Do Know Evil - Tyler Mulligan’s Tips and Tricks

I post a lot of zip files on forums to trade information with my fellow gamers, programmers, internetards and what have you. As such, I like to tell them what the zip contains. Now the title of this post is a bit of a misnomer as I haven’t really created the zip yet… but I figured it would be just as helpful. The only extra step you would have in doing an actual zip file would be to extract the files to a folder but enough of the intro, lets dive in.

Step one: Have a folder with the files you want to list

(Whats with your image icons d00d? My images are associated with irfanview)

Step two: Open the Command prompt.

Do this by going to start -> Run… and typing in “cmd”

Step three: Navigate to your folder with “cd” (change directory) and list the files without any attributes using “dir /b”

Step four: Right click anywhere in the black and choose, “Mark“, this allows you to highlight the outputted text.

Highlight your filelist

When you right click again, the text is copied to your clipboard and you can paste it anywhere you’d like

I’ve mentioned this software before but I feel compelled to show you all why this software has made my list of software I install on a fresh format. This software is MWSnap, a program for taking and manipulating screenshots. When you first open the program, you’re greeted with this:

On the left, you have your main options for screenshots and on your right, you have a preview. Each of the screenshots have hotkeys that you can learn by click ‘Capture’ on the menu bar. All of the options are pretty self-explanatory except the ‘Window/menu’ option, which you’ll learn to love fast.

When you select this option, the screen freezes and you have a dotted box that selects whatever menu or window you’re cursor is hovering on.

This assures for a clean cut every time, quickly and easily.

And if you’re feeling fancy, you can garnish it by adding a cursor from the ‘edit’ menu:

MWSnap has some interesting tools that come in handy at random times:

I’d say the ruler is the one I use most often.

It’s floats above all other windows and lets you measures them by pixels. Don’t worry, it goes vertically as well.

And while I chose to use ColorPic for my color picking software. MWSnap’s color picker isn’t half bad.

There are only two downsides that I’ve found to this application. First being the lack of ability to crop… that to me is odd but I just open it up in IrfanView and take care of it that way. The other issue is multiple monitors. Unfortunately, MWSnap only recognizes the primary monitor. I don’t really have a work around for this, I just deal with it and drag windows I need to take screenshots of over to my primary monitor.

This software has saved me tons of time, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Email can be a hassle but it doesn’t have to be if you lay out the ground work properly. Folders are a great solution but they only bring you so far. I know I don’t want to manually sort all my email. If you’re like me, you’ll love thunderbird’s filters and tags. Filters allow you to sort, delete, tag and so much more automagically.

To get started, click tools > message filters…

And you are brought to a dialog similar to this (mine obviously has a few filters):

Click ‘new…’ to get started.

In this dialog, conditions are defined at the top and actions are defined below. In the example above, you’ll notice that my condition is based on the Subject of the email. When this condition is true, it will perform the actions below. Move to the BOA folder and tag the message as important.

A little note about this window that confuses people, those + and - buttons are to add and remove conditions/actions. You do not need to click + if you are just filling in the one field, thunderbird knows it’s there.

Also note, Thunderbird allows you to add your own tags with a nice array of colors to choose from (though I would prefer hex).

To access this dialog, click the tag button on the tool bar and select ‘new…’

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message. Happy sorting!

Bookmarks are something most of us don’t really keep up to par. Sometimes you just ctrl+d on a whim, losing that page in your lack of a hierarchy forever. Well, at least that’s how it’s been for me. However, once in a while I give myself a kick in the ass and try to shape up. Based upon the patterns I’ve learned in the past and the general direction I wish to go, I reevaluate my mess and decide the proper way forward. In this case it was the standard, “Make general categories and add sub-folders if they need more organization” route… with a little extra spice.

This time around, I decided to utilize folders in the bookmarks toolbar. Maybe I’m blind to this but I feel like most people don’t utilize this helpful feature, I know I didn’t until now. After spending a few days using folders on my toolbar, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is both effective and efficient.

I spend a lot of time developing locally and often do rounds on my live sites and rather than waste 4 seconds typing in a 32 character URL, I’d rather waste 0.4 making two clicks. Yes, that’s right, I’m shaving off seconds to increase my efficiency. It might not seem like a lot but it adds up to minutes a day and hours a year.

Now, because I’m going to be spending a lot of time on my laptop, I needed a global solution to my bookmarks. The path I chose to get is syncing them with the Firefox extension, Bookmark Sync and Sort. If you don’t have your own server, there are some hosted alternatives such as Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. Those trendy bookmark sites aren’t really the solution for me for a few reasons.

