I wrote all this code (except
for what I didn't write!) to solve my problems. That means it isn't bug-free. The code did what I
wanted and I stopped development there. At least it will give you a
starting point.
File Utilities
In order to get my photos to sort right for slide shows, I add
numbers (and a dash) to the beginning of the file names. That's a
hassle to do manually, so this script was created. Just drop your files
one-at-a-time on this script and it will stick progressively higher
numbers on the beginning of the file names. The numbers go up 10 at a
time to allow you to make a few last-minute changes without having to
renumber the whole collection.
Do you have a process that kicks out an identically-named file every
day? If you want to rename them so they don't overwrite each other,
naming them with date seems the most natural solution. You pass it a
file name like this:
cscript.exe DateName.vbs C:\PROGRA~1\FNORDW~1\LOGS\REFERE~1.TXT
or a quoted long name like this:
cscript.exe DateName.vbs "C:\Program Files\Fnord Web
Server\logs\Reference
Log.txt"
And it would rename the corresponding
"C:\Program Files\Fnord Web Server\logs\Reference Log.txt"
to
"C:\Program Files\Fnord Web Server\logs\1999-12-28-Reference Log.txt"
I used year-month-date to make sorting easier.
Same as the above DateName, but this one adds time as well. Prefaces
the file name with year-month-date-hour-minute-second
Written by Fred Coleman. Fred actually got this one written up in the
German PC Magazine! This willl create an "index.htm" file for any given
directory. Two weeks after I decided nobody would ever need to index a
directory, I found myself needing to do it dozens of times. So I got
Fred's code posted so YOU won't have to build your solution from
scratch!
Similar in concept to Fred's script above, except I wanted mine to
display icons. Amazingly, I found a way to do it. Brute force and
obscure graphics formats to the rescue! For a real-life sample, most of
the links on this page take you to (very simple) index pages made by
this script.
If you have two different folder "trees" you need to synchronize (or
update), this might help. In my case, I had a "tree" that was a single
folder full of utility programs. I had another tree that had those same
utilities arranged in folders sorted by category. Trouble is, when I
update them, I always put the updates in the flat single-folder tree.
The category tree never got updated. That's where this script comes in!
It looks at every file in every folder in the destination tree (my
utilities organized by category), then searches for the matching file
in the source tree (my single folder of unsorted files). If it finds a
match, it checks file modification dates. If a newer version is
available in the source tree, it copies it to the destination tree.
Note that the source and destination trees do NOT have to have the same
structure. An effect of unstructured tolerance is that only existing
files in the destination are processed. If the source tree has extra
files in it, they won't be copied over to the destination tree because
the script has no idea where they would go in the destination tree!
Uses the Shell.Application/Namespace/GetDetailsOf function to retrieve
all the file details you'd normally get by right-clicking a file. In
addition to the normal file attributes exposed by the
Scripting.FileSystemObject, using Shell.Application also gets you data
like the file version, description, manufacturer, owner, title, audio
format, and sender name. Obviously not all properties apply to all
files. This script generates a CSV report showing all the details for
every file in a folder. Just drop a folder on the script. Or just steal
this code as a reference when you need to do something like show all
files owned by "Administrator".
I used to write all my scripts with spaces for indenting because it
looked better under Notepad. Unfortunately, it also made it harder to
edit under Notepad! So I changed all my scripts to use tabs instead of
spaces. And I used this script to do it. Put it in the starting folder
and run it. It will verify what file extensions you want to modify, and
convert all instances of four spaces to a single tab character. Simple,
actually.
If you're the sort of person who uses (or misuses) the HOSTS file to
block advertising and badware, you
may have been frustrated by how difficult it is to update, sort, and
organize a large HOSTS file. This is a set of scripts that make it
possible to do those things with almost no effort. The scripts aren't
fast, but I'm rarely in a hurry.
This will search all your source code and document the functions and
subroutines it finds. As written, it searches VBS and ASP files, but
this is easily modified via a constant. It searches for lines beginning
with "Function " or "Sub ", and again, this is easily modified via a
constant. The script starts running in the directory where it is
located and produces a tab-delimited report named after the script file
(like "Functions.txt").
I have lots of log files that do nothing but grow. So I wrote this to
trim them down to a reasonable size. I run it as a scheduled task every
night. The log files must have entries on separate lines. This script
keeps the most recent entries at the end of the log and throws away old
entries at the beginning of the log. Pass it a file name and a desired
max size (between a hundred bytes and a million bytes). Use it like
this:
cscript.exe TrimLogFiles.vbs "c:\logs\server.log" 32767
cscript.exe NoOldFiles.vbs "S:\Share" 90
This one only deletes old folders (as defined by the folder's "last
modified" date). Of course, if it deletes an old folder, it will delete
all other files and subfolders under it regardless of the age of those
files or subfolders! This script only takes arguments from the command
line. Give it a starting folder (which will not be deleted!) and the
maximum age of a folder (in days) you wish to keep. This script is
recursive, not list-driven... which doesn't actually matter in this
particular case.
If it's little, who is going to notice it's missing? Or even better, if
it's little, it must have been a bad download, so it it should be
deleted.
If you've ever dragged files out of your IE temporary internet files
folder (the easiest way to investigate linked style sheets and scripts
or get copies of multimedia files you've played), maybe you've noticed
how everything gets renamed with bracketed numbers! A perfectly
reasonable "styles.css" gets changed to "styles[1].css". No problem if
it's only a couple of files, but a pain if you're grabbing hundreds of
files! This script will rename all the files in a single directory to
return the names to normal.
Starts at a directory you specify and changes all file names in and
below that directory to lower case. I needed this when I moved a web
site onto a case-sensitive Unix web server.
Starts at a directory you specify and removes the spaces from all file
names in and below that directory. I needed this when I moved a web
site onto a Unix web server.
Converts DOS/Windows text (with CRLF line terminators) to Apple-type CR
line terminators. Mostly useful as a pre-processor for other conversion
programs which interpret both CR and LF as newline characters. I use it
before I convert text into Palm PDB/DOC format.
Converts UNIX text (with LF line terminators) to DOS/Windows CRLF
terminators. Great to fix text that got munged up during download from
a *nix server to a Windows machine.
Searches through any single plain-text file and replaces text you
specify. Use it like this:
cscript.exe SearchAndReplace.vbs "C:\MyFile.txt" "old text"
"new text"
If you don't want to use a script to do your searching and replacing,
try these:
GNU Utilities
Simtel
Text Utilities Sbs2.com
Starts at a directory you specify and edits all files (you specify the
target file extensions) in and below that directory to replace text. I
use it to fix web pages, scripts, and batch files when servers, files,
or directory names get changed! As written, it crashes if it finds a
file with no extension. An easy fix, but like I said, I wrote this to
solve my problem. And I use extensions. So there.
