Bulk Rename Utility: The Missing Link of Utility Software Awesomeness

The Bulk Rename Utility is a free Windows app from the makers of ViceVersa.

And it is awesome.

Of course, this is something only a true geek like myself can get excited about… but in all honesty it is the single most welcome addition to my arsenal of software tools in many years.

Every so often (or, as seems to be the case lately, every freaking day) I need to rename a large number of files from pattern X to pattern Y.  Usually this involves firing up Cygwin and working out some kind of rename script snippet.  Not rocket science this, but enough to make me groan inwardly.

I’ve tried a couple of rename utilities over the years; none powerful enough to replace script writing.

BRU is different.  You can see from the screenshot that it has intuitive (well, kind of) filters for just about any possible renaming combination.  Best of all it gives you a preview of how your files will be renamed… before you accidentally mung that entire directory tree.  BRU includes many, many more features, including exotic transformations such as renaming photos from EXIF extensions as well as renaming MP3 files using ID3 tags.

Anyway, enough gushing of the geekery.  It’s a nice tool.  Recommended.

Boston’s Bizarre Christmas Castle

Imagine a three-story tall castle-shaped Lite Brite flanked by a small army of seven-foot inflatable Weeble-Wobble-like iconic Christmas sentries… and you may just barely be able to grasp what it is like to stand before Dominic Luberto’s “Castle of Christmas” in Jamaica Plain on the outskirts of Boston.

Boston Christmas Castle

The “Castle” was pretty impressive last year, when the lights alone appear to have cost about $10,000 dollars. But this year its over the top. Literally. Atop Luberto’s $2 million dollar domicile this year sits a ten-foot high 650 pound illuminated gold crown.

Apparently back in November the city was after Luberto, stating that the crown is a permit-requiring structure. Luberto claimed it to be just a “temporary Christmas decoration.” He must have won; the crown was still up when we went to see it last night.

Even more bizarre than the display itself is the fact that Luberto seems to be using it to advertise his own version of Where’s Waldo.

An illuminated sign out front, finddominicdecorating.com, points to a self-published book available from AuthorHouse.com.

finddominicdecoratingcom.jpg

find-dominic-decorating.jpg

The “Free Preview” paragraph on AuthorHouse proudly declares:

Hi kids! This is your friend Dominic. I’ll decorate my Castle for Christmas. Can you guess which decorations I will use? Dominic will love to paste some of the book pictures but this program doesn’t let us do that.

Woah.

So with marketing collateral like that, what else could I do? I ordered a book from my friend Dominic. Hopefully the program will let him send it to me.