Welcome to the fiftieth – and the first birthday! – edition of the 'Completely Free Software E-mail Update'. We hope our American friends have enjoyed their Independence Day celebrations.
The programs listed here 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.
FIRST BIRTHDAY
Welcome to the first birthday edition of this weekly e-mail newsletter! We are pleased to have reached this milestone after a traumatic year which has seen enormous growth in the CFS site. For those of you who have recently found this "best kept secret on the Internet" (as one visitor noted), here is a very brief outline of how the site started.
When editor, Graham Pockett, started his homepage in May 1996 he included a page titled "Interests". Among a list of his hobbies and interests, he included about five or six freeware programs he regularly used (he was a BBS junky up until that time and enjoyed browsing the local bulletin boards for freeware). These programs were listed under the sub-heading "Completely Free Software".
In early 1997, with the site still Spartan and the average daily visitor rate just 20 people, an Australian magazine – MegaGuide To The Internet – featured the site in the section "Best Web Sites" and used the tag: "Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch!" While other major sites (like Yahoo!) received a site title and URL listing (two lines in a single column), the CFS site received a huge write up, taking up about one fifth of a page (the equivalent of 26 lines by two columns)! Suddenly the site stats went crazy as Australians found themselves enjoying this "free lunch". Friends around the world were e-mailed and the site was listed on many newsgroups. The site is still being featured in magazines and newspapers and recently the august Chicago Tribune mentioned this site in an article on Web software – the only truly freeware site listed among such heavyweights as ZDNet, AOL and Microsoft!
From these humble beginnings the freeware section of the "Interests" page grew and grew until freeware filled that page, displacing other fascinating information (like that Graham is a fan of The Beatles – we've always said that he's locked in a time warp!). Added programs meant more pages until that original "Interests" page was just the main index for the site. When that first page split it became a series of pages – one for the index (the original interest.html), one for Win95 programs (interest2.html), one for Win 3.1 and DOS programs (interest3.html), one for Various Resources (interest4.html) and one for WebAuthor's Freebies (interest5.html). The two program's pages (interest2.html and interest3.html) were further split as required by more and more programs being added (the site currently adds about 50 programs per month).
Some of you would have seen links to "interest.html#Software" (under various servers – Terrigal Net in Australia, GeoCities in the US, OzEmail in Australia, Tripod in the US, and ComCen in Australia) prior to the use of the CFS domain name. This is the explanation for that unusual page name. Just as a side issue, the only link not currently standing is from Terrigal Net in Australia which was Graham's first ISP. Go to the old GeoCities link at http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/2856/interest.html#Software – which hasn't been actively used for well over 12 months – and you will find a re-direction to the CFS site (though at present it is only to the new Tripod site while changes are being made to the domain name server). Continuing links and backwards compatibility have been important aspects of the CFS site so that our visitors can continue find us. Even the use of a domain name was delayed because, if not done properly, it could mean that it would be harder for previous visitors to find the site again.
As we mentioned, the domain name is currently experiencing server changes and we are in the process of changing over to a superfast server based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, a few meters from the common access point for the Philadelphia hub. The server is a Sun Sparc 20 with 128 meg of RAM connected via a 10Mbps line (about six times the speed of a T1). We have been offered this hosting on music.note.com, courtesy of Freedback.com (Freedback.com hosts the Survey Section of CFS "Green Form" and our Submit Software form). If you want to add a free cgi-based form to your website then we recommend you visit http://www.Freedback.com/?CFS and tell them that you heard about their excellent free service from the CFS site.
The CFS site is dedicated to providing completely free – and legal – Windows (3.x & 9x only at this stage) and DOS software for home use. We are not currently including specific Windows NT or CE software because we believe that these two platforms are designed primarily for business use. If this changes, so will our attitude towards them. We don't aim to be everything to everybody – just to offer links to the very best software we can within our charter.
We also hope to provide some goods and services specific to this site. A T-shirt is currently in production which will feature this site, and CD-ROMs of the software are also being investigated. Please tell us what software, goods or services you want (as long as they follow our general guidelines) and we will endeavor to get them for you. If you have a product which you feel could be suitable for this site please write to editor, Graham Pockett, at cockatoo@comcen.com.au and let him know your proposal.
