Thank you VERY MUCH for Free Commander
Posted: 07.11.2008, 00:10
I know that I have posted a wishlist a mile long, but I wanted to express to you how thankful I am that you have made Free Commander available.
I use it very often - every day I'm on the PC - and I have come to rely on and appreciate the features already in the application as of the current beta.
I cannot imagine how I could accomplish some of the things I do in anything close to an efficient manner without the tools Free Commander provides.
Here's just two examples:
I have an older MP3 player that I like to use for my audiobooks. It doesn't support tags - just names and folders in the 8 dot 3 format. So, to get all of my books to play in order, I like them ordered from 01.mp3 to 99.mp3 (usually never more than 30-50 tracks really, but still). I can get that done with a CTRL-A, F2 and ENTER very fast. It saved my preference for two digits and the name as a [C] counter field.
On my "projects" drive, I have a number of folders dealing with audio and audiobooks, specifically. I have 4 key folders, all on that same drive:
Audio Conversions
Audio Recordings
Audiobooks Collections To Archive
Audiobooks Collections To Process
If I am recording one of my books from Cassette Tapes or CD's, I use the Audio Recordings folder. I usually record Cassette Tapes with the Punch-In feature in Sound Forge Audio Studio (the $69 version) and save each side as a unique file (tape01side01, tape01side02, etc.) in the uncompressed WAV format. When I'm all done recording the analog tapes, I edit them to clip off any extra audio I don't need (like "This is Side One of Cassette Two" and the like. Then, I drag and drop the completed list into Bonk Encoder for conversion to MP3 format.
In order to keep track of the collections, where there may be bunches of books in a series that I want to put in order by either publishing date or suggested reading order (Like the Dragon Riders of Pern series), I use the FOLDER TAB feature. It is amazingly helpful. I can have access to all 4 primary folders (2 on each side, or 1 on the left, 3 on the right) and quickly hop back and forth as needed. I also use CTRL-U to swap panes when it makes sense.
I use the different sort orders (sometimes extension, sometimes name), the F5 / F6 keys to do very fast copies or moves (way faster than dragging and dropping, and fewer mistakes).
When backing up the work, I can have a tab open in the right pane for my external hard drive, and one on the left for my local drive. I can do a FOLDER COMPARE to quickly identify books I've processed and not yet backed up and press the F5 key to copy those selected folders to the backup drive.
Sometimes I need to do the more involved SYNCHRONIZE DIRECTORIES function, which is especially helpful when I have been merging or splitting audio files so that they all end up around 60 minutes per file, per audiobook, which works best for my player.
In that case, the folders are still the same, but instead of having 99 tracks, I may have 15, or 20, stuff like that. Or like with Audible downloads, I start out with one or two HUGE files, and split them into manageable chunks of about an hour each.
Without the SYNCHRONIZE DIRECTORIES feature, I have no idea how long it might take me to do some of these back and forth updates.
The feature works great to manage my Internet Explorer Bookmarks as well. I constantly add / remove / categorize bookmarks using folders, and again, Free Commander makes it pretty easy to do.
So, all this to say that I'm grateful that Free Commander is out there and that it's being improved all the time. It's one of the most critical utilities in my arsenal, and I wouldn't want to use a PC without it.
Thanks much Marek. Sincerely. It's a fantastic program.
I use it very often - every day I'm on the PC - and I have come to rely on and appreciate the features already in the application as of the current beta.
I cannot imagine how I could accomplish some of the things I do in anything close to an efficient manner without the tools Free Commander provides.
Here's just two examples:
I have an older MP3 player that I like to use for my audiobooks. It doesn't support tags - just names and folders in the 8 dot 3 format. So, to get all of my books to play in order, I like them ordered from 01.mp3 to 99.mp3 (usually never more than 30-50 tracks really, but still). I can get that done with a CTRL-A, F2 and ENTER very fast. It saved my preference for two digits and the name as a [C] counter field.
On my "projects" drive, I have a number of folders dealing with audio and audiobooks, specifically. I have 4 key folders, all on that same drive:
Audio Conversions
Audio Recordings
Audiobooks Collections To Archive
Audiobooks Collections To Process
If I am recording one of my books from Cassette Tapes or CD's, I use the Audio Recordings folder. I usually record Cassette Tapes with the Punch-In feature in Sound Forge Audio Studio (the $69 version) and save each side as a unique file (tape01side01, tape01side02, etc.) in the uncompressed WAV format. When I'm all done recording the analog tapes, I edit them to clip off any extra audio I don't need (like "This is Side One of Cassette Two" and the like. Then, I drag and drop the completed list into Bonk Encoder for conversion to MP3 format.
In order to keep track of the collections, where there may be bunches of books in a series that I want to put in order by either publishing date or suggested reading order (Like the Dragon Riders of Pern series), I use the FOLDER TAB feature. It is amazingly helpful. I can have access to all 4 primary folders (2 on each side, or 1 on the left, 3 on the right) and quickly hop back and forth as needed. I also use CTRL-U to swap panes when it makes sense.
I use the different sort orders (sometimes extension, sometimes name), the F5 / F6 keys to do very fast copies or moves (way faster than dragging and dropping, and fewer mistakes).
When backing up the work, I can have a tab open in the right pane for my external hard drive, and one on the left for my local drive. I can do a FOLDER COMPARE to quickly identify books I've processed and not yet backed up and press the F5 key to copy those selected folders to the backup drive.
Sometimes I need to do the more involved SYNCHRONIZE DIRECTORIES function, which is especially helpful when I have been merging or splitting audio files so that they all end up around 60 minutes per file, per audiobook, which works best for my player.
In that case, the folders are still the same, but instead of having 99 tracks, I may have 15, or 20, stuff like that. Or like with Audible downloads, I start out with one or two HUGE files, and split them into manageable chunks of about an hour each.
Without the SYNCHRONIZE DIRECTORIES feature, I have no idea how long it might take me to do some of these back and forth updates.
The feature works great to manage my Internet Explorer Bookmarks as well. I constantly add / remove / categorize bookmarks using folders, and again, Free Commander makes it pretty easy to do.
So, all this to say that I'm grateful that Free Commander is out there and that it's being improved all the time. It's one of the most critical utilities in my arsenal, and I wouldn't want to use a PC without it.
Thanks much Marek. Sincerely. It's a fantastic program.