Effective use of PSProVerify - burning collections

If you haven't read the article below about Intelli Burn, the collection burning feature for CD's, DVD's and other types of media. Then go read it. This is the tips for that article.

Todays tip is for the burning feature and the tip states that it is rather useful if you:

• Mix collections of different sizes
• Keep it to a minimum of groups

If you mix your burns with a mix of DVD and CD sized collections then the algorithm can better choose 'filler' collections to better utilize the space on the DVD's.

If you have a low count of groups, then it is much easier for the algorithm to mix the different collections as there is lesser constraints.

Following these two tips will give you the best utilization of the DVD's or whatever media you burn to.

Intelli Burn

This article is about PSPV (PSProVerify) intelligent way of burning collections to any type of media. Look at the screenshot below and notice that some collections has been picked. You rightclick and choose 'Burn'

Choosing 'Burn' will take you a new dialog where you can group your collections, on this picture you can set a fill limit. This is a limit which says how much space on the DVD (as example) you want filled before you will burn it. 0% means that you do not care if you burn a DVD with just 1 byte. Choosing 70% means that atleast 70% of the free space on a DVD will be occupied by data. Once you have grouped your collections and set your fill limit percentage, you should 'Get ready to burn'

'Get ready to burn' will take you to the second tab and you can now see how filled the DVD's will be if the suggested burning will take place. Notice the red circles. Click 'Burn select Discs' to proceed with the actual burning

Let's set the fill limit to 70% and the do the process over again. Notice the change of which will be burned.

You should be able to that the grouped DVD with a fill percentage of 66.17% is NOT among the things which will actually be physically burned to DVD's.

One of the intelligent things which the burning feature in PSProVerify has is the selection of what is packed on each DVD. PSPV utilizes a algorithm called backpacking which finds the best combination of which collections to store to utilize as much freespace on the DVD or other media type, as possible. Very smart, and you use a minimum of DVD's to burn a maximum of collections.

Do not choose a large number og collections and do not set a fill-limit with a too high percentage. The algorithm can take extremely long time to finish finding the proper mix of collections to store on each piece of media.

Hunter Superior - new collection management tools - comparisons

When it comes to verifying and sorting your collections against the csvs then you only have a few tools to choose from.

• ScanSort
• The!Checker / PicCheck
• Hunter
• PServeCheck also called PSC or  PSCU
• PSProVerify also called PSPV or PSClite

ScanSort is a commandline tools which works on both the Unix/Linux platform aswell as the Windows. ScanSort dates back to 1999 and the source code public domain and can be download alof of places. The lastest version is considered to be 1.81-2.

The!Checker is a Windows based tool which originates back to 2006. The!Checker or PicCheck which is a common name for the tool must be considered outdated as larger size csvs are more common. If you get nostalgic then you can always have a look here: http://freenet-homepage.de/vhorch/piccheck.htm. PicCheck is considered to be simple and quite easy to learn.

Hunter dates back to 1998-1999 and is also a Windows based application, although rumors of a Linux version exists. Hunter has far more features than ScanSort and PicCheck. Hunter is still used today. You can get it here: http://broquard-ebooks.com/hunter/

PServeCheck is a native Windows based tool which is still maintained today (2009). PSC or PSCU which are common used names for the tool is full featured with a load of very integrated and easy to use functions and methods. PSCU is designed to be easy and yet to be able to handle several thousand different collections. One of the great steps forward with PSCU compared to ScanSort/The!Checker and Hunter is the ability to automatically get updated csvs once they are available. Further more it is able to automatically check your collections and automatically download files which match the csvs you use. PSCU also incorporates csvs with states such as Ongoing, Pre-Final, Final and Re-Burn. It integrates to Nero or ImgBurn and handles drive arrays beyond 10Tb. PSC comes as an integrated part of PhotoServe, but can also work alone. PSCU uses around 50mb memory and is written in C++.

