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The Completely Free E-mail Update #10
Issued Sep 9, 1997
Welcome to the tenth 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
MTU-Speed
Microsoft devised Win95 long before the Internet became popular and therefore long before Billy Gates became a born-again Internet believer. Because Win95 was never really designed for the Internet as such, there are some problems (features???) in the way it handles MTU settings. These are the settings which determine the size of packets of information being transmitted and can affect your FTPing and even how effective your e-mail transmissions are. You can speed up your FTPing by creating a MaxMTU setting in the registry (mass groans can now be heard!) and this is even mentioned in our Various Freeware Resources page ( towards the end of the listing, have a look). However, there is an easy program to make those changes for you called MTU-Speed which adjusts your registry either for what the program’s author deems as ‘optimum’ or what you want to set yourself. The program comes with an extensive readme file which can help in determining the best settings. Adjusting your MTU settings can be as easy as clicking on the ‘Optimum Settings’ button, or as complicated as you want. There is also a simple adjustment for the MaxMTU setting (the author suggests 576 which is the default). Got a problem? Click on the ‘Remove settings’ button and it’s all gone and you’re back where you started. Even for the Win95 newbies, this is a ‘must’ download (even though you’ll probably only use it once). Access this 152kB download from:
W95 Internet Related
Sandra
No, not a relative of Barbie and Ken but the acronym for System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant – which is quite a mouthful. Sandra is one very fine diagnostic and benchmarking tool for PCs, offering information in a depth which only the truly masochistic could enjoy. If there was ever any question about your PC: the motherboard; the CPU; the BIOS; the drives; system memory (RAM); Windows memory; DOS memory; com and printer ports; printer information; etc, etc, etc you will find it through this program. The reference on the CFS webpage relates to the last ‘final’ program which is a 1.44MB download (and worth every byte), but you also have the option to download beta versions either as full programs themselves or as patches for people who already have version 1.10 loaded. We had that final version and downloaded the patch and, apart from having to fire up RegEdit and make a tiny cut in the registry (painless, but still never nice to have to do), we just copied across the replacement files and suddenly had a whole new version of Sandra. The beta patch (version 1.19) is a 308kB download or you can download ‘san118.zip’ (we presume it is one version back from the patch version) which is 1.7MB. The 1.19 beta patch included a host of extra checks and benchmarks, plus a ‘Performance Tune-up Wizard’ which looks at your system (allow plenty of time) and advises on ways you can speed up your computer. Fantastic! This is a must have for every desktop. Access Sandra from:
W95 Desktop Utilities
PrimaSoft AutoFTP
PrimaSoft AutoFTP is an advertiser-supported ftp client with many more features than most. Features include: scheduling of auto-transfers for future date/time; automatic dial & connect; Win95 Explorer-like user interface; popup menus; drag and drop; Wizard to assist with uploading, downloading and scheduling transfers; multiple simultaneous transfers; activity log; and scheduling of repeated auto-transfers. Quite a list! Not a small download at 2.3MB (you have to include all those ads!) but still worth a look if you’re not happy with your current ftp client or you just like a change (as good as a holiday, so they say). Access this program from:
W95 Internet Related
ClipPlus
Like Yankee Clipper Plus, ClipPlus is a clipboard enhancement utility which saves multiple copies of your clipboard to disk for later use. In our opinion, Yankee Clipper Plus is easier to use than ClipPlus, but ClipPlus has a couple of special features: you can permanently save your clipboard contents for repeated use later (and select a name of up to 43 characters for that clip); and, you can delete the contents of the clipboard ‘memory’ (handy for security or for just getting rid of the garbage). These are great advantages and offset the slightly more awkward interface. Why would you want to retain clipboard memory? Any repetitious work – adding a standard return address to a letter, adding a logo, handling programming code – can be saved either temporarily or permantly. We use it for copying and pasting URLs and e-mail addresses, as well as moving around chunks of text or even images.Yankee Clipper Plus saves either that last 20 or 50 clipboard entries while ClipPlus only saves the last 15 in the temporary section, but you have the option of converting any of them to the permanent section. A clipboard enhancement utility is something that, once used, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Yankee Clipper Plus retains its top spot on our Desktop Utility page because of its ease of use. However, ClipPlus might just the program which we find best suits our particluar workload. ClipPlus is a 172kB download which you can access from:
W95 Desktop Utilities
BattleStar for Windows 95/NT
Based off the old battleship game, BattleStar for Win95 (also available for Win 3.1) uses a 9 x 9 x 9 grid to represent a 3D galaxy where you have 60 enemy ships hiding in 729 sectors. There are three levels of difficulty and optional sound. Lacking in any help screen, BattleStar is never-the-less an engaging game (sorry about that pun) as you try and locate and destroy those enemy ships before they take over the galaxy. Access this 122kB download from:
W95 General Games
Spicy Command Line