Just like the above Global Search script, but this one lets you replace
entire multi-line blocks of code. I needed this when I needed to
replace a common piece of JavaScript scattered throughout all my web
pages with an improved piece of code.
This is for
those of us who have grown a bit too big to hand-update
each web page, but are too cheap or too particular to surrender to
using a real site editor. The "big boys" use special comment tags to
identify html code sections, so that's what this script does. If you
can invest the time to put tags in your page (like put
and around your html logo graphic code),
this script will run through all your web pages and update all the code
between the targeted tags.
Copies a single file into multiple subdirectories. I have several
"user" subdirectories, and I need to distribute files to all of them. I
put this script in the parent directory of the users' directories, then
drop the file I want copied onto the script. I could have used the NT
FOR command to do it, but scripting lets me extend the code to handle
user interaction and logging.
Changes all files in a single directory you select to upper or lower
case. I needed to change case when I needed a way to "mark" files. You
know, kind of like a file attribute? I have files that are "guesses"
and files that are "verified" and I didn't want to create a database to
keep track of which category each file was in. My Win32 box doesn't
care about file name case, but code can tell if a file has an upper or
lower case file name! It's just like having another file attribute!
Keep it in mind.
Sets all files in and under a given subdirectory to zero bytes. Why?
Because sometimes you want files to exist(but not take up any room)
just to stop automated copy or download operations from retrieving new
copies.
Creates a mirror of an existing subdirectory somewhere else -- except
all the copies of the files are zero bytes. This would allow you to
recreate an entire CD's file system layout on a floppy disk. Maybe that
floppy would satisfy an upgrade program's requirement to see the
original disk? Or use the script to make a copy of a file system in a
way that would allow the Windows file search function to be used. Like
create an index of all your (non-music) CDs.
Helps to prevent recovery of files you've previously deleted. This
script runs through all your fixed hard drives and fills all the empty
space with spaces. Once it runs out of room on the hard drive, it
deletes all the files it created. To move as fast as possible, it
starts out by creating 32MB files until it runs out of room. Then it
cuts back to 16MB, 8MB, and so on, all the way down to 512 bytes to
make sure all empty space is filled. The use of file copying instead of
file creation and a one second delay when switching file sizes seems to
handle the disk caching problem pretty well. Not meant to protect you
against the NSA, just against someone in your IT department with a
recovery utility or sector editor.
Written to give the same output as the DOS "DEBUG" program. I used this
to look into how scripting reads binary files as text streams. By
keeping the same format, I was able to make easy side-by-side
comparisons. Answer -- Scripting does just fine until it hits a short
run of binary zeroes. Then it's lost. Now that I know, this script
really has no use! Except... Maybe in a locked-down computer, the DEBUG
program is prohibited. If so, you can use this script to see what type
of line-termination characters are used in a a file you're having
trouble with or if that file contains real spaces or those pesky
non-breaking spaces.
Solves a common batch file problem: How to compare file sizes. From a
batch file, use it like this:
cscript.exe size.vbs "C:\SomeFile.txt" ">" "1000"
if errorlevel 2 goto ERROR
if errorlevel 1 goto FALSE
goto TRUE
It will return an errorlevel of zero if the statement is true, an
errorlevel of one if it is false, and an errorlevel of two if there is
an error. Operators >, <, =, >=, and <= are
all valid and must be quoted. File names only need to be quoted if they
have embedded spaces or other delimiters. The size value never needs to
be quoted (but it can be if you want to).
Another common batch problem. How to compare file dates. Just like the
above "size.vbs" except this one compares file modification dates. A
newer file is "larger" than an older file. From batch, use it like
this:
cscript.exe date.vbs "C:\SomeFile.txt" ">"
"C:\OtherFile.txt"
if errorlevel 2 goto ERROR
if errorlevel 1 goto FALSE
goto TRUE
The above example is asserting that the "SomeFile.txt" is newer than
the "OtherFile.txt". It will return an errorlevel of zero if the
statement is true, an errorlevel of one if it is false, and an
errorlevel of two if there is an error. Operators >, <,
=, >=, and <= are all valid and must be quoted. File
names only need to be quoted if they have embedded spaces or other
delimiters.
Security
Here's a way to automatically download, merge, sort, and remove
duplicates from several different online sources to create your own
"hosts" file. A hosts file is a way to prevent your computer from
connecting to known "bad" web sites. It won't protect you against
everything, but it's an easy way to protect against the obvious! For
flexibility, you can easily modify the list of web sites whose hosts
files you want to use. For fast operation, the script runs everything
through a database for the sort and merge operations. To keep you
running, the script confirms the state of your "DNS Service" (which
must be disabled). For convenience, you'll get more than the usual
"white list" and "black list" configuration options. For easy
searching, the script produces a "hosts" file that is sorted by domain
name (not text-sorted machine names like most other lists). Finally,
(and most importantly) this is an open-source script you're free to
modify and redistribute.
Here's a way to automatically download and install the latest "PAC"
file from hostsfile.org.
In addition to downloading and installing,
this script will also configure Internet Explorer to use the new PAC
file. PAC files work by redirecting your browser to a non-existent
proxy (your own PC) if prohibited words are found in the URL.
If you have a "hosts" or "PAC" file, you'll probably end up with error
messages in your browser unless you have a specialized web server
program. I recommend "Homer" from "funkytoad.com". Of course, I offer
an automated Homer download
and installation script that will...
urrr... download and install Homer automatically.
If you find yourself writing scripts that need administrative
priveleges, you may have bumped up against Windows Vista. Vista will
"sandbox" your script, letting your script think it successfully
created files or wrote to the registry. Even XP and 2K can be a problem
if you launch a script without being logged in on the right account.
Here's how to easily verify the script is running under an admin
account and prompt as needed based on the operating system.
Run Other Programs
Compressed Executables
If you use the batch file "START /WAIT" command or the scripting
"wsh.Run,,True" method and expect a program to wait -- but it doesn't
wait -- well, the most likely cause is that the program you tried to
run was "compressed". What happens is that the program decompresses
itself in memory, starts the new decompressed version as a separate
process, then terminates itself. The START command and wsh.Run method
see the original program termination and assume everything is done! If
you open your suspect executable in Notepad, you may see some
information about what compression program was used. The most popular
compression program is UPX.
