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E-mail Update Newsletter #69
Issued November 17, 1998
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Welcome to the ‘Completely Free Software’ E-mail Newsletter.
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 functional. If you know any that aren't exactly as specified, please let us know and they will be removed immediately.
We remind our visitors that they can obtain all the newly listed software from this site on the Completely Free Software “Master Software Collection” monthly CD-ROMs plus get bonus software, graphics, icons, fonts, etc.
COMPLETELY FREE SOFTWARE
ActivIcons v1.0 – Win9x
This is a super cool looking utility to change your Windows cursors and icons. The TV-shaped program window takes a moment or two to get the feel of but once the familiarization is complete you will soon be flying. The program offers two large knobs (like old fashioned TV control knobs), the bottom one being the on/off switch. Switch it on and the screen lights up, offering the desktop icons. Highlight an icon and you can change it to another style, or click on another button (bottom right) and it will revert back to the default Windows icon. The second position on the main switch is called "Start Bar", the third is "Drives", the fourth "Folders", then "Miscellaneous", "Cursors" and "System Control". The last position allows you to re-build your icon cache. It also offers to include/exclude the arrow overlay on a shortcut, and to choose if you want to fill in behind text on the desktop (make the background of the text transparent so the wallpaper will show through. That last page also has an option to choose the maximum color for icons – 16 color, 256 color (recommended) or 16.7 million colors. The program is really designed to be used with the shareware program, IconForge. However, on its own it is still a valuable tool and well worth the download (even if just to admire the graphics!). Context help is available, though not very detailed. We liked! Access this 789kB download from: Win9x Windows Extras
FreeFTP v1.0 – Win9x
This is a handy ftp file transfer program for both uploading (to your website) and for downloading. With drag 'n drop support and the ability to 'remember' passwords and userids, FreeFTP is a handy utility. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer some the of the bells and whistles of other ftp clients (preset connection directories, etc) but the tiny size of the executionable file means that it loads and runs quickly. As soon as you start transferring files, a checkbox to 'disconnect when completed' becomes active. One thing we thought strange was the requirement to copy a password from the author's website and 'register' the program. The password is freely available – you don't even have to give your e-mail address – but is necessary to keep the program 'alive' after the 15 day 'trial' period. If you want a good solid ftp client then FreeFTP might be just for you. Access this 1.75MB download (most of which is DLLs) from: Win9x Internet Related
PTFB v1.04 – Win9x
PTFB stands for "Push The Freakin' Button" which describes what this handy utility is all about. If you have a pesky program which constantly demands that you click on an 'OK' button to continue you can use this utility to do it for you. Once you have 'told' PTFB to close that dialog box you can go into the preference section and adjust time delays, etc if they don't suit that particular program. El neato. PTFB just lives in the desktray as an icon and is one of the least resource hungry utilities we have seen for some time. If you get sick and tired of clicking the same old dialog buttons then we suggest that you let PTFB take over the drudgery. Access this 131kB download from: Win9x Desktop Utilities
Chronos v4.0 – Win9x
Chronos is a calendar program which can have user defined events added to it. These events can be displayed just once, displayed weekly, monthly or yearly. The documentation with the program states that these events can be set randomly too but we couldn't seem to find the settings menu, as we couldn't find the menu to change other settings either. It is clear that you could manually edit the text file which contains these instructions but some, like the playing of a WAV file, did not work with our setup. Access this 336kB download from: Win9x General Programs
Abstractamation Mcatis v1.1 – Win9x
Mcatis is a META tag generator for webpages to improve ratings with search engines and in listings. Inserted at the top of a webpage, META tags tell search engines what the page is all about and helps determine the ranking of that page when people do searches. This META tag generator is terrific! It has provision for 15 META tags and makes it super easy to insert the right information in some of them by using drop-down menus. Once you have filled in all the blanks (or all the ones you want to use) just click on the "Generate Tags" button and you will be offered a compilation of your information as it would appear in a webpage. At that point you have a choice to "Copy To Clipboard", "Save To File", "Save As Template" (we couldn't get this function to work), or "Insert Into File". Tags can be 'lifted' out of existing webpages, modified or added to, and then re-inserted back. Cool bananas! Our only criticism would be that a Helpfile, or even a readme file, would be handy with some detailed explanation about each of the tags – the maximum number of characters for the description, the optimum number of keywords, the optimum length of the title, etc. This information is available on some websites but it would have been nice to have had it all in one place. However good you think your META tags to be, you might just find that Mcatis can offer new ones or new alternatives. If you create webpages then do yourself a huge favor and grab this 240kB download from: Win9x Internet Related
Seeking v3.0 – Win9x
