The New Freebie Thread

[MilesAhead]

ErrMsg 1.2

ErrMsg 1.2 is my first VC++ 2010 program. It's a small utility to look up Windows system error codes. It handles both the old decimal codes, like 2 "The system cannot find the file specified." and the HRESULT codes with the 8 digits(preface the number with 0x like 0x80070005 "Access is denied.")

It has only been tested on English versions of Windows Vista and W7. But it should also work on Win2k and XP.

I reworked it to use an EditBox so that the error text may be copied and pasted using the clipboard.

Also it's been recompiled as stand-alone to remove the msvcr100.dll dependency.

It is free for you to use at your own risk. If you care to donate just use the About Button.




Download link:

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

scroll down to Windows Error Code Lookup Tool for the download link.

[MilesAhead]

MD5Hash 2.6

MD5Hash calculates MD5 sums for files. Good for checking downloads. Select a list of files and drag & drop onto the dialog.

This is another one of mine.
It's free for you to use at your own your own risk.
You may download here:

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

edit: updated to 1.8. Now you may select multiple files using the Browse Button. Clear Button offers to cut results to the clipboard. Even if the app is busy you may add files to the job queue using drag & drop.

I took the processing out of the drag & drop handler. All it does is add filenames to the job queue and start the job if it's not already running. This way drag & drop is enabled again in a split second. The GUI isn't hung up while files are processing.

Both x64 and 32 bit stand-alone exes are included in the download.

edit: Version 2.2 bug fix release. Progress bar not used on small files. Fixed caption bar update. Sub-folder processing is enabled with a max job queue size of 4096 files.

edit: Version 2.3 Now has /main command line switch. vc++ lumps the whole command line into one string, so sorry, only one thing can be put on the command line(since I hate parsing stuff.) Use either /main or the name of a file or folder(do not quote file or folder name even if it has spaces in the path.)

By first launching a copy of MD5Hash with /main, then if you right click in Explorer and run MD5Hash on 20 files, they will send the filename to the main copy and quit. All the results and processing will be done in the main app, instead of having 20 copies each with one result.

If the /main switch works, the caption bar for the program should say
MD5Hash Main instead of just MD5Hash.

In the case where you do want 2 or more copies running, say because they are each reading files from different physical disks, just close the Main copy if it is running and launch the usual way.

See the Readme for details.

Note that MD5Hash is compiled in ANSI mode. It's a straight Win32 API program. The Windows API functions it uses for recursive folder search have not been updated for unicode. The file name is limited to 260 characters. This MAX_PATH limitation is hard wired into a lot of Windows API calls. A work-around may be to rename files temporarily using ANSI compatible names.


Note, MD5Hash has just been added to Softpedia listings. Looks like those guys are moving away from XP to Vista or Seven because now the screen shots have glass borders.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/MD5Hash.shtml

Current version is now 2.6. I fixed a few small bugs. Also for Windows7 if you have Glass enabled it should use a semi-transparent dialog. It monitors for composition change(glass or transparency turned on or off) so it should adjust if running when the Aero is changed. Here's a screen shot how it looks on W7:

[dr_ml422]

@Miles etc... Looks like Auslogics Disk Defrag has overtaken the competition. Gizmos' ranks it above My Defrag now for it's speed etc... Here's a link to it via cnet:

http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Disk-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10567503.html

I'm using it right now as it seems that doing copy work through VTS Folders instead of .iso fragments my backup/working HDDs more. Makes it a bit harder to burn using ImgBurn and the Queue function when the HDD is fragmented. Buffers go crazy!

[MilesAhead]

I was using Auslogics for quite awhile. Now I'm pretty happy with Puran Defrag. With all the optimizations off, it's very fast like Auslogics. But even with optimize folders, free space, fill gaps etc.. it's faster and less thorough than MyDefrag. It's kind of a nice balance. I like it because I can defrag every couple of days without spending a lot of time. An on the external drives it's lightning fast, just using the Fill Gaps option. (Of course if you have a 30 GB image backup it's going to spend a lot of time moving it, but you know what I mean.)

[dr_ml422]

By less thorough than MyDefrag you mean it doesn't waste anymore time trying to fully clean all fragmented files or something to that nature? Never heard of Puran Defrag btw.

[MilesAhead]

By less thorough than MyDefrag you mean it doesn't waste anymore time trying to fully clean all fragmented files or something to that nature? Never heard of Puran Defrag btw.