It's popular because it's free and it's
excellent! Luckily, UPX can "decompress" the programs it compressed.
For example, Symantec's free FixBlast
Blaster virus removal tool is UPX
compressed and is 133KB. Both START and wsh.Run can't monitor when
FixBlast ends. However, if you use UPX to decompress the FixBlast.exe
program, it's size jumps to 544KB and START and wsh.Run suddenly begin
working as expected! But don't panic if you can't (or aren't allowed
to) decompress a program. I show a few other ways of monitoring
programs next...
Windows Scripting has an "AppActivate" function that will give focus to
a window based on the window's title. It returns True or False based on
whether the window existed and focus could be shifted there. This
script uses that technique to wait for any program. The downloadable
zip file includes a "test.bat" to demonstrate the script.
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation, standard on Windows 2000, XP,
and newer, and a free
download for Win9x) allows scripts to check the
actual executable name of all running processes. So if you know the
name of the program, this makes it easy to wait until all instances of
that program are finished. The downloadable zip file includes a
"test.bat" to demonstrate the script.
This script uses the Scripting "AppActivate" function to activate
applications based on their title bar text, then uses the "SendKeys"
method to send an application-killing "Alt-F4" keystroke.
Again using WMI, this allows you to terminate all instances of running
processes based on the executable name.
This scheduling script is useful in situations where you have several
programs you need to launch, but you don't want to go through the
password-changing hassle of using the task manager to launch them all.
Set up the Windows Task Manager to launch this script when the computer
has been idle for a few minutes. That makes it a poor-mans "service"
since it will run even if you log out. And you only have to update your
password one time in the task manager. And, and, and... It's only a
SCRIPT, which means even in most locked-down environments, this
scheduler won't have to go through an approval or exception process.
You probably don't think of a WSC as a way to run other programs, but
that's exactly what I do with them. You can write scripts that run
programs you don't have on your computer. You can use the code in a WSC
without registering it on your computer. And you can use a WSC file
without giving it a WSC file extension. A bunch of little-known items I
decided to mix in with my SFX
script to do some interesting things.
Well, interesting to me!
An extension of the above KillTitle. I tried a popular browser popup
killer, and while it worked fine, I thought I could do the same thing
with scripting. So I did. Sure, it doesn't have all the features, but
it works, it's free, and you can modify it easily to suit your
purposes. It works by maintaining a list of "bad" window titles. If
focus can be shifted to one of those bad titles, then an Alt-F4 key (or
Ctrl-F4 for AOL people) is sent to close the bad window. Most popups
start out with an "about:blank" window title, so that gives you a great
head start.
Shows how to use the Shell "Run" method to run any program, script, or
batch file invisibly. You'll want to be sure whatever you run invisibly
won't require user input, because, well, you can't click a button you
can't see!
This script is designed to be used with the BartPE PE-Builder.
PE-Builder allows you to make a bootable CDROM that can run Windows
programs. There is no better way to recover from a virus or from a
corrupted hard drive than from a bootable CDROM. You can add your own
programs to the CDROM, but most programs require a separate "plugin" to
be built so they don't run directly from the CDROM. That's a lot of
work... However, if you have a collection of simple utilities capable
of running directly from a CDROM, this script will build all the
necessary "plugin" files for you. This one script generates one plugin
that will support hundreds of your utility programs. That's a lot less
work!
This script is designed to be used with the open-source HTTPD
web server. HTTPD recently moved over to Google as Mongoose.
You can ignore all the notes about the move and still download the
original SHTTPD file from SourceForge. If you want, you can ignore the
installer (open it with a ZIP program) and run the 60KB
program by itself. This is absolutely what you want when you need to
share a file over the network with someone, but you don't want to
enable file sharing or force the other person to install special
software. Put my script in the same folder as the "shttpd.exe"
file and you can drop a folder on the script and it will shut down
shttpd
(if it was already running) and re-launch it with your folder as the
new web root on whatever port you want. As an excercise for the student
(you!), you can edit the script to replace all instances of
"shttpd.exe" with "mongoose.exe" and it will work the same with the
newer Mongoose web server.
This script is designed to be used with the open-source TinyWeb
web
server. TinyWeb is a single executable web server daemon. No DLL files,
no registry changes, and no installer. Scripts (like PHP files) will
even run if they're placed in a "/cgi-bin" folder. TinyWeb is only 58KB
and has no
configuration other than through the command line. If you put my
"tiny.vbs" script in the same folder as the "tiny.exe"
file, you can drop a folder on the script and it will shut down tiny
and re-launch it with your folder as the new web root.
This script is designed to be used with the free Abyss web
server.
Abyss is only 112 KB and uses a single configuration file and a key
file. You can delete all the other files that come with it. Deleting
the other files means you lose your nice graphical configuration
console and have to manually edit the configuration file -- but it
makes for a very small footprint! Abyss supports HTTP/1.1, dynamic
content generation through CGI/1.1 scripts, Server Side Includes (SSI),
and user access control (HTTP authentication/password protected files).
Adding PHP or Perl support is a matter of a few clicks. If you put my
"abyssws.vbs" script in the same folder as the "abyssws.exe" file, you
can drop a folder on the script and it will shut down the Abyss web
server and re-launch it with your folder as the new web root. If you're
using the most recent version of Abyss, I've included some "wizards" to
set up your installation to support PHP, WSF, or VBS as CGI scripts.
It's not that hard to set up manually, but it was fun automating it.
Serial
An HTA and VBS script example to show how to do serial communications
with a script. The trick is to use the "mscomm32.ocx" control used by
VB5 and VB6. That control, unfortunately, required a developer's
license to use with a script, so it got wrapped with "netcomm.ocx" to
solve the licensing problems. The SFX
method is used in order to put
these needed OCX files in the script so they can be extracted and
installed as needed. Under VBS, the communications is handled with
"events", while under HTA, it gets handled with polling.
Graphical User Interface
Use Internet Explorer to create a graphical progress bar you can
control from your script.
Automatically use the "Shell.Application" where you can, and use
Internet Explorer where you can't. Either way, you can offer the user a
simple graphical way to select a file. BAD NEWS: The
"Shell.Application" file browsing trick used an undocumented value
(8192 or 16384) to get a reference to a file. This doesn't seem to work
reliably under XP.
Use Internet Explorer to present the user with a pull-down list of
choices.
Use Internet Explorer to allow the user to enter multiple lines of
text.
