Tweak Master's House Of Useful Tricks

CopyPath - Another usefult Windows shell extension

2011-12-14T11:22:00.000+01:00

Another small and free Windows shell extension I've came across and found to be useful is named CopyPath. As it's name says it is quite obvious what it does (should do!?) - it simplifies copying of you current browsing folder path by adding this option to Windows shell menu (the one you get when you press right mouse button while using Windows Explorer). Nothing revolutionary, but definitely very useful and if statistically analyzed it will save you 50% (without it you normally need 3 mouse clicks to carry out this action while with this extension installed only 2 clicks are needed) of all the clicks needed to carry out this simple action. This extension is so simple that you will need to install it manually (don't worry installation is quite simple and instructions are provided) and before you do that you need to choose which version you need - x32, x64 or Unicode version. Anyway this little utility can be downloaded here.

How to open command prompt from folder you're currently browsing (in Windows OS)

2011-12-14T11:08:00.000+01:00

If for any reason you ever had to instantly open command prompt from folder you're currently browsing using Windows Explorer (ie. for testing of new great batch script you've just created), you know this procedure required you to:
1st) open command prompt (procedure is dependent regarding Windows OS version you're using) and 2nd) to copy and paste path to desired folder in a very "intuitive" way to just opened (legacy) MS-DOS command prompt, because it will (of course) always open in predefined folder which in most cases is far away from the folder you need to be in.

If all this sounds familiar to you, I have some good news - the time has come to finally relax and to let a very simple and cool Windows shell extension take it from now on. This cool utility is called ContextConsole Shell Extension and will enable you to open command prompt from any folder you're currently browsing. Definitely a must have extension!

Why doesn't my super-turbo-mega-ultra expensive notebook/laptop have a HDD activity indicator?

2011-09-26T23:45:00.000+02:00

So, you've finally bought a new notebook/laptop? And of course, before you've actually bought it, you quadchecked all of it's features googl'd out every single review and user comment, right? And you've just unpacked it and stared using it, maybe even connected on external display? But, you just feel like something is missing ... and you finally noticed - your laptop doesn't have a HDD indicator LED! Or even better if it does have one, but manufacturer (I will deliberately not mention which one it is - all of you who have it will know, all other take a guess!) decided to place it on such a "wonderful" place that you at least will need a mirror to see what it's showing.
For all of you reading this and still not quite getting it, ore even better all of you with HDD activity indicator built in your laptops, just keep reading on or just switch to some more interesting topic as this one will not become more interesting that it actually is! The rest of you will know where I'm heading to ...

I really spent a lot of time searching for solution to this problem and even Google didn't help me out too much. I came across HddLed Indicator, DiskLED, FloatLED, HardDriveIndicator, Hard Disk Indicator, FloatLED and least but not the last O&O DriveLed. Some of those are free, some are outdated, some are fully commercial products. BUT, the point is I've tried them all and none of the was flawless! So, how can it be you might ask? The thing is some of them reside in tray, some on screen and finally some of them can turn on/off some of your keyboard LED's which are rarely or never used like Scroll Lock (do you know what it's used for, huh?). All other methods except the last one turned out useless for me, so I headed for turning on/off my keyboard LED's. But, as there always is a BUT, program which could do this trick (I would tell you it's name, but to be honest I forgot which one it actually was) happened to invoke my laptpos's OSD each time it turned LED's on and off, which you can guess turned out to be even more irritating, even the idea was quite great.

Well, since I really (from various reasons) wanted to see if something is really going on on my HDD, even I don't have a HDD activity indicator on my laptop and I use on docking station, I took another expedition and finally found it! Even better I found it in a place where I never expected to find it! Excited to hear more? Well my solution actually can in a form of AutoHotkey script! I knew what Auto HotKey was, and it indeed is a great piece of free software but I just didn't even think about it could/will solve all of my problems with HDD activity indicator! OK, so here is how to get it (to get it to work you don't need to install AutoHotKey except if you don't need it for other purposes):

Go to http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/post-366484.html#366484; you will see a post with source code for DriveLeds v1.2,
Select all of the code and paste it into new plain text file (you can use Notepad, even I highly recommend you to use Notepad++),
Save it as let's say DriveLeds.ahk (the first part of name is arbitrary, but make sure extension should be .ahk!) on your HDD, wherever you like,
Go to http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/post-463050.html#463050 and download utility which will enable you to compile script from previous step into .exe file as it will be the easiest way to use this great little utility,
Make an .exe file ie. DriveLeds.exe and voila! You have a great little tool you can use to monitor your HDD activity! You can even choose if you want to compile x32 or x64 version of it.

