New WatchFTP release - v2.3

We just released a minor new version of our FTP Site Monitoring tool - WatchFTP. This is, again, a free upgrade for customers.

New / Fixed in this release

• New: When files are blacklisted previous releases ignored those files for 1 hour. This release allows you to set this duration of this blacklist period.
• New: WatchFTP can ignore files of zero size.
• New: French translation / download / support available.
• bugfix: The window where you enter directories to ignore only allowed a few (~5) entries.

So embarrassing....

If you think you are the only one to make stupid mistakes in your (professional) life... We released the new WatchFTP version yesterday with a corrupt executable. Just before releasing, I thought... I should increase the version number to 2.3.5 and rebuild, such a small change - no need to test again.

If you downloaded the 2.3.5 release yesterday and got an error message like
"14001 - this application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect"
Please download/install the new, fixed and tested release again.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you to Jus Selan for his help to figure this out.

Downloads

Download the latest version and install it "on top" of your current release - no need to uninstall.

WatchFTP (English)
WatchFTP (Français) New!
WatchFTP (German)
WatchFTP (Español)

Just a few more days

Just a few more days you can get a nice discount (~25%) on our new programs File Viking and WxRemote. See our latest (actually first) newsletter for more details.

Move File Viking to another Computer

File Viking stores all its settings (configured baskets) in 2 files (baskets.cc and repository.cc). If you want to "copy" your File Viking settings to another computer, follow the steps in this post.

On the Old Computer

Exit File Viking

Open the directory with File Viking Settings. The exact location depends on your operating system.

Vista & Win-7 (Win2008)
Enter %LOCALAPPDATA% in the Search box of your start menu, this will open C:\Users\YourLoginName\AppData\Local and you will find a FileViking sub-directory there.

Earlier Operating Systems (Windows XP, 2000 and 2003)
Enter "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data" in the "Run..." box of your start menu, this will open the directory which has the FileViking sub-directory.

From this File Viking directory, copy the files baskets.cc and repository.cc. You can ignore the Backup files.

On the New Computer

Install File Viking and Run it once so the settings directory will be created. Exit File Viking.

Depending on the Operating System, see the steps above to open the proper File Viking settings directory.

Copy the 2 .cc files from the old computer here, overwriting the 2 files already there.

See Also

Move your WatchDirectory install to another Computer
Move your WatchFTP install to another Computer (soon)

A Collection of Links

Q&A

When we do support for customers we often include links to relevant blogposts. Here is a list of posts we refer to most often.

• Move your WatchDirectory Install to another Computer
  How to transfer your tasks.
  
  
• Send a Task Backup to Support
  Sometimes we need to "see" your task to give proper support.
  
  
• Run Tasks as a Windows Service
  Describes some common problems and workarounds when a task isn't working properly when started as a Windows Service.
  
  
• How Many Tasks does WatchDirectory support
  When people have a lot of tasks (more than ~30), this post gives some ideas how you can reduce that number.
  
  
• Use GMail with WatchDirectory or WatchFTP
  What settings do you need to send email using GMail (and probably other web-based email providers).
  
  

WxRemote version 1.1 Released

We have just released a new version of our WxRemote program. WxRemote is a set of programs that shows you the status of WatchDirectory and WatchFTP tasks on other computers.

New in this Release

• Spanish and French translations
• A lower cost "Standard Edition" is implemented
• Several other small improvements and fixes

Free Upgrade

Current customers (v1.0 release) can install the current release "on top" of their current version. Your v1.0 license key will be recognized as a "Professional" license.

WxRemote is available in 4 languages:

English, German, Spanish and French

Future version

Soon work will start on WxRemote version 1.5. The Professional version will have a Web Interface - Check your tasks with your mobile phone or web browser!
Version 1.5 will be a free upgrade for all WxRemote customers.

