RGdot

Author: Reza

  • Gwennel Doc : Freeware Notebook

    Gwennel

    Gwennel Doc is a notebook that is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and supports the odt open document file format.

    Start by creating a new notebook, save it with a name and start typing. It is possible to just leave it at that, type, insert images, tables and links and have notes that are portable using the aforementioned xml based standard format.

    However it is also possible to define presets or styles to use to format the notes. Either through the Format menu or by right clicking any one of Text, Paragraph, Bullets and Numbering and Table different fonts, colors, margins, line spaces, table widths and other styles can be defined for use in a notebook. These new styles will be available in the toolbar drop down menus for text, paragraph and bullets.

    The default font used by the program is Tahoma but if a style is created to with another font for text then it can applied to any part of the notebook. Right click Text —> New Style and choose the font. Start typing and apply the style to it by highlighting text and choosing the style from the toolbar drop down. The same can be done to a paragraph for its font, alignment, background color, line spacing, border, and indentation. Bullets and Numbering can have number or bullet styles, different spacing, alignment and others (see image below). Similarly a table’s border, width, margin, cell colors (including alternating colors) can be saved as a style and applied via the Table —> Insert Table menu.

    Gwennel

    Gwennel Doc (version: 0.14) is portable and very lightweight, a few sample styles are available as a separate download but the main download comes with a sample and documentation that can serve as a reference itself.

     

  • Bitdefender Total Security 2014 Giveaway [Ended]

    Bitdefender

    Comment below for a chance to win one of 3 Bitdefender Total Security licenses courtesy of Bitdefender Antivirus!

    Bitdefender is one of the better rated and tested antivirus and internet security options. Sites like av-comparatives.org which do extensive testing rate it high in detection but also high performance wise in what is termed as Impact Score on a system.

    Total Security 2014 as its name indicates includes many features that go beyond a simple antivirus, some may or may not be useful or needed for every user but each does a bit more to protect the computer and the user.

    For example, the wallet allows for safe storage of site details and other data used to automatically login into sites. It can be configured to do banking and other payment sensitive browsing in a separate protected browser. There is also a well rated inbound and outbound firewall and a tool to protect and scan external USB devices.

    Its other features include Yahoo Messenger chat encryption and a vault for encrypting files,  a safe file eraser or shredder and an anti-phishing feature. Emails are scanned so malicious items don’t make it to a computer. Additionally an online service (MyBitdefender) provides limited free storage and remote control and recovery features for devices, including mobile, running it and attached to the user account.

    All in all a very complete security and piece of mind tool Bitdefender Total Security 2014 runs on XP and newer. Bitdefender also offer other mobile, home and business software that provide theft and more extensive cloud based protection.

  • ShareX: Grab, Upload, Share

    ShareX

    ShareX is a multipurpose, feature rich utility geared towards sharing anything captured on a pc. At its core it is a screen grabber that does a lot more, including just uploading files.

    Clipboard upload is the first in the list of its features, it auto detects urls to use a url shortener, it defaults to the bit.ly service. The Capture option features full screen, Window – with a list of open windows to choose from, monitor, rectangle, rounded rectangle, triangle, ellipse, diamond, polygon, free hand, last region, auto capture and screen recorder. The last two are configurable timed snapshots and animated gif.

    After capture has options for Add image effect, Annotate image, Add watermark, Copy image to clipboard (on by default), Print image, Save image to file (on by default), Save image to file as, Copy file to clipboard, Copy file path to clipboard, Perform actions and Upload image to host. The Perform actions options is when an external program is set to open after the capture. The programs can be set in Task settings —> Actions, some of which are detected and added by ShareX.

    After upload has options for Use url shortener, Post url to social networking service, Send url with email and Copy url to keyboard.

    Destinations are configured per file type. Imgur.com is the default for images but they can be uploaded to imageshack, tinypic, flickr, photobucket, picasa, twitpic, twitsnaps, yfrog, imm.io, file or custom uploader. For text pastebin is the default with paste2.org, slexy.org, pastee.org, paste.ee, gist.github,com and file available. For url shortener there is the aforementioned bit.ly plus goo.gl, j.mp, is.gd, tinyurl and turl.ca and finally for social networking service twitter is the only one available as of version 8.4.1.

