I Love Free Software

Measure the Distance Travelled on Screen: Odo
Video Editor to Generate Thumbnails and Preview all Video Formats: MediaPreview
Free Stripboard Designing Software: StripMagic
Free Disk Space Analyzer: JDiskReport
Mockup Creator to Create Website Designs: Mockup Builder
Take Regular Screenshots and keep Track of Time: TimeSnapper Classic
5 Free Time Tracker Extensions For Chrome
Unify Google Services with Google Workspace

Measure the Distance Travelled on Screen: Odo

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 05:00 PM PDT

Odo is a fun application which can be used to measure the distance you travel with the mouse pointer on your screen. It is an odometer which collects the data and presents to you the distance you travel over your computer screen on a regular basis. It has the keystroke counter with a link to the database which would also help you in looking up at the history of activities which have been carried out on the screen of your system.

The data is displayed in a graph where the measured values are counted as one minute per horizontal pixel and come in different combination of colors. The colors displayed on the screen have the following interpretation, knowing which you would have no troubles figuring out which color stands for which activity. On the upper graph you have the green and the red colors which stand for horizontal and vertical mouse movements respectively. When you check out the lower graph you have the green red and blue colors where each stand for the Keystrokes, Mouse clicks and the application switches respectively.

The reason of these colors being basic colors the overlapping of the colors while preparing the graphs may result in creating new colors for example: the overlapping of red and green may display a yellow color on the screen, similarly blue and green mix would create a light blue shade on the graphs. If you are looking for some more cursor related software, you can try Auto Hide Mouse Cursor, NeatMouse and IconArt Cursor Creator.

Installing Odo

Follow the following steps and you are done installing Odo on your computer:

Download the software from here.
Unzip the downloaded file on your computer
Open the unzipped folder and you would need to click on the ODO.EXE file to start the program. You need to do no more as it starts the application on your computer.

Every time you wish to access the application or open it you just need to click on the file.

Using Odo to measure distance travelled on screen

After the software is launched you need to give it sometime to record all your activities. Meanwhile you could carry out all the other tasks which you may have on your system. After a while you can minimize all your windows and check out the colorful graph that gets created based on your activities on your system. The graph starts appearing from the right side of your screen and tends to increase with every activity that you perform with your mouse cursor on the screen. With time you would observe the graph to increase in size and give the graphical impact of all your activities. Moreover the initial screen which you may see would appear to be much smaller but you may resize it by moving the mouse at the right bottom end of the entire graph where you will get the option to stretch it and make it look bigger.

Setting Odo

In order to change the settings you need to right click anywhere on the graph and select settings. After clicking on it you would see a popup with three tabs on it. The About tab tells you about the software and its version. Moving to the preferences tab you can change the date and time format, along with checking and un-checking a few options which you would like to be included in the activity for preparing the graph. The Datalink tab allows you to create tables with the options to select the User, Computer and Domain.

Now that you know all about Odo, you can measure the distance you travel with the mouse cursor.

Measure the Distance Travelled on Screen: Odo was originally published at I Love Free Software

Video Editor to Generate Thumbnails and Preview all Video Formats: MediaPreview

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 03:30 PM PDT

Media Preview is a free video editor designed to add support for previewing some of the most widely used video file formats whose previews are not supported by both Windows and third party software. The program supports three languages, English, Chinese and French, and is available in both 64 and 32 bit versions.

Features

Media Preview adds crucial support for many file formats previews which are not available on Windows systems. Though Windows relies on third party software to extend support for many file formats, none of them takes care of the preview feature.

Default Thumbnail extractor often ends up capturing blank frames. The Thumbnail extractor on Media Preview detects the presence on images on frames and captures relevant content from the video.

The video editor is able to generate unique thumbnails for video files with similar starting frames. If it detects the presence of similar frames, the program searches for different frames and uses them as previews for video files.

Rename or manipulate your video files when playing them without any restrictions from Windows.

Support for both 64 and 32 bit systems.

How to use video editor

Installation went on smoothly. Media Preview is a simple video editor with no real user interface. You get a simple configuration wizard that controls what functions the program performs.