I'm looking at Auslogics now. Looks like they added most of the features Puran has. No need to change in that case. When I used MyDefrag I used the "Daily Optimize" script. Even that was more thorough than Puran with all the opts on. Puran is a nice quickie defragger very similar to Auslogics.

I haven't used MyDefrag in awhile. I uninstalled because Puran does everything I need. I get my system drives < 30% full before defragging so Puran does all I need fast. No need to do one of those reboot defrags or anything fancy.

[MilesAhead]

AHK mouse scroll script

I thought this one kind of interesting. If you like the "hand scroll" action in PDF files this AHK script does something similar using the right mouse button.

Hold down right mouse button and drag to scroll whatever app you are in.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59726&highlight=mouse+scroll

[dr_ml422]

Here's a couple of apps. I thought would be nice to use if you don't want to install or open a larger app.. http://www.alphabetize.org/ , and http://alphabetizer.flap.tv/ .

I'm going to use these every time I update my DVD list. The list alphabetized is more important than the actual location where they are. I'll just add the next number in sequence to the newer file.

[MilesAhead]

Transpose 1.3.0.0

I made a small hotkey program using AutoHotKey to change a few mouse and keyboard hotkeys in programs I use frequently.

The main reason I wrote it was to make Control-t transpose the 2 characters left of the caret. The most common typo I make is reversed characters. By hitting Control-t I can fix it on the fly("thsi" after Control-t becomes "this" as I originally intened.) Since I run that in the Task Tray all the time now, I added a few other changes.

As it is when you download, the Control-t works in
EditPad Lite, Notepad, Treepad, a few other editors, and Firefox and Chrome based Browsers.

Also it changes how links are opened in tabs in Chrome based browsers.

Here's the other thing, I was trying One Click to Open in Windows, but it messed up multiple selection in Explorer. So I went back to double click, but via Transpose, Middle Mouse Click is treated as double click only in Explorer Windows. Kind of best of both worlds.

Your preferences will be different. So I included the AHK source code. You can install AutoHotKey on your system if you don't already have it. It's a free download and free program:

http://www.autohotkey.com/

By following how I did it in the source you can change it to suit yourself, then compile it or just run the script through ahk.

It's pretty neat because you can add editors by adding a line in the AHK script to GroupAdd the editor. The hotkey is only changed when one of those in the group is the active window. Avoids conflict with programs that use Control-t or the other hotkeys.

The download includes the source. You can get it from my site here:

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Just click the Transpose link.

(I posted this in the other freebie thread by mistake. I deleted that post.)

[MilesAhead]

Here's a couple of apps. I thought would be nice to use if you don't want to install or open a larger app.. http://www.alphabetize.org/ , and http://alphabetizer.flap.tv/ .

I'm going to use these every time I update my DVD list. The list alphabetized is more important than the actual location where they are. I'll just add the next number in sequence to the newer file.

If you happen to use PsPad Editor that will also sort. It allows you to choose the column position for comparison.

I should have kept a list of my jazz DVDs. It's a mess to find anything. Artists with lots of CDs aren't so bad because it's hard to forget where you put 60 CDs by the same guy. But those guys with 3 or 4 albums, I can look for hours.

I have some of my DVDs organized in a DJ Case, but there's still tons of stuff stuck in jewel cases nobody knows where. It's a bummer if you don't organize as you go along.

[MilesAhead]

Free Command line text subtitle converter

Here's one I just found. It's a command line converter for text based subtitles:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/saconv/

SAConv 1.1.0.0

I found it looking for a batch method to convert .ass subs to .srt.

You can load .ass subs into SubResync or several other Gui subtitle utilities and do SaveAs to get .srt output. This can be tedious if you have more than a few subs to process. With this command line based app you can just do a for loop in the command prompt to process all subtitles in a folder.

SaConv supports quite a few formats. It's kind of light on docs but it's simple to use once you know the output format name. See SAConv.Formats.txt in the included Docs folder.

edit: even though it's a command line app, there seems to be some .NET code involved. I don't see anything on the site or in the downloaded files that specifies exactly what .NET version is required, if any. All I can say is run it on the command line. If it works it should spit out some help text.

[MilesAhead]

HWMonitor 1.17.0

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Many of you may already be using this utility. But I thought I'd post for those who have the same HP machine I have(Pavilion m9515y.) This is the first utility I've found that can display the fan speeds.

[MilesAhead]

I made a small hotkey program using AutoHotKey to change a few mouse and keyboard hotkeys in programs I use frequently.

