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The Completely Free E-mail Update #24
Issued December 23, 1997
Welcome to the twenty-fourth and Christmas 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.
COMPLETELY FREE PROGRAMS
FreeTheme – W95
Feel frustrated because you don't have MS Plus! installed on your computer so you can't run some of the cool themes available on the Net? Be frustrated no more! FreeTheme (a 1.61MB download) gives you a chance to run themes from your W95 desktop without MS Plus! being loaded (which is great for the computer at work if the boss won't pay the pennies for MS Plus!). An easy installation and a quick read of the text file supplied with the program (and also on the author's website) and you are in business. When you've got FreeThemes installed, go visit http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/win95.themes/categz.html at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and you will soon be knee deep in great – and free – themes. You can access the freeware program, FreeTheme, from: W95 Windows Extras
Shadows – W95
Ever thought about building your own sundial? They are not just educational but are fun to have and you can tell the time very accurately with only the smallest amount of daylight (as long as there is enough to cast a shadow). The big problem with building a sundial is knowing the data of your particular location, with adjustments for actual longitude, etc. Shadows is a sundial constructor's dream. It not only lists over 550 cities throughout the world, but you can also enter the data for your hometown and include that as well. With that information it creates a detailed graph of the movement of the sun across your house and then translates that into a printable 'plan' for either a horizontal or vertical sundial. Adjust the dimensions of the sundial base, decide what other information your want to include (Roman numerals, 12 or 24-hour numbers, whether to include your city's location on the plan, if you want quarter-hour lines, etc, etc, etc) and then print it out. The program will also tell you exactly where the stile has to go (that's the bit that sticks up) and what its dimensions should be. You can get the printed sundial plan deep etched onto copperplate for very little cost and, voila, you have your professional sundial which would cost an arm and a leg to buy at a shop. The only down side to this program is that the Help file is in French, but that's not such a problem because the interface is so easy. Access this great – and educational – 984kB download from: W95 General Programs
Hide-It – W95
Hide-It is a terrific little utility which allows you to hide any icons in your desktray, and also to hide the same programs from Alt-tabbing. The main use for this program is to hide programs – like Exchange, or a fax client – which is working in the background and doesn't need to be accessed from the desktop. Hide-It will remember what programs were hidden during the previous session and optionally hide them again. The interface is simple and very effective – and you don't need a college degree to use it (phew!). Place Hide-It in the Startup menu and it will be available all the time for you. Access this 73kB download from: W95 Desktop Utilities
MBX-2-HTM – W95
This is a utility to convert Eudora (the e-mail client) mailbox files (MBX) into HTML files which can be viewed through a web browser. We tried it out on a mailbox with 54 items of mail in it and ended up with a 586kB HTML file! The start of the HTML page is an index of all the e-mail letters in that mailbox and a quick link to each one. Likewise, at the end of every letter is a quick link back to the top of the page. Very nice. At the end of the page is a suggestion that you get the latest version of MBX-2-HTM and a link to a page which doesn't exist... Some users of Eudora could well find this program of extreme value – others, like us, find that mail handling is enough of a problem without adding a HTML version of the mailboxes (besides, some of our mailboxes have thousands of letters in them and we would not like to think about the size of the HTML file if we tried to convert them). This 359kB download can be accessed from: W95 Internet Related
Space Invaders – DOS
There are many, many Space Invader clones on the market but most try to 'improve' upon the original. This one is different in that it doesn't – it tries to emulate the original Atari 2600 version from the 1970s. It succeeds very well! Playable on virtually any DOS-based computer (including under Windows), it makes use of a sound card for those 'thunking' noises we all grew to love and hate. Go get yourself some nostalgia (or see what Grandpa used to play on his old pedal-powered computer) with this 57kB download you can access from: W31 General Games
PrintKey – W95
Printkey is a terrific little utility which allows you to print the contents of your screen – or a part of your screen – to either your printer or to the clipboard. Access is either though the desktray icon (right click for the basic dialog box) or through the PrintScreen key. Either way, you get a heap of options including one to just select a small part of the screen and process it instead of taking either the whole screen of the active window. The options available are outstanding. You can convert your 'captured' image into grayscale prior to printing, invert the colors, or even mirror the image. You can also add a page header (up to 70 characters), a time/date stamp or even decide not have the dialog box. The image can be edited with the Windows-registered BMP editor on your computer (it opens the program and loads the image), save, load, copy to clipboard, and even paste from clipboard. Other features included a checkbox to center the image on the page when it's printed, to stretch it to fit the printed page and to print in portrait or landscape mode. One nice touch was the extensive use of shortcut keys so you didn't have to mouse-it through menus. To say we were impressed would be an understatement! Grab this 180kB download from: W95 Desktop Utilities
The Words – W95 (W31 version also available)
Ever want to learn a foreign language and keep on getting tripped up learning the vocabulary? The Words has been created just for you! In this program you type in the words, phrases, etc you want to learn, their equivalents in your native language, and then you can save the word lists under specific titles – like Travel Words, or Household Words. Go back to those word lists and fill in the word blanks, typing '???' for ones you can't remember. As a tool for learning a foreign language The Words is terrific, but it is also great for learning other things too – like dates in history – where you can put in two sets of information and be prompted for one, a sort of question/answer arrangement (like: What was the date of the Gettysburg Address? or What happened on July 9, 1661?). Foreign travelers, students and others who are studying can all gain from this great program. Also available as a Win 3.1 download (745kB) but not listed separately on the CFS site. The W95 version is a 971kB download. Access both versions from the W95 page: W95 Text Programs