The media configuration wizard opens the associations tab. The tab allows you to choose file formats you want associated with Media Preview. You can save yourself the trouble of selecting all file formats individually and use the Select All button to select all of them at once or uncheck them all at once by clicking Select None. File formats checked will be previewed with the help of Media Preview. You can also add your own file formats by entering the extension in the User Defined Formats textbox and click Add. Get rid of user defined formats by clicking Remove. Click Apply to save configuration settings.

You can choose between three available languages from the Display language dropdown. You can edit thumbnail settings on the Settings tab. To edit settings, check the Custom checkbox to enable or disable settings. You can clear the system thumbnail cache from the Testing tab.

Pros

Fast batch file format selection.
Simple and easy to use.
Preview almost all video file formats.

Cons

None that I could find.

Conclusion

Media Preview is an interesting and handy video editor for generating unique video file thumbnails for all known video formats.

No related posts.

Video Editor to Generate Thumbnails and Preview all Video Formats: MediaPreview was originally published at I Love Free Software

Free Stripboard Designing Software: StripMagic

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 02:00 PM PDT

StripMagic is a software that every do it yourself enthusiast should have on its computer, at least every DIY enthusiasts in electronics because StripMagic is software which can be used to create and design stripboard layouts.

For those who do not know what stripboards are, they are prototype boards where you can check how certain electrical component combination is gonna behave. This is achieved by picking electrical components into drilled holes, which every stripboard has.

Similar software: FidoCadJ

Installation of the application might be confusing to some, after you click on the Download link below you’ll download a .jnlp file, which is very small. Don’t be alarmed, thst is actually the application install file, the application is made in Java, and if you don’t have it installed on your computer, then you’re gonna have to install it and run the .jnlp file, which will then start the download and installation of StripMagic. After all that you should be greeted by the screen that you see above.

Stripboard layout design with StripMagic

All the stripboard elements that you can add to a sripboard in real life can also be added to stripboards in StripMagic, well almost all of them. The following is a list of all the different components that can be added to StripMagic, and you can decide for yourself if it’s good enough for you and your needs:

Jumpers
Trace Out
Resistor
Capacitor
Electrolyte
Diodes
Light Emitting Diodes
Transistors
DIL IC’s
Text
Wires
Trimmers
Potentiometers
Switches
Jacks

Creating a layout with the help of StripMagic is very easy, and you can do it even if you do not have a lot of experiance with similar software or stripboards for that matter. Yeah, you can create layouts if you do not have any kind of experience, how much sense they will make is a whole another story.

A simple stripboard layout that probably doesn’t make any sense can be seen on the image above, created by yours truly. Elements are added by clicking on them from the selection menu at the top and then clicking on the holes in the stripboard. Wire colors can changed so that it can be easier to track which wire goes where while you’re creating the stripboard design.

File formats which are supported by StripMagic are DIYLC v1 and LTSpice, when it comes to importing, for all those that are interested in Exporting their creations from StripMagic can do so in three different ways. You can export:

Stripboard component side
Template trace but and
A list of necessary elements for the build

Those would be pretty much all the options that you get with this stripboard design editing software. Program is still in beta, in fact the version that we have tested isn’t even version 1, but it can still help out a lot with stripboard design. All those who are DIY hobbyists and either are or would like to expands their skils on the world of electronics should try stripboard and of course StripMagic in order to create designs on your computer, try it, it’s free.

Download StripMagic.

Free Stripboard Designing Software: StripMagic was originally published at I Love Free Software

Free Disk Space Analyzer: JDiskReport

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 12:30 PM PDT

JDiskReport is a free application that renders you could actually get the information regarding the disk space that each file and directory on your system is using. Further it would help you get rid of those useless or obsolete files which had no use in your system. This software analyzes all the disk space and collect all the statistics giving an overview of the charts along with detailed tables. As defined by the developers it is an ''ad- and nag-free uncrippled binary multi-program software'' which has been made available for the users to use as a freeware.

The software uses the Java platform in order to display the parameters such as the size, free disk space, capacity and other details relating to the files, folders, and directories on your system. The users have the option of displaying the data as per their convenience and if required switch among them. The only necessary application which is essential to run this software is the latest version of JAVA.

The program starts functioning by scanning the tree directory or the system drive ''C Drive.'' The application gives the option of saving and reopening scans. On the left side of the window we can see the folder tree view which comes with five tabs to it. The options are:

Size
Top 50
Size Distribution
Modified
Types

In the size tab we see the entire usage of the system, user and other files of the System directory i.e. C Drive.

