last update: Sun Dec 16 2001
The UNIX section
This page so far comprises the following software:
- The news-reader
Hnews,
specialized for automatically downloading huge amounts of attachments
(pictures, movies, sound-files, ...) from newsgroups.
- The
deTect-package,
a set of two programs to detect multiple identical or similar copies of
files, especially images, on your hard disk. A powerful tool to avoid
wasting hard disk space by keeping files several times.
- The
MakeThumbs program,
which is a powerful and flexible tool to create thumbnail contact sheets
for anything from two to thousands of images.
- The id3 tagger
hID3 to read and write ID3-tags in mp3 files.
- And finally,
PhoneBook,
the program that tells you the address belonging to a phone-number.
(Berlin, Germany, only)
All programs in this section are available as ZIP archives and as TGZ
(tar-gzip) archives.
Note:Some browsers will not correctly download the archives
when just clicking the link with your left mouse button,
but instead only display some jumbled garbage on your screen.
In those cases, use your right mouse button to download the file.
Hnews, version 2.3
is the newest version of my news-reader program.
This news-reader is specialized on automatically downloading large amounts
of images, sound-files, movies, etc. from entire newsgroups: You just
specify the group, Hnews will do all the rest; including several tricks
which make it faster and easier for you to filter the downloaded files
for what interests you most.
I have seen several ads in the news and elsewhere for programs which
fulfill exactly this task; only difference: they are written for
MS-Windows and have a "nice" graphical user surface - and cost a lot
of money. This one is free, so have fun !
Hnews is written in gnu C++ and in order to fit it to your platform, you
have to compile the source code. This is done fully automatically via
an Install-script, though, so there should not be any problems. For detailed
instructions as to how to proceed, go
here.
To avoid unnecessary net-load, please only download the archive containing
the actual program
(ZIP,
TGZ)
once you have read the detailed instructions and found, that your computer
fulfills the hard- and software requirements for Hnews.
If you do decide to use Hnews, I suggest that you also have a look at the
following two packages,
deTect
and
MakeThumbs
Both add very useful extra capabilities to Hnews.
deTect, version 2.1
is a package of two tools which were mainly intended to support Hnews,
but can also be used independent of it. The purpose of this package is
to detect identical / similar copies of files on your local hard-disk,
thus saving you disk space by enabling you to delete multiple copies.
For a more detailed description and instructions as to how to proceed to
install the deTect package, go
here.
To avoid unnecessary net-load, please only download the archive containing
the actual program
(ZIP,
TGZ)
once you have read the detailed instructions and found, that your computer
fulfills the hard- and software requirements for deTect.
is another tool which was originally intended to support & extend Hnews,
but has evolved so far that it is very useful all by itself now, too.
MakeThumbs is a thumbnail creator; it takes an entire set of
images and creates one or more thumbnail sheets of these images.
It can even create an optimized HTML file that makes the images available via
clickable thumbnails ! Equipped with a rich set of options you can customize
MakeThumbs to your specific task and automatize everything you want
it to do.
MakeThumbs is implemented very efficiently, so on a reasonably fast
computer (not exactly an 80286) you can easily create thumbnail sheets for
several thousand images within a few minutes.
For detailed instructions on to how to install MakeThumbs, go
here.
To avoid unnecessary net-load, please only download the archive containing
the actual program
(ZIP,
TGZ)
once you have read the detailed instructions.
hID3, version 0.1
is a program to read and write ID3-tags in mp3 files. ID3-tags contain
meta-information about the mp3 file in which they are contained, such
as title, artist, album and genre.
There are two versions of ID3-tags that are in wide-spread use,
version 1 and version 2.3. hID3 can read both but - so far -
can only write version 1 tags. Support for writing version 2.3 tags
might be included in a later version. If you need the ability to write
version 2.3 tags, don't hesitate to email me - the more feedback I get
the higher the motivation to continue the work on this program.
hID3 is very easy to install and therefore does not need any
detailed instructions. Simply unpack the archive containing the program
(ZIP,
TGZ)
into a new folder and type "make". If make terminates successfully,
hID3 is now ready for use. Otherwise "make" will report an
error. If an error occurs and you cannot correct it yourself, simply
send me an email with the "make"-output and I will try to repair the
error asap and put a new, corrected version online.
Note: This - so far - works for Berlin, Germany, only !!!
For 1999/2000 the "Deutsche Telekom AG" for the first time also
distributed its phone-book on CD - for free - and not printed only !
This CD contains a database with most of the phone numbers and addresses
from the Berlin region & software (for MS-Windows ... arrrrgh!) which
will search a phone-number when given a name and/or address. As almost all
MS-Windows Software, this program, too, crashes constantly.
Since the database is independent of the program, I decided to
simply write a Linux-based program to access that database, thereby being
able to use the information on the CD without having to cope with Billy's
Multiple-Sclerosis-Windows. Furthermore I implemented an additional feature
which is not supported by the standard software coming with the CD, namely
the reverse search: giving a phone number and getting name & address.
The latter feature is already implemented and works just fine, the "normal"
search direction is rather complicated, though, since the database is not
correctly and consistently ordered alphabetically, many entries being
slightly misplaced, some even extremely so. For the time being, I therefore
decided to postpone that search-direction indefinitely.
Of course, you need to have that CD in order to use this program, or more
precisely the file "wshh" from the database directory on the CD. This
file is over 300MB large, though ...
I suppose, that the Telekom has not only made a phone-book CD for Berlin
but at least for the other major cities in Germany, too. The program MIGHT
work with these CDs, too, but most likely some minor adjustments will be
necessary. If you live in Hamburg, Munich or the like and have such a CD,
please send one to me, I will adapt the program and send the CD back to you
immediately.
For detailed instructions on to how to install PhoneBook, go
here.
To avoid unnecessary net-load, please only download the archive containing
the actual program
(ZIP,
TGZ)
once you have read the detailed instructions.
If you have any questions about this page or the software, please do not
hesitate to
email me.
Come back soon and visit again !
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