Handcoding (X)HTML vs. WYSIWYG editors

The shareware ZTreeWin file manager seems to have an enthusiastic following; I've received a number of requests to consider listing it here. Here is a description from ZTree Environment Nirvana:

file and disk manager with split screen capability; flexible and sophisticated program launcher; keystroke recorder and player; a 32-bit Windows console (fast!) application with dynamically resizable windows; Registry- and GUI-free (but co-existing peacefully); compact (fits on a floppy); fast, with excellent contextual online help. ZTree operates with independently developed assistant applications; boasts probably the most intuitive, efficient and user-friendly interface invented; maintains a separate history list for every single command, preserving all user input; is constantly evolving; has a large following of professionals and power users (who are somewhat spoiled by almost instant, direct user-to-developer contact); and more...

Fluid Dynamics Search Engine is an easy-to-install search engine for local and remote sites. Features include: keyword highlighting, template-based design, result ranking, more. (via Kenny - test it at his site)

Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals offers a detailed walkthrough describing how to troubleshoot intermittent Explorer hangs using three of his indispensable apps: FileMon, RegMon, and Process Explorer.

In response to yesterday's post, Jeff Harrison kindly wrote in to share a more up-to-date collection of GNU utilities for Win32, called appropritately GnuWin32. There are over 150 apps, all available as either plain ZIP or setup files. Tool collections include: CoreUtils, FindUtils, and DiffUtils.

GNU utilities for Win32 is an awesome collection of over 100 *nix apps ported to native Win32 by K. M. Syring. The apps include:

ansi2knr, basename, bc, bison, bunzip2, bzip2, bzip2recover, cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, cksum, cmp, comm, compress, cp, csplit, cut, date, dc, dd, df, diff, diff3, dircolors, dirname, du, echo, egrep, env, expand, expr, factor, fgrep, find, flex, fmt, fold, fsplit, gawk, gclip, gplay, grep, gsar, gunzip, gzip, head, id, indent, install, join, jwhois, less, ln, logname, ls, m4, make, makemsg, man, md5sum, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mv, mvdir, nl, od, paste, patch, pathchk, pclip, pr, printenv, printf, pwd, recode, rm, rman, rmdir, sdiff, sed, seq, shar, sleep, sort, split, su, sum, sync, tac, tail, tar, tee, test, touch, tr, type, uname, unexpand, uniq, unshar, uudecode, uuencode, wc, wget, which, whoami, xargs, yes, zcat.

Since the ZIP file from SourceForge appears to be corrupted, I have taken the liberty of digging up an archived version from the Wayback Machine and hosting it here, with the last updates included. It is compressed with 7-Zip (ZIP size was 2.52MB vs. 1.42MB for 7z). As always, standard disclaimer applies: You are 100% responsible for your own actions. Using this site, visiting a link, downloading a program, in short, living, is done entirely at your own risk (and joy).

UPDATE: See tomorrow's post for a more up-to-date GNU for Win32 collection.

"Abyss Web Server is a compact web server available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD operating systems. Despite its small footprint, it supports HTTP/1.1, dynamic content generation through CGI/1.1 scripts, ISAPI extensions, Server Side Includes (SSI), custom error pages, password protection, IP address control, anti-leeching, and bandwidth throttling. It features also an automatic antihacking system as well as a multilingual remote web management interface that makes its configuration as easy as browsing a web site." Shareware version also available - see the feature comparison for more information.

Danny Choo has reviewed 20 useful OS X apps for switchers.

Vurlix kindly informs us of Cog, an open source audio player for OS X with support for: Ogg Vorbis, Mp3, Flac, Musepack, Monkeys Audio, Shorten, Wavpack, AAC, and Wave/AIFF.

A Microsoft Angel & Several Saviors
Many, many thanks to William Johnson, Ken Livingston, Bernie Luger, and Paul Petterson (from Microsoft) for kindly responding to my plea for help regarding Microsoft Money. There were two main approaches outlined: 1. install Money 2006 on another PC and locate the Product Key by going to Help > About or 2. import the 2002 data file into the trial version of Money 2005 (which reportedly works smoothly) and then upgrade the 2005 data file to 2006. My deepest gratitude to Paul as well for kindly offering to do whatever he can to see this issue gets resolved.

Microsoft Tech Support Hell

• A client is having problems with Microsoft Money 2002. She is told upgrading to Money 2006 will solve the problem.
• She buys Money 2006 Deluxe from Amazon.com, installs it, and begins the data import wizard, which repeatedly crashes the app.
• She spends 1.5 hours on the phone with Microsoft trying to resolve the problem to no avail
• She installs Money 2003 (an OEM version which came with her computer) and imports the data successfully.
• She calls Microsoft Tech Support for help with 2003, and is told since it is an OEM version, no help is available without paying
• She patiently explains that she just bought Money 2006 Deluxe on their advice and would prefer to run that, but has no choice since it won't import her Money 2002 data successfully.
• The support agent asks for the product key or serial number for Microsoft Money 2006.
• There is no such number anywhere on the retail box, CD case, or CD itself, nor was one required during install.
• No number = no help she is told
• There is no such number she tries to explain again and again.
• I pick up the phone and try to explain the situation, end up going postal, and get hung up on by the Indian support agent.
• Call for help: If you work at Microsoft or know some way out of this tech support nightmare, please contact me: mail@tinyapps.org. Thanks!