This special issue of the weekly newsletter does not feature reviews of new software like our other newsletters. However, we have provided a list of the software we use. These are not always our 'top' rated programs but ones we regularly use and feel comfortable with.
WHAT PROGRAMS WE USE
We are often asked what programs we use and what type of equipment we have. The test computer is a very basic P133 with a total of 2.2 gig of hard disk space (not enough, we need another 8 gig!), a 2 meg S3 video card (boring), 80 meg of RAM and uses Win95 as the O/S. The commercial programs which grace our hard drive include Corel Wordperfect Suite 8 Professional (superb); CorelDraw 8 (OK); Micrografx Webtricity (excellent, most of our graphics have been done using this suite); Norton Anti-Virus; and Norton Utilities (both excellent). We also use the shareware program, SetMeUp, for many of our Win95 tweaks.
The freeware programs we use regularly include the following...
W95 Text-based Programs
Cetus CWordpad – a basic word processor with spell checker which has been based of Microsoft's Wordpad. We use it for making on-line notes when we're surfing (for copying URLs, etc we find on-line), and for all other word processing where fancy layouts aren't required (95% of our word processing is done using CWordpad). Super NoteTab, the absolutely best all-round text editor we've found for the W95 environment. Because Programmers File Editor offers line numbers, we use it to hold our database of subscriber's names and addresses (and therefore keep tabs on how many subscribers we have). Find these programs at: W95 Text Programs
W95 Graphics Programs
Ulead's PhotoImpact Viewer has been our choice for viewing various image formats, mainly because it is fast to load and supports animated GIFs. While the others listed are certainly terrific viewers, PhotoImpact has been like a comfortable old shoe for us and we've been loath to change it. If you want to try PhotoImpact Viewer for yourself, get it at: W95 Graphics Programs
W95 Multimedia
Yamp is arguably the best audio player we've used. However the top three on our list (Yamp, maplay and BCM's Media Center) are all so terrific that it really is personal preference which one you'll choose for yourself. Check out: W95 Multimedia Programs
W95 General Programs
We use Split Files Shell Extension for splitting up large files into chunks small enough to be transported by floppy disk. The screensaver we use on our test computer was created by Pineapplehead Juicer (this is not the same screensaver as mentioned in this newsletter and which was created by the commercial program, Eclipse – a new screensaver will be created by Fandango when we get time). We also enjoy 'playing' with Amiglobe, the world atlas program and use Contact Book for our address book listing. Other W95 general programs we use regularly include: PowerZip file archiver (for all our unzipping – we've found none better than PowerZip); and the excellent Past, Present and Future calendar. All of these programs can be accessed from: W95 General Programs
W95 Internet Related
Our primary browser is Netscape Navigator 4.05 but, while we feel MS Internet Explorer 4, is not quite as good as Navigator, it is still an essential item on our desktop. WS_FTP LE is a fabulous ftp client and we use it exclusively for all file uploading. No other ftp client seems to do everything as easily as WS_FTP. Eudora Light is our choice of e-mail client. We have tried the opposition but keep on coming back to Eudora. Microsoft Gif Animator is used for our animations, even though we have heavyweight commercial programs which do the same. Arachnophilia is the souce-code HTML editor of our choice, though we do occasionally use HomeSite v1.2 when we need features that program includes. We feel that a combination of the two is best, with Arachnophilia being used 95% of the time. Other terrific Internet-related programs we use constantly include: Net Vampire ftp downloader; WebFerret; InfoLink Checker; Endora V1.3; TypeItIn; and Country Codes. You can access these programs from: W95 Internet Related
W95 Windows Extras
More Properties – to 'adjust' the W95 desktop to suit our requirements. Much better than Tweak GUI that Microsoft offers with the Power Toys download, More Properties allows us to carry out basic registry alterations/improvements. RegClean is also an essential enhancement for the W95 operating system.Use it at least once per week to clean out registry entries which have become redundant, and also rectify other problems with the W95 registry. Other W95 enhancements we use and consider essential are: 95 Extra; Power Toys; VueIcons; ImageSize; PEsx (checks EXE file dependencies, handy to find out if programs are 16 or 32-bit); Add/Remove Cleaner; and Gif For Explorer. Access all of these from: W95 Windows Extras
W95 Desktop Utilities
