Tag: files

Dropf: Easy File Uploading

Dropf (Version: 0.2.8.39926 Beta) attempts to make it easier to manage FTP accounts and share files. It places a box-like hovering icon on the desktop where files can be dragged and dropped into. From there they will be automatically uploaded to the user’s configured FTP space.

Setting up FTP account(s) comes first. Right click on the box, go to FTP Accounts and then Manage. Fill in the details and set the root and upload path or folder. The paths will be relative to the FTP login path. For example if after logging into your FTP you are at / and want the uploads to go to the root of the example.com folder add / and /example.com for root and upload respectively. dropf checks the connection and creates any folders (for example if the uploads path is example.com/uploads the uploads folder will be created) necessary. Drag and drop a file into the box, it will be uploaded and the url copied to the clipboard automatically. Dropf also has a Take Screenshot and Upload option where it uploads the (active window) full screen. When uploading multiple files or a folder they will be zipped – if the zip option is checked in the settings – and the url of the .zip file will be copied to the clipboard.

Right click the box to set theme (box shape), opacity and size. The program settings has options to add it to Windows’ Send To menu, make it start with Windows, auto copy uploaded files’ URLs to the clipboard and using one of goo.gl, 2d1.in or is.gd for URL shortening. The program offers to rename files to something ‘standard’, use time stamp naming, encrypt the multi-file zip upload and upload text clipboard items as a .txt file.

A very useful feature of dropf is the upload history, a useful reference. Using the program’s tray icon the dropf box can be hidden. Dropf should work on Windows XP and newer versions.

Note: The beta state of dropf is apparent as the box disappeared at least once when changing its size and opacity.

March 12, 2012
Commands In Demand Delivers Lots

Commands in Demand provides a collection of tools and shortcuts to make it a centralized all purpose utility.

Of note is that every time the program starts there is an error that it is “unable to add hot key Ctrl+Alt+S” (see image), in its help file this hot key combination is described as:

…always reads the Clipboard contents (from any of its section you are working with, and even if its window is not visible), by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+S keys’ combination from your keyboard

Going down the program’s sections Commands in Demand includes the following:

It can kill unrepsonsive or other tasks, remove idle processes, copy text from any system error message, restart Windows Explorer, open task manager and kill a print job.

Next is a section to manage Windows Explorer with buttons to open subfolders, go one level up or deeper, minimize or restore windows, keep the active window on top, resize the active window, add transparency to it and more.

A Clipboard section that can read clipboard items, save them to a text file among others.

A multi-page Desktop section to show or hide desktop icons, use a screen magnifier, an on screen keyboard, capture active or other areas of the screen and gain access to Windows 7’s GodMode control panel.

The Devices section has shortcuts to Device Manager, open and close optical drives and safely remove USB.

Files and Folder has a text file joiner, hash checksum calculator, a list alphabetizer tool ( that can import text files or work with manually entered text) and a few more shortcuts.

Graphics has a color picker, EXIF viewer and image convertor.

Icons can extract icons from files, hide and show desktop icons and refresh them too.

Internet has the shortcut to a translator, HOST file editor and additionally a shortcut to Google and Neave flash maps and another to search using any of 12 search engines.

Memory and CPU has live CPU and memory usage meters and an ‘Instant memory cleaner’ button.

Miscellaneous features a calendar that can calculate days between dates and a few ‘stress killing’ games.

Network has the shortcut to the Network Connections window and a tool to create Network and TCP/IP statistics reports.

System is another multipage section with shortcuts to the command prompt (normal and colored console), system folders plus an operating system ID report with common info like version, processor type, Windows product ID and more.

SysTray can mute/unmute sound, hide/show clock and a few others.

Taskbar can add transparency to the task bar and hide/show it.

Text and Editing has the join files and online translation shortcuts and two potentially useful tools to separately convert Unicode and ASCII texts between upper and lower case.

Windows Applications is simply a collection of shortcuts to things like Regedit, Task Scheduler, Character Map and others.

The Shutdown Panel has the reboot, standby, logoff , hibernate, shutdown and monitor off buttons.

The Tools of Mine section is basically a launcher where the user can add any shortcut and run it (see image above).

Commands in Demand (Version: 12.2 tested) is freeware, one zip file that doesn’t require installation and should run on Windows XP and newer.

February 5, 2012
Freeware Shorts: File Renamer

File Renamer is a small yet powerful utility to batch rename files. It has several options that make for many different ways of renaming files. A combination of renaming rules can be saved as a script to be re-used later. To begin start by clicking the – unlabeled in this case (see image) – browse button to navigate to the folder where the soon to be renamed files are and if necessary use the accompanying filter to narrow down to specific file types.

The scripting is done via the New script button at the bottom of the program. Click on a rename option and then click Add Line, add as many as needed and then Save And Exit. Each option or line can be edited and removed as well.

