This thread (and others like it) have totally changed my computer for the better. launchy is amazing, the sysinternals process manager is amazing, FMD is great etc etc.
I do have one issue though, and I am hoping I just missed a checkbox or something, but is their a way to make X2 the default explorer in the same way that the sysinternals program replaces the task manager? I love the program but I want something that will load on demand without having to start it up whenever I might want it.
Q10 - Minimal writing environment. I did use Dark Room for my minimalist writing moments, but I find Q10 is more featured whilst still maintaining a VERY minimal display.
Got a link that isn't some vitamin supplement spam site? :P
SpeedCrunch now has a Windows port and is about a grillion times better than the awful default Windows calculator.
Seriously, guys: we have a keyboard. Moving the mouse around to click tiny buttons on a screen just because that's sort of what a calculator looks like in real life is stupid.
You know, you can just use your number pad for input in the windows calculator right?
My numpad doesn't have keys for sin, ^, binomcdf, etc. etc.
Also, I was being a little facetious: the worst part of the Windows calculator is it only shows you the current number instead of the entire current expression. We have a computer monitor and not a numeric LCD display, let's use it.
Anyone? If someone could point me to a replace explorer setting on X2 or another full-featured explorer replacement with that feature it would be great. Seriously.
Also, what is the RAM cutoff point for using either a virtual desktop program ala virtuawin or a full shell replacement like litestep or bblean? I'm looking for something nice and low profile while I bide my time until a full system upgrade.
I need a simple program that will evaluate a music directory, and based on ID3 tags, will make folders in this order
Root -> Artist -> Album
Can someone help me out? I'm pretty pick here and I might just write it myself if worst comes to worst.
Well, I've got two options for you. The first one would be iTunes and tell it to organize your music folder. All files will be named to "track number - track name" though.
An alternative, if you prefer not to touch that thing (which I'm not certain can make directories, but it can do ANYTHING when it comes to renaming files, so it wouldn't surprise me if it could) would be Siren. I haven't used the most recent version, but older versions had trouble recognizing all ID3 tag versions, so YMMV.
Am i the only one who likes Media Player Classic more than VLC?
That's reasonable, considering VLC's GUI is garbage, and there doesn't seem to be much need for it on Windows with the abundance of actual DirectShow-compatible codecs available. I like ZoomPlayer myself, but always install it (along with MPC) as part of the CCCP. (I like it because I can customize every aspect of it's interface to remove every possible annoyance I might have with a video player.)
Am i the only one who likes Media Player Classic more than VLC?
I do as well. I just prefer the look and feel of it. Plus, the icon from having files associated with VLC look stupid :P
I agree with both of these sentiments, and I actually use TCMP when I can, but it's been a while since it's been updated, so it's a bit behind the curve (I got into it back when it was the first - and only - player to have native Matroska support). However, it's not fond of files which have errors in them, and VLC just plows through errors, so I keep it around.
So, Serious Samurize is pretty nifty. It displays text and such on the desktop; you can have it show disk space, free ram, the contents of a text file, whatever. I like it.
Does it also retrieve the correct album covers? Or is there perhaps a nice site with cd covers?
Well, in a pinch, amazon should have most album art, but you might as well google for individual albums at that point. Hoenstly, the easiest thing in this case, much as most people hate the software, is to load them into iTunes. As long as you have Artist and Album in the ID3 tags, right click the songs you want to get the art for and choose "Get Album Artwork." As long as the album is in the ITMS, it downloads the art.
There WAS a site which queried it from a browser, but as far as I know, that doesn't work anymore.
So, Serious Samurize is pretty nifty. It displays text and such on the desktop; you can have it show disk space, free ram, the contents of a text file, whatever. I like it.
Wow, combined with launchy and a dock program this lets me totally avoid the start bar. I've never been sold on widget programs since they seem to require so much overhead but displaying pertinent info with this is pretty damn nice. Still experimenting with scripts and plugins but so far so good.
Just a question, why is iTunes so bad? I've been using it windows since it was launched and I love every little piece of it. Extremely easy to change track info? check. Extremely easy to browse CD's/artists/genere/ratings? check. No fucking annoying album art that takes up most my screen? check. RAM use low enough that it doesn't effect anything on my machine? check. What exactly is everyones problem with it? I guess I don't like it asking me to update it all the time, but then again I don't update it often and I wish I still had my release version.
I don't use MediaMonkey+foobar over itunes because iTunes has inadequate tag editing capabilities and can't scan a directory to keep its library up to date. With MediaMonkey I can just drag mp3 files into my music directory and it will pick them up, while in itunes, I have to import yet again. Use foobar for day-to-day playing because you can't customize what the keys do in iTunes.
So, adequate for some uses, but in my opinion lacking.