Yankee Clipper Plus is our most used W95 utility. It stores the past 50 clipboard entries on hard disk and you can access them by scrolling through the list and double-clicking on the item you want put back into the clipboard. Sandra (a system diagnostic tool) is another well-used program. There is little about computer hardware that Sandra can't offer – much more than most people could ever use. Convert is the best conversion program we've found. Convert handles temperature, distance, cubic measurement, etc. Easy to use and offers a wide variety of conversions. Other utilities we use all the time include: Tree-Size; flipTech Swap Monitor; GrabIt; Windows 98 IconPax, and the excellent TrayMenu. Access them all from: W95 Desktop Utilities
W95 General Games
We tend to like quick games (we don't have time for anything longer than about a 10 minute break) so this colors the type of games we use. Many are boardgames or cardgames. The games we use are not necessarily the fanciest or 'best' games, just the ones we like. Top of the list is Mah-Jongg v5.01 (later releases are shareware), but we also like CyberMind. We love WinDepth for its amusing underwater action. Other favorites include FreeCell (part of W95 and not accessible from the CFS site); Bubble Puzzle 97 and PokoMan. Lately we have been using SolSuite which has the best looking and nicest versions of our six favorite solitaire cardgames. Access all (except FreeCell) from: W95 General Games
W31/DOS General Programs
Favorites include PagePlus Intro desktop publishing; QuickVerse KJV Bible (we also use the NIV version which was purchased); SpellChecker For Edit Boxes; and MIDIART Live. Access them all from: W31 General Programs
W31/DOS Internet Related
Our favorite W31 Internet-related program is Atomic Clock which keeps our computer's clock accurate. Access it from: W31 Internet Related
W31/DOS Windows Extras
Our favorite in this section is Clean System Directory which moves unused DLLs into its own special directory for later (much later!) deletion or removal to floppy disk. We advise that you run this program at least monthly. We are also using flipTech's Clear Cursors on our test computer and we love them. Access both downloads from: W31 Windows Extras
W31/DOS Desktop Utilities
Three of our favorite programs are in this section. Don't ever think that just because you might be running Win95 that there isn't anything worthy of looking at in the Win 3.1/DOS section. Our favorite Win 3.1 program is Stiletto, a fabulous button bar launcher which works just as well under W95 as it does under W31 and lives as the top item on the screen (unfortunately it must be exited when using a program which relies on DirectX routines). We also use ClipText to store frequently used text (like pro forma replies to people). This program is not activated until you press a hotkey (we use F12) and a simple dialog box pops up on the screen giving you access to nine buttons – nine different pre-set text strings. We have configured this program so when a button is pressed, the contents are copied into the Windows' Clipboard and the program closes again. No wasted resources! We have also just started using AllChars, a program designed to give to quick access to many of the typographical symbols, etc which can be accessed through Windows' Character Map but not as easily as through this beauty. Probably the best feature (to us) of AllChars is the built-in macro facility. Like ClipText, it gives instant access to pre-recorded text strings, though in the case of AllChars you can also add in other controls - like time delays, use of arrow keys, etc. If we want to type in the URL for the CFS site we just press the Ctrl key followed by the C and then the F key. Our e-mail address at Tripod is accessed by pressing Ctrl and then E and then M (all lowercase). We could configure any two characters for any string we want as long as the two keys aren't already used by the typographical characters' section of the program. While ClipText offers nine presets, AllChars offers 75 macros! Grab these great utilities from: W31 Desktop Utilities
W31/DOS General Games
There are only a couple of games from this section we play regularly – and one isn't the 'best' by any means. They are Megapede 95 (for when we're in a stupid mood and just need to zap something, somebody, anybody – just don't get in our way!) and St Helena which is a simple cardgame which we can usually win when playing because we option it to play the deck twice and not once (our egos need a win sometimes too!). Access them from: W31 General Games
UPDATES
Bubble Puzzle 97 – the zany bubble game – has been upgraded to version 1.3a and with a new download size of 1.38MB. Requiring DirectX 3.x, Bubble Puzzle 97 is one of those terrific games which will keep you occupied for hours. Hard to describe but great fun to play, shoot yourself over and grab a copy from: W95General Games
COMMENTS
We would 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 (or would just like to suggest a program) and would like it listed on these pages, please fill in the Submit Software form.
If you enjoy the Completely Free Software site please don't feel shy about letting others know.
ADVERTISING
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