SHAREWARE NEWS
September 1999
|
|
|
This month's Free Sample Shareware is no longer available.
Control Commander
Control Commander is a utility that makes using control panels
easier. It displays a list of all the options that can be set with
any of the Control Panels that are installed on the computer. The
list is divided into logical categories like "Text", "Sound" or
"Networks", so it's easy to find the setting you want, and clicking
on the list will open the relevant Control Panel. Instead of wasting
time searching through thirty or more programs for the one option you
want to set, you can look at a single list of all the options
available; click on the list and go right to the Control Panel you
need ! Control Commander also lets you keep track of the settings
that make a Mac your Mac. Do a bit of typing in the built-in editor,
and you've got a document that helps you quickly set up any Mac just
the way you like it. Instead of wasting hours reconfiguring things
after a System crash or upgrade, you can open up your "recipe" in
Control Commander and have your Mac back to normal in minutes ! $25
Control Panels Strip
Control Panels Strip is a control strip module that was
originally designed to provide fast access to your Control Panels.
Now it does much more. You can open, enable/disable, move to trash,
or get info on items in your Control Panels, Extensions, Control
Strip Modules, and Startup Items folders. FREE
FileDispenser
FileDispenser™ duplicates files from a source folder into
separated sub&endash;folders by each file's format, application type
or length of its name. $8
fileWRANGLER
fileWRANGLER is an easy to use file manager utility. fileWRANGLER
let you enable, disable or delete Apple Menu Items, Control Panels,
CSM's, CMM's, Extensions and Preferences. FREE
HoverDuel
HoverDuel requires two players, who control hovercrafts in the
attempt to destroy one another with a variety of weapons. (What did
you expect?) Players try to dodge one another's projectiles by means
of their hovercraft's
Limited-Duration-High-Powered-Air-Expulsion-Module, or in layman's
terms, jumping ability. FREE
MacFiller
MacFiller The goal in MacFiller is to get more hexagons than your
opponent(s). MacFiller is a turn-based game, where each player
chooses a new color each turn. Each time a player chooses a color,
they gain all hexagons of the new color that are touching the
hexagons they already own. (The manual is illustrated to better
explain how this works.) Give it a shot...I'm sure you'll catch on
fast! FREE
Magic Print
Magic Print is a Shareware Power Macintosh application written to
enable desktop printing on any printer, it works by placing an icon
on the desktop, when documents are dragged onto the Magic Print icon
it launches them up into their default application activates the
print command. Magic Print launches in the background and uses 200k
of memory, It is not an Extension or a Control panel so it will not
slow down your computer, when Magic Print has sent your documents to
your printer it will automatically quit freeing up its memory. $10
Meat Gone Bad II
The meat is back.
After fighting off the first attack of living meat, which came to
life after sitting on the counter for hours as you chatted with Great
Aunt Ethel, the phone rings again. You wearily pick up the receiver.
"Hello?" your voice cracks.
It is none other than Great Aunt Betty! As you haven't talked to
Betty for months, you decide to spend the next few hours catching up
with her. You laugh, you cry, and you become even closer to the Aunt
you love so much.
Don't you ever learn?
The meat, already warm, grows new strains of controlling bacteria
which quickly take over the meat and begin to attack you! You turn
around and see:
Steaks!
Meatballs!
Fish!
Porkchops!
...and even more disgusting chunks of flesh!
Luckily, this time you grab you SUPER-DUPER-ULTRA bottle! When you
run into a mysterious QUESTION MARK with this bad-boy, you improve by
either:
...changing to a relish bottle (stronger!) or,
...changing to a ketchup bottle (faster!) or,
...gaining small mustard allies! $12
Snap it!
Snap it! is the definitive screen capture tool for MacOS.
Contrary to other screen capture tools available, Snap It! is a very
low-level screen hacker: Snap It! can take a picture of every part of
the screen absolutely whenever you want and save the result in a
standard PICT file.
No more troubles in taking screen shots of programs like games which do not give processing time to the Finder or to the classical screen capture programs and prevent them from capturing the screen content.
Snap It! can capture in any bit depth and in any size provided
enough memory is available.
If you can see it on screen, then Snap It! can capture it! FREE
Many G3 PowerBook owners have reported batteries that are not recognized by the PowerBook, or fail to charge, or report inaccurate charge levels. Apple has just released the PowerBook G3 Series Battery Reset Update 1.0 which includes a small application to reset one or both (if inserted) batteries so the PowerBook will recognize them correctly. This update ONLY applies to PowerBook G3s. See the TIL article at http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n24604?OpenDocument&software. The update, http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11490 is a 190K download.
