[Quicktip] Format a drive larger than 32 GB with FAT32 using Win7

Use h2format from http://www.heise.de/software/download/h2format/40825

For more alternatives see http://popelbratwurst.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/fat-32-unter-windows-vista-und-windows-7-formatieren/

Cool retro-combination: dosbox+abandonia.com+dosbox games launcher

• http://members.quicknet.nl/blankendaalr/dbgl/ (java based launcher incl. dosbox 0.74)
• http://www.abandonia.com/ (games)

WindowBuilder, GWT Designer … for free

As read at heise.de Google now released

• GWT Designer
• CodePro AnalytiX
• WindowBuilder Pro
• WindowTester Pro

for free. See the blog entry. I’ll have look at them in a few days…

[Quicktip] Totalcommander, batch-files and foreach

You want to call a cmdline-tool, but this tool only supports only one file per invocation? But you have to process hundreds of files? With the following approach (in combination with the Totalcommander) you can select many files and handle each file sequentially.

Setup:

1. create a batchfile named foreach.bat
   

   @echo off
   REM call it via 'foreach.bat filewithfilenames'
   
   SET filewithfilenames=%1
   
   for /f %%f IN (%filewithfilenames%) do (
       REM insert your code here, the current iteration item is %%f
       echo %%f
   )
   

2. create a startermenu entry in totalcommander
   • name: foreach...
   • command: foreach.bat
   • parameter: %L

Usage:

• mark all files to be adressed in Totalcommander
• call the newly created startermenu entry “foreach...“

Explanation:
When calling the startermenu-entry the Totalcommander will save the filenames of the selected files in a temp-file and will provide the filename of the temp-file as parameter. That is the magic of the parameter %L. (Perhaps such a scheme is also available in Speedcommander, Freecommander and other tools like that?! I do not know…)

Now this temp-file can easily be read using a special syntax of the “for-loop” of the Windows command line (cmd).  Type in "for /?" in your cmdline for more details on this syntax and see the example above (<code>%%f</code> in line 6).

[Quicktip] Convert file encodings with libiconv

If you want to convert the text-files (f.e. source code) to UTF-8 you can use the small and handy tool “iconv“.

Usage example:
iconv -f Cp1252 -t UTF-8 filename.txt > file_converted.txt

Get the windows binary from sourceforge

[Quicktip] faster usage of FreeMind

FreeMind (an open-source mindmapping tool) has some handy features, which may also improve your productivity:

• Shortcuts: Use the shortcuts like ENTER and INSERT and navigate via the ARROW keys!
• Creating subnodes from your clipboard: If there are several lines of text in the clipboard and you paste its content into FreeMind while a node is selected, then several subnodes will be created. That is really cool and i discovered it by accident!

FreeMind can be downloaded from http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

Acronis True Image for “free”?

If you have a Western Digital harddrive installed in your computer you can use a special version of “Acronis True Image“. This version is locked to WDC drives, but it works fine and its free.
You can download it here.

I read about other special version from other harddrive vendors (f.e. Seagate?). Keep an eye open!