Version 2.0 of filewrangler released in mid-2010 with a completely overhauled UI that addresses exactly some of the problems pointed out in the mini-review. In fact, the new interface is radically different from every other similar program and I think reveals its power pretty quickly.

The new version is exclusively available on the Mac App Store for US $9.99.
[itunes.apple.com]

Please check out the detailed, professional PDF manual for a thorough rundown of filewrangler’s features, especially if you need to understand things better before purchasing.
[development.christopherdrum.com]

Wilsher’s utility is quite powerful for not having a scripting language (yes, it supports RegExs), and it has a live preview and even an immediate undo in case you mess up, but its user interface has been rightly described as “747 cockpit.”

Also, at least when using an older version, if I bulk-renamed files on a network share directory at the same time as anyone else was accessing that directory, the result was massive NTFS corruption of the volume directory structure! CHKDSK managed to fix most of the damage, but since then I have been very careful not to use it unless I was sure that nobody else, and no automated processes, were accessing that directory.

The same caveat may well apply to the other utilities. Some brave comparative reviewer really needs to test all of the available solutions, both freeware and commercial, both Windows and Mac OS X (the latter with both AFP [Apple] and SMB [Windows] shares), with this specific danger in mind.

Check out Flash Renamer. It’s my favorite.

[rlvision.com]

$20 though? I think these alternatives are just as good, but they’re free.

We’ve actually written about that handy little app here on the site before. The file renaming operations aren’t quite as advanced as what you can do in some of these programs, but it’s still decent.

I have a Kingston DataTraveler 4GB that has pretty good read/write speeds. I got it a few months back for $7 from Dell, and so I couldn’t pass up the offer. It’s fast enough for Vista’s ReadyBoost, and that’s typically a good sign that it will run your apps fairly well.
[kingston.com]

That would be me. I just looked around our place looking for things I could come up with to use.

[xbitlabs.com]

and by the way! who on earth made the dictionary of words for spam protection!
i just typed STOOL! up there!!! LOL

Incidentally Ryan, what USB drive do you have – I like the idea of having all my programs easily movable but the one I have is dog slow to actually load anything so I’d have to have separate installed versions for my own PC. Know any good reviews or comparisons?