    Almost everything is configurable, for example screenshots can be named with anything like year %y, month %mo, title of active window %t, millisecond %ms, auto increment %i, computer name %cn, random number %rn and more in their name and their default folder changed too (Application settings —> Paths). A proxy server can be added via Application settings —> Proxy. The format of the image can be changed from the default png to gif, jpg, tiff or bmp and its quality adjusted too (Task settings —> Image). The watermark and image effects are also configured via Task settings —> Image. ShareX can also watch folders and upload files placed in them automatically (Task settings —> Watch folders). The naming pattern is also available for clipboard items (Task settings —> Upload).

    Hotkey settings include ones for capturing the entire screen, active window and rectangle region. Others can be added with every action configured too (see image below).

    ShareX

    Any of the services that do not allow anonymous uploading can be setup via the Destination settings menu. The file uploader options are dropbox, mega, box, ge.tt, rapidshare, sendspace, hostr, Atlassian Jira, Google Drive, Minus, email and ftp. The custom uploader option is an advanced feature described fully at http://getsharex.com/docs/#CustomUploader. This tool uses POST and GET methods to upload and dynamically generate urls.

    The program has two separate history tools to keep a log of every use. ShareX works on XP and newer and, once again, unfortunately requires .NET Framework   4   3.5.

    Update: Thanks to Jaex for mentioning the correct .NET requirement

  • Notepas: Multiplatform Text Editor

    Notepas

    Notepas is a multiplatform free text editor with some advanced features. It is feature filled and mostly aimed at programmers. Most features are available docked by using the corresponding menu or button to make the options visible on the left hand side of the program interface. It supports several highlighters for different languages. Notepas is a solid option at version 0.9.23 and can do a lot, a few of its features are listed below.

    It has several levels of code folding, the 0 button that has a drop down to 9  folds code several child or inner nodes making it very easy to view a document’s hierarchy. Code filter under Tools can search for specific strings and show only lines containing it. Code Shaper also under Tools can do some advanced text filtering by adding a comma after a string of code, trimming space, removing line breaks and more. One simple example is adding line breaks. In the first screenshot one part of the sample XML snippet is highlighted, when breaks lines before </firstname> is applied it is converted to the form in the second screenshot. Of course this example is meaningless but is one trivial example of the kind of things Notepas is capable of.

    The selection menu has options to to toggle case of selected text, convert tabs to space, strip first characters, strip markup, add comment code and other text manipulations based on the word or characters in the selection.

    Notepas

    The program’s settings window (Settings—>Settings) is mainly for customizing the appearance of the code such as colors, character spacing and other highlight options. There is an option to increase font size or stay on top or restrict Notepas to one instance as well.

    Notepas is available in portable download for both 32bit and 64bit systems as well as Linux machines.

  • List.it: Notes In Browser Sidebar

    list-it

    List.it is a no frills notes keeper that resides inside Firefox’s sidebar. It is simple and open source and provides an option to synchronize notes but they are kept locally if the user does not use or ignores the sync option.

    Install the add-on and access the sidebar interface via Ctrl+Shift+F. Enter any text and save, access the settings by clicking the gear icon. By default the top line of a note is shown, click the arrow icon to expand all. Click x if a note needs to be deleted and use the garbage can icon to view the dustbin where deleted notes can be restored or permanently deleted. It is possible to edit notes by clicking on them, and search or print them too.

    Right click anywhere on a page to bookmark the page in list.it or highlight, right click and copy text to list.it. In the latter list-it will also append the url of the page the text was copied from (see first note in screenshot)

    If using the synchronize option click the yellow triangle icon and sign up for their service and install list.it where you need the notes. For security quoting the About and FAQ pages:

    List.it is a research project from the Haystack Group at MIT CSAIL by a small team of students led by Prof. David Karger. List.it’s chief designers are electronic Max and Greg Vargas.
    List.it is released as free and open source software under the MIT License. The source code is available on our Google Code Project.

    With respect to data handling policies, we use strong-grade SSL (AES-256) to encrypt all client server communications (HTTP traffic) and have signed our server with a certificate.

    List-it should work on Firefox 3.0 and later.

