Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with files

Mod_rewrite to replace extensions?

SECONDHANDSMOTE — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:15:27 -0800

I need to figure out how to use mod_rewrite to trim the extensions of all of a certain type of file (.php) and replace them with a forward slash I need to figure out how to use mod_rewrite to trim the extensions of all of a certain type of file (.php) and replace them with a forward slash. I've been hunting on the net for information and poking around in the regex docs, but this one still escapes me.

I want my sites files that look like
"www.domain.com/page.php"
to look like
"www.domain.com/page/"

I know I can write RewriteRules to do that to individual pages, but how do I make it work on all without updating the .httaccess?

What is the best, most flexible way to organize recordings of Jewish liturgy?

likedoomsday — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:06:41 -0800

How can my synagogue organize a large and developing library of liturgical recordings? I'm interested in (inexpensive or free) specialized software or in suggestions on how to use more commonplace software for this purpose. SynagogueFilter: My shul is working on digitizing thousands of audio tapes' worth of cantorial recordings of the Torah, Haftarah, prayers, and other readings. We are also re-recording many of these. How can we best organize them?
My initial thought was to use a folder structure like this (we use the triennial system): Category > Book > Parsha > Triennial part > Aliyah (where, for example, we might have Torah > Devarim > V'zot Habracha > Triennial year 3 > Third aliyah). However, it occurs to me that it might be useful to navigate in other ways, such as by filtering down to a particular year of the triennial cycle earlier in the process, or by viewing all of the Devarim recordings at once.

Is there any good way to do this? Is there software that's intended for something like this? Is there a creative way to use iTunes or some similar software for this? Or should we pick a folder structure and live with its limitations?

Thanks!

Mysterious network errors

mpls2 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:59:22 -0800

Why am I getting these mysterious network errors in my C# app? When using a StreamReader to read from a file across the network, I'm getting a "The specified network name is no longer available" when using a ReadBlock(buffer, 0, buffer.Length) method call. What's puzzling is that my buffer is partially filled when the exception is thrown. Similarly, when I'm writing the data to alternate file streams at the destination file share, I'm getting weird "permission denied" errors. These errors do not show up at all under a reduced load.

I have no doubt that these exceptions are due to the fact that I have several dozen instances of my app running, each of which is using a couple hundred threads that are potentially reading from the same file share simultaneously. But I need to know what the actual root cause of this problem is, so I can solve or work around it.

I've taken the obvious step of throttling my thread pool, and there is retry logic in the code, but I'd still like to know what's going on so I can prevent this from happening. The error message I'm getting is not very helpful.

Am I bumping up against Windows limits on open file handles?

Thanks!

Please help me open these files!

bolognius maximus — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:44:29 -0800

Can someone tell me what software would open these files (or could you open them for me)? I received a bunch of files from a colleague, and I don't think I have the software to open them. There are:

Two Illustrator Tsume files
two SBN files (.sbn)
two SHX files (.shx)
two SHP files (.shp)
two DBF files (.dbf)

I need to see if these files are the data that I have been waiting for, and don't need the programs otherwise. Does anyone out there know how to open these, or if I sent them, could you open them and save them as something that I can use? Thanks in advance!

ZIDX - WTF?

megatherium — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:21:09 -0800

What are ZIDX files? I bought a new computer about two weeks ago, and today I discovered about 175 files with a .zidx extension, contained within a ZIDX folder, that I cannot figure out. These are apparently copies of files that are already on my hard drive. For instance, a file called abc123.pdf.zidx is a copy of a file called abc123.pdf on my system, and it is found within a ZIDX folder under the folder that contains the original. There are four groups of these files, all with the same filestamp date and time, which tells me that the files in each group were created at the same time. I cannot recall any activity that I did at that time that would have created these files.

My desktop is a mess. Help!

grumblebee — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 08:41:46 -0800

Help me stop cluttering up my (OS X) desktop. My busy job(s) lead me to create and download many files every day. I have a bad habit of saving everything to my desktop. After a while, it gets insane. I then have to spend a long time sorting and filing everything. I know I should just put things in their proper places to begin with, but does anyone know a good way to manage the clutter?

What I'd really like is some app that would let me select a bunch of files on my desktop and quickly shuttle them to a folder. I'd love to be able to do this with a keyboard shortcut. E.g., I'd like to select a group of files and press Command+Shift+D (or whatever) to send them to the documents folder. And I'd like to be able to add in the alt key if I wanted to file them in a subfolder. In my imagination, alt would bring up a text field. I'd then type the name of the subfolder. If it already exists, the files would go in there. If not, a sub-folder would be created and the files would go inside it.

