Tag Archives: opensource

Manage Redundant And Recurring Email & Forum Replies With Copy Pasta

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Internet forums are a great way to hold conversations or discuss an issue you’re facing in order to get help from others with, or related to, the same type of problem, other people are facing. For me, Forums are awesome in many ways. You can ask and share anything you want, while remaining in anonymity. Forums like XDA and 4chan have a huge number of active members, allowing the community to help each other out in times of need. Everyone who is active on any forum knows that generally people don’t search the forums before asking a question, and this results in the same question being asked hundreds of times. This can create quite an annoyance, which leads to even some new and genuine questions, being left unanswered. This also creates problems for administrators and forum moderators to deal with such spams. If you're facing such nuisance, you can give Copy Pasta a try. It is an open source application that lets you manage your replies in forums to redundant questions, thus saving great deal of time. This can also be useful if you have to reply to emails using the same set of answers over and over. Check out how it works after the break. Read More

fireBwall Is Modular Firewall For Creating Packet Processing Modules

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fireBwall is an open source firewall for Windows that makes use of the NTKernel drivers. By using fireBwall, you can manage all of your TCP and UDP connections. All that is required is to configure your network adapter and to choose which ports will be whitelisted. By default, fireBwall blocks all incoming new connections, therefore, you will have to manually configure all incoming and outgoing connections after fireBwall installation. With performing these basic configurations, you will not be able to use the internet and will also encounter access issues on your local network. Read More

Create Text-Based ASCII Art From Images Using ASCII Generator

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ASCII art is a graphic designing technique that uses computers for presentation, and consists of pictures pieced together from the printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard. It is basically text-based visual art, and can be created with any text editor. However, creating ASCII art using a simple text editor will demand a lot of time and concentration from the person making it. These days, you can find a tool for everything you want to do. Applications used to generate and manipulate images are available in both free and paid forms. Instead of wasting your time in creating an ASCII image in a text editor, you can use the following application. ASCII Generator is a free, open source application that lets you convert images into text-based art. It lets you adjust the density levels, brightness, contrast and dither of the converted images. You can let the application automatically select the suitable characters, or enter the alphabets and characters of your choice to create the text-based image. ASCII Generator is capable of creating ASCII art of multiple images in a batch operation. Read More

Schedule System Shutdown, Reboot & Hibernate In Ubuntu With qshutdown

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qshutdown is an open source application for scheduling shutdown, reboot, suspension and hibernation of Linux computers. It not only provides the option to schedule system shutdown, reboot etc, according to a specified time frame within the current date, but also provides a calendar for selecting the exact date and time to schedule such a system task for a future date. This program is handy for users who might require running automatic system tasks, after which they might wish to shutdown their computer to conserve power. qshutdown is quite similar in functionality to Easy Shutdown; however, it provides more advanced options, such as custom date selection for executing system shutdown. The program is compatible with Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based operating systems like Kubuntu and Xubuntu. According to the developer, this application might also work on UNIX and FreeBSD, but it has not been tested by him. Read More

Fotowall Is Easy-To-Use Application For Creating Photo Collages

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Collage is a technique used in art that involves creating an image by using a number of other images, or forms. A collage is not only confined to creating an image using other images; you can use newspaper cuttings, images, text, photographs, parts of other artwork, and basically anything you can find to create a collage. For instance, if you have a collection of, say, a thousand images, using a collage making application, you can align them in any form offered by the application in order to create a beautiful looking collage out of them. Previously, we have covered some very powerful collage making applications like CollageIt, Shape Collage and Cas, that let you create a collage of all specified images in different shapes and sizes. Fotowall is an open source collage making tool that lets you make collage arrangements with your pictures, add text, add images directly from internet, adjust stacking, and apply looks and different types of effects to the image both individually and to the whole collage. It allows you to rotate and resize images, as well as apply presets for CD Covers, DVD Covers, Apply Decorations, Set Titles, Add Background and apply Random placement of images in the collage. Read More

Record Screencasts In Ubuntu Linux With Kazam Screencaster

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Kazam Screencaster is an open source Linux application, which makes it easy to create and share screencasts via YouTube and VideoBin. It impeccably records the on-screen activity, and additionally, provides the option to captures system audio (if enabled), to provide a robust screencast experience like other useful tools of it’s kind, such as Screencast-O-Matic for Windows. During testing, we experienced no lags or functionality issues with Kazam, and the video recording and uploading feature was extremely smooth. Read More