  • Easily Access Media Info With MediaTab

    MediaTab

    MediaTab (version:1.2) is a simple freeware that provides information about many media files.  The feature that makes it easier to use is that it integrates with Windows Explorer.

    MediaTab is based on the more widely used MediaInfo and instead of being a standalone program all is does is add a tab to the right click menu, that is a new MediaTab tab is added to the Properties window. Formats supported are numerous and include the likes of 3gp, asf, avi,divx, dpg, eac3, evo, f4v, flac, h264, m4a, mks, mkv, mov,mp3, mp4, mpc, mpeg, mpg, ogg, qt, ra, rm, swf, tp, vob, wav, wma and wmv.

    The info provided in both text and tree formats is also extensive with the likes (as applicable) of file name, location, release date, duration, codecs, bit rate, resolution, metatags, encoded library and lots more. An advanced setting adds additional information like frame count, stream size, audio profile and others.

    The information can be exported into a text or html file or copied to the clipboard in text, bbcode or two kinds of html (table with or without headers) files.

    MediaTab runs on XP and newer on both 32bit and 64bit PCs.

  • Zback: Freeware Backup And Synchronization

    Zback

    Zback (version: 2.70.0.c2) is a simple but capable backup and sync tool that works over network drives too. The program’s tabbed interface is divided into Simple back, Simple sync, Manual and Batch.

    The Simple back is just like a manual no frills back up, one interesting option is the Include source path option that keeps the files’ directory structure in the backup location. For example if backing up C:\Program Files to H:\ the backed up files on H:\ will be in H:\C:\Program Files. This can make it easier when restoring files. Zback starts the restore process with a preview before offering to execute the restore.

    Simple sync keeps two folders synchronized with both having the latest version of the files.

    Manual is the user controlled, option filled feature of Zback. The available modes are perhaps best described by copying the help file section.

    update (backup) – it will copy new files from source to target directory and update to new versions of existing files. This is default mode, it is good for backup files to other disk, external USB drive or a stick. You may also choose to keep old (multiple) versions of backup files.

    mirror source to target – target directory will be identical as source (it adds new files to target, updates existing, deletes surplus files and directories from target, overwrites target files even if newer then source). Use this mode only if you are sure that target files may be discarded.

    copy all – copies all source files that pass filters to target directory regardless of which is newer

    synchronize <> – update bidirectionally (from Source to Target and vice versa). This mode is good for synchronizing home and office computer directories using USB stick.

    erase source – erases files from source directory, no copy (useful for erasing temporary files)

    backup [date] – copy source files to unique dated target directory (for example to D:\Backup\[2009-12-15_9-37-31]\). This mode is good for making chronological backups. You can make daily, monthly, etc. backups (see Options)

    restore < – restore files from Target to Source. It is used to restore files from backup location back to Source directory.

    The [mkDir] button creates the target or backup directory if it doesn’t exist. To the right there are filters for file types, directory names, files dates and options to keep old versions instead of overwriting them. There are Preview and Execute buttons here too. Once the settings are chosen it is possible to create a batch file to use in the next, Batch, tab.

    Zback

    The Batch tab uses a already saved batch file or lets the user write a new one. An example (example.bal) is included. The batch files can look complex and it is a fun exercise to create one by reading the available options or modes. For example v is the key for keeping old versions in the target folder (old files are renamed adding file_Date_Time) and can be used like:

    C:\Program Files\*.* > H: /v

    The program options include ‘Compare files by content’ that compares content when file name, date and size are equal. This is probably a rarely encountered situation and likely extremely slow.

    Zback is Unicode ready, does not pollute the system registry, is portable and works on all Windows versions and in Linux using Wine too.

  • Firefox Add-on: Save Text To File

    Save Text To File

    Save Text To File is a simple but potentially time saving add-on for Firefox. Saving text for future use and reference is a situation that many encounter. There are countless ways of dealing with and managing things found online. Bookmarking the page, saving the whole page, using ‘read it later’ tools and add-ons or setting up outliners/organizers like CintaNotes to save the text, just to name a few.