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
It may not be for Windows, technically, but Rockbox (rockbox.org) is one of my new favorite programs. It's a firmware that runs on a good deal of mp3 players; I run it on my Gigabeat F10. It got me playing videos, games, and screensavers on an otherwise useless device (friend deleted the firmware by fucking with the battery switch).
Just a question, why is iTunes so bad? I've been using it windows since it was launched and I love every little piece of it. Extremely easy to change track info? check. Extremely easy to browse CD's/artists/genere/ratings? check. No fucking annoying album art that takes up most my screen? check. RAM use low enough that it doesn't effect anything on my machine? check. What exactly is everyones problem with it? I guess I don't like it asking me to update it all the time, but then again I don't update it often and I wish I still had my release version.
I like the UI too (as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to managing a large library, it's the only tool for the job), but it's bad because it's slow, takes forever to start up, uses about ten times as much RAM as it needs to (though I guess 50MB is a drop in the bucket at today's RAM standards), and is lacking key functionality such as global hotkeys. I use it because it's a fuckton easier than configuring Foobar or something, Winamps media library plugin seems to have adopted the design philosophy of the rest of the program (which is that no button is done until it's fucking tiny) and if I want music while playing a game I load up my iTunes library in Foobar or Winamp (generally Winamp, because, as I said, Foobar is a pain in the ass to configure).
Other stuff, like manner of importing music, is just a matter of taste. I generally want to be importing a file, because I want iTunes to stick it in the right folder. I find its tag editing capabilities quite sufficient, and the ability to browse and search a large library with such clarity to be invaluable.
Just a question, why is iTunes so bad? I've been using it windows since it was launched and I love every little piece of it. Extremely easy to change track info? check. Extremely easy to browse CD's/artists/genere/ratings? check. No fucking annoying album art that takes up most my screen? check. RAM use low enough that it doesn't effect anything on my machine? check. What exactly is everyones problem with it? I guess I don't like it asking me to update it all the time, but then again I don't update it often and I wish I still had my release version.
I like the UI too (as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to managing a large library, it's the only tool for the job), but it's bad because it's slow, takes forever to start up, uses about ten times as much RAM as it needs to (though I guess 50MB is a drop in the bucket at today's RAM standards), and is lacking key functionality such as global hotkeys. I use it because it's a fuckton easier than configuring Foobar or something, Winamps media library plugin seems to have adopted the design philosophy of the rest of the program (which is that no button is done until it's fucking tiny) and if I want music while playing a game I load up my iTunes library in Foobar or Winamp (generally Winamp, because, as I said, Foobar is a pain in the ass to configure).
Other stuff, like manner of importing music, is just a matter of taste. I generally want to be importing a file, because I want iTunes to stick it in the right folder. I find its tag editing capabilities quite sufficient, and the ability to browse and search a large library with such clarity to be invaluable.
One Saturday last year I decided to try out this "foobar", and in the end I basically made a iTunes-esq clone that is better in every way for my preferences (global hotkeys? Yes please). Yeah it was hard, but if you want to you can spend that little extra time fiddling around with fb2k to made it whatever you want it to look like.
And you can download other people's configs, and in the newest version of foobar they've revamped the Default UI settings.
Just don't let the initial difficulty of customizing foobar turn you off a fine music app.
I don't really care how the damn thing looks (hell, the only reason I bother to add cover art in iTunes is the screensaver), I just couldn't get it to function in a convenient way. The default library view window is both a pop-up that precludes functionality in other windows and is also needlessly a pain in the ass to use, and I still gotta queue everything I wanna hear up in a playlist. I like iTunes' system where I type the album I want and double-click (not to mention smart playlists if I just want a no-maintenance-required steam of music). If that kind of convenience can be achieved in Foobar, I may yet put in the effort, for the sake of future adventures in the land of Windows.
Another big problem is I simply don't have hours to mess with Foobar since my jukebox PC is only something I only use for the occasional game anyway (now that I have a Mac), so iTunes' lack of hotkeys is not an issue since it's the only program I ever run on that comp.
Edit: Okay I just looked into this. After getting the latest versions of the "big" UI components (like and panel and columns) I was defeated at every turn in trying to ape someone's config by broken plugin links and wikis with all kinds of information and a download link cleverly hidden (if available at all). Downloaded a few that sounded nice and then couldn't figure out how to use them. And then when I finally started looking up how to customize... fuck that. That is way too much work.
Also, my config file is full of this kind of garbage:
Yeah I pretty much agree that customizing foobar beyond the basics (columns UI) is just a horrible pain. I was going to try out a skin once but was greeted by a 20+ step process where I had to install 5 different fonts and a jillion different components and config files copy/pasted into the right place. Then I was like "surely I can just add an album art display," and it was like "haha, embedded album art doesn't work." Same crap happened when I tried to add ratings.