All the above options when clicked would display some pie charts or bar graphs in a list format except the Top 50 list view where one can switch from the largest, or the oldest or the newest of the lot. Each of these views is significant and many a times you would come across more .dll files as compared to any other file format. Moreover you can change the views as per your preference which could be size to numbers, sorting by name or size, and further copy the table to the clipboard from View Menu. The additional options available are the Look & Feel, Commands and Filters. The picture below shows the options mentioned above.

In the pic below we can see the distribution of the file sizes over the system.

The pic below shows the details of the modification of the files on the system. The distribution of the modification dates are shown in terms of days and years.

The following screenshot shows the 5th tab wherein the file types and the space they use have been depicted. As mentioned earlier the ''.dll'' file covers the maximum area which here was 10.5 GB.

One of the drawbacks of using this tool is installing and running JDiskReport on Windows 7 machine (64bit). It actually gets installed but while opening the application gives the following error:

The manual does not provide any information to deal with this. But as a smart fix option by Windows 7 the option to fix it appears and the software gets automatically fixed and installed on the system.

However with the above difficulty in mind we experienced a very easy to use interface that made this tool very easy to use software. Moreover the way the software display's the data is quite simple and exhaustive in nature. So this tool being user friendly and simple to use is one of the handy software around which solves the purpose of displaying space that each file and directory on your system is using.

Download JDiskReport free.

No related posts.

Free Disk Space Analyzer: JDiskReport was originally published at I Love Free Software

Mockup Creator to Create Website Designs: Mockup Builder

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Mockup Builder is exactly what its name says it is, software that programmers and developers alike can use in order to create mockups of graphical interfaces for applications and websites that they are working on. Creating a mockup is practically the most important thing when a software developer is creating a custom made application, same thing could be said about website development. Mockups are a great way of showing the customer how the end product will look like, and they can respond with desired modifications before you start the actual work.

Since Mockup Builder is a Silverlight application it can work both inside the browser online or it can be installed on your desktop for offline use. What you see above is a screenshot of the offline version, you will get the same thing if you were to visit the developer website and click on the launch button for a test run of the website version of Mockup Builder.

Similar applications mockflow, mockingbird, WireframeSketcher.

From the image above you sort of get an idea of how you can create various different application mockups with the help of Mockup Builder. It all comes down to combining all the standard objects that are important for application interfaces, you have:

Buttons
Windows
Check Boxes
Button Groups
Mobile interfaces
Info Bubbles
Text Boxes

These are just some of the designing options which are offered by Mockup Builder, there’s many more to choose from which means that there’s practically unlimited number of different application mockups that you can create.

Designing Android and iOS applications in Mockup Builder

Android and iOS applications have become very popular, which is no surprise considering how many different smartphone powered with these two operating systems exist out there.

Here’s a simple example of how basic Android app interface development can be made inside Mockup Builder. Start by adding the basic shell of a cellphone, there’s two different styles that you can choose from, the one that you see above, and there’s also BlackBerry-type interface. Add screen controls that you’ve envisioned in your application and then edit them according to your liking. Choose between different decorations and add text to make it look more realistic, the way that it would look when it’s actually functioning, then show it to your customer for whom the application is being developed, wait for feedback and go from there.

Create desktop application interfaces in Mockup Creator

Smartphone applications are not the only thing that can be created with Mockup. Designing desktop applications can be accomplished very easily, the same way that smartphone apps interfaces are made, only for desktop we will use different objects for the designs:

For a desktop app you need to add a window on the mockup table, and then on that window you can add text fields, buttons, check boxes and every other element that you’d normally find on an application, but of course arrange them so that they represent the interface design that you’d like to create.

After you’re done, simply export your creation as an image to show it to your client. Small and simple application, if you’re a developer give Mockup Builder a try on your next project.

No related posts.

Mockup Creator to Create Website Designs: Mockup Builder was originally published at I Love Free Software

Take Regular Screenshots and keep Track of Time: TimeSnapper Classic

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 09:30 AM PDT

TimeSnapper Classic is an application that helps you keep track of time. The application takes screenshots in the background after a predetermined period of time. You can play these screenshots at a speed of your liking or view what you did at any particular time. Gone are the days of filling time sheets or developing headaches when trying to remember what you did. With TimeSnapper classic, all you need is to sit and do your work while the program records every minute of it.

