Free Stuff

Just save this snippet as a batch script - e.g. getfiles.bat in the folder where you want the listings to start.

@REM the /A switch lists hidden and system files
@REM the /S switch lists subdirectories and their contents.
@dir %1 /A /S > c:\list.txt
@notepad c:\list.txt

The problem: You have a document you want to share with other people, how do you make sure that everyone can read it and that what you send is exactly what they will see. Word files are not intended for the purpose, there is no guarantee that the layout will be anything like how you intended when someone else views the file. HTML is a good candidate, but notorious for rendering differently in different browsers.

The solution: PDF - a format specifically designed for sharing documents. For once what you see is not only what you get, but will be what everyone else gets too.

Adobe Acrobat, the professional PDF tool is very expensive and has a battery of powerful features, If you have the money to spare and you send a lot of files, then rush out and buy it. If, like me, you don’t need the expensive features, but do want to be able to share documents reliably from time to time, then there are a number of other products which will do the job. I use Jaws PDF, which is very good, has a PDF Editor available….. and a price tag attached. CutePDF is a good alternative, and (again, the magic word, FREE). highly recommended - everyone should get it. Installs as a printer driver and is painless to use. This is a sample PDF created with Cute.

From CutePDF

Up until I installed this I was getting hundreds of spam messages a day, and a high percentage were conning their way through Outlook’s flters.

Spamihilator has only been on my machine a few hours as I type, so the jury is still out, as it were, but so far, this is a very impressive application. Its filters are very effective and it has an excellent, easy to use interface coupled with good documentation. So, for example, when I needed to work out how to permit newsletters to pass through unmolested, I found the answer in a few seconds.

…update 17th April 2005, it is a keeper, this one. It takes a little work to tune the powerful set of options to tell it to respect newsletters and such, but it is already purging well over 90% of the crap I had been getting…

It works, it does what it says it does. Bloody good.

Get it from Spamihilator