Vlaggetjesdag

YES! Today in Holland we celebrate "Vlaggetjesdag" (day of the flags?). It is traditionally the day the first salted herrings of the new season are sold. Most Dutch eat the Herring with raw onions, these onions were originally added to camouflage the smell of rotting fish. These days they are not really needed anymore, and Holland is divided in 2 camps about adding onions (I like my herring with onions, thank you).

The herring is sold as "Hollandse Nieuwe" (Dutch New) when it is at least 16% fat (yummie!) and prepared in the traditional way (salted and "gekaakt"). The first barrel with herring is always sold at ridiculous prices (€66,000 this year), the money goes to charity.

I lived in Denmark for a year and sadly enough, they don't sell Herring prepared the "Dutch way". Luckily, their "Sild i Karry" (Herring with a lot of herbs and Curry sauce) was super as well - actually, besides Carlsberg Porter, it is one of the main reasons for my frequent visits to Denmark.

Remotely start/stop WatchDirectory and WatchFTP services

A great free tool from Sysinternals (now owned by Microsoft) is the psexec program. With psexec you can run programs on other computers and it supports full interaction with remote command prompts. This allows you, for example, to start or stop Windows Services by running the "NET START" or "NET STOP" command.

Initial Setup

I always create a new user on the computer I want to access with psexec and name it psexec as well. I give this user administrator privileges so it can do "whatever I want". This step may not be necessary, see the psexec help (just run psexec without parameters).

Control a Service on another machine

Okay, lets assume I want to stop the WatchDirectory task "unzipbiggies" that runs as a Service on computer \\Test01. First, you need to know that when WatchDirectory creates a Windows Service, the Service name is prefixed with "watchDirectory:", so the actual Windows Service name for the task "unzipbiggies" is "watchDirectory:unzipbiggies".
WatchFTP prefixes Service names with the string "WatchFTP:".

First we need to open a command prompt on the remote computer:

C:\Users\gert>e:\bin\psexec.exe \\Test01 -u psexec -p topsecret cmd

This assumes you created a user "psexec" with password "topsecret" on the \\Test01 computer.

After a while this opens a command prompt on the remote computer, but it shows on your computer. Enter the following command to see all running Windows Services (including the WatchDirectory and WatchFTP services):

C:\Users\gert>NET START
These Windows services are started:

... snipped a lot of services....
   Terminal Services
   Themes
   UPnP Device Host
   User Profile Service
   watchDirectory:unzipbiggies
   wdPostMan
   WebClient
   Windows Audio
   Windows Audio Endpoint Builder
... snipped a lot of services....
The command completed successfully.

To stop the WatchDirectory task, enter

C:\Users\gert>NET STOP "watchDirectory:unzipbiggies"

To start the task again, enter

C:\Users\gert>NET START "watchDirectory:unzipbiggies"

Other uses

There are a lot of other things you can do with psexec. For example when a file is detected by WatchDirectory on "this" computer, let psexec run a command on another computer. You get the idea, I guess.

WatchFTP 2.1.9

Today we released a minor update for WatchFTP. This free update has the following fixes/new features:

• A few more problems with accented characters were fixed
• In certain cases files were not removed from the FTP server
• The "History Viewer" allows you to show the full timestamps of messages

You can download the new version here:
http://www.watchftp.com/download.html
or http://www.watchftp.de/download.html
or http://www.watchftp.es/download.html

Stop all your tasks and install the new version "on top" of your current install so it will see your settings/tasks.

Let us not forget...

Our Brave Soldiers

Our heroes, Captain Kroon and his troops, they serve our country while we are sleeping. Soon (May 29, 2009) Captain Kroon will be awarded for his own and his troops' bravery.

Marco Kroon, the first person in a long time (50 years) in The Netherlands to receive the most honorable honor, our most prestigious medal: the Williams Order.
Marco, and your troops, you understand this is for all of you, so: THANK YOU!

This rare honor is only awarded for the highest bravery. Sometimes (extremely rare!) it is honored to a whole regiment. Even rarer to a foreign regiment, so far this has happened only twice in hundreds of years....

Our Polish Friends: 1st Independent Parachute Brigade
Our American Friends: 82nd Airborne Division

---

Update - I have just seen the ceremony on TV, very impressive!

(Marco Kroon being decorated by Queen Beatrix)
If you understand Dutch, here is a short interview with our hero, this was just after he heard he will be knighted.

---

Update - A short clip of the ceremony (~2 minutes). With a simple slap on the shoulder, Marco is knighted - did I tell you I love traditions?

How Many Tasks does WatchDirectory support?

A question that sometimes comes up is
How Many Tasks does WatchDirectory Support?

If this is for making a purchase decision (Do I need WD Standard or Professional), the answer is:
WD Standard supports 3 tasks. WD Professional supports..... mmmmm, well it depends.

Number of Tasks

There is no artificial limit for the number of tasks that WatchDirectory Professional can run. There are, however, other limitations (mostly memory related) that limit the number of tasks.

