SHAREWARE NEWS

April 1997

by Louis Bookbinder

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SHAREWARE SAMPLE
DISK OF THE MONTH (DOM)
FLEA MARKET
SECURITY ALERT!
TIP OF THE MONTH (TOM)
SIMPLY MAC
NEW PRODUCTS
THE SHAREWARE TEAM

Complete shareware index

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SHAREWARE SAMPLE

This month's Free Sample Shareware is no longer available. Please see the latest column.

SMUG April '97 Disk of the Month

Assembled by Thomas Carlson

Apple Tech Info Library
60 commonly requested documents from the Tech Info Library, including a list of the top requests for TIL articles. Freeware

AutoMenus Pro 3.2.2 (PPC)
Sets menus to automatically pull down. And stay down, so you don't have to hold the mouse button. Shareware $15.00

Billgateus of Borg
billgate.jpg is a photo of Mr. Bill taken in his cube-shaped spacecraft, somewhere out in space, with his "friendly" greeting to the inhabitants of planet Earth. Freeware

Email Effects 1.0
Email Effects is a program for creating artistic, fun and graphical eMails. As eMail messages can only contain plain text, Email Effects uses this medium for drawings and images. Shareware $10.00

Gordo's Zip Disk Icon Collection
The result is this modest collection of 35 original icons, suitable for dressing up your poor naked Zip disks Freeware.

Gordo's Zip Disk Icon Collection Volume 2
35 more original icons, suitable for dressing up your poor naked Zip disks. Watch out for some neat new icons. Freeware.

Important Apple/Mac Websights
41 Netscape Bookmarks of great sites for Mac Users. Freeware.

Kaleidoscope Schemes...

BeKolor
by Frederick Bass and Gregory Landweber

BSmooth1.3
Http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/~t.as

LORenzO©
Created by Lorenzo Rhimez. Shareware $3.00

MaXT
Like NeXT and X-windows
by Fred Bass and Greg Landweber

NeXT LeAP Ver. 1.0
Kaleidoscope scheme that looks like the NeXT interface. Freeware

NeXT Tempo
Created by Francois Gladu

Ocean
Very blue and calming like the ocean.

The NeXT Copland
Kaleidoscope scheme that looks like the NeXT interface. Shareware $1.00

Welcome home! Jobs
The name says it all.

X-Win Color Scheme
I always thought X-Win was a cool platform because of the change in color from the passive window to the active window on mouseover (yes I know this scheme doesn't do the mouseover thing but that's Apple's deal, not mine. I would if I knew how...) so instead I have a definite "active" window to help you know where you are and "deaden" the rest of the windows black. (It also uses that neat little "X" as an icon.)

PPP Connect/Disconnect
This simple script either connects or disconnects OT/PPP, depending on the current state. It is Copyright © 1996 by Adam Klein and may be used or edited, free of charge, by any Mac user, so long as credit is given to the original author. Freeware.

VideoMail™
Allows a user to send a quicktime clip along with email. Reviewed in Computer Currents a while back. Shareware $5.00

(Plus, the blank icon promised in the Tip O' the Month, below)

Voice Recognition Disk

English Speech Recognition 1.5 from Apple
With the English Speech Recognition package and the proper hardware, your computer can respond to spoken commands. The English Speech Recognition package contains the Speech Recognition extension and a utility called Speakable Items. On 62xx and 63xx choose custom install.
Freeware

FinderScripts 3
If you have purchased system 7.5 and do not have the time or the desire to learn to script, this package provides you with useful utilities to help you take advantage of the power of Applescript.
Shareware $10.00

The HEK 3000 Mark II
The HEK3000 Mark II is a desktop toy created out of longing for the dearly departed Talking Moose. Unable to find a satisfactory replacement, I decided to create my own, slightly twisted, talking desktop pal.
Shareware $5.00

I am a Talking File 2.0
Text files opened with I am a Talking File 2.0 become double-clickable speech files

Voice_control_finder16 Folder
These scripts enable you to use spoken commands to copy, move,duplicate, open, and expand/collapse files and folders in the Finder.

Barrack Disk

Barrack
Barrack is an addictively abstract Macintosh action game. It has been known to cause mouse hemorrhages. Meticulously crafted by Greg Lovette, Barrack is a game that is hard to pigeonhole. It exhibits a precarious balance between action and strategy; thinking and reflex. The feeling you get from playing Barrack is an eccentric harmony between the automatic, mind-numbing pleasure of Tetris and the kind of action found in Maelstrom. The result is that you'll be left with sweat on your brow.

Barrack features stunning artwork, intense action, vibrant 8-channel stereo sound effects, and the addictiveness that comes standard in an Ambrosia game.

Create a folder on your hard drive and copy the three parts of the barrack installer onto the newly created folder. Then drag and drop the first part of the barrack installer on Stuffit expander. It will join the parts and uncompress it. Then run the installer.

Microsoft BORG
Completely benign. Will not harm anything! This is a program that utilizes the speech manager.

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SECURITY ALERT!

McAfee describes a Microsoft mail/macro virus that infects MS Word and spreads via MS Mail.

Microsoft's Web Executable Security page talks about issues raised by a malicious ActiveX program that surreptitiously transfers money.

Tip O' the Month

From Your Shareware Team

Stickies is a small DA which comes with Apple Mac OS (7.1 and up). It allows you to quickly create little reminders (like Post-It® notes) anywhere on the screen. However, Stickies has to be the current running application to see them.

If you have desktop set to show, when the Finder is not current, you have an alternative to Stickies that will always show (but may be covered by your current window). Every icon on the screen has a title which can store up to 31 characters. That is not a lot, but may be enough most of the time. Just create a new folder and type your reminder as the name of the folder!

If you don't want the folder attached to your note, you can either hide it under the menu bar so only the name shows, or you can replace it with a blank icon. In fact, if you already have a blank icon, you can just duplicate it and change the name as you want. Just like stickies only permanent (until you trash them)!

How to create a blank icon? If you have resedit, create a new folder, open it in resedit, cut out the images in the icl4, icl8, ics4, ics8, and ICN# resources (open the edit window, select all, cut). Save. Now you have a folder with a blank icon. If this is too much trouble, we will try to include blank icons in some of our DOMs.

SIMPLY MAC

Mac basics we sometimes forget

What Control Panels do we really need? Believe it or not, several of the control panels are basically for one-time use! After that, you can put them in the disabled folder. Then they won't take up precious system heap memory.

Color - allows control over the hilight color for selected text and the colored rim around selected windows. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Keyboard - allows you to set the keyboard layout - US English, UK English, French, German, etc. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Labels - labels is not much use to anybody. This cp allows you to set a text "meaning" for each label color. And change the colors. If you need it, you can set it. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Map - you should use this to pick a city close to where you work so that Date & Time settings will work. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Monitors - you need it if you have to change monitor depth a lot. If you seldom change monitor depth (most people get by with 256 colors, no sweat), you can disable it without problem.

Mouse - set this to the best tracking and double-click speed for your hand-eye coordination. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Numbers - set this for the $00.00 notation you are used to. Germans, for instance, like 123.456,78. An odd convention. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Sound - allows you to set (and even record!) the system beep. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Text - affects sort order, case conversion, etc. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

Views - controls display of icon view and list view. Play with this until you get what works best for you. Especially consider disabling Snap-to-Grid. Turn off all but size and kind in list view. Once you have it the way you want, you can disable it without problem.

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