PCTips3000 » Codrut Nistor

A Free 64-bit FTP Client For Windows, Finally!

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:02:59 +0000

Ever tried to find a FTP client fully compatible with your 64-bit Windows Vista or 7? Obviously, there’s not only one program to fit the description, but when talking about freebies that work properly on 64-bit operating systems, things are getting really interesting… and today I decided to tell you a few words about a free 64-bit FTP client for Windows, namely Null FTP.

The Null FTP client is available as both free and paid versions (this one’s called Null FTP Pro), and while the free edition has some limitations, most average users won’t feel the difference. Anyway, if you want to know what you’re missing, you should know that the free version does not allow Z compression, can only work with 3 concurrent transfers and the number of registered servers is also 3. At last, the free version has a TCP buffer size limited to 128KB.

These being said, I should also add multilanguage support, integrity checks, and the fact that you get no additional restrictions when using the free version, except those already mentioned above. Null FTP’s current version is 1.3, the setup package has 5.8 MB in size, and… I guess that’s all. Have a nice weekend, folks!

Online Code Editor With Snippets

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:10:03 +0000

If you’re a programmer in a hurry, there’s no need to download a code editor or use Notepad as long as there are plenty of better solutions online. No, I am not talking about downloadable software, but online services. Today, the time has come for Gist.GitHub!

With support for plain text and a really long list of programming/markup languages (syntax highlighting, obviously), Gist.GitHub can be easily used without creating an account, but having one can’t hurt, especially since it’s free for open source, and you’ll also get some special features with it. Anyway, I won’t get to those features, since exploring Gist.GitHub is really fun, and it doesn’t take too long, either.

If you were wondering about the official mumbo-jumbo, here it is: “Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others. All gists are git repositories, so they are automatically versioned, forkable and usable as a git repository.”

At last, you may want to take a look at the pricing for those developing commercial applications. Just take a look at this page, and I guess that’s all for today, folks!

Move Gmail Attachments Column To Left

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:55:03 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I love Gmail. It may not be perfect, but when it comes to making it as good as possible, you only need to go ahead and try to improve it. Google Labs gives you the tools in most cases, all you need to do is spare some time to find out how to get things done. Today, we’ll learn how to move those attachement icons from the far right to the close left – at least that’s how I usually see things – most important stuff should be to the left… right, Beyonce?

Since there are a few easy steps to go through, I will stop wasting your time and try to make this as short as possible, so here we go:

1. Open Gmail and click on Settings

2. In the Settings screen, click on Labs

3. Scroll down to Move Icon Column (for most popular resolutions, this option should be visible without having to scroll down).

4. Check Enable, and then press Save Changes

Now, you can enjoy your Gmail attachments icons (and others) right after the stars/superstars icons. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Linux System Monitor, Comin’ Up!

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:03:09 +0000

As more and more people start using computers, Linux is slowly gaining market share. I don’t care about the reasons, since I could go on and on and on about them – I simply look at what’s happening and act accordingly. Leaving aside music/video players and other really popular tools, Linux system monitors also are facing an increased demand, and today we’ll take a quick look at Conky.

Why Conky? The name is funny, it’s lightweight, has support for a bunch of popular music players, IMAP/POP3, and can even be extended using Lua support or any of your own pieces of code. Sounds pretty cool, right? Sure, you may say that this is a program for experts, but that is completely wrong, since Conky works great out of the box, although you may want to take a closer look at its documentation to take full advantage of all the goodies coming in the box…

This is the free Linux system monitor I have for you today, and if you want to see more screenshots, just go to this page. That’s all, folks!

Free Currency Converter… And Then Some!

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:53:52 +0000

Before moving on to the subject, let me give you a little bonus. Those of you who are really into Google probably know it already, but some of you may have no idea how easy can one convert currency simply by using Google Search and nothing more. You don’t have to Google for “currency converter,” simply type in, for example, “100 USD to EUR” and type Enter, that’s all! Now, let’s take things even higher…

… and take a closer look at OANDA. I never heard of it until today, so I can’t exactly tell you how popular it is (sure, I can check its traffic and PR, but popularity isn’t always about the raw numbers). Popular or not, this one’s surely one useful online service, since it offers currency conversion for about 170 currencies, with daily and historical rates, not to mention its multilanguage support and custom rates (basic interbank, +/- rates)!

If you’re a webmaster, then you should be happy to know that OANDA also offers a currency converter widget for your website, not to mention the free iPhone currency converter tool, currently able to work with 180 currencies and four metals (heavy metal, maybe? or at least thrash metal? haha!). Pretty cool tool, if you ask me…

Notepad + Your Google Account = Love!

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:35:05 +0000

Another week is ending, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to write. In fact, there’s always something to write, and if I don’t have a computer around, sometimes even my phone is enough, no matter the model (for example, some time ago I was using a Nokia 1100 to do that – I simply saved as many reminders as needed to save my ideas for later use). These being said, you’re probably asking yourselves what’s wrong with Google Docs, right? Nothing wrong, only that, sometimes, I may need something really basic – and fast!

