Merc's Useful Tools of the day

[Mercutio]

I know of no useful function for SMS texting, but Google will send one for you for free. I guess that's kind of cool.

And also, Handbrake, a pretty neat-looking DVD Shrinking and Recoding App (supports H.264) has been ported from its Mac-y original to Windows. It doesn't support deCSSing, so use it with AnyDVD or DVD Decrypter or something.

 

[Mercutio]

Windows Update through non-sucky browsers. Still works for discontinued OSes.

 

[Mercutio]

Best Windows tip I've seen in a while.

 

[Cawood Ledford]

That is indeed a helpful tool. Thank you Mr. Mercutio.

 

[Mercutio]

Miles better than Acrobat

 

[sechs]

Miles better than Acrobat

That's a negative.

Foxit *does not* work correctly.

 

[Mercutio]

Web Stuff Quick References

 

[Mercutio]

The Gregory Santilli Memorial Firefox Extension

 

[Mercutio]

Pornzilla

Pornzilla (link is safe for work, unless mere mention of the word "porn" is unsafe. In which case I am sorry to have gotten you fired).

This is a collection of doodads that can help the unfortunates who are inexperienced at the joys of surfing for naughty things on the Internet using a proper browser.

Actually, a lot of the stuff is generally useful for anyone who downloads pictures.

 

[Mercutio]

Have a copy of the VMWarePlayer, but not a way to make a virtual machine?

EasyVMX.com would like to help you by generating a guest image for you. All you have to do is install your OS.

 

[Mercutio]

Here's a whole bunch of neat stuff all in one place.

 

[LiamC]

Windows Update through non-sucky browsers. Still works for discontinued OSes.

Looks like Windiz isn't an option anymore. Pity, I thought it was a good site. And with the shutdown of AutoPatcher (another shame)...

The End of an Era
There's so much work to do on the site -

• support for more operating systems,
• total redesign of the online scanning application,
• localization,
• ongoing maintenance to the database, etc

But we've been short-staffed for the last 6 months, and the workload has finally taken its toll.
It's not "Good Bye" - we haven't been shut down by MS; and we have no plans to sell the domain name, or turn it into one of those cybersquatter search pages.
But we have to move on. The site will still be operational, but no new updates will be added. We will still answer email.
You are needed. If you have the skills, we have several interesting and complex projects waiting for you to be involved with. The PHP and Delphi positions we have advertised are still waiting to be filled!
We wish to thank you all for your support over the last two years, and we plan to be back again, as soon as our workload is reduced to something manageable.


Regards,
Thomas, Phil, Jesse and Mahamoud
WindizUpdate Development Team

 

[timwhit]

Looks like Windiz isn't an option anymore. Pity, I thought it was a good site. And with the shutdown of AutoPatcher (another shame)...

Damn. Is there anything else to use now?

 

[Mercutio]

Well, if you have Windows Server you can implement SUS and at least decide what updates you want.

 

[Mercutio]

Xrecode is a Windows program for sound file conversion and for processing .CUE + Bigfiles into individual tracks. It supports MP3, Ogg, AAC, Flac and APE, which seems to cover about everything I regularly run in to.

It's free and seems free of spyware.

 

[Santilli]

The Gregory Santilli Memorial Firefox Extension

Didn't realize I was so memorialized....

Or, that I was doing that...

 

[Mercutio]

Silence of the Foxes: Creates a custom Firefox installation including Add-Ins and themes.

 

[Mercutio]

Live Mesh seems really interesting. Especially from the standpoint of enabling remote desktop on "home" Windows systems.

 

[Mercutio]

.NET Cleanup tool.


Maybe it's just me, or maybe Microsoft totally sucks, but .NET 3.5 installs seem to fail about two out of three times I do them. I've found this program to be helpful in dealing with that.

People who bitch about Linux being dependency hell have clearly never had to put up with the crapfest that is fixing borked .MSIs.

 

[ddrueding]

I haven't had any installs of .NET go wrong yet?

 

[timwhit]

I have. I used the cleanup tool. It still errored out. Then I tried it again and it worked. I love how I have to install 3 different version of .Net.

 

[Mercutio]

Supposedly you only need the newest one.

 

[sechs]

Supposedly you only need the newest one.

Which installs two versions.

But it does them both together, with one installer.

 

[timwhit]

I believe .Net 3.5 contains .Net 2.0, but if you have applications that require 1.1 that requires a separate install.

 

[Handruin]

I believe .Net 3.5 contains .Net 2.0, but if you have applications that require 1.1 that requires a separate install.

Dot net 3.0 and 3.5 use that of 2.0. They all use the common components of dot net 2.0 as a kind of extension. When you install them, think of them as add-ons or expansions to the base 2.0 CLR.

 

[sechs]

So, in classic Microsoft style, they've incremented the version number for no valid reason.

 

[Handruin]

There are plenty of valid reasons for the version number to increment for dot net framework.

 

[Mercutio]

Forticlient

 

[sechs]

There are plenty of valid reasons for the version number to increment for dot net framework.

Such as marketing?

 

[Handruin]

Such as marketing?

I don't consider that a valid reason. That does not apply to dot net's versioning.

 

[Mercutio]

Ninite is pretty sweet. You pick a bunch of apps, it hand you a downloadable or linkable .MSI file.

 

[ddrueding]

Ninite is pretty sweet. You pick a bunch of apps, it hand you a downloadable or linkable .MSI file.

That looks very awesome. I'll need to try that out later today.

 

[Will Rickards]

That would have saved me time when I was rebuilding my parent's computer.

 

[CougTek]

One of the things I install that's not present is the Klite Mega Codec Pack. Otherwise, it contains pretty much everything.

 

[CougTek]

Superantispyware and Avira Antivir Free would be great additions too, thinking about it...

 

[Fushigi]

As would CCleaner & MalwareBytes.

 

[Mercutio]

Anyone have a crummy SSD? Flashfire is supposed to help improve SSD performance on Windows XP for some of the cases where crummy SSDs typically falter. You can read more about it in the link.

 

[Mercutio]

This program does something incredibly useful for SSD-owning people: It lets you move the Windows Users folder.

 

[Mercutio]

And also, Handbrake, a pretty neat-looking DVD Shrinking and Recoding App (supports H.264) has been ported from its Mac-y original to Windows. It doesn't support deCSSing, so use it with AnyDVD or DVD Decrypter or something.

The newest version of Handbrake apparently supports BluRay ripping though AnyDVD is still necessary.

 

[Clocker]

This program does something incredibly useful for SSD-owning people: It lets you move the Windows Users folder.

Pretty neat. It's easy enough to have Windows point to an alterate location for My Docs, My Pictures etc. w/o it but this appears to move Everything.... Since I'm already having My Docs, My Pics, My Vids on a separate drive, if I run this thing will the data already on my other drive get messed up? Or....should I just plan on using it the next time i happen to reinstall Windows?