I wanted to post compiled version of DriveLeds .ahk script here, but I just wouldn't do it without author's permission, and to be honest wanted to make you at least a little challenge before solving one of your's most unimportant problems!
All I can add is thank you r0lZ from AutoHotKey Forum, for making this script!

Windows 7 Network Activity Indicator - Can You Animate It Please?

2011-09-26T22:25:00.000+02:00

So, you're a Windows 7 user which knows it's way through Windows 7, right? But as Windows 7 might be by now most advanced Microsoft's operating system, it is just (to keep it low profile) funny how few (more or less) important things feel like unfinished in Windows 7. And I'm talking about things which have been implemented much earlier in previous versions like XP! By now you must be asking what I'm blabbering about, right? OK ...

Have you ever wanted to seen network (no matter which one) activity in Windows 7? You did? Hmm, but hey there is just no way to make Windows 7 give you some old good animated network activity indicator, right? Shame on Windows 7! But, fortunately a good olg chap by name of Igor Tolmachev (no I don't know him personally nor impersonally) made a great little tool by the name of Network Activity Indicator For Windows 7. Hope this one will help you out as it helped me! Great work Igor! Hopefully Microsoft will and should learn something out of this for next generations of it's operating systems.

reCAPTCHA solving methods - Update

2011-09-26T22:11:00.000+02:00

There has been some time since I've last time updated my blog, but hey it was summer time, right? OK, this will be just a quick update of my previous post about how to automatize reCAPTCHA solving.

My first update is related to another reCAPTCHA solving service, along with existing one Captcha Trader that showed up by the name of Captcha Brotherhood. It's system differs a bit from Captcha Trader's one as you cannot buy any credits nor cash them out, rather you can just earn and spend them on your downloading purposes. BUT, unlike Captcha Trader's practice, you CAN loose credits for each mistyped reCAPTCHA as well as for each reCAPTCHA you don't type in on time. Be aware what you're up to, so you don't end up typing in wrong captchas all the time for nothing. Another thing is that Captcha Brotherhood comes with let me say "a bit weird" desktop utility and JDownloader integration.
Also be aware that Captcha Trader is much more supported reCAPTCHA solving method by other downloaders other than JDownloader like CandiSoft Loader! or Mipony. There is a big chance you'll want them all installed on your system, because even JDownloader is by far the most developed one, it still has several (not to say constant) issues with certain file hosting services, which other two tools don't have. On the other hand Mipony is unable to make a reconnection at this point, while CandiSoft Loader! has this option, but honestly I haven't tested it out yet.

But let me get back to my original thoughts and reCAPTCHAs. In between two quite cute little utilities showed up on scene, which can help you solve captchas more efficiently. They are respectively Captcha Notifier and jCatGUI (yeah I know, great name, right? ;-) The later one supports only Captcha Trader, while first one supports both Captcha Trader and Captcha Brotherhood systems. The fun part with Captcha Notifier is that it allows you to run several instances of it, so you can simultaneously solve reCAPTCHAs for both systems. But, be aware it will just remember login credentials for last used service (of course if you set it to remember it). If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, try it and you'll soon figure it out. Anyway the point of both of these utilities is to provide you a pleasant way to solve reCAPTCHAs and earn credits. Anyway, don't miss them out.

And if you still don't have your free reCAPCHA solving account get it here NOW and for FREE!

How to automate input of Google reCAPTCHA codes on free file hosts

2011-07-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

If you, for any reason, have a need to download from various free file hosts which have implemented Google's reCAPTCHA method of verification before allowing you to start free download, you probably know how annoying this can become if you need to download more than one file. Not to mention you have to be present and you simply cannot automate downloading process no matter what you try. It is quite obvious why various hosts decided to implement this method - they simply want to force as many people as they can to purchase their commercial and unlimited version of service. But, not all of you have a need to do so, even free service provides much lower download speeds than paid one.

So how to deal with this situation you ask? Well there just might be a good solution for this as well. In this tutorial I will reveal to you how to fully and 100% for FREE automate downloading from free file hosts with implemented Google's reCAPTCHA image verification.

At first you will need a nice little Java based and widely known and popular tool named JDownloader. It is 100% free and spyware/ad-ware free software and translated into many languages with active support forum. My subjective opinion is that this is actually the best multi-OS download manager. JDownloader is quite great download tool and can alone handle several kinds of input verification methods, but due to complexity of Google's reCAPTCHA methodology it cannot handle it by itself. At this point you might be asking 'OK, if it cannot handle reCAPTCHA, why are you spending my time on reading this'? But wait! A bit of patience and I'll reveal to you a secret how JDownloader can do it easily with just a little bit of help. And that help comes in shape of JDownloader plugin called CaptchaTrader. Interested? Than just keep reading ...

CaptchaTrader is officially supported JDownloader plugin which you can easily check on JDownloader's Official Support Forum, so you don't have to worry I'm 'selling' you some type of scam/spyware/ad-ware.

