 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group A Few Of My Favourite Things Bryan Leech bryan@melbpc.org.au |
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For me, one of the joys of home computing is found in exploring the huge variety of shareware available. There are programs for every conceivable purpose, usually at very moderate cost. For the average home user there is really no need to buy any of the major program packages costing hundreds of dollars each. You can buy shareware word processors, spread-sheets, database programs, graphics programs, and so much more for a fraction of the cost of their commercial cousins.
In this article I wanted to look at a few programs that I find handy. They are not workhorses like word processors etc., but some nifty ancillary utilities that I use and enjoy. I hope you like them too.
NoteTab
NoteTab is a versatile text and HTML editor for Windows 95, 98 and NT, available in five versions although only three are now supported. These are NoteTab Pro (registration US$19.95), NoteTab Standard (registration US$9.95) and NoteTab Light (free!!!). For many users, the Light version would be adequate, having many advantages over Windows Notepad although I would recommend taking the plunge and spending the US$9.95 for the standard version.
Unlike Microsoft Notepad, NoteTab lets you edit documents of virtually any size (up to 2 GB with the standard version) and you can have open as many documents as your machine's memory will allow each with its own button on the tab bar. NoteTab offers a huge range of features, enabling, for example, the abilities to open links to your default browser, calculate mathematical expressions, create simple outline documents, convert text files to web pages, strip tags from HTML documents, send documents as e-mail, capture text copied to the clipboard, view text statistics and more.
An original feature for NoteTab is the Editor Clipbook. This is a flexible tool for handling chunks of text which can be anything from a single character to a large piece of "boilerplate" text, as well as executable scripts. Clips are stored in libraries with a header for identification, and retrieved by selecting the appropriate header from the list or by typing the first matching characters of the header into your document and then pressing a function key. Scripts are written using NoteTab's own Clip Language which supports variables, conditional testing, commands, functions, events and even keyboard macros.
NoteTab also offers the features you would expect to find in a good text editor such as Find/Replace in all open documents or disk files, read and write files to DOS/UNIX/Mac format, sort/join/split/indent lines, change character case and text alignment, convert between ASCII and ANSI, automatic indentation, and, in the registered versions, a spell checker (a range of languages is available for separate download, including British English) and thesaurus.
The program is very customizable. You have a selection of more than 90 commands for the toolbar and main shortcut menu. The editor's behaviour can be fine tuned to suit your needs due to the many options. And it is easy to learn, needing no manual.
You can download a trial copy of your selected version of NoteTab from: http://www.notetab.com or you can order the commercial versions from: http://www.notetab.com/order.htm
File sizes are, 1240 KB for NoteTab Std as an .exe file: 270 KB for the British dictionary and 700 KB for the thesaurus, both as ZIP files. This is a program I can strongly recommend to replace the very limited Notepad.
Calendar Builder
For years I used a Windows 3.1 calendar program which produced neat and nifty monthly calendars for my kitchen. It remembered recurring dates, made nice little icons for events and was generally colourful and useful. With the move to Windows 95 and then, shortly after to 98, this program failed to function. So I cast around for some time until I finally found Calendar Builder on the Internet. It is all I wished for and more.
Let me start out by saying what this program isn't. It is not a planner. Well, not a long range planner anyway: it does have weekly and daily planner views, but beyond that it is a calendar. As a calendar, you can print calendars for 60, 48, 24, 12 and 6 months. One month calendars allow space for adding events. There is a high degree of customisation available, and a calendar produced by one person may look totally different to that produced by someone else. They may even look as if different programs were used to produce them. There are many events added for various days, quite a few of these sporting a colourful icon to highlight the event.
Calendar builder allows the creation of a catalog of recurring events, events that might have differing structure. You can enter annual events like birthdays or religious festivals, monthly events (like Melb PC monthly and SIG meetings), or weekly events, like payday (if you get paid weekly: I get paid weakly!). The font for these recurring events can be chosen from any in your computer, but they all must appear in the same font. However, you can add additional, once off, events like a medical appointment, and these can be in a different font if you so choose. To all of these events you can add an icon of your choice at the time you prepare you monthly issue. The shareware version of the program is provided with a reasonable collection of icons, but, upon online purchase, you can download a further extensive collection of icons in a large range of categories. A similar arrangement applies for the optional borders. A fair collection is provided with the shareware release, but MANY more can be downloaded, in groups, at any time after purchase.