PSProVerify is quite similar to PServeCheck and works on the Windows platform. PSPV is also still maintained (2009). PSPV, which is the common name for the tool is slightly different PSCU as the graphical user interface doesn't look like normal Windows. PSPV uses the Tk GUI for Perl. PSPV it not 100% bound to Windows and should be portable to other platforms, but is not planned to be done by the author (since it is open source, you can do it if you want).  PSPV has a very rich set of features and is extremely integrated and it is designed to set it up once and let it run fully automated, it is not designed for doing everything manualy, although you can. PSPV is known to be fully automatic and draws on several channels for downloading. Especially the very well integrated bittorent integration is appreciated. With PSPV you get almost all of the features of PSCU plus many automated tools for maintaining large collections. PSPV uses around 90->260mb memory and is written in Perl.

The list below may be subject to change as new versions and updates appear. 

Feature	PSCU	PSPV	Description
Automatic CSV download	x	x	You can "subscribe" to several different websites and the tool will automatically download and check the collections you've set to automatically monitor for new csvs.
Automatic collection checking	x	x	Automatically checking of collections based on downloads and changes in csv state or count
Automatic hunting for new csvs and files	x	x	Ability to hunt for csvs and files to match csvs
Automatic download of collection files	x	x	The tools can be set to automatically leeching files if the integration with PS is in place.
HDD space management systems	x	x	PSCU has Simple Collection Management. PSPV has Advanced Collection Management.
Hunting inside RAR and ZIP files	x	x	Ability to unzip/unrar (single level)
Creation of need / miss_wrong csvs	x	x	If not all files in a csv are present then it is possible to create a new csv which holds the file information of the files needed
Fill of need / miss_wrong csvs	x	x	Ability to fill a needs csv. Both have a possibility to mass fill a bunch of need csvs in one run.
Burn to media CD / DVD etc	x	x	Nero and ImgBurn integration, even ISO support
Configurable auto hunt features	x	x	Ability to configure which collections use which folders for autohunt runs. Including 'removed' folders.
Dupe distribitor		x	Ability to fill csvs with files existing in other csvs. Saves leech time, if external dupes are present.
Custom collection and triggers	x	x	Ability to handle your own personal non-official csvs and groups. PSPV has integrated creation of new groups, whereas PSCU needs manual file (.TRG) creation. Both have ability to create new custom triggers in the custom .TRG files.
Official trigger and csv support to (El-Toro / VG)	x	x	Yes, currently ET is offline and only the VG repo array is supported.
CSV/Hunt cache	x	x	Use of cache files for faster checking and hunting.
CSV creation+upload	x	x	Ability for csv maintainers to to create csvs. Upload to the repo array is supported.
Virtual groups	x		Ability to create your own groups and arrange/merge official and custom collections into your own layout and naming
Location / drive view	x	x	Ability to view collections by drives.
Priority on downloads	x	x	Ability to set priority of which is more important. PSCU's feature is rather intuitive, whereas PSPV's could lack some easyness. PSPV's is highly configurable though, and supports more than 6 different priority levels
Bittorent support	(x)	x	PSCU's bittorent support is a somewhat manual experience, whereas PSPV's is highly automatic. Both tools integrate with uTorrent as client.
Find / search feature	x	(x)	Ability to search for triggers and inside csv files. PSCU's is a simple Ctrl+F and automatic wildcard supported. PSPV's needs a few settings to perform similar.
HTML/Excel/XML and csv reports and view exports	x	x	PSCU can export to all types. PSPV mainly to tabulator seperated lists.
Auto setup series	x	x	Configure the tool to automatically setup new collections as csvs appear in channels (if PS is integrated) or present on the repo array
Integrated with PS	x	x	Yes
Support for offline / backuped collections	x	x	Yes
Simulate HDD space management		x	Only PSPV can run a simulated run of the ACM before doing it.
Removal of orphaned csvs / folders		x	Only PSPV can clean orphaned csvs / folders.
Collection recycler		x	PSPV only, rather dangerous. But the feature is used to accumulate a bunch of CD collections into a DVD collection, as example.
Clean up of torrents		x	PSPV only.
Disk verifier		x	PSPV only.
Delete to recycled bin	(x)	x	PSCU deletes to the removed folder by default. Removed folder is a special folder where stuff present in a collection directory is moved to if it does not belong there according to the csv.
Auto update/leech based on stats value		x	PSPV can automatically turn on leeching / updating if a value for a collection is greater than a custom set pre-defined value. Based og the Stats bot. Only for use with PS.
Filters / views	x	x	PSCU = Leeches, Virtual Groups, New CSVs, Maintained CSVs, Marked collections, Auto get CSV collections, Auto update collections, Badly setup collections, Suspended collections, No default setup collections, Ready to burn, Burned, Not setup collected series, All setup collections, Offline collections, All collections, Complete, Incomplete, Ongoing, Pre-Final, Final, Reburn, Favorites, Hidden, Location view, Leech history, Orphaned collections, Priority, Bittorent Seed, Bittorent Locked, Collection hunt and Need check. PSPV = All available collections, ACM auto purge list, Advanced autohunt set, All setup collections, Bad setup, Better CSV existing, Bittorent active, Burned collections, CSV-change history, Discontinued series, Incomplete collections, Leech history, Self maintained collections, Ready to burn, Send history, Custom Filters, and Drives.
Suspend collections	x		Ability to temporarely turnoff a bunch of collections if you detach an external drive or something similar.
Collection size bar	x	x	Shows color schemes based on common media sizes, CD, DVD etc.
Hide offline, burned etc collections by default	x	x	Both tools has ability to filter on / off based on special collection states.
View csv, report etc	x	x	Simple integration to default viewers of reports (.txt) files and .csv files. PSPV does not use the default Windows program for some reason.
View with ACDSee	x		PSCU only.
Explore removed, autorhunt etc folders	x	x	Starts Explorer in the specific folders.
Smart cache	x		Greately enhances speed when checking. For use with PS only.
Restore previous GUI settings	x	(x)	PSCU is able to open the program in the same state as you left it. Columns, tree structure, folde in/out. Everything stays. PSPV opens the last opened trigger/collection group.
Estimated times and speed	x		PSCU displays estimated times on checking and speed on csv creation.
Tray integration, label change and password protect	x		PSCU minimizes to tray, you can change the application name to something else and password protect the program so nobody but you can open it.
Redistribute and alter column sequence	x	(x)	PSCU's works by drag'n'drop. PSPV's needs to edit a list of possible columns and then moved them up/down (left/right) to change sequence.
Sort by column	x	(x)	PSCU can sort both ascending and descending. PSPV only supports ascending sort.
Configurable timer intervals between auto checks		x	PSCU has internal defined timer settings for automatic checking etc. PSPV's can be configured by the user.
Bundles		x	PSPV supports the creation and handle of bundles if sizes exceed a user defined limit. Great if you have ALOT of stuff.
Count indicators		x	PSPV shows a numeric indicator (like Outlook) on how many triggers/collections are setup in a group. Color is also used.
Custom filters		x	PSPV lets you customize filters based on pre-defined filters. Really great for the skilled person.

