Software you can(t) do without

[EphesiaNZ]

Well I'm posting this as I just read about the following app in the Linux Journal which i can now not live without . I had to check out the apps website to make sure it wasn't a late April fools joke.

And that application is ebook2cw which is (wait for it...), quoting the site itself,

"ebook2cw is a command line program that converts a plain text file (like an eBook) to Morse code (CW) MP3 or OGG files. Morse parameters like speed and tone frequency, and audio parameters such as bit rate, sample rate, and quality can be changed by command line switches. It automatically splits and numbers the output files by chapters."

The website for this is here, http://fkurz.net/ham/ebook2cw.html

It comes as a command line utility but has an optional GUI and is available for most popular operating systems. This is truly the killer app which will get me noticed at all those geeky gatherings now

While this app may have a serious use if you want to learn morse code, it certainly has put a smile on my face solely for it's novelty factor

I think I will file this app in the section of my brain that has other notable things stored there such as the person that made a RAID array from ten floppy disk drives - such uniqueness!

Do any of you have other such things you want to share?

 

[MPaul]

"ebook2cw is a command line program that converts a plain text file (like an eBook) to Morse code (CW) MP3 or OGG files. Morse parameters like speed and tone frequency, and audio parameters such as bit rate, sample rate, and quality can be changed by command line switches. It automatically splits and numbers the output files by chapters."

But would Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lose some of the romance in Morse Code? Maybe not to a computer engineer.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

But would Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lose some of the romance in Morse Code? Maybe not to a computer engineer.

I am/was a computer engineer and personally would find several hours of R & J in morse code less than appealing. Perhaps they should do political speeches like this as we may be able to understand them better

 

[Qyöt27]

But would Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet lose some of the romance in Morse Code? Maybe not to a computer engineer.

Eh, it's not like anyone could best hearing it in the original Klingon. Wait, that was Hamlet.

Most of the things I'd list are actually necessary for tasks I perform, like AviSynth, or MediaInfo.

 

[getadicted]

Mine would have to be Steam. I don't play very often because I only have a laptop that isn't very well equipped to handle games. However I completely support the software because it lets me find good games at reasonable prices and they have amazing sales every now and then. It's all based on cloud networking so as long as I have my account information I can continue to download my games on any computer I own. Someday when I can afford to build a beast of a computer I'll have my game library waiting for me.

 

[MrJim]

OnyX for mac

 

[ChrisWiegman]

Mac OS

 

[C-Man]

Wolfenstein 3-D.

 

[pgp_protector]

Bios.

 

[WeakButHopeful]

Irfanview, Notepad++, Firefox, KeePass, TrueCrypt, ImgBurn, MediaMonkey, Evernote, Agent Ransack, Visual Studio Express Edition, RapidSVN and Thunderbird.

 

[Sketcher]

ls.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

ls.

Funny thing is, I try to use this command on Windows machines when (rarely) I want a list of files at the command line

I find the humourous trio of paging commands, more, less and most quite cool. If you know these commands then the following is funny,

less is more, but more more than more is, so more is less less, so use more less if you want less more - most users never use most as they use more or less, more or less, most of the time...

 

[Qyöt27]

Funny thing is, I try to use this command on Windows machines when (rarely) I want a list of files at the command line

Never stopped me...

 

[MrJim]

AppZapper, QuickVerse, Disk Inventory X, Scratch, Lego Digital Designer, SketchUp, Blockland (Mac) ~~first three for me, last four for my 11 y/o son

Office (PC)

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Never stopped me...

You know, I seemed to remember the ls command working for me at some point in the past. I tried it last week on an XP rebuild for a church member but came back saying invalid command... Who knows, I don't particularly care as I try to avoid Windows machines these days but they have a tendency to follow me around

You can make an alias for dir and there is also an .exe file which will add an ls command to the Windows console with color too etc...!

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Notepad++
jEdit
Lilypond
EndNote
Pidgin
iTunes

 

[Qyöt27]

You know, I seemed to remember the ls command working for me at some point in the past. I tried it last week on an XP rebuild for a church member but came back saying invalid command... Who knows, I don't particularly care as I try to avoid Windows machines these days but they have a tendency to follow me around

You can make an alias for dir and there is also an .exe file which will add an ls command to the Windows console with color too etc...!

Well, I have several POSIX environments (read: MSys, Cygwin, and the ones that come with Git for Windows and ActivePerl) set up and available on the PATH, so I was simply using a Windows build of the standard ls utility. XP doesn't automatically come with that stuff, and there's little point to using Interix when the other solutions are infinitely better rounded.

It gets even better in that I have some .bat scripts set up to do quick operations a little easier. One of them - intended to take .m3u files and reformat them into generic CD case inserts - looks like this:

@ECHO OFF
grep "EXTINF" %1 | todos | cut -c13- | sed -e "s/^/. /g" | cat -n | sed -e 's/\t//g' -e "s/^[ \t]*//g" > %1.txt

And then I also set up a file association/task so that the option is available when in the right-click menu.



The question of POSIX utilities is one thing I wonder about when it comes to ReactOS, whenever it reaches suitable maturity - I'd love it if it had one already integrated and maintained by the update mechanism/repository system. For cross-compatibility with Microsoft OSes, that probably means MSys/MinGW, but it'd be nice to have something closer to a normal environment (like supporting named pipes, or not being as sluggish as MSys can be).

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Ah yes, the machines I used at one point had Windows Services for UNIX installed hence the ls command et al being available.

 

[WalksWithChrist]

Ghost 2002!

I still have that on floppy and it saved my bacon, once again, a couple weeks ago.

 

[Dark_Lite]

ReactOS

it reaches suitable maturity

I loled.