| Win95/98 UTILITIES |
|
If you use computers to make a living, and especially if you are using
them in a development or electronic support mode, the standard programs
provided by Windows aren't really "industrial" enough for most jobs.
These programs are
lean, mean, stable and fast, yet provide more functionality than what
you already have.
This collection is FREE for personal use and
is a subset of a more-encompassing collection. If you wish to use these
in a business environment, you will need to register this set; you will
then receive a license for the entire collection. These programs are
"proper" freeware -- they do not nag you for money, proclaim themselves
on screen as unregistered, and so on.
Here then are the basic FREE utilities:
Notepad:
This Windows Notepad replacement is designed for programmers, testers, and
other power users. It offers a variety of useful functions that are helpful
with program and script debugging (e.g. goto line number, commenting), SQL
manipulation (e.g. column removal), and teaching (e.g. add line numbers), as
well as basic and enhanced text manipulation. Unlike Windows Notepad, the
program can automatically invoke your MAPI email program and can have the
color combination controlled (black on white isn't what everyone prefers.)
In addition to text capability, this program can double as an RTF editor
with full control of fonts and color.
Notepad is especially friendly for users
of Borland's (Wordstar based) editors; the standard shortcut keystrokes are
supported. We wrote this originally to be able to be productive with a
Borland style editor when consulting with places that use nothing but the
vanilla Microsoft stuff...
File Wiper:
This program functions as a file deletion utility such that when files are
deleted they are first overwritten with random ASCII characters. What makes
this program more useful is that it can handle multiple files at once. Files
that are deleted STAY deleted, forever.
HexView:
This is a simple hexadecimal file viewer that contains ASCII string search
capability. Very handy for file format verification because it's small and
fast -- there's no need to invoke a full blown editor to look at a file
when you have no intention to edit it.
PaintAssist:
This utility is designed to aid painting programs by adding functionality
that most don't have: frame grab from AVI movie files, conversion of WMF
vector graphic files to bitmaps, fancier text effects, and transparent
image pasting (i.e. combining images together.) More Info.
Cookie Eater:
This is a simple utility that has only one function -- eating cookie files.
It can be optionally be controlled via an ini file (eatcook.ini) if your
browser cookies are in a directory other than c:\windows\cookies. Just
doubleclick and it will happily munch every cookie...
ImgView:
This program is an image viewer utility. It's sole purpose is to simply
display standard pictures files (e.g. web graphics like GIF or JPG, or
windows files like BMP.) It is provided because you can drop files on to
it (i.e. a desktop icon) therefore it is command line invoked; it is
used by GUIGREP to quickly display image files (this viewer, unlike full
blown paint programs, is VERY fast to load and display a graphic.)
GUIGREP:
This is a GUI version of a GREP utility. For those of you unfamiliar with
GREP searches, GREP looks for text inside files. (The built-in "search files
or folders" part of Windows also has GREP-like functionality but is harder
to use.) The advantage of this program is that the result set remains in
a list box that can be doubleclicked to invoke an editor, plus different
types of files will invoke the proper viewer of choice. Also, searches can
be invoked at a programmable macro level, which means you can have it look
for "internet files" and it will search for *.htm, *.html, *.phtml, etc.
Zipper:
This is a basic ZIP utility meant to quickly and easily create or open ZIP
format (2.04g) files. This program has a basic GUI interface for the casual
user and a command line ability for the expert user. The command line ability
also means that you can design automation using ZIP archives. What it does
not do that the big names do is nag you for money.
NOTE: The default install is into the c:\windows\command directory. Files
are not placed into any other directory. No ActiveX (VBX, OCX, etc.) controls are
used. The registry is not modified. No DLL's are replaced or modified. There are
no "DLL version" problems because the programs reference only their own and the
standard set of system provided modules. (Those of you who have never seen
programs that don't modify your setup may be shocked. Don't worry, this is
perfectly normal.) An uninstaller is provided, although we have no idea why
anyone would want to do that...
EXTENDED COLLECTION (Not Free,
and the list keeps growing):
Download AlstonLabs.com Utilities -- Basic Collection (1370 k)
Source Code
(Borland C++ Builder, Delphi)
available for licensing. Email
us for details.