The main reason I wrote it was to make Control-t transpose the 2 characters left of the caret. The most common typo I make is reversed characters. By hitting Control-t I can fix it on the fly("thsi" after Control-t becomes "this" as I originally intened.) Since I run that in the Task Tray all the time now, I added a few other changes.

As it is when you download, the Control-t works in
EditPad Lite, Notepad, Treepad, a few other editors, and Firefox and Chrome based Browsers.

Also it changes how links are opened in tabs in Chrome based browsers.

Here's the other thing, I was trying One Click to Open in Windows, but it messed up multiple selection in Explorer. So I went back to double click, but via Transpose, Middle Mouse Click is treated as double click only in Explorer Windows. Kind of best of both worlds.

Your preferences will be different. So I included the AHK source code. You can install AutoHotKey on your system if you don't already have it. It's a free download and free program:

http://www.autohotkey.com/

By following how I did it in the source you can change it to suit yourself, then compile it or just run the script through ahk.

It's pretty neat because you can add editors by adding a line in the AHK script to GroupAdd the editor. The hotkey is only changed when one of those in the group is the active window. Avoids conflict with programs that use Control-t or the other hotkeys.

The download includes the source. You can get it from my site here:

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Just click the Transpose link.

(I posted this in the other freebie thread by mistake. I deleted that post.)

Note that Chromium browser had a bug where you could not open a new tab in the foreground. I'm trying out the new v. 10 release from here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/Internet/Browsers/Portable-Google-Chrome-Chromium.shtml

Looks like they fixed it. It should work with Transpose now.
I'm using it right now on this post. The Chromium build is 68163.
I'm using the zip file from the Softpedia link. I noticed in the past, at least in some of the nightly builds, you can avoid some problems just saving your old Chromium program and settings folders and unzipping over. Whereas sometimes the mini-installer would hose things. If the Chromium you are trying is broken, just put the old folders back in position and you are back to the one that worked. If you have bookmark sync set up, the first time you open it your new bookmarks should download into the browser.

[MilesAhead]

BookmarkVisit 1.2

This is a small utility I wrote for Chromium based browsers as they have a tendency every few updates to drop the favicons for bookmarks. But if you have no other easy way to refresh favicons for your browser, it may be worth a try.

Note that it's a "last resort brute force utility." If you run Firefox I recommend you use CheckPlaces FireFox AddOn to refresh favicons. If there was CheckPlaces for Chromium I wouldn't have written this program. Also the browser should be a tabbed browser set to open new links in a new tab. You should be on broadband. The delays in the program are too short for dial-up.

You can download from this page:

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

Search for BookmarkVisit.

The program is stand-alone exe no registry or .ini file settings. Not even any command line params.

How to use:

Make the browser that needs favicon refresh the default browser.
Make sure it's set to open new links in a new tab.
Export your bookmarks as html.

Run bv.exe and open the bookmark file using the FileOpen dialog.

You'll see a gold star in the Task Tray and the default browser will open, adding tabs as bv.exe works through the list of bookmarks. When 10 tabs are open the browser is killed and restarted to prevent using up all your memory with concurrent processes. Only bookmarks that start with "http:" are opened to avoid trying to open bookmarkets or links to files, or ftp sites.

When done the gold star icon in the Tray should disappear.

See the included readme for more details.

I tried it on Firefox just to see what would happen. It's pretty clunky. With Chromium 10 it was pretty smooth.

If anyone knows of a Chrome Extension that refreshes favicons let me know. This program is a kludge but if you just open all bookmarks in Tabs in Chromium to refresh your favicons if you have a large bookmark folder it's easy to use up all your ram. Plus I have 10 folders on my bookmarks bar so it's a pita to do manually. And that doesn't even refresh all favicons. Just the bookmarks bar ones.

[MilesAhead]

TimeStampCalc

Here's another one done by skwire, a moderator on donationcoder, by request.

I wanted an easy way to total up the track times of albums listed on AllMusic. If there's 6 or more tracks it's a pain to key them in a time calculator.

skwire cooked up this paste pad called TimeStampCalc:

http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=24815.new#new

Just select the track info on AllMusic or another site that uses MM:SS format to show the track times. Paste it in. The program scans the text and adds the times showing the total at the bottom. Very neat.

The pasted text should only have one time entry per line. But that should be the case like 99.99% of the time. It scans each line for a time and if it finds one, adds it to the total. Way nicer than keying stuff in or trying to do column cut & paste off a web page into a time calculator.