The issues (good/bad) can be cut down to the following:

PServeCheck

• Fastest tool, both checking and making and hunting.
• Nice GUI.
• Simple and many useful pre-defined filters.
• Works out-of-the-box.
• No special skills needed.
• Lacks bittorent integration compared to PSPV.
• Has Virtual Groups.
• Un-updated help file.
  

PSProVerify

• Most configurable tool.
• Ability to work like a robot, no human intervention needed. Can be very automatic.
• Custom filters. A very powerful feature. 
• Regular expressions (RegEx) skills to a degree are needed.
• Value based leech is a super feature.
• Advanced Collection Management for HDD space.
• Great bittorent support.
• Needs a bunch of configurering.
• No help file.
  

I have heard of people using both tools depending on their task at hand. If you were to go on holiday for 3 weeks, then you can set PSPV to handle things like you were at home and did everything yourself. It will require quite a bit of setup and understanding, but absolutely possible. If you don't leave your computer online for 3 weeks, then PSCU may be the choice. If you're for the easy, fast and simple then the name is PSCU, if you like configurable, tuneable, complex then go for PSPV. Or mix them. But DO NOT HAVE THEM BOTH RUNNING ON THE SAME TIME.

Here's a few screenshots.


PSProVerify









PServeCheck

Offline Explorer - site ripping for beginners

Here is a small tutorial with pictures for you to better understand the steps in creating a useable Offline Explorer project which downloads what you want and nothing more.