Seeking is a terrific game of Concentration where you play either against the computer or a human opponent. Start a new game and you are offered the choice of human/human or human/computer modes, and also the grid size – 6x6, 6x8 or 10x10. The speed at which the windows open to expose the pictures behind them can be changed and you can even see what all the pictures are underneath (though that does stop the game!). The computer opponent can be partially crippled by reducing available memory and by removing its AI (artificial intelligence???) function. Pictures used in this game are quite good (the author calls them 'cute') and the game has a nice comfortable feel about it. The program itself is only 69kB but the download is a huge 1.71MB which comprises many common DLLs. Maybe the author could offer a DLL-free version for people who have already downloaded those particular runtime files. Verdict: still worth the big download! Access your copy of this great game from: Win9x General Games
tfmEditor v1.0 beta 5.2 – Win9x
Wow!!! This is a fabulous replacement for NotePad for those who are looking more for a word processor than a programmer's editor. It handles both ASCII text as well as RTF (rich text format) and has an unlimited filesize (well, technically it has a limit of 100MB but I think for all intents and purposes we can call that unlimited!), an e-mail capability, many text attributes beyond 'bold, italics and underline', a built-in calendar, date and time display, etc, etc, etc. The toolbar is sensational – other programmers should look to see how a little extra work makes the whole project look professional – and the editor hums along nicely. Excellent. We were impressed with the thought gone into little aspects of this program which are often missed by other programmers. The e-mail client, for example, needs to be setup to handle SMTP mail but you can either retain the settings just for that session or you can have them saved (in the Registry) for posterity. Neat. The editor isn't designed to be a stand-alone e-mail client, rather it offers e-mail facilities for that letter you wanted to write. The author has promised that future versions will have things like spell checkers but we have a feeling that by then it will be shareware. We hope not but suggest you grab a copy now, just in case... Access this 488kB download from: Win9x Text Programs
Quit-To-DOS v1.2 – Win95
This is a tiny little program which makes a couple of small changes to your Win95 setup (probably works OK for Win98 but this was not mentioned by the author and we don't use Win98 for our testing). Firstly, it offers a simple choice at startup – Win95 or DOS 7 – which lasts for just 2 seconds and, if there is no response, boots automatically into the Win95 GUI. It also changes the final shutdown screen to give instructions for going from that screen into the DOS C:\ prompt (which is what is actually hidden behind that screen anyway). Run the small executionable program once and everything is setup for you, though the uninstall isn't quite so straight forward. Still simple instructions are offered to uninstall so all you have to do is to put Tab A into Slot A, Tab B into Slot B, etc. Not so hard (if you have trouble, ask any 10 year old). Access this 36kB download from: Win9x Desktop Utilities
WinKey v2.6 – Win9x
The special Windows key on most modern keyboards is rarely used to any sort of advantage and most users don't even know that they can access Explorer quickly by pressing the Win key and the E key (Win+E). The WinKey program is terrific. Not only does it give you a list of the shortcuts already pre-installed by Windows, it adds a further 10 or more itself (the number depends on the number of drives you have installed, it adds a shortcut key for each hard drive and CD-ROM). It also offers shortcuts to the Control Panel (hooray!), to RegEdit, to Dial-up Networking – even to a special task manager it installs when it loads. This task manager is similar to the one supplied with NT. But wait, there's more! You can add more shortcuts yourself using this macro creating program – up to 200 shortcuts can be associated with the Win key. This is fabulous. A truly valuable utility which can make your computing so much easier. Access this 1.09MB download from: Win9x Windows Extras
IRCFerret v1.5 – Win9x
Like its stable partners, IRCFerret simultaneously searches through the Internet for specific information – in this case people using IRC. Searching through 18 IRC networks for your information, it can present up to 500 hits from your word(s) or up to 500 from each IRC network!!! Access this 868kB download from: Win9x Internet Related
UPDATES
As we announced last week, Xpert WoRD has been upgraded to version 3.10. This fantastic word processor has many new features, including: Auto-Correct; Auto-Capital; Auto-Command Express; Auto-Scroll; Auto-Hide; Auto-Save; Send E-Mail; Powerful Command; New Friendly Interface; Small Capacity; Go To Line Number Function; Document Manager; More Formatting Format; Extra Cut/Copy/Paste; Find/Replace; Attachment Note; and Drag As Copy/Cut. Very impressive. The download size has increased to 4.46MB and you can grab this new version from: Win9x Text Programs
Solitude – a super collection of solitaire card games – has just been upgraded to version 1.42 with a new download size of 3.24MB. This new version includes an extra three solitaire cardgames making a total of 80 different games! It just keeps on getting better and better. The three new games in this collection are Gaps, Blind Patience and Peek. This upgrade also has a new and improved main-menu interface, and updated statistics for all games. If you have anywhere from five minutes to five hours to kill then this is one of the better ways to do it! Access this new version from: Win9x General Games
FMEdit98 (formerly FMEdit95) – a sensational multi-functional tool which combines a file manager, text/RTF file editor, image viewer (BMP, GIF inc animated, JPG, JPEG and PNG formats), etc – has been upgraded to version 2. This utility set also includes an archiving section (zip, unzip, create executionable), plus a popup calculator and other tools. As we said, sensational!!! The new download size is 888kB and it can be accessed from: Win9x Windows Extras
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.
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