1) I like to control my data.
2) Those sites are usually distracting to me
3) While the Firefox bookmarks manager isn’t the ideal solution, the GUI is far more advanced than something you’ll find on a social bookmarking site.

Admittedly, there is an advantage to these sites, and that’s the fact that I can get to my bookmarks quickly no matter what computer I’m on. But again, I can argue that I can find a link just as fast (if not faster) with SSH by greping the xml file Bookmark Sync and Sort generates.

Back on track, once you have the extension installed, click ‘Bookmarks’ > ‘Synchronize Bookmarks’ and fill in the dialog with your information as such:

What kind of man would I be if I didn’t take advantage of this moment to sort my bookmarks?

Mmm, alphabetical order.

Now I just need to upkeep as best I can… I’ll let you know when I come up with a better solution for that. Right now, I just force myself to take the time to find the correct folder in the hierarchy. It’s a good habit but a hard one to keep. If you have any advice, please share. Good luck and happy bookmarking.

P.S. I edited the file wp-admin/admin-functions.php, line 2126 to increase the generated thumbnail size in wordpress. Just replace ‘128′ with the max you wish. Thought maybe some of you could use that information.

I’ve tried many different batch renamers for all sorts of reasons. More often than not, it’s for sorting images. The other day I came across a directory of images that I had (stupidly) prefixed and I needed to change that back. With a few simple clicks using Rename Master I was able to restore them quickly and easily.

Rename master has a very simple but intuitive gui with powerful options behind it. With some obvious wants and needs of a renamer such as a live preview of the rename and variables… Rename Master takes it a step further with their support for full regular expressions and thumbnail views.

Check this out:

Breaking down the screenshot above, we can see that I’ve chosen to do two things (as denoted by the underlined tabs), I’m using the “Add To” and the “Replace” options to formulate the name “Lemonade Stand ##.jpg” and remove those ugly S########.JPG names.

Also, you’ll see I’ve brought up the thumbnail preview that I mentioned above. This is not necessary in this process as I’ve already moved all the “Lemon Stand” to their appropriate folder but I just wanted to let you see how it could come in handy.

The ?n02? code wasn’t something I knew by heart when I first starting using this program, these variables can be generated by the program if you click the blue arrow button next to the text field.

There is so much for me to mention about this program… but I don’t want to waste your time, do yourself a favor and download it. It’s a single file, coded in delphi so it doesn’t need to be installed.

This program all works with mp3 id3 tags.

I tried Konfabulator a while ago (emphasis on the while) and I wasn’t too pleased. It seemed laggy, buggy and more trouble than it was worth. However, recently I was on the lookout for a good desktop todo list, nothing too fancy but it seemed to achieve this, I would have to put my qualms aside and get some sort of widget program.

I decided to give Konfabulator another shot (now know as Yahoo Widgets. And I must say, I’m quite pleased! Everything runs smoothly, it integrates well with the OS and I haven’t had any crashes.

So if you haven’t tried out Yahoo Widgets, I definitely recommend it.

By the way, here is the todo list that I’m using.

While I love Adobe Photoshop and the amount of power it has behind it’s actions, sometimes I like to use a lightweight alternative.

IrfanView is a program I’ve mentioned before, it’s great for flipping through series of images but it’s also great at doing many other things (some of which I’ll mention in future posts), like batch converting. In the following example, I’ll do a quick run through on a real life example, creating image thumbnails.

So, lets start off by opening a folder with pictures you’d like to thumbnail:

Open a picture with IrfanView and select ‘Batch Conversion/Rename’ from the file menu (B is the shortcut key)

Click the ‘Add All’ button (or optionally pick and choose the images you’d like to convert). And set your basic options. I made my output folder /thumbs, selected ‘Batch conversion - Rename result files’, made the output format GIF and set my rename mask to $N.t (which means [old image name].t).

Check the ‘Use advanced options’ box and click the ‘Set advanced options’ button.

I set my thumbnail size to 50% height and width but you can choose whatever you please. I also checked ‘preserve aspect ratio’ and ‘use resample function’ but those are optional.

Click ‘OK’ and you’ll be taken back to the previous window, click ’start’ and bam, you’re done.

You can now navigate to your newly create thumbs folder

And marvel in the glory

This was a pretty simple example but I’m sure when you went to the advanced options window, the gears in your head starting turning. This program is a great tool, you should really play around with it and try to get the most out of it. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t use it.

You know those times where you’re diddling around on the computer and want to take a quick note? We all have and unfortunately those notes we make to ourselves can sometimes get lost in the loads of “new text document (*).txt”’s found plentiful on our desktops.