Forevid Lets You Analyze And Render Surveillance Videos With Ease

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When analyzing surveillance videos, one often lacks the knowledge to use professional software for editing and rendering the footages. For example, lets say you have setup a camera in your office as a surveillance tool, or would like to analyze the feed of a forensic camera installed in your office. In such a case, it might be hard for you to use a video editing application as advanced as Premiere Pro. Furthermore, such applications are often paid. Forevid is an open source software for the forensic analysis of surveillance videos. It has been specifically designed to offer a free and easy-to-use mechanism for common users to analyze surveillance videos with benefits similar to a commercial software. Read More

rsrdp: Establish Multiple Remote Desktop Connections In Same Window

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rsrdp is a portable remote desktop connection management application, which enables establishing multiple remote desktop connections by switching between them within the same application (window). You can create and connect between pre-defined hosts, and provides options to extend or contract the interface for making it easy to view remote desktop windows. What makes rsrdp different from the default Windows Remote Desktop is, that it provides a unified interface for all remote connections, with the utility to connect and disconnect all pre-defined hosts simultaneously. Read More

CoRD: Better Alternative To Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection [Mac]

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Yesterday, we reviewed Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (MRDC), a Mac app that allows you to remotely connect to any Windows PC and access it. One of our readers sounded off in the comments about CoRD, citing it was better than the aforementioned app, and we took a crack at it. CoRD is a free, open source Mac app that allows you to connect with any Windows PC, and is similar in functionality to Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (MRDC). It allows you to control how audio is played, lets you access files on your Mac through the Windows PC you are connected to (without breaking the connection), and control just about everything on it. With both apps being so similar, and with the exact same price (read free), the deal maker for us was how fast the changes made on the other end were reflected on the Mac, and Cord definitely performed better. Granted, there was the minor glitch or two, but the only major inconvenience we faced was that the screen never froze, which was fairly common with Microsoft’s app. Read More

Friendeye: Switch To User-Specified Screen Brightness With A Click

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Desktop Brightness and Contrast control applications help you in reducing the glow of the computer screen to make it easier for the user to look at the screen for long hours. There are a lot of tools currently available that do reduce the color, brightness, contrast etc of the computer screen to make it more eye-friendly. Back in 2009, we covered F.lux, a cross platform tool that adjusts the color contrast of your computer screen according to the time of day. Color contrast and brightness are the two basic settings that effect, and put strain on, your eyes. If you use the same brightness settings at night, as the ones you use at day, you can especially feel the strain on your eyes during night time. Just like F.lux changes the contrast, Friendeye is a portable screen filtering application that lets you manually select a brightness level for your computer screen. It allows you to switch to the user-specified screen brightness level with just a single click. Keep reading after the break to find more about Friendeye. Read More

Path Copy Copy: Copy File And Folder Locations In Various Formats

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Path Copy Copy is a Windows Explorer shell extension that adds file and folder path copying options in the right-click context menu, to help users easily copy the various path formats. The copied path can then be pasted to a document, email compose window etc. Path Copy Copy provides the option to not just copy the file or folder path of the selected item, but also for the parent directory, internet path, UNIX and Cygwin paths. Details after the break. Read More

NppDocShare: Real-Time Document Editing On Multiple PCs In Notepad++

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Simple text editing can be performed using any text editor, such as the Windows Notepad, or the WordPad, if you need some more options for editing text. However, when you are editing something other than plain text, such as a code for a program you are writing, your editing needs are not met by the default programs for handling text included in Windows. Writing and editing programming languages without any extra tools can make the process very hard on the coder. Notepad++ is an open source text editor that allows users to perform both basic, as well as advanced text editing. The software allows users to install various plugins that enhance its capability even more. New plugins are coming out for Notepad++ every day, making it one the most powerful text editors out there. NppDocShare is one such plugin that increases the document editing capabilities of Notepad++ by allowing users to edit the same document from two different computers at the same time. You just need to connect the computers through a network connection, and you will be able to edit the document in real time. All the actions performed by each party will be instantly available to the other, without any lag or delay. Read More

Instant Beautiful Browsing: Windows 8 Metro Workspace In Windows 7

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If you don't like spending your time under a rock then you must have heard about Windows 8 Developers Preview by now. That's it, the upcoming Windows operating system from software giant. One of the new things about Windows 8 is its  Metro UI, which has been under a lot of love and hate discussion since the release of Windows 8 Developer’s Preview. Some stated the OS is doomed as the Metro UI is more suited for tablets and less for desktops, but we can't comment until the final release. Microsoft has also done away with some other useful features that we all know and used to. If you really like the Metro UI but don’t want to leave Windows 7 just for the sake of UI change, you can now enjoy Windows 8 Metro interface in Windows 7, too.  How? By using Instant Beautiful Browsing. IBB is an open source project aimed at developing a workspace that includes applications such as multi-view browser, clock, weather app, store and links to other applications in a eye-candy Metro User Interface. Its aimed at people who absolutely adore the new Windows 8 look. Although still under development cycle, it seems to have much potential. We went ahead to see whether its gonna quench the thirst of Metro UI aficionados. Read More

Simple Image Editing Tool Batch Converts Images & Adds Watermark [Mac]