CaptchaTrader plugin will enable you to type in reCAPTCHA codes when you have time and earn credits for your work, which you can spend later for automating your downloads from free hosts using reCAPTCHA codes. This means you will not need to type in anything, others will do it for you allowing you to fully automate your free file hosts downloads (for example at night). The only thing you need to do prior to start earning credits is to signup for a 100% free CaptchaTrader account. But please, before you proceed, just keep in mind that you WON'T ever need to make any kind of payment for this method to work for you, the only reason why you need to create (have) an account with CaptchaTrader is so that CaptchaTrader's system can keep track of your credits.

Now after we have cleared some things out, you're ready to get started. Complete procedure you will need to follow in order to make reCAPTCHA automation work for you is explained in the following steps. Be sure to read them carefully and you will be ready to automate your reCAPTCHA downloads in no time.

(If you already have JDownloader installed on your computer, feel free to skip Step #1)

Step #1: If you already haven't done so, download and install JDownloader.

Note: As mentioned before, JDownloader is Java based tool and will require you to install Java on your computer for it to work properly.

Step #2: Visit CaptchaTrader and sign up a free account. After you arrive on CaptchaTrader's homepage find item "Account" on top menu or click on "Sign up for a free account!" on the lower right side of the homepage. After you finish signing up for a new account, as a reward you will get 100 credits as a welcome gift.

Important: When you create your account, don't forget to go to your Inbox and verify your account, to prevent loosing all your credits!

Step #3: When you have created your account, find "Earn Credits" on CaptchaTrader's homepage menu and click on it. This will cause reCAPTCHA codes to show up on your screen, which you need to type in to earn credits. This credits will enable you to use this service to automate your downloads from reCAPTCHA free file hosts. For more information click on CaptchaTrader's "FAQ" to see how you can earn and spend your credits. The main thing is that you can very easily in no time earn 500 credits which will be more than enough to get your reCAPTCHA hassle free downloading.

Step #4: When you have gathered some credits on your account, it is time for you to "cash them in" or better said for others to solve your reCAPTCHA's. Find item "Plugins" on CaptchaTrader's menu and click on it to download JDownloader plugin (available as Win and Linux download). This tutorial will show you how to use it under Windows OS.

Step #5: If you have JDownloader running, close it completely, because it needs to restart to (re)load it's plugins. Open file captchatrader4jdownloader_win.zip which you have just downloaded in previous step and extract folder "captchatrader" from .zip archive to <JDownload Install Directory>\jd\captcha\methods (ie. C:\Program Files\JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods or C:\Program Files (x86)\JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods).

Step #6: Go to folder "captchatrader" (ie. C:\Program Files\JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods\captchatrader or C:\Program Files(x86)\JDownloader\jd\captcha\methods\captchatrader) and use Notepad (or any other text editor) to edit file named "captchatrader.properties". Once you have opened it enter your username and password you used when you created your account. This part is crucial as it will enable to use your earned credits! If you feel a bit insecure, you can also instead of typing in your password type in your Passkey (seems to me like MD5 hash of your password, so 100% secure) which can be found on 1st page when you log in to your account. This way no one can steal your credits, so you're safe to go.

Step #7: Once you have completed everything from previous step(s), (re)start JDownloader and enjoy hassles downloading from all reCAPTCHA free file hosts! There is no need to adjust any other settings in JDownloader for this plug-in to work!

Note: All of you who have firewall, you may be asked to allow Java to access Internet, which you should do, as this plug-in needs to send your reCAPTCHA's to server and send you responses back. Anyway no harm in this process is done.

Im my experience explained method is working perfectly for me with many reCAPTCHA hosts. I know this is not a revolutionary thing, as there are other reCAPTCHA based services, but you have to pay for all of them, and this one is FREE to use. The main point is you can earn credits yourself when you have time for it, to be able to spend them later when you need your automated downloads. Or if you are tired of typing in, you can cheaply buy credits as well, but this is NOT a prerequisite for this plugin to work!

Disclaimer: I'm NOT the author of JDownloader, as well as this reCAPTCHA plug-in and will not be responsible for any possible consequences that might be a result of you implementing steps explained in this tutorial. I just wanted to share part of my knowledge with you. If you are willing to try, feel free, if not maybe next time ...

Better way to perform file/folder operations in Windows

2011-07-01T16:13:00.000+02:00

File and folder operations are unavoidable thing for every single computer user today. But, along with this fact, my subjective guess is that there are really few Windows users that can actually say this kind of operations couldn't be better handled in all Windows versions produced until now. No matter if you ever had a need to copy/move large amount of files/folders from one storage media to another, locally or over network, you probably know how painful this process can become.

