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Favorite productivity software?


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What software do you use that you wouldn't give up unless they pried your cold, dead fingers from the keyboard?

Mine: ClipMate (for Windows). Records every copied item, so I can copy (contol-C) multiple text items in sequence and then go back to fetch any one or more of them (for purposes of pasting into a new text document, for example). The standard Windows clipboard (control-C) only holds one copied item at a time, and overwrites any earlier-copied item.

I can even paste the earlier-copied items one by one into an ordered list in a new text document, by hitting control-V repeatedly.

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Everything from voidtools.com.  Free, and oh, so useful. It silently indexes all file names and path names. Did that spreadsheet you just worked on last week (for most of the week) disappear?  Maybe you accidentally dragged it to a different client folder.  Not to worry. Just type "*.xls*" in the address bar and it will list all of your spreadsheets.  Then click on the Date Modified column so that the filenames are sorted with most recent at the top. So much faster than windows search (and if you turn windows search off your use of Windows Explorer is also much faster).  If you use any kind of additional filter the search results are almost instantaneous (e.g., "*Jones*.xls*").

 

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LOL. Proper nouns are sometimes ambiguous.  When I typed "Everything from voidtools.com.", I meant: "The windows program which is called "Everything" which can be downloaded from the website voidtools.com."

So, we are talking about the same thing!

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So, while I'm here, my second favorite software program is XYplorerFree which can be found at https://www.xyplorer.com/free.php.  It is a file manager that, while generally inferior to Windows Explorer (so it doesn't operate as a replacement for Windows Explorer), has two features that I use almost every day.

1) You know how Windows Explorer uses an address bar to identify the tree node (i.e., folder) being displayed? XY goes one step better by using a Location combobox that takes multiple locations easily (you just separate them with a vertical bar).  So, if you have one tree with billing information and another tree for non-discrimination files you can put both trees into a single combobox and XY will now return results based on the combined folders (XY will of course pick up all sub-folders if you check the box "Include subfolders").  Add a filename filter (like "*.xls*") and you can easily find the last excel spreadsheet that you worked on for a particular client without having to search multiple places.

2) XY has the fastest content search engine I've ever used.  Of course, I'm talking about content searches that are not pre-indexed.  Those would be faster, but I've never found a content indexer that is meant to be running 24/7 that I like.  They just bog down the system too much.  XY has a series of filters that is mind numbingly comprehensive.  And one of those filters is content.  So, it is a simple matter to put "*.pdf" in the filename filter, a couple of folder trees in the Location combobox, and some specific content like "Required Minimum Distribution" into the content filter and XY will return results of every pdf you have in those folders that mentions "Required Minimum Distribution".  

XY has, in my opinion, too many features which makes the interface a bit intimidating.  I love the program because of the handful of features I use and am quite content to ignore all the other features.

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  • 2 years later...

It may be a little niche for everyone to find useful but I could absolutely not do without Screaming Frog https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/. It is a desktop web crawler that can process bulk lists of URLs for their meta data and much more. The amount of time and work it has saved me is immeasurable. Hopefully some of you might find it useful as well!

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2 hours ago, JeremyNSM said:

It may be a little niche for everyone to find useful but I could absolutely not do without Screaming Frog https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/. It is a desktop web crawler that can process bulk lists of URLs for their meta data and much more. The amount of time and work it has saved me is immeasurable. Hopefully some of you might find it useful as well!

What kind of things would somebody in the pension/401(k) business use it for?

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On 5/8/2020 at 1:15 PM, Mike Preston said:

What kind of things would somebody in the pension/401(k) business use it for?

If you run a web site for your business Screaming Frog can be very useful for auditing your web site for things like broken links, redirects, SEO parameters, etc. 

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