It has been nearly two years since I took the last look at the Winamp iPod plugin which has gone a long way since then. Now every iPod generation and edition is supported by the plugin which gives Winamp users the option to manage their iPod from the Winamp Media Library.

Like iTunes the Winamp iPod plugin can sync songs, ratings and other information between a connected iPod and the Winamp Media Library. The default process makes only sense if the Media Library on the PC would fit on the iPod, if that is not the case the user needs to pick songs that get synced so that their total size is below the capacity of the iPod.

Songs, Videos and Photos can be copied to the iPod using the plugin. There are also some features to manipulate songs before they are moved to the iPod including replay gain, gapless playback, lyrics and album art.

continue reading "Winamp iPod Plugin"

I have been connecting to IRC on a daily basis about ten years ago but stopped doing so. IRC is the Internet Relay Chat, a huge network of servers, channels and users who can chat and trade files there. The client of choice back then was MIRC and everyone was using it with plugins and stuff to enhance the client.

Hydra IRC is another client that I heard about only recently and it works pretty well. It does come with all the features that one would expect from an IRC client like DCC file transfers, multiple server connections, multiple user identities, channel monitoring and a wealth of other features.

Some would say that the initial layout of the IRC client is a bit messy with lots of information panels everywhere. At start you have the following windows: Server List, Channel List, Channel monitoring with three additional tabs, event log with three additional tabs and the main channel window. Another window is added to the mix when the user connects to a server. This one displays the connected users that are currently in the channel.

continue reading "Hydra IRC Client"

I did not post a Software Updates article on the last two Wednesdays which was partly caused by my away-period from the computer due to holidays but also because I wanted to find out if you would still be interested in those posts. It usually means a lot of work to gather all the information about the updates and it would not be a good idea to continue this series if it would not be interesting to some of you.

I received some emails and replies asking me why I stopped posting those articles which convinced me to continue writing those articles. I decided to write slightly larger descriptions on each software that has been updated, let me know if you like it that way better.

The application of the week is without doubt JavaRa 1.09 which scans the computer for the installed Java Runtime Environment. If an older version has been found it offers download links of the latest package and the removal of the older versions.

continue reading "Software Updates Week 27"

Gianluigi send me an interesting email just a few minutes ago that described a small script that he wrote that would allow users to create outlook tasks from the command line and Launchy. The real benefit of this approach is speed and it can be especially handy for those users who do use Launchy because it’s just another tad easier than using the command line.

The script can be downloaded from Gianluigi’s website, just take note that it requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2 or higher to function properly. Runs perfectly on Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 according to the author. The website is in Italian but Google Translate does a good job at translating the website into English.

The option to create Outlook Tasks from the command line is given after script installation. Just fire up the Windows run box (Windows R) and enter any new tasks beginning with “do”. The command “do buy some beer” would add the buy some beer task to Microsoft Outlook which does not even have to be running to add the tasks.

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I once had the pleasure to scan hundreds of papers manually which was a tedious job that took hours to complete. Back then I thought that a automatic solution would have been wonderful, one where I only had to to add the papers that should be scanned into the scanner and press a button in the operating system.

It’s a bit late but the software QQScan2Disc does that. Well, it actually does even more than that because it can convert the scanned papers into pdf format and burn them to DVD.

The requirements are an ADF (Automatic Document Feeder) Scanner and a computer with Windows XP or Windows Vista. A list of supported scanners is available on the website of the program, they are: Plustek PS281, PS282/286, PL806/812, PL1200, PL1500, PL3000, PL7000/7500, PL2546, OB4600, D428, D600, A320/360 with an option to request the addition of other devices.

continue reading "Automatically Scan, Convert and Burn Multi-Page Papers"