The New Freebie Thread

[MilesAhead]

PromptHere v. 1.0

This is a variation on the old Command Prompt Here but for mouse-oriented
people. Alt Middle Mouse Click opens a command prompt for folder(s)
selected in Explorer.

You can download from my hotkeys page:

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Current version is 1.2. I made a couple of improvements.

1st, it now works outside of Explorer Windows.. enabling use
in file managers for example. I limited it to Explorer because of the
hotkey but I don't think many utilities are using Alt Middle Mouse Click
so why shouldn't I?

2nd, if you select a file instead of a folder and Click, you get a prompt
for the folder you are in.

3rd, and this is only in an Explorer Window, if you Click in an empty space
with nothing selected in the folder, it will move up one in the folder chain and open a Prompt for the folder you were in.

When I say "Click" I mean the Alt Middle Click. The reason it moves up in the last case is to use a macro. String parsing to get the name of the current folder isn't as simple in AutoHotKey as it is in AutoIt3. Plus this method will work even if "show complete address in Title Bar" options are not enabled.

I think PromptHere is much more useful now. I tried it using FreeCommander and Q-Dir file managers and it works fine.

[MilesAhead]

I notice lately some interesting True Type Fonts are showing up on Softpedia, free of charge. Some of the exotic ones are difficult to read esp. when the font size is small, but some I found too interesting to pass by.

I just searched on TTF and ordered by date. Many of the newer interesting ones start with the letter 'R' for some reason(maybe that's where the font creator is in his flood or something. I found "RayGun" font kind of cool.)

http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-search.php?search_term=ttf&Submit=Search&license_filter=0&results_per_page=20&lastupd_filter=0&sort_field=2

btw in Vista and Windows 7, usually all you need to do to install the True Type Font is unzip, right click on the font file, and select Install.

[admin]

Free EMI songs, all legal, links and details here:

http://www.digital-digest.com/deals/2010/06/19/free-emi-mp3s/

This one is a funny one. The list was compiled to defend someone from an EMI copyright lawsuit, to counter the claim that EMI never release music online for free (and so here's a list of free EMIs songs, all legal to download).

[MilesAhead]

VLC 1.1.0 actually works with PGS subs... Yay!!!

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VLC_media_player

Installed it on my Vista64 PC. I played an .m2ts stream with PGS subs and it displayed them. I could move the slider without the player crashing!! Yay!!

[MilesAhead]

PromptHere v. 2.0

PromptHere 2.0 now uses a modified version of 7prompt with permission of its author, to display prompts using "blur behind" Glass effect on Vista and Windows Seven systems that have Glass enabled.

See the screen shot below.

You can download from my site now:

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

or wait a couple of days for it to be updated on Softpedia.

edit: I updated to 2.1. Now the Glass feature is embedded in PromptHere instead of calling an external exe to initiate it.

edit2: now on version 2.4. Clicking on the desktop when it has the focus opens a prompt. The folder for this can be set in the .ini file. Also I enable the blur before the prompt window is visible. This gets rid of the effect of it opening to a black window, then changing color. It comes up smoothly now. Systems without glass or with UseGlass set to 0 in the .ini file should still have the last opened prompt receiving the keyboard focus. I think this is stable now. It has all the features I want. Unless I find a bug 2.4 should be it for awhile. Softpedia should update soon. The latest can be had on my site immediately.

edit3: I think I forgot to mention. The ahk source code and the program icon is included. If you want, you can customize it the way you like on your own system using AutoHotKey scripting language.

[MilesAhead]

Ultra-Search

I ran into this article on Addictive Tips about an NTFS search that uses MFT rather than indexing. Seems similar to Everything Search but I notice with Everything sometimes you don't get expected results and have to manually allocate more memory. I've just tried Ultra Search now on Windows Seven 32 bit. So far so good. It doesn't seem to have a hotkey launch like Everything Search, but you don't need to run it in the background. I found it will pick up a search string from the command line... which makes it perfect to use with my Selector launcher.

Here's the Ultra-Search article link:

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/ultrasearch-is-a-portable-utility-offers-real-time-searching/

If you want to use it with Selector, you can download Selector from this page:

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

Ultra Search comes also in a portable zip file, which is the one I'm using. To add Ultra Search to Selector, hit the Selector hotkey and drag & drop the Ultra Search exe or a shortcut to it, onto the ListBox in the Selector window.

To use with Selector, as example right in this edit box in the browser I can select the text "Selector," hit the selector hotkey, then double-click on UltraSearch. UltraSearch will come up with the term "Selector" in the search box. If you have Selector on your system you should get hits. Very cool!! Also it's design is very simple. It has a checkbox list of drives. Check the ones you want searched. It only works with NTFS since it uses the MFT file structures in NTFS file system.

I'll have to use it awhile to see if there are memory limitations like Everything Search. But so far I like the fact it doesn't have to be running in the background to work.

[MilesAhead]

FreeBASIC

If you ever wanted to learn to program in BASIC this free compiler might be a fun way to go. It produces stand-alone 32 bit exe files for Windows. But it also has versions for other platforms such as Linux.

You can download the compiler, ide/editors for it, and libraries here:

http://www.freebasic.net/

There are forums where you can ask for programming help here:

http://www.freebasic.net/forum/login.php

It's kind of fun to produce a 32 bit stand-alone Windows exe command line program in less than 10 KB!! From what I understand it translates the Basic code to assembler and assembles it in the machine code for the current platform. No byte code or compiled script wrapper. The output is true compiled exe code.

edit: btw they just updated the compiler and documentation. I just unzipped the new files from the zip onto the FreeBasic folder and let it merge. Works fine afaict.

