BeatificaBytes

The Joys of Computing

Month: October 2012

  • Image Browser: FastStone

    Faststone Image Viewer
    Faststone Image Viewer

    FastStone is from far my favorite Image Browser (since ACDSee started to become a monster pointlessly full over overkill features). It’s also a Freeware for non-commercial use.

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    As an Image Browser, FastStone is really light and fast while supporting many graphic formats, including obvious ones (gif, jpeg, png, pcx, tiff) but also ico, camera raw files, …

    It comes with some other small pieces of software that I use each time I transfer photos from my camera to my NAS.

    • An ultra light and quick Image Viewer. I like this one as it opens in seconds (full screen or windowed, as configured) when double clicking an image in Windows Explorer. Next, moving the mouse to screen edges, menu appears with the most common actions such as cropping, resizing, opening the image with an external tools (ex.: Paint.Net :)), …
    • a batch Image Renamer supporting “expressions”, search & replace, renaming preview, …
    • a batch Image Converter supporting resizing, Lossless JPEG rotations, color adjustments, auto-rotate based on EXIF information…

    FastStone also offers Side-by-side Image Comparison, Red-Eye removal, musical slideshow with transitions, …

    Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastStone_Image_Viewer

    Download: http://www.faststone.org

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  • About This List of Softwares

    The purpose of this page is to keep track of all the programs I like, most of them being freewares.

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    Indeed, when re/installing a PC, I usually hardly remember the exact name of some tools I only use twice a year or “silent” services installed once years ago; ex.: Image Duplicate FInder, Software KVM, …

    My criteria to adopt a software is quite simple: it must help me (or my computer) to be more efficient and productive. And I observed that such a software match the following acronyms:

    • KISS: It must be very easy to use/understand (also for non IT users).
      • I am not afraid of command lines but prefer obviously user-friendly interfaces.
    • YAGNI: It may not have plenty of features not directly related to its main purpose.
    • DRY: It should not have overlaps with another software I like.

    Notice: I am using those programs on x64/x86 [Windows 7: not anymore] Windows 8 and [Server 2008 R2: not anymore] Server 2012 Essentials.

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  • Photo Editor: Paint.net

    Paint.Net
    Paint.Net

    Just as notepad++ is a must-have to replace notepad, Paint.net is not only THE mandatory replacement for Paint, it’s also IMHO the little “free” brother of all those well known professional editors. It’s a indeed a freeware (Creative Commons License).

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    I dislike to use “pro” editors as they are usually too complex for my needs, i.e.: full of over-killing features for a end-user like me. On the opposite, Paint.net offers a clear, pro but still simple interface with all the required powerful tools such the Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color (ex.: grab clouds in order to remove them), and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image (ex.: rebuild a collapsed wall).

    I really use Paint.net a lot to completely remove elements from photos or rebuild their background as well as to simply make pictures’ background  transparent…

    I like also how simple I can replace a color with another one in a picture using the Recolor Tool.

    Tip: I was recently trying several free tools to determine the code of colors seen in web pages. Actually, the most stupid simple solution to get a color code is to take a screenshot (Using the “Prt Scr” key), to paste this screenshot in Paint.Net and grab Hex Codes using the Color Picker tool.

    Also, to automatically edit all images with Paint.Net instead of MS Paint, I did set “C:\Program Files\Paint.NET\PaintDotNet.exe” “%1” as Default value for the registry entry: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > SystemFileAssociations > image > shell > edit > command. Find attached to this post the reg file that can be used to update the registry.

    Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET

    Download: http://www.getpaint.net

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  • Software KVM: Input Director

    Input Director
    Input Director

    My favorite tools to share one Mouse and one Keyboard with Multiple PC through the network is nowadays Input Director. It’s free for personal non-commercial use only.

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    Input Director allows the mouse of a host computer (“master”) to move onto the screen of slave computers, all connected together via a network. The keyboard of the “master” becomes active on the computer where the mouse cursor is currently located. The effect is similar to a computer connected to a plurality of screens.

    The configuration of the spatial position of each computer is done via a configuration software, which must be installed on each machine as a Windows Services (No need for a user to be logged in). Depending on that configuration, the mouse will go a computer or another when crossing the left/right/upper/lower edge of its screen.

    Download : http://www.inputdirector.com

    Years ago, I did use a now deprecated version of Synergy. I moved to Input Director due to lack of support in that version regarding UAC and Windows Services under Windows 7. The new latest version of Synergy has however now supports regarding those features. Synergy is a freeware (GPL) open source.

    Download: http://synergy-foss.org/

    In the future, I could be tempted to use Mouse Without Borders witch looks great and is free for non commercial use… It offers support to Copy/Paste between PC. But mouse may only move to the next PC through the left and right borders, not the top and bottom ones (how I am used to configure my current Software KVM).

    Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35460

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  • File Compare: Beyond Compare

    Beyond Compare
    Beyond Compare

    Beyond Compare is really my favorite file, folder and data comparison utility.

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    • Compare files, folders/subfolders, data (grids) FTP sites or zip files side-by-side in a Explorer-like interface
    • Hide files or folders that don’t contribute to comparison and show only relevant results using display filters:
      • Show all, Just mismatches, Just matches,
      • Two-sided, Two-sided mismatches,
      • Orphans, Older, Newer
      • Ignore files or folders based on patterns
    • Powerful merge of changes between files with support for 3-way comparison
      • Manually alignment of the files to compare the correct records
      • In line Editing
      • Move to next difference or Move to next file comparisons
    • Folders Synchronization
    • Color highlighting of differences
    • Sort by Name, Type, Date Modified, Size, CRC
    • Multi-threaded operations:
      • Folders scanned in background
      • Files compared in background
      • Folders synchronized in background
    • Comparison based on various criteria:
      • Date modified
      • File size
      • Attributes
      • Binary content comparison
      • Rules-based content comparison (possibly ignoring minor differences like Case, Whitespace, Comments)
    • Support for Batch operations

    Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Compare

    Comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_comparison_tools

    Download: http://www.scootersoftware.com/

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  • Text Editor: Notepad++

    Notepad ++
    Notepad ++

    Notepad++ is my favorite text editor and source code editor for Windows as it has a lot of advantages over the built-in Windows text editor ‘Notepad’ and is a freeware (GPL) open source.

    Click to Read More

    General features include:

    • Tabbed document interface
    • Drag-and-drop
    • Split screen editing and synchronized scrolling
    • Spell checker (requires Aspell)
    • Supports various text encoding formats (UT8, Unicode, …) and file formats (Dos, Unix, …)
    • Search and Replace: with regular expressions (including multi-line); over multiple documents in subfolders; and marking/summary of occurrences
    • File comparison
    • Zooming

    Source code editing features include:

    • Auto-completion
    • Bookmarks
    • Syntax highlighting and syntax folding (C#, CSS, js, html, php, shell/dos scripts, xml, …)
    • Brace and indent highlighting
    • Smart highlighting
    • Macro recording and execution.
    • Various tools such as line sorting, text encoding conversion, text folding
    • File status auto-detection

    Details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad%2B%2B

    Download: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

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