TABLE OF CONTENTS
This month's FREE Sample Shareware is no longer available. See the current month's page.
by Louis Bookbinder
So, where was I, during all the action?
At work, folks. I work at Stanford, maintaining Student Accounting systems. One weekend a month I work Saturday to run a monster batch of programs to bring the accounting up to date. Millions of dollars are involved. Saturday before the General Meeting the month-end process glitched about 2 hours into it, and it took all weekend and well into Monday to find the cause and fix it. And 2 other people as well. I did not go home Monday until 1AM (TUESDAY).
But your shareware team rose to the occasion! They did marvelously well, and I compliment all of them, especially Thomas Carlson, your presenter.
Indeed Thomas put together this month's disk.
Addiction Manager
0.91ß
Addiction Manager is a program for helping people manage
addiction to computer games. It creates aliases to programs just like
the finder does. However, with Addiction Manager's aliases, you can
restrict access to your programs.
AVI and AVI-Quicktime
AVI and AVI-Quicktime are a combination application/extension
which will crudely convert AVI files to Macintosh QuickTime movies.
CD Menu
CD Menu is a control panel/extension which allows you to control
your audio CDs without that tiresome switching between applications.
CD Menu is accessible at almost any time (even from most modal
dialogs).
Dream Weaver
Dream Weaver is a little program that demonstrates a variety of
simple visual illusions (caused in some cases by 'faults' in the
biological structure of the retina, in others by 'limitations' in the
brain's visual center, and yet others by a combination of physical
and mental processes), and includes a short background on each
one.
Glider Design
Glider Design uses scientific aerodynamic principals and an
interactive environment to help you design balsawood gliders that
should really fly! Thousands of working designs are possible. Written
under NASA Space Grant funding. Includes lesson plans, a manual, and
sample designs.
Mac to Mac
Mac to Mac will establish an authentic TCP/IP connection between
2 macs, using a regular telephone connection, so you can use all your
typical TCP/IP software. I can't think of anything REALLY cool to do
with this, except for CU-SEE ME. This will only work at acceptable
speeds using a 28.8 bps modem.
PasswordMaker
PasswordMaker is an application that generates a valid
6-character password given two keywords: a master keyword and a
username. The passwords are created using a mathematical algorithm,
not randomly, so the password can always be generated again for a
user name as long as you use the same master keyword. This is useful
for System Administrators who regularly generate passwords for their
users and need to reproduce the same password if it is lost or
forgotten.
PowerShare 1.0
PowerShare is a shareware program that allows anyone using System
7 File Sharing to control the amount of CPU time allocated to File
Sharing. Without PowerShare, System 7 File Sharing defaults to 50% of
the CPU time allocated to File Sharing. PowerShare allows you to
allocate anywhere from 10% to 100% of the CPU time for File Sharing.
Once you use PowerShare to change this setting, it will stay at the
new setting ... even if the computer is shut down and rebooted.
ScreenFlip
ScreenFlip performs Œanimated¹ horizontal and vertical
flips of your screen¹s contents. Silly, no? An After-Dark
module.
Shutdown Delay
Shutdown Delay displays a dialog at Restart and Shut Down time
which gives the user five choices:
- do nothing and let the Mac complete the original command;
- cancel and smoothly return to the calling application;
- restart the Macintosh;
- shut down and turn the power off;
- force a quit and attempt to return to the Finder.
Sky-Dive 1.0
Sky-Dive is an arcade-style game where you dive out of a plane at
high altitude and must shoot down planes and other jumpers on the way
down, while avoiding destruction yourself.
Talk€2€Me
Talk€2€Me is the latest in talk ware from Chris
Salzmann. With Talk€2€Me your mac becomes an intercom
allowing you to talk by voice -in real time- to all connected macs.
But wait, That's not all! It also works as an answering machine,
recording incoming messages and even playing personalized messages to
specific callers.
The_Web_Rules
The_Web_Rules is a collection of GIF images intended for use as
horizontal rules in World Wide Web pages. (This web page employs
several!)
also...
Check the shareware table for Netscape Navigator 2.0 and a beta of
Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The silent auction seemed to do OK last month, and the team wants to do it again. If I hear no objections, we will do it every month from now on as long as members remain interested.
Here is how it works:
PLEASE NOTE: We will make every effort to keep your item secure. However we take no responsibility, and theft is your risk alone. We suggest you keep easily stolen items, like SIMM chips, with you and just leave the auction sheet.
Sorry, we cannot provide electrical power to demo hardware.
We cannot be held responsible for items forgotten by their
owners.
Answer to December's Quiz: there are 10 ways to eject a floppy disk! Free DOM to whoever gets the most ways before the March general meeting. Offer only good for readers of this web page.
Some items from issue #97 of MacChat:
By Terry Wilson - TerryW6@aol.com
**Windowshade** This also works on inactive windows. As you know, by holding down the Command key, you can move a window with your mouse without activating it. By double-clicking the title bar while holding down the Command key, you can also 'windowshade' it out of the way.
Windowshade is also an effective 'boss key' for hiding that racy GIF you just picked off the internet, when someone walks into the room.
**Open here, save there** When opening files from one folder, changing and resaving them with new names to put in a new folder, do this. First, be sure you have 'Last folder used in the application' selected in the General control panel (Sys 7.5). Open the original folder and leave its window open in a convenient place on the desktop. Double-click to open your first file. When you save, navigate to your new target folder, or create a new one. Now, always open your files (unless of course you want to open something in your new folder) by double-clicking the desktop icon-not by accessing your program's Open dialog box-and your newly created folder will be waiting for you at each Save.
The idea here is that opening by double clicking from the Desktop
doesn't mess up the path the Open and Save dialog boxes are using.
This concept comes in handy more often than you might think.
SYSTEM 7.5.2 PROBLEMS: Read the March 96 issue of
MacUser. It says, among other things:
Check your preference files now and then. Throw out preferences for programs you do not use. If a program behaves badly, throw out its preference file and try again. You cannot trash a preference file while the program is running and if the preference is for an extension or control panel, you will have to restart with extensions off. Also, you can run a program by double-clicking on its preference file.
With PCI Macs, you may want to reset nonvolatile video RAM (NVRAM): Shutdown (do not restart); start and immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R. It helps to have 3 hands.
If you have trouble with QuickTime, check you really, truly, actually DID replace the old version with the new one. Newer versions' names include a trademark symbol (TM) and lack a version number. Open the extensions folder and see for yourself. Also, keep a copy of the preferred QuickTime elsewhere. Some program automatic installs will replace your nice version with an older clunkier version. Custom installs may avoid this.
Several months back we mentioned a macro virus infecting
Word 6 documents. We have had recent alerts that new versions of this
virus CAN BE DESTRUCTIVE to your system. The virus substitutes for
several kinds of macros attached to Word 6 documents. When Word 6
starts these documents, the macros run and load themselves into Word
6 itself, from where they infect other documents, and eventually
reformat your hard disk or do other destructive things. Microsoft has
another document containing a macro you can run which will detect the
virus in all your Word documents and destroy it, and also prevent
Word 6 itself from becoming infected.
THIS IS NO DANGER TO WORD 5 USERS.
I found out the other day that I am the ONLY Internet tutor at the Mitchell Park branch library. In a couple of weeks, the Library will be installing several Web-capable machines with Web access and I cannot possibly meet the demand by myself.
I must admit they will probably put in Windoz machines. But if you can stand that, they can sure use you! And while tutoring, you can PLUG SMUG! And Macs, of course.
Drop in at the Mitchell Park branch, or give me a call.
Louis Bookbinder work:
725-0639 home: 494-1589