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2 Ways to Batch Rename Files in OS X

Miles — Sat, 16 May 2009 12:45:15 +0000

Whether it’s changing file names of pictures from “IMG_XXXX.jpg” to organizing your MP3s, batch file renaming can both save you time and reduce frustration. Here are two free and easy ways to rename large groups of files in OS X.

Automator

Batch renaming in Automator is quite simple, even if you’ve never used it before.

1. Open Automator, choose “Custom” when the screen prompts you to select a starting point.
2. Drag the Automator action “Get Specified Finder Items” to the right-hand window pane.
3. Drag the Automator action “Rename Finder Items” to the right-hand window pane.

Note: You will be prompted to add a “Copy Finder Items” action. If you want to be safe you could add this as well, but I usually don’t.

With Automator you can change the file name in the following ways:

Date/Time
Text
Change Case
Make Sequential
Replace Text
Name Single Item

The options are fairly self-explanatory, but there are some limitations.

Date/Time- you can only add a date or a time stamp, but not both. The stamp can only be added at the beginning or end of the file name.

Text- You can only add text at the beginning or end of the file name.

Change Case- You can only change the entire file name or extension at once. You can’t, for example, change moscow.jpg to Moscow.jpg.

Make Sequential- You can only add a sequence at the beginning or end of a file name.

Replace Text- This is where I think Automator really falls short. You can only replace a specific string, meaning the file name has to contain what you want to replace in order for Automator to do anything. What if I wanted to remove the last 3 characters from a file name and replace it with “xyz”? Not in Automator.

Name Single Item- I don’t know why you wouldn’t just change the name of the file in Finder without launching Automator, but for completeness the feature is included. You can change the base name (file name without extension), full name (file name with extension), or extension only.

- Choose which action you want and adjust the parameters of the action to suit your needs.

- Drag the Finder items to be renamed into the proper Window.
(Note: with “Get Specified Finder Items“, Automator will not distinguish between directories and files when running. If you want to drag a folder into Automator and have it work on the folder’s contents, use “Get Folder Contents.”)

- Press “Run.”

Automator is included with OS X and is located in the Applications directory by default.

Name Mangler

Name Mangler picks up where Automator falls short. While Automator has a wealth of other actions that you might find useful, Name Mangler does one thing and does it well.

To rename files, drag them into the left-hand window pane. The list of files pops up, and you can select filters (Folders, Folder Contents, Files) to dictate what gets renamed. This also means you can just drag a Folder into NM to rename the contents.

NM offers the following default options:

Find and Replace- includes regular expression matching and an option to preserve extensions and ignore case.
Number Sequentially- Allows you to number in steps other than one, set a prefix and suffix, keep or remove the original name and extension. Unlike Automator, NM allows you to define a prefix or suffix to the sequence.
Change Case- Allows Capitalization, all capitals, or all lowercase. Allows similar preservation or changing of extensions.
Set Extension- fairly self-explanatory.
Add Prefix/Suffix- again, self-explanatory.
Remove/Insert Characters- this is where NM really has an advantage over Automator. You can remove any number of characters from a file name and specify an index to start with. So for example if you had a series of files named
Lyrics_ACT01_Maria.txt
Lyrics_ACT01_Tonight.txt
Lyrics_ACT02_TheRumble.txt
Lyrics_ACT02_Somewhere.txt

You could remove the “ACTXX” characters very easily by defining the number of characters to be removed (5) and the index to start removing at (8- the 8th character from the beginning, starting at 1). Furthermore, you can replace those same characters by inserting text at a specified index. Instead of “ACTXX” I might want “WestSideStory.” To make things even more customizable, you can specify whether the index should count from the beginning or the end of the file name.

But perhaps the most powerful feature included with Name Mangler is the ability to thread together multiple functions in the “Advanced” window. It’s name conversion description language allows you to write pseudo-scripts to tailor your file names to what you want. It might seem a little daunting, but it’s actually very easy for even a beginner with no programming knowledge to pick up the basics after reading the documentation.