Lupa – W95
Lupa is a fabulous screen magnifier which cannot only be re-sized, but it can also alter the amount of magnification from 16:1 to 0.1:1. This means that if you want to just capture an icon, for example, you can fill the capture screen (did we mention, whatever is in the Lupa screen can also be captured into Windows' clipboard) with that icon in almost any size and even crop the image using the re-size facility. We have never seen a screen magnifier/grabber which is anywhere near as good as this one! By the way, Lupa is Polish for 'magnify'. A very, very handy utility to have available on your desktop, you can access this 152kB download from: W95 Desktop Utilities
Planet Archive Manager (PAM) – W95
PAM is a terrific archiving/unarchiving program which uses the 'zip' format, in much the same way as WinZip and SuperZip. PAM lets you look into archives, open single files from within an archive, add files to an existing archive and, in short, do just about everything which most of the other 'big league' archiving programs will do. One of the advantages of using PAM is that you can open multiple archives – as many as your computer's memory can handle. This means that you can compare archives, move or copy files between archives, etc. When you're finished with an archive, PAM will even delete it for you! The author, Rick Mentecky, calls it a WYSIWIHTF (what you see is what I had time for) program! PAM looks good, works well, has an easy interface and is only an 878kB download. It can be accessed from: W95 General Programs
DLL Show – W95
Ever wanted to know what DLLs your programs are accessing? Ever wondered what those error codes mean that Microsoft so kindly gave us? Find out these, and heaps more, with DLL Show, a nifty little program with an easy interface but which offers probably more information about files and their dependencies than the average user could handle in a lifetime. But don't let that stop you from trying this little beauty. If you want to print out the list of dependencies, change the display font, check up on your current system resources, use the European date format (dd-mm-yy), make a cup of coffee, prop your eyelids open with matchsticks - well, maybe not quite, but we think you're getting the picture! What's probably more amazing is that it's only a 111kB download (Microsoft should learn how to be so frugal with writing code)! Access DLL Show from: W95 Desktop Utilities
Fortify for Netscape – W95
It is well known that non-US (except Canadian) versions of Netscape and other browsers cannot use 128-bit SSL encryption due to US laws about exporting security software. Now users of the overseas versions of Netscape 3.x and 4.x with the 40-bit encryption can add this functionability through Fortify for Netscape (no, there isn't an IE version, yet). With 128-bit SSL encryption you can send your credit card details, etc over the Internet (to SSL sites) with a vastly improved chance that it won't be intercepted (exceptionally unlikely for the average person anyway) and it will give you a greater feeling of security. If you are unsure about your version of Netscape 3.x or 4.x you can go to the Help menu and, in v4.03 anyway, click on 'About Navigator...' and you will see a section which says "This version supports International security with RSA Public Key Cryptography, MD2, MD5, RC2-CBC, RC4". Even just for peace of mind, this is a great little addition to your overseas version of Netscape. Access this 328kB (non-US sourced) download from: W95 Internet Related
UPDATE
WorldTime has been upgraded to version 6.1 (with a slightly larger size of 342kB). Our previous URL had become redundant and has now been updated too. If you want to get the update, or find out the time in over 300 countries worldwide, then access this great program from: W95 General Programs
Kevin Solway's superb utility, CleanSys, has had a minor upgrade to version 1.6 (it now checks removable drives). In case you'd missed CleanSys, it is an absolutely essential utility for both W95 and Win 3.1 users. CleanSys checks all your DLLs to make sure that all have links to programs. If they don't, CleanSys moves them to a new sub-directory under Windows. It does not delete files. In a few months, after none of your programs have suddenly fallen over because they couldn't find one of their DLLs, you can delete them (with caution) or move them on to a floppy disk (much smarter). If a program does fall over, there is a 'move the files back' button to restore your system to pre-CleanSys status. This 70kB download can be accessed from: W31 Windows Extras
The excellent Webford HTML Editor has been upgraded to version 2.01. If you are looking for a classy Windows 3.1 HTML source-code editor then you'll have to look a long way to get better than this one. You can access this 1.01MB download from: W31 Internet Related
IMPORTANT NEWS
Next week we will be switching over to OakNet newsletter publishing service for the distribution of these weekly updates. This is a free service (what else!) and is advertiser supported. The work involved in maintaining the mailing list got out of hand and we decided that some automation was in order. Besides, we can put the extra time we save to good use in searching out more and better programs for you. For clarification, the body of the e-mail will not change and will come from us, only the distribution is from OakNet. By the way, Oaknet has assured us that your e-mail address is totally secure and will not be sold, loaned out or used for any purpose other than the distribution of these weekly newsletters.
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COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
We hope that you have a happy and Holy Christmas 1997 and that while you're giving and receiving presents you don't forget that "Jesus is the reason for the season". We also hope that Santa was able to get that Ferrari into your stocking (just don't forget to take the stocking off first!). And please, while you're driving that Ferrari around over the holidays, don't become another statistic on the roads. Not a nice way to 'unsubscribe' to this bulletin...
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