Most avid computer users will have discovered the Windows has a very limited feature-set when it comes to renaming files. Basically you can manually rename one file at a time, and nothing more. Bulk file renaming is not an option. If you want to rename an entire album of MP3 files, or perhaps an entire MP3 collection, a photo collection, and so forth, then I am sure you’ve already decided that doing it manually is also not an option. A bulk file renamer is required, and a free one would be even better. Right?
I’ve been looking around for a good file renamer. There is one built into a fantastic Windows Explorer replacement program that is called Directory Opus. DO is a great piece of software for Windows, converting its pathetic file explorer into a powerful beast! But DO is relatively expensive for many computer users, so if you’re just looking for a file renamer here are some options.
- Bulk Rename Utility:
Bulk Rename Utility has evolved through a series of user-requests, one-off requirements, and general enhancements. Some of the features provided by Bulk Rename Utility include:
– Very easy to use
– Rename files, folders or both
– Remove or change a filename
– Perform string substitution
– Change the case of filenames
– Remove characters or words
– Remove digits or symbols
– Append or prepend text
– Append dates in many formats
– Append the parent folder’s name
– Auto-number files with flexible rules
– Automatically preview the new names
– Sort the file details by any column
– Group configurations into “favourites”
– “Bulk Rename” Explorer extension
– Directory recursion - process subdirectories too!
– Rename files from an input text-file list
– Create an “Undo” batch file
– Log activity to a text log file
– Change file and folder date/time-stamps (created, modified, accessed)
– Change file/folder attributes (hidden, readonly, archived)
– Small memory footprint
– Settings retained between sessions
– True 32-bit application
– Written wholly in Visual C++
– Application is totally free!
- I’ll list more as and when I discover them…
As I am travelling at the moment, this is a hot topic for me. Portability of my applications, and how to do it using free software. There is a great site called PortableFreeware.com that provides links many many free and portable applications and operating systems.
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freeware,
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If you have a network to manage and / or monitor there are many options with regards to the software you can use. Prices can range greatly, and typically a relatively high investment of money is required. Relative, that it, to something like Spiceworks.
Spiceworks is free. What’s more the IT industry raves about its functionality and ease of use. When it comes to free network monitoring software and network management software, you may have to look no further than Spiceworks. Unless your network happens to have more than 250 assets on it, which is the limit Spiceworks can support. So for a small to medium sized business Spiceworks may be the perfect choice for network management. Did I mention it doesn’t cost much?
Check it out at www.spiceworks.com
The folks over at NirSoft have a fantastic range of free computer related tools. Categories include:
- Password Recovery Utilities
- Network Monitoring Tools
- Internet Related Utilities
- Command-line Utilities
- Desktop Utilities
- Freeware system tools
Whether you want to reveal passwords hidden behind ****s on your computer, recover passwords from files and email programs, get information on IP addresses on the Internet, retrieve your Windows installation key, manage your office add-ins, monitor data passing through your network adapter to the Internet and your local network, or perform a range of other similar tasks… NirSoft have the right tool for the job.
I’ve just stumbled upon a fantastic video viewer / encoder / converter. It handles what looks like every video format/codec known to man. It’s entirely free. SUPER is an acronym for Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer
If you’re looking for a super video handling application then check it out on http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
Here’s a breakdown of what it does, as written at the SUPER web page:
Here’s a nice AJAX file manager. It’s still pretty slim of features in my opinion. For instance, it does not support compressing files and directories in a zip/gzip file before downloading, which is particularly what I was looking for. Otherwise it’s a nice to use file manager for web sites.
http://ecosmear.com/relay/
MySQL is a popular database system used in the backend of a huge number of web applications. Just about every database driven PHP application I have seen has MySQL working alongside it. There are various tools available (usually provided by your web host) for managing MySQL databases online (phpMyAdmin for instance). I have found that having a desktop manager can be very useful. I’ve found it particularly useful when I need to manually edit data within a range of tables and records.
