Looking for some reminder or planner tool

[Ratty]

ReminderFox. A Firefox extension. I like it because it's in the browser which I'm using all day at work anyway. I stopped using it because I couldn't seem to set it to remind me to take my medicine at the same time every day. Though now I see the latest version now includes "Daily" in the Repeat dialog, so I think I'll give it a try again.

 

http://reminderfox.mozdev.org/faq.html

[SneaksieDave]

ReminderFox

Oooh, very nice. Thanks.

 

Edit: Then again, this thing's kinda buggy. Yeah it's versatile and can keep a great list for you. However, I wouldn't rely on the notifications for anything important. It's failing often in my tests, and I'm talking about relatively simple stuff: set a alarm for 5 mins from now and wait... sometimes fails. Why? When one succeeds, Snooze for 5 mins... fail. It just failed as I'm making this update. What the hell? Then you can force it to trigger the alarms (late, as a "Missed Alert" - yeah thanks for that!), by making a change to the list and exiting the UI. I've seen this type of bad behavior before, in fact in the last one of these I tried years ago. Is it really so hard for something to remember to fire alarms at specific times? Maybe it's something wrong with the Windows internal clock functions, like optimizations breaking these types of apps.

[Domarius]

Yes, the Quicktime tray icon has probably caused me to right click and left click to close it first thing after starting up at least several thousand times. I've taken it off several times too, but it always weasels its way back in somehow.

Don't use quicktime to actually play quicktime files.

 

VLC plays everything, even FLV files

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

[Fidcal]

Mmmm... I'll try that Videolan. Never found any Windows player yet that I really like. But the website is well laid out with good navigation which is a good sign. (not really! They might have a good webmaster but crap coders!)

[Crispy]

+1 for VLC. It plays almost everything.

 

It's not always good at jumping to arbitrary locations in the file (depends on the file format - AVI is fine but don't try it with FLV, for example), but other than that no complaints.

[Fidcal]

No, not for me. I just tried it. It loses my window size settings so I have to resize it every time else I can't read the status bar which is massively truncated. I can't find any repeat option. When a track is finished it screws the window up even tighter so even the status bar and slider disappear - in fact there is no visible clue that any track is loaded at all until I - yes - resize it back again. If already loaded and I select an audio track from Explorer then VLC plays but is hidden behind other windows. Might be OK for users who have a fine font, short paths, and never want to repeat a track. Maybe there is a repeat? Click Preferences - No. Click on Help - oh! Just 'About' and 'Check for Updates'. No thanks.

 

I'll probably keep it installed if I'm desperate for some format that won't play on anything else but I don't like it. Seems to focused on extra features but overlooks the basics that I like.

[Ratty]

VLC is crap, sorry. Its only redeeming benefit is that it plays almost everything. But the developer seemed to have stopped there. It doesn't have really have any features beyond play. I'm not even sure rewind works. Maybe it does. It always crashes on me.

 

I recommend Super: http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

 

It's free and it converts ANYTHING to ANYTHING. Weird format? .flv file? Convert it to several different flavors of .wmv or .avi or .divx or .mov, etc. and then use the viewer of your choice. Simple to use drag and drop interface. I love this little program.

 

It's a little annoying in small ways. It insists on being in the center of your screen. You can't, apparently, drag and drop multiple files at once. You can drag them one at a time then convert them all as a batch. When you're converting a batch of files, if one of them generates an error it stops the conversion completely, rather than just skip it and continue on to the next one in the list. The interface isn't very Windows-y. No menu bar, bah! Still, I use it all the time.

 

Hmmm, I just noticed it says it can PLAY these files too. Interesting. Still, I have my doubts as to that feature. I prefer to use the program of my choice to play.

[Domarius]

@Fidcal

VLC is good for playing the myriad formats of video files you'll download from the web. I agree about the missing repeat feature, but it's constantly being updated, can't be far off.

 

Your graphics glitches are odd - try updating your video drivers?

[Crispy]

Sounds like it's not dealing with non-standard font sizes correctly. That's unfortunate, though I would suppose that this is not uncommon for cross-platform apps.

 

There is a repeat function. It's on the toolbar in the Playlist window. And rewinding to the beginning does work. It's never crashed on me either.

 

I guess we have different notions of what "basic functionality" is. I wouldn't use it for a day-to-day media player, but if I want to play a movie it's always my first choice. Other players whine about missing codecs, drop frames, can't deal with any kind of corruption (VLC is admirably good at error recovery - if VLC won't play an AVI on a scratched CD, then nothing will) and just generally fuck up. But VLC keeps ploughing right on, no matter what you throw at it.

 

No need to track down codecs, it's all self-contained. No need for an install process if you don't want to; keep it on a USB stick and you can run it anywhere you like, which is very handy.

 

I don't use it for audio-only files, even though it can play them; it's called VideoLAN for a reason. It's not really designed for playing audio tracks.

 

It certainly is missing lots of extra features that most media players have these days - a media library, for example. But heck, I just want to play my file, I don't need a bloody media library. Nor do I want a built-in web browser, CD track name downloading, memory-gobbling and ugly skinning functionality, or compulsory advertising. The number of media players these days whose design teams decided that all of the preceding features are necessary is depressingly large.

 

Under these criteria, VLC is gold. But if you're looking for a fully-featured Xtreme Multimedia Xperience Manager with bells and whistles and iPod connectivity, look elsewhere.

[Domarius]

Cool - you should write for their website

[Fidcal]

The font thing is mostly due to a common flaw in programs - a refusal to store the player's choice of window size/position. So, although they may allow you to resize, they won't remember it next time you open the program - or even ten seconds later if it is a ten second sound effect. If I could drag out that window and it stayed like that then it would immensely improve the program for me. But second, the divided status bar allocates a minimal amount for the first sections - if they expanded then it would be readable on my system.

 

Now I see the repeat - thanks - but I never use playlists or media libraries etc. so it is too much of a nuisance to use that just to repeat. It is these seemingly small things - that could have easily been fixed - that can exasperate a user. But it's worth keeping installed to try if I come across some format that won't play on anything else.