First off, you will have to get the tool. Which you buy/get from http://www.metaproducts.com. The cheapest version is about 50 USD and the most expensive is about 500 USD. The price for the product may seem quite high, but believe me, even the most expensive version is worth the cost if you excell in siteripping. It will save you an emmense amount of time. The current version is 5.6, my own version is an old one I bought a long time ago and will be using v4.8 for demonstration use.

The target site for this demonstration is http://www.betanews.com. Betanews is a site which holds some downloadable files (programs), which mainly are the newest versions of various software. We will have a wack at the WWW & Internet section of tools. Have a look below for a peek of the site.

I'd suggest you visit the site and pan the links, so that you have some feeling of what we're about to download. Click the circled item and see what happends.

Make note of the URL in the address bar of the browser and start Offline Explorer and create a New Project. Type the URL and it will look something like the picture below.


One of the things you should make not of is what you tell OE to download. Leave it as it is for now and take not that you are downloading from the site and 1 level down in the sites hierarchy.

Click OK, and start the project. Quickly switch the top tab's to Queue. There you will be able to see what OE intends to download. It will look something like the picture below.


You can pause the downloading by pressing F9, pressing F9 again will resume the download. For more information on how to make cool use of this feature then look for HAM download here on this site.

Scroll down in the list and notice the links with the /download/ path. These are the ones of interest, the rest is "junk" and without value to us. This can be compared to make note of the links for the .jpg and the .avi / .wmv files on a site (IF that is what you want - hehe).


So we have to filter the /download/ links. Go back into your project and find 'URL Filters -> Directory' and switch to 'View included directories keyword'. Type '/download/' without the ' and add it to the list of keywords are included. Also go back up in the project and find 'File Filters -> Archive'. Add the two items 'rar' and 'exe' to the list of what to download and uncheck everything else under the File Filters. Be sure that the File Filters -> Archive is set to 'Load using URL filters settings'. Take a close look at the screenshots below. Delete the files downloaded and start the project again.


One thing you will notice is that you don't actually get the files (.exe and .rar) files because you still have a setting to download only 1 level deep. So increase the level to 2. Look below.


Delete your downloaded files and start the project again. You will see that you lack the files because they use another link structure than '/download/'. The keyword you need to include is '/sendfile/'. Add this to the directories keywords like shown below.


This time you will be able to see the list below, and that is what you will download. Let the project finish and explore the files you downloaded. If you do not know where the files are located then click the 'Options' button of OE and look under 'File Location'.


What you hopefully have learned is the use of OEEE's Filter settings and how to limit what you download. The list of keywords can greatly improve the quality of you download.

Time is running out - using Windows Task Scheduler

The title may be a little too over dramatic as this article features a tutorial and practical example of how to configure the Windows Task Scheduler to perform automated tasks for us.

Microsoft Windows has a program called Task Scheduler which is located Start->Accessories->System Tools. You should look for the icon shown below. Task Scheduler is actually a plugin, but that is a fact we care little about as the program does what we tell it to do.

Task Scheduler isn't the best scheduler around, but it is decent and can perform tasks as we would want them to be. Windows itself has a bunch of system tasks hooked up inside Task Manager. It is not advisable to go ahead and delete these as it may affect you system quite a bit. So leave them be. That putten aside, Task Scheduler is not one of these NO, NO programs that you should not use, like regedit.exe can be. So do not think that Task Scheduler is for experts only.


As Task Schedulers most frequent basic task is a daily schedule, then it is possible for you to create more that one daily task, naturally. You can easily configure the same script to be run at 9am and then again 9pm again, for a dual daily schedule.

Also besure to explore how to run tasks as system tasks, where you do not have to be logged in. This can be extremely useful in some situations.

Anyway, the video tutorial is here:

Download video: Setting.up.Task.Scheduler.XViD.zip

(Direct link: http://www.mediafire.com/?trlh9dzejgg)

Fixing the web? - downloading by forums

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Use the net! - usenet downloading

You've been briefly introduced to torrents, rapidshare and web ways of getting what you are looking for.