UPDATE: Problem solved!

Recent items from the mailbin (thanks to all those who submit suggestions):

• uTorrent - An efficient and feature rich BitTorrent client for Windows sporting a very small footprint. It was designed to use as little cpu, memory and space as possible while offering all the functionality expected from advanced clients. (via Vurlix)
• SQLite - A small C library that implements a self-contained, embeddable, zero-configuration SQL database engine. (via Aidan Pierce)
• ZoomIn - Open source screen magnification program allowing you to view any area of your screen under magnification. ZoomIn allows you to control the amount of zoom, view a pixels location and color, and save it as a bitmap. (via Austin)
• PowerPro - Take control of how you use Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP. Run commands and configure your system any way you want. (via David Troesch)
• url2bmp - Convert URLs to web page screenshots (via Matt Vance)

Not Yours To Give by Davy Crockett:

"'My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?'

"'Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'

"'It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

"'What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

"'If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.

"'Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.

"'The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

As more and more people contiune to follow their joy, leave unpleasant 9 to 5 jobs, and start their own businesses, cool spaces like theOffice and Paragraph will likely grow, providing clean, quiet environments to get work done outside of the home. Kinkos and Starbucks are swell, but they pale in comparison to the atmosphere which these places seem to offer. Rather reminiscent of the wonderful Diogenes Club.

dd_rhelp is a very useful frontend for dd_rescue, which recovers data from hard drives with bad sectors. Unfortunately, it is not included with Knoppix or many other Live CDs, so you'll need to download and install it first. However, one Live CD that does include dd_rhelp is the excellent (R)ecovery (I)s (P)ossible. An added bonus is that RIP runs from RAM once loaded, thereby freeing up your optical drive.

SkyFex Remote Assistant is a free remote desktop viewing service which claims to be secure and work through firewalls and NAT routers. While the website has a number of grammatical errors, its apparent creator, <name removed by request>, certainly seems qualified to create such a service. Requires Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer.

eServiceInfo.com - Service manuals, FRU guides, documentation, etc for computer hardware, software, consumer electronics, and much more.

Why does Sony make their Vaio model numbers so confusing? Needing to remove the hard drive from a notebook labelled PCG-531A, I searched Google for help to no avail. Only after visiting Sony's support site and entering PCG-531A as the model number, did I find out that it is actually a PCG-Z505LS. THAT certainly turned up a number of walk-throughs:

• VAIO Z505 disassembly, Installation of new hard drive
• Z505 Drive Replacement
• Upgrading the Sony Vaio PCG-Z505
• Sony VAIO Z505 HD Upgrade

browsershots.org - Free, open source browser screenshot service similar to NetMechanic's Browser Photo. Option to donate for faster turnaround time.

Bicycle powered generators:

• DIY overview
• David Butcher's experience and experiments
• Matt Shaver's experience and experiments
• $115 for parts to build your own
• $600 contraption
• $640 contraption
• $900 contraption

How to flush the DNS resolver cache under

• Windows (NT-based versions): ipconfig /flushdns
• Linux: /etc/rc.d/init.d/nscd restart
• OS X: lookupd -flushcache

TinyApps.Org was mentioned over at digg today. In response to jasqwerty's question about OS X apps and installers, I posted the following (reproduced here for suggestions and to include links, which digg strips from comments):

Aloha, jasqwerty! It is true that many OS X apps are installer free, and simply mounting a disk image does not launch a "hidden installer" or the like. From the mounted disk image, you generally click and drag the app to OS X's "Application" folder (though you can drag it to any directory). Up until this point, the app has not polluted the system at all. However, once it is launched for the first time, most apps put preferences and the like into directories outside their own (preferences typically go into ~/Library/Preferences). Uninstalling an app is often as easy as dragging it to the Trash, but preferences and other files may remain behind. In lieu of an app like FileMon to track what files an app creates/modifies, you could run and save the output of ls for the entire drive before and after running a new app and then cmp or diff the two files to find changes. A quick Google search just now uncovered File Buddy, which can apparently "Create snapshots to track the changes on a disk, such as files installed by an installer." If anyone knows of a better method for tracking file creation/modification under OS X, please post it here.

BackupPC is a server-based app that extracts backup data from Linux and Windows clients via SMB shares, tar over ssh/rsh/nfs, or rsync. Open source and very well documented.