Need to rename files in Windows?
Unlike some people, I like to collect. End result is whole slew of files and data that needs organizing. But when you try to use the default batch rename option in Windows7 or any other windows or DOS, it becomes really painfully tedious. Things like photos or series of files are common things that needs renaming. So what do you do?
Then comes Denis Kozlov and his nifty renamer.
This thing just puts all those years of trying to learn regular expression into shame. 
There are many applications that he had created as a Hobby, which also deserves a mentions are as follows.
- Shutter: Shutter is a multifunctional shutdown utility, which has a user friendly and easy-to-use interface and supports many different Events and Actions. Events: Countdown, On Time, Winamp Stops, Low CPU Usage, User Inactive, Battery Low, Window Closes, Process Stops, Ping Stops, File Size Limit. Actions: Shutdown, Reboot, LogOff, Lock Workstation, Sleep, Hibernate, Monitor Turn Off, Mute/UnMute Master Volume, Hang Up, Alarm.
- CPUMon: CPUMon is a simple little gadget to monitor CPU performance from your desktop. It displays a real-time graph of CPU performance as well as current usage indicator. The display supports custom colors, alpha-blending, user defined update rates and more. Some of the features: transparency, alpha-blending, customizable colors, layout presets, form locking, constantly updated CPU speed for mobile processors, tray icon mode, statistics, memory usage, and much more.
- Hasher: Program emerged as a result of a BackUp Utility project break-up. Basic idea for this part of the project is to calculate hash/checksum for a file. Has a simple interface for comparing Hashes of two files dropped to the form sequentially, and it also can calculate a Hash for a string.
- Hooker: Lightweight keyboard spy. Some of the features: stealth mode, log encryption, capturing of clipboard changes and currently used process, log viewer. Public version has several limitations: program shows itself when started; stealth mode is deactivated when hot key is pressed (without password prompt).
- Colors: Color picker that helps users easily select a desired color using various pallets. It is able to pick color from the currently displayed screen content and supports a number of different color models, i.e. RGB, HSV, HLS, CMYK.
- Scripter: Script execution tool based on Pascal programming language. Contains wide range of built-in functions to simplify automation of common tasks. Supports command-line execution of scripts.
- RandPass: Random password generator. Simple tool for generating random passwords based on specified character set with customizable output format.
All of the applications are available to be downloaded from his website.
How to Quickly Find and Replace Text Across Multiple Files with One Command
The following is a copy and paste from the original article at Life Hacker but worth it.
Adam Dachis — If you need to find and replace the occurrence of a word, phrase, URL, or whatever, and it's in several documents, this can be a really tedious task. If you're running Mac OS X, Linux, or really any Unix-based operating system, you can use the command line to save you a lot of time and effort.
All you really need is this simple command:
perl -pi -w -e 's/SEARCH_FOR/REPLACE_WITH/g;' *.txt
The search string is what you need to alter. You want to replace SEARCH_FOR with the text you're searching for and REPLACE_WITH with the text you want to use as a replacement. You'll also want to change *.txt if you're working with HTML files (or another type of text file). This command also assumes you're in the directory you want, so you'll also need to usecd to change to the directory you want or will have to specify the full path. For example:
perl -pi -w -e 's/stupid/awesome/g;' ~/Desktop/*.txt
The above command will replace all occurrences of "stupid" with "awesome" found in any .txt files on the desktop. Pretty neat!
briss breathes a new life into my SONY PRS-500
I have Sony PRS-500 reader which was purchased way back... (actually a second one, as the original one was accidentally dropped on the subway and never to be found again... sob)... I've used to read few epub books (fictions mostly) and I've enjoyed using it quite a bit as it was way easier on my eye than any other LCD displays.
Despite some of the quirks such as slow response from time to time I ... I've even modified it to display Korean fonts!... However, when it came to reading PDF books, it was bit of hit and miss as the layout was no always best formatted for the small 5" screen that it has... Then came briss. It cuts off unnecessary margins from the PDF pages so that the letters show up bigger (depends on original layout)... now I can read lot more books in PDF that were originally created for bigger screens!
Link to their project page is http://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/ .