1. Newsletter Editorial

Well, September is almost over and it looks like this edition of the newsletter is going to make it onto the airwaves and into the imaginary newsstands just in time to avoid any major embarrassment.  It's actually been over 5 weeks since the last newsletter  -- way too long.  So this newsletter is packed to the gills with new interesting posts and website discoveries.  So without further ado let's get to it.

Dear Coders,
I'm a non-programmer with only basic scripting skills.

I want to mass-extract file names from a folder and write them to a text file. The "\" in the path should be converted to "<". An AutoHotkey script would be great because there is a chance that I might be able to modify it.

Steps:
1. Select folder from a menu
2. Extract folder paths and convert them to my desired format:
P:\Z_Systems\Favoriten yields the following:
P:<Z_Systems<Favoriten<folder 1\folder 1
P:<Z_Systems<Favoriten<some other folder\some other folder
Mind that there should be a backslash after the actual folder name followed by the last folder name.
It should issue a warning should one of the paths have more than 127 characters. I will put in that warning by myself later.
...
3. Write these files to a text file that is saved on the desktop.
... That's it.

It would be kind of nifty if I would be able to select between files and folders at the beginning (either one or the other should be extracted, but not both).
P:<Z_Systems<Favoriten<file 1.doc\file 1.doc

Thank you so much!

My annoyance is fairly straightforward, as well as (I would hope) its solution:
I want to toggle this with a hotkey:

THE STORY:

I bought a touchpad for my desktop to combat RSI. It's... ok, I guess. See, the driver that it comes with doesn't actually recognize the touchpad, which means that Windows sees it as a mouse. This isn't a huge problem; it works fine. Though without the driver, it lacks some customizable options, I can live with it. My mouse remains plugged in, since I will be swapping between the two devices based on the tasks I am doing.

The problem is that I now have two devices that run on the same control panel settings, and physically are two devices with different kinds of sensitivity.

The touchpad actually causes more strain without the "Enhance pointer precision," option enabled, since moving the pointer requires repeated 'scrubbing' with the fingers. With the feature enabled, I can move the pointer much more easily while retaining control.

However, this setting is far too sensitive for my mouse, which flies all over the screen like an out of control fighter plane.

To switch devices, I have to launch the Mouse applet, toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting manually, then resume using my input device. Without a helpful shortcut, I have to do this many times a day.

PROBLEM: Two pointing devices on one system, one that needs mouse acceleration, the other doesn't. Need an easy way to toggle the "Enhance pointer precision" setting to aid in switching between the two devices.

SOLUTION: A small program that launches, toggles the "Enhance pointer precision" setting from the Mouse control panel applet, and then closes itself. (If the setting is active, it deactivates it. If it's inactive, it activates it.)

Since this is an issue I've found with laptops I've used as well, this could be useful beyond my specific use case. I've often had to resort to touchpad on the go, and later dock, to find that my mouse is flying uncontrollably until I toggle this setting off.

Since I already use a decent hotkey manager, I don't need this to be a running program. Ideally, it would just execute, toggle the setting, and close. I can call upon the program when I need it.

BONUS: The ability to store actual mouse settings as profiles, and toggle in between them with user-configurable hotkeys. This is far beyond my own needs, of course, but this might be a more interesting challenge for some.

Thanks for your time, o programmers of tiny things.

Give this a shot (source/binary included):
http://skwire.dcmemb...Newline_Splitter.zip

The latest edition of Tech News Weekly is out:

• 1. Demon Splurges Details of 3,600 Customers in Billing Email
• 2. Bank Sues Google for Identity of Gmail User
• 3. WebGL in Firefox Nightly Builds, Demoed With 3D Spore Model
• 4. Big GPL Copyright Enforcement Win in Paris Court of Appeals
• 5. Oracle Won't Unload MySQL, Sun Losing $100 Million Per Month
• 6. FCC to Take a Stand On Net Neutrality
• 7. Facebook Enables Apps to Peek at Mail
• 8. Texas Instruments Signing Keys Broken
• 9. Quantum Chip Helps Crack Code
• 10. Astronaut Mess

If you use InfoSelect/Tornado Notes, you may be aware that there's an InfoSelect Yahoo group. It's run by users, not by Miclog.

In the past, the developers haven't participated in this forum and have remained somewhat untouchable over the years.

Well, today, the developer of InfoSelect, Jim Lewis, got on the forum and posted a message saying to look forward to the next version, it's coming soon. He also said that Miclog would now be participating in the InfoSelect group. He says that many important changes / updates have been made in IS. If you use IS, you know how badly these changes are needed.

I've been using IS for about 5 years, I think it's one of the best programs I've ever used. This is really exciting news for me and hopefully for any other user of IS who comes across this post.