Completely Free Software - e-mail update #18

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The Completely Free E-mail Update #18

Issued Nov 4, 1997

Welcome to the eighteenth edition of the 'Completely Free Software E-mail Update'. Over the past week we've added many new programs, including the ones listed below.

The programs listed are completely free for non-commercial use, even though they may be shareware or commercial products. None are time-limited and all are fully functionable. If you know any that aren't exactly as specified, please let us know and they will be removed immediately.

We are interested in hearing about your favorite freeware and freebie websites so we can share them with others. The Internet is (or should be) about sharing – us to you, you to us, all of us to each other. If you find any of the links broken or changed, please let us know immediately so we can amend the CFS website.

FREE WIN95 PROGRAMS

Web Wizard (aka 'The Duke of URL')
Web Wizard is a handy little program if you don't know anything about creating HTML (web) pages. It leads you through the makings of a basic homepage in a Wizard format and then spits out a finished page. All you have to do then is upload it to your web server. The finished result is very basic but, if you don't have a modern word processing package – like MS Office (yuk!) or Corel WordPerfect Suite (our choice) – which include WYSIWYG web page creation using Wizards like Web Wizard then this is another choice. Certainly, to create a basic web page you do not need to get your hands dirty on HTML code. If you want to create a simple web page, access this 222kB download from: W95 Internet Related

95Extra
95Extra is a terrific little set of Win95 enhancements which do the following: adjust the MaxMTU setting; reduce the size of the disk cache; drag full windows (if you don't have Plus!); double click on a zip file to decompress it; open any right-clicked file in NotePad; add the contents of Control Panel and Dial Up Net on your Start menu; and automatically delete files in the Temp directory when Windows 95 starts up. All in all, a definite plus for Win95 users (but no uninstall). Access this 209kB download from: W95 Windows Extras

Exploit Submission Wizard
ESW is an automated search engine submission program which will submit your website to a number of 'search engines' (most weren't 'engines' as such, just lists). There are some 650 sites available for you to be listed on but the free demo version only submits to a random 19 the first time you use it, 18 the second (many the same as the first lot), 17 the third (ditto), etc. As another tool in site submission it does have a role to play but as your main way of submitting your site we would not rely on the demo version. When you first use this program it checks through all 650 odd sites in its list and this can take quite some time. Not the 10 minutes suggested – another reviewer said that it took him 40 minutes to build up the database (and you have to be on-line for all this to happen) but in our case it took nearly one and a half hours! Of course, that was from Australia – a US site might be more likely to spend the 40 minutes mentioned by the other reviewer. 10 minutes? In whose dream? We found that it listed our site with many site lists (yours just gets added to the end of a looooong list) but few were the 'big ones'. We did a search ourselves for some of these 'search engines' (through Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc) via WebFerret and came up with a zero response. We know they exist – but why? If no-one knows they're there what purpose do they serve unless they are purely dummy sites so that automated site submission tools (like 'Exploit' – what an interesting choice of names!) can have a 'legitimate' place to go...? Let's face it, if you wish to search for a subject (freeware, etc) or a particular site, then you normally go to one of the 'big ones' – and there aren't 650 of those! If you want to get your site on some of these other lists (and some are quite legitimate and very good, like LinkMonster) then you can access this 4MB download from: W95 Internet Related

FreeZip
This is a small zipping/unzipping program which is designed to run from Explorer. Double click on a zip file and it will automatically unzip it into the Windows 'temp' directory (not our favorite place to put files) while retaining long file names and directory structures. You can also right click on a file and you have a choice of zipping it or getting a list of the contents of an existing zip file. With it's seamless integration into Explorer, FreeZip almost disappears from sight until you right click on a file. FreeZip is a well-behaved program which can be easily uninstalled with Win95's Add/Remove Program facility. Access this nifty little 259kB download from: W95 General Programs

GrabIt
Ever needed a filename, and its path, to add to a program? This tiny program (only a 9kB download) will grab a filename (or directory) and add it to your clipboard so it can be pasted into another program (like this: C:\MORE20\MORE.EXE) through a right-click entry in Explorer. This well-behaved program installs by right-clicking on an inf file, and uninstalls through Win95's Add/Remove Programs' utility. Grab this terrific little proggie from: W95 Desktop Utilities

FREE WIN 3.1 & DOS PROGRAMS

Pedit
DOS-based ASCII editors are generally pretty thick on the ground and most are in the 'ho hum' category – you'd wonder why anyone would go out of their way to write a program when Microsoft has included MS-Edit (which doesn't do a bad job) with all recent releases of DOS. Pedit is not just another ASCII text editor and, even though it has a similar look-and-feel to MS-Edit, the enhancements make it a bloomin' marvel. Pedit has such refinements as a spell checker, thesaurus, macro facility, word wrap, heaps of keyboard shortcuts (many based on the old WordStar commands but also includes many Windows ones, like Ctl-X, Ctrl-C, etc) and it even has a pop up table showing ASCII numbers. Win95 users will be pleased to note that it supports long filenames. There are heaps more features, many of them aimed directly at programmers, but the best thing to do is to go and test drive this baby yourself. The options menu is Alt-F1 and there you find everything you need to customize it to your heart's content. Access this 211kB download from: W31 Desktop Utilities

WebWagon v1.5
Win95 users will also love WebWagon (the author says there's a W95 version coming) because you can download whole websites for off-line browsing so easily. WebWagon has a simple interface and you just aim it at the site to be downloaded, check the appropriate boxes as to whether you want associated links downloaded, if you want graphics, even if you want off-site links included (theoretically you could eventually download the whole Internet!). You can even set it to include linked binary files – like software! The downloaded pages are placed in a sub-directory under the 'base' directory for the program and files are renamed numerically so that website subdirectories and links to other sites do not create a problem. Until the author gets his own webpage, the link from the CFS site is to SimTel Net's ftp site for a direct download, but as soon as we can we'll link to the author's webpage (assuming it will be in English – the author is from China). Not just a great program but a small download too! Access this 138kB beauty from: W31 Internet Related

Whack-A-Mole
Ever get a dose of pent up aggression? Do you ever want to grab the world by the throat and shake some sense into it? Do you ever want to just hit out at things? Well, if you do then this stupid game probably won't help much but it might be better (not much) than nothing. The idea is that you have a hammer and there are eight mole-holes on the 'board'. When a mole pops its head up out of a hole then you whack it with the hammer. This is one of those games which is so silly it is almost fun (you don't think that we'd admit playing it for hours, now do you?). If there is no other saving grace, this Win 3.1 game is a measly 48kB download which you can access from: W31 General Games

Spell Checker for Edit Boxes
Superb multi-language (just download the dictionary of your choice) spell checker which will check almost all text-based files (edit boxes), including programs like Eudora Light e-mail client. The program can handle HTML files, e-mail files, RTF files, etc and can have a customizable supplementary dictionary for your own special words. The program is a 130kB download and then you pick the dictionary file(s) you want. For example, US English dictionary is a 328kB (the smallest dictionary) additional download and the Dutch one is a 787kB (the largest) additional download. To use Spell Checker for edit Boxes just highlight the text you want to check, press the 'hot key' combination (default is Ctrl-Alt-F12) and you will soon be all checked out. Access this program (and the language dictionaries) from: W31 General Programs

UPGRADES