This very handy utility places a ‘command line’ on your desktop so that you can run programs or macros (say, type in the word ‘net’ and have it open your browser) or carry out preset commands. Many of those preset commands (eg ‘shutdown’ to shutdown Windows) are also accessible from the desktray icon. Left mouse button over the desktray icon accesses three different Windows’ shutdowns/restarts, starts your screen saver, accesses the SCL website, and exits the program, while the right mouse button accesses the actual command line plus lets you access General Options, Color Options, Macro Editor, an ‘About’ screen, and a second ‘Exit’ command. Spicy Command Line is another of those utilities which gets well used when available but who’s real worth is not always apparant from first glance. Give it a try and access this 73kB download from:
W95 Desktop Utilities
RTF2HTML
This is a small utility to convert Rich Text Format (RTF) documents into HTML code suitable for posting on the Net. You’ll still have to add titles, backgrounds, etc, but at least this will give you a start with the coding. This means that you can type out what you want in, say, WordPad, save it as an RTF file, and then convert it into HTML. Access this 137kB download from:
W95 Internet Related
More Properties
Don’t let the simplicity of this very descriptive title fool you – More Properties is what Microsoft’s TweakGUI should have been! Control nearly your whole Win95 installation with this gem which does everything from controlling how Windows truncates long filenames (~n) to altering (add, edit & remove) the ‘Add/Remove Program’ and ‘Program Run’ entries. Of course it does the simple things, like let’s you change the Win95 licensing information, decide if you want Explorer to ‘save settings on exit’, or even hide the Network Neighborhood icon. The list is much too long to go into here and we strongly suggest that you try More Properties. Win95 fiddlers will be in heaven and even cautious users will find much to bless the author of this program. You can even run it alongside TweakGUI if you like (sort of like the old ‘belts and braces’ approach). Don’t hesitate for even one second! Take control of Win95 and access this 350kB download from:
W95 Windows Extras
FREE WIN 3.1 & DOS PROGRAMS
Bubble Puzzle for DOS
Similar to the W95 version featured in the previous Update (#9), Bubble Puzzle is a SVGA game which plays well on a W95 machine (always a good test of the coding). The idea of the game is the same – to shoot colored bubbles at same-colored bubbles hanging from a ‘ceiling’. When you have three bubbles of the one color touching each other they fall. Sounds simple? It is, but it is still very addictive and not as easy to win as it first looks. Great touches to both the DOS and the W95 versions are the ‘expressions’ on the faces of the Bubbles (sad when they are on their own, joyful with expectation when there are two, and downright pleased when three get together). Graphics are excellent (though simple) in both versions and the download size for the DOS version is only 369kB. Access the DOS version from the Games section at:
W3.1 & DOS
System Analyst for Windows (SAW)
SiSoft’s ‘System Analyst for Windows’ (SAW) is a Windows 3.1 (but not Win 3.0) program which will give you a lot of information about your PC – much more than Microsoft’s MSD. There are 23 different sections, covering all the usual hardware items like CPUs, etc, and also many software sections (OLE clients, operating system, DPMI, active programs and the modules they use, module usage, etc). The program also features context-sensitive help. While this program is Win95 aware, it is not really designed for that OS and SiSoft’s ‘Sandra’ is recommended for those users (Sandra is mentioned in the W95 section above). SAW is also not designed to be run on Pentium systems, giving incorrect CPU speeds and possibly other compatability problems. If you have a 386/486 running Win 3.1x then SAW is just what you need. Access this 441kB download from:
W3.1 & DOS
Bible Baseball
Fun Bible-based game for the whole family where you answer Bible questions (easy for a single, harder for a double and much harder for a homerun) and get your men around the diamond. Three ‘wrongs’ (strikes) and it’s the end of that innings. Play against friends or family members (the default teams are Pharisees and Sadducees, but you can rename them) and learn about the greatest book ever written while having fun. Access this 214kB download from the Games section at:
W3.1 & DOS
PicPuzzle
Remember those old plastic 15-piece sliding puzzles where you had to get the numbers to run consecutively from 1 to 15? Here’s another electronic version with some great features. First, you can select either the traditional number version or a picture version. Secondly you can view what the completed image should look like. Thirdly you can change the BMP image when selected. Supplied with the Windows’ logo as your image, PicPuzzle is a great way to spend a wet afternoon. The install is a little rough in that you have to transfer the files to the Windows\System directory yourself and you also have to create your own icon in Program Manager. The saving in DIY is in a smaller download size which, in this case, is a miserly 100kB. Access PicPuzzle from the Games section at:
W3.1 & DOS
VARIOUS FREEWARE RESOURCES
Monster Free
This week we added ‘Monster Free’ to our Various Freeware Resources page. Monster Free has amazing list of free and almost-free products and programs presented in a ‘monster’ous way with deliberately horrible colors, etc (well, we presume it was deliberate...). A great resource to add to your list, access Monster Free from:
Various Freeware Resources
FINALLY
For anyone who hasn’t caught up with the news, Eudora Light e-mail client has had an upgrade to version 3.0.3 (both 16-bit and 32-bit versions in the same huge download) and Arachnophilia (it was once called WebThing) HTML editor has also had a minor upgrade to version 2.5 and build 2511. Dipstick is also now upgraded to version 2.
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