If that app doesn't exist, maybe you could help me out with some good filing habits.

Looking for ideas on managing files from multiple locations

djgh — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:25:56 -0800

Give me some ideas to manage my files, my data, my general computer setup etc. etc. for best use from multiple locations. Basically, I have the following situation:

I have a laptop (Macbook, Tiger), which I use to take notes on etc. I also occasionally make notes on other computers elsewhere (PCs, can't install software on them - they've got web browsers and Cygwin, and some have the option to boot Linux - can't remember which distro). I don't leave my laptop on and on the internet all the time (so I don't think remote desktop is a viable solution).

Sometimes I have an internet connection, sometimes I don't.

I'd like to be able to access all my files from everywhere (this includes PDFs), edit from everywhere etc. - but I also quite fancy version control, and having my own backups.

I have shell access to a shared server, and some (but not a huge amount) of technical competence (I've set up PHP/MySQL sites, dabbled in Ruby, but I'm far short of rolling my own fullblown solution).

I have access to an iDisk.

Could you outline (and provide any links) to my various options - so far I'm thinking Google Docs solution (but I'm worried about reliability - my worst nightmare is making notes offline, and them not syncing and then losing them all - plus I'd quite like to have overall control of my stuff), or some kind of version control system (but what if I have no connection - I probably can't get the latest version of a doc to edit).

Other stuff being available (address book etc.) would be great.

Any ideas appreciated, including purchase of new hardware (within reason - eeePC etc ok, rack mounted server less so).

How do I export everything from Palm Desktop?

charlesv — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:43:03 -0800

I want to get away from Palm Desktop. I started using a Handspring Visor back in 1999. I synced it with Palm Desktop for several years, until I got tired of carrying the Visor. Since 2003 or so I have just kept Palm Desktop installed on my laptop and looked up dates and addresses when I needed them. I am tired of doing this, since I no longer carry the visor or use the software for anything else.

I am currently running Palm Desktop v4.0.1.

I would like to move all my info to an easy-to-use, preferably freeware or inexpensive shareware application.

I may move some of the info into Outlook or Gmail.

I saw this post, but I want to go to a new application and don't have a Treo to sync with.

So now the question:
How do I export all of the addresses and dates out of Palm Desktop, and where do I send them? Is there a way I can export the whole db to excel or something, where it will be easier to work with?

Backubuntu

tmcw — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:32:24 -0800

What's the best backup solution for (Ubuntu) Linux? I need a backup as complete as possible of a home directory of ~10+ GB, nightly, etc. I have two large external USB 2.0 drives for the purpose... I know some of the options (which I'll list out), but I'm wondering which is the community favorite / most popular / most reliable / most likely to be maintained.

What I've considered: flyback, rsync, rdiff, rsnapshot, timevault, unison...

Thanks! I've gone too long without good backups, and my home directory is becoming more and more valuable. Oh, and it absolutely must backup hidden directories, although I would guess that's standard (a lot of my data is SVN repos). Something that could back up various other files (my apache configs, site-applications, etc files are fairly vital). Maybe a separate system that would do basically a drive image on a less frequent basis?

Thanks!

What have I done??? My Pictures disappeared

snarfois — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:54:42 -0800

Somehow my friend's "My Pictures" folder (Win XP) disappeared. All 4GB of it. So a friend was showing me her holiday snaps on her laptop. Afterwards, as a favour, I removed some unwanted software: PowerDVD and My Web Search (via Add/Remove Programs) and PCFriendly (by deleting its folder in Program Files since Uninstall didn't work). Didn't restart.

I'm pretty sure that's all I did. Then, when I tried to reopen a holiday snap via the Documents menu, the shortcut was broken. And the My Pictures folder had lost its icon, and was empty. And the HDD, which had only about 300MB free before, suddenly had about 4GB free.

I immediately downloaded an UnDelete program (Recover Files 2), installing it on the D: drive. (My Pictures was on C:) It found not a trace of any of the missing image files.

Any suggestions? Sound familiar? Is this hopeless? Is there anything else I can try? (The only silver lining is that the majority of the photos were backed up, but several months' worth wasn't. The laptop is several years old, but otherwise trouble-free.)

