Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with utility

Quality Command Line Graphing?

DU — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:41:19 -0800

Open source, command line, low "impact", png-producing, full-featured, good-looking graphing on Linux and other Unices? We are using a script (Tcl, if it matters) to generate a script that will be sent in an email. Right now, we are using gnuplot. It's been a source of problems. No one particular thing, we just often have "issues" generating our graphs, many of them attributable to gnuplot weirdness. I'd like to rewrite it more robustly and eliminate gnuplot (on a three-strikes basis).

The "open source" and "command line" are pretty self explanatory. BTW, I don't really consider gnuplot to be command line, because it has its own shell. Yes, you can script it, but I'm looking for something that will take everything (except the actual data) as command line options.

"Low impact" means "not a lot of extra libs required" and is on the list because we have to manage, build and ship this stuff.

"full-featured" means that something that just draws a squiggle isn't enough. The particular graph we are sending out is actually a multiplot, i.e. two graphs in the same image file. We need to be able to label axes, change colors, set ranges, etc.

"png-producing" I think is non-negotiable. Personally, I would be happy to switch image formats (or better yet, go with SVG), but this email has to meet certain other requirements and I dasn't mess with the format.

"Other Unices" include Solaris and Irix. It doesn't have to ship with those OSes, though, as long as it will compile there painlessly.

As for "good-looking": Plotutils is actually perfect, except for one problem: The font rendering (actually, rasterizing) is complete ass. As in nearly unreadable even at reasonable sizes. I actually confirmed this with the maintainer that there is no way to make them look better at the present time.

How to merge multiple text files keeping original filename and date

chimrichalds — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:07:01 -0800

Hi AskMeFi. Can someone tell me how to combine 350 text files into one large text file so that the original filenames and dates are included above (or below) each entry? I'm using Vista Home Premium and they are all generic .txt files. I'm moving all of my notes into Evernote but want to save the names and dates of the individual txt files.

Windows utility to cause all movable windows to be represented in the taskbar?

odinsdream — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:02:44 -0800

Is there a Windows utility that will add buttons to the taskbar for windows that normally don't get represented there? The problem:

Open a folder. You see the taskbar button representing that folder in the taskbar. Right-click the folder and choose Properties. The properties window does not get added to the taskbar, so you can lose it behind other windows and the only way to get it back is to shuffle until you can see it.

Is there a utility that will globally cause any movable windows to be represented on the taskbar?

On screen grid in Windows?

n3rt — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:52:35 -0800

Is there a Windows utility that will display an on-screen grid over all other applications with definable sizes? I use Fast Stone Capture's ruler utility all the time as a designer, but a grid would be immensely useful.

Sync Outlook calendar and Google - with only generic blocks of busy/free time?

VeniceGlass — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:34:02 -0800

Sync Outlook calendar and Google - with only generic blocks of busy/free time? I've seen the utils out there, but can't see which, if any, would offer a way to publish an Outlook calendar without the actual appointment details. Just want to be able to list busy/free times from Outlook into a Google Cal.

Help me find a long lost app!

flyingcowofdoom — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:08:15 -0800

Help me find a windows application that monitors processes CPU usage and adjusts their priority accordingly. I used to have a utility installed that would sit in the tray and monitor all of the running processes' CPU usage. If a process' CPU usage spiked, it would automatically adjust that process' priorty down. I have since reformatted my PC and I lost the installer for this utility. For the life of me I cannot find it! ISTR that it was called ProcessMinder or ProcessMaster or something like that but I cannot find it! I do remember that the tray icon was a little black scale, like the scales of justice. Has anyone else used this program? TIA!

OS X utility for wrapping text in HTML?

Typographica — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:34:31 -0800

Is there an OS X key command utility or service that will let me wrap selected text in clipboard text and predefined strings (such as HTML)? The blogging client Ecto has a nifty feature that will wrap selected text with whatever is on your clipboard plus predefined strings such as "a href" tags for quickly adding html links. Thus, linking some text is easy:

1. copy a URL
2. select the desired anchor text
3. hit key command and text is wrapped in a "a href" tag using your copied URL.

Is there an OS X utility that will allow me to do this in any app? This would be especially useful in a web browser where I am constantly linking text in forums and other input fields.

I've got Butler which can paste stored text, but it doesn't do the wrapping.

