TABLE OF CONTENTS
This month's FREE Sample Shareware is no longer available
by Louis Bookbinder
I always take great pleasure in doing the voice part of the shareware demo each month, telling you what some of the software can do, explaining what Larry is doing at the keyboard, inviting you to check it out yourself for the great prices we offer. Last month you really must have found the demo interesting because we had record sales. Thank you.
Unfortunately, all of us have real jobs in our real lives outside of SMUG, and Larry is no exception. Due to the press of work in that real job, Larry has reluctantly asked to step down from his role as demonstrator. He has resigned from the team and from SMUG and will only be an occasional visitor at general meetings.
From the rest of the team, Larry, Good Luck, and thank you for a job well done!
Owen Saxton, who used to help at the sales table, will take over this month in pushing the mouse around.
I would like to appeal to you, a SMUG member, to consider joining our team. We have had some great times, the work is very productive and much appreciated, and I find it most rewarding. We are a little short-handed right now, and it means more work for each of us. One or two more members on the team would be a real plus.
Coffee Break is a simple application that is designed to force you to take periodic breaks, so that you can reduce your chances of getting a Repetetive Stress Injury. You may set an amount of "work time", during which Coffee Break sits in the background with a timer displayed, and an amount of "break time", or "sleep time", during which you are forced to take a break from the computer. Shareware $5
DiskLocker* is a security utility. It allows you to lock and unlock a volume (floppy disks, SyQuest* cartdriges,...) easily. When a disk is locked, it can not be changed, no files can be modified or thrown away, but you can ever read from the disk. You can attach a password with each disk you lock. Of course, this password will be necessary to unlock the disk. Shareware $10 (Author is French)
Many expressed admiration of the Nagle print used as a desktop in last month's demo. So Larry left us a legacy. This is the first of 3 Nagle prints for use as desktop images. Or maybe you are lucky enough to have a color printer.... FREE
Invisible Clock is a small System 7-only Apple Macintosh utility that audibly announces the time between the hours you choose every hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour as you prefer at the volume you decide.
Actually, it*s a pair of applications: *Invisible Clock* and *Invisible Clockwork.* Invisible Clockwork does the announcing. Whenever it*s running, it sits quietly in the background except to announce the time every so often. You use Invisible Clock to tell Invisible Clockwork when, how often, and how loud to announce.
Comes with female voice announcing the time, but this disk also includes a file for a male voice (More Invisible Clock Sounds), and, in fact, you can record your own voice announcing the time! FREE
Mystical Chant is a self-playing sound file which makes an excellent startup sound. You are required to meditate 5 minutes before starting your mac. Shareware $5.
PrintChoice is a control panel device which provides a quick way to select a printer without using the Apple chooser. It adds a menu in the menubar which lists your frequently used printers.
PrintChoice also lets you create desktop printers, which are icons which let you drag-drop documents to print them to a specific printer. To create a desktop printer, use the "Desktop Printer" button in the "Modify*" dialog. Shareware $14
Another beautiful Nagle graphic. FREE
Another self-playing sound file. Drop into your Startup Folder and get really warmed up every time you start up your mac (Not X-rated). FREE
The third, and largest Nagle graphic. FREE
System 7.5 adds heirarchy to the apple menu, a Good Thing. But sometimes it does not work. Here is an idea to try when one of the folders does not show a submenu: drag the dead folder out of its usual place to the desktop. Put it back. Try again.
Note that you should not also be running another Heirarchical Apple Menu program, like MenuChoice. Many such extensions or control panels will conflict and prevent proper operation.
It is also a good idea to put an alias to the apple menu IN THE APPLE MENU. Why? Makes it much easier to change or to fix problems.
What to put in the apple menu:
Take out DAs you never use.
You can put some order to the Apple Menu by preceeding item names with blanks or other non-printing characters. They move to the top of the list.
From reading these tip columns you may wonder why I am always suggesting tweeks to your system. BECAUSE IT'S THERE! Really, what fun would a mac be if there were only one way to set things up, if every mac looked like every other mac? Play around. Keep notes. Be prepared to undo changes if you run into problems. The more you modify things, the more your mac takes on your personal flavor, and the more comfortable the work will feel to you. And the more you will learn.
We still have copies of Upgrade 1.0 for System 7.5. It comes on 4 disks but you can have them for only $10. One of the purchasers last month had trouble with this set - If you do, please ask for a new copy from the shareware table, or from any of the shareware team. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Louis Bookbinder (disk creation, demo, newsletter, Manager)