Good Freeware Stuff

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Psychophanta
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by Psychophanta »

heartbone wrote:I've been using Acronis True Image 10 on my PC, but now I need to backup a friends system and I just found this Paragon suite (102 MB download) which looks like pretty much the same thing.

Paragon Backup & Recovery 2013 Free Edition - a time-tested backup and recovery tool. With it, you will have full control over the security of your system and data. Based on solid commercial backup and recovery software from Paragon Software, Backup & Recovery Free Edition will give you a rich set of features that you can trust. Free Edition can easily create an exact copy of your hard drive, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br ... tures.html
Really great one!
Paragon software is much powerful than Acronis one, just try and compare it, don't believe me.

Also Paragon_ExtFS_for_Windows is awesome, the best one i've tried! (it is to access data in EXT2/3/4 formated linux volumes).
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

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Will never leave this forum until the absolute bugfree PB :mrgreen:
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

Psychophanta wrote:Really great one!
Paragon software is much powerful than Acronis one, just try and compare it, don't believe me.

Also Paragon_ExtFS_for_Windows is awesome, the best one i've tried! (it is to access data in EXT2/3/4 formated linux volumes).
I looked at the Paragon user manual a couple of weeks back and was impressed with the suite's functionality.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br ... anual.html
But don't underrate the Acronis suite, it's really good too.
I'm still using TI10 because I want to get my money's worth,
my problem with TI10 is that one can not set the write speed of the DVDs containing the backup.
Now that I have a large 1TB hard drive and some 16GB USB flash drives that is not so much a problem.
If I did not already have TI10, then the Paragon backup would definitely be installed and in use.

Psychophanta, you also posted a great one, I totally missed seeing that little gem, thank you.
That ExtFS utility is just what I have been wishing for!
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/
That functionality is something which should have been part of Windoze ever since 98SE.

After the ExtFS utility gets installed on your system, you can move the executable and run it from anywhere.
However I am not used to seeing an executable without an icon and don't like looking at it,
so I designed an icon for ExtFS and then used a resource hacker to insert it.
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
(A magnifying glass with the old Windows logo on the handle showing Tux through glass and text "extFS" at the bottom.)
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

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Acronis is infamous for an erroneous message box pop-up but I have most of their apps and they have been very useful.
However, I recently used Macrium Reflect Free Edition for a backup that Acronis could not perform:
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by Psychophanta »

IdeasVacuum wrote:Acronis is infamous for an erroneous message box pop-up but I have most of their apps and they have been very useful.
However, I recently used Macrium Reflect Free Edition for a backup that Acronis could not perform:
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
Thanks for that IdeasVacuum, will try, even I am happy with teh paragon cloning tool posted by heartbone.

@heartbone, thank you! :wink:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by IdeasVacuum »

W3C's own web editor Amaya is a good tool to write a wysiwyg html page compatible with most browsers.
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

Psychophanta wrote:
IdeasVacuum wrote:Acronis is infamous for an erroneous message box pop-up but I have most of their apps and they have been very useful.
However, I recently used Macrium Reflect Free Edition for a backup that Acronis could not perform:
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
Thanks for that IdeasVacuum, will try, even I am happy with teh paragon cloning tool posted by heartbone.

@heartbone, thank you! :wink:
We helped each other.
As a part of recovering from a hard drive crash last month,
I've been playing around with Paragon and yesterday subjected it to a lot of tests which it passed with flying colors.
I wonder which came first??? True Image or Paragon backup?
They are pretty much identical, way too close in UI design to be coincidental.

Comparing TI 10 to Paragon 2013 is probably not too fair to TrueImage,
but I rank them about the same, giving the slight edge to Paragon.

Both pass the ultimate test, that of quickly and effortlessly restoring my Windows XP Pro installation.
But when the competition is close, the free solution will always win.
Be aware that if you use the Paragon tool to format a partition to NTFS,
the result is not compatible with Windows XP due to some extra bits automatically added for Windows 7.
I think that XP users will need to use something else to format their hard drives, GParted is good.

I really don't like the form factor of my 64-bit Vista laptop's keyboard or monitor,
Image
http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-tx252 ... =qrb-su-20

being it is primarily a touch screen tablet.
Now that I've recovered my 32 bit desktop system as much I can,
I can now get back to programming. ;)
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heartbone
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

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heartbone wrote:Psychophanta, you also posted a great one, I totally missed seeing that little gem, thank you.
That ExtFS utility is just what I have been wishing for!
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/
That functionality is something which should have been part of Windoze ever since 98SE.

After the ExtFS utility gets installed on your system, you can move the executable and run it from anywhere.
However I am not used to seeing an executable without an icon and don't like looking at it,
so I designed an icon for ExtFS and then used a resource hacker to insert it.
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
(A magnifying glass with the old Windows logo on the handle showing Tux through glass and text "extFS" at the bottom.)
Image

This little utility actually makes Windows a bit more usable. ;)
Keep it BASIC.
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

VLC
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html
Image
We all know about this great media player.
In an area where there is plenty of competition, over the past few years the VideoLAN organization has developed what seems to be the best and most comprehensive free media player.

Because we all already have something to play media on our systems,
most won't bother with looking at a replacement player,
even one as capable as VLC which will play practically everything. (I have not tried it with any RealPlayer media yet.)

