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Thursday, April 17, 2008

File Splitting/ Joining Tools - Peazip and Soft191

Quite excited about this post as it came out of necessity. While exploring tools to send large files to our partner teachers, one option that occured to me was file splitting/ joining tools. Of course, there would be and there are other options available but it is worthwhile to try these tools as well. Using these you can manage all major file types and can send large files over the internet. Out of the few file splitting/ joining tools, that i tried, i liked the Soft191 and peazip.


Soft 191 split join, http://www.soft191.com/index.aspx is an excellent tool having the following features:

  • Simple to use interface
  • option to specify split size
  • option to clean disk space after joining the file
  • option to create an .exe ( executable) and .bat (batch) file , which is quite helpful when performing the join operation. clicking on the .bat file, one can start the process without bothering about the first file in the sequence. The .exe helps create a self-extractable file



The other tool, peazip (http://peazip.sourceforge.net) is a very comprehensive tool and has lot many useful features. Some of those features are as mentioned below :

- support for lot many file types
- feature rich
- good interface
- option to create self-extracting file
- options to change settings like compression ratio, etc.

Be careful about not moving the peazip.exe file elsewhere without the supporting files.

Peazip scores over Soft 191 for its comprehensiveness and Soft 191 scores over peazip because of its simple interface that any layperson could get a hang of.

Zip/ Compression Utility Software - 7 Zip



7-zip ( www.7-zip.org) is an excellent compression/ decompression utility. The tool provides some real good features and the interface is also quite simple. 7-zip is based on the 7z archive format which provides a high compression ratio. Another advantage of 7z format is its open architecture to support any new compression method. Some of the useful features are as mentioned below :

  • High compression ratio in new 7z format. LZMA compression with
  • Supported formats:
    • Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
    • Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
  • For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
  • Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
  • Self-extracting capability for 7z format
  • Localizations for 69 languages
Undoubtedly, a useful utility and my favourite as well

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

PDF Viewer - Sumatra PDF

Sumatra PDF is a very lightweight PDF viewer ( 844 KB in size) for those interested in viewing PDF documents. Without any extra features, Sumatra PDF is a lightweight software to carry. No hassles about the viewer taking long to open. The software is available at (http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/).

a good, simple useful tool.

Powerful Media Player - VLC

VLC (www.videolan.org) is a very powerful media player with great capabilities. Some of the capabilities provided by VLC Media Player are as mentioned below :
  • cross platform versions available
  • support for many audio and video formats like mp3, mpeg -4, DivX, ogg, etc.
  • could be used as a streaming server
Fun to work with, watched a movie set as wallpaper using VLC.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Free Online WhiteBoard Tool - Scriblink

Tried Scriblink, the free interactive Whiteboard available at www.scriblink.com.
The tool is quite easy to use and has lot many useful features. No need to register, one may straight away start working on the whiteboard. Some features of the tool are

  • invitation by email or copying of the URL
  • uploading file
  • chat
  • option to save the whiteboard file for later reference
Though some features like colour and tool are very basic but in the absence of any other free Whiteboard (at least to my knowledge), still a very good tool to use.

One major limitation i saw was allowing only 5 users at a time to work.

Please note the tool may not work if you access it from some corporate connection because the concerned port may be blocked ( i experienced it )

Good Useful Tool !!