It can be sometimes quite handy to automatically move certain types of files from the Internet Cache to another location on your hard drive. I’m especially thinking of multimedia files like movies, music, pictures or flash games. Skrommel created a wonderful application named Cache Sort which observes the Internet Cache and moves files into folders named after their file extension.

The real value of this application is that it is highly customizable. You can basically point it to any folder on your hard drive which you want observed. This can be the Internet Cache of Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera but also other folders, say those of P2P applications.

The heart of Cache Sort is the configuration file which can be accessed by right-clicking the Cache Sort icon in the Windows system tray. You can change the folder that is observed in here, the file extensions, if they should be moved or copied, the scan interval, the minimum file size of the files, files that should be ignored and where to put the files.

continue reading "Move files automatically from the Internet Cache"

A colleague of mine build a static html website a few years ago. He slowly but steadily created hundreds of html pages which was great for him because he could simply use one already finished file as a template for a new one. It did however pose a problem as well. Updating information across all files was very time consuming. Think of extending the copyright notice each year, adding advertisement to the websites or changing the navigation.

What he obviously needs is a program that can find and replace text across multiple documents. Ideally it would be a software that would be easy to use and would require just a few clicks to achieve the desired results. One of the applications that can deliver a speedy way of replacing text across multiple documents is Text Crawler.

Ideally you only need to fill out the old and new text, the location of the documents and the type of documents that you want to change. Text Crawler scans all documents of that type for the phrase that you have entered and displays all occurrences in a list that contains the file name and location as well as the line in the document with the match.

continue reading "Find and Replace text across multiple documents"

Sony is a company that is never shy when it comes to finding questionable ways to making just another buck or to annoy a large part of the Internet community by doing something stupid like the Sony Rootkit disaster last year. Their ingenious minds have come up with yet another way to make the extra buck, it’s really amazing in my opinion.

If you purchase a new notebook - and it does not really matter from which manufacturer you make the purchase - you notice lots of software, many call it crapware, that is preinstalled on that notebook. You get demo or trial versions of software, lots of unnecessary applications from the manufacturer and much more that slow down the computer. Many companies love to add a Norton or Symantec trial to the computer for instance.

Sony obviously thought that some customers would like the crapware removed but instead of offering this as a configuration option that is free of charge they charge $50 for it. Yes that is right. Those who add the crapware ask the customer to pay $50 for its removal. That’s a nice business model don’t you think ?

continue reading "Sony: Want us to remove our crapware for you ? Pay us !"

According to Microsoft there are eight known causes if Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not offered in Windows Updates nor offered by Automatic Updates. While some of he causes do not provide much value like cause 1 which states that the operating system is already updated to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 some can be an excellent problem solver. Each cause comes with a method that resolves the issue.

The most common causes in my opinion are trying to upgrade to Service Pack 1 from a Vista version in an unsupported language, that a beta version of Service Pack 1 is still installed on the system and that vlite was used to create a custom Windows Vista installation DVD.

Even more interesting than those eight causes are the Help and Support options that are available without costs. Microsoft is offering support by email, live chat and even phone (with some limitations). It will be pretty interesting to see if Microsoft can keep the 1 day email response time. Live Chat is only available during certain hours of the day, surprisingly though it is available on Saturdays and even Sundays. Support is available free of charge until March 18, 2009.

continue reading "Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Update Errors"

I was really skeptical when I heard about Miro back then when it was still named the Democracy Player. That did change when I finally managed to test Miro and it really blew me away. If you never heard of Miro before let me explain the main concept. Miro is not just another media player, it’s actually much more than that. It helps you organize the videos on your computer with options to watch folders for new videos that are automatically added to Miro. It’s possible to create video playlists and create channels and groups to sort your videos. Thumbnails will be created for videos that have none.

That was just one feature of Miro. The main one in my opinion is the ability to download videos from various sources including Bittorrent, video portals like Youtube, URLs and Video RSS feeds with subscription possibilities. So called Search Channels can be created. Say you like football and regularly check Youtube for new football videos. You could create a search channel which gets automatically updated when new videos get published.

A new version was released today which is a major step for the Miro team. Miro should run a lot smoother in this version especially because of the update to XULRunner 1.9 which should bring performance and memory improvements to the Windows and Linux clients. Check out the release notes if you are interested in a detailed list of changes.

continue reading "Miro 1.2 released"