Who else is a freeware "squirrel"?

[Sam Witch]

(e-mail address removed) (BillR) wrote in

On W2k, NTFS, one can record comments. Comments (can) appear on
Explorer and do not appear on Find but are searchable via text. The
display window in Properties is rather small (both basic and
advanced).

Other fields (e.g., keywords and classification) can be recorded but
are not searchable AFAIK. I haven't taken the time to research them
beyond that. Does anyone use them? If so, how?

Thanks,
BillR

XP NTFS I use it, I open the properties by R click and enter the text,
The various fields can hold a large amount of information including
lists in then comments box,(Title - Subject - Author - Category -
Keywords - Comments)

I usually copy a file description from the website and paste it into the
relevant boxes. Then as moving through a directory holding the mouse on
a file name for 2 seconds a yellow comments box pops up with the info I
typed into the boxes, It can be quite comprehensive.

Any text in the properties boxes can be searched using the windows
search,"Text in a file" I find it quite quick and very handy. Far
quicker than a filename search. Used to use Andys File Descriptor for
Win98 but the XP properties summary is easier.

Oh, 22 directories on a 20gb drive with 9.7gb
squirrelled away plus umpteen CDR with stuff right back to compuserve
days and 200+ floppies with odd programs for DOS and no idea whats on
them.

Seems I need a good catalogue app.

Sam

 

[BillR]

(e-mail address removed) (BillR) wrote in
news:[email protected]:

XP NTFS I use it, I open the properties by R click and enter the text,
The various fields can hold a large amount of information including
lists in then comments box,(Title - Subject - Author - Category -
Keywords - Comments)

I usually copy a file description from the website and paste it into the
relevant boxes. Then as moving through a directory holding the mouse on
a file name for 2 seconds a yellow comments box pops up with the info I
typed into the boxes, It can be quite comprehensive.

Any text in the properties boxes can be searched using the windows
search,"Text in a file" I find it quite quick and very handy. Far
quicker than a filename search. Used to use Andys File Descriptor for
Win98 but the XP properties summary is easier.

Oh, 22 directories on a 20gb drive with 9.7gb
squirrelled away plus umpteen CDR with stuff right back to compuserve
days and 200+ floppies with odd programs for DOS and no idea whats on
them.

Seems I need a good catalogue app.

Sam

Thanks, Sam. I'll have to check my indexing parameters or something.

Is there a way to access this information other than via the property
sheet? For example comments can be shown on explorer details, but not
the other fields (Win2k).

Once the information is collected in this way, a catalog would seem a
natural.
Hovering is very useful at times, but I generally prefer a table view.
Ideally I would want to see selected columns in an Explorer view as
well as be able to format them more usefully in a report. Say
manipulate them via a spreadsheet or db report writer.

I wonder when download managers will start populating these
semi-automatically (e.g., inserting the download URL)? I would
certainly favor any download archive that provided a way to
automatically populate this information as well. The PAD files might
provide a standardized source.

Pricelessware wishlist material, perhaps?

BillR

 

[Sam Witch]

I wonder when download managers will start populating these
semi-automatically (e.g., inserting the download URL)? I would
certainly favor any download archive that provided a way to
automatically populate this information as well. The PAD files might
provide a standardized source.

Pricelessware wishlist material, perhaps?

BillR

Ive seen it done from some of the big companies who allow downloads of .exe
files they populate these areas and you cannot edit them, I have tried and
crashed the system while doing it.

obviously their keywords etc are different from mine.

I seem to remember that when setting up NTFS there was an option to allow
indexing - or maybe I am remembering some other setting. All my files have
the rightclick option some with more fields than others,
eg compatibility mode for .exe files.

I have no idea how to get this info from the summary page into another
application, I am sure someone will do it and offer it here free.

Sam

 

[BoB]

Snip

Thanks, Sam. I'll have to check my indexing parameters or something.

Is there a way to access this information other than via the property
sheet? For example comments can be shown on explorer details, but not
the other fields (Win2k).

Once the information is collected in this way, a catalog would seem a
natural. Hovering is very useful at times, but I generally prefer a
table view. Ideally I would want to see selected columns in an Explorer
view as well as be able to format them more usefully in a report. Say
manipulate them via a spreadsheet or db report writer.

I wonder when download managers will start populating these
semi-automatically (e.g., inserting the download URL)? I would
certainly favor any download archive that provided a way to
automatically populate this information as well. The PAD files might
provide a standardized source.

DLExpert provides a file with each DL, such as:
_________________________
avwinsfx.exe.DLExpert.txt

Time: May 28,2003 07:53:39
URL: http://avdown.de/personal/en/avwinsfx.exe
File: C:\DL\avwinsfx.exe
Comment:
Length: 3698176
Download: 3698176
Status: Finish
__________________________

Pricelessware wishlist material, perhaps?