Features TimeSnapper Classic

Track time with system screenshots or notes and create your own time sheet.
Figure out exactly what time you spend on any program or doing a certain task.
Manage your time better with a scorecard that shows how well you spent your time each day.
Notes and auto popup reminders.
Secure storage of images via password protection and encryption.
Text extraction from captured screenshots.

How to make time sheet with screenshots taken

Installation was totally uneventful. The interface is simple and intuitive. The program launches and closes to tray. To open it, double click on the tray icon or right click on it to access the context menu and select Open TimeSnapper. The program begins taking screenshots immediately after it is launched and you can create easy time sheet with this freeware. To stop recording, click Pause. At this moment, you can enter a custom interval which the program uses to capture screenshots.

By default, the program captures screenshots from all applications. However, you can choose which applications to be captured and which to be left out by using a filter. To create your own filter, click on the browse button besides the filter dropdown to view available filters. Click New to create a custom filter. You will need to enter a name, and which applications to filter and which to leave out.

To play your screenshots as video, click Play. This opens a video viewing window. You can jump to any time of the day using the slider at the top or toggle between days by using the next and previous buttons at the top right. You can easily jump to any day of the calendar using the dropdown indicating the current date. You can set play speed from the Speed dropdown or filter which application should be seen using the Filter dropdown which consists of a list of applications captured on the screenshots. You can access images used to create the video using the Image dropdown. The same menu allows you to edit images, extract text from images and exclude individual images from the video. In case you want to keep your screenshots even after the program deletes unused screen shots, click Pin and vice versa.

You can search for captions captured on screenshots by clicking Search. To view a list of all captions and applications they were captured from, leave the search text field empty and click search. You can narrow down your search by entering a caption or choosing a suitable period when the caption may have been captured. Click Export to export the list to CSV. You can add or remove more columns from the list by clicking Columns, select from the columns list and drop them onto the interface. Click preview to view the list before printing and print the list by clicking Print.

You can generate reports to show you how much time you have spent on each application. To access reports click the Reports button, choose a report from the list and enter a period of time you want analysed. Click Show to view the generated reports. Program settings can be accessed by right clicking on the tray icon and select Options. You can set after what period of time the program should store screenshots and the maximum space the application can use from the Auto Cleanup tab. You can also set a default folder for your screenshots and edit proxy settings.

Pros

Works perfectly.
Report to gauge how well you spend time.
Do away with images you don’t require by applying filters.
Video playback of screenshots.
Easy to use.
Extended functionality through plugins.

Cons

None that I could find.

Conclusion

TimeSnapper Classic is a simple but powerful time sheet tool to keep track of your activities on your computer without any hassles.

No related posts.

Take Regular Screenshots and keep Track of Time: TimeSnapper Classic was originally published at I Love Free Software

5 Free Time Tracker Extensions For Chrome

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Here, are 5 free time tracker extensions for Chrome. Time tracking is one the important part when you need to take out the detailed reports on internet usage. Chrome Web Store has many time tracker extensions that allows you to track time in multiple ways.

Today, we will discuss about 5 free time tracker extensions which Web Timer; the most fastest and efficient one, Chrome time track; track time for any activity on Chrome, Title Time Track; one of the most simplest one, and more.

Web Timer:

Web Timer is a free time tracker Chrome extension to track time spent on each website accessed in every tab of Google Chrome browser. This Web Timer extension tracks the exact time of the web pages which you access on your Chrome browser. The extension even shows you the stats in the form of pie chart. Web Timer calculates the percentage according to the time spent on each website. After calculating the percentage use, the extension prepares the pie chart according to the percentage calculated. Web Timer also shows the percentage usage for different websites in different colors. This makes it easy for you to identify which are the websites on which you mostly spend the time. You can also share the report or stats.

Check out detailed review of Web Timer extension for Google Chrome reviewed by us.

Time Tracker:

Time Tracker is a free extension for Google Chrome to track time spent on the websites or webpages accessed on Chrome browser. The extension shows the list of websites accessed, time spent on each website, and the percentage of time spent. The view of stats is simple and easy to understand. After installing Time Tracker extension, if you find the extension disabled, then pause and resume the timer by yourself to track the time spent on websites accessed on Google Chrome browser. You can even add the selected websites which the extension ignores to record the time. This option is available in options menu of the extension.