It is important to say that none of the sources we have covered so far are valid as sources for official csvs. Only direct source site can be a valid source. Yet you can be lucky and cut down your download times alot if you utilize torrents or the web.

But still!, there are faster ways and if you have a fast inet line and alot og free GB (woops, let's say TB) on your hdd then you can dig into the usenet alias news groups. You will have to buy a usenet account. They cost anything from 9.95$ USD to 25$ USD per month. It is pretty cheap and you get excellent service for that amount of money.

There are several usenet providers out there which are considered as good, but put you money on one of these three

• Giga News ( http://www.giganews.com/ )
  
• Easy News ( http://www.easynews.com/ )
  
• Usenet Server ( http://www.usenetserver.com/en/index.php )

Once you have an usenet account then you need a download client. Much like the μTorrent client for use with torrents you need special software for usenet. The choice of usenet clients is based on religion, but a few is worth mentioning.

• Forte Agent ( http://www.forteinc.com/ )
• NewsLeecher ( http://www.newsleecher.com/ )
• NewsBin Pro ( http://www.newsbin.com/ )

You can use all 3 as trial for a limited periode of time, although Forte Agent is crippleware in the free version. All three can import NZB files (they are much like the .torrent file) and places like NewzBin they are all categorized and listed.

Groups
Usenet consists of groups. Each group can has a specific purpose, which normally is written in a FAQ or similar and each group has rules. There are well over 80.000+ groups. By far most groups contain discussions and help on normal subject and thus they contain text messages.

Some groups are binary groups. They contain little text, but on the other hand they contain alot of binaries. These binaries can be anything, a MP3, ZIP, RAR, AVI, JPG, MPG, VOB, ISO etc. These binary groups normally have the word .binaries. as part of the group name. Such a group could be

• alt.binaries.test

The name of the group is alt (alternate) binaries (binary content) test (for test purpose). Most binary groups are named alt.binaries..

Reasons!
The reason for using usenet is that it holds alot of data. A binary group can easily hold a terabyte of data and you can go back 240 days and see what someone put into the group. On EasyNews and UsenetServer you can utilize Global Search and search through an insane amount of data to find something specific for your taste. The usenet servers also have alot of bandwidth. My bet is that you can max out your inet line 100% while downloading from usenet. So!, TOP SPEED.

Contents
The contents of each usenet group is not organized in any specific way, nor can you trust the names of the articles to contain what they claim to contains. There is quite alot of spam on usenet. If you want to utilize usenet best then you should get to know WinRAR (compression / extraction utility) and QuickPar (PAR2 utility for verifying/fixing data). Some of the contents can be downloaded and viewed directly. Some has to be downloaded and extracted/fixed before viewing is possible.

Where
So how to choose among the 80.000+ groups. Basically you can go for the groups with the most interesting names and the biggest post count and it indicates an active group. This will allow you to hit wide and get stuff. But it is not always the case for a person with collectors syndrome. If you suffer from CS then you should look towards:



The lingo for groups are abpn, for the 1st group and so forth. The abecr group is special. The titles are not searchable and nor is the contents. You will need QuickPAR to be able to handle contents in this group and you will need to rename some files before you become a player in abecr. The group community wants to keep each group spam free, and if you spam post then you can be pretty sure that you will get an abuse mail sent to your Usenet provider and they will possible close down your account. Advice: lay low, observe, lurk and download. If you decide to get into the game then start off by saying thanks to the posters. If you decide to become a player and contribute, then be sure what you do, know the tools, know the ways, read the rules.

Getting the daily porn fix - bittorrent

Sometimes you get stuck with nothing to download and yet the need is there. A true addiction or collectors syndrome.

Yet you know that it is out there you just need to get it. And help is on the way. See there are quite a few places which is open to your disposal if you do good.

There's pr0n on the web, usenet, irc, ftp and on torrents. So if you are up for it then you should get yourself a torrents client. And the one which puts the least pressure on your hardware is by far μTorrent. You can find μTorrent on http://www.utorrent.com. There are quite a bunch of others available and one of the popular ones is Azurerus/Vuze which is a opensource project in Java. You can find it here: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/.