BillR

BoB
For the duration of Swen, my address is inoperative.

 

[Ben Cooper]

With Moon software's Filenote, you'd just be copying filename.txt as
part of the group. Perhaps its desirability would lie in its
simplicity. Essentially it's just a faster step than launching
notepad to drop a text file into a directory.

I used to use FileNote quite a bit. I'll probably just go
back to using it. My motto as of late has become Keep It
Simple, Stupid. Filenote meets that qualification.

As far as a more featured file annotator shell extension, do you have
PCMag's Explorer Notes somewhere in your download archives? This one
does hook copy/move, so might be suitable to see if it fits one's
needs.

I don't have that one in my archives. I'll have to see if I
can find it somewhere.

 

[Guest]

DLExpert provides a file with each DL, such as:
_________________________
avwinsfx.exe.DLExpert.txt

Time: May 28,2003 07:53:39
URL: http://avdown.de/personal/en/avwinsfx.exe
File: C:\DL\avwinsfx.exe
Comment:
Length: 3698176
Download: 3698176
Status: Finish
__________________________




BoB
For the duration of Swen, my address is inoperative.

Hello:

Try using a freeware called softcat at the following address:

http://www.fnprg.com/softcat/softcat.html
It is easy to use, free and will help you keep track of all your programs.
Glenn

 

[omega]

I don't have that one in my archives.

You admit that omission in a pack-rat thread?! I must be worse than
you... for instance, recent housecleaning on my removable storage media
turned out a dozen+ copies of pcmag/Rubenking's COA, including a couple
going back to the earliest release, for win3.

I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere.

I could email you info on location, if you want. If you've a valid email
address. And if you could give me a few days to get around to looking up
my (new) ISP's smtp server name -- and to choosing which email client
(the extremely time-consuming part <G>) to send off a mail.

 

[omega]

I used to use FileNote quite a bit. I'll probably just go
back to using it. My motto as of late has become Keep It
Simple, Stupid. Filenote meets that qualification.

Yep. Just makes a fast txt file, and that's that. No headaches.

Earlier in the thread you were mentioning that you move your downloads
to CD-R. Situation like that, I wonder if something from the "disk catalog"
category might come in handy?

 

[Bjorn Simonsen]

Try using a freeware called softcat at the following address:
http://www.fnprg.com/softcat/softcat.html

Thank you for the suggestion.
Please notice:
"When replying to a message, include enough original material to be
understood but no more. It is extremely bad form to simply reply to a
message by including all the previous message: edit out all the
irrelevant material.(RFC 1855, 1995:3)
<http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html>

See for instance: <http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen

 

[omega]

DLExpert provides a file with each DL, such as:
_________________________
avwinsfx.exe.DLExpert.txt

Time: May 28,2003 07:53:39
URL: http://avdown.de/personal/en/avwinsfx.exe
File: C:\DL\avwinsfx.exe
Comment:
Length: 3698176
Download: 3698176
Status: Finish
__________________________

This is what would be fairly ideal for my downloads. My installed progs,
in each of their folders, have a subfolder named zip. There I keep
installation records, and also when I retrieve their updates, it's of
where I place that download.

It would be awfully nice to also have automatically dropped to each
prog's /zip folder a txt file, such as dllexpert provides, giving the
download link.

Website homepage URLs are these days a far step from working download URLs
(the latter mean going to mirror sites php etc scripting seven redirections
until finally the sekrit URL).

Fresh Download, which I've been using primarily, it generates a temporary
file for each download (filename.zip.fdpart) into the directory it's going,
but cleans it up after download completed, and the file is not ascii anyway.
Also, with Fresh Download's master lists of downloads (.dfl), there is no
export function.

Octopus puts master download list into windir\octopus.ini. I don't like
ini's in the windir, but at least it's straight text, easier to work with
than FD's binary stuff.

While I very much like the individual files provided by DLExpert (and thanks
for reminding me of that, I'd forgotten), the downside with how this one
does things is that the master list is stored in the registry. Again of
course better than FD, since it can be exported as text, but still not the
most convenient.

I've plans in near term to start looking closely at other downloaders,
and this aspect -- what form they store download history in -- it will
be one of my central considerations.

I'd been long awaiting FD to make its master file list something that has
import/export/etc functions, but at this point starting to lose faith that
this line of feature is even on the horizon. Thus time to look at how the
others play out this part of things....

