Category: Useful Applications

I was working with some text the other day which included a lot of references using numbers in square brackets; I needed to remove this text and wanted an easy way of doing it.

I did a little research and found that Notepad++, an application I already use, can do regular expression find and replace.

The regular expression for a number surrounded by square brackets is:

\[(\d+)\]

To use the regular expression in find and replace, enter the regular expression into the Find what box and change the Search Mode to Regular expression:

When you hit Replace, or Replace All, the regular expression will be used to repalce the matching text with the supplied replacement value.

After posting about a couple of useful websites, I thought I’d do a useful application. Flashback Express can be sued to record short training or demo videos. While it can be used to capture the webcam, I have been using it to record the screen and sounds; for one video I needed to record both myself and someone else speaking and Flashback Express easily allowed me to capture sound from both the microphone and speakers.

Videos are recorded in a native format, but can be both exported to WMV or MP4 as well as exported directly to a YouTube channel.

Continue reading “Record short training or demo videos”

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

As I am sure is apparent, I like Balsamiq Mockups and have used it quite a few times now to design screens for projects. It is very easy to use and allows for rapid creation of screen mockups which you can design while talking to a client. I find it useful for designing the screen as we talk about options and how things might look.

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

Balsamiq is a simple program to use for creating mockups. The available objects are available along the top of the screen; you simply drag-and-drop the object where you want it on the page:

The mockup shown above only took me a couple of minutes to create. Within a project you can create several mockups which are grouped together within the project.

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

Once you have downloaded Balsamic Mockups 3, launch the file and click the Install button:

Continue reading “Balsamiq Mockups 3: Install”

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

The desktop version of Balsamiq, Balsamiq Mockups 3, can be easily downloaded and used under a 30 day free trial so you can make sure you’ll be able to use it. After navigating the the link, click the large blue Download Mockups 3 button:

Continue reading “Balsamiq Mockups 3: Download”

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

Mockups 3 for Desktop is a one time purchase and there are no maintenance costs for the license; in addition, licenses are tied to humans and not a particular machine so you can work on it on a desktop and laptop with the same license. A single user license currently costs $89.99, but there are volume licenses available with discounts starting at 5 users and increase with volume.

I use the desktop version as I often work offline (when travelling and on dodgy WiFi) and don’t like recurring subscriptions.

With the desktop license, minor-version updates are also free (so 3.2, 3.3, etc.) and there are no maintenance or renewal costs to keep using the software; major-version updates will have an additional cost, but as updates are not required, you will be able to continue to use version 3 if you don’t wish to purchase a major version update.

This post is part of the series on Balsamiq Mockups 3.

Balsamiq Wireframes is a rapid low-fidelity UI wireframing tool which reproduces the experience of sketching on a notepad or whiteboard, but using a computer. It aims to force you to focus on structure and content early in the design process, avoiding lengthy discussions about colors and details which should come later.

Balsamiq have a YouTube channel with a number of introductory videos and tutorials.

Continue reading “Balsamiq Mockups 3: What is Balsamiq Mockups 3?”

I’ve posted about a number of useful applications in the past FileZilla, Windows 10 Calculator Replacement and Notepad++ as examples) and will post more in future. The subject of this small series, is Balsamiq Mockups.

Over the next few posts, I’ll take a look at what it is and how to install and use it.

Continue reading “Balsamiq Mockups 3: Series Index”

I did a post a little while ago on changing the theme in Notepad++, which was brought about by preferring to use dark themes in a lot of apps (such as Outlook.com and here on azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant). With Notepad++ I’ve found that I don’t actually like any of the default dark themes so took a look round to see if I could add a new one.

Fortunately, it is possible and there are a number of themes people have created which can be downloaded and used. In this post, I’m going to show how to install and use a new theme.

The theme I have decided to try is Dracula:

Continue reading “Install New Theme In Notepad++”