Anyone know of a comparative DOS speed tester software?

lifeless — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:36:46 -0800

I'm looking for a DOS-based CPU speed tester that I remember seeing years ago. It told you how your machine compared to various pre-measured setups. I don't remember how it presented the speed (MIPS, maybe?), but there was a large table of CPU types (386SX/25MHz, 486DX/50MHZ etc.) that it compared the measured result against. Anyone know of such a program? Specifically, I'm looking to use the software inside DOSBox to get a ballpark figure of how many "emulation cycles" are needed on my host machine to correspond to various historical CPUs type. I would then write these settings down to create several DOSBox configs, one for each type of machine.

The software wasn't a CPU ID solution (it might have made a guess, I don't remember), but an app to specifically see comparisons to other hardware. CPU and other hardware identification would be rather nonsensical inside DOSBox.

The benchmark/speed test results are bound to be rough and inexact given timing discrepancies and other emulation quirks, and need to be fine-tuned inside the actual games, but a tool like this would still be nice to have.

I remember that the software (or one of many, I have probably tested more than one) had a real-time "ticker" and a sliding scale. I vaguely remember testing one of these inside DOSBox many years ago, and recall seeing the sliding scale move as I adjusted the cycles setting. Naturally, I've lost and forgotten the software since.

Doesn't matter if the software is free or not. I've googled up some things but not the one I remember seeing. Any help will be appreciated.

Heat is expensive!

backseatpilot — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:50:12 -0800

My heating bill is about twice as much as my downstairs neighbors'. What's going on, and what can I do to mitigate the cost? I live in a multifamily house on the second floor. My gas bill was $240 last month, twice that of my downstairs neighbors. Even with the differences in the apartments (enumerated below), this seems ridiculous. I left a message for the landlord to talk about it, but I would like to know two things - what should I ask her to look at, and what can I do to the apartment to insulate it better?

Some data points:

-Replacement windows were installed a year or two before I moved in, but they're very drafty. I can feel a breeze while sitting on the couch.
-There are lots of doors to the apartment. Two doors to the unheated stairway (one is sealed but not insulated around the jamb), one to the front balcony, and one in the kitchen to the (also unheated) back staircase. None of them seem terribly well insulated. Downstairs only has two doors, one main entrance and a door to the backyard.
-Downstairs only uses one of the two bedrooms. They've turned off the radiator to the guest room.
-Downstairs also has doors in the doorways that go to the back half of the apartment, which they keep closed. The kitchen is in the back and is unheated. The previous tenants in my place removed the doors and hardware.
-The heat is natural gas with radiators (unsure what type, but they do hiss and spit a lot).
-Downstairs also replaced their thermostat with a programmable model. I only have the manual round dial type that requires me to remember to turn the heat down.
-I keep the heat at about 68 when I'm in the apartment and 60-ish at night and when I go to work.
-Both apartments use the same model boiler and same basic heating setup.
-There is a third apartment above mine that uses electric baseboard heaters (I think). There's no boiler for upstairs.
-The apartment is two bedrooms, maybe 700-800 square feet. Lots of windows - 6 plus two doors in the living room alone.

With all that, does it seem there's enough of a difference between the two apartments to warrant such a huge discrepancy in heating costs? Is it reasonable to ask the landlord to seal up the windows? Could the thermostat be broken? How can I seal the doors to the apartment?

Also, I realize this is paranoid but is it at all possible that the upstairs apartment is leeching heat from my boiler? How can I tell if that's the case?

This is my first winter in this apartment, and the first place I haven't had heat included in the rent, so I really have no idea what I should be paying on my gas bill.

Who said (something like) "practicality is its own beauty"?

fenriq — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:36:33 -0800

What is the actual quote and who said it? Practicality is its own beauty. I've been trying to figure who said a quote similar to the one above. It is about beauty being an inherent follower to utility. The more useful something is, the more attractive it is.

The discussion came up because someone called my Suzuki V-Strom ugly but I think she's beautiful because she's a swiss army knife motorcycle, very good at nearly everything.

How do I track time spent in "Spaces"?

kcalder — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:41:41 -0800

Is there a way to keep track of how much time you spend in each "space" in Spaces in MacOS? I would like to use different Spaces on my laptop to keep track of different activities, and at the end of the day be able to see how much time I spent in each "space". I tried looking for a utility that could do this, and haven't been able to find one. Does anyone know of a program that does this?