How can I edit EXIF orientation meta data?

yerfatma — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:47:21 -0800

How can I edit EXIF orientation meta data? I need to be able to explicitly set the orientation of a set of images for a test case I'm writing. I've burned through a bunch of tools this morning trying to find one that would let me do it:

Exifer
ABCView
AttributeMagic
Adobe Lightroom & Bridge
Ifranview

along with a few command-line tools and scripts. It's entirely possible I missed something obvious, but few of the tools even displayed the Orientation data. None were willing to let me edit it.

Is there another tool or another way to set this without using a camera?

Deleting very large directory

justkevin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:42:14 -0800

How to delete a huge directory on Linux without overloading the system? I've looked at this question which is basically my exact situation, but I can't get any of the solutions described too work without killing the system.

I've tried:
rm -rf mydir
nice rm -rf mydir
nice -n 19 find mydir -type f -exec rm -v {} \;
nice -n 19 rm -rf mydir&

And many other combinations of rm, find rm, nice find rm, etc, but all cause the server load to rise to dangerous levels quickly (I kill the process when `top` hits 20, I'm assuming the machine would hang if allowed to continue).

So is it possible to remove a directory with a lot of files without killing the server?

Mix folders and files alphabetically in XP Details view?

Grand Wahzoo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:06:30 -0800

Mix folders and files alphabetically in XP Details view? I don't want them sorted by name showing folder-names separate from file-names. Mixed was always the default Mac way, which I still crave. After years on XP I still haven't found a way. I've tried various 3rd party multi-pane file managers and did find one to do that, but it costs too much. Also, another freeware manager but it's only single-pane. I want either a simple regedit or a freeware multi-pane manager.

Personal papers, receipts, and documentation -- should they stay or should they go?

nathaole — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:41:40 -0800

Paper trails: Similar to this link, I am looking for a specific list of personal papers, receipts, and essential documents I should keep and for how long. Any and all receipts? Bank statements? I am lost as to which papers one MUST keep and papers that just cause clutter. If I ever needed to prove something by way of having a paper trail, or if I were to be audited, I'd be left scrambling.

I've just graduated from university, have never done my own taxes, rent, and will be living in Toronto, Canada. I try to pay my bills online. Should I be printing out each statement or bill and putting it into a binder or file folder? Grocery receipts? What about those slips I receive from the ATM? Are there documents I should request from the people I am renting from?

Now I'm hearing that one needs to save their monthly transit passes for tax purposes. I know some people save each and every receipt, and I've always wondered why.

I feel confident in my organizational skills, so once I know WHAT to keep, I will be more than happy to file it away in a neat and organized manner. I'm trying to become responsible when it comes to finances, so tracking all of these things may prove useful.

Lists, suggestions, links and resources are all very much appreciated.

Help me make the switch!

nataliecay — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:20:34 -0800

I finally made the switch! Help me transfer my files from my Toshiba laptop to my shiny new MacBook! I'm not extremely technically savvy, but I am a good with instructions. Can anyone give me advice on how to transfer my files from my Toshiba laptop to my new MacBook? This is my first Mac so I'm still figuring everything out and don't know exactly how to go about doing this. Would a USB drive work?

My files are pretty much just pictures, digital movie clips, music, and a few word documents.

Thanks in advance, I apologize if this has been asked... I looked but it seemed like most of the previous posts were regarding macbook to macbook transfers.

up a tree without a clue

king walnut — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:18:30 -0800

Is there a portable way to programmatically traverse a file tree in C or C++?. Needs to work on Windows and Linux. Needs to not have #ifdefs (or at least not many).

Mac HD Data Recovery

lukeklein — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:38:57 -0800

Ahhh! My Mac crapped out! Can anyone recommend a good data recovery company that is dependable but won't charge me an arm and a leg to retrieve my files? I really hope so. I have a lot of photos and files that I would be SO distraught over losing. MY MORALE IS IN YOUR HANDS!!! The computer itself is working fine, but it no longer recognizes the hard drive. I tried placing the hard-disk into several different machines,but they all gave to same result: no disk detected. I also used a different hard drive on my machine and it worked fine, so the hard drive is definitely the problem.

Copy/Paste with File Time Intact

muckster — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:21:32 -0800

How do I copy a large number of files in Windows XP without changing the date created/modified? I'm embarrassed to ask this because I'm sure the answer is something as simple as "hold down F3" or xcopy /m but I can't seem to figure this out or find an answer online that's not selling something.

