Best free word processors
The two most useful utilities on my PC
|
By
Ian "Gizmo" Richards
I have dozens of utilities installed on my PC — but I'd like to tell you about two that are not well known, yet top the list of my favorites. These specialist tools are not for everybody, but if they apply to you, discovering them is going to make your day. |
Freeware lets two PCs share a keyboard and mouse
I normally work simultaneously with two PCs whose screens are stacked one above the other. It's a highly productive arrangement: while one machine is tied up doing something, I can use the other to continue working.
This setup works amazingly well, because I control both PCs from the one keyboard and mouse, using an open-source freeware program called Synergy.
Synergy is like an electronic keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switch. With a KVM, you swap your keyboard and mouse from one PC to the other by manually turning a switch. With Synergy, you just move your mouse to switch control between the two systems.
It works like this: if I'm using my laptop, I move the mouse to the top of the laptop screen, and the cursor miraculously appears on the monitor mounted above that belongs to the second PC. Automatically, the laptop mouse and keyboard are connected to my second PC.
It may sound like a miracle, but the explanation is quite simple. Synergy senses when the cursor is at the screen edge and switches the mouse and keyboard electronically. In other words, it uses my local area network to make the connection rather than a set of KVM cables.
But Synergy is more than an electronic KVM. The program allows me to cut and paste between PCs, a feature I use all the time. It also synchronizes screensavers and can even sync screen-locking of both PCs.
Synergy is a true freeware gem.
Industrial-strength text processor saves work-hours
Every time I use TextPipe Pro (TPP), I silently thank the developer. This product has saved me so much time and so much angst over the years that I can hardly imagine what my computing would be like without it.
Yet most folks have never heard of TextPipe Pro.
It's a pricey commercial utility designed to process text files. TPP can extract text elements, replace them, modify them, combine them, compare them, and do much more.
If you know Unix, you could consider TPP a combination of the UNIX awk and grep utilities, but bundled with a good graphical user interface. That's a pretty accurate description, but not very understandable by Windows users. Maybe I could say TPP is like a search-and-replace utility on steroids, but that would dramatically understate the product's power.
The best way to describe TPP to Windows users is by an example.
Let's say a colleague sends you an e-mail containing a list of names and e-mail addresses of folks who want to join a national social club. Your job is to write to each person who lives in your state.
Now, doing this by hand would be a pain. Doing it using normal computing tools would be even worse. You'd have to copy and paste each e-mail and physical address into a spreadsheet and then sort the spreadsheet by state.
That's OK for a dozen names, but impractical with 50 or more. Using TPP, it would be a one-minute job — regardless of the number of names on the list.
Simply copy and paste the original e-mail into TPP and use one of the program's hundreds of preconfigured filters to extract only the lines containing the state in question. Then use other preconfigured filters to extract the e-mail addresses, sort the results alphabetically, delete duplicates and blank lines, and write the results to a file.
I just tried it and it took me 52 seconds. Not bad, eh? The results would be much the same whether there were 10 addresses or 10,000.
The key to TPP's usefulness is its flexibility. Before I discovered TPP, I wrote custom, one-off computer programs to perform tricky text-processing tasks. Not anymore. In fact, I don't think I've written a custom program in the past two years.
If you work with large text files, you are simply wasting your time if you're not using TPP. At $399, the program is expensive — perhaps the most expensive utility I have ever bought — yet in time saved, it has retuned me that investment many times over.
If you're interested in the dozens of other utilities I use on my personal PC, you'll find a full list in my Desert Island Utilities report.
Ian "Gizmo" Richards is senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of the Support Alert Newsletter, which merged with Windows Secrets in July 2008. Gizmo alternates the Best Software column each week with contributing editor Scott Spanbauer.
Comparing changes in Word documents
Last month I mentioned CSDiff [1], a freeware program that allows you to compare two word documents even if the documents were written with Word's "track changes function turned off. This prompted Paul Lawrence, the editor of the file comparison utilities at our freeware wiki to write:
"Gizmo, I became aware of CSDiff a few months back and was excited about its ability to compare Word docs. I had heard the whole "track changes" bit before. But then someone pointed out to me that it is not necessary for Word to have the "track changes" function turned on previously in order to use that feature. At least not in Word 2003 and later - I am unsure about the older versions. Under "Tools" there is a feature called "Compare and merge documents" but it is often hidden until you click the double down arrows at the bottom so I always missed it before. Simply have the documents open that you want to compare and bingo. Apparently all CSDiff does is add another way to use this already built in feature."
Well I checked what Paul said and he is totally correct. So you don't need a freeware program to compare separate Word documents; it's already built into Word. Well there you go.
[1] http://www.componentsoftware.com/Products/CSDiff/index.htm
Google launches Calendar, acquires Writely
Google has officially launched Google Calendar [1], a free Ajax- powered web calendar application. It's a fast, searchable, multi- calendar with reminder capabilities that allows users to store and share appointments. It's tightly integrated with GMail and can import data from Yahoo Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. One of the most interesting features is the smart text recognition that allows automatic event classification based on your text descriptions. For example, if you typed in, "have lunch with Gizmo at 12.30 at Cafe Roma," it would be automatically classified in the event database without the need for manual selection. Your calendars can be optionally shared with nominated users via RSS and reminders can be sent via SMS. During the month, Google also announced that it had acquired the outstanding Ajax-based web word processor called Writely [2]. Between this, the web Calendar, GMail and Google Chat it's clear the much speculated-on Google free web-based application suite is starting to take shape.
[1] http://calendar.google.com/
[2] http://www2.writely.com