I need a utility to tag mp3 from file path / filename.

gummo — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:08:46 -0800

What's a good (preferably freeware) application for tagging my mp3 files based on filename and file path? I have thousands of mp3 files perfectly sorted into folders, and consistently named. I would now like to clean up the tags to match.

I need a program that can take a folder full of files and tag the mp3s based on the folder and filename.

I need it to work with the following formats.

\genre\album artist\album\track# - track artists(s) - title.mp3

or

\genre\album artist\track artist - title.mp3

(this is for songs not part of an album)

or optionally (and this is where the programs I've found fail)

\genre\album artist\year - album\track# - track artist - title.mp3
(I've done this for some albums if I have multiple albums for an artist and want them sorted by year)

I need the program to be smart enough to have multiple 'masks' to try and match my path and filenames to. If I have the year, use it, if not, skip it. The programs I've seen can't handle this, and bomb. They start putting the album names into the year field etc...

Has anyone ever used a program that was competent at this?

Revision/version control software for stuff that isn't source code...

Chunder — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:40:18 -0800

Is there such a thing as version/revision control software for printed documents? Software developers have version control for their source code, but what about people who write sales brochures? I work in a large multinational corporation, the marketing department of which generates a large volume of outward-facing literature - brochures, applications, etc. These are written in-house, artworked by an agency into pdf, and then reviewed/amended/signed-off prior to being printed and distributed; changes to any given item are frequent and reasonably regular (usually 6 monthly), and may need to be amended and reviewed by a number of people (usually 4-6).

Unfortunately, the relevant department has no concept of the re-use of identical elements across documents (e.g. common paragraphs, tables, etc.) - every document is completely independent of the others, no matter how much copy text is duplicated; they manage version control completely manually; they are inconsistent in handling updates to one document, and frequently do not apply them across other similar documents; and lastly, they operate in a non-collaborative manner regarding review and sign-off - so any changes suggested by one person aren't seen by the others until all of the changes have been re-applied to the document, incurring extra artworking costs and time delays.

I'm absolutely certain that there is some software out there somewhere that - in effect - does source-code version control for printed literature, and will help to resolve all of the issues that we have... but I have no idea what I'm looking for! Every search I do just returns source code versioning.

Does anyone out there work for a publishing house, or a document production agency, or something, who use software such as this to control all of these aspects of printed literature lifecycle? Something that gives collaborative review of documents; something that links "paragraphs" between documents (so one change updates multiple documents, or at least identifies them for you); something that helps to control which version of a document was available at any particular time, irrespective of the subsequent changes...
I'm coming at this from a business analysis background (it's not my job any more, it's just a habit I can't shake!), and it really frustrates me that a core part of such a large business is totally dependent upon inefficient and inaccurate manual processes... but is my only solution to roll up my sleeves and learn to code something suitable?

Utility Company Security?? Who Manages?

dyerfr — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:05:46 -0800

Who runs physical plant security at utility companies?? Think: cell towers, eletrical utilities, water utlities, etc... any company that has remote locations... My company has a product that we'd use to provide secure access to these locations; it is a lock, but one that can provide access only at certain times to people who have been given the right code. We're looking at companies who have these remote areas and need to provide access to vendors, contractors, etc. but would prefer not to give out keys or 'static' codes for locks (and would also prefer not to have to go with the contractor to the site...)

PDF Manipulation utility for unix?

tractorfeed — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:54:30 -0800

UNIX experts: what's the best way to take a pdf file, cut out a few (non-sequential) pages, insert a few more pages from another pdf file, and end up with one new pdf file? I need a pdf manipulation utility that can run on ubuntu. I have a pdf document (made with Keynote) which is about 30 slides for a talk. I am currently away from home and only brought with me a small laptop running xubuntu. I'd like to take the original pdf, remove some slides (i.e. pages), create some new slides with Latex/beamer, and end up with a new set of slides, some new and some old. It would be a real pain to redo all the slides in beamer, and as I made the first set in Keynote on a mac, I can't edit them natively. I have PDFPen on my mac at home -- I love this app and a unix version of something like this would be ideal. I've searched and come up empty. At this point I'm willing to purchase something that would do the trick.