However I like it fine on a basic configuration. I just have all my music loaded in one huge playlist and I can right click-> add to playback queue if I want to interrupt my shuffle play a bit to listen to some song I just felt like.
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
Then I was like "surely I can just add an album art display," and it was like "haha, embedded album art doesn't work." Same crap happened when I tried to add ratings.
Embedded album art works with the new version IIRC. And is there not a Ratings Plugin?
Then I was like "surely I can just add an album art display," and it was like "haha, embedded album art doesn't work." Same crap happened when I tried to add ratings.
Embedded album art works with the new version IIRC. And is there not a Ratings Plugin?
This is just out of the blue, but Basilisk II (http://sourceforge.net/projects/basilisk/) is the best Mac emulator I've ever used and it's great for running all those old System 6/7 games you may or may not have played. I ran System 7.5.5 on this with full color and a script to make it look like OS 8, then loaded a crapload of games on it. I also got CD audio working. PortableApps links to vMac, which is a decent emulator, but it pales in comparison.
Anybody got a favorite word processor? Notepad++ is my text editor of choice because it's free and feature-rich, but as for full-fledged word processors that are free, I'd have to pick Abiword. I still like Word 2003 more, though. I have to tweak OpenOffice not to use a Java environment and to use more RAM so that it doesn't start up so bloody slowly.
It should be noted that the only way to use Basilisk II legally is to dump the BIOS ROM from your own 68000 Mac (not Power Mac ... so Quadra and below) and then never use both the real mac and the emulator at the same time. You will need a Mac BIOS ROM to run it, and downloading one most certainly isn't legal.
Unless of course they've reverse engineered their own bios ... then I'd just be way out of date.
It was pretty cool in college to put a whole OS 7.5 installation on a zip disk and then just boot that in the computer labs. I could save all my work to the desktop and even have all my own system settings. I didn't particularly like macs, but having my own setup with no chance of getting a virus from those computers was a god-send.
'0x0AD2 in decimal'
'0b101101 in hexadecimal'
'340 in binary'
It's so convenient.
Google does that? No shit? I mean, I wouldn't ever need it to but that's still pretty fucking amazing.
Google also does some other neat things like Celsius to Fahrenheit, miles to kilometers, etc ... There's a page that explains a lot more of it on Google's site (which was so buried that I had to use Google to search for it).
I don't know of any. I would just pay the $20 for Fraps.
Also I like Notepad2 better than Notepad++. I like it better because I always get a new document when I run it, it remembers syntax highlighting for different extensions, it handles read-only in a less obnoxious way (still letting you type but telling you about the read-only status) and it lets you refresh the document from disk by pressing f5.
RandomEngy on
Profile -> Signature Settings -> Hide signatures always. Then you don't have to read this worthless text anymore.
Posts
http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
I do have one issue though, and I am hoping I just missed a checkbox or something, but is their a way to make X2 the default explorer in the same way that the sysinternals program replaces the task manager? I love the program but I want something that will load on demand without having to start it up whenever I might want it.
Vista only, though.
Got a link that isn't some vitamin supplement spam site? :P
edit: found it.
My numpad doesn't have keys for sin, ^, binomcdf, etc. etc.
Also, I was being a little facetious: the worst part of the Windows calculator is it only shows you the current number instead of the entire current expression. We have a computer monitor and not a numeric LCD display, let's use it.
Also, what is the RAM cutoff point for using either a virtual desktop program ala virtuawin or a full shell replacement like litestep or bblean? I'm looking for something nice and low profile while I bide my time until a full system upgrade.
Where can I find a quality (preferably free) program which can convert between video formats - say, .avi to mp4?
Try SUPER (Ugly site...)
And I'd recommend MPC player over VLC. The only reason I ever use VLC is to play incomplete files.
I need a simple program that will evaluate a music directory, and based on ID3 tags, will make folders in this order
Root -> Artist -> Album
Can someone help me out? I'm pretty pick here and I might just write it myself if worst comes to worst.
Well, I've got two options for you. The first one would be iTunes and tell it to organize your music folder. All files will be named to "track number - track name" though.
An alternative, if you prefer not to touch that thing (which I'm not certain can make directories, but it can do ANYTHING when it comes to renaming files, so it wouldn't surprise me if it could) would be Siren. I haven't used the most recent version, but older versions had trouble recognizing all ID3 tag versions, so YMMV.
I'll just write it. It'll be a fun programming exercise, and that way I know it does exactly what I want. Then you guys can have it too.
That's reasonable, considering VLC's GUI is garbage, and there doesn't seem to be much need for it on Windows with the abundance of actual DirectShow-compatible codecs available. I like ZoomPlayer myself, but always install it (along with MPC) as part of the CCCP. (I like it because I can customize every aspect of it's interface to remove every possible annoyance I might have with a video player.)
