Month: August 2014

CherryTree Excellent Cross Platform Notes Organizer

CherryTree is an open source cross platform notes organizer with numerous features. Crucially it stores notes in xml (or sqlite) files and has numerous export and import options.

CherryTree is two pane and hierarchical. Nodes and subnodes are used to organize notes. A wide range of formatting options make it possible to change the look of everything stored and kept. If it is used for programming code many syntax highlighting options are present with the option to have the notes in a “codebox” as shown in the screen shot above (Edit—>Insert codebox or Ctrl+Alt+C). Everything from C++ to php, LaTex and sql is present. Images can be inserted anywhere and like text can be justified or moved to the right or elsewhere in a node, the same can be said for tables, ordered and unordered lists and check boxes to create to do lists. Text and images can be linked to internal or external locations and even to another node.

Copy/pasting from many applications into CherryTree works and depending on the source images can be pasted directly inside a node as well. Copying and then pasting a number of files from an explorer windows creates nodes for each file.

The find in CherryTree is not as you type but there are separate (Ctrl+F or Shift+Ctrl+F) hot keys for searching in the current or all nodes. Nodes can be bookmarked for easier and quicker access. The import options are for importing from plain text, html, EssentialPIM, BasKet Note Pads, KeepNote, KeyNote, Tomboy, Zim, Treepad, Gnote and others. The export options are to pdf, html and plain text. These options also exist for individual nodes. There are options to sort nodes via the menu or keyboard (Tree menu).

Nodes can be made to Read Only. The program preferences (Edit –> Preferences) cover the default font and colours, the program theme such as changing the background colour to another, the icons to use in the tree pane and the number of backups to keep.

Official downloads for all Windows versions are available in exe and portable versions and these are complimented with deb files and a PPA to add to the software sources lists to keep up with CherryTree releases when using the Linux version. CherryTree is currently at v0.34.1 but it has long been a stable option for note keeping.

August 31, 2014
CopyQ Clipboard Powerhouse

CopyQ is one of the more powerful clipboard utilities available. It offers several ways to manage and work with clipboard items, be they text or images.

Working with the usual Ctrl+C CopyQ keeps items ordered in a list. This can disabled via it’s tray icon or Ctrl+Shift+X. Click on its tray icon to see the program’s main window. The last item copied is always on top and of course in Windows’ own clipboard. The items stored can be moved up and down to bring them to the top and clipboard items can be moved to new tabs (drag them) as a simple sort of grouping. The tabs can be made to look like a tree on the left side of the window as an alternative to the more traditional tab look.

Of course most importantly clicking on item on the list (via right clicking the tray icon) pastes the item into the active window or form.

CopyQ features a whole set of shortcuts for virtually all operations like Ctrl+N to create a new item manually and F2 to edit an item. Each item can have a note attached to it which make it easier to find it but the interface suffers because of this. For example “copied with format” in the screenshot above is a note for the large font clipboard item. Also because the copied text is shown with formatting intact the program window can look confusing and a bit mixed up. Searching for items is done by typing when the CopyQ window is active, just start typing and the list filters down with matching items highlighted.

The clipboard history can be changed from the default 200 items and items unloaded after a certain time period (see History tab in preferences) and the number of items shown on the right click menu can be changed too.

The real strength of CopyQ is in its Commands/Global shortcuts feature (File —> Commands or F6). It can manage tabs, move items to a TODO tab, ignore one character items, decrypt and copy, open in browser, paste as plain text, edit 1st item, ignore password windows, autoplay video when urls match certain criteria and lots more automatically and when matching certain conditions like specific urls and windows. Several operations can be processed together giving CopyQ scripting capability. This section of the CopyQ is worth a look and offers a lot of efficiency improvements for the power user. Command line support makes the program even more versatile.

The option to encrypt clipboard items is available after installing GnuPG, this can be set up in the Items tab of the preferences. The programs’s appearance can also be extensively reconfigured and made to look differently as if to have different themes. CopyQ is available in exe and portable versions and also for other platforms. The non Windows versions may not be as stable, for example the 64bit .deb version tested on a Mint 13 MATE computer does not work when editing a note, the program is killed immediately. This is probably in an attempt to open an external editor (Notepad) that is not available on the said computer.

August 27, 2014
Linux Not (Never?) Ready For The Desktop

The idea that Linux is to be an alternative to Windows for the desktop is mentioned every so often. It is said that an average user can cut ties with Microsoft for good and plunge into the world of Linux at home. This has been the subject of 1000s of articles and tutorials. Times have changed and it is of course much easier to get (download) Linux iso files, burn them to a CD and try or install one of many Linux distributions. The old geeky days of command line installs and indecipherable screens are mostly behind us. Once installed there are also many good software that are very good alternatives to Windows equivalents, the exception being Microsoft Office alternatives that are often headaches in the opinion of yours truly. The biggest or most important reasons the title of this article has “Not” and “Never” in it is that there are two important failures when it comes to daily Linux use. These two deeply effect a so called newbie and even an above average user.