Etext Utilities
This script was written to allow me to download and convert online
stories, news and opinion articles. The idea is that after I use this
script to get the text all in one place, I convert it and put it on my
Palm so I can read it during slow times. This script just delivers
plain text, so it can be used to feed Palms or PocketPCs or text
readers. Great for people like me that are too cheap to pay for
AvantGo. Comes complete with sample batch files that will download USA
Today, PC Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, Security Focus,
Scientific American, Science News, Discovery, Asimov's, Analog, Fantasy
& Science Fiction, the Infinity Plus web site, and more! I add
another site every time I run out of reading material. BONUS: I include
a sample script that merges this "articles" script with the below
"makedoc" script to do the complete download, conversion to Palm
format, and launch of the Palm installer.
My favorite command-line Palm text conversion utility, makedoc.exe,
is
almost impossible to find on the web. Worse, some companies lock their
computers down and won't let users install any extra programs and
utilities. This simple script should fly under the radar of any
lock-down policy and allow you to convert plain text into the standard
Palm "doc" pdb format. The only shortcoming is that it doesn't do
compression.
If you visit the newsgroups (like alt.binaries.e-book),
you'll find
several raw book scans. They look just like book pages. Absolutely not
ready for conversion into anything. This script unwraps the text,
removes the page headers and numbers, cleans up hyphens, corrects some
common scanning errors, and generally goes a long way towards making
the text usable - all with no user interaction. The script ignores any
file that appears to already be unwrapped. If the script is run with
cscript, it displays it's status. A DOS comand like "cscript.exe
unwrap.vbs MyEbook.txt" would clean up the ebook "MyEbook.txt". If you
want, you can also drag etext files and drop them on the script.
Creates a Palm PDB file from a Gutenberg
etext file. All the classic
stories you were supposed to have read in high school and college are
available via Gutenberg. All the classic poems and fairy tales you want
to read to your kids are also there. Thanks to the Palm, you can take
them with you and not have to read them on a monitor or print them out
(both really bad options). This script unwraps the Gutenberg etext,
"sanitizes" the etext by removing all the Gutenberg "small print", and
tries to set the Palm document name to match the actual book title.
Accepts both raw text and zipped files as input. Needs PKUNZIP
and
MAKEDOC
in the path.
Text to Speech
Speech Overview
Microsoft offers two ways of programming text-to-speech applications:
SAPI 4 and SAPI 5. I believe SAPI 4 can be installed on everything from
Windows 95 on up. Windows 2000 has SAPI 4 pre-installed (but it is
virtually always broken) and XP has SAPI 5 installed. Both typically
only have one voice. Install
or re-install SAPI 4 from here (it's only
825KB). Even though you install SAPI4 correctly, Microsoft will fail to
"register" all the DLLs correctly. You will need to run a command like
this to fix things:
FOR %X IN (%WINDIR%\SPEECH\*.DLL) DO START /WAIT
%WINDIR%\SYSTEM32\REGSVR32.EXE %X
As far as SAPI 5, the only two ways I
know of (from Microsoft) are:
- Install the entire Speech
SDK 5.1 (68MB). That gets you
SAPI 5 and three voices... and a bunch of samples that can't be
removed. No, the voice quality is no better on SAPI 5 than on SAPI 4.
The one big difference is that SAPI 5 allows you to easily convert text
directly to an audio file without having to play it and record it.
- Install Microsoft
Reader, then install the Microsoft
TTS
component. The TTS installation does require Reader to be
there. I
haven't found a way around that. But having Reader is a lot less
overhead than having an entire SDK! Unfortunately, the "Reader" route
only gives you a single voice.
This HTA file will give you a report your computer's voice
capabilities. It will provide links to allow you to fix any problems it
finds. Which means you don't have to understand how to register the
speech DLL files (the green text above). You can just point and click
your way through the repair.
This script will read any plain-text file out loud. It really, really
tries to convince you to run it with CSCRIPT so you can see the text
displayed as it's being read. You must have SAPI 4 or 5 installed. If
you don't have voice capabilities, the script will prompt you to
download SAPI 4. This sript is rather crude. Both the SAPI SDK
downloads have equivalent utilities that do the same thing.
This is an HTA file that extends the above "Speak". Extends it quite
well, thank you! By using an HTA, StoryReader can speak and display
text without having to worry about which engine (cscript or wscript) it
is running under. StoryReader also does smart unwrapping and sentence
identification, allowing you to use almost any format of plain text for
a story source. StoryReader accepts command line arguments allowing you
to specify which file to read, a starting point in the file, and what
voice to use to read the story. Because nobody likes command lines,
I've also included an HTA called "VoiceChooser.hta" that lets you
easily select which voice will read your stories. But wait -- there's
more! StoryReader and VoiceChooser both contain the voice repair
capabilities found in the above "SpeechTest". Also, I've included
another file called "Menu.hta" that will automatically create clickable
links for both of the other hta files and for all your stories!
This is the "Hello World" of text-to-speech. It checks seven different
text-to-speech objects (six SAPI 4 and one SAPI 5), and checks every
voice available to each object. It tells you which objects succeed or
fail, and it will identify and speak in every voice possible.
This script will save any plain-text file as a WAV file. You must have
SAPI 5 installed. If you don't, the script will suggest you download
the SAPI 5 SDK. Create your own "books on tape" (or on CDROM). SAPI5
allows you to save to virtually any format of WAV file. I've built
constants for the most common choices into the script.
Graphics
Creates a 16-color BMP (Windows Bitmap) file from an array. BMP files
can be displayed as inline graphics by Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and
by virtually all graphics programs.
Creates a black and white XBM (Sun Bitmap) from an array. XBM files are
plain text and can be displayed by Netscape and Internet Explorer.
Traditionally, XBM is used to display small icons. The XBM files this
script produces require 6 bytes per pixel. The disadvantage of the
large file size is balanced by the universal browser support. IE will
only display XBM files locally if they are associated with mime type
"image/x-xbitmap". Very few Windows graphics programs can be used to
work with XBM files ("IrfanView" at www.irfanview.com is the easiest,
but also try "The Gimp" at www.gimp.org and the command-line
"ImageMagick" utilities from www.imagemagick.org).
Creates a PBM (portable bitmap) in version 1 format (black and white,
plain text) from an array. The PBM files produced by this script
require about 2 bytes per pixel. PBM files can be displayed in Mozilla
and by most decent graphics programs.
Takes a folder full of your JPG digital camera photographs and creates
web-sized (or email-sized) JPEG photos and smaller GIF thumbnails for
all your photos. The script uses the EXIF data present in your camera
photos to automatically rotate your new web and thumbnail pictures the
correct way. Your original pictures are never modified. I wrote this
script to automate the conversion of photos for web-based slide shows.