 

[omega]

DLExpert provides a file with each DL, such as:
_________________________
avwinsfx.exe.DLExpert.txt

Time: May 28,2003 07:53:39
URL: http://avdown.de/personal/en/avwinsfx.exe
File: C:\DL\avwinsfx.exe
Comment:
Length: 3698176
Download: 3698176
Status: Finish
__________________________

While I very much like the individual files provided by DLExpert (and thanks
for reminding me of that, I'd forgotten), the downside with how this one
does things is that the master list is stored in the registry. Again of
course better than FD, since it can be exported as text, but still not the
most convenient.

I've just run DLExpert for a download, and in the process realized that what
I wrote above was not well considered.

Since there is already a text log generated for a completed download, that
download record doesn't really much need to stay in DLExpert's master list.
Consequently, that the master list is in the registry (instead of external
data file) is far less the drawback than I'd been thinking.

I've now forgotten for the most part why I'd originally decided preference
of Fresh Download over DLExpert. I'm going to be giving DLExpert a serious
revisit. The individual txt files it generates for downloads, that happens
to fit extremely well to my wants.

Thanks, BoB!

 

[Ben Cooper]

You admit that omission in a pack-rat thread?! I must be worse than
you... for instance, recent housecleaning on my removable storage
media turned out a dozen+ copies of pcmag/Rubenking's COA, including
a couple going back to the earliest release, for win3.

I used to have several disks full of freeware dating back to 1997. I had
stored them in a small mini-storage that I rented. Unfortunately, the
storage unit next to mine mysteriously caught fire and I lost those CDs
along with a few other things.
So, maybe I did have a copy somewhere... I'll never know. Nothing terribly
important was stored there, fortunately.

I could email you info on location, if you want. If you've a valid
email address. And if you could give me a few days to get around to
looking up my (new) ISP's smtp server name -- and to choosing which
email client (the extremely time-consuming part <G>) to send off a
mail.

Thanks for the offer. I'd appreciate that. The address in my sig is valid.

 

[Ben Cooper]

Yep. Just makes a fast txt file, and that's that. No headaches.

Earlier in the thread you were mentioning that you move your downloads
to CD-R. Situation like that, I wonder if something from the "disk
catalog" category might come in handy?

Yes, I now catalog all my CDs immediately after burning them. I prefer
Directory Lister by Leszek Skorczynski.
It's here-
http://freeware.prv.pl/
I've formed the habit of including keywords in the directory name so a text
search will bring up the files for the category I'm searching. Works well
for me as it follows my own particularly twisted form of logic.

 

[Ben Cooper]

["Ben Cooper"; Fri, 17 Oct 2003 14:13:31 GMT]

I like using the 'Annotator' shell extension to keep descriptions of
everything I download.

I'm surprised that there is nothing newer. (This is from 1997.) I'm
curious, are annotations added to the contents of the actual file, or
are they stored externally in another file or other files?

The annotations are stored in a file named annotsx.odb in the Windows
folder.

 

[Klaatu]

XP NTFS I use it, I open the properties by R click and enter the text,
The various fields can hold a large amount of information including
lists in then comments box,(Title - Subject - Author - Category -
Keywords - Comments)

Do you know if the information in the Summary box lives on when the file is
copied to CD?

 

[BillR]

Try using a freeware called softcat at the following address:

http://www.fnprg.com/softcat/softcat.html
It is easy to use, free and will help you keep track of all your programs.

All good suggestions (as are some others in this thread). My wishlist
item would be to include much of the information from the PAD file
plus the dl info including both the website and the ultimate dl URL,
along with any comments or links of my own such as keywords and
categories. The basic information would be available from explorer, a
download manager, and a flexible report/query tool.

In other words, I'm lazy. I want the information readily available
but I don't want to have to work to maintain it other than adding my
personal comments.

BillR

 

[Mike]

I find that being a freeware squirrel is cheaper than hanging out in
computer stores!

 

[digitalMOSQUITO]

Do you know if the information in the Summary box lives on when the file is
copied to CD?

The information is not transported because the cd file system (ISO,
Joliet, UDF) does not support it.

dM

 

[Offbreed]

Try using a freeware called softcat at the following address:

http://www.fnprg.com/softcat/softcat.html
It is easy to use, free and will help you keep track of all your programs.
Glenn

Tried that one and it crashed because a .dll was missing. Do others
have that problem?

 

[omega]

(e-mail address removed) (Offbreed):

Tried that one and it crashed because a .dll was missing. Do others
have that problem?

Softcat.exe imported modules list report (courtesy of Faber Toys):

advapi32.dll comctl32.dll comdlg32.dll gdi32.dll kernel32.dll
mpr.dll ole32.dll oleaut32.dll shell32.dll user32.dll version.dll
winmm.dll winspool.drv


All standard, essential system files.