Way too much fanfiction

[Jeram]

This is a little off topic, but there is some relevance.

By which I mean, there are way too many places to read it.

Right now I regularly read the FFML and RAAC, plus several of my favorite authors on FF.net and the web in general (long past are the days where I would actually look through the Just In section of ff.net).

Over the years I've been on the FFML, I have chiefly used a fairly evil mail program named Micro(cough) Outlook.  But it suits me.

The problem is, some of my folders are actually archives of old FFML and RAAC posts.  I have literally thousands of fanfics.

So imagine this scenario: I accidentally copy all (let's say) 5000 fanfics in one folder to itself by accident (that makes 10,000 all together).  Not only does it take up more space, but now I have to go through deleting every second message.

In the past, this would take me a while.

Now, it now longer does.

I have written a little macro in VBA (which is Visual Basic for Applications) (I should mention that I got the base of the code from some random message board (http://www.experts-exchange.com/Applications/MS_Office/Q_10913861.html), but by the time I was finished with it, it was quite different.  There were actually a few problems with it which I had to fix.  It is now many times faster and less memory-hoggish, and it actually works correctly, unlike the original version.) which will delete all duplicates from a folder or set of folders.  I have load tested it on very large amounts of email messages, and it works perfectly every time.

If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll send it to you.

The reason I mention this is because of the simple reason of making sure my archives didn't have duplicate messages - yes, that's right, I programmed something for fanfiction.

Anyway, that's all I've got.

[Dracos]

hum, nifty.  How good is it on duplicate music files?

Fearless Leader

[Jeram]

That's quite a bit more complicated than the thing I put together - my program only eliminates email messages, not files.

I believe there are a few freeware programs out there that will do that for you, though.

Comparing music files to be equivalent (I'm assuming you don't just mean the titles) can be very difficult work, as the only way I know of to do that is to compare every single file to every other file - which I am certain can not be the best way.

[Rezantis]

Compare size to size, and extension to extension.  Only if that matches would you then want to compare the innards of the file . . . but if you're ignoring titles, you'd also want to skip comparing the mp3 info headers . . .

Yes, fairly complex.  ^^;

[Jeram]

Compare size to size, and extension to extension.  Only if that matches would you then want to compare the innards of the file . . . but if you're ignoring titles, you'd also want to skip comparing the mp3 info headers . . .

Yes, fairly complex.  ^^;

Well there is also the problem of compression - an 8 bit song will be smaller than a 16 bit encoding of the same song, and there are some similarities with the Khz as well.  And I also assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that drac was referring to comparing music files to each other completely.

[Calorn]

Nifty program.  If it works for you use it, I always say(actually I don't, just thought it would be cool to say that).  That's cool how you just programed something for your needs.  I'm like that in other ways.  If I need it and have the materials I will try to make it.  Good shit!!!