º Decimal, hexadecimal, binary, octal, ANSI, and Web color charts
º ANSI and DOS characters, Symbol and Wingdings fonts
º Windows and DOS color charts and conversions
º Volume, length, weight, temperature conversion
º Inch, millimeter, point, pica, screen resolution conversions
º Paper sizes
º Roman numerals
º Hex, binary calculator
º Parts of a font, point sizes and pixels
º International Codepages
º DOS line drawing characters
º Keyboard charts for Windows, DOS and HP Palmtop PCs
º Fraction/decimal conversion
º 1999-2003 Calendar
º Writer's style guide
º Commonly misspelled and misused Words
º Country and state information
º Starts at the most popular page
º Hierarchal table of contents similar to HTMLcat
º Updated frequently. And it's free

ºº ClipTray ºº   Cliptl13.zip (disk01.zip)
ClipTray is a simple, handy utility that enables you to quickly store snippets of information for browsing later.
ClipTray sits in your System Tray (only 17Kb overhead!) and when required, will paste the text contents of your clipboard to a htm / plain text file, together with the date and time. You can view the contents of the file by selecting _View HTML_ from ClipTray's context menu. Whenever you come across an interesting piece of text that you would like to save for reading later, simply select it, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C will do it) and click on ClipTray. ClipTray could prove invaluable to students, or anyone involved in research.

ºº Change of Address ºº   coa32.zip (disk02.zip)
Automatically changes sortcuts, ini files and registry entries when you move a program to a different folder or drive. Back in the DOS and Win31 days, moving wasn't too complicated, but with the Win9x registry, its almost impossible to tell if you've found everything. Norton Utilities CleanSweep is suposed to the same thing but it is so complicated I've never got it to work right and it assumes things I don't want it to. Coa32 is simple, always does the job right, keeps a log file, and is reversible.

ºº D4 Time ºº   d4time.zip (disk02.zip)
 www.thinkman.com
Dimension 4 time synchronization for Windows 9x NT 4.0 --
Automatically sets PC's time clock to within 50ms of actual time using Internet SNTP or Time protocol. Once installed, Dimension 4 is "hands free." PC's time will be updated at user specified intervals without user action. I freak out if my watch is 2 seconds off from the National Bureau of Standards (shortwave radio station WWV) -- a holdover from the old days on the "mainland". Here on the islands, I actually am on "Hawaii time". My computer clock loses one MINUTE a day (!), so I guess I need this small program to keep me comfortable. I put it in NetLaunch (above) so it runs every time I log on the internet. I run it minimised and have it exit a few seconds later when the time is updated.

ºº DiskMem ºº   diskmem245.zip (disk01.zip)
Tuck it in a corner of your screen and be prepared to be keep a eye on those memory hog programs. I park it out of the way in the top left corner of the screen. I only monitor one hard drive (I have drives C: thru X: on my computer) so the display is compact. Preferences I use: Always on top, show numbers, show used memory. It takes very little memory so put a shortcut in the Start Up folder * : Right click Start, left click Open, Programs, Startup, File, New, Shortcut, Browse.

* I keep the following programs in my startup folder:
DiskMem, ClipTray, Tclockex, and MaxMem (see below)
You may want to allow NetLaunch to start with windows also.

ºº Expander ºº   expander.zip (disk01.zip)
Expander will magnify a portion of the screen under the cursor.
Usefull for graphics, etc. As a bonus it gives a numeric readout of the cursor position in pixels.

ºº Favorites Search ºº   favorsearch.zip (disk01.zip)
(Favorites Search (QS) is a tiny program that searches on the "Favorites" directory for a string in the name of the Internet's shortcut files.
Author: I've done it because the fact that, altought maintaining a structured and kindly sorted favorites, it's lots faster to search for a favorite than navigating the long structured favorites tree.
If you have hundreds of favorites, and usually use it most, try QS!

ºº Mihov Mail Sender ºº  mailsend03.zip  (disk02.zip)
Want to send the same e-mail to several (or many) people? You could hassle with Blind CC:. Or with a few clicks of the mouse send it with MailSender. Good for newsletters, etc. You need two files: a plain text file with an e-mail address on each line and a file with your message body. Just click the two files you want to use, type in a subject and click the send button.

ºº NetLaunch ºº   netlaunch.zip (disk02.zip)
 www.rocketdownload.com/details/comm/nlsetup.htm
Allows me to regain control of my internet software. One click dials (without pressing any annoying buttons), starts E-mail (and checks for mail), starts connection meter (see next), starts my browser, outlook, starts a ping program (to keep connection alive), D4Time, NetMeter, etc. When I close my connection it will close any apps I set up to close. You can close open apps like email, netscape, etc. or you can run another app or command. For example if you want to empty your document folder (so no one can see what xxx.JPG's you downloaded) just run DELTREE /Y C:\WINDOWS\RECENT\*.* and have NetLaunch close the DOS window after DELTREE has run. Or do the same to get rid of cookies with personal information about yourself that are on your hard disk for any website you visit to snoop into.

