Completely Free Software - e-mail update #31

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The Completely Free E-mail Update #31

Issued Feb 24, 1998

Welcome to the thirty-first edition of the 'Completely Free Software E-mail Update'.

The programs listed are completely free for non-commercial use, even though some 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.

COMPLETELY FREE PROGRAMS

Starfish Internet Utilities Lite – W95 This is the older version of Starfish's Internet Utilities Lite and is definitely better than what is being offered now from the Starfish site. The set of utilities can be set to dock on the left, right, top or bottom of your screen or to float horizontally or vertically. By default it docks on the right hand side of the screen and just shows a set of named tabs. Click on a tab and the whole program opens up to expose the links associated with that tab, called 'QuickMarks'. There's a tab titled 'Search' which lists all the top search engines, others called 'News', 'Shopping', 'Cool', 'Bookmarks' (taken from your browser's bookmark file), 'Applications' (a nice array of programs from your computer), 'Desktop' (the contents of your Windows desktop) and a last one titled 'Starfish' which includes a link to register the program. The licence with the program says that it will only work for 30 days unless it is registered (free) and when you go to the Starfish site the only options for registration of this program is 'Other'. We registered with Starfish but received nothing back from them so we exited from the program, altered our PC's clock by advancing it one year, and then started up Internet Utilities Lite program again. It worked OK. The registration requirement might be bogus, or there could well a signal sent back to your program to 'register' it – we just don't know. Either way, it appears that after registering the program should continue to work. We would be interest in any feedback from our readers on this one. These utilities also include 'InternetMeter' (gives you quite a lot of information about your Internet connection) a file zipping/unzipping utility and the ability to really customize these 'QuickMarks'. Add, subtract, alter, there's really not much you can't do to get the program exactly how you like it. Starfish Internet Utilities is quite intrusive on your desktop and some may not like this intrusion. You can get it to totally hide from view when closed, only appearing when the cursor is waved over the area where it is but it leaps out when you don't want it to and can scare the pants off you if you forget about it. Do yourself a favor and try Internet Utilities Lite, you can always take it off later if you don't find it suits you. Give it a fair trial though because it really does grow on you. Access this 1.99MB download from: W95 Internet Related

Wordworth – W95 Wordworth is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processor which looks and feels like a cut-down version of MS Word – it even sports the new 'flat' look buttons! It has all the basic features associated with a professional word processor – mail merge, drawing tools (lines, boxes, circles, ovals, arcs, freehand lines, polygons, regular polygons, floating text frames & picture frames), auto text replacement (corrects commonly misspelt words), toolbar, text sort, style sheets, image insertion, document statistics (includes number of words and characters), all tabs (left, right, centered and decimal), and lots more. It has almost everything that you could need for 99% of your word processing except for one thing – there's no spell checker! Aaaarrggghhh! This is because the spell checker Wordworth users is a British English Collins 110,370 word dictionary with 26,000 Merriam-Websters legal medical supplement and it is not provided free. What a shame! The Helpfile still mentions the spell checker but, alas, it is not provided in this free version (yes, you can pay for the updated version which DOES have the spell checker!). Of course, you can always use an external spell checker like the multi-language 'Spell Checker for Edit Boxes' which you can get from the Win 3.1 General Programs page which will do the job for you but which might not always be kind to your formatting. If only it had a spell checker... Still, Wordworth IS a valuable and very, very professional word processor, and is not even a large download at 1.54MB. Access it from: W95 Text Programs

Psimath – W31 (suitable W95) Psimath is a modular mathematical calculator with the following features:

Lacking any Helpfile, unless you fully understand the features listed above then don't bother to download this calculator – use the one which comes with Windows. However, if you have a use for a full function mathematical calculator then you won't get any better than this one, free or otherwise! And you even get a 'Thought For The Day'. Access this 2.02MB download from: W31 General Programs

Alexa for Netscape & IE – W95 Alexa is one of those great tools with lots of different aspects. Alexa follows through Web addresses and searches its own 8 tetrabyte database to prevent you from getting 404 messages, etc. It also displays quite a lot of information about the domain you're looking at (even allowing you to rate that address so that everyone gets an indication of what it's like). It also has links to the Mirriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus. Alexa supplies heaps of information in all sorts of ways and you would be doing yourself a big favor to get a copy and have a look. However, don't get caught up with the Encyclopaedia Britannica search (one of the options offered). When it comes to finding actual articles you get a message stating that an article search costs $8.50 per month or $85 per year. Alexa comes in two versions, a 1.61MB download for Netscape and a 917kB download for Internet Explorer. Access both versions from: W95 Internet Related