The reason for this post is a discovery that I recently made.
While hooking up my daughters MP3 player to the USB for a recharge,
Linux saw the player, activated VLC, and started to play the tunes on the device.
VLC displayed some artwork associated with the tune (Ozric Tentacles - Afterswish), and I thought that VLC was detecting a bitmap buried in the .mp3.
Image
Then when the next tune showed another associated graphic, I was thinking that there must be a lot of pictures in my .mp3 files that were up to that point undiscovered.
Then I realized that years ago when I ripped the files there was no way to imbed graphics in the files, and that VLC was going out to the net and automaitcally retrieving and displaying associated album art.

THIS ALBUM ART DISPLAY FEATURE IS GREAT
and is the reason for my posting this message.
The art really enhances my music enjoyment and it is really interesting to see the old 45-RPM sleeves, album covers, and fan pictures that are selected for display.

I tried it in Windows and it did not work for me, I'm hoping it's just a setting that I missed.
In Linux the default VLC settings allow the album art.

If I subscribed to an online radio station, I would expect a service like this for my cash, but without any control over the playlist content.
With VLC I can explore my decades of music and have an enhanced experience.
5 thumbs up.
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by PB »

> THIS ALBUM ART DISPLAY FEATURE IS GREAT

Indeed! :shock: Thanks for this! :D

> I tried it in Windows and it did not work for me

I did this and it works: http://www.ehow.com/how_8134567_display ... t-vlc.html

I had to restart VLC after changing the setting, though.
I compile using 5.31 (x86) on Win 7 Ultimate (64-bit).
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

(For me) in Windows the album art seems not to work properly. [VLC media player 2.0.8 Twoflower]
Most songs get no art.
So far, I have seen three graphics in nine songs.
(Man that Chanté Moore - Straight Up graphic is hot!)
Songs that I know have art and that I've seen in Linux.
Maybe there's some network communications problem that is not handled as well in XP?
Oh well, at least now I know that the VLC ALBUM ART feature is implemented in Windows.
I'll have to check it out in Vista the next time I fire that up when connected to the net.
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

I installed the latest VLC for x64 and got version 2.1.0 Rincewind. In Windows Vista 64-bit the VLC album art feature seems to work about as well as in Linux. I wonder what the difference could be in Windows XP to cause the erratic performance? I've noticed that in Vista when VLC can not retrieve the album art, that unlike in the XP version where the display reverts to the traffic cone logo, in Vista the last displayed album art continues to display. So I continued to see the Ambrosia album cover when VLC drew a blank for Art Blakey & Thelonious Monk - I Mean You. I'd think that I'd prefer to see a blank screen over either. I was a bit surprised when no album art was found for several Curtis Mayfield songs, then for the very next song, Dick Hyman - Topless Dancers of Corfu, VLC actually displayed the cover art! Inconsistent, to say the least.

More good FREEWARE stuff:
Ubuntu 13.10

13.04 was 785 MB and fit on my 90 minute CD-Rs.
With 13.10 logging in at 895 MB, the 90 minute CD-Rs are no longer of any use here, and I have not seen any 99 minute CD-Rs in 8 years.
Perhaps they should start referring to the distribution as a "Live DVD"?
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by PB »

> I was a bit surprised when no album art was found for several Curtis Mayfield songs

I wonder how it knows to fetch art anyway? If it's just by filename, then please
tell me the full name of a Curtis Mayfield MP3 that you have, so I can rename
one of my MP3s and see if VLC fetches the art for it. Would be a good test to
see if it's based on name or sound signature, and even if it works for my PC.
I compile using 5.31 (x86) on Win 7 Ultimate (64-bit).
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by heartbone »

PB wrote:I wonder how it knows to fetch art anyway? If it's just by filename, then please
tell me the full name of a Curtis Mayfield MP3 that you have, so I can rename
one of my MP3s and see if VLC fetches the art for it. Would be a good test to
see if it's based on name or sound signature, and even if it works for my PC.
I wonder as well.
I left the disc that had the mp3s in my Vista laptop that is powered down and put away, so I don't remember the exact songs.
But right now in Linux, these three show graphics:
Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up (3:50)
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - We're a Winner
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - I'm So Proud

And these four show no graphics:
Curtis Mayfield - If There's Hell Below
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - Talking About My Baby
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - Amen
Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions - Move On Up
(8:56)

Because I have a CD of tunes named 1.mp3 ... 200.mp3 and the art is displayed when playing it,
it seems that the internal ID tags are used before the filenames are used.
Joe Walsh - Turn To Stone brought up the appropriate art.
After renaming the file to Beatles - Hey Jude, VLC still brought up the Joe Walsh art.
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by netmaestro »

Adobe Photoshop CS2 is now a free download from Adobe. It runs fine on my Windows 8.1 OS, though the first time I ran it I right-clicked the shortcut and chose 'Troubleshoot Compatibility'. Windows will apply XP SP3 compatibility settings to it, just save those for future runs and you're good to go:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitleme ... _downloads

Because of its age, the Mac OS version is for PPC only as this originally was released well before the Apple switch to Intel processors.
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Re: Good Freeware Stuff

Post by IdeasVacuum »

Hi netmaestro
Adobe Photoshop CS2 is now a free download from Adobe
That isn't strictly true. It is a free download for existing customers that have already paid for CS2:
The serial numbers provided as a part of the download may only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products.
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