Jeffrey Vanneste

A fellow coworker sent around this awesome Regular Expression link the other day that I thought I should spread as well:

http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

I use regular expressions as often as the interval it takes me to forget most of the useful regex stuff I learn. Everytime a situation comes up that I should use regex I have to try and remember everything I knew about regex. Well, this tutorial explains regular expressions in such a way that I'm hoping it will stick with me longer this time.

To go along with this tutorial I couldn't very well not post an awesome regular expression utility. My personal favorite is The Regulator. It links in with the Regular Expression Library so you already have access to tons of regex. If you haven't heard of it, it's worth checking out. Another tool that I sometimes go back to using is Regex Designer which is made specifically for .NET applications. It has an option to generate some code stubs for you which saves some time.

So like everybody else today I'm trying out Google Talk. I find the voice quality is really good and even though the interface is really plain I like it nice and simple. I installed google talk on my home machine and whenever I clicked on the Inbox link nothing would happen. Everyone else in the house had no problems. When I tried at work and it didn't work there I was pretty upset. I didn't want to have to run the notifier and google talk.
I was pretty convinced it was something to do with the default browser (I use Maxthon). I tried setting the default browser to IE and everything worked fine, same with firefox. I tried reinstalling Maxthon, still not working. In the end I found a program called SetBrowser which is a simple freeware application that sets the default broswer to anything you want.

"A very simple program that lets you set the default web browser in Windows. Select the browser you want, and the program will modify the required registry settings."

So now the links work great. I tried finding other people having this issue on forums but I had no luck. Hopefully this helps out some people.

I came across an alternative to WhoLockMe tonight called Unlocker.  Both programs tell you who applications have a lock on a file but Unlocker lets you unlock the file (saves restarting your computer in some cases).

For work I had to create a lot of test email accounts. I had used bloglines to create temporary email accounts but I had to create the account before I used it. My main goal was to find a service that I didn't have to create the email accounts in advance and had no ads. I ended up using spamgourmet but here are the rest of my findings.

• http://pookmail.com/mailbox.php
  
  
  
  • RSS to monitor an account
    
  • no ads
    
  • doesn't like graphics in emails
  
  
• http://www.spamhole.com/
  
  
  
  • creates a temporary forwarding email account
    
  • you have to create the account before using it
    
  • you can provide a password to the account so you don't need to verify each time
  
  
• http://www.mytrashmail.com/
  
  
  
  • graphical emails work properly
    
  • lots of annoying ads
    
  • you have the option to forward emails or not to another account
    
  • RSS to monitor account
  
  
• http://www.mailinator.com/
  
  
  
  • no ads
    
  • graphics, scripts are striped from the emails
  
  
• http://www.spamgourmet.com/
  
  
  
  • forwards to an existing email address
    
  • you can pick new throw-away email addresses at will after your account has been verified
    
  • a lot of different filter options available
    
  • you can specify how many emails to receive to a specific email address (most of the other ones offer a feature of a time expiry)
  
  
• http://www.dodgeit.com/
  
  • RSS
  • No ads
  • no setup

If I didn't need graphics to work in the email I think pookmail or mailinator are the best services.  If you don't mind the ads then mytrashmail is great since it lets you see the graphical emails.

WinRoll is a really nifty program with a tiny footprint. It lets you minimize any window to the system tray, set the window as transparent, or roll the window into just the title bar.

Make a window roll into its title bar, send it to the back or make it stay on top. Minimize, maximize or close all visible windows, including minimizing to the tray area. Make a window translucent on Windows 2000 or above. WinRoll is lovingly hand-crafted in 100% pure assembly language to give the fastest response and the smallest memory footprint. WinRoll is proudly a FREEWARE and OPEN SOURCE application.

• middle click or shift+right click on title bar to make it transparent
• alt+middle click on title bar to make all windows transparent
• right click on the title bar to roll the window up
• alt+right click to roll up all the windows
• middle click on the close button to set the window always on top
• shift+left click sends the window to the back
• middle click or shift+right click on the minimize button to hide the window to the tray

My roommate Dustin is always trying to push mouse gestures on me. I always thought they were a waste of my time and I would go out of my way to turn them off in Maxthon. Well, I finally caved in and started using a couple in Maxthon and I love it.

I just started with the basic ones like: left to go back and right to go forward. It quickly grew to down for page down and up for page up. Then I wanted to be able to scroll to the top and bottom of the page. I started becoming so used to be able to scroll down with gestures that when I was in any other application (mainly Visual Studio) I would end up trying to do gestures a couple times before realizing that I couldn't in non-Maxthon applications. Enter Stroke It a free mouse gesture application.