How I use File Viking

I run a local medical transcription service company. I subcontract many medical transcriptionists throughout the United States. Doctors upload voice files to me, I distribute the voice files to my transcriptionists, and the transcriptionists upload finished, transcribed documents back to me.

We follow strict naming conventions so we know at a glance what is new, what needs QA, and what is finished. When I receive finished work, I open the folder of work, QA it for errors, then rename it appropriately and place it in a File Viking basket to be placed into the correct finished location on my system.

I process approximately 50 folders of work per day. Using File Viking keeps this entire process virtually seamless.

Maneuvering around in Explorer to get things into the right spot can make your head spin, especially if you do it as often as I do. This product has been wonderfully useful. And I keep thinking of new things I want to try with it to see if I can streamline even more of my day!

Lori Miller
USA Transcription Services Incorporated

File Viking v1.1 Released

A few days ago we released a new version of our innovative file manager File Viking. This is a free upgrade for customers, just download the current version from the File Viking website.

What's New

We implemented 2 new actions to manipulate pictures:

• Create Thumbnail - Use this action to resize images you drop on a basket.
• Convert Image - Use this action to convert between image formats (for example from BMP to PNG)

Both actions can be used as a parent or child of other actions so, for example, you can use the "output" of the Create Thumbnail action as the input of the Upload and/or Email action.

Future releases will add more image manipulation actions, for example to "watermark" your pictures.

Also new: the French language version of File Viking. File Viking is now available in English, German, Spanish and French!

Aussies - Do you want to get our software Free and help a good cause?

Are you from Down Under? Do you want to support YoungCare Australia?

If you make a donation of at least $50 AUD to my niece Mira Koopman (who lives in Australia), you can get a free license of our software. When you make your donation on Mira's Anything-a-Thon donation page, and mention "GDP" somewhere in your published comments, I will be happy to give you a free license of our software.

This offer is valid until October 1st, 2010.

About YoungCare

Currently over 6,500 young Australians are forced to live in aged care facilities, simply because there are few alternatives.

Youngcare's aim is to raise awareness of this national issue by driving change to create real choices in care options for young Australians with full-time care needs. To find out more, visit: www.youngcare.com.au

Gert Rijs,
Owner of GdP Software

Automatic Video Transcoding with HandbrakeCLI

Q&A

A customer, Kai, asked a few questions on our forum how he could configure WatchDirectory's Start any Program task to run Handbrake on newly detected video files. He was able to figure out most of it himself (what do *I* know about video conversion?) after a few tips.

HandBrake is a highly popular open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. It includes a command line version, called HandbrakeCLI which allows for easy automation when used together with WatchDirectory or File Viking's Run Action.

Settings

Here you see Kai's setting for his WatchDirectory task. He uses a rather long line for "Parameters for this program", so here is the plain text version:

-i "%WD_FILE%" -f mp4 -w 720 -l 400 -e x264 -b 1000 -2
     -a 1 -E faac -6 dpl2 -R 48 -B 128 -D 0.0 -v 1
     -o "C:\Converted Videos\%WD_FILE_B%.mp4"

I added a few linebreaks, but obviously they should be on 1 line. You will notice he uses 2 variables:

• %WD_FILE% - this will be replaced by the full path of the detected file by WatchDirectory.
• %WD_FILE_B% - this will be replaced by just the name of the detected file.

The full list of supported variables

Important Setting

When you are transcoding videos with Handbrake and WatchDirectory like this, please be aware that video transcoding is a very slow, time consuming process. WatchDirectory has no way of knowing if a program started by it is "hanging" or just busy working. In this case Kai has set "Wait for program to exit" to 14400 seconds (4 hours), which should be more than enough if you run this on a reasonably modern computer. If you set this too low, WatchDirectory will "kill" the Handbrake process prematurely.

If you disable "Wait for program to exit" and multiple video's are detected by WatchDirectory, WD will start multiple Handbrake processes to transcode multiple video files. This is only advised for the most powerful computers.