So you need to setup your torrent client and the most important thing is A) use encryption and B) make sure that your torrent client can be contacted from the outside. There are excellent articles about how to proper set up your torrent client, but basically they are all about port forwarding and allowing traffic through your firewall.

Next up is a place with torrents. And the ones you should be looking for are one of the 3 greats. And they are (no specific order).

• Cheggit
• Pure T'n'A
• Empornium

There you can get pretty much everything. Google them to find the url's. You will have to create an account, you will have to let others download from you and you will have to let your box be online just a little bit more than normal. But putten that aside then you only have to learn to browse torrents and to stay online.

And just a heads up on A) DO READ THE SITE RULES and B) Do not be a complete leech.

News and csvs on a silver platter - automatic get news and csvs

On the 1st. of September RSS was introduced. MG has searched the web for a decent alternative to the commercial NewzLeecher client.

This is why we introduce a free RSS / Atom reader which will enable you to subscribe to your favourite web feed sites. You can find YeahReader on http://www.yeahreader.com and it is free of charge.

MG has smacked together a small video presentation on how to configure YeahReader so that you can enjoy the nice things of RSS/Atom so that you can get your csvs and news as you see fit.

Here you have the video:

Download: Setting.Up.YeahReader.XViD.zip

Here is the direct link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mc4zauekzpd

Finding Luba - creating custom csvs with your fav

Luba, one of the fine wonders of the world, would quite a bunch of people claim. And they are not all wrong.

Luba is a model and a photographer, and now married with with Petter Hegre, who is the owner of the fine art site Hegre-Art.

Luba has perfectly shaped b(.Y.)bs and a hourglass body figure like a 50's pin-up. Pretty admireable. And she was/is still young.

But this article is not as much about Lubas as it is about finding her. Finding in csv specific terms. So MG has prepared a small video of easy ways to find Luba and even a way to bringing it all together.

Think of this as ways to make your own custom collection of everything you like.

Finding.Luba.XViD.zip

Download the small video clip. It is 6:38min and is meant as inspiration.

Get the tools used a http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html

PS: A note from ash1: "Luba is not all that good in bed!"

Luba and Petter

Do you want to know when your harddisk dies ?

Now under normal circumstances, MG would never advertise for a commercial product unless it has some greater importance to the community. Which is why MG wants to give HD Sentinel some awareness.

HD Sentinel is one of those harddisk programs which can tell you some information about your harddrives, and it even manages to monitor certain areas in regard to your harddrives and provide you with information about the S.M.A.R.T. state of your drives.

All this seem very nice, but unless you can actually see what you can do, you get little impression of how it could help you. So look at the partial screenshots below and judge for yourself wether or not HD Sentinel may be a tool for you.

After you have installed HD Sentinel, then your icons in Explorer changes slightly. You can see a bit more about capacity and status.

Explorer tree view

Explorer window view

You also get some additional information in your system tray. And although it doesn't look as sleek as DTemp then it does show you some extra information about the common health of the harddrive.

Temperature and Health status

If you start the main program you get a huge chunk of additional information available. There are 7 tabs per drive where as the overview gives you infor about the number of days the harddrive has been running and the number of remaining days it has to live in before it dies, IF the current rate of degradation continues. The information is gather mainly from your harddrives S.M.A.R.T. tables.

Overview shows possible lifespan of your harddisk

If you click the S.M.A.R.T. tab then you get the nitty gritty information. There you can find information about the real drive status, how many time it has been powered on and failed. How many times it has tried to re-allocate a bad sector and failed/succeded. This may be new information to you, but present harddrives has some extra space sectors where bad sectors gets re-allocated to when it finds a bad sector. And if you run out of spare sectors then your drive is in real bad shape. If the drive has too many errors then performance begins to suffer and so on. If you want to know the detailed meaning of all the S.M.A.R.T. attributes and how to read them then look here: Wikipedia - S.M.A.R.T.

Detailed information on harddrive

Switching to the 2nd last tab gives you some performance information which are update live. So you can let the windows stay open and then begin reading and writing to/from the drive to see how good performance is and you can even try the performance between your drives/controllers.

Performance in real-time

And HD Sentinal handles RAID volumes also, and SCSI and all that jazz.