The script needs (and you'll need to get) the free "GflAx" ActiveX
object from XNView.
If you want more customization than this fully
automated script delivers, you might want to check out the following
two scripts...
Takes a folder of pictures and creates thumbnails in the same folder.
You get to pick what size and file type the thumbnails will be. Uses
EXIF data (if present) to insure the thumbnails are rotated correctly.
This script will offer to download the "GflAx" object if you don't
already have it. Of course, you'll probably need administrator
priveleges in order for GflAx to be used (because the script registers
and unregisters it on an as-needed basis).
Takes a folder of pictures and creates new SMALLER pictures (for email
or web use) in the same folder. You get to pick what size and file type
the new pictures will be. Uses EXIF data (if present) to insure the
thumbnails are rotated correctly. This script will offer to download
the "GflAx" object if you don't already have it. Of course, you'll
probably need administrator priveleges in order for GflAx to be used
(because the script registers and unregisters it on an as-needed
basis).
Multimedia
The simplest way to create an MP3 from plain text!
If a TXT file is dropped on the script, an MP3 file will
be created with the same base name and in the same folder.
If a folder is dropped on the script, any text in the
Windows clipboard will be made into an MP3 in that folder.
But we won't create a bare MP3:
- You'll be prompted for the name and author so they can be embedded in the MP3.
- If you have "cover art", you can embed that in the MP3 too!
- If a JPG file was dropped on the script in the previous 5
minutes, it will be used as cover art for the next MP3 you create (just that one time).
- If no JPG file was dropped on the script, the most recent JPG
picture (if any) in the destination folder will be used as
cover art for any MP3 created in that folder.
- Finally, if this script is run from an administrative command prompt,
it will toggle right-click options for folders, TXT, and JPG. That
way, for example, you can right-click a TXT file and have a "Create MP3
from plain text" option.
This script was written to support creating and adding to ID3V2.3 tags
for MP3 files. Specifically, it was created to add pictures to MP3 files
through the command line. Turns out most command-line MP3 creation tools
(like "lame" and "ffmpeg") can write text tags, but nobody writes pictures.
At least not that I could find. So this script was born.
As a side benefit, this script supports writing all kinds of tags
nobody else seems to be able to read or write... which doesn't sound
like much of a benefit when you put it that way. Did you know you can
embed unlimited arbitrary binary files in an MP3? Did you know you
can store your private configuration data in there too? And you can
store twenty different pictures (or more if you break some rules) that
nobody will ever see? And, since nobody is set up to read this obscure
stuff, it beats me how you'd ever get the data out that you put in. But
I gave you the ability to put it in anyway.
If all the complex stuff is a bother, take heart! There's a "simple mode":
If an MP3 file is dropped on the script and a JPG file exists in the
same directory as the MP3, then the JPG will be added to the MP3 as
cover art. If there are several JPG files, the newest one will be used.
No special JPG file name is needed.
If you have a movie or a folder full of movies you'd like converted so
they'll play on your phone, this should help. It was made for Media
Center "dvr-ms" recordings, but it will work on most other files as
well! Most phones (well, my phone at least!) will play MP4/H264 files,
so that's what this script produces. Subtitles and movie descriptions
are embedded directly in the movie file for convenience (where they can
be enabled and disabled by your player), but SRT subtitle files are
preserved in case your movie player needs them. If your movie player
doesn't like separate of "soft embedded" subtitles, the script can
optionally "hard embed" the subtitles directly into the video. Drop a
movie file or a folder full of files on the script and let it work! If
you'd like, run the script with no arguments and it will set up (or
undo) a right-click association for any desired video file type. The
script is really a front end for a half-dozen other programs, the
locations of which are documented both in the script.and the "ReadMe"
file.
If you have a collection of sound files with matching pictures (in
other words, pictures with recorded narration), this script will create
the HTM web pages needed to display your files in a framed JavaScript
self-advancing slide show. The narration in your sound files will play
while the matching picture is on-screen. Just run the script and answer
a few questions. Every question has a default answer already given, and
in most cases you'll be able to simply accept the default. The script
was written to work best on Windows with Internet Explorer, but it
degrades gracefully (losing the auto-advance feature) on other browsers
and operating systems.
If all you want to do is show off your pictures, this script creates a
simple index page for you. It assumes you have full-sized photos and
smaller thumbnails in the same directory (if you need to create
thumbnails, try the above Thumbnail Creator script). Clicking the
thumbnails takes you to the full-sized picture. Very straightforward.
If you have a collection of pictures and (optionally) related
plain-text files, this script will create all the HTM web pages needed
to display your files in a framed JavaScript slide show. You don't need
to know how to create a web page! The script will match up your
pictures and text files by name and create all the web pages for you.
If you don't want frames or JavaScript, this is the slide show you
want. You can have any combination of pictures, sound, and plain text
files. That means you can have just pictures, just text, both, just a
sound, or, like I said, any combination! What you don't need are web
pages! The web pages will all be built for you. If you've ever seen the
fairly basic layout used by a PowerPoint web slide show (with simple
forward and back buttons on the top), then you're pretty close to what
this script will deliver for you. Except you don't have to buy
PowerPoint!
If you like the idea of the versatile "Basic Slide Show" above but also
want an automatically generated index page with thumbnails to go along
with it, this might work for you. Although I added the thumbnail index
page creation feature, I took out all the other options. As a result,
you have to keep all files in a single directory and you lose some of
your file naming flexibility. To allow the script to identify related
images, full-sized images must be JPG, web-sized images are JPEG, and
thumbnails are GIF. That's actually pretty easy to deal with because I
wrote the Web
and Thumbnail Creator script to automatically create and
name thumbnails and web-sized images with the correct names and file
extensions. Using these two scripts allows you to build a complete
web-based presentation starting with no more than a collection of
full-sized digital camera photos.
Creates a jobs file for the free video editor VirtualDub. With
this
script, you can save your settings and have those same settings applied
to every video file in a directory. I wrote this because I had lots of
video captures I needed to process.
Run this script and point it to a bunch of movie or sound files and it
will create an ASX file which will allow you to use MediaPlayer to play
them sequentially.
Run this script and point it to a bunch of movie files and it will
create a SMIL file which will allow you to use QuickTime or RealPlayer
to play them sequentially.
If you use Windows XP Media Center with DVR2WMV, you end up with WMV
movie files and separate SMI files containing the subtitles.
Unfortunately, all the subtitles seem to be off by several seconds.
