Flexible Thunderbird Loader

Some time ago, I created a Mozilla Thunderbird (TB) loader for my personal use (on Windows). It makes TB totally portable, works with any TB version and can be applied to already installed versions. Maybe others like the way it works, too. So I decided to make it available here and to write a small documentation.
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Python backup/snapshot script with compression (BZ2, 7zip)

While writing my master thesis with LaTeX, I often change source code files, graphics etc. It is important for me to keep track of the major changes as well as I have to prevent losing the whole work due to some data loss issue. To solve these two problems, I wrote a convenient Python backup script.
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Just for fun: binary to ascii in Python

0110100001110100011101000111000000111010001011110010111101111000011010110110001101100100001011100110001101101111011011010010111100110101001100010011100000101111

Seriously, you really want to know what’s behind this!
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Is your software up to date? Easy and convenient security check..

Secunia offers a great online security check:
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/.

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LaTeX Briefvorlage

In den letzten Monaten musste ich des Öfteren wichtige formale Briefe versenden und natürlich vorher erstellen. Einmal nahm ich mir die Zeit, dieses vernünftig mit LaTeX (freies Textsatzsystem) zu tun und war total begeistert: das Ergebnis sieht ungemein professionell aus und wenn man sich einmal eingearbeitet und eine Vorlage erstellt hat, ist jeder neue Brief extrem schnell und einfach zu erstellen — schneller und viel besser, als man es mit einer Office-Anwendung schaffen könnte. Als LaTeX-Neuling ist man jedoch auf eine Vorlage, an der man sich orientieren kann, angewiesen. Diese möchte ich mit diesem Beitrag liefern.
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Fotobatch 0.5: multicore support for image resizing / bugfix

Important news for everyone using Gurkes Fotobatch: The new version 0.5 introduces multicore/multiprocessor support for image resizing and fixes a small bug.
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Illustrated introduction to Fotobatch (tutorial)

Hello world,

as you perhaps know, I am developing a small digital photo processing tool (for Windows systems): Gurkes Fotobatch. I’m about to release version 0.5 and avail myself of the opportunity to introduce the function of Fotobatch to you by means of some text and screenshots.
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Convert all PDF files in a directory to PNG images

I just needed to convert several PDF graphics to PNG raster graphics. The cleanest way to do this is via Ghostscript (example: gs -sDEVICE=png16m -sOutputFile=tiger.png tiger.pdf). For convenience I made a Python script that converts all PDF files in the working directory to PNG files via Ghostscript. I use it under Windows, but this works for “all” operating systems. Let me share it with you.
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Fotobatch 0.4

I just released Gurkes Fotobatch 0.4.
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Performance issue with newest Super Talent UltraDrive GX 128 GB [Update2]

This blog post is about a crucial performance drop in recent Super Talent UltraDrive GX 128 GB drives with an “XXXX” in the serial number. Up to now, all official tests and benchmarks show a much better performance than the drive you would order now, so read this before buying!
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