The Gift of Honesty

There's always a hassle picking the "right" Christmas gift for people. But it occurred to me, in one of those flashes that causes the world to tremble, that it might be possible to give people a gift they never really considered. The Gift of Honesty.

People who use computers always end up using some varieties of shareware. The point is that shareware is not "freeware." Shareware is set up to run for a certain period of time, after which you are supposed to register it and pay the fee. This shouldn't be a big problem, since shareware is less expensive than commercial software. But an awful lot of people don't bother.

There are inconveniences to not paying the fee. The "nag screens" that tell you to pay up, already. The inconvenient workarounds. The limited usefulness of features that aren't functional. Having to re-install the stuff when the time limit runs out. But the real problem is that the person who wrote the shareware often makes his living from it. He needs that money. You're cheating him by not registering. And by using a stolen password, or just staying with the trial version, you hurt that person.

So, why not give your friends a favor that you can pay for with a charge card, costs relatively little, and gives them something they will regularly use? Pay their shareware fee for them. Here are some good examples of useful programs that cost so little, but do so much.

WinZip, the most used (and least paid-for) shareware program in the world.

WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) is the most used file compression program. Most people only use the shareware version without paying. But it's only $29 to register. If you know your friend's e-mail address, register the software in their name with their e-mail address. They will receive the unlock code you paid for. Tell them this (and make them a CD with the latest version of WinZip on it). In fact, if you register from two to ten versions, the price (called a "site license") drops to $22 per person. You could give this to every computer owner you know very cheaply. You people who use Windows XP know there is a zip/unzip program included, so you may not want to go for this...unless you hate Bill Gates and wish to avoid his evil works.

If your friend downloads very large files - such as DivX movies - another compression program is commonly used in place of WinZip. It's called WinRAR, and while it unzips ZIP files as well, its RAR compression format allows the creation of very large files for compression. It can produce multi-segment compression files that can hold a whole Video CD or more. You can find the program at http://www.rarlab.com and pay the $29 shareware fee.

Speaking of downloading files, is your friend getting those movies from Internet Relay Chat? Since the death of Napster, IRC is one of the best places to get music and movies - and I don't mean the promotional junk that AOL "graciously" lets you watch. IRC is also a place where you can chat worldwide with intelligent people - since you need a little intelligence and sense to use it. The most famous IRC "client" program is mIRC (http://www.mirc.com) and although registration isn't strictly necessary, the $20 or so will help support the noble work of the program's author. mIRC even allows you to set up and run your own server on the IRC networks, and you can use programmed "bots" for mIRC that perform useful functions like keeping track of downloaded files.

The splash screen of Forté Agent, the best news reading program I've ever seen.

Or, if your friend browses newsgroups, there's a better way to do it than the crummy Microsoft version included with Internet Explorer. The program Forté Agent (http://www.forteinc.com) is intensely better. Using the free version called Free Agent without paying is a good introduction, but by registering for $29 your giftee gets built-in translation of yENC-encoded files. (Which are becoming more and more common, since they're compressed and faster to download.)

One of the biggest defects in creating web sites or handling text is dealing with things like quotation marks, upper/lower case, line breaks and the like. A program available in both Macintosh and Windows form called Textsoap (http://www.unmarked.com) will clean up text for use in all sorts of things. You can take text extracted from a web page and remove the linefeeds and carriage returns selectively. This lets the text wrap correctly in your word processor, but leaves the paragraphs intact. You can make or remove "smart quotes" or HTML codes, and even program your own filters. Registering this costs $19.95 for either the Windows or Macintosh version.

Editing a stereo audio file in Goldwave. The useful program that Windows, of course, didn't give you.

Does your friend record audio? One of the most useful programs for handling audio on computers is Goldwave (http://www.goldwave.com). I use it to record audio cassettes onto my hard drive, edit the resulting files, and turn them into MP3's. I can edit the audio files, add filters for hiss and scratch, and save the files in many different formats. If you get a file that you can't burn as an MP3, you can convert the bit rate to the standard 44 kHz sampling rate with Goldwave. Unlike the sound editor built into Windows, you can work with very large files - up to 2 gigabytes in size. Goldwave's shareware fee is $55 Canadian, which is about $40 in U.S. dollars.