There's also a Windows installer. FBEdit is an IDE that has a resource editor. There are several other editors available. FBIde has an editor with an automatic style and indenter tool which is nice. I type the code in with no capitalization or indentation then just push the buttons to clean it up. Also the compiler comes with libraries for the WinAPI calls so you don't have to do everything by hand. Very nicely done.

[MilesAhead]

GlassPrompt 1.1

GlassPrompt 1.1

GlassPrompt just opens a cmd.exe prompt and enables the "blur behind" effect if you are running Vista or Windows Seven with Glass enabled.

It uses the same mechanism as my PromptHere program but it's compiled in FreeBasic resulting in a 32 bit stand-alone exe less than 25 KB in size. Also it does not run in the background. It launches a command prompt, then quits.
No install. Does not do any Registry or .ini file settings.

You can download from my page:

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

It's free for you to use at your own risk.

Fixed in v. 1.1 : The "blur effect" is already active when the prompt becomes visible. No starting out with a black window, then changing to blur.

Note that if you are running XP there's no point to using this utility since it needs Vista OS or later with Glass enabled to do anything.

[MilesAhead]

Here's a freebie I'm trying out on Windows Seven:

http://www.moo0.com/?top=http://www.moo0.com/software/WindowMenuPlus/

It adds stuff to the System Menu that's usually in the upper left corner of a window, but is also accessible from Taskbar Icon(say if the program uses a ribbon and doesn't have the usual system menu.)

I suggested they add some things to the Move To menu item such as top-left that's available in the Maximize To menu item. They seem to update frequently so I hope they implement it. The nice thing about it is you can disable the items you don't want and they won't appear in the system menu. Most of these type utilities that mess with windows or explorer menus seem to destabalize my system. So far this one seems ok(been using it for about a day.)

There are some other freebies on the site that may be useful too such as context menu enhancer type utilities.

[MilesAhead]

TicTac 1.1

TicTac 1.4

I wrote my own hotkey to position the active window in a "Tic Tac Toe" grid visually the same as the number pad keys 1 - 9. For instance if you hit Winkey Numpad 1, the active window should move to the lower left of the desktop.

7 | 8 | 9
4 | 5 | 6
1 | 2 | 3

The default hotkey is Windows Key and Numpad 1 - 9 but you can change from Winkey to Alt or Control-Alt or Winkey-Alt, or any combination of those using the .ini file. (Don't try to use Shift because that will toggle the state of the number pad and stuff won't work.)


It doesn't resize or alter the window. Just moves it in the desktop work area. It gets desktop work area from the OS on each hotkey press, so changing the screen res. shouldn't throw it off. It shouldn't overlap the Taskbar (unless the window is too large to fit in the work area.)

Only single monitor support. Don't have multiple setup to test.

http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html

edit: I just added a Mouse-Only version called TicClick you can get from the same page. Shift Left Mouse Click and a grid pops up for moving the active window.

edit2: if you are using TicClick earlier than version 1.1.0.0 please delete the TicClick.ini file and download the new version. I must have been one cup short of a coffee because I didn't realize Shift-Left Click would interfere with multiple file selection using the mouse. I changed the default to WinKey-Left Click. You can edit the .ini file to set it to something you prefer. See the Readme if you get stuck.

edit3: I've updated TicClick to 1.2.5.0. I added some commands and reduced the memory footprint. You can use Edit IniFile command to open the .ini file via file type association, rather than having to dig it out of the folder manually. The program quits after opening the file to avoid overwriting changes.

[MilesAhead]

Yes, I ran it on Vista64 and on Windows7 32 bit. I tried to use automatic mode later but I think because it was already defragged it came on and analyzed and decided it didn't have to do anything. The automatic uses a separate program with no UI anyway. I'd rather just run in manually. But this version has all the optimizations of manual mode in the auto setup. Those who want to use scheduling or idle automatic can try it for themselves.

I like the UI quite a bit. You can really get an idea what it's doing. Plus it has the defrag on boot settings if you need to defrag your page file or whatnot.

I set my page file min and max the same. It's pretty rare I need to do a boot time defrag. Maybe once a year.

If I can make a suggestion.. if you refer to a post earlier in the thread it's a good idea to quote some or all of it using the Quote Button, or at least mention exactly what you are writing about. I can gather from your post you are talking about a defragger with an automatic mode, but I really don't want to look through a lot of posts to guess what the reference is.

[dr_ml422]

Anyone ever use this burning app.:

http://www.digital-digest.com/software/CDBurnerXP_Pro.html

ImgBurn takes care of mostly all my burning needs along w/2 to 3 more copying/burning apps.. This looks cool. I never messed w/it as if I'm not mistaken it wasn't too long ago that it was upgraded to Windows 7 etc... Looks like the software guys are waking up to the fact that not only is 7 here,"Hello"!, but that 64 bit is on its way as well. Can't wait for all sites and Flash/HTML5 etc... to support IE x64.

[MilesAhead]

Yeah, CDBurnerXP I've used for awhile. Usually for standard audio CDs. Plus you can print a CD cover with it. Never had a problem. XP SP2, Vista64 and Windows Seven 32 bit works fine.

One nice feature, if you are burning an audio CD you can just drag & drop a bunch of .flac files and it will convert and burn.

[dr_ml422]

Thnx Miles. Now that you assured it's a fine app., I'll give it a try. I don't like to have too many apps. on my PCs that more or less do the same thing. If this has different stuff than what I already use, and is good to have than I'll keep it.

[exodo999]

anyone can help, I need to know which program did this simulation of a rocket launch: youtube .com/watch? v=fEJGI3NjJso, it is urgent please someone answer