Additionally you can add text or graphics anywhere on the calendar, including the blank spaces before and after the first and last dates of the current month. The following tools are provided:
- a label tool which provides for text of any single TT font which can have a 3D effect using shadow and highlight. It can be transparent or opaque, have a border or not and have any background colour. It can also be rotated.
- a rich text tool where the object can contain multiple lines of text using multiple fonts, colours and alignments. It can be transparent or opaque, have a border or not and have any background colour.
- a super-text tool is similar to above, with the addition of textured surfaces and gradient fills.
- the clipart tool enables the importing of graphics in most common graphic formats.
Check out the website: http://www.rkssoftware.com. The registered price is US$19.95.
Net Vampire
For years, I relied on the download facility of Internet Explorer; until someone pointed out that this is a very limited facility, and that I would be much better off getting myself a dedicated download program. After a bit of searching on the web, I found a couple. One of these, Go!Zilla, is perhaps the most popular download program, but I found Net Vampire 3.0 (now available in version 3.3) to be even better.
How many times have you been down-loading a program, only to have your connection drop out, or run out of daily time with your server. You then have to start all over again. Not with many of the available downloading programs. Net Vampire, like several others, enables resumable downloads (provided the server sourcing the download supports this - these days, most do). And you can resume at any time. The partial download is saved and then subsequently added to until the file is complete, at which time it is given its proper filename.
With Net Vampire, you initiate the download either by pressing the ALT key when you click on download, or you drag and drop the file into Net Vampire. You can then download immediately, or schedule for a later download. Provided that your computer and modem are turned on, Net Vampire, can dial and establish connection to your ISP (with support for many proxy types), start the download, and then disconnect and, if you wish, turn off your computer, on completion.
You can use multiple download locations for the file and switch between them on the fly. True site testing allows you to easily select the fastest and most reliable site. On job completion, Net Vampire can run a virus checker and open the received file. A built in ZIP viewer allows you to list and extract files from the ZIP archive while you are downloading it! Detailed session log, data flow histogram and many configurable options make download trouble shooting simple. In all, this is a valuable addition to your arsenal of programs, and if you are not already using a downloader, I would commend this one to your attention. And what is more, this one is not shareware, it is FREE!
Find it at http://www.netvampire.com
Ultimate Label Printer Pro
Do you ever wish to have nicely printed labels, complete with a pleasing graphic or photo, for your cassettes, CDs that you have copied for use in the car where scratching won't matter, or for ZIP discs, Minidisc, VHS tapes or any other recordable media. Well, Ultimate Label Printer Pro lets you do just that, and on any paper of your choice. The labels it produces are not highly sophisticated; I have come across better programs for printing cassette labels, or for CD cases etc., but no program that handles the lot. This one comes with about 45 label formats, and more can be downloaded. Of course, many of these are different variations on the one theme: there are six CD label formats for example, and even more audio cassette formats.
To take a popular format for example, a set of CD case inserts. Like all CD label programs I have seen, this one does not provide for printing inside the folded leaflet, but does provide for printing on the front and back. The illustration shows the front has been finished.
Images can be imported in most formats, so you can use photos or clipart. Any font can be chosen, and fonts and font styles can be mixed. Font and background colours can also be chosen, although the background colour will apply to both the front and back of the cover. Separate images can be chosen and positioned at will on the front and back of the cover.
The "U" insert for the bottom of the CD case can have text in columns, can also have its own graphics, and prints spline titles correctly rotated. The final printed product of all labels has trim lines for you to align in your favourite paper cutter (even a Stanley knife).
You can purchase Ultimate Label Printer Pro at: http://www.payplaysoftware.com for US$25.
The trial version prints UNREGISTERED in very large letters right across you label. So while you can see what the results will be like, the output is not usable. Although some might think this program is just a little dear for what it is, I have found it to be good value.
Summary
Well, there is a collection of some of my favourite things. I hope that from even one of them you get the enjoyment and satisfaction that I achieve.
Reprinted from the April 2000 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