Chrome Time Track:

Chrome Time Track works differently than the two we discussed above. Chrome Time Track works by tracking the tasks which you perform on your computer. You just have to launch the extension, type the name of the task, and you are done with. Now, you will see a play/pause button on the right side of the task. Click on the play button when you start the task and the extension will start recording the time. You can add multiple task and run the timer altogether on your Chrome browser. This is not automated, and it cannot detect what task you are doing. You have to manually specify the task you are working on, and application will basically record time for you.

Title Time Track:

Title Time Track is a free time tracking extension for Google Chrome. This extension works in a bit different way as compared to other time tracking extensions discussed above. You just have to install the extension on your Google Chrome browser and the extension will start working automatically on your browser. Restart the browser and you will see the running time at the left side of each tab opened on your Google Chrome browser. The time tells you the time spent on a particular website accessed on Google Chrome browser. The extension doesn't provide any icon on the extension bar of the Google Chrome browser. Title Time Track extension just simply works on each tab of your Chrome browser.

Time Counter:

Time Counter is a free time tracking Chrome extension to track time spent on each website on Google Chrome browser. This extension is a quite smart time tracking extension which shows the data in the form of pie chart which gives a clear picture of where you spend your maximum time. This helps you to prepare a detailed report of your time spending on internet. All the websites in the pie chart are identified by different colors. You can also check the report of today and total of all the days. You can also check settings by clicking on options button in the extension. Also, Time Counter extension is a well known extension in Web Store to track time on Google Chrome browser.

If you find any other time tracking extension for Google Chrome, then let us know in comments.

5 Free Time Tracker Extensions For Chrome was originally published at I Love Free Software

Unify Google Services with Google Workspace

Posted: 30 Jun 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Google Workspace is a relatively new application who’s main purpose is to give users faster and simpler Google Search results, but also to combine all of the different services that Google has to offer in a single application where people can switch between Search, Docs, Shop, Books and a few others with just a click of a mouse. The image below shows which Google apps are supported by Google Workspace.

At the center of the default screen Google Docs are being offered, next to Gmail, the full list of services that you can utilize in Google Workspace would be this:

Google Docs
Gmail
Youtube
Google Code
Web and Image Search
Shop
Google Books
Calender

Those who are not too demanding will surely find something that will interest them in this list of Google apps that can be run with the help of this handy Google app combiner.

Improved Google search with Google Workspaces

Pretty much everyone who has been using Google for longer than 10 years will remember how easy it was to use Google in the past. Maybe easy isn’t the right word, it’s better to say that Google search wasn’t as intrusive as it is today. With instant searches, which can even slow down the computer, and let’s not forget site previews and everything else with which Google has been “improved” over the years. If you’re like me and you like the way that Google was before, you’ll enjoy this handy little app for sure.

Search results that you can see above we got instantly, without there being in between results that popped up when we only entered a part of the search term. Sure, there’s an option of deactivating instant results in Google, but with Google Workspace you don’t have to bother searching this particular option and you also enjoy a whole heap of other uses that Google Workspaces has to offer.

Enjoy books and avoid tracking cookies with Google Workspaces

Google isn’t the champion when it comes to maintaining user privacy. For those who don’t know what I’m referring to, it would be the fact that Google keeps tabs on what you search so that it can display better ads through it’s advertising program. Let’s say for example that you wanted to search Google Books for a certain book:

Once you enter it inside the Google Books search, that term will be saved for you, and later used when it will be necessary to show ads. As of late Google has even started displaying results based on the types of searches that people make, which can even cause you to not receive important result that you need, that would otherwise be shown to you.

With Workspace this problem can be avoided because it will not use your main browser in order to access Google Search, that is it won’t if you’re not using the IE, because Google Workspace uses IE for its browsing. That means that all the tracking data will be saved in IE instead of your default browser, the one that you use every day. If you use Google services a lot, then Google Workspace is the tool for you, it unifies everything, everything important in one place and it’ll save you time.

No related posts.

Unify Google Services with Google Workspace was originally published at I Love Free Software

Posted in:

starspot

Twitter

Sunday, July 1, 2012