Finally, Name Mangler allows you to save your settings as droplets so you can just drag and drop a collection of files to be renamed without actually launching the program.

I use Name Mangler almost exclusively at this point and haven’t found anything that even begins to compare. Do you know of other free batch renaming utilities?

2 Ways to Batch Rename Files in OS X originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Easily Troubleshoot Your Graphics Card With GPU-Z

Norm — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:11:29 +0000

I recently wrote about a great software utility that opened up a world of information about your motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Well, I have another great utility to tell you about, only this time it’s all about your graphics card.

Though manufactured by different companies, GPU-Z from TechPowerUp does look a lot like the aforementioned CPU-Z. The interface is eerily similar and the name is a perfect match. On the positive side, these two Windows applications bring incredible value at a price that can’t be beat – free! The pair complement each other as incredible tools to have on your belt.

Let me take you on a tour of this powerful graphics card information utility.

Also in line with CPU-Z, this product doesn’t come with an installer. You simply download GPU-Z from the TechPowerUp website, save it to a folder and run it. At the time this article was published, the current version was 0.3.2

Vista users may experience a warning from the UAC security system, which asks if you are sure you want to run the file. No worries, click Run and wait for the application to load. You should see a splash screen while the information about your graphics card is collected.

Now the fun begins. The main window is divided into three tabs. There is the Graphics Card tab, the Sensors tab, and the Validation tab.

The Graphics Card tab is the default tab that loads when the application starts. It also contains the most information about your graphics card. Everything you ever wanted to know, and more, is displayed here.

As you can see in the image below, this tab tells you which graphics card you are using, the GPU, BIOS Version, Bus Interface, Memory Type and Size, Clock Frequencies, and much more. It has everything but the kitchen sink.

This information is great for anyone looking to upgrade their video card, or overclockers looking to get more performance out of their current setup. If you are running multiple video cards, the drop-down list at the bottom lets you select the card that you want to see the details for.

Moving right along in our tour, the next tab is the Sensors tab. There is no shocker here, this tab displays sensor data coming back from your video card. Another great tool for overclockers, you can monitor things like Clock Speeds, GPU Temperature, PCB Temperature, and Fan Speeds.

There is also an option to log the data to a file and another to continue monitoring while GPU-Z is in the background. I like the last feature because it lets me monitor the change in my graphics card temperatures when I am in full screen gaming mode.

The last tab is labelled Validation, and it allows you to submit your information to the GPU-Z website. I couldn’t find any information as to the purpose of this feature, however it does let you share the details on the web and track changes to your graphics setup.

GPU-Z is another one of those lightweight, must-have tools that just about any user can make use of. It really goes a long way to help you understand your graphics card. You don’t have to take my word for it though, try it out for yourself!

Easily Troubleshoot Your Graphics Card With GPU-Z originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Kill Problem Applications Like a Ninja

Norm — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:18:53 +0000

Linux fans who run Windows (for any number of reasons) can finally rejoice, xkill has essentially been cloned and is available as a free download . This Windows copycat of the popular xkill utility is aptly named – Kill.

Kill allows you to end the process behind an application simply by clicking on the application Window. Think of it like having the power to terminate in the tip of your finger. When you load up Kill and left click on a window, Windows attempts to close it as though you had simply clicked the close button. This will cause the program to close in its normal way, often prompting you to save your work.

Holding CTRL while you click the application triggers the more dangerous end-process that would normally be done through the Task Manager. This immediately kills the underlying process and forcing the application to terminate. No prompts this time. Here’s a demo of Kill in action.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, six pictures will tell the story of how to use this amazing little utility. For my example, I’m going to kill calc.exe, the calculator application that comes with Windows.

Start by downloading Kill from DonationCoder.com. The current version is 1.0 and the total download is 205KB.