    Save Text To File is potentially another, it is perhaps minimalistic and simplistic but that is possibly its strength too. It is a No Restart add-on that adds an item to the right click menu. Highlight any text and right click to save it to a text file. The initial setup is as no frills as the add-on itself. The name of the text file and its location is configured as are options to add a line separator, date and time stamp and the url of the page the text is copied from. One can also choose to have separate text files for each use or append every thing to one file. In the screenshot I have checked the ‘Confirm settings’ option, this prompts the user to choose and set options every time the add-on is used. I can see no reason why this would be necessary and would recommend it be unchecked.

    Save Text To File

    Firefox’s internal bookmark system is just one big mess for anybody who has many bookmarks, I see this as one potential, albeit crude,  addition to it when the option to save urls is used.

    Save Text To File works on Firefox 19 and newer with an older version available for older versions.

     

  • Clipjump Does The Clipboard Well

    Clipjump

    Clipjump is a very capable freeware clipboard manager. It , of course,  holds many clipboard items and does its job without disturbing familiar Windows routines such as Ctrl+C, V and X. It provides a tool tip like confirmation and visual, for example one that confirms that it has copied items.

    Clipjump captures all data types, when Ctrl+C is used it captures text, images (through the PrintScreen key) and other data such as Excel cells and when Ctrl+V is used to paste repeated V clicks cycles through clipboard items with a preview so it is very easy to paste any previous items. There is an incognito mode to temporary disable captures, right click tray icon—>Options. Windows+C pops up the clipboard history window to view and work on captured clips. It is possible to ‘fixate’ items to make them stay on top or first in the history and therefore being the first when using paste mode or when clicking Ctrl+V. Clipjump also supports ‘channels’ to keep items separate, the default channel is zero. The channel name in use is shown when Ctrl+V is clicked and channels can be changed by using the up and down arrow keys in the aforementioned paste mode. No Formatting is also a very useful feature and when in paste mode (after clicking Ctrl+V) clicking on the Z key readies the chosen item without formatting.

    The Action Mode, activated via the tray icon or Ctrl+Shift+A, provides one click access to program features.

    The Class Grab Tool which is supposed to grab Windows classes is also interesting. It allows Windows classes to be added to its settings.ini’s ignoreWindows option so that Clipjump will not be used when items are copied from those programs. Lots more settings are configurable through settings.ini such as windows_copy_shortcut and windows_cut_shortcut that ‘create unique shortcuts in Clipjump to copy/cut data only to System Clipboard and not Clipjump’.

    The program settings have a ‘one time stop’ option whose shortcut is configurable which when used bypasses Clipjump for only one time.

    The usefulness of Clipjump lies in the fact that it can be used to naturally replace the native Windows clipboard but also really extend it with additional features beyond simply storing multiple items. It is very lightweight, portable and at version 9.8.8 (there are frequent updates) it is very solid.

    The online manual and internal help are detailed if not exactly very well organized.

  • dnGREP: Content Search And Replace For Windows

    dnGREP

    In an earlier review  for FileSearchy commenter smaragdus wondered out loud if there are any utilities that support searching in epub (and fb2) files. Indeed the search for such a tool seems to confirm that it is a rare feature. I stumbled upon dnGREP, however.

    dnGREP searches inside most text files and some like pdf  require a plugin which come with the program and reside in the program’s folder. It integrates with the right click menu, can search plain text, Word documents, inside archives and more. It wasn’t clear at first if the latter includes epub files, then I found a support question or feature request that was answered:

    You can enable this by modifying C:\Program Files\dnGREP\Plugins\dnGREP.Engines.Archive.plugin file.
    Just add epub to the list of extensions.

    The result can be seen in the screenshot above. dnGREP provides a a preview and highlights results, supports regular expressions and xpath. The user can also filter the search (icon to the far right of the Search in section) to restrict the search to specific path or type of files. Replace is supported and the >> button to the right of the Replace button provides custom actions such as Copy files, Move files, Delete files and File names to clipboard, Save as CSV and CSV to clipboard to copy the result file names for use elsewhere. The bookmark saves search queries for the future.

    The program’s options includes such settings as Show file path in results, Show results tree expanded and Show result lines in context X before and X after.

    Version 2.7.1 beta 2 used for this review, version 2.6.3 stable is also available for both 32 and 64 bit systems. Unfortunately, because it is usually better but difficult to avoid, dnGREP requires the .NET framework 4.0. dnGREP can be launched via the command line.