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My Windows/DOS Applications

Binny V A — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:11:13 +0000

I got into programming before I got into Linux – consequently, many of my earlier programs were targeted for the windows platform. I want to showcase those apps in this post. I no longer use them – but if anyone finds any of these useful, it wont go to waste.

I wrote many programs in my Window days. But most of them are useful only to me – its pointless to list them here. These are the list of programs that others might find interesting.

This post is a part of a series I am doing on Windows. The other posts in this series so far are…

Command Line Apps

I had an affection for the Command Line even when I was in windows. Due to the lack of tools in DOS, I created a few DOS tools myself. Most of them are done in C++…

bd – ‘dir’ command replacement

BD is a `dir` replacement. This program displays the contents of a specified folder in a colorful and more understandable way. BD displays files of different types in different colours, letting you see at a glance which files are executable, which are documents, directories etc.

BD helps to cross the boundary between the starkness of DOS and the color of Windows and is a perfect utility for anyone who is experienced with Windows but wishes to start working in DOS.
Completely Free Softwares

Boot Booster

Boot Booster is a program that tries to put the booting time of the computer to good use. It can log the booting time, display a joke or an inspirational message that will change at every booting, display any message, display any reminders you have set etc. Boot Booster can be configured to log the booting time, shutdown time and the time the session lasted etc. Works only in Windows 95/98. It will NOT work on anything newer.

I don’t expect anyone will find this useful. But at the time I created it, it was one of my favorite applications. I have created other apps to parse the result of its log and create some ‘interesting’ graphics.

Batch Programming Helpers

People into DOS will also be into batch programming. I wrote quite a few batch scripts to automate stuff. Since the batch scripting language had very little features, I wrote utilities to improve its abilities…

Batch ToolKit

Batch ToolKit is a collection of 5 programs intended to make batch programming a bit more feature rich…

If you are in windows and you use Batch in a non-trivial way, please switch to linux – you are going to love the features that is provided by bash(Linux shell scripting language). Then after a while, you will hate that too – and will use higher level languages. And thus, a programmer is born.

GUI Applications – Tcl/Tk

I also did some Tcl/Tk programming in Windows to create GUI applications. I continue that even today – as Tcl/Tk is well supported in Linux(even though Tk apps looks very bad in linux). All the Tcl apps I created are available on the Tcl/Tk page.

I enjoyed programming in the Tcl language that I created a tutorial for Tcl/Tk. Later I create the Hello Script for Tcl(for quick reference).

Nexty.org Launched

Binny V A — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:59:33 +0000

Nexty is an easy to use To Do list manager created using GTD principles. The core idea behind this software is simplicity. I wanted to make a GTD tool that is the most easy to use. So far, I have released this two times – first when Nexty was created – and then when it was available as a online service. Now, I am giving Nexty its own domain.

Features

Some features that make nexty special…

Easy to Use: Using Nexty is very simple – you can start using it without any trouble
FREE!: Its ‘gratis’ – you don’t have to pay to use it.
Open Source: Its ‘libera’. Since Nexty is published under the BSD License, you can download and modify the code to fit your need.
Calendar: See all your tasks, reminders and due dates in one centralized location.
Next Actions: Focus on one single task at a time using this feature.
Search: For Projects, Tasks and Reminders that you have created.
And the Usual Stuff…: Nexty has everything you would expect in a GTD system – Projects, Contexts, Reminders – you know – the works.

Free Software

If you are using Nexty as a locally installed application, there is no need to worry – the source is available for download – and its still in the BSD license. That will not change.

But if you are looking for a free online GTD tool, try Nexty.

Support

Further development details and announcements of Nexty will appear on its own development blog.

If you need any support for using Nexty, post a query on the Nexty Support Forum.

You can also post your suggestions there as well.

Publicity

I am trying to get some publicity for Nexty and its launch – if anyone has any suggestions about this, your comments are welcome.

Alertle Launched

Binny V A — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:22:43 +0000

I am one of the geeks behind Alertle. Its a web based RSS Reader. I am responsible for a good amount of the JavaScript areas of this app

Features

Single Page Application: The entire application is contained in a single page – everything is done through Ajax. I will not advice that you make something like this(its a maintenance nightmare) but I can say one thing about it – its Cool. With a capital ‘C’.
Keyboard Shortcuts: I got the idea of creating a Keyboard Shortcut Library for JavaScript when I was working on this feature.
Autoplay: You can view articles as you are viewing a slideshow if you enable this.
Feedpacks: You can bunch a group of feeds together into a feedpack – and see all the posts from such a group together.
Sharing: You can share your feedpacks with other users

Perfect for High Volume Feeds

There is one major feature that sets Alertle appart from other RSS readers – it does not tell you if a post is read or not. Yeah, first you will think its a missing feature – but its not. I have used a lot of feed readers – once you subscribe to a couple of high volume feed – like say, BoingBoing or Slashdot or something, you can say goodbye to your sanity. It creates so many new items that the only way of staying away the mess is to click on the ‘Mark all as read’ button once every four seconds. You know what I mean – I am sure you have unsubscribed from many feeds for this reason.

With alertle, you can subscribe all these high volume feeds. And there is no pressure to view all the posts.

If you are an info junkie, I can guaranty that your will get lost for hours in Alertle.

