Steve's Ravin' Reviews
~~Steve Mills
March already! Here I sit in Chicago and
realize we basically had a snowless winter when many areas are up to their
whatevers in the white stuff. Winter has seemed gloomier, to me, this year
with the war overhanging seemingly everything (not a political judgment, but
an economic one). Hopefully, by next month we'll have some resolution. We
REALLY need some good news.
I'm proud of this month's selection. Grab Irfanview, as I'm sure everyone
will have some use for it. The other programs do what they do very well.
Thanks for the feedback from last month's column. I'm still running Ad-aware
and Spybot Search and Destroy. I'm beginning to feel that Spybot would be
the choice if I was limited to one, but there's no reason not to run both at
this time.
<RANT> It's amazing how much of this spyware garbage is around. I
know that companies have to figure out a way to pay for their products and
services, but pop-ups and sleuthware isn't the answer. This week I heard
some MBA type bragging that the Onstar system could track a car to within a
few feet. That way they could know, for instance, if you went to Blockbuster
and they could send you advertisements and coupons for DVD and movie rental.
Whoa marketing boy! Back off! The sad thing is he saw nothing wrong with
this massive intrusion. And just up the road Northwestern is turning out
these types by the boatload. Sometimes, actually frequently these
days, I feel quite old, but I still believe there's a place for honesty and
integrity in business. Time will tell. </RANT>
Your suggestions are welcome and encouraged.
Take Care…..
Steve
steve@inil.com
Irfanview
Version: 3.80 <January 10, 2003>
Author: Irfan Skiljan
Web Site:
www.irfanview.com/
Freeware
Rating: 6 Geezers
Why is this free? There are certain programs that have been refined by the
author to a point of near perfection. This is one of them. I do a LOT of
graphics and have most of the big guys, but it is amazing how many times I
return to this gem. It's hard to stop in listing features. Here are some:
- Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats)
- Multi language support
- Thumbnail/preview option
- Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
- Drag & drop support
- Fast directory view (moving through directory)
- Batch conversion (with image processing)
- Email option
- Multimedia player
- Print option
- Change color depth
- Scan (batch scan) support
- Cut/crop
- IPTC editing
- Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Photoshop filter factory)
- Capturing
- Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
- Lossless JPG rotation
- Many hotkeys
- Many command line options
- Many plug-ins
- Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or
"Evaluation expired"
- No registry changes without user action/permission!
One of the plug-ins - and there are many - allows you to play Real Audio
files and you can get rid of their wretched player. I couldn't think of a
format that was not supported. Put this on your disk and I would suggest
making it the default viewer for jpgs and gifs for a start (you have control
within the program).
Very possibly the best of all Freeware programs - or, as they say, it's
certainly in the team picture.
TightVNC
Version: 1.2.8 <February 2, 2003>
Author: GNU Public License
Web Site: www.tightvnc.com
Freeware
Rating: 5 Geezers
Think of this as PCAnywhere for the rest of us. I first became aware of VNC
several years ago when I was working with a major regional ISP and they were
using VNC to access computers at their remote POPs. I thought it was kind of
strange that they would leave this important operation to a free software
program. It wasn't long until I began to appreciate its power and it did
save about $100 per machine.
TightVNC is a newer version specifically designed for remote access to
graphical desktops. You can access any remote machine running TightVNC as
long as there is an Internet connection. It is optimized to make access over
slower connections palatable.
TightVNC is available for Windows and Unix. Like all GNU programs, source
code is available.
Give this a shot before you plunk down the pesos for PCAnywhere. You'll be
surprised.
AllFIve 2000
Version: 2.34 <February 9, 2003>
Author: Bongosoft
Web Site:
www.bongosoft.fsnet.co.uk
Freeware
Rating: 5 Geezers
Game time! There are darn few free games available any more. I'm sure the
general decline of the Internet and the complexity of building quality games
make it impractical. I miss the earlier days when new games, from garage
authors, continually pushed the limits. Anyway, here's a goody. It's one of
those games that you can play late at night when you need a diversion or
play with up to 7 others. It's the classic game of Yahtzee with nice
graphics and sound. Very well done.
System Requirements:
- Windows 95, 98, Me, NT or 2000
- A 150MHz or faster processor
- 16MB of RAM (32/64MB recommended)
- 4MB video card
- A screen resolution of at least 800×600 pixels running in at least
16-bit color mode (i.e. anything except 16 or 256 colors)
Although the requirements are fairly low, if you have an old system to
play it on, Bongosoft makes there classic versions available which will run
on most anything. That can be downloaded here:
http://www.bongosoft.fsnet.co.uk/allfiveclassic/index.html
Weather Pulse
Version: 1.41 <February 27, 2003>
Author: Tropic Designs
Web Site:
www.tropicdesigns.net
Freeware
Rating: ????
Be warned - this is pretty much untested. For years I've used Weather Bug
and it sat quietly in my system tray, warned us of weather alerts and was
immediately available for the current weather forecast. In the past year or
so it has become increasingly obtrusive in its sponsored mode. I would have
been glad to buy it, but it is only available by subscription and I don't
buy software by subscription. This ongoing commitment to have someone in my
pocket for evermore I find offensive. Obviously, a personal view.
I've been using Weather Pulse for a couple of days and it seems like a
viable replacement. We'll see. As always, drop me a note if you try it and
have an opinion.
Final Thought:
Genius is the development of an infinite capacity for taking
pains.
-- Thomas Carlyle
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Steve
Mills has been reviewing software in different capacities for many years.
He
has recently left his job with a search engine consulting firm and is
looking for a new adventure.
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