A console goodie grab bag

I have a few applications that I have tinkered with, but didn’t make a big enough impression to warrant a full post. Just in the interest of safekeeping the notes I made about them, I’m going to leave a list here, for the future.

ecasound

I found ecasound a long time ago, when I was troubleshooting sound on one Pentium or another. I had hoped that it would help give me some insight in how to set up the ISA sound card, but it wasn’t until much later that I found the answer to that.

Regardless, ecasound has an interactive interface for sound processing, including playback and mixing and quite a few other goodies. I am not enough of a sound geek to want to experiment much with it; if it appeals to you, give it a try.

P.S.: It was last updated in August, so it’s definitely not stale.

id3lib

If you are one of those programmer types who is looking for a project, I have a suggestion: An id3 renaming and tagging application for the console.

Technically speaking, I suppose id3lib by itself can do those things, but like most libraries it’s a bit unwieldy for large collections or heavy-duty editing and fine-tuning. Finding and searching and replacing, for example.

It’s not impossible to use this strictly as a command line tool, or even a la the hacky ogg editor I clumped together a while ago. But something with a bit more panache would be nice.

ised

ised is another command-line calculator, but intended to work in a way that resembles sed. It does have an interface of sorts, so it can function in a way similar to bc or wcalc.

I suppose as a background tool to a script or program that needed heavy calculations, ised would be great. I tried it once a while back and while it does what it promises, that’s about all I remember.

look

look was mentioned as an alternative when I mentioned aspell about six months ago. It relies on the /usr/share/dict/words or /usr/share/dict/web2 files though, and neither of those files appears in any of my systems, even if look does.

It does apparently have uses beyond just checking your spelling, so if it has a use for you that I seem to have skimmed over, let me know.

mdocml

Similarly, mdocml was offered to me via email as a substitute to the man utility, mostly on the grounds that it’s a faster and lighter tool than man.

If I understand it correctly, man relies on groff, which is rather heavy and at times unreliable. If there’s some sort of man vs. mdocml war going on though, it’s news to me.

I usually keep a machine online to check command options or look for example syntax. I rarely use man and have actually run systems that didn’t use it, but I won’t argue if a lighter, faster document interface is helpful to you.

nanoblogger

This one is a bit dusty from sitting in my list for so long. I made a note of it about a year and a half ago, when I was looking for a command-line blogging client, and found charm.

For a few moments I thought nanoblogger was what I was looking for, but it’s actually the opposite, if I understand it right. nanoblogger is the engine, not so much a client.

So if you want something incredibly light to serve as the basis for a web log, something that you host on your own and don’t use an external service for, it might be just right. And it’s actively updated, which is always a good thing.

nn

nn is a newsreader with a long history, if I understand it right. I don’t have much to tell about this one, mostly because I don’t know much about newsreading services. Sorry.

I do know things like alpine and slrn and so forth, and that they too can read news services, but I somehow missed over that intermediary step in life. I have no experience here. 😐

orpie

orpie is another calculator, and one I would probably like a lot, except for two things: First, it needs not only ocaml to build, but ocaml-gsl, and those two together are rather hefty for most of the machines I own.

The other thing is that it’s a reverse polish notation calculator, which is something slightly alien to me. I was required to use an RPN calculator in high school, but it’s not something I’m terrifically comfortable with. I don’t think I’ve used one since then.

On the other hand, it does have a really slick interface and quite a few advanced options. Don’t miss out on this one.

password-wallet

This is a newer project by the look of it, and basically stores passwords in an encrypted text file. The owner can edit the text file and feel reasonably comfortable that their passwords are secure.

I tried it briefly a few months ago and it did what it promised, but again, beyond that I don’t have much to say. I can see where this might be useful though, for example in combination with ssh.

qodem

As a terminal emulator I suppose this has a practical side. I have almost no experience to report with anything that is claims to support though, so I am very much uninitiated on this one.

I would recommend checking it though, since it seems to be receiving updates — some within the last few weeks — so it may be that my ignorance is unknowingly embarrassing. 😳

rdiffdir

rdiffdir is part of the duplicity package, which is in and of itself a rather nifty set of tools. I could show you rdiffdir and post a couple of screenshots, but I wouldn’t be doing a better job that what is already done here.

This is a great tool for someone who needs to synchronize between folders at home and at work, or on non-networked machines. I used it once a long time ago when I was diligent and dedicated and wanted to keep a mirror of my work directory on my home machine. Not so much these days … 😦

svgatextmode

This I couldn’t find much documentation on, and the few places where it is mentioned (like on Freshmeat, above), it is already a decade out of use and probably not really what I need.

If anyone can vouch for it, please leave a note. I turned up my nose because I doubted it would run on newer software, but that comes with the admission that it’s running on older hardware. 😉

That’s all for now. I can clear some of these off my to-do list. And as always, if you know about something that I don’t, please share. 🙂