Whether using a script or working on a set of files for one time only the options available in File Renamer are the same and they include adding character(s) anywhere in a file name, removing characters or words, replacing a word with another, capitalizing, making all upper case, trimming character(s) from beginning, end or elsewhere in the file name and adding an incremental prefix or suffix to the file name. One can just create all new file names too.

One can also change the attribute of a file – to hidden, system, read only or archives. File Renamer can also rename files using their created or modified dates as new names.

File Renamer should work on all Windows versions.

November 4, 2011
Freeware Shorts: Directory Monitor

Directory Monitor (Version: 1.0.2.0 as of this post) is a program that keeps an eye on or monitors any number of directories for file additions, changes and deletions. These could be local or directories located on a network. These kinds of programs are very useful because a user can see and know what happens when for example a program is installed or uninstalled. As a more specific example many programs have a habit of creating directories in the My Documents folder and when uninstalling these sometimes cryptically named folders remain. Directory Monitor makes such scenarios more manageable.
Directory Monitor can generate alerts or tool tip balloons when changes occur and can also execute a command when a change happens. .NET Framework required.

May 14, 2011
Freeware Digital Janitor Tries To Organize Your Files

Digital Janitor helps you organize and specifically sort files and folders. The main purpose or usefulness of Digital Janitor is that when many files are downloaded from the, say, internet they tend to sit in one folder with differing files lost in the maze of documents, images, music and the like.

Enter Digital Janitor and its rules based organizer.

The main interface of the program, seen in the image, is the place where a source (perhaps the aforementioned download folder) is chosen. Then based on any combination of file formats, keywords or sizes files are moved into a destination folder. A ‘rule’ is first added via the add rule button and then also saved – and given a name. For example a rule can exist to move *.jpg files into an images folder and another rule to move *.wmv files greater than 100MB into a movies folder. Rules are saved for repeated and future use and pressing the sort button runs the chosen or highlighted rule.

From here on Digital Janitor gets confusing. It has a sort of pre-defined rule set for working with music files in its ‘Sort Music’ menu. This is where mp3 files can be sorted by artist or album. This feature is somewhat confusing because at first look it is not clear if any destination folders are automatically created or not and if they are indeed not it is not a very productive way of sorting the mp3 files anyway.

Another confusing aspect of the program is the ‘Schedule’. It resides in a separate window from the program’s initial rules yet it uses the same rules. Therefore it is not clear why the Schedule window not only requires one of the named and saved rules but requires a source folder too. If a rule is already created in the main window then a source folder should already be part of the rule that was created there.

To yet further confuse the user the ‘Automate’ window asks for a source and destination folder to sort files by similar name, similar extension or same type. It is again not very clear what the differentiation is between the three options and if this adds anything new to the main window rules.

Digital Janitor is useful without looking at the additional windows. Just choose a source and destination folder in the main window and create and run rules there. Digital Janitor runs Windows XP, Vista or 7 and requires .NET Framework 2.0.

August 25, 2010
neoSearch: A New Way To Search A PC

neoSearch is a lightweight, 531KB download, option in the array of computer search utilities. Upon launch it takes a minute or more, depending on system size, to index the drive(s) so that it can present search results almost instantaneously. With neoSearch search results are presented and updated in real time when the user starts typing.

neoSearch’s options include adding system folders to it’s indexing, because it ignores those folders by default, including and excluding any number of folders from it’s indexing and therefore its search results and a scheduler for future indexing which includes a ‘manual’ option.

neoSearch suffers from a few drawbacks that are all by design, they are:

The program delays its own launch, when first opened and not when already running in the background, by asking for an update check and somewhat bizarrely makes the user wait five seconds if the update check is refused.
The program’s executable is placed in the system’s Application Data folder (alongside its index database) and so the program has no presence in the Program Files folder.
Only the first six search results are presented immediately and there is no scrolling to see additional results. An extra click (pressing Enter or on the magnifying glass icon) is required to open the full search results in a new window.

neoSearch is capable of indexing shared folders over a network, supports wildcards and works on Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and 7.

August 3, 2010
FreeFileSync Manages Your Folders And Files

FreeFileSync is described by its author as

…is an Open-Source folder comparison and synchronization tool. It is optimized for highest performance and usability without restricted or overloaded UI interfaces

FreeFileSync has a simple yet attractive, with well made icons, interface that synchronizes folders and compares files and folders. The options to compare are based on file size and date and also the file contents. The help button to the right of the big rectangular compare button attempts to explain how the comparison is calculated in both the aforementioned possibilities or features.
The synchronization feature is more detailed and includes the possibility to copy files between folders so that they are identical or to copy files and overwriting any that already exist in the other folder or to even delete files that already exist in the other folder.

FreeFileSync is also capable of saving configurations to be loaded to make future uses even more automated. Batch files can also be saved to ease work for every use with identical folders. Files can also be filtered so that certain file types are not included in the syncing procedures. FreeFileSync is available both for Windows and Linux machines.

July 9, 2009