With Stroke It I can have mouse gestures in any application. It's really easy to setup and supports a lot of different gestures out of the box. You can even create your own gestures and teach Stroke It how you draw other ones. I recommend checking out the Stroke It documentation for some quick tips and how to create new applications, commands and gestures.

Since I started to use del.icio.us I have found many lists of popular freeware/applications that people use. This is my list of free services/applications that I use at work and home.

Online Tools/Services

• Dictionaries
  Merriam-Webster
  Dictionary.com
  I used to use dictionary.com most of the time but it started getting really slow so I switched to Merriam-Webster instead. I setup quick-searches for both of these so in IE/Maxthon I can just type "d cats" to look up the definition for cats.

• Email
  Gmail
  I used to use an IMAP account but I found that I had to install a PHP-IMAP (Ilohamail) application on my server so I could access the IMAP account without installing any email programs on other peoples computers. Anyways, I switched to gmail and it's the best webmail I've ever used. I use it as my main email account now and I've switched as many friends as possible over to it. And of course you should check out the gmail notifier.

• RSS
  Bloglines
  I read pretty much everything through RSS feeds now. I tried a bunch of different RSS applications but Bloglines is by far my favorite approach at reading feeds. It lets me read at work and at home, always fast, and it really easy to use. It also lets you create dummy email addresses that you can use to sign up for accounts and if they start to spam you then you can just delete the email address. I was finally able to sign up for newsletters without worrying about getting spammed. And a great application for bloglines is the bloglines notifier that sits in your tray to let you know when you have new feeds to read.

• Newsgroups
  Google Groups
  To read newsgroups I just use Google Groups but if you prefer using windows applications you can give XNews a try.

• Bookmark Manager
  del.icio.us
  Spurl
  Furl
  All of these are social bookmark sites. I personally prefer del.icio.us over the others since it has a wonderful API to work with if you want to write any applications that use it and it also seems to be the most popular which I would think is important for a social bookmark site. I store almost all my bookmarks on del.icio.us now and use it as a way to sync bookmarks between work and home (using my BUD program). And if you're bored you can always check out the most popular links of the day.

• Games
  Boardgame Geek - Euphat And Tigris
  Drag On Go Server - Go
  I'm a fan of being able to play games in a detached manner. I want to be able to make my move and then come in a few hours and make another. Both of these servers are setup in that way.

Freeware Applications

Internet

• Maxthon
  Homepage
  A browser with tabbed browsing, popup and ad blocker and much more. It still uses IE to render all the pages so any page that works in IE will work in Maxthon. I also use various quick searches in both IE and Maxthon. For example, to search in google just type in the address bar: "g cats". This will return all the google results searching for "cats". You can download my
  Quick Search Registry File to install my quick searches. Here is the list of quick searches contained in this registry file:
  • g Search google
  • gg Search google groups
  • d Lookup word(s) in the dictionary
  • usd Convert US money into Canadian
  • cad Convert Canadian money into US
  • i Search IMDB
  • ep Search epguides for a tv show
  • a Search animenfo for an anime
  • rd Reverse look-up in a dictionary

• Firefox
  Homepage
  If you’re looking for an alternative to IE then this is the browser to use. I use Maxthon still though.

• Putty
  Homepage
  A SSH/Telnet client. Use this for connecting to *nix machines or for SSH tunnels.

• Filezilla
  Homepage
  A very easy to use FTP program. Works great for all that I have to use FTP for at work.

• VNC
  Homepage
  Control a computer from anywhere else on the web. Easy to install and setup.

Security

• AVG
  Homepage
  Completely free anti-virus.

• Zone-Alarm
  Homepage
  Apparently the best free software firewall.

• Spybot
  Homepage
  Use this to get rid of spyware.

• Ad-Aware
  Homepage
  Another program to get rid of spyware.

• Ethereal
  Homepage
  Probably the best network protocol analyzer.

Graphics and Audio

• MP3 Book Helper
  Homepage
  Used to tag MP3 files. Lets you tag full directories at a time or single files.

• Paint .NET
  Homepage
  A very good replacement for the Paint program that comes with windows. Not as feature rich as The Gimp but I find it a lot easier to use and it does everything that I need to do with images at work. It requires the .NET Framework

• Bunnyhug Video Input
  Homepage
  I use this application for watching TV on my computer. It has all features that I want in a video input application. It requires the .NET Framework

• Winamp
  Homepage
  This is what I use for playing all my music. If you have an ipod you can check out the ml_ipod plugin which lets you sync your ipod with winamp. However, I still use iTunes for syncing and ITMS.