After dealing with this lack of organization for some time, I “developed” (I use the term loosely) a quick windows solution to this that anyone can do with a few clicks. Check it out.

First: Open up explorer (windows key+e) and navigate to a directory of your choice.

Second: Create a folder called… say “My Toolbar”

Third: Create a text document named whatever you’d like (and optionally add shortcuts)

Fourth: Right click your task bar and select “Toolbars” then select “New Toolbar”

Fifth: Navigate to the folder you created

Sixth: Right click your new toolbar and uncheck “Show Text” and “Show Title”

Final Product:

I hope this helps you clean up your note taking

To make it even EASIER, you can set the txt file to a hotkey using the program WinKey I mentioned in a previous post. I set mine to windows+s

As I was running through some of my tasks yesterday, I realized I had forgotten to mention a few programs I tend to use quite often. So here they are in no particular order…

Unlocker

Ever try to delete a file on windows only to have it give you an error? You try and try to delete the file, closing all programs that may be associated with it? Well this bad boy right here will cure your frustration by allowing you to delete said files.

Desktop List View

Why this feature isn’t built into windows… I’ll never know. This little application will allow you to view the files on your desktop as you would if you had listed them in explorer, allowing you to take back some precious screen real estate.

DS Clock

Yeah, it’s ugly, so what, it tells time, it works flawlessly with dual monitors and I haven’t found a better alternative yet.

Notepad++

This is my text editor of choice. The tabbed files are what brought me to it, the regex find/replace is what kept me. The project is actively developed and I’ve seen it come a long way since version 3.1.

UXTheme Multi-Patcher

I’m not sure if this counts.. but it’s one of the first things I run after windows update on a fresh install. This patcher allows you to use your own windows themes. Many great ones can be found here but the best one is found here. RoyalFour is a slick modification of the default XP skin.

Check it out:

I’ve been quite busy the past few days as I was switching from computer to computer. I just built a new computer to condense/protect my data a little better but I had to sell my old one to have enough funds for the new one. In the middle of the switch, I was on my laptop… which died because the AC input seems to be peeling off the motherboard and I have yet to have someone aide me in soldering it.

Here’s a little list of what I’ve slapped together for those interested:

- Lian-Li PC-61 Case
- OCZ GameXStream 600W Power Supply
- EVGA 122-CK-NF67-T1 Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
- Crucial Ballistix 1GBx2 DDR2 PC2 6400 RAM
- XFX GeForce 7900GS Extreme
- WD 36gb Raptor HDD
- 4 Samsung Spintpoint T Series 500gb SATA 3Gb/s HDDs
- Samsung 18x DVD+-R DVD Burner with LightScribe
- Koutech Media Card Reader

After some debate I placed a second order for a separate RAID card and decided to go with the HighPoint RocketRAID 2300. So far, so good.

Anyhow, I love reformatting. There is something so refreshing about a clean install. I usually make myself a 10-15gb partition for windows so that I’ll be forced to put my personal files on another drive. This method worked for a while… but as applications increased in size, do did my partition. I decided to use all ~30 gigs of the Raptor for this install but I digress.

The real point of this post is about all the little applications I install upon a fresh format. Some programs go without mention because they are quite obvious, such as Firefox.

The List

allSnap

When I made the switch from Windows to Linux, there was one thing that I loved about gnome. The windows would snap to the edges of the monitor and other windows. When I made the switch back (hehe), I wanted to keep this feature with me and through my search, I came upon this little program which hasn’t failed me yet.

DM2

This little program has so many features, I don’t know where to begin. You can bind hotkeys or mouse clicks to perform special window operations, such as minimize to tray. There is also a right click dialog that’s added to every window which allows you to set the opacity, priority and always on top options.

Check out the website for details.

MW Snap

Awesome for taking quick screenshots. Very useful if you just want to save a picture of an application. Hotkeys too!

WinKey

I guess I just really like hotkeys. This little program allows you to bind any program to the windows key. I usually bind Firefox, Filezilla and PuTTy.

Irfan View

Picture/file browser with batch convert options. This is a really nice tool with plenty of available plugins to allow you to browse through not only pictures but text files, music, video, flash and more. I only really use it for pictures, it’s especially handy when you want to quickly view a large PSD but don’t feel like opening Photoshop.

I this thing doesn’t pack enough punch for you, check out XnView.

ColorPic

If you’re a web designer and you don’t have ColorPic, you need to get it now! It’s a very handy tool for creating and store palates or just figuring out what color a webpage/application is using.

K-Lite Codec Pack

The quick and dirty for all your codecs. A simple way to make sure all your files will play properly. DefilerPak is a lightweight alternative.

That about does it for my “must have” freeware :).