The first is wireless internet performance. This post is not delving into that issue – hint: maybe your laptop happens to have a ‘good’ chipset, may be not – and it is suffice to say that Google queries like “linux wireless not working” return millions of results.

The second is the issue of updates. In this case for Linux Mint or Ubuntu. It is important to note that the latter is often cited as the most user friendly of Linux distributions. To get software and other applicable updates the Update Manager monitors the computer and presents a list of available updates. The user sees notifications and can proceed anytime, when the Update Manger is opened a list is either fetched or just there. Let’s say users are updating Mint 13 LTS and decide to refresh the list in the Update Manager, they notice that the list is taking a long time to load. After they do load they are accompanied by a number of errors similar to:

‘Failed to fetch http://packages.medibuntu.org/dists/precise/Release.gpg Something wicked happened resolving ‘packages.medibuntu.org:http’ (-5 – No address associated with hostname)

After searching, try it it is not very easy to find the explanation, one arrives at posts like http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2469 that announce that the update repository (packages.medibuntu.org in this case) is no longer maintained and show how to avoid the errors in the future. The announcement doesn’t even offer a clear alternative so users are entitled to wonder if they can get the updates previously offered via medibuntu without further action after removing it from the software sources list. Other user to user support forums answer with lines like:

What this means? That you should remove the repositories from your sources.list to prevent errors and look for the packages you needed somewhere else or stick with the old ones that you have installed.

Of course this is just a single user replying to a question but to be in this state long after Windows 8 and years and more than a decade after fiascos like Windows Vista and ME is a failure in providing an alternative. Linux is a good thing, a very good thing, but it is not ready for mass home adaption and if it isn’t now it is perhaps never going to be.

August 24, 2014
Silly Name Cute Sticky Notes

Despite the perhaps silly and generic name Cute Sticky Notes is a useful desktop sticky notes freeware. The install process is a bit different and somewhat overkill in that it checks online to verify the md5 hash of its own exe just downloaded and also deletes the setup file after installation is complete, to – as it says – reduce chances of malware.

A default note is launched with the program, new notes can be added by clicking the + on the top right of a note, right clicking on a note or the program’s tray icon. Notes can fold, hide, made transparent and set as reminder or alarm notes by hovering over the top portion of a note. By default notes are ‘pinned’ to the desktop but they can also be pinned to any (program) window.

Clicking anywhere on a note makes it ready to use with a set of formatting options made available, alternatively right click on a note and insert from the clipboard (plain text or not) or add an attachment to a note. It is also possible to drag an image or file to a note. In the case of an image the program prompts and ask if the image is to be an attachment or a background for the note. Cute Sticky Notes also has more than one set of options to change the skin of any individual sticky note and to group the notes into categories.

The program settings (right click tray icon) has options for the default font and configurable hot keys to add new note, hide/show notes and insert text from clipboard. Also via the tray icon there are history and recycle bin windows to use to view, permanently delete or restore notes and an option to back up or restore the notes database. Another feature is the cloud sync. Notes can be uploaded to view and use on other computers and mobile devices, this was not tested but is potentially very useful. Cute Sticky Notes is at version 1.0.0.13 and besides the XP and to 7 version there is also a separate Windows 8 version.

August 21, 2014
Honeyview Is An Useful Image Viewer

Honeyview is an image viewer made by the developers of the Bandizip archiver. Therefore it is not surprising that it is possible to view images inside zip, rar, tar, alz, lzh or 7z archive formats without extracting them.

Honeyview requires the user to load a folder via a right click anywhere in the program window or the left most button on the bottom controls. Then it lets the user view the images in several way, like fit in window and fit to width but also “Smart double page” which made no difference or didn’t work in testing png and jpg files. These are probably set up to work with tiff or other formats. It is also possible to view files in a slideshow with many delay choices and limited set of transition effects. Folder bookmarks make using the program more efficient. Honeyview is also an image editor with rotate, crop, resize and change format settings via the menu and others like gamma adjustment, flip or sharpen via right click on an image. The user can choose to launch an image in an external editor as well. It is also possible to move and copy images around “Photo folders”. The folders can be defined in the program’s settings.

The program settings (F5) add a whole set of tweaks like turning off the screensaver, changing the program language, more control over navigating with the mouse and keyboard, associating the program with different image formats, caching images, using different image profile data and better using the exif data to view and manage images,

The program’s only skin is the Windows 8 looking one. Honeyview is available in both portable and exe downloads and also supports grabbing GPS data with locations looked up using Google maps.