This script allows you to correct the timing in the subtitles in those
SMI files.
Run this script to create an ASX slide show from a directory full of
JPG, GIF, PNG, or BMP pictures.
If you'd like to set up an infinite loop of media files (either a
single sound or video file or an ASX collection) you can drop your
existing media file on this script. A new ASX file will be created
which will give the appropriate repeat command to Windows Media Player.
Creates an HTM file for each video file in a folder. Should work
forAVI, MPG, MOV, WMV, and more depending on client capabilities. It
uses
two unusual approaches. First, it uses IE's <img
dynsrc=
tag for the video files. This causes the videos to be displayed just
like an image: raw with no player controls. Non-IE browsers fall back
to using the embed
tag for the Media Player plugin (again with no controls). Of course,
this
means I have to have some sort of browser detection script. But I
didn't want to use scripting! Luckily, I remembered IE's "conditional
coments" which class IE5 and newer in one group, and all
other browsers in another group. Close enough!
Creates an HTM file to match every multimedia file in a folder. Handles
AVI. MPG, MP3, or any file that can be played with Microsoft's Media
Player. The created HTM file has the usual OBJECT / EMBED code to
insure your file plays in all browsers. This can be handy to insure
multimedia files stay in the browser and don't cause a download or
spawn a separate player.
Think of it as a manually advanced browser-based slideshow where you
can preview thumbnails of all the images. The best part is you don't
have to create the web pages or the thumbnails. Just tell the script
(when it asks) where your folder of pictures is and it will create
"index.htm" and "select.htm" files which will allow you to browse all
the images in a framed setting. The HTM files that are created contain
relative links, so they'll work whether you upload them to your web
site or keep them on your hard drive.
This script can be used as a command line or drag'n'drop FLI animation
player. Actually, all the heavy lifting is done by a Java program
written by Jörg Anders from
http://rnvs.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/~jan/FLI/FlicFile.html.
I don't
write Java, so I just compiled the source code and embedded the
resulting class files in the script. The script's job is to extract the
class files and create a web page on the fly. Then it launches Internet
Explorer, displays the page, and cleans everything up afterwards. All
you have to do is drop an FLI file on the script. Assuming you can find
any FLI files.
Download Utilities
If you find a web page (like the clipart collection at
http://www.kamsart.com/clipart/free-clipart-Navy.html) that has lots of
links on it -- and you want to download all the linked files, this will
help. Just supply the URL of the web page, the folder on your hard
drive where you'd like the files stored, and the file extension of the
files you're after. The script does the rest.
This is a collection of several scripts that can grab all the images
from popular image galleries. Many image galleries have so many
pictures you just don't have time to locate, select, and download your
favorites. It's easier to just download the lot overnight and sort them
offline later. This is NOT a simple web site mirroring program. It ONLY
downloads the JPG files (actually, files with mime types of
"image/jpeg") and it puts them all in the same folder on your hard
drive. To prevent name collisions (and help you remember where you got
the pictures from), the files are typically given names that reflect
their URL (but you can change the naming convention). If you have to
quit, the script will pick up from where it left off when you start it
up again. One big advantage of doing this with a script instead of with
a "real" program is that scripts run invisibly (unless you say
otherwise). You figure out how that might benefit you. On the other
hand, if you make the script run in an "Open with Command Prompt"
cscript DOS box, the script will give you a status display so you know
how things are going.
If you only want to grab a few links from a web page, it's easy to just
do a right-click and save the linked content. But if you need to rename
the downloaded files to prevent name collisions when downloading from
several different web pages, it gets bothersome. This script allows you
to copy a URL (web link) from browser, then run the script to
automatically download and rename whatever the clipboard URL points to.
Of course, there's a few options to let you select what folder you want
the files stored in.
Back in the days before broadband, if I tried downloading more than two
files at a time, my download speed per file would drop so low that
servers would drop me. I tried a few of the automatic download managers
and didn't like the built-in ads or the instability they caused. All I
wanted was a simple sequential downloader. So I wrote a script. Here's
how it works: You drag links out of your browser and drop them into a
designated directory. You choose the directory (it can even be the
desktop). The script will download the files associated with the links
into another designated directory. Again, you choose the download
directory. As the files are downloaded, the shortcuts to the links you
originally dragged are deleted. If you run the script with WSCRIPT
(right-click the script and select "Open"), it runs totally invisibly.
If you run it with CSCRIPT (right-click and select "Open with Command
Prompt", it gives you a status display of what it is doing. Your
choice. If you have to turn off your computer before your downloads are
finished, the next time you start the script (and point it to the
appropriate folders), it will re-download any partially downloaded
files and continue until all your files are downloaded. Now... Why the
name Wget? Because originally Windows didn't have a decent download
object. So I had to use a separate utility named Wget. Not being
particularly clever when it comes to names, I decided to name the
script after the utility that did all the hard work. The script has
since been rewritten to take advantage of the WinHttp object in Windows
2000 and XP. Wget is no longer needed, but I kept the original script
name.
This FTP download program doesn't require you to have any extra
utilities. It automates the built-in FTP client that ships with all
versions of Windows. It was written to allow me to make daily FTP
downloads of a text data file over my company intranet. NT/XP/2000
users will have to modify the embedded FTP command line to point to the
correct location of the FTP program.
This is actually a library of several different functions all with the
same name designed to download the text from a web page. You pick which
one you want and delete the rest. I have several CGI web pages on my
company intranet that contain data I automatically download using these
functions.
If you want to download something other than text over HTTP, it gets a
bit more complicated. Scripting isn't really designed to handle
"binary" files. But it can be done! Here I show the "correct" method
for doing it and two other very unusual methods for doing it. Stay away
from the unusual methods -- they are just for fun.
Encoding Utilities
Convert any file into a self-extracting VBS file. When you run the VBS
file, the original file will be "extracted". That's useful enough. And
pretty handy.
Similar to the above SFX scripts, but... different. More generic. More
useful! And two different versions! Batch and Scripting! Like the SFX
scripts, SHAR creates a self-extracting file. By choosing which version
of SHAR you run, you can create a VBS self-extractor or a DOS BATCH
self-extractor. Unlike the SFX script, both versions of SHAR
exclusively use ADO
instead of an embedded "helper" file to read binary
files. That makes the SHAR scripts a lot easier to understand and
maintain! Another difference is that while SFX only extracted a file to
the script's directory, the SHAR VBS version allows you to browse to
your desired extraction folder. The SHAR BATCH version only extracts to
the "current directory", but that's the price you pay to be compatible
with everything all the way back to DOS version 6. Both versions of
SHAR generate archives that are optimized to stay under 80 columns
wide. As a result, the text from a SHAR archive (VBS or BAT) can be
copied and pasted into the body of an email, then be copied and pasted
back into a VBS or BAT file (as appropriate) on the receiving end. This
effectively allows file attachments where attachments aren't allowed or
where separate decoders may not be available. FYI, the "shar" name of
this script is taken from an old UNIX command "shar", which stands for
"shell archive". In other words, an archive that can be extracted using
nothing more than the "shell", or built-in operating system commands.
