An unusual form of art: DZ's random Windows software

Shiki Tohno · 3936

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Offline Shiki Tohno

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on: January 06, 2009, 09:51:28 PM
Yeah, so I've been writing custom software for (mostly) Windows to do small things I don't usually like to do by hand for a good long while now, and thought this would be a good place to share them. Some of the stuff I've written does nifty things, some of it does useful things, some of it automates tedious tasks, some of it was written with fun in mind. I hope you guys like.

Almost all of my desktop software requires the .Net 2.0 framework. You can get it for free HERE.

From oldest to newest:

Random Avatar Script (Any platform that supports PHP)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/randomavatar
You know this. You've known it for a while. Does it really need an explanation? :P


Screenshot Snapper (Windows)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/screenshotsnapper
Run this, and it'll house itself in your system tray (near the clock in your taskbar). Whenever you need to take a screenshot of your desktop, open it (or right click its tray icon), select Listen For Screenshots, and hit your Print Screen key. It'll automatically take a screenshot of the current contents of your screen and save it in the format specified in the program window, in the location specified there as well. You can switch these around, and in the advanced options, you can even set it to save thumbnails of your images for you. Give it a shot! [/bad pun]


Battery Monitor (Windows)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/batterymonitor
I wrote this while I was teaching myself how to access the system components to monitor various hardware values, including the amount of remaining battery power for laptops. It houses itself in your tray as well, and can raise an alarm with an old-school gaming message when your battery reaches a customizable percentage of remaining power.


File Size Converter (Windows)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/filesizeconverter
Since I deal way too much with size of batch files (mostly for torrents and the like), I usually need to know very exactly how many megabytes are 643,164KB. Thus, I wrote this little tool that does said conversion on the fly, immediately, from one size to another. Just type the number and pick the source unit, and you'll get instant conversions to all other units.


Drive Icon Changer (Windows)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/driveiconchanger
WARNING: BE CAREFUL WHEN USING THIS PROGRAM. This will let you change the appearance in Windows Explorer (and mostly almost all other operating systems) by writing a small file to your drive that sets a custom icon and label to the drive, be it a hard drive or a portable drive. I say be careful because sometimes, you DON'T want to rewrite the already existing file (because of whatever action, like starting a custom program or something). Be sure to check for the existence of a hidden system file in your drive, called Autorun.inf, before using this program; and if it exists, check its contents. If you recognize anything in there, I suggest you don't try anything; if you don't, you most probably got hit by a virus trying to load itself whenever you plug the drive, so rewrite away (and make sure to use a decent antivirus :P).


Bulk Image Format Converter (Windows)
http://dzdesigns.centraldown.com/download/bulkimageconverter
My latest creation. I couldn't find online a simple, easy-to-use tool to convert many images simultaneously from one format to another, so I opted for writing my own. The interface is very simple and self-explanatory, and it does Exactly What It Says On The Tin: You give it a single image or a folder containing many images, select a source format and a destination format, and hit Go, and the program will read all the appointed images in the source format and convert them (with the exact same filename, for comparison purposes) to the destination format. Highly useful if you, like me, use Media Player Classic and collect screenshots, and you store them in BMP (lossless) format - after a while, considering each file is 1MB+ in size, they start to pile up big. TESTIMONIAL: My current screenshot collection went from 450MB to about 140 when I converted all those huge BMP files into smaller, equally lossless PNG images. :P

So there you go. As I build up more stuff, I'll be updating the thread with it. Hope you guys like my little tools.



Offline Sky Child

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Reply #1 on: January 06, 2009, 09:56:31 PM
Finally, something unique.



Offline Dr. Wily II

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Reply #2 on: January 07, 2009, 06:46:08 AM
And very practical.

Thanks for the heads-up DZ!


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Offline Shiki Tohno

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Reply #3 on: January 08, 2009, 10:29:38 AM
I updated the Bulk Image Converter this morning; it eases up on resources a little bit and handles the mass conversion slightly more effectively... And added a little something to raise my self-esteem a little bit. :P



Offline Align

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Reply #4 on: January 08, 2009, 10:27:58 PM
Image converter sounds very handy. Does it come with right-click menu instant access?



Offline Shiki Tohno

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Reply #5 on: January 08, 2009, 10:59:32 PM
Hmm... I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to see how I can hook up that functionality somewhere.