• Zoom Player
  Homepage
  This is what I use for playing all my DVD's and other videos. It can be configured to play any file format you can think of. If you want it to play DRM WMV files you will need to buy the WMV Professional version.

• MWSnap
  Homepage
  Used to capture any part of the screen to a file.

• Colorpic
  Homepage
  Used to pick a color from any pixel on the screen. Very easy to use.

Desktop Customization

• TrayIt
  Homepage
  Let's you put any application into the system tray (aka notification area)

• WatchCat
  Homepage
  Hide any application to the tray or hide it completely from the taskbar and tray. Lets you reorganize the order of your applications in the taskbar. I use it for hiding applications that I'm not using for a short period of time.

• Winkey
  Homepage
  Put your Windows Key to some good use and setup some shortcuts to launch applications.

• Windows XP Power Toys
  Homepage
  Tweak many options with Windows XP. I use it to turn off autorun on all drives, auto-login, and get rid of all the icons on the desktop.

• Autoruns
  Homepage
  Use this to configure which applications are started on startup.

DVD/CD Utilities

• Burnatonce
  Homepage
  Burn CD's or DVD's.

• Daemon Tools
  Homepage
  Lets you mount any ISO image as a virtual drive. Useful if you want to test an ISO before burning it or to just let you avoid having to swap CD's.

• DVD Decrypter
  Homepage
  For ripping DVD's onto your hard drive.

• DVD Shrink
  Homepage
  For shrinking a DVD to fit onto a DVD+R/DVD-R.

Chat/Instant Messaging

• PsyBNC (linux)
  Homepage
  PsyBNC is an IRC bouncer that stays connecting to all the IRC servers that you want to connect to. If your IRC client gets disconnected then PsyBNC will automatically start logging messages for you and when you reconnect it will send you all the messages you missed. It also lets you connect to multiple servers and combine them all into one session. And the other feature I really like is you can connect to the BNC from multiple clients and it will still forward all messages you type and get sent to you to all the clients. This lets me connect from my linux client and windows client at the same time. I use PsyBNC in conjunction with Bitlbee for instant messaging.

• Bitlbee (linux)
  Homepage
  Bitlbee is an IRC gateway for various instant messaging protocols. It lets you login to your MSN, AOL, and yahoo account all from your IRC client. After combining this with PsyBNC you can stay always connected to all your IM services.

• Irssi (linux)
  Homepage
  This is my IRC client of choice. There are so many other free IRC clients to choose from that I recommend you try a bunch of them before committing to a single one. Most windows people will probably like mIRC the most.

Misc. Useful

• Who Lock Me
  Homepage
  I just discovered this application from Mark Taw's List of useful applications. It tells you which applications have a file locked when you try to delete it.

Programming

• Winmerge
  Homepage
  Used to merge two files together or compare two directories and see the differences between them. I use this as my main merge/diff tool.

• TortoiseSVN
  Homepage
  Subversion integration into the Windows shell. This is my preferred method of connecting to a subversion repository.

Shareware but yet still "free"

• WinRAR
  Homepage
  This is the only application I use for compression/decompression. It does everything that WinZIP does but in my opinion better. WinRAR isn't freeware but it lets you run it even after the 40 days with a nag screen.

• Textpad
  Homepage
  A great replacement for notepad. Though not freeware you can still 'evaluate' it for as long as you want. Only annoyance is the popup when you first load it up.

Other resources:

• 46 best ever freeware applications
• Mark Taw's List of freeware applications
• Sysinternals Freeware
• Tiny Apps

I used to use The Gimp for windows for my graphical needs at work but since Paint .NET it has been uninstalled. I love Paint.NET so far. For the average person who just wants to resize, rotate, or make minor changes to a picture this is the program to use. And it's free.

Do you find that you don't use the Windows key on your keyboard? Ever? Well I was barely using it and I figured it sure would be nice to be able to use it for loading up some different applications. Enter WinKey.
This program will let you set up shortcuts/actions to perform when you press the windows key plus any other key. I have some set to open the control panel, service controller, administrator tools, calculator, visual studio, and a bunch more. It takes about 2.5MB of RAM so I don't feel to bad leaving it run all the time.

I've tried out a couple of code generation/template tools. I ended up sticking with QuickCode .NET simply because it integrated into Visual Studio quite nice and didn't require any setup. QuickCode isn't free but has a trial if you want to give it a try.
I also tried Code Template which is quite similar to QuickCode but completely free. I just had more troubles with Code Template that I preferred QuickCode instead.
The third code template tool I found was Code Smith but for what I wanted from a template tool this was overkill.
I use QuickCode .NET mainly for just smaller code snippets. For example, I'll type "mb testing message" and then press ALT+q and it will turn this into "System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("testing message");". So, if you just want smaller snippets give QuickCode a try.

