WINAMP - review!

CRYSTAL FTP2k - review!

PICK-TURES - review!
HOOK 99 - review!
COOL PAGE - review!
CD2HTML - review!
SITEUPDATER - review!
E-ICONS 98 - reveiw!
NETCAPTOR - review!
STAROFFICE - review!
GO!ZILLA - review!

At last they've done it. Crystal Art Software, LTD is known for pushing the envelope. If fact it's been rumored that they sometimes rip it up, throw it on the ground and laugh at it as it blows away in the wind. The same group of geniuses that brought us Crystal Site Updater has now released Crystal FTP as freeware. That's right, freeware. Crystal FTP was my favorite piece of shareware out there. On my short list of "must haves" I rank Crystal FTP as #3 or 4#. Now I'll need to bump everyone up 'cause CFTP is now part of an elite bunch of Freeware apps.

If you're anything like me, you probably don't use the same image for your background/desktop all the time. You probably have 3 or 4 favorites that you switch back and forth, just to keep your desktop "fresh". I also bet you've wondered if there was a wallpaper-switching application that was both easy to use and wasn't an absolute pain-in-the-neck! Until now, the answer was no, not really. But we here at "THE SEMATARY GATES" don't agree. We say, "Bull pucky, there is an application out there that does all that and more. We just haven't found it yet!" That application we've all dreamed of is now available "FREE OF CHARGE" courtesy of Jeremy Mitchell. Some people call him Jeremy, some call him the Windows 95 version of Santa Claus, I call him Mr. Mitchell.
Pick-Tures is a simple program that handles the maintenance of desktop wallpaper. It can "tile" images on your desktop, it can shrink an image to fit your screens resolution, it can switch wallpapers at a set time interval (i.e. Every 10 minutes), and it can even change the wallpaper when windows loads up. Picking the images Pick-Tures can choose from is as easy as browsing through folders in windows. In fact, that's exactly how you do it; you just browse through your folders and select the folders/images you want to be involved.
Now I can hear you saying, "Luke, this sounds great, but I have so many programs running on my PC at once, I wish Pick-Tures could change the wallpaper and then close down."
The most useful feature of Pick-Tures is that you can have it start up along with windows, change the wallpaper, and then Pick-Tures will close, freeing up resources for other applications.
Pick-Tures can use jpegs, gifs, bmps, you name it, Pick-Tures can even use icons!
Pick-Tures is, at least I'm pretty sure, a freeware application. There is a note that encourages you to send an email and register it. That is probably for the software's author, just to give him an idea of how many people use his program. You should probably register it and drop a nice hello .)

The application? Hook99 by L. Brisar. What it does? It changes the appearance of your "start button". What else does it do? Nothing. I love these little programs that don't do much. You can chose an icon or bitmap and have Hook99 install it as your Start Button's new look. You can even have the button say something other than "Start". How about "Go" or "Press Here!" The program is simple and small.

Before HOOK99:

 

After HOOK99

| COOL PAGE | APP HOMEPAGE |

THIS APP IS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR FREEWARE INFRINGEMENT, AKA: NOT FREE

A couple days before I wrote this review, my brother sent me an email asking if I could send him some of the bitmaps I have on my computer. You can say I'm sort of a picture collector, so in a folder, I store neat images from other web pages. Some of these images make really nice backgrounds for Windows 95/98. I thought about my brothers request. Possessing about 30 images and not wanting to attach each one to the outgoing email, I came up with the idea of making a web page with a preview of each image. That way he could download the images he wanted and passover those he didn't. Depending on how I wanted to make the page, I was looking at a potentially time consuming task. Unless of course I use "CD2HTML". The software distributor labels this program as a cataloger for cd and computer directories, but I've found it to be best at creating web pages with little versions of larger pictures, called "thumbs". Using CD2HTML, I can create a web page with 20 thumbs that independently link to the full-size version of the thumb. So instead of having a page with large, long loading images, I have a rapid loading preview page. The one downside of CD2HTML is the learning curve. Most of the features in CD2HTML are obvious to me now, but when I started using it, I remember having to mess around a little before I got anywhere. CD2HTML is not for the user that gets frustrated easily. I can use it quite effectively now and you will too, just don't get discouraged and throw your PC out the window. Make sure you take breaks and play Solitaireonce in awhile. CD2HTML has many built in layout templates. For the really adventurous (and html minded) users, there's a text box that allows the user to edit the actual html in the layout creating a personalized output. I've found CD2HTML to be a very nice sidekick to my html editor.