Feed the masses csvs - get updated csvs automatic

This article is about a feature of VG which enables you to automatically get information about new and updated csvs. You basically do not have to do anything besides having your box on.

The feature is called RSS and it is an abbrevation for Really Simple Syndication. Which basically is a way to gather information from the internet into an easier, more readable and direct way.

RSS is sometimes referred to as Web Feeds, and what basically goes on is that the server(s) you subscribe to with RSS automatically updates a piece of information which your Internet Browser (yes it is RSS enabled) or your RSS program picks up and serves to you when you see fit, and without all the jazz and hazzel of you having to go to the website and click through a few pages to get the information.

RSS is most often free of charge, and in this case it is totally free, nobody will charge you anything.

So, back to business. If you want to subscribe to the RSS feed from VG then you have to have access to the site. And if you do, then you should click the link called RSS link.

Click: RSS link

The next which happends is that your browser changes to the webpage shown below and there you can see the way IE presents VG's RSS feed. On this page you click Subscribe to this feed. Which makes IE remember that you have a feed you have subscribed too and that IE should check for updated news ever now and then (you can change the schedule later).

Click: Subscribe to this feed

You will then be presented with a small dialog box which enables you to put your RSS feed subscribtions into different folders. Default is choosen in the example.

Click: Subscribe

You've now subscribed and the web page changes slightly. There are 3 things of interest besides that you now can see the last 50 updates to csvs on the VG site.

The first thing is the Star in the upper left corner, it is where you can re-find the RSS feeds you've subscribed too - so, it is like your RSS favorites.

The second thing of interest is the green arror pointing to the right, alongside the attachment marker next to the text retreive. Both are clickable links which enables you to save the csv in question to your harddrive.

The last thing of interest is the possibility to change the settings (properties) of the VG feed.

Click: Retrieve to download the csv

If you click 'View feed properties' then you will be presented with a dialog like shown below. There you can change the frequency of how often IE check wether there has arrived new stuff on VG - default is every 30mins. DO NOT SET IT LOWER, it is simply unnessary.

You can also configure IE to automatically download the attached files, in this case the csv file itself. DO NOT CHOOSE TO DOWNLOAD ALL ATTACHMENTS, IT WILL KILL THE SERVER. And that will force the prople at VG to either remove the RSS feed or something nasty.

Click: OK

That is all, VG information and csvs directly to you, without all the other stuff and need to browse around.

Hard labour of maintaining - auto schedule download and organizing

Well, maintaining can be a bitch sometimes, and most often demand quite some of your time. And you have to look out for pitfalls and every other nasty thing a webmaster can pull on you.

But sometimes it can also be easy. Take a look at the screenshot.

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What you see is 2 scripted update maintainig scripts, which are hooked into Windows' Task Schedule program (Start -> Accessories -> System Tools). One of the scripts even unzip's the contents after download (if you look closely).

This is just for inspiration and not a production run.

Making a directory list

Here's a small video example of how anyone can create a list of directories. The example uses some lines from some html pages. It is raw html, which we turn into a nice list.

Click to enlarge thumbnail

Download video: UltraEdit.DirectoryLists.XViD.zip

Shopping for the best CSV's

Well, we do not actually go to the local 7/11 for getting a new fresh csv when the old one is worn out and used to the fullest. Instead we can visit places like VG.

So in an ideal world we could just blindly grab any csv and trust that things were in order. But that far from reality.

CSV's have errors, and missing stuff. Comparing csvs posted on usenet with csvs from VG or some other place may be nessary to figure out which is the better.

But in the end, it is most often the case that the csv set which is maintained the longest tend to be the better choice.

So, what is this article all about ?

Answer: "Finding the better csv and csv errors"

To do that you can use a tool like CSV Workshop. And furthermore you can watch a video of how to do it.

Click to enlarge

Download video: MG.CSVWorkshop.XViD.zip

CSV Workshop has alot of other uses but you should explore them yourself. And bare in mind that the tool is 5 years old and at that point it couldn't handle DVD sized csvs, and still cannot. The size is reported wrong, but the dupechecking still works like a charm.

One pickup line for Bang Bros

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