I figure I had to make at least one post on Bloglines. After discovering RSS feeds quite some time ago I initially tried Sharp Reader. It was free and worked very well but it took a lot of memory. I tried Feed Demon but kept going back to Sharp Reader but probably since I was used to Sharp Reader instead.
Then I gave Newsgator a try which integrates itself into Outlook. What this let me do is when I sync'd my Pocket PC I could read all the posts offline. This was absolutly wonderful and I thought no reader could ever top Newsgator so I purchased it. Less than 2 weeks later someone brought to my attention Bloglines. What this let me do is no matter where I was, work or at home, I could read some feeds and not have to worry about having to mark all the feeds I read at work at home again. Bloglines lets you run a small notifier in your notification area (system tray). There is also notifiers for every OS especially through the use of the web notifier. So how do I read bloglines on my Pocket PC? Well right now if I know I'm going to have time to read feeds on the Pocket PC I just goto my bloglines page and then leave it open. Not the best of solutions but being able to have all the feeds I've read stored server-side is worth it. All of this for free. Wow.

With so many people falling in love with Firefox I'd just like to state that I'm not following that trend. If I wasn't using Windows I would use Firefox hands down but since I use Windows all day at work and at home it isn't going to happen. If I had to just use Internet Explorer with no add-ons then I would probably consider using Firefox as well. However, after I first discovered Netcaptor and was introduced to tabbed browsing there was no going back. Netcaptor also introduced me to the popup blocker which is absolutly wonderfal. The problem with Netcaptor is that it isn't free so I can't use it at work as well. Enter Maxthon (used to be known as MyIE2). This gem is the first thing I put on friend's computers when I help them get started. It's completely configurable, free and provides even more than Netcaptor.
The thing with Netcaptor and Maxthon is both just use IE to render their pages so everything that works in IE will work in both of these browsers. Maxthon gives you tabbed browsing with lots of options. You can have it open the new tab to the right of your current tab, to the left, activate the new tab, don't activate the new tab, open the new tab on middle click, and so much more configuration can be done just on how the tabs should act. The popup blocker is extended into an ad blocker instead. Instead of having those annoying blinking banners on a page you can Maxthon replace the ad with a short string like "An ad has been blocked here" or just leave the ad the same color as the background.
So if you haven't discovered tabbed browsing or you want to try using IE the way it should be then give Maxthon a try.

Another great tool I've been using on the redesign of my site is ColorPic. After I found these tools I actually ended up finding an article for "5 Free Windows Web Design Apps You Can't Live Without!". I haven't tried the other tools mentioned there yet but I imagine they must be pretty decent since the first 2 (TopStyle and ColorPic) were both very useful.

I just discovered this tool when I was redesigning this page. I haven't done all that much with CSS files so Top Style helped out very much. They have a free version you can use called TopStyle Lite which is all that I tried out. I imagine if you are doing lots of work on webpages it would be worth your time to give TopStyle Pro a try.

Bradbury Software - TopStyle Pro CSS Editor / HTML Editor for Windows

I don't know why I never save this program on my computer but I find that it's priceless when working on Pocket PC applications. Especially the applications that you can't run in the emulator (aka gapidraw ones). So in case you don't know what this application does it lets you connection to your Pocket PC and control it from within a window on your computer. At least you won't have to pick up the stylus all the time to click on the screen. Also, it's another way to take screenshots of your application running. Anyways here is the link:
Remote Display Control

Hate having programs run on your computer without knowing what they are? Have an annoying program that keeps running on you (qttask from quick time for example). I've used autoruns from sysinternals before but now there is a new version with a bunch of improvements. Found out about this from Jonathan Hardwick

I have some what of a disease about formatting my computer. I pretty much refuse to ever uninstall any application. What I do instead is quite often (once a month or so) is format my machine. Now if I wasn't so cheap I would get Norton ghost but my big complaint about using ghost is that from what I understand the image will only work on the same hardware that it was created on. Enter the Unattended Windows XP Install. I'm so glad that I found this guide. I didn't even know that you could do stuff like this.
Since I only have DVD drives in all my computers I figured it would be awesome to make a unattended XP install with all patches installed, office, and all the applications that I use all the time. Configure the start menu, registry hacks and so much more. Now it takes me under 2 hours format and get back up to a state to continue working on the computer.
As a side note, I created an unattended windows xp install for work and what a great time saver. We have to install XP on machines quite often and previously it was taking half days or more to format a machine and get it back in a state ready to install our software. Now I just throw in the XP boot CD and come back in 30 minutes and it's all ready to go.