List of Useful and Free Software v2

[aimeeandbeatles]

Why not use gTalk?

My mom doesn't use instant messenger.

 

[Takhisis]

But she can use it to monitor her gmail inbox.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

But she can use it to monitor her gmail inbox.

I tried. She wouldn't use it. She thought it was just for instant messeging.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh dear.

 

[themasumstar]

Hey, i m new here. Sry to post here. Dont know where to post my 1st one

 

[Yared]

Here would be good.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ive probably already posted this, but this is good to find and delete empty folders:
http://simonwai.com/developments/empty_folder_nuker/
(If, for some reason, you don't want a folder to show up when you search, just put a blank text file called "dummy" in. I do this for the working folders of the Archives as I move files around a lot so don't want to spend much time re-creating folders I mindlessly deleted)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Does anything like this exist for Firefox? Searches having issues
http://code.google.com/p/i-like-nothing/

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I hope this is allowed to post here, but I found a way to remove PDF restrictions. (Remember the other day that I said I accidentally encrypted my PDF and that it would take a while to recompile it.)

Download GSView. I should mention that it's technically free although it'll pop up a box asking you to register. But you don't need to. But anyways open the PDF in it. And then go File > Export. And then all the restrictions will go away!

(BTW, figuring this out took less time than it would to recompile the PDF. )

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I just found CatFish, which I used to use when I had a computer with a 6-gigabyte hard drive and needed to know exactly what files were on what CD. It'll save the directory listings for you. I just downloaded and tried it out and it still works on modern OS!

Its old but it does what it does well.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Portable freeware works quite nicely with Dropbox I found.

I use several portable applications, which seem an odd bunch if you don't know what I do (*ahem*) that I have in my Dropbox. I will link them in alphabetical order.

Empty Folder Nuker (I've linked this before, it deletes empty folders, just download and use)
http://simonwai.com/developments/empty_folder_nuker/

FastStone Image Viewer (a very nice image viewer, download the "Portable" version)
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDownload.htm

FileZilla Portable (FTP Client, has a little portable installer)
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/filezilla_portable

FolderSize (tells you which folders are taking up space, unzip and use)
http://www.rotebetasoftware.net/wp/freeware/folder-size/

PDF X-Change Viewer (PDF Viewer. It is not the primary viewer I use but it can export the PDFs as images and other stuff, download the Portable ZIP)
http://www.tracker-software.com/product/downloads

WinDJView Portable (It views DJVU files, which is a bit of a weird format and I havnt seen it very much, but I include in case someone needs this. It has a little portable installer)
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/windjview_portable

X-PDFSam (It extracts pages from PDFs and merges them together and stuff. This one's a bit tricky to install, first you need to copy the English file from the subfolder into the main or you'll get Italian. And then when you launch it it'll install a portable Java so you should be connected)
http://www.winpenpack.com/main/download.php?view.679

 

[Takhisis]

I'd never thought of installing programs in dropbox to get a sort of portable digital toolbox. Good idea.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah, I just drop it into Dropbox\PortableApps.

There are a lot of portable programs on the WinPenPack site but its a little difficult to navigate because all the descriptions are Italian.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There are a lot of nice free software here:
http://www.nirsoft.net/

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I just had an issue with a service (not system) glitching up -- it was still running but not doing anything (sort of a phantom service, I guess) and when I tried to stop it it got stuck on "stopping" -- used pskill to stop it and then restarted and it's back to normal. But be careful with it and run it as administraot.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

This program changes file timestamps.
http://moochos.nobody.jp/en/software/restamper/index.html

I change the file timestamp for a specific reason thats only allowed in A&E in case you ask "what's the point?"

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

For those looking to optimise PNG images*, check out PNGOUT. It's command-line but there's two options if you want a GUI:
1. If you download IrfanView and install the plugins it'll put itself into the save menu. That's how I found it.
2. There's a shareware tool called PNGOUTWin that's about $15 for personal use ($30 for "corporate" use) and can do batch processing.

If it's already well-optimised you might not get any noticable effect though. But I found this. I had a greyscale image that was a high color-depth and about a megabyte and a half (before you guess, yup a newspaper scan). I decreased it to 256. (I tried 16 but it started to become noticable.) That reduced it to about 700 KB. Then I ran it through PNGOUT and got 356 KB. And if you compare it to the original (the optimised ones are for the site, as opposed to the originals for archival - heh - purposes) I didn't see any noticable different. I'd post them if not for the content.

* I don't want to get into a whole image-format debate but I don't like JPEGs

 

[Takhisis]

This related to your recent rave aimee?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

If you're talking about the lengthy discussion thing, yes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Another tip: If your graphics are greyscale and not too detailed (as in the case of my newspaper scans), you can sometimes decrease the color depth without noticable effects.

However, I only do this for the web-versions. The originals are safely tucked away.