Count Your Animated Blessings

I'm a fan of Dr. Susan Jeffers, the self-help writer. Her books Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway and End the Struggle and Dance with Life have helped me through some rough times in my life. One of the ideas unique to her is an old one, but one that she puts into compelling form. Instead of worrying about what we don't have, appreciate what we do have.

We often fret about the things we lack, so much so that we ignore or forget that we've been blessed with a lot. This can increase the fear in our life and make us profoundly unhappy. Jeffers recommends that you should keep a journal, and every day write down fifty - that's right, five-zero - things to be grateful for each day. Think about it before you go to the next paragraph. Stop now, and think of those fifty things.

Did you think of any? How about these for examples? I'm alive. I have good food in my refrigerator. The sun is shining. It snowed last night, and it's beautiful outside. I walked by Victoria's Secret in the mall yesterday and the poutpourri smelled delightful. My Windows computer started without crashing. Howard Stern was funny this morning. I got aroused watching Halle Berry in that new James Bond movie. My friend at work laughed at my joke. Gee, my hair smells terrific.

They don't have to be big things, just things that are good. Think about these and you will come to a greater appreciation of life.

Perhaps with animation, we should think the same way. Here are some things we don't really appreciate about animation that we really should.

Ozzy and Drix turned out to be fun. Think about the lame way most of Disney's adaptations of their theatrical features turned out. There were plenty of opportunities for them to do fun things with Aladdin and Hercules, which they avoided. But Ozzy and Drix got rid of the sad, hideous appearance of Bill Murray, the film's worst aspect. Instead, the street-smart white blood cell and his pill buddy help a preteen kid named Hector. A future episode will even have Tim Curry playing Nicotine, and tempts Hector into smoking with a song!

Disney's got some good animated series at last. Kim Possible could have been pretty bad - a duded-up version of the terrible Mary Kate and Ashley in Action! series. But Kim is not always super-confident; she's got her doubts, she's vulnerable, and she doesn't always win. She is a very approachable role model. If it isn't a realistic action-adventure story (which Disney needs to do badly) it's still fun. And even though The Proud Family should have been a live-action sitcom, not an animated show, it's still reasonably fun. Seeing it buried and unwatched on The Disney Channel would be a shame; it's really helping the ABC Saturday morning schedule.

Static Shock shows real-world problems. The justification for all the Kids In School cartoon shows is that they show kids how to handle real-life problems. It all falls apart because the shows are too timid to do that. The kids on Recess never dealt a racist parent who embarrassed them in front of their multiracial friends. Hey, Arnold! didn't have a disturbed, frightened kid bringing a gun to school. Rugrats never faced their kids with a parent dying as a result of random violence. Static Shock did all that. Virgil Hawkins discovered that having static electricity powers didn't protect him from the horrors of regular life. And he didn't have all the answers; he needed the help of his father and his counselors to make it through, although it was up to him to make the tough decisions. The New York Times and USA Today even noted the seriousness of Static Shock!, which has helped the series to a new season this spring.

Small-budget animated films are doing well. The Wild Thornberries Movie is generating some buzz. I'll admit I don't really like the Clasky-Csupo form of animation, but the series about a girl with Doctor Doolittle's superpower is remarkably charming - and true to nature. They didn't spend a fortune on the movie, which means they should make money on it. The Powerpuff Girls Movie and Nick's Hey, Arnold! weren't expensive, either - and their comparative failures didn't destroy Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. When you spend a fortune, as Disney did with Treasure Planet (to take an appropriate example) you can lose a fortune. Keep the costs modest, don't worry about making An Artistic Statement, and animated features can continue, no matter how well or poorly they do individually.

The public is starting to love anime, and because of Cartoon Network, not otaku. There may be lots of people in anime rooms at science fiction cons. But there are even more watching Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. It wouldn't have happened if, in 2001, CN hadn't taken a risk with Tenchi Muyo - in the kiddie Toonami block! The science fiction film noir series Cowboy Bebop has risen from nowhere to the top of the anime crowd. If the series hadn't ended with all the characters separated and/or dead, it would continue to be a success. A show as weird as the Topper-like Yu Yu Hakusho (whose name I had to look up on the Adult Swim web site), or the feudal-Japan demon story Inuyasha (same thing) wouldn't have a chance anywhere else. While the internet otaku keep wasting time complaining about what Disney stole from their favorite anime obscession, the rest of the world has moved on, and anime is now beloved by people who take baths, date, and enjoy full and rich lives. And who aren't bothered at all that the dialog is in English.