I'm trying to make a backup of my mp3 archives, and I'd like to keep all file data intact on the new hard drive so my Winamp media library won't get confused. I've used the clone function in Acronis TrueImage for this before , but I get freakishly anxious about accidentally reversing the drive letters and would rather do it in explorer or a command line. Can't be so difficult, can it?

Thank you.

I want to download all files from a page, but there's a catch

entropic — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:42:29 -0800

How can I download a bunch of .pdfs from a webpage all at once? The page I'm looking at is a list of .pdfs available (for a class I'm in - course materials), with a link to download each .pdf file. I've tried using the Firefox extension downthemall, but there's a catch - the links I click to download the .pdfs individually are javascript popups that look like this: javascriptf:pop('docs/12004/andes_vegetation.pdf','yes',",",'12004'); Is there a way to grab all of these at once, or am I doomed to clicking each and every link to open a new window, save as, etc.?

How to automate sorting files into subdirectories?

fanboy65 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:49:26 -0800

I have a large zipped MP3+G collection of about 30,000 songs split into several directories and subdirectories. I have them named by "Disc-Track - Artist - Title". for example... SC7501-01 - Presley, Elvis - An American Trilogy SC7501-02 - Presley, Elvis - Devil In Disguise SC7501-03 - Presley, Elvis - Burning Love Although I have some that are named by "Disc-Volume-Track - Artist - Title". CB5012-01-01 - Stray Cats, The - Rock This Town CB5012-01-02 - Looking Glass - Brandy etc... I'm hoping to automate the following: Within a directory (and all subdirectories) Create a subdirectory for files of the same disc (or disc-volume), and move the files for that disc into that subdirectory. Repeat until every file is moved into the proper subdirectory. I'm using Windows XP.

TrueType (.ttf) or OpenType (.otf) font file rename utility for Mac OS X?

bigt83 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:58:11 -0800

Does anyone know of a TrueType (.ttf) or OpenType (.otf) font file rename utility for Mac OS X? I need a program that can batch rename .ttf files based on their actual font name. For example, I'd like to automatically/batch rename files like MEGAS___.TTF to Megalopolis Special.ttf.

There are several programs for Windows that does this, but I can't find any for mac.

An educated egg-dicator (for computers)

Plug Dub In — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:01:05 -0800

Mac OS X: External drive is dying, many corrupt files randomly strewn about it. What Mac utility can copy all the non-corrupt files to a new disk and provide a list of the files it couldn't copy? Copying certain files gives an error -36. These files do not open in any application. Disk Utility says everything's just fine. It's lying. It's also unable to image the disk. DiskWarrior is no help either.

I'm imagining something that would crawl through the disk file by file, copying what it can and making a note of what it can't.

I've got a somewhat recent backup, so I'm not really freaking out, but I'd like to keep the most recent files possible. Thanks much, hive mind.

Bestest Windows Download Manager

Avenger50 — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:55:52 -0800

Fastest, bestest, prettiest, lightest, freeest Windows download manager for large files. Did I mention fastest?

Before we play name that tune, you're going to have to tell me how to play you that tune

rileyray3000 — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:31:55 -0800

How would I go about posting some files? I want to ask metafilter about the last 16 songs in my itunes library that I can't identify, but I don't know how to go about putting those files up so you all can get to them. What's the easiest way to do this? I'm down to the final 16 files for whom I have neither artist OR album and I'd like to clear this in my lifetime. But that will involve all of YOU playing "Name that Tune" with said files. And that's where we do the question BEFORE the question. How do I put em up so you all can listen to em down?

For our purposes, let's assume I know very little about hosting, and FTPs and web...thingys. What's the simplest way to do this...other than me burning about 1000 cds and passing them out to metafilter members individually?

Okay, I'm stumped.

InsanePenguin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:39:12 -0800

Scriptfilter: I want a list of filenames dumped into text file and put somewhere. How!? Okay, so I've gotten religious about backing up my HDD, but I don't waste the space backing up my applications, aside from a few important ones. Instead, I'd prefer just a list of the files inside my Application folder so I can go and download them if I need to.

Soooo, is there any way that I can write a script that will 1) grab the names of all the files in a specific folder, 2) dump all the file names into a text file (or similar,) and 3) save that folder where ever I so choose.

I'm on a Mac, if it matters at all (AppleScript, or whatnot)