August 18, 2014
Notation Is A Simple Note Taker

Notation is a lightweight and simple note taker not too dissimilar to CintaNotes. Its interface can be called minimalist and its features focused on one task. Perhaps crucially Notation doesn’t insert text via a shortcut, it only creates a new note.

At first install the program checks if its default ‘New Note’ shortcut or hot key is used by the system and offers the user a change from the default Win+N. The New Note and Search (default Win+Shift+F) hot keys can be changed anytime and even disabled in Notation’s settings (Edit —> Settings).

To add notes one starts by typing in the bottom portion of the program window, the notes are automatically saved and the first line or few words are used as the note title. The search is as you type highlight across all notes and seems fast. Notation can import text files and exports to html files. The export supports the markdown syntax.

Notation saves the notes in xml format. To help make the notes portable across devices Simplenote is supported, the details should be added in the Simplenote tab of the settings. Notation works on Windows Vista and newer.

August 15, 2014
ClipMe To Manage The Windows Clipboard

A new entry in the clipboard management software category is ClipMe (not the first software or app to use that name?). It is currently at the 0.1.0 beta stage and there is potential for development and lots more to come. At this time ClipMe is basic and does not do all that much. However it is functional even as is.

Use Windows’ usual Ctrl+C to capture text, files and images that are stored in ClipMe’s database. Bring up the manager (Ctrl+Shift+O by default, configurable via the Preferences) to view them and their size. Hover over any captured image in the list to get a preview, edit any text entry if needed. Delete any entry by clicking on the X beside it. At the bottom of the manager window there is an option to change the number of items ClipMe keeps and remembers, the default is 30.

Currently to reuse an item it is necessary to click on it in the manager window or on it via the program’s tray icon (right click the icon).

The hot key to enable or disable ClipMe’s clipboard tracking is Ctrl+Shift+E, it can be configured to use another combination. ClipMe can be configured to ignore any of the types of captures it supports so, for example, it is possible to use ClipMe only to capture images. ClipMe should run on XP and newer.

August 12, 2014
Hddb: Search Done Quickly

Hddb is another option for those seeking to have a lightweight search utility. Hddb stands for Hard disk database and similar to Locate32 in that it builds a database and uses it to present results. The program interface is similar to Everything however.

At first start a database is built and this takes seconds only. There is an option to rebuild the database any time and also to clean it as if to start over. Folders can be set to be ignored by Hddb by adding an empty file called _hddbignore in them. In Tools —> Options —> Database there is an option to exclude files by name. The search itself supports searching paths (use \ to start a search) and using wild cards. Probably the most notable feature of Hddb is the Named Searches accessed via the Search menu. This narrows down the search to file, folder, picture, executable, office, book, video, audio, archive, code or text formats. For example a search for “@video milan” returns only video files which have milan in their title. These can be configured to add or include other file types and extensions.

Hddb has options to show folder sizes and to show file info via a tool tip, see the Results List tab of the program options to enable these features.

The program remembers recent searches. The non portable version of the program can add itself to the system’s right click context menu. Hddb is available in exe and portable versions for both 32 and 64 bit machines.

August 11, 2014
PhotoDemon Is A Full Featured Image Editor

PhotoDemon is a portable and relatively small – less than 17MB unzipped – image editor which happens to be open source too. Most, if not all, features expected when working with images are present here. Plus there is also a Batch process mode available via the File menu (or Ctrl+B). A film strip area shows all open images.

PhotoDemon can import directly from the clipboard, cameras and scanners and also from URLs. Mouse and keyboard shortcuts for zoom make it easy to view details. The Image menu features most of what is expected like Resize, Crop, Rotate, and Flip plus a few others like Count unique colours and Transparency. The latter is a bit different because it can make specific colours transparent and leave other parts of an image untouched.

The selection has some interesting extras. When making a selection various effects can be added to the selection instead of the whole image. For example the screenshot above, probably not the best image to illustrate this, shows a rectangular selection with a border (After making a selection click Select –>Border). The Adjustment options are Black and white, Brightness and contrast, Color Balance, Levels, Vibrance, White balance, Channel, Color, Histogram, Invert, Lighting and Monochrome. The Effects are also most of the typical ones expected like Artistic, Blur, Distort, Edge, Experimental, Natural, Noise, Sharpen and Stylize. There is also a Custom filter window which is a fun to play with if not necessarily needed for most. The Experimental and Natural filters include the likes of Underwater, Rainbow, Alien and Radioactive.

The Tools menu is where macros can be recorded and plugins added, the included plugins are Exiftool, pngnq-s9, EZTwain, zlib and FreeImage. PhottoDemon offers a good solution for image editing beyond what is mentioned above and probably belongs high on the list of downloads to keep.

August 5, 2014