Trowser v1.01 – W31 (suitable W95) Trowser is a simple program to view and install True Type fonts. The simple interface reflects the small 25kB download but there is sufficient usability to make this a very worthwhile program. Determine where your fonts are located (CD-ROM, etc) and where you want them to go (usually C:\Windows\System but this program allows them to be stored anywhere) and if you want to install the font after viewing it, make sure that the "Copy TTF file to destination directory" checkbox is marked and it will even copy it where is has to go before installing. We used a CD-ROM with nine zillion font files to check it and found that about 5% were not displaying properly, but then that was with a Win95 system. Go get this terrific little proggie from: W95 Desktop Utilities

Mr. Internet – W95 Mr. Internet is a simple application which sits in your desktray so that when you want to connect to the Internet all you have to do is click on the icon. It starts the dial-up network and will then optionally loads the browser of your choice, ftp client, e-mail client, news client and/or chat client. This simple program really is amazing in that it makes connecting to the Internet and loading your basic Net programs so easy. It is also only a 26kB download! Access this marvel from: W95 Internet Related

Odd Job – W31 (suitable W95) Odd Job is a personal information manager (PIM) complimented with a bevy of utilities. The PIM itself is fairly normal and allows you to create an address book as a 'form' (a bit cumbersome but it does work) and also control appointments, etc. You can import data from the Win 3.1 CardFile and even remove some of the entries from the drop down menus. The color scheme is not the greatest and we found it looked much better in 'monochrome' (an option). The expansive utility set includes Calculator, Clip Text, Icon Extractor, Timer, Clock, Day Minder, Duplicate Files Finder, Alarms, Today's Appointment, Week at a Glance, Sort Text Box, Drag & Drop, System Resources Monitor, and an excellent Font Viewer (allows you to print all of your fonts or select those to print). Overall the utilities are the cream which turns an ordinary program into a powerful suite. Access this 432kB download from: W31 General Programs

Easy Control – W95 This is a terrific little utility which lives in the desktray and gives you instant access to either Control Panel or one of 15 separate programs within Control Panel (Add/Remove Programs, Network, System, etc) This is one utility which won't suck up all your resources as unzipped the program is only 15kB in size and the download is a tiny 6kB! Go grab this fabulous application from: W95 Windows Extras

UPDATES

Caldera's OpenDOS has had a name change back to DR-DOS and an upgrade to version 7.02. If you are looking for an alternative to MS-DOS then go grab DR-DOS. It has a host of features not even thought about when MS-DOS 6.22 was released (well, maybe thought about but certainly not included!) and also includes Personal NetWare as an option on the download. Don't miss the fabulous action arcade game NetWars which is worth the download on its own (and it will run under Win95 too!). The 'Lite' version (doesn't have NetWare) is a 3.2MB download and the full suite is 6MB. Go grab DR-DOS 7.02 from: W31 General Programs

WildRen has been upgraded to version 1.2. This utility allows you to easily change filenames and extensions within W95 (often impossible through Explorer). This new version supports directory tree recursion and renaming directories. Access this great tool from: W95 Desktop Utilities

Excalibur for Windows has now been released as version 1.0. It is a fabulous Win95 RPN calculator with function banks for scientific, statistics, business, programming (computer science), geometry, conversion and complex numbers. Storage and recall registers provided. User defined constants. Currency conversion with user defined exchange rates. Macro record and playback supported. Custom bank allows a user to select and see just the buttons and macros they use most. Phew! And it even adds, multiplies and divides too! Go get this is terrific calculator from: W95 General Programs

COMMENTS

We'd like to thank the regular visitors to the CFS site who have told us their favorite freeware. If you have a favorite program which isn't listed on the CFS pages we invite you to share that information with everyone through this site and this newsletter. If you are an author of a freeware app and you would like it listed on these pages please write in with the program's URL and a brief description to editor@completelyFREEsoftware.com.

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