• Available Memory
  Each task you run requires some memory. The amount of memory needed depends on several things, most importantly on the Monitoring Method you use.
• Size of Monitored Directories
  If you use the "Default" or "Polling" Monitoring Method, your task will have a representation of the monitored directory in memory. Large directories require more memory. The "File Age" and "Fast" monitoring methods do not require this representation.
  See also Monitor Huge Directories.
• Run Mode
  If you run your tasks as a Windows Service, there are some Windows limitations for the number of Services supported. The actual limit depends on your Windows version and on the number of other services you have running. If you reach this limit, you will typically receive error messages like this:
  StartService fails: Error Code:1053
  Description: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
  The last few posts in this forum topic describes a few work-arounds.
• The Size of your Brain
  Can you really manage 200 (WatchDirectory) tasks?

Why so Many?

Often it can be easy to replace several tasks by just one, especially if their monitored directory "share" a common parent directory. A few tips....

Replace multiple "Copy Files" by one "Sort Files" task

If you want to copy files to multiple destinations, you don't have to create multiple "copy files" tasks. Instead create just one "Sort Files" task. Each "rule" you create can have another destination.
See also The Sort Files plugin.

Merge multiple "Email Notification" tasks into one

When the email address is the only thing that's different for each task, you may want to look at the "Advanced Addressing" options for the email plugin. This allows you to specify different email addresses depending on the sub-directory where the file is found. An old newsletter also describes this.

Update (WatchDirectory 4.6.2): When you use Advanced Addressing, using the "email.txt" trick, you can also set the Subject and message body depending on the directory where the file is found.

See also The Email Plugin and Advanced Addressing.

Convert tasks into Subtasks

WatchDirectory v4.5.8 introduced a new plugin that can run other tasks as Subtasks. There are a few limitations described further in the help file.
See also The Run Subtasks Plugin.

Q&A - Run bwavinfo for detected files

Q&A

Adam on our Forum asks:

Q

Hi all,

I'll confess I'm no expert on scripting, but I've had a good deal of success in running simple batch files on watched directories, up until now..

I'm trying to run a command 'bwavinfo' via a simple .bat file. For the command to work, it requires an "--info" switch after the bwavinfo command, and before the input/output filenames (i.e. bwavinfo --info in.wav >in.txt). I have a working batch file which will do this outside of watchdirectory using the above script, though when i try and run it via watchdirectory, i'm met with a 'bwavinfo is not reconized as an internal or external command' message.

Here's my WD batch file:

bwavinfo --info "%WD_FILE%" >"N:\%WD_FILE_B%.wav.txt"

bwavinfo relies on Ruby and Java to run, but has been installed correctly, and works fine via a command prompt. Where am I going wrong?!

Adam.

A

Adam,

bwavinfo --info "%WD_FILE%" >"N:\%WD_FILE_B%.wav.txt"

May I suggest to you to always use full path-names in batch scripts. Something like this:

"C:\Program Files\bwa\bwavinfo.exe" --info "%WD_FILE%" >"N:\%WD_FILE_B%.wav.txt"

That way, the bwainfo program can be found no matter how your PATH is setup.

Also, redirecting to "N:\...."... it looks like N: is a mapped network drive? Remember that these drive-mapping will not work if you run this WD task as a service. It is probably a better way to use the UNC name of the drive-mapping, something like

"C:\Program Files\bwa\bwavinfo.exe" --info "%WD_FILE%" >"\\Server\share\%WD_FILE_B%.wav.txt"

Finally, for the Ruby & Java issue, you also need to remember that the environment (among other things the PATH setting) may be different for Windows Services. You could temporarily change the PATH in your batch-script yourself, to work-around this, something like

 
SET PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0\bin;%PATH%
SET PATH=C:\Program Files\RoR\Bin;%PATH%
"C:\Program Files\bwa\bwavinfo.exe" --info "%WD_FILE%" >"\\Server\share\%WD_FILE_B%.wav.txt" 

Further reading

All those WD_ variables you can use in your batch files...

Convert TIFF to PDF

A request we often get is a way to convert TIFF files to PDF with WatchDirectory.

While WD does not have a native way to do this, you should be aware that WD's "Automatically Run a Batch File" plugin can do almost anything. If there is a command line tool available, WatchDirectory can "run it".

Anyway, we have found 2 ways to convert TIFF to PDF using command line tools. The batch scripts below should be started by WD's "run a batch file" plugin. It is also a good idea to create a filter so WD will only start the script for TIF and TIFF files.

ImageMagick and Ghostscript

ImageMagick is one of my favorite tools for image manipulation. If a format is not "natively" supported by ImageMagick, it can delegate to other tools. ImageMagick needs Ghostscript for PDF support.

Downloads needed:
ImageMagick, I currently use v6.5.1, available here: http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php#windows.
Ghostscript, I currently use v8.6.3, available here: http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/ghost/GPL/gs863/.

The ImageMagick/Ghostscript script. Note you don't see any reference to Ghostscript, but it must be installed otherwise the script won't work.