Have you ever tried to pause, resume or organize file/folder operations with native Windows copy/move tool? Of course you haven't, as this simply cannot be done. Have you ever wondered what files/folders have been copied/moved any which ones were not and why? And how much time have you spent on trying to repeat unsuccessful copy/move operation? If this sounds familiar to you, as it is to me, I have a good news for you.

One of the first utilities I discovered to help me out with this matter, was utility called TeraCopy. Since day one I stared using this little tool, I realized what I was missing and how file/folder copying/moving easily can become totally painless process. There is a free and commercial version, both supporting x32 and x64 architecture. As far as I noticed there are no features that are missing in free version comapred to commercial one, so don't wait go grab yourself a copy and solve your file/folder operations in Windows forever.

How to 'undo' closed Windows Explorer windows

2011-07-01T11:01:00.000+02:00

The first thing I want to share with you is something that has bothered me for a long time, and even took me quite some time to find available solution. But hey, what am I talking about you must be wondering? OK, so let me start with a question to you. How many times have you accidentally deleted some file or folder on your computer? Often or less often there is always a way to restore them - that's why they invented Recycle Bin, right? Even if you use famous Shift + Delete combination which bypasses sending files/folders to Recycle Bin there are still a lot of utilities to help you restore your data. But, what is happening when we come to question/functionality to restore closed Windows Explorer (WE) windows? Can we restore them too? Some of advanced file manager software solved this problem, but they can't help you out when you are using WE, so I will not talk about them here.

From my current experience it can happen that my fingers are just a bit faster than my thinking process and I simply start closing WE windows before I've actually finished all operations I planned to do. And now I want to copy some files from location A to location B, but have closed WE window with location B too early, before I was done. I was annoyed with a fact every time this has happened I needed to open WE and had to navigate to location B again. This problem made me to intensively start searching for a solution. It seemed a pretty simple task as I was just looking for an 'Undo' to be able to easily restore closed WE window. As you probably know by now, this is quite common feature in today's Internet viewers, but there is no such native feature in Windows OS.

After quite some time spent on search engines looking out for a tool that might help me out I finally found a solution to solve my problem. I found a small freeware utility named Folder View that simply resides in system tray and remembers up to 10 last closed WE windows. It also enables you to define shortcuts to most used folders. And I was saved. No more clicking all over folders to get back to closed location, with just one click it was back! But I was just surprised how hard was to find this little utility on Internet search engines.

Mentioned utility will work flawlessly on most Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7, even it is not stated on the it's homepage. Unfortunately, it's full functionality or at least for me the most important one - ability to restore closed WE windows is available only on x32 architecture. It will install on x64, but it will not be able to 'undo' closed WE windows. As it seems for now, author has not provided a working solution for this, so I was forced to keep looking for x64 solution to 'undo' my closed WE windows.

And again, after quite some time spent on Internet searching, I finally found a utility which is able to provide 'undo' functionality on both x32 and x64 architecture named Direct Folders. The 'catch 22' with this piece of software is that it comes in both freeware and commercial versions, but unfortunately free version doesn't support so much needed feature to 'undo' closed WE windows. It just supports creating shortcuts to access to most used folders. But, if you really need this feature paying 14.95 EUR (arount 21.73 USD, by current exchange rate) will definitely be worth it.

Hope this will help you as much as it helped me.

Update: In the meantime I discovered another piece of software that can do the same trick of restoring closed Windows Explorer windows by the name of Moo0 RightClicker (yeah quite original name!). There is a free an dcommercial version, as far as I'm aware both of them can restore closed Windows Explorer windows. Alos be sure to chech completee Moo0's site as it has some quite useful software for free.

It's me ...

2011-06-30T21:49:00.000+02:00

After a lot of time I figured out it would be just fine for me to return to this kind of web activity and start my own blog. It's been more than 10 years from my last web publishing activity, which by the way last time happened back in the good old days of y2k bug and era of .com companies. So I figured out I could just wipe some dust off my shoulders and finally give myself a little web boost again. I wasn't sleeping in the meantime, but rather just waiting for web technologies to mature a bit - just like a good wine or whiskey. ;-)

Despite mentioned facts are true (you can trust me or not), one of the main reasons why I've decided to start my own blog is that I'm kind of techie in eternal search for useful things that could ease my everyday use of my computer as well as some other things too. At first I started filling up my bookmarks or favorites as some might call them, but I decided time has come to start sharing my findings with other people as well. But, at the same time I decided the time has come to start keeping a clean reference to all of those useful findings online for my own use. In other words, even if my blog never gets popular it will still be very useful to myself.

If you're still reading this, well good news are that I'm done with explaining my web re-appearance and just starting to make contributions which hopefully you will find just as useful as I do.