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We’ve covered multiple image format converters for both Mac and Windows, and several web apps that allow you to edit images, but few that allow you to add watermarks to them, and that, too, in batches. Simple Image Editing Tool is an open source, Java-based Mac app that converts images to two formats, i.e., PNG and JPG, compress images in JPG, and adds a custom text watermark to images. Image conversion and compression aside, the watermark feature is no doubt of interest to anyone wanting to protect images from copyright infringement, or even for freelance designers who want to share design mock-ups with clients who seem unlikely to pay for work. Read More

Monitor Multiple Log Sources For Output & Events With Logview4net

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Logview4net is an open source log analyzing application that can monitor multiple different sources for output or events. It serves as a simple log monitor for text based log files, and also for more advanced features such as monitoring incoming UDP/TCP traffic, Event Log entries, STD Out/STD Err, RSS feeds, as well as MS SQL and MySQL database tables. In addition to viewing log files, the program can also perform certain actions when defined keyword is identified, including highlighting, ignoring (text) and playing a sound. Read More

Radio Tray: Minimalist Internet Radio Player For Ubuntu Linux

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Radio Tray is an open source streaming radio player for Ubuntu Linux that provides streaming via an app-indicator menu applet. Radio Tray comes with support for bookmarks, PLS, M3U, ASX, WAX and WVX playlist formats, and multiple plugins. It can play a number of media formats, which are based on the gstreamer libraries. The aim of this application is to provide internet radio streaming with a minimalist interface, along with the option to add multiple radio streams via internet radio URLs. Read More

Win7AudioSwitcher: Auto-Switch Speakers (Audio Devices) Based On Primary Monitor

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If your a tech enthusiast, or in any way familiar to the ongoing technology trends, then you must have known about HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). It is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting digital data, which came into mainstream use especially after the introduction of HD (High-Definition) content. The good thing about HDMI as compared to DVI, is that it transmits and receives both audio and video feeds through one cable, so if you have to connect, say your laptop to an LCD/PLASMA TV or any video display with built-in speakers, you don’t need separate audio and video leads. HDMI is now found in quite a lot of devices and same is the case in computers. However, the problem lies in the way Windows 7 handles the switch between default and HDMI audio output device. You have to go to Windows Control Panel, open Sound settings and select the HDMI audio as Default Device to enable your LCD’s speakers. Doing all that can be a bit annoying for a person who switches between different monitors a lot. If you needed quicker way to do this job then you can use Win7AudioSwitcher, which automates this process. Continue reading to find out how. Read More

Converseen Is Batch Image Converter That Supports Over 100 Formats

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Converting and resizing a single image files isn't a problem. The real caveat arises when you need to convert multiple images. Obviously, it would be a wastage of time to convert each file one by one. To cope with this nuisance, we have previously covered a lot of batch image converters and resizers, such as the minimalistic and simple looking Image Tuner and then, ImBatch with its attractive design, that let you perform different functions such as resize, rename and convert in batch operation. Albeit these tools are great, they are usually limited in the number of image formats they support. If you needed a converter with wide array of formats support then Converseen is probably what you need. It is an open source image converter and resizer that supports more than one hundred image format ranging from the most popular ones to those which are rarely used, such as DPX, EXR, GIF, JPG, PNG, PDF, RAW Samples, TIFF, PSD, BMP, and plethora of others. The application allows you to convert, resize and rename as many images as you want in one go. Read more about Converseen after the break. Read More

Temporarily Block Access To Time-Wasting Websites With Cold Turkey

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Whenever you are working on PC, everything else suddenly starts seeming a lot more interesting than the actual work. Websites like Facebook, YouTube, 9gag and Memebase can be a big distraction, and have the potential for becoming a cause of missing those important deadlines. It all starts with someone sending you a link to a funny video, and you then spend hours and hours going from video to video. This wastes a lot of your time and makes makes it hard for you to complete your work on time. So what do you do to stop yourself from getting distracted while working? We suggest Cold Turkey. It is an open source application that helps you concentrate on your work by temporarily blocking predefined/custom websites and games. The access to specified websites is blocked on all browsers, with the ability to block the sites for intervals of 10 minutes to a week. The application cannot be stopped from the system tray or task manager, practically disabling you from wasting your time. Read More

Split Lossless: Nautilus Script To Split Lossless Audio Files [Ubuntu]

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Some music players are unable to read CUE files. A solution to this can be to split single lossless audio files into multiple FLAC or MP3 files. Split Lossless is an open source Nautilus script to split lossless audio files (APE, FLAC, WAVPACK) by CUE to FLAC and MP3 (320kbps or 192kbps) formats. It automatically adds tags to the split files, however, you can also manually edit tags for artist, album, date and genre. Using Split Lossless, you can also trash input files after conversion, and receive bubble message notifications after the process is complete. Read More