The following tools are worth checking out if a desktop MySQL manager is what you want:
OPEN SOURCE
- HeidiSQL (formally SQLFront — an old favorite of mine)
HeidiSQL is an easy-to-use interface and a “working-horse” for web-developers using the popular MySQL-Database. It allows you to manage and browse your databases and tables from an intuitive Windows® interface.
With HeidiSQL you will also be able to
- generate nice SQL-exports
- synchronize tables between two databases
- manage user-privileges
- import text-files
- export table-data as CSV, HTML and XML
- browse and edit table-data using a comfortable grid
- batch-insert ascii or binary files into tables
- write queries with syntax-highlighting (next version will have also code-completion)
- monitor and kill client-processes
- and much more
- MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser (from the makers of MySQL)
Avaialble for Mac, Windows, and Linus
I find the Heidi system to be easier to use
COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
Looking for a portable secure computer system that fits onto a USB key?
Look no further… take a look at the free solution from Metropipe (here)
Here the info on it…
Feature Overview
- Carry your entire Internet communication system on a tiny USB drive.
- Contains a complete virtual Linux machine with privacy-enabled Open Source Internet applications.
- Carry your Internet applications, email, bookmarks, history, web cookies, download files in your pocket.
- Perfect for travelers - nothing to be scanned, started, poked, or prodded at the airport.
- Get English keyboard support no matter what computer you use.
- No installation needed - just plug the drive into any Windows or Linux computer, and click on the Virtual Privacy Machine icon and you’re ready to go.
- The VPM’s network connection will auto configure and run seamlessly on any machine with a working internet connection..
- All Internet session data (cookies, history, downloads, etc.) are stored on the VPM, not the host computer.
- Runs on any rewriteable media (USB drives, Flash Memory cards, Secure Digital devices, iPods, etc.)
- This PR1-2 release runs on Windows and Linux - OS X support is also possible, details in the readme.txt.
- Runs in full screen mode (CTRL-ALT to Exit Grab and CTRL-ALT f to Toggle Fullscreen)
- Includes the Latest Firefox 1.5.0.2 Browser with MetroPipe Privacybar for Firefox and the NOSCRIPT Extension Pre-installed.
- Includes Mozilla Thunderbird News/Email client (with Enigmail plugins for PGP email encryption)
- Persistent Home directory, changes, bookmarks are saved to the PVPM and available on next reboot.
- Created from 100% Open Source GPL code and binaries.
In the Press
The Portable Virtual Privacy Machine was featured on:
Slashdot: PVPM: Secure, Portable, Virtual Privacy Machine
Wall Street Journal: (subscription required) WSJ.com and AWSJ.com by WSJ columnist Jeremy Wagstaff.
Also: A Directory Of Programs Designed For USB Drives written about in WSJ article.
Download
The Portable Virtual Privacy Machine may be downloaded from via the link below. Size: 82 MB Download (108 MB uncompressed)
DOWNLOAD VIA HTTP
If you are looking for a great Optical Character Recognition application and don’t wish to pay for it there are two easy options.
- Download a cracked/pirated version of a commercial OCR application (illegal and time consuming)
- Download SimpleOCR and use it (quick and legal)
Use SimpleOCR to add accurate
character recognition capabilities to your custom software without the
complexity and expense of runtime licensing. The SimpleOCR
freeware demonstrates the power of our engine and is the only OCR application
that is completely free.
-
SimpleOCR is the only OCR SDK that’s
Royalty Free
Save on every runtime license
-
Competitive OCR accuracy
Recognizes many
documents just as well as its high-cost
competitors
SimpleOCR - the only royalty free OCR engine!
Bittorrent is a popular form of non-centralised peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution. For obtaining many things on the Internet (software, videos, books, DVDs, updates, etc) it is often a very convenient and quick way to get what you want.
There are many torrent clients (the software you use to download software as torrents) freely available The one I recommend for most users on Windows is uTorrent. It has feature rich, free, and easy to work with.
Once you are set up with uTorrent there are various steps you can take to maximise your download speeds. The following links will provide you with the information you need:
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