Tip O' the Month
Mouse care: The big enemy of mice is dirt. Keep your mouse-pad clean. If it has a slick plastic surface, try glass cleaner. If fabric, sponge it off, let dry. For the mouse itself, you occasionally have to clean the ball and the rollers. For the ball, warm soapy water will work (dry off before using). To remove the ball, the ring around the ball can be twisted off (counter-clockwise), and later twisted back on (clockwise) to lock the ball back in. To clean the rollers, use a clean pencil eraser head to get the main globs of oily gunk off, then a tissue should do the rest. Most of that gunk is oil and dirt from your hand. If you clean your hand before using your computer, you won't have to clean so often.
A trackball works exactly the same as a mouse.
A trackpad does not. Nothing to clean except the pad itself - a damp cloth should do.
Never Ever detach a pointing device from its jack while the computer is running. And NEVER EVER plug one back in while the computer is running! But you can clean them while still attached - no danger of electric shock, unless you drop the mouse in water!
SIMPLY MAC
A reader sent me a tip about how to hide open folders at the bottom of the screen. Yes, this is a "new" feature: Open a folder, drag (by the title bar) to the bottom of the screen until the title bar changes to a tab.
They are called folder tabs - came in with 8.0. To open a folder with a tab, click once on the tab. To close, click ANYWHERE. To keep it open while you click around, just drag the tab of an open folder up a little until the titlebar appears. Release. To turn it back into a tab, just push it down to the bottom. The tabs will not overlap. If two tabs are created next to each other, they will slide apart when they turn into tabs. So, to create a row of tabs in minimal space, create the right and left tabs first. You can slide them back and forth without opening them. Then add every other tab in between, and then the last ones. SKINNY tabs. You might lose some letters in the folder names, but they still work right.
Note also that folder tabs really do want to stay out of the way. In any application beside the finder, the tabs stay in the background. And if you open a folder from inside a tabbed folder, the tabbed folder collapses back to a tab. Very well-behaved. I keep 5 tabs on my desktop: Apps, Comm, System, Utils, and Docs. You should try something like System and Apps, and keep aliases to other folders in Apps. Don't put ALL your folders on the desktop - too much clutter. NOTE: the folders are not REALLY on the desktop - they are really still where they were when you opened them. If you go there you will notice that the icons are greyed out - this means the folders are open! Yes, they are - but the windows have been converted to tabs. Isn't Apple clever!
My choices, only, out of hundreds of items every month. Drop me a
note for YOUR favorite. Links below are either info about or actual
downloads, and include commercial products, as well as shareware.
These do NOT include demos or beta releases. You might check out
Version Tracker for
more.
® means update to recently released DOM item. Wish we could catch
them all....
APPLE
Font Manager Update 1.0 - fixes some font related problems in OS 8.6
Macintosh Manager 1.0.1 - client manager for connecting to Mac OS X Servers
MRJ 2.1.4 - Mac OS Runtime for Java for PowerMacs with OS 7.6.1 or better
PowerBook G3 series battery reset 1.0 - not for new bronze PowerBooks
QuickTime 4.0.2 - if QuickTime Updater won't work use QuickTime Installer or full install
FileMaker Pro 4.1v3 - update to fix Y2K issues, also 4.0v3 update available
FinderPop 1.8.1 - improves & extends features in OS 8.x contextual menus (only OS 9 fix)
GURU 2.8 - info on every possible RAM & VRAM configuaration for every Mac & clone
HTML Markup 3.0 - easily batch convert text files to HTML, special characters and all
Kaleidoscope 2.2 - user interface enhancement utility, OS 9 fix & other improvements
Mathematica 4.0 updates - application package updates for the math solving & presentation tool
Symantec NAV virus defs August - virus definition files for Norton AntiVirus
Adobe Photoshop 5.5 - now shipping the image editing app which includes ImageReady 2.0
Quake II 1.0.1 - new version of the popular 1st person shoot game, no info page yet
Macromedia Shockwave/Flash 7.0.2 - players for Shockwave & Flash 4r12 web media
Aladdin ShrinkWrap 3.5 - creates and mounts exact duplicates of disk images
Virex Virus Update August - virus definition file for Virex 5.9.x
|
|
other sources credited where known. Trademark credits, where omitted, remain with their owners - updated 6 July 1999 |
| |||||||