If you use File Viking

File Viking's Run Action can also run HandbrakeCLI, but its environment variables have slightly different names:

• %FV_FILE% - this will be replaced by the full path of file you dropped on the File Viking basket.
• %FV_FILE_B% - this will be replaced by just the name of the dropped file.

File Viking currently always waits for the program to exit, there is no need to set a timeout.

Hey Sysadmin, Do you like Scripts? 101% Flexibility!

A lot of our customers are Sysadmins, and they love to create little scripts to make their work a little easier.

All our programs have the option to run batch files, (power) shell scripts and real programs. Maybe that tells you something about our background in computing.

File Viking - The Drag & Drop File Processor

Our new program, File Viking, has a Run Action that can run programs or scripts. Every file you drop on a File Viking basket will be passed as an Environment Variable to your bat script or program.

A subdirectory, called SampleScripts, of File Viking's install directory has a few bat files to get you started. Convert pictures to PDF or PNG, Resize Pictures or UNRAR files.

Remember, you can get File Viking at a 25% discount in August! See this blogpost.

WatchDirectory - Monitor Directories for Changes

Our very first released program (2003). Currently, WatchDirectory can do a lot of things when it detects new files in your Windows directory. When we first released WD (version 1.0) it could only run batch files and obviously it still can.

There are lots of example scripts on this blog. Most scripts can be used, with minor changes, for our other programs as well.

WatchFTP - Monitor your FTP Server for new Files

When WatchFTP downloads a file it can run a script on that file. For example to import the file into your database or copy it somewhere else.

Your customers upload files, WatchFTP downloads them to your computer.

WxRemote - Remote Control of your WatchDirectory & WatchFTP tasks

Our WxRemote program is a different animal. If you have multiple WatchDirectory or WatchFTP installs it allows you to start and stop tasks from another computer. It also allows you to run Remote Scripts for selected WatchDirectory or WatchFTP tasks. A future version (free upgrade) will have an HTML interface as well! Control your tasks from your phone!

This is a program you really want if you manage multiple WatchDirectory and/or WatchFTP installs. In August use the discount code WXAUGUST to buy WxRemote with a 25% discount.

File Viking Released

A few days ago we released our new program File Viking, The Drag & Drop File Processor.

With File Viking you can automate your repetitive file handling tasks. Create several "baskets" (icons floating above your desktop) and configure what File Viking should do with files you drop on those baskets. For example, ZIP the files and upload the ZIP to your FTP server.
Alternatively, instead of using Drag & Drop, use the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer to add the selected files to a basket.

Several other "Actions" are available and we expect to add a lot more in the near future. All version 1.x releases will be free updates.

File Viking is currently available in 3 languages: English , German and Spanish.
We expect to release a French version soon.

Introduction Offer

If you buy File Viking in August, use the discount code FVAUGUST in our webshop to get File Viking with a 25% discount.

Send a Task Backup to Support

Q&A

When you contact us about an issue with a WatchDirectory task we may ask you to send us the settings and history for us to look at. We may also ask you to enable "Debug" for your task before you send us the backup.

This posts has all the tiny little details.

Enable Debug Info

On the "Other Settings" window enable the option "[X] Write Debug Info". Now run the task. After a while, when you know the problem has occurred again, stop the task and create the backup for us (see further down below).

The FTP (Upload) Task

If the task is an FTP (Upload) Task, there is an extra "debug" setting you need to enable, "[X] Write FTP Conversation to History". This will output all FTP commands and responses to the history database.

Just before you backup this FTP task, you may want to edit it again to temporarily change the username/password. The encrypted password is stored inside the backup.

Create the Backup

• Stop the task
• Right-click the task, a context menu opens.
• Select the option "Backup selected task(s)

This will create a ZIP file of your task settings and its history for us to look at.

Task History

If you want to look into the history info yourself and you are not familiar with WD's History Viewer, please read the post How Task History Works first.