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Automate tasks in Windows with the DaVinci Script

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:31:43 +0000

The daVinci Script is a freeware Windows Automation Tool that allows you to automate your PC activities, no matter of their complexity or area of impact.
While most automation tools only run on PC’s, the daVinci Script also supports mobile units and servers.
With the possibility of sending a portion of the script to a remote unit to be executed there, the power of the daVinci Script is almost unlimited.

What can the DaVinci Script do for you?

For example, you can instantly publish an image on your website.

With the push of a button on your mobile phone, you are able to send the last taken picture to a Windows server, where a thumbnail image is created and the picture is added to the web page.
Both image processing and web page building are done on the server side, but all the instructions are kept locally in your mobile unit, where you can change them at any time.

The daVinci Script supports the following functional areas:

User Interface & Debugging Tools
Text Processing
File and Folder Manipulation & MS Office interface
Internet Communication & E-mail
Image Processing
Time and Timer Related Functions
Registry Manipulation
Mobile Access and Control (from PC through ActiveSync)
System Information & Window Control
Remote Control

DaVinci Script screenshot

Pros & Cons
This Windows automation tool is a freeware (free of charge)!
The script is very powerful and you are able to automate about every process you could think of.
You will have to learn the script’s syntax in order to automate the desired process. The good news is that the script language is easier than Visual Basic. If you’re a beginner, you may find these great examples useful.

The download is about 3.2 MB. Available for Windows XP/Vista, Mobile 2002/2003/5/6 and Server 2000/2003/2008.

Download link for the DaVinci ScriptDownload the DaVinci Script

Publisher’s website: http://www.davinci.platsen.org

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Unlocker – unlock files used by other programs

admin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:26:34 +0000

A common Windows error is “Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again”; this dialog box can be very irritating, since you know you are not doing anything wrong. The error appears because that file is currently “locked”, meaning a program/process is using the file.

Error

There are many programs that will help you with this problem, but the best in my opinion is Unlocker.

The application is integrated in Windows Explorer, so all you have to do is right-click the file you wish to delete and click “Unlocker”. This freeware is small, fast and efficient; it has an extremely easy-to-use interface. If the file is used by another program you will see the processes that lock the respective file, including their PIDs (Process Identifier) Simply “unlock” it and you’re done!

Unlocker screenshot

The moment you unlock an object, you should look carefully at the name of the process that controls it, or else you risk stopping important Windows processes, this leading to system malfunction.

Unlocker is a free of charge application designed for all Windows platforms. The installer is less than 1MB.

Download Unlocker

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Certero PCAuditor 1.0.0.2 – inventory your computer’s components

admin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:35:52 +0000

Certero PCAuditor is a free of charge solution for auditing and inventorying the hardware and software components that make up your PC.

The inventory that is built by the application can be viewed with the help of your browser (it seems that Internet Explorer works best; Firefox and Safari display only plain text). For every component you can see many details such as manufacturer, version, installation date and so on.

Certero PCAuditors report also contains information about Windows Services and updates that you’ve installed. If you accidentally lose your license key for a program, you can recover it very easily by clicking Licenses in the web page that will be displayed after running Certero PCAuditor. The download size for this freeware is less than 1MB.

Certero PCAuditor screenshot

Download Certero PCAuditor

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Upload files via FTP with FileZilla

admin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:50:24 +0000

FileZilla is a free application available both as a client and server. It occupies very little space, but despite that, this FTP client offers many features.

The interface is easy-to-use, with everything being where it should be. You have a site manager at your disposal, where you can save your web servers and login details. If you want to upload or download a file, you can just drag&drop it where you wish; remote editing is supported.

FileZilla is able to upload large files; you can close the program, so you can resume the transfers later. Everything is configurable, including speeds.

Version 3.1.0.1 fixes many bugs, even a vulnerability that could allow an attacker to trick FileZilla in thinking that some SLL/TLS transfers were successful.

What’s new in FileZilla version 3.1.5.1:

Clearing private data no longer crashes if quickconnect bar is hidden
Update remote directory tree if deleting a subdirectory
Fix parsing of HTTP chunk lengths for the update downloader
Reduce memory consumption of remote directory tree
Rewrite the code that added local directories to the queue. New one is faster and avoids some potentially thread-unsafe behaviour of the old code

What’s new in FileZilla version 3.1.6:

Automatically refresh remote directory listing if queue finishes successfully
Speed up refresh of remote directory listing if adding files during uploads
Connections no longer time out waiting on a directory listing getting retrieved by a different connection
Number of files were not updated if deleting remote files

Just so you know, the WordPress script and other files were uploaded to Free Software Workshop’s host via FileZilla FTP client.

Download FileZilla FTP Client

Launch programs instantly with Launchy

admin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:44:49 +0000

Launchy is a free and open source keystroke launcher for Windows and Linux that will allow you to launch a program just by typing the first letters of its name.

After using Windows or Linux for a few months, it’s impossible that you haven’t installed different programs for fulfilling your needs like office suites, audio/video editing tools, instant messaging software, games and so on. Your desktop or Start menu may be cluttered with shortcuts to your applications. This is where Launchy steps in.

The program runs in the background and when you need to use it, simply press Alt+Spacebar. Simply type the first letters and Launchy will “guess” the programs you’re trying to open. Instead of browsing to your application’s executable, this process is very quick (alsmost instant) and will save you a lot of time.

Launchy screenshot

How does Launchy know how to complete the program name? Easy: from the Windows Start menu. What if you have applications that didn’t require installation? No problem. You can add new directories where you have those executables (.exe) and Launchy will also index them.

The application’s shortcut keys can be modified, if you’re not happy with Alt+Spacebar. You can choose from a variety of skins and plugins or add your own via the Plugins tab in Launchy options.

What I like about this freeware is that you can use Google’s calculator, search on Wikipedia or YouTube right from it’s interface. For example, type gcalc, then press Tab and input your expression. You can also find out the speed of light like I did below:

Launchy GCalc screenshot

Pros & Cons
very fast, easy to use
open source (thus 100% safe)
not available for Vista

The download is about 4MB. Available for Windows 2000/XP and Linux operating systems.

Download linkDownload Launchy

Publisher’s website

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