Problems

IE is not Supported

We are still working on this – and due to deadline constraints, we decided to release Alertle without IE support. So if you are an IE user, I am sorry – but What in the World are you Doing? Ditch that terrible browser and get a real browser right now!

If we can get a few people to switch to firefox before we add support for IE, I will say that Alertle gone beyond and above the call of duty to make the web a better place!

Posts don’t have a Read Flag (pun unintended)

Um., yeah, I know – this is both an advantage and a disadvantage. This will prevent me from using Alertle for all my feeds. For my must-read feeds, I will still be using Google Reader. For the high volume stuff, I will use Alertle.

Getting to Know Alertle

So, what are you waiting for? Head over to Alertle and sign up for an account. Its FREE!

But if you are still unconvinced, here is a demo…

A Secret Source for Great Free Icons for your Desktop and Web Apps

Binny V A — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:31:37 +0000

Desktop and Web application needs icons. Icons make the app more usable than an all-text application. If you are building a desktop application, your framework may provide some stock icons. But if you are making a web application, you will need external icons.

I have seen a lot of pages that lists many icon sets…

But when I want some icons I have a better place to look.

KDE and Gnome Icon themes.

I prefer using these icons because of the following reasons…

Multiple Size Icons

Most themes provide the same icon in various sizes. The available sizes are 128×128, 64×64, 48×48, 32×32, 24×24, 22×22, 16×16 and sometimes even a scalable SVG set. Not all themes have all the sizes – but most have. I don’t have to tell you how useful this is.

Lots of Choice

KDE Look Icons page have 86 pages with 15 icon themes per page. That makes a total of 1290 icon sets. And I am not counting the Gnome Look Icons.

That’s a lot of choice. Granted, not all will be good. Not all will have the icon I am searching for. Not all have the size I way want. There will be some duplication. But its still a lot.

Free – in both sense of the word

Most of these icons uses GPL and LGPL licenses. So you can use if for your application without paying for them. You can modify them. You can share it with others. You can… you get the idea. The point is there are no restrictions.

Even if you are building a proprietary application, I think you can use the icons because you are not compiling it into the application. But I am not sure about that – if anyone reading this knows, please leave a comment.

I have to warn you that not all icons sets use these licenses – so make sure you look at the license of an icon set before using it.

Great Icons

Most of the icons are created by professional designers. Sure there are some duds among the collection – but the majority of them are good.

Some Recommended Icon Sets

Crystal Project

Nuvola

Crystal Diamond

black + white icons

Crystal Clear

And there are hundreds more for you to find out…

Between Web Application and Desktop Applications

Binny V A — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 17:39:10 +0000

There is a distinct line between web application and desktop applications. But over the last few years, this line is becoming thinner. Due to faster internet connection and technologies like ajax, web applications are becoming much faster and more responsive. And, if you have a local web server installed, a ‘web’ application can become desktop application.

I have a web server(Apache), and a database server(MySQL) running at all times on my local system. Since LAMP is my preferred platform of development, if I need a new software, I will create it on LAMP. A good example of this is Nexty. Over time, I have discovered that web application can be used as desktop applications. All you need is a web server, a database server and a browser.

There must be some changes to the current model to make this system work. These are a few I could think of…

Web Server must run as the current user. That way, you can read/write to any file using PHP(or equivalent).
The application must not be available over the network. Or, the web server must only accept connections from 127.0.0.1
An installer for these kind of applications must be made.

Advantages

Familiarity: People are already used to web applications – so it will be easy to switch.
User Customizable: Users can change the appearance of the application(user stylesheets), and to a limited extent, the functionality(GreaseMonkey).
Open Source: If the code is in PHP or Ruby on Rails, or anything similar, the code will be available for study or even modification.
Cross Platform: The same program can be installed in Windows or Linux or whatever – as long as it has a Web server.

Disadvantages

Imaginary: As of yet no such system exists.
High Level: The system will not be able to do low level system operations.
Limited: There will be some very serious limitation to the application unless the current systems are modified. For example, the browser cannot read or write to the filesystem.

I have been using some web applications as desktop applications for a while now – these include WordPress(for keeping notes), activeCollab(project management), Nexty(to do list), and Tiker(time tracker).

What I learned from Nexty

Binny V A — Sat, 26 May 2007 19:36:29 +0000

Remember Nexty? Recently I was able to make the 1.0 version. Currently I am planning for the second version. But before starting on that I want to document the different things I learned when creating Nexty. These are a list of things you can expect on this series…

Client Side

CSS
- Icons
- Theming using CSS
JavaScript
- Ajax – Success/Failure Pattern

Server Side

Installer
Framework
API
Distributed Apps

Before starting, a small notice – I will include links to Nexty’s internal pages in this series. Most of these pages are behind a login. So I would advice that you get an account in Nexty and login into it using the ‘Remember Me’ option enabled. This would make sure that you have the most seamless experience.

Nexty 1.0 Released

Binny V A — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:10:30 +0000

Remember Nexty, the easy to use to-Do list manager using GTD principles? Well, that is ready for public release.

Nexty is a easy to use GTD tool created in PHP. It can be installed in a local server or in a online web server. The core idea behind this software is simplicity. I wanted to make a GTD tool that is the most easy to use.

Nexty Links

The next project is ready – watch this space for its announcement.