Label printer is a slow program for printing labels, but it has all the features I want in a label printing program. Here's the list:
- Input from the command line and/or a simple TSV (Tab Separated Values) file.
- Can be configured to any label size and any label form, even weird ones like the rectangular labels found on CD label sheets of various brands.
- Automatically figures out a font size that will fill the label with the given text.
- Can start with any label on the sheet.
- Handles envelopes as well as label sheets.
CD label printer is a program for printing CD labels, but it has all the features I want in a label printing program. Here's the list:
- Standard graphics format input files: 750x750 dpi .jpg files (150dpi)
- Can be configured to any label size and any label form.
Order Maker is an order processing program.
Agent Ransack is a program that can search for files by name or content. Sound like Windows search? It is that, and more. It solves the problems with the deficient search facility on Windows XP, which cannot be convinced to search binary files for text strings -- preventing you for example from finding a font file by font name (instead of file name). It can also search for regular expressions (like the *nix grep utility) Here is a more complete description of the deficiency of the Windows XP search facility.
Agent Ransack direct download
dupdetect.exe is a program that will search selected directories for duplicate files.
During phase one, files are considered duplicates if they have the same size and the same MD5 checksum. Duplicates may be autodeleted if they are found in another set of selected directories. The autodeletion set can be augmented as processing continues.
During phase two, files are considered duplicate if they have the same filename but are in different directories. You should be very cautious with phase two, often such files are variations of the same file, sometimes they are completely independent files. You may or may not want to delete such files, or manually merge various copies, etc.
In trying to ZIP a bunch of files to help a friend backup his laptop's D: partition, it took me 3 tries to find an archiver that could pack 4GB of data when there was only 1.7GB free space available for the %TEMP% directory! Placing a temporary file on any drive except the drive for which the target archive is specified requires an additional file copy after the compression, which is silly. The first two, both of which failed silently when they ran out of %TEMP% space, were WinZip (already installed on my friend's machine) and PowerArchiver (see below). 7-zip, my third attempt, placed the temp file on the target drive, and worked great!
7-Zip is clearly the leader in compression ratio, and supports more formats, including its namesake 7z compression, which is more effective than ZIP. I've been using 7z compression when I make self-extracting archives, as that doesn't require others to install yet another program, but gets the benefits of the higher packing ratio. I've also been using it for my own personal archives.
7-Zip sourceforge project page
Downloads are quickly found on either of the above pages.
The last non-commercial version of PowerArchiver is still a highly-functional bargain, and was my favorite compressor until I found 7-zip (see above).
Deals with many, many compression and archiving formats: .zip, .tar.gz, .arc, etc. Like WinZip, but without the nag screens. The commercial trial version is more like WinZip with the nag screens.
The associated SFXmaker (self-extracting archive maker) is highly functional and configurable. I haven't played much with the extra support stuff but it sounds interesting too.
SFX maker download
SFX maker extra support download
(used for various other scripts)
Install, accepting all the defaults, except make sure the path it is installed on is "c:\perl"
direct Perl 5.8.0 download
Lots of documentation on the Internet comes in PDF format (and is named with a .pdf extension). This is the software you need to read such documentation. The claim is that PDF format is cross-platform, printer independent, and I guess that claim is true. But the viewer isn't really all that friendly, the way most people set up their PDF files, so I'd rather see documentation (and everything else) in HTML format, which is also cross-platform.... but unfortunately with less control over printed format.
Version 7 is recommended, it is fast again. Version 6.* was slow, and 6.0.2 was bloated (large) for unknown reasons. Versions 4 and 5 seemed OK also. Most PDF files are still compatible with version 4.
These are all English versions; versions in other languages can be found via the main Adobe web site.
Direct Windows English complete downloads:
version 7.0 (19.8MB)
version 6.0.2 (34.7MB)
version 6.0.1 (15.9MB)
version 5.1
version 4.0.5
Clippy works by reformatting stuff you put on the clipboard. So you copy stuff to the clipboard, choose a reformatting option by hitting a hot key or right-clicking a system tray icon, and choosing from a menu.
Handy for removing those extraneous ">" characters from email, as well as other reformatting.
Clippy download page
Have lots of hard disk space, and tired of swapping CDs around? The software/music/etc. on the CD won't install on the hard disk? Use a CD/DVD emulator to put the data on the hard disk, in a CD image file, complete with a drive letter for access.
direct download
Use setbootinfo.cmd once per bootup, and then getbootinfo.cmd can be used to set environment variables that can ease the creation of startup scripts.
documentation and examples
download getbootinfo.cmd
Useful, free Transcription software for digital audio recordings of speech. Even I can use it, and my secretarial skills mostly belong to my wife.