SHAREWARE NEWS

February 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
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SHAREWARE SAMPLE

This month's Free Sample Shareware is no longer available. See current month.

SMUG February '97 Disk of the Month

assembled by Larry Hutnick

Creator Changer 2.7.1
This utility allows you to change a document/ File's creator type.
Freeware

Cron...
Is a program that launches other programs at preset times. Cron runs in the background. As Cron is not a extension or control panel, it is not exposed to a wide range of problems associated with extensions and their trap patches.
Shareware $10.00

Deluxe Folder Icon Creator v1.6.1
This Program is a more feature rich utility along the line of Folder Icon Maker. It will make not only folders with Icons on them but also disk images.
Freeware.

Imageviewer 4.1.1
Image viewer is a program that allows you to navigate through folders containing GIF, JPEG, PICT, and TIFF images. You can drag a folder on images on to the Imageviewer's Icon and it will open up a window that you can see each image individually by clicking on the arrows or you can set it to go through the images like in a slide presentation.
Shareware $19.95

Life Expectancy Calculator
Just the thing we all wanted to find out. Enter your age, race and sex and the calculator lets you know how long you have left (on the average anyway). There is even some humorous comments on some well know and not so well know people on death to tickle your funny bone if looking at the calculators results is too depressing for you.
Freeware.

MathStars3.1
This is a fun game for the young ones to hone their basic math skills on. It give you stars if you perform well. You can set the time limit to solve each problem.
Freeware.

Mr. Prefman...
Basically this utility program allows more than one set of Preferences to be used on a Mac. As in the case where you have several people sharing one Macintosh.
Shareware fee $5.

Startup Screens
There are three startup screens included in this months DOM.

Power-Through-It
MacStartupScreen
Never2late4-1984

Free

Total Eclipse Icon Collection
This is a collection of Icons / Folders that are meant to complement your color schemes in Kaleidoscope. Freeware.

WhoAmI? ver 1.3 (FAT)
This program adds the appropriate computer type into the system resources so that when you look at the "About This Macintosh" box it will display your computer type.
Postcard ware.

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SECURITY ALERT!

Nothing this month.

Tip O' the Month

From Your Shareware Team

A question came up at the general meeting about connecting to 2 service providers.

It is not impossible. Cannot connect to 2 at the same time, of course. But OpenTransport lets you set this up for relatively simple switching. You will have to configure for both in OpenTransport AND your PPP software. Since you have several choices of PPP software (including OT/PPP), I won't cover that.

You will need the IP address of the Domain Name Service that comes with your ISP.

Open TCP/IP control panel
Configure for the first ISP
Enter Command-K. This new screen lists all your communications configurations.
Rename "default" to the name of your ISP (or something you can remember)
Duplicate
Rename the duplicate to the name of your other ISP
Make Active (this puts you back in the TCP/IP main window)
Configure this one for the second ISP
Close.

Now you have both DNSs in separately. To switch, you exit your current ISP, Go into TCP/IP and use Command-K to get the config screeen, switch configurations, close, then go to your PPP screen to dial up the appropriate number. Not trivial, but do-able. Use Applescript to do it for you and save LOTS of work.

SIMPLY MAC

(formerly Too Obvious For Words)

Mac basics we sometimes forget

Preferences are one of those nice ideas invented at Apple and copied all over the industry. Basically, when you install a new application, when you set it up, you save your options in a preference file. The preferences are saved in the preferences folder in your System Folder.

Preferences are like any other Mac file - they have a data fork and a resource fork. You can paste icons on them - often they come with their own. You can double-click on them - they start the application they belong to. And you can edit them with ResEdit. But they can become corrupted. When your application gets in trouble - quits for no reason, does something weird, or generally becomes a pain in the mouse button, you might try trashing your preference file to see if that fixes it. Like fingernails, your application will regrow the preference if you trash it. Of course, after you trash a preference, you will have to enter the settings again.

Another thing prefs do is record the installation date. This is how some shareware can tell you it has been installed for umpteen days - would you please pay your shareware fee? OK, so you don't and you want to get rid of this little nag. Trash the preference. Sometimes this resets the clock. Worth a try.

You can have more than one Preferences file. If 2 people use your machine, and each uses the applications differently, they can swap Preferences files in and out of the System folder so they can have personalized preferences. See this month's Mr Prefman shareware.

Finally, you know about the desktop patterns control panel (really a tiny app - it does not have to be in the control panels folder). Desktop patterns is only 380K no matter how many patterns you put in it. Guess where the patterns are stored. Yep - in Desktop Patterns Preferences.

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