Which is exactly what these SHAR scripts create.
This is a VBS only (no WSC scripts!) script encoder. Take a working
script of yours and drop it on SCEN. SCEN will turn it into a virtually
unreadable mess that will still run. If you aren't allowed to install
the genuine Microsoft script encoder -or- have to be backwards
compatible with older (Win95 and original Win98) versions of scripting
-or- only need casual protection from prying eyes -or- need to change
your script so it doesn't contain sensitive words, then SCEN might be
handy. SCEN will create a script with lots of hex data, a bare-bones
hex decoder, and the obligatory "ExecuteGlobal" command. Thanks to
ExecuteGlobal, your decoded file is run directly from memory and is
never written to the disk. Pretty darned simple. And your script will
still work! It even works if you run it through the encoder several
times.
Online URL encoding because I needed it available on my phone.
Allows you to see what URL someone is trying to hide from you.
Just rotates letters. A becomes N, B becomes O, and so on. Netscape
mail has built-in support for viewing ROT-13 text, but darned if I
could find an easy way to encode text.
Internet Explorer only. Encodes and decodes everything, and does it
with a slick interface. Alex Angelopoulos (alexangelopoulos at
hotmail.com) took my URL decode script above and wrapped it up in an
HTA file. Then (bless him!) he sent it to me. His hta reminded me that
scripting really has a lousy user interface, but HTA files allow you to
create applications with the power of scripting and the user interface
of web pages. After my
initial embarrassment at having ignored hta files for so long, I tried
my hand at extending Alex's example. After realizing I didn't need the
security priveleges hta files have, I just gave it an ordinary htm file
name. If you save it to your hard drive, you can give it an hta file
extension to force it to open with IE (MSHTA, actually) if you normally use some other browser. Not
to be outdone, Alex has continued to work on and improve his original
hta. He now calls it string-o-matic and he's turning it into universal
web un-munging tool.
Just playing around. When I get the encode and decode both complete,
I'll move it into the above Decode.htm file. Meanwhile, you can use
this to decode UU text.
Upload Utilities
If you have a script that creates text for a Wiki page (like to post
tables on a Wiki at work), this script illustrates how to automatically
upload it. Actually, this script uses
http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox as the upload target, so you can
play with it. It will be up to you to edit the script to point to your
Wiki. NOTE: This script is intended for Intranet (company network) use
only. It would be just plain stupid and very rude to use it on an
Internet Wiki.
I have too many web pages to keep up with. I may modify a dozen files
in as many directories over a period of days before I upload the
changes. And then -- oops. Which ones did I modify or create since my
last upload? This searches for modified files (based on the archive
bit), then creates an FTP upload script. It doesn't actually upload
anything, it just creates a script batch file. Running the batch file
will do the actual upload. It includes an undo batch file to reset the
archive bits in case you change your mind. Using the archive bit is
very appropriate because you don't need to back up anything that has
been uploaded to the web (The web is your backup!). NT/XP/2000 users
will have to modify the embedded FTP command line to point to the
correct location of the FTP program.
No interaction version of the above script. This one will actually
upload all modified files in and under a specified directory in one
shot. Automatic undo if it can't connect to the FTP server. Log files
are always kept of action and results. Can be run visibly or invisibly.
So -- after you get comfortable with the above script, you switch to
this one. Edit seven values (Simple things like strRemoteSite =
"ftp.calweb.com") and you're home free! Use this script to make life
easier for yourself. NT/XP/2000 users will have to modify the embedded
FTP command line to point to the correct location of the FTP program.
Very basic version of the above script. Again with no user interaction,
but it only uploads files you designate, and it puts them where you
designate. You have to build the source and destination file names into
the code. This is more appropriate for giving to "content creators"
that are only responsible for creating or updating a few files. To
simplify things, this script does not check for or change archive bit
status. This is really little more than a template that will require
considerable rewriting on your part. And honestly, since you are
ignoring the archive bit, you could simplify things even further by
writing your own FTP batch file rather than having the script do it for
you.
This one is HTTP POST upload. I was frustrated over the lack of a
simple file upload capability in IIS5. I tried Microsoft's NT4 upload
acceptor for about ten minutes before I was overcome by the smell. I
was too cheap to pay for a good commercial upload control, too lazy to
invest time in the BinaryRead method, and too vain to allow someone's
else's free upload control to display their logo on my web page. So I
wrote my own.
Database Utilities
Internet Explorer only. Simple table and query viewer for Access 2000
for people who don't have Access 2000. You don't need Access or Office
on your computer! Microsoft gives away the database engine, and writing
a simple front-end isn't all that hard. Tables or queries with more
than about a couple hundred records take way too long to display, but
hey -- I said it was simple!
Internet Explorer only Simple database and table viewer for ODBC
databases. Heck, you can even turn a collection of ordinary text data
files into a complete ODBC database you can query! Think of this as a
poor substitute for the awesome and free WinSQL
program. But if you
have a locked-down machine or you need a quick, free, open-source
viewer, (or you just want to steal my sample code), this might help you
out. Rename this file with an HTA file extension if your default
browser isn't IE or if you want to bypass the ActiveX dialog.
Converts Microsoft Access queries or tables into plain text. Originally
written so the output text could be converted into Palm DOC format or
linked into another database. If you use tabs as the separator
characters, the resulting tab-delimited file can be given an XLS file
extension and will open fine with Excel on most systems. Which means
you can also consider this to be an automatic Access to Excel
converter. The script is hard-coded to use Jet for Access 97 (change
the reference to "DAO.DBEngine.35" to match your DAO version). Pass it
an MDB file name, query or table name, output text file name, and
formatting data (comma-separated max field lengths and desired output
field separators):
"MdbToTxt.vbs" "Database.mdb" "QueryName" "Output.txt"
"32,32,32,32" "---"
Miscellaneous
A collection of my boilerplate VBScript functions.
My wife asked me to convert a GPX file of geocaching sites she got
from a friend into a KML file so we could look at it in Google Earth
or import it to our Google Maps. She gave me two hours. I took two weeks.
