Reminder - 25% discount - help a little boy

For more info, see this English or this German post.

Did YOU donate for little Andrej? A few Euro, dollars, pounds... It can really Help!

Some of my customers really surprise me, in a GOOD way.

I emailed one of my favorite customers, Lori:

"Hello Lori,

I know you are a good person.
Please see http://watchdirftp.blogspot.com/2010/02/do-you-want-to-help-little-boy-with.html
and http://www.datalandsoftware.com/blog/2010/02/28/please-help-little-andrew-and-get-a-free-license/"

I should have a couple of checks in by tomorrow or Saturday. I'll make sure and donate then. More than that though, I will add Andrej to my prayer list. My 9-year-old daughter and I have a prayer list every night. If you could hear her pray, it would warm your heart. Please know she and I will pray for Andrej.

A few days later she donated $100.

Another customer donated $40 and ordered 2 extra licenses without any discount, asking for the promised discount to go to Andrej.
(Thank you Charles).

Good people do exist in this world!

Yes, there are a lot of you who donated who I did not mention. THANKS!

For more info, see this English or this German post.

Did YOU donate for little Andrej?

About File Viking

We are getting closer to the last beta-release of File Viking. This new beta will be released somewhere this or next week. ~1 month after that, version 1.0 is expected.

Among other things (lots and lots of small fixes, tons of little usability improvements), we added a few new Actions ("Uncompress" and "Upload to FTP").

If you want to join this last round of beta testing and receive a free license in exchange for your comments, let me know: support @ FileViking . com.

WatchDirectory 4.6.2 released

New in version 4.6.2

• New: Print PDF files Automatically with Foxit Reader.
  Foxit can print to "Any" printer, is faster and more reliable than Acrobat.
• New: WD_FILE_SIZE_MB and WD_FILE_SIZE_GB variables.
• New: Email Task: When you use a file with email addresses (see Advanced Addressing) you can also set the subject and message body there.
• Fixed: The new "Only One QUIET Event" option wasn't working properly.
• Fixed: The FTP plugin did not shutdown properly.

This new release is a free upgrade for all "version 4.x customers", just install the current evaluation version "on top" of your current install. That way you will keep your settings and tasks.

Holland Combinatie - a WatchDirectory Customer

WatchDirectory... it rocks!

In 2004 Holland Combinatie (Dutch) decided to take production to a new level by implementing a complete new production system. This production system was based on different modules with some integration, but not optimal.

Therefore it was necessary that connection where made through all kind of different scripts, bat-files etc. It was quite a mess to controlling this stuff.

A search on the Internet showed the solution for this all: WatchDirectory. All our scripts, bat-file, copy and renaming moves are now been taking care of through WD.

The system has never been so stable on all mentioned actions since the migration to WD. Support by the developers is great. You just have to send an email or post on the forum and any issue is taken care of almost immediately.

The only problem with WD (if you can speak of a problem anyway) is that WD is so flexible and multitasking that I have to keep a low profile on making up jobs which can be dealt by WD ;-)

I can put in into one slogan:
 WatchDirectory... it rocks!

D. Hoogenboom
Informatiemanager Grafisch/Technische Systemen
Holland Combinatie BV
The Netherlands

Batch Job Scheduling

Q&A

When we receive multiple requests from customers, in a short period of time, asking for a solution to the same issue, it is time to write a blogpost about it.

Automatically Run New Bat or CMD files

The question asked was

I want WatchDirectory to detect new Batch Scripts, *.cmd or *.bat, in a directory and automatically run them. I tried the Automatically Run Bat Files task, but it wants me to enter the name of the bat file to run. How can I do this?

The answer:

Yes, you need the "Run Bat Files" task, you just need to create a "static" batch file that will run the newly detected bat or cmd file. A simple RunTheNewScript.bat like this will do:

@echo off
rem the variable %WD_FILE% has the complete path to the newly detected script
Call "%WD_FILE%"
rem delete the script after it has run? Remove the "REM" on the next line
REM DEL "%WD_FILE%"

It is probably best to also Setup a Filter so this new task will only run when it detects a CMD or BAT file, see the picture below.

This is a low cost alternative to products such as Camellia Batch Job Server. Obviously, as a specialized program, Camellia BJS offers more/other functionality, but if all you need is to run dynamically created batch scripts automatically, you can do it with WatchDirectory.