How much does 24 hours of constantly running toilet water cost?

kmtiszen — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:31:13 -0800

How much higher would a water utility bill be with a toilet that runs 24 hours a day? Long story, but my building manager has claimed, through some unfortunate hearsay, that my toilet was running 24 hours a day for two weeks before I took care of the problem. He has informed me that I will be charged for any excess on the water bill. Now, my toilet WAS running, but two weeks is a gross overestimation. I'm not going to allow them to bill me on conjecture.

But, in any case, I was still wondering: approximately how much does 24 hours of constantly running toilet water cost?

Does anybody have any insight?

Thanks!

Can I legallly be denied access to my fuse box?

pikaboy202 — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:02:38 -0800

MA filter: Must I have fuse box access if I rent an apartment? I live on the 2nd floor of a 2 floor house. The landlord lives downstairs and has complete access to the fuse box. I, on the other hand, cannot access the fuse box. This makes for very frustrating times when the fuse blows (often) in my apartment and I have to ask the landlord to reset the fuse. It's worse when the landlord is off at work and not home to reset the fuse because then I have to wait hours for my power to come back on.

In Massachusetts (Milton), must a tenant have access of their own fuse box legally? If this is the case, where can I get a copy of this regulation so I can show my landlord and get him to either give me access to the fuse box or install one in my apartment?

Help me understand the marginal revolution.

proj — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:23:55 -0800

Nascent interest in economics and economic thinking. Having a bit of problem with the theory of the margin. Wikipedia is not that helpful. What exactly does it mean to "think at the margin?" I understand the basic definition of the margin -- how much it costs to produce one MORE unit of a widget rather than the average widget cost, but I'm a bit unclear on marginal utility and how it differs from utility in general. Can you provide me with some examples of thinking at the margins as well as some definitions for marginal utility?

Why doesn't ComEd know where I live?

youngergirl44 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:28:43 -0800

I need help sorting out an issue involving my electric company, my electric bill, and the other apartments in our building. We have lived in a four unit building in Chicago for nearly three years now. We are on the thrid floor and were told when moving in that this was 'unit/apartment 3'. When we called to begin utility services (gas, electric, cable), we signed up as #3.

We recently had someone move in on the fourth floor. I got a letter from our electric company, ComEd, asking where I was moving because they had received notice that the name on my account needed to be changed. The letter was addressed to me at 'unit 3, 4th floor'. I called to see what was going on and was told that they show four units at our address - basement, unit 1, unit 2, and unit 3. According to ComEd, we live in unit 2 on the 3rd floor. My name is apparently associated with what they call unit 3 - the 4th floor.

I have reviewed my past bills and they have always been addressed to me at unit 3 and have never said 4th floor, until I got the letter. Despite this, ComEd says that I've been paying the bill for the 4th floor for almost three years.

Part of me doesn't believe this. If that was true, who has been paying our bill the entire time we've lived here? But if we have been paying the wong bill, that means I have no idea what our electric consumption is or what our actual bill could possibly be.

How do I fix this? Will ComEd make me retroactively pay for our actual alectric consumption? What if I've been paying more for the 4th's floor usage than I would have if we had been paying our actual bill? Could I get compensated? Do I just call to put my name on what they call unit 2 and walk away?

I Wish I Had a Diffy

adipocere — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:46:09 -0800

I'm searching for the ultimate in hand-holding, peel-my-grape recursive directory diff tools for the lazy. I'm looking for something that does (and here's where my vocabulary fails me) a "diff" between two directory structures. Like many things for which I've searched and not found, it's probably either a result of me not knowing the correct terminology or just being insanely specific.

Beyond Compare, from a similar thread, looked nifty, but I don't need comparisons within files, just between them, that is, either the files are the same, or they aren't. And they aren't all text, either, which the product page indicates is an issue. ExamDiff Pro doesn't seem to do subdirectories.

Supposing I have three directories. The third directory is empty and called "duplicates." The first two directories are filled with files, subdirectories, and files in those subdirectories. They're mostly similar. And that's the problem, they're mostly just duplicates. Text files, compressed video, Word documents, all kinds of stuff.

I'm looking for a utility that recursively compares the first directory to the second. Should it find a file in the second directory that has the same filename and is, upon a binary comparison, the same file as one in the first directory, the software moves it to the third "duplicates" directory, preserving the overall directory structure.