Take Notepad, add your Google account’s user and password, put them together, stir well, and the result will be SimpleText! This Web-based text editor can help you save revisions of your documents, and the best part of it all is that you can host it on your own server, and maybe even mess with the code, since it offers an open source, public API. Excellent!

To make things even more interesting, there are a bunch of applications already supporting SimpleText, and if you simply want to write down your thoughts from time to time in a fast loading, really easy to use text editor that allows you to easily move from a computer to another without interrupting your flow of ideas… SimpleText may be one of the best choices around. That’s all, folks, enjoy this little black beauty, but don’t write down your credit card/bank information or other kinds of sensitive info in it, all right?

Less Accounting, More Work!

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:55:35 +0000

I hate accounting, and this has nothing to do with the fact that one of my best friends is an accountant (and severely underpaid, unfortunately). This has more to do with the fact that I hate statistics, and these two always come together. Anyway, I don’t need an accountant, but if I would, I’d surely go for LessAccounting or something similar!

As you probably figured out already, LessAccounting is all about helping you keep an eye on your money, and it’s enough to say that, at least according to the official page, this service tracks over $500,000,000 daily, without including EUR! While you can even take advantage of the iPhone app to track your expenses and enjoy integration with PayPal, Basecamp, PostalMethods and a few others, there’s something you really should know…

… LessAccounting is not free, but you can try it for free for 30 days, so things aren’t that bad, after all. Features go as far as multiple types of Sales Tax, Mileage logs, or even Bank reconciliation, while pricing looks decent, so if you want to fire your accountant, now’s the perfect time to get him replaced with LessAccounting!

Free Online Image Editing With PicMagick

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:33:57 +0000

With each new Internet user, a new “free image editor” search ends up in Google, sooner or later. Oh, well… maybe it’s not exactly like that, but I can surely tell you that a lot of people are looking for easy ways to retouch images, and I can’t think about anything more straightforward than an online image editor. Since we talked about such things before, it’s a pleasure to get back to this topic, and today we’ll take a quick look at one tool that’s pretty basic, yet looks and works great, namely PicMagick.

Still a Beta service, PicMagick is really easy to use, allowing you to crop/rotate images, fix that annoying red eye effect, smooth skin, adjust/enhance colors, and nothing more – at least for now, obviously! Working great with virtually all major browsers, PicMagick can open BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG and TIFF files, while saving is done in the same format as the source image (at least that’s what I can conclude after my short experience with this little toy).

If you simply need to perform some basic adjustments and you don’t want to install anything, PicMagick may not be the best solution, but it’s surely one worth keeping an eye on. After all, why open a huge online image editor, when you only need to turn a color image into sepia and save it?

Free Audio-Video Convertors Collection

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:07:13 +0000

As you probably know already, I’m more into listening music than converting it, but some of my friends are really into audio/video convertors, so every time I find something useful, I should get some beers. Unfortunately, it seems that my friends know everything already, so I may end up telling them about something they knew already. Oh, well, maybe I’ll get lucky with Free Studio…

A package almost as large as 40 MB, Free Studio contains “all free software from DVDVideoSoft to work with DVD, video and audio files,” as they describe it. All in all, you’ll get no less than 25 utilities, from YouTube to MP3 Converter to Video Flip and Rotate or Audio Dub. For the download link and detailed information, please go to this page.

At last, you should know that, while installing the package, there are two toolbars to avoid, but other than that, everything’s just great, so I’ll leave you enjoy this excellent audio-video converting tools suite. That’s all, folks!

Rapidshare Alternative Of the Week – FileFactory

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:19:14 +0000

Starting a new week with another RapidShare alternative can’t be a bad idea, right? After all, there are a lot of online storage services, and one simply can’t discover them all. You just find one that works well for your needs and start using it, but there’s always something better hidden behind the corner. Today, the time has come for FileFactory!

FileFactory allows you to upload files up to 1GB in size each absolutely for free, but also provides FTP upload capabilities to its Premium members (you’ll have to pay to become one, obviously), a free streaming music service, and a bunch of other goodies I am sure you’ll be delighted to discover.

Speaking about my own experience with FileFactory as a guy who just opened it up and upload a file, I should say that upload speed is really good (I uploaded a file having 434 MB in 10 minutes or so), but I can’t say I am crazy about all the ads present here and there. At least, I should also say that I don’t like the captcha you have to face when downloading a file, either. Oh, well, I guess you can’t always have it all…

All in all, FileFactory is surely one RapidShare alternative to try for free when you have to upload some large file. Hey, you can even get a Premium account if you need those features! Just be sure to get back here and share with us a few thoughts about the bang for the buck offered by this online service, all right? Good luck!