Text Editors will always be needed

Using a text editor is unavoidable part to any computer professional.

For all these tasks, I think of some features:

- Spell checking
- (un)Wrapping long lines
- Search and Replace (using regular expressions is a huge plus)
- Supporting both UNIX and Windows "new line" formats (LF and CRLF)
- Highlighting special keywords depending on application
- Multi selection
- Managing HUGE files
- Extra tools: case changing, tabulating, indentation, ...
- External tool support: running make, or java, or execute, ...


For all of these, I guess:

TextPad

is the best. Can find TextPad here

In their website, they say the feature list includes:

* Huge files can be edited, up to the limits of virtual memory. See Specifications for the actual limits.
* Supports Universal Naming Convention (UNC) style names, and long file names with spaces.
* CUA compliant keyboard commands.
* English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish user interfaces.
* A spelling checker with dictionaries in 10 languages.
* Multiple files can be simultaneously edited, with up to 2 views per file.
* Warm Start feature lets you restart exactly where you left off.
* In addition to the usual cut, copy and paste capabilities, selected text can be case shifted and block indented, and characters, words and lines can be transposed. Cut and copied text can be appended to the clipboard, as well as replacing its contents.
* Text can be automatically word-wrapped at the margin, or at a specified column, if it does not fit on a line. In this mode, text can be split into separate lines where wrapping occurs, or lines can be intelligently joined, preserving paragraphs.
* OLE2 drag and drop editing for copying and moving text between documents.
* Unlimited undo/redo capability. The undo buffer can be optionally cleared when a file is saved, or by using the Mark Clean command.
* Block (column) selection mode, and visible display of tabs and spaces.
* A keystroke macro recorder, with up to 16 active macros.
* Sorting, using up to 3 keys.
* Text can be automatically aligned and indented, relative to the previous line, to aid block indentation.
* The right mouse button pops up an in-context menu.
* The cursor can be constrained to the text, or can be positioned freely in the document view.
* Toolbar with fly-by usage hints, and an active status bar.
* A powerful search/replace engine using UNIX-style regular expressions, with the power of editor macros. Sets of files in a directory tree can be searched, and text can be replaced in all open documents at once.
* Visible bookmarks can be placed on individual lines, and on all occurrences of a search pattern. Bookmarked lines can be cut, copied or deleted.
* A built in file manager for fast file copying, renaming, deleting etc.
* Print previewing, and printing with customizable headers/footers and page breaks.
* Viewer for binary files using a hexadecimal display format.
* Built in file comparison utility, and up to 16 user-defined tools with argument macros.
* Hypertext links from file search and user tool output to the relevant source line.
* DDE interface to other tools, such as MS Visual C++. The editor detects when an open file has been modified by another tool, and prompts you to reopen it.

Browser Choices: Between Firefox, Opera, and IE

For a long time Opera was the most compact, and feature rich browser of the three.
Built in mailing, chatting, calender, and of course very clean browsing.

It contained MDI (multi document interface) for the pages, reduce the dektop clutter, and makes it easier to reach what you want.

NOW, Firefox takes this place. With hundreds (or thousands) of plugins, you can do almost everything from within that bulky browser. The only problem is its memory footprint. Besides, sometimes, it start eating CPU power for nothing. Then it returns to normal in most cases.

So, memory leaks is an issue with firefox, but FAR BETTER than IE. The problems there are Security issues, not memory issues. The list of vulnerabilities found in IE is getting longer and longer by the day.


Conclusion: Firefox is faster and safer

File Managers like Microsoft Explorer ?

For sure: Total Commander.

Short message. That tool is simply great. Much better than Microsoft Explorer (Exploder).
It can do most of the simple tasks you need (from compressing, to FTP, encoding/decoding MIME and UUE, and support plugins).

Very stable, and light weight. Nothing else you need.

A MUST HAVE. It is a shareware. But you can live with it for years. Although I recommend supporting the guys there, they deserve it.

Get it here: Total Commander

Alarms and Clocks

It is almost embarrassing how we might be sitting by our PC then we turn to the cell phone to adjust the alarm.... right ? Here I will suggest a few freeware applets that release us from this bad feeling :)

One might say, Well Microsoft Outlook can do that for me. May be (not all features however). But it is bloated. End of discussion.


First: what are the features that are really valuable?

1. Working. Really rings when I want it.
   
2. Spyware free (general features)
   
3. Adware free (general features)
   
4. Able to Wake the machine up from a sleep (If it can't wake the machine, no way I will wake up)
   
5. Customizable to play MP3s or whatever. (If can run applications as well, that will be great, but the scheduler can do that)
   

I found several of those without item 4. For me that's the most important.
For example:

• Speed Up Alarm
  
• Alarm by bluefive.pair.com
  
• And many others: can find a bunch of them at http://www.softplatz.com/freeware/alarm-clock/
  
• Alarm Me (v3.3) 600K in all, Contains Timer, Coutndown, Diary, Keeps birthdates, bla bla. DOES NOT WAKE the machine up. But the interface is quite poor.
  
• Great Budget Alarm Clock Elite: Mainly for organizing your work day. But it is essentially an alarm. DOES NOT WAKE the machine up.
  

Anyhow Indulge yourself in the list over here:

http://www.topshareware.com/guide/hot/alarm.htm

Send us which one is the most capable.

Welcome All

There a lot of blogs, websites, etc dedicated for software reviews. Here, we focus only on simple things. Quick reviews: Good/Bad kind of reviews with short comments.

Many minor tweaks a computer can do that will turn his machine upside down and give it a huge performance and style boost. This is the type of things we are talking about. And as far as I am concerned, all my suggestions will be free :)

So, come on guys (and gals of course), tell me what you made to your machine that makes you worth being called a geek :)