This would leave the first directory a mostly-empty skeleton with just a few files in it, the second directory untouched, and the third directory a bunch of redundant files in a similar directory structure to the first and filled with yummy deletable files.

I've written non-recursive scripts that do this on a very small scale, but I don't quite have the confidence, time, or inclination to really expand it. Alternatively, I could handle a readout that just displayed the files that were "new" or "different," while ignoring files that are "same" or "missing." It wouldn't be as convenient, but I'm willing to settle.

My two requirements for it are:

1) Runs on Windows, preferably NTFS-friendly
2) Either freeware, shareware, or something relatively cheap. I'm not looking to spend $200 on it.

What on Earth do you call such software, aside from automagically delicious? Which do you use, and why do you like it?

No, CVS/Subversion isn't a solution at the moment.

Examples of unclosable computer programs

aerotive — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:08:46 -0800

I'm looking for examples of legitimate, non-malware programs that do not allow the user to close them in any normal way. There is no way to close a minor system utility included with a PC I recently got. It's a basic self-help type program. The normal close button is there, but it minimizes the program to the tray. No right-click option to close it is available. I have confirmed with the manufacturer that this is the expected behavior.

I'm wondering if there are other examples of this sort of design out there. Doesn't have to be a utility, any sort of program for OSX or Windows.

As an aside, even Task Manager can't close the program--I think the program has been hardened to resist that in the way some antivirus programs are.

Belt for GPS tracking and my tiny laptop

phrontist — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:23:04 -0800

I'm currently waiting for my Eee PC and Mologogo phone (a motorola i415) to arrive. These are items I'd like to carry with me very frequently (essentially always), and I call upon the hivemind to help me figure out the best way to do so. The Eee is too big to fit in my pockets comfortably, and for maximum comfort I'd rather not have the phone in my pants all the time either. I have a Timbuk2 bag, but it's too large for when I just want to carry the phone and laptop. The best idea I've come up so far is some sort of... utility belt. I'm envisioning the Eee hanging off my hip and the phone in some sort of holster. I have a hunch military surplus may be a fruitful avenue of inquiry, but I'm not having much luck googling.

Can anyone reccomend such a belt and holsters (bags) that would work with these items? Preferably something modular, in case I have to add some other device down the line.

I'm open to non-belt suggestions as well, but my priorities are fast access and secure stowage (I'm a college student that rides a bike very often). It shouldn't be a vest - this needs to be a general solution that will work in the summer as well.

freeware search and replace utility for URLs

bbranden1 — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:18:19 -0800

Is there a freeware program that can do batch search and replace operations on text strings inside of url files? TexRep almost fills the bill with a nice interface, but, like so many S&R programs, doesn't support .url files, nor does it work if I change the url's' extension to a supported file type like .txt.

Possible uses for idle XP box

Hat Maui — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:10:22 -0800

What are some things I could do with an old XP box? I just got a new iMac and I'm left wondering if there would be any useful purpose to which I could put my four-year-old XP Dell to... or should I just scrap it?

It's a 2.4 gig Celeron with 700 megs of ram, a dvd and cd drive, and I have two external hard drives for it, plus a monitor (that i'll now likely use with the mac). Oh, and a 40 gig internal.

It'd be too slow to use it as a dedicated media streaming box over wifi, right? (at least, for video anyway).

Any other thoughts as to what use I could put it to?

Can I make the side panel of Windows dialogs more like OSX?

AmbroseChapel — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:13:58 -0800

Can I make the side panel of Windows dialogs more like OSX? I don't know exactly what the name is for the thing I'm talking about, but here's an example (the bit outlined in red).

On the left hand side of most of my dialog boxes there's a panel or frame which has shortcut links to various things -- various things I don't need. I don't even really know how they got there, presumably the corporate IT people set them up, as they relate to work?

Is there some kind of hack or utility to customise that area, so that it's actually useful to me?

The basic problem is, I use windows at work and I spend a lot of time navigating to and from the same folders in a complex structure, and at home on the Mac I just drag those folders to the left-hand pane for quick access.

So of course, any other answer which lets me tweak dialogs to make navigating easier would be good. I can't move the folders (they mirror a server structure).