Have you ever wanted to customize your computer's icons? Have you ever tried to rename your "Recycling Bin?" If you answered yes to either question, the program you need is called "E-Icons 98." A young man named Giovanni La Sala wrote it, obviously thinking, "It's my computer, it should look the way I want it to."
E-Icons allows you to change your computer's icons. You can change specific icons or the entire bunch. E-Icons even comes packed with several icon themes. The user can change folder icons, drive icons and file type icons, plus you can even install an icon for a particular file extension. Best of all, E-Icons 98 allows you to rename the recycling bin, so for you ex-mac users...the Trash Can shall live again!! I think one of the best features of E-Icons (besides the fact that it's, and I'm gonna use the F-word, FREE) is that E-Icons doesn't need to be actively running on your computer. It makes its changes and then shuffles off into the night, never to to be heard from again. Or at least, until you start the application again.

I'm a Microsoft Internet Explorer user. I like the way it's set up. I like how it works. What I don't like is admitting that I like a Microsoft product. It almost seems hip to be anti Microsoft. Sure, there are those who say that Windows 95 is crap, but those same people are shelling out the 100 bucks for that software. Say you hate Microsoft and more often than not you'll get a "Right you are, bud!" That's why I am excited to talk about NetCaptor. NetCaptor, written by Stilesoft, inc. is a web browser that uses the Internet Explorer 5.0 engine. This sort of "code borrowing" is a familiar concept to those of us that play Quake 2. Virtually, what Stilesoft has done is take IE5 and made it better. And best of all, you don't need to install IE5 for NetCaptor to work. That means you can install Windows 98, version 4.10.1998, which comes with IE4 and use NetCaptor as your browser. But that's not to say that you need to make NetCaptor your default browser. In fact, IE5 is still my default browser, although not my most used one. I have not been driven enough test as to whether NetCaptor works without IE installed on the PC. But enough about the justification of using NetCaptor. Lets talk about the features NetCaptor offers, which is why we use NetCaptor in the first place.
I use a modem at home. That means loading a web page can be a time consuming ordeal. It's not uncommon to have a ten second wait for each page. That means 6 pages a minute during a "power surf" session. Now suppose I follow a link that I definitely want to retreat from. That means hitting the "back button" and waiting for the previous page to reload. Now I hear you saying "Luke, it should be in your cache." True, but even if it takes 3 seconds to return, that means I've now spent 13 seconds going no where (the 10 seconds to load the bad page and 3 seconds to load the previous page.) I fixed this problem by taking advantage of the "Open in New Window" option available to you when you right click on a link. IE5 will open a new window, and using your task bar, you can flip back and forth, closing windows when they are no longer necessary. This method works great, unless you have a resource strapped machine like my backup PC, named TriGem. TriGem is a great PC, very dependable. Dependable is used in the manner you'd use when describing a Volkswagen bug. NetCaptor takes the "multi-window" surfing phenomenon to the next level. NetCaptor uses "tabs" much like those found in windows applications. (ie. Right click on my computer and select "properties." ) Netcaptor can handle a huge amount of web pages while only running one window. When the user right clicks on a link and chooses "Open in New Window," a new tab is opened in the background. The new tab will show a red , yellow, or green box depending on the status of the web page. Red means the browser is searching for the links web server. Yellow means that the location was found and NetCaptor is loading all the files. Green means "Look at me, I'm ready!" Here's how a typical surfing session could go using NetCaptor.
I open NetCaptor and click a bookmark directed at my email account. I enter my username and password. I have mail. I open the first message. It's from my brother. He sent me a picture of his prom, attached to the message. I right click on the attachment and select "Open in New Window." NetCaptor opens a new tab in the background, loading my brother's picture. I continue reading as it loads. When the picture has finished, I flip to that tab and admire the picture. I decide to save it to my hard drive. Then I close the flap and return to my "inbox."
NetCaptor is a nice browser that fits my surfing style. Try it!