http://www.opera.com/support/usingopera/operaini/
That done, here are things to change through the Tools menu if you want 9.x to behave
like previous versions of Opera:
Appearance
- Tools > Appearence > Skin = Windows Native
- Panel > Placement = Off (doesn't work)
Preferences
- General
- set your home page
- Language = English
- Advanced :
- Browsing: Show Window Menu (to see the Closed Windows item)
- Tabs : Cycle without showing list + Allow window with no tabs +
uncheck Show close button on each tab;
Check "Open new tab next to active"
- Fonts : Webpage normal text = Verdana 10 point
- Downloads : PDF, MP3, etc. Download folder
- History : Memory Cache = 4MB Disk cache = 5MB
- Network = proxy
- Shortcuts > Keyboard setup > Edit > Application
- New : n ctrl = New page, 1
- Add "Platform Windows-Unix-MCE, tab shift" = "Focus address field |
Focus message list", and delete the existing shortcuts in the Advanced
section
- (needed?) Platform Windows-Unix-MCE, Tab ctrl = Cycle
to previous page
- (needed?) Platform Windows-Unix-MCE, Tab ctrl shift = Cycle to next page
- F4 ctrl = Close page, Cycle to next page
Note: Here are the settings in Opera 8.54:
- Browsing : Reuse existing page
- Tab Ctrl = Cycle to next page
- Tab Ctrl Shift = Cycle to previous page
Total Commander
To compare two directories including their sub-directories (useful to
only upload files that changed to an FTP server): Commands >
Synchronize Dirs
UltraEdit
Regex
- Advanced Configuration | Find : Unix Style Regular Expressions
- In the Search/Replace dialog : check Regular Expressions
- Find ^(.+)$ and replace with <td>\1</td>
Some notes about the regex function in UE:
- It's not as thorough as eg. Perl, so some patterns that work in more
advanced extracting languages may not work in UE
- Before spending more time banging your head against the wall, make sure
you're using the latest release
- As of UE 9.20a at least, it doesn't seem like UE supports non-greedy
mode through the standard ? limiter (eg. .+?"). The alternative is
to negate the character that ends the pattern, eg. [^"]+
- Make sure you escape reserved characters such as \ or (, ie. turn this
into \\ and \(, respectively
- As other implementations of regexes, UE's doesn't include line breaks
in the "any character" (ie. .), so you should include them in
the pattern using \r\n (ie. CRLF in Windows)
Here's an example, where I was cleaning up an RTF file that was the exported
version of an HLP file. The original part in the RTF was eg.
- {\b\cf12 Edit Menu \{button Top,JI("","INTRODUCTION")\}
- \par }
... and here's the regex to find:
- {\\b[^{]+{button Top,JI\("","[^"]+"\)\\}\r\n\\par
}
(Free) Agent
Since I can never figure out how to set settings in the Group | Default Properties:
Mark read
- When retrieving new message headers = Do not mark any existing messages
read
- When retrieving marked message bodies = Do not mark any existing messages
read
What to purge
- Purge read messages = Without bodies/On every purge, With bodies/On
every purge
- Purge unread messages = Without bodies/On every purge, With bodies/Never
When to purge
- When closing agent = Check
Here's how to enable reading Japanese (Agent 1.93 at least doesn't seem to
support typing Japanese, even with the IME installed):
- (W2K/XP) Through Control Panel, install the IME, ie. support for Japanese
- From the \All_COD sub-directory, copy the Japanese code page cp932.cod
into Agent's main directory above, and start Agent
- Options > General Preferences > Languages, and click on Add...
- Give this new language a name, eg. "Japanese", Based on =
Japanese, and hit OK. Leave the default as is, and hit OK
- Options > Display Preferences > Fonts : In "Fonts for the
Language", select "Japanese". Next, click on "Variable-Pitch
Body" and "Fixed-Pitch Body", and make sure each Script is
set to "Japanese" instead of "Western", or you won't
see any Japanese... Hit OK
- In the left pane, select the Japaneses newsgroup, eg. sci.lang.japan
- Group > Properties > Language = Japanese
- You should now be able to read Japanese posted in Nihon- or Nihongo-related
newsgroups
Eudora
Here's how to get rid of the
X-Sender header. More infos about this header in "What
is 'X-Sender' in the message header?".
HTML Tidy
Here's how to clean a Word document saved from DOC to HTML:
tidy -m -i -u --word-2000 y myfile.html
-m update original file
-i indent element content
-u force tags to upper case
Firefox
Favorite extensions:
- Add N Edit Cookies (AnEC Cookie editor)
- NoScript
- BugMeNot
- Tab Mix Plus
- Live HTTP Headers
Word 97
Here's how to print the same label on label sheets made for laser printers:
- Create a new document, type the text and format it as you wish
(fonts, etc.)
- Select the text, and hit Tools > Envelopes & Labels
- Click on the Labels tab
- If the type of the label sheets isn't listed, create a new type of label
by clicking on New Label
- Word doesn't always follow the settings that you put when creating a
new label. If the margins aren't right, change them in the E&L section
(Those in File > Page Setup are ignored)
Here's how to fetch data from a tab-delimited file and print labels. It's
a good idea for the first row to be the header for each column (eg. Company,
Address, etc.):
- Create a new, blank document
- Tools > Mail Merge: Create > Mailing Labels > Active Window
- Get Data > Open Data Source, point to the .TSV file
- Select a label type: Since Word isn't reliable, you might need to print
a few test sheets before Word prints out the labels just like you need.
Do this on regular sheets of paper instead of label sheets
- Insert Merge Field: Select the fields
- Merge > Merge