It's my first real attempt to both decode and encode XML using native
Windows functions, and it turns out the source files had illegal characters
that kept breaking the XML parser. But there's always a way!
If you use your HOSTS file to block bad sites, you might enjoy a few
scripts and batch files I wrote to help you manage your HOSTS file.
A cute way to send a text message to a cell phone or pager from Windows
2000 or newer. It may not work on all carriers, but it works for
Nextel!
If you have a forced screensaver, logout, or workstation lock policy,
this simple script can stop it from happening! This script hits the
"shift" key once every ten minutes. That's too easy!
Mostly just a GUI wrapper for the command-line NETSTAT program. The
value-added is that it refreshes every two seconds and only counts from
when the program is started.
This script will create a dictionary useful for brute-force password
attacks. One word will be placed on each line. You can specify how big
the password is as long as it doesn't exceed 8 characters. All 95
keyboard characters are used by default. If you want to exclude certain
letters, numbers, or punctuation from the generated words, you'll need
to edit the script. WARNING: The files generated by this script get
real big, real fast. For example, with 95 possible characters and a 4
character password, you get a 500MB file. If you're foolish enough to
try to make an 8-character password list, there won't be enough disk
space no matter who you are. The huge file size explains why nobody
offers dictionary files like these for download.
Ibrahim Niazy shows how to use Windows Scripting to organize the reams
of data the Win2K performance monitor spits out.
Stephen Webster Cocks gives us
an example of the right way to distribute scripts. Running it with no
arguments automatically installs it as a right-click option on folders
(with lots of nice sample registry code). If it is already installed,
running it with no arguments will uninstall it. The actual point of the
script is to create a shortcut to the selected folder. While you may
not need that, you will want to pay attention to the concept of
building install and uninstall capabilities into your scripts!
Unfortunately, McAfee with heuristics enabled will falsely detect a
generic unknown virus in this code. My feeling is that it's unavoidable
because the script copies itself into the Windows directory and makes
registry changes. Good luck modifying the code to avoid the false virus
hit if you plan to redistribute code like this. Sorry!
Drag a folder onto this script (or install it as a right-click option)
and it will tell you the size of all subfolders. Great for determing
which folders can get backed up to a CD. I wrote this because under
Win95, getting the properties for a folder to determine it's size fails
-- it rolls over and starts over when it hits 2 gigabytes. Because it
actually adds the file sizes of every file in every subdirectory, it
isn't particularly fast, but at least it is accurate! Displays results
as a pop-up box, but falls back to displaying as a text file if there
is too much data to fit in a simple display box.
A script made to be used from a batch file -- but you can simplify it
to stay in the scripting world. Finds the first drive letter that
corresponds to a CDROM drive.
Illustrates how to automate Word to print a web page. My web page.
Well, until you modify the code!
Shows how to create, run, wait for, and delete a batch file from
scripting.
Shows how to create, run, wait for, and delete a script from a batch
file. In a perverse twist, the created script has to in turn create a
batch file of it's own in order to communicate results back to the
original batch file. Why bother? Because it provides a really nice way
to get user input in a batch file!
Windows 2000/XP only! One thing I missed when I got moved from Win95 to
Win2000 was the ability to single-step my batch files with the "command
/y /c" command. Unfortunately, Win2K doesn't seem to have a way to
single-step batch files. Not even if you try using an old copy of Win95
command.com! So I wrote this script. It works by constructing a special
debug version of your batch file, launching it, then putting everything
back to normal after the batch file finishes. It isn't the same as what
I could do in Win95 (it won't single-step a "call"ed batch file), but
it beats the heck out of watching programs crash and close before you
can analyze things! It also adds "//x" to the command line for scripts
to launch them with the debugger. Just drop a batch file on the script
and start stepping through.
Someone asked how to compare two numbers from a batch file. As long as
both numbers have the same number of digits, you could "echo" them into
a file, "sort" the file, then use "fc" to see if the file changed. But
what fun is that? That takes six lines of batch code. By using this
script, you drop down to three lines of batch code AND you can use any
operator (>, >=, =, <=, <) and you don't
have to have same-length numbers (you can properly compare 003 and 4).
So what if I used 60 lines of scripting to accomplish this trivial
task?
Self-defense information to help you (and me) out because I get asked
how so often!
Scriptable Controls
If you want to find the IP address of the computer your script is
running on, this ActiveX DLL can help. Even better, do it natively.
An ActiveX DLL needed if you want your scripts to be able to read
binary data (like a GIF picture or Excel file).
An OCX that converts byte arrays to strings 2 to 3 times faster than
native VBScript.
Web Server CGI Programs
Ordinary ASP that creates a single bmp counter image containing
multiple digits (instead of a separate graphic for each image)
representing how many times your web page has been hit. Why ASP? Why
BMP? Well, not everyone has (or wants to use) a .NET server. Ordinary
ASP is easy to come by even on old surplus NT systems. And of course,
it's still supported on all the modern Windows servers! As far as BMP,
it's possible to use ordinary string processing to splice multiple
digits into a single graphic. Not trivial, mind you, but possible. That
means you don't need any graphics libraries on the server, and that's a
big plus if you're using a hosted server where you don't have
permission to install libraries. Just as important, the BMP image
format is handled just fine as an inline image on all modern browsers.
The count data is maintained in an Access database, which works out for
me because my web host 1and1.com has a $9.99 Microsoft hosting package
that includes Access support. For that price I can host a boatload of
domains and let someone else worry about backups and blackhats.
A CGI script or ASP (your choice) that shows a single XBM graphic
containing multiple digits (instead of a separate graphic for each
image) representing how many times your web page has been hit. Hit
count data is stored in an Access database. The advantage of XBM
graphics is that it is trivial to splice several separate digits into a
single graphic. Maybe you've never heard of the XBM graphic format, but
your browser probably has!
A VBS chat CGI. Pretty straightforward. Displays the last 50 comments,
allows users to enter new comments, and stores everything in an Access
database via DAO.
Yes, this is the same item I "cross-posted" above in the FTP upload
section. It's there because it's an upload program, but it's here
because it isn't FTP. I was frustrated over the lack of a simple file
upload capability in IIS5. I tried Microsoft's NT4 upload acceptor for
about ten minutes before I was overcome by the smell. I was too cheap
to pay for a good commercial upload control, too lazy to invest time in
the BinaryRead method, and too vain to allow someone's else's free
upload control to display their logo on my web page. So I wrote my own.
Lost? Look at the site map.
Bad links? Questions? Send me mail.