@echo off
IF "%WD_FILE_E%" NEQ "TIF" (
   IF "%WD_FILE_E%" NEQ "TIFF" GOTO :EOF
)
rem where is ImageMagick installed???
SET IMADIR=C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.5.1-Q16

"%IMADIR%\convert.exe" "%WD_FILE%" "%WD_FILE_D%\%WD_FILE_B%.pdf"
IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO :EOF

rem if you want to remove the tiff after it has been converted
rem uncomment (remove the "rem") the next line
rem DEL "%WD_FILE%"

Irfanview

Another great tool, I didn't even know it supported command line conversions until Dirk (German language support) told me. You can download Irfanview here.

The Irfanview script:

@echo off
IF "%WD_FILE_E%" NEQ "TIF" (
   IF "%WD_FILE_E%" NEQ "TIFF" GOTO :EOF
)
rem where is Irfanview installed???
SET IMADIR=C:\Program Files\irfanview

"%IMADIR%\i_view32.exe" "%WD_FILE%" /convert="%WD_FILE_D%\%WD_FILE_B%.pdf"
IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO :EOF

rem if you want to remove the tiff after it has been converted
rem uncomment (remove the "rem") the next line
rem DEL "%WD_FILE%"

IrfanView settings

Current releases of IrfanView will prompt you with a little popup window (to preview the PDF). Obviously, you don't want that when you are automating the creation of PDF files.

Just start IrfanView, open a TIFF file and save it as PDF. Next to the "Save As" window, where you enter the pdf filename, is a little window where you should select the "not needed" option. From now on, the script above will not cause those prompts.

Q&A - Clear the email queue

Q&A

Flyinglow on our Forum asks:

Q

I have Watch Directory installed on a Management server. It watches directories on a database server. The database server crashed and had to be rebuilt on a new machine. All the files were copied over via a backup. I went into the Watch Directory jobs and just changed the server name for all the directories it was watching as we recreated the folder structure exactly.

When I started the jobs Watch Directory viewed all the files in the folder as new or changed and started sending out mass emails. I turned off all the jobs to stop it. Now when I turn on the System.Mail job it keeps sending out more messages even though all the other jobs are still turned off.

Is there any way to clear the queue for System.Mail? I already went into all the jobs and turned off the missed events option but I haven't turned any of them back on since I can't start System.Mail without flooding my email server.

A

When a WatchDirectory task sends email, the email message is only prepared: it is written to a directory monitored by the System.Mail task (the wdPostman program). When System.Mail detects the new message in this directory, it is read and sent.

If, for some reason, you want to clear this email queue, you should remove all files in the following directory:

C:\ProgramData\watchDirectory\System.Mail\Out

The directory above is the default location on Windows Vista.
You open the "System.Mail\Out" directory by right-clicking the System.Mail task and select the "Explore ..." menu option. Alternatively, select "Tools -> Explore Task Directory" (this opens C:\ProgramData\watchDirectory) and navigate to the System.Mail\Out sub-folder.

The directory contains files with a wdmail extension. These are the actual email messages waiting to be sent by System.Mail/wdPostman. If you have WatchDirectory tasks that are set to "Combine" email messages, you will also find files with a wdmailcombine extension in this directory. Delete these as well.

Small WatchFTP update

Ä
Ö

We just released a small update for WatchFTP that fixes an issue for people that use accented characters in file or directory names.

Depending on the actual name, the file did not download. Other filenames with accented characters did download, but if you set the task to remove the FTP file after download, the delete failed.

The new release is available on our English, German and Spanish sites.
Just install this release "on top" of your current install and it will keep your configured tasks and settings.

USA Transcription Services - A customer of WatchFTP and WatchDirectory

What a pleasant and unexpected surprise in this day and age to get not only a superb product with WatchFTP and WatchDirectory, but unbelievable customer support, as well!

These products have shaved hours off my workday. So much so that I am actively seeking new customers now! Before these great products, I was spending hours doing the mundane tasks of moving files from one place to the other. Not any more! (read more...).

WatchFTP 2.1 Released

We just released WatchFTP v2.1, the download is available here.

Changes in this release

• New: A new column in the WatchFTP Control Center showing you the number of files downloaded and the number of files waiting to download. These counts are for the last 24 hours.
• New: The context menu of tasks (right-click the task to see it) now shows the downloaded filenames. When you click a filename, it will start Windows Explorer with that file pre-selected.
• Fixed: Better detection of corrupt downloads - the downloaded file will be deleted and redownloaded.

Install this new release "on top" of your current release so it will keep your tasks and settings.

New WatchFTP beta

There is a new beta available for WatchFTP 2.1.

This new version fixes an issue where unreliable internet connections could cause corrupt downloads.

There are also a few new features in this release:

The main window has a new column showing the number of files downloaded and the number of files waiting to be downloaded during the last 24 hours.
The "right-click" context menu of tasks shows the downloaded files. Clicking a file starts Windows Explorer with that file pre-selected. After you have selected a file from this menu, it will appear on the menu with a checkmark.

You can find the download on our forum: http://www.watchftp.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1237198278