Here you see that Calculator is open and to the left of the program is my desktop icon for kill.exe. Start the Kill utility by simply double-clicking it.

If you are using Vista, the following warning will likely be displayed. Click Run to allow the Kill program to continue. Once loaded, your mouse cursor will change and you should now see a skull and crossbones next to it.

Now click on the window of the application that you want to end. In this case I’ll click on the Calculator window.

And voila! The program ends.

Again, this is great for applications that have frozen up and just won’t respond to the conventional mouse clicks to close it. I really love that this utility is no fuss, no mess – meaning that it doesn’t install itself into your system. You simply run it when you need it.

If by chance you activate it accidently, you can get your cursor back to normal by pressing the ESC key.

As an additional tip, the author recommends placing Kill in your Quick Launch bar for easy access.

Kill Problem Applications Like a Ninja originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Resize Your Partitions with EASEUS Partition Manager

Norm — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:30:35 +0000

If you’ve ever had to resize a partition, or make new partitions, then I completely understand what you most likely went through. Good partition management software for Windows is hard to come by, well the free partition managers anyways. Almost everyone has heard of Partition Magic, but there is a hefty price tag that comes with it.

As it turns out, there is a great application out there just for the Windows home user. It’s called EASEUS Partition Manager, and you should download it today!

In this short tutorial, I’m going to increase the size of the C: drive on my Windows Vista PC.

Important Note: Please backup your data before attempting to make changes to the partitions on your computer. There is always the potential for lost data – so take the time to ensure you have a good backup. If you need some help getting that started, check out this post on Backing up Your Windows Data the Simple Way – with Cobian Backup.

As you can see in the image below, My C: drive is about 40 GB, with only 5 GB of free space available. My D: drive is a second partition on the same physical drive as my C: drive. Under that you’ll notice I have 10 GB of Unallocated space. This is space that was never assigned to anything. I’m going to expand my C: drive to include this space – for a grand total of 50 GB.

The real trick in resizing the first partition on a multi-partition drive is in allocating the space in precisely the right location. In this example, all of the unallocated free space is at the end of the D: drive, which means I’ll have to move it to the beginning of the D: drive, so that I can eventually add it to C: drive. First, I’ll select the D: drive and click on the Resize/Move button. A new window opens up and lets you enter the new settings that you would like to use.

To move the unallocated space from the end to the beginning, simply copy the size from the Space After box and paste it into the Space Before box. The former will automatically reset to zero.

Now you can click Ok. It’s probably best to note that no changes have actually been made at this time. All that has been done is simply a list of changes has been added to a queue. Changes only take complete effect after a reboot.

Now, we still haven’t allocated any space to C: yet, we’ve only re-arranged D: drive. This time, select the C: drive and click the Resize/Move button. Once again we are presented with the change window.

As you can see, the unallocated space is now at the end of the C: drive. This time, drag the little arrow on the right-hand side of the yellow bar all the way to the right. This will stretch the D: partition to the end, and leave you with no unallocated space after.

This essentially completes all of the configuration required to resize the partition. Click Ok. You should be back at the main window again. If you are ready to complete the change, click the Apply button on the lower left-hand side of the window. Like any good piece of software, EaseUs Partition Manager will prompt you several times to make sure you want to continue.

Before you click Yes to both of these, please make sure that you have backed up your important data. Resizing a partition can be dangerous and there is always a risk of failure. If you have confirmed that you have a recent backup, click Yes and get ready to kill some time.

The operation as described above took almost four hours to complete. I wasn’t expecting it to take that long, so it actually seemed much longer as I watched the clock waiting for the work to finish. Here is a screenshot of what you can expect after the reboot.

After the four hour waiting period, Windows booted back up as normal and the new sizing was in effect.

Just to recap, EASEUS is a freeware partition manager for Windows. Most versions of Windows are supported, however 64-bit Vista is not. Don’t forget to get your copy from their download site.

How To Resize Your Partitions with EASEUS Partition Manager originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)