I do as well. I just prefer the look and feel of it. Plus, the icon from having files associated with VLC look stupid :P
I agree with both of these sentiments, and I actually use TCMP when I can, but it's been a while since it's been updated, so it's a bit behind the curve (I got into it back when it was the first - and only - player to have native Matroska support). However, it's not fond of files which have errors in them, and VLC just plows through errors, so I keep it around.
ID3 Tag-It or, my personal preference, Musicbrainz.
Does it also retrieve the correct album covers? Or is there perhaps a nice site with cd covers?
Well, in a pinch, amazon should have most album art, but you might as well google for individual albums at that point. Hoenstly, the easiest thing in this case, much as most people hate the software, is to load them into iTunes. As long as you have Artist and Album in the ID3 tags, right click the songs you want to get the art for and choose "Get Album Artwork." As long as the album is in the ITMS, it downloads the art.
There WAS a site which queried it from a browser, but as far as I know, that doesn't work anymore.
This works pretty good for me.
Wow, combined with launchy and a dock program this lets me totally avoid the start bar. I've never been sold on widget programs since they seem to require so much overhead but displaying pertinent info with this is pretty damn nice. Still experimenting with scripts and plugins but so far so good.
So, adequate for some uses, but in my opinion lacking.
I like the UI too (as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to managing a large library, it's the only tool for the job), but it's bad because it's slow, takes forever to start up, uses about ten times as much RAM as it needs to (though I guess 50MB is a drop in the bucket at today's RAM standards), and is lacking key functionality such as global hotkeys. I use it because it's a fuckton easier than configuring Foobar or something, Winamps media library plugin seems to have adopted the design philosophy of the rest of the program (which is that no button is done until it's fucking tiny) and if I want music while playing a game I load up my iTunes library in Foobar or Winamp (generally Winamp, because, as I said, Foobar is a pain in the ass to configure).
Other stuff, like manner of importing music, is just a matter of taste. I generally want to be importing a file, because I want iTunes to stick it in the right folder. I find its tag editing capabilities quite sufficient, and the ability to browse and search a large library with such clarity to be invaluable.
One Saturday last year I decided to try out this "foobar", and in the end I basically made a iTunes-esq clone that is better in every way for my preferences (global hotkeys? Yes please). Yeah it was hard, but if you want to you can spend that little extra time fiddling around with fb2k to made it whatever you want it to look like.
And you can download other people's configs, and in the newest version of foobar they've revamped the Default UI settings.
Just don't let the initial difficulty of customizing foobar turn you off a fine music app.
Another big problem is I simply don't have hours to mess with Foobar since my jukebox PC is only something I only use for the occasional game anyway (now that I have a Mac), so iTunes' lack of hotkeys is not an issue since it's the only program I ever run on that comp.
Edit: Okay I just looked into this. After getting the latest versions of the "big" UI components (like and panel and columns) I was defeated at every turn in trying to ape someone's config by broken plugin links and wikis with all kinds of information and a download link cleverly hidden (if available at all). Downloaded a few that sounded nice and then couldn't figure out how to use them. And then when I finally started looking up how to customize... fuck that. That is way too much work.
Also, my config file is full of this kind of garbage: except with lots of "NUL"'s and other such binary nonsense.
However I like it fine on a basic configuration. I just have all my music loaded in one huge playlist and I can right click-> add to playback queue if I want to interrupt my shuffle play a bit to listen to some song I just felt like.
Embedded album art works with the new version IIRC. And is there not a Ratings Plugin?
Sweet, you're right about the album art:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=3593154#post3593154
As for the ratings stuff, there might have been a solution, but it sure as heck was not obvious or easy to do.
It should be noted that the only way to use Basilisk II legally is to dump the BIOS ROM from your own 68000 Mac (not Power Mac ... so Quadra and below) and then never use both the real mac and the emulator at the same time. You will need a Mac BIOS ROM to run it, and downloading one most certainly isn't legal.
Unless of course they've reverse engineered their own bios ... then I'd just be way out of date.
It was pretty cool in college to put a whole OS 7.5 installation on a zip disk and then just boot that in the computer labs. I could save all my work to the desktop and even have all my own system settings. I didn't particularly like macs, but having my own setup with no chance of getting a virus from those computers was a god-send.
Google also does some other neat things like Celsius to Fahrenheit, miles to kilometers, etc ... There's a page that explains a lot more of it on Google's site (which was so buried that I had to use Google to search for it).
I don't know of any. I would just pay the $20 for Fraps.
Also I like Notepad2 better than Notepad++. I like it better because I always get a new document when I run it, it remembers syntax highlighting for different extensions, it handles read-only in a less obnoxious way (still letting you type but telling you about the read-only status) and it lets you refresh the document from disk by pressing f5.