ºº NetMeter ºº   netmeter13.zip (disk01.zip)
 mofetsrv.mofet.macam98.ac.il/~fainaf//netmeter.htm
Shows a graph of internet send/receive speeds on y-axis and time on the x-axis. Numeric readout at bottom of graph. I like the options: black idle, green download, red upload, yellow both.

** NOTE ** : Net Meter is now shareware ($15).
Use the website above to download the latest version (v2.2 as of 02/27/00).

The last freeware version is v1.3:  netmeter.zip ( 29,018 Bytes ) Note: This Version 1.3 will work with the newest version of MicroSoft Dialup Networking (DUN).
I size the window tall (screen height) and very narrow so that the graph is scaled tall enough to give me a good view and I park the narrow window on the left side of my screen where it's out of the way. I then resize my browser window so that it takes up the rest of the screen.
I put it in NetLaunch (above) so it runs every time I log on the internet. Net Meter is useful to find out if MTU-Speed works.

ºº TClock ºº   tclockex141.zip (disk01.zip)
TClock v1.4.1 - Freeware
Enhancement for the Windows 9x/NT/2000 taskbar clock, that displays the time, date and other information in any format (without using lots of little icons).
Features include: font and colour options, popup calendar, context menu, copy to clipboard, memory & resources, CPU usage, Internet time, user-defined display elements, control panel integration, etc.
Author: Dale Nurden Released: February 2000

ºº TreePad ºº   treepad269.zip (disk01.zip)
 www.treepad.com
The only Notes program I have been happy with -- it allows me to organize my notes the way I want (and not the way whoever wrote the program thinks I want).

Treepad 2.6.9 A free and easy-to-use Information Manager. You can also use it as very intuitive database program. All e-mails, notes, texts and other information can be stored in an "information tree". You can define the shape of this tree yourself. Now you will never lose your notes again! TreePad supports most languages, like English, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic. It also has extended search, print, sort, file-import and -export functions.

It still has some faults -- it doesn't sort by date, in case I can't remember what I called that note I wrote 2 days ago). -- and its not suitable for research notes if you plan to organize them into an article or book (but you can copy them into an outline program if you want to do that). -- Does anyone know of a good Win95 outline program? I had a good one where I used to work, but it was DOS (Symantec I think). -- I couldn't imagine getting along without it at the time. -- One confusing thing at first -- it calls a directory and subdirectory a "node" and the actual note an "article". Once you get by that it's easy to use. I think it's more Useful to use one big file I call "notes", but you can create several files if you want. I made these notes when I discovered and used the freeware I'm telling you about: I just copied and pasted it into this page! Also I have a node called "downloads" where I paste info from web sites where I download software. -- A program I would choose to be stranded on a desert island with.
I think you'll use it instead of reaching for a pencil.

ºº Win32Spy ºº   win32spy.zip (disk01.zip)
What's behind those ****** in a password window? This will read the passwords you have forgotten. Also shows cursor position in pixels. Tiny, only 7Kb. Useless when you don't need it; glad you've got it when you do.

ºº MaxMem ºº   maxmemi.zip (disk01.zip)
MaxMem sits in the system tray taking only 86Kb of memory. It displays free memory when the cursor is over it. When resources are low, it automatically recovers wasted memory according to how you configure it. You can clean memory manually at any time by clicking the icon.

If you have had your computer on for over an hour, you have lots of wasted memory being used -- check it out by glancing at DiskMem in the upper right hand corner of your screen. This happens because of the insane way Windows (and some other programs) manages memory. Windows quickly runs out of memory even if you have 128+ Megs. Instead of flushing the disk cache and cleaning out memory that is no longer being used, Windows swaps new data onto the hard disk (Virtual Memory). Not cleaning the memory is understandable since it takes someone a step above an incompetent programmer to write the code to do it, and such programmers seem to be scarce around MicroSoft. Of course there are economic factors also -- a company doesn't mind cutting corners as long as the buyers don't know the downside. The disk cache behavior of Windows is especially strange: Why use slow disk virtual memory because you want to hang on to memory used by the disk cache?

Memory is over 100,000 times faster than a disk drive. When your computer feels sluggish, close some programs you aren't using and try it for that just booted feel. You may have to click more than once to get it to free some stubborn memory blocks (double click and it will try twice, etc.) Sometimes it won't work because all of the used memory is being reserved by open pograms. MaxMem will only free unused memory; it won't mess with memory actually needed by an application. After clicking on the MaxMem icon several times you may notice the 1st couple of times you access the hard drive it will seem slow. This happens because the disk cache has been flushed. Things will settle down in a few seconds when the cache contains the data needed -- I haven't figured out why Windows needs megabytes of disk cache to speed up things when a few hundred Kb is all that's needed for DOS -- it's the same disk drive. I have my suspicions but I'll keep them to myself: I feel like being less judgmental towards MicroSoft for a while.

ºº MTU Speed ºº   mtuspeed.zip (disk02.zip)
See:  http://www.mjs.u-net.com
Note: This software is now called "option ware" by the author. This means you have the option to pay or not ($10.00 suggested) -- The program isn't crippled and won't time out.
-- Actually you don't need the program at all: Use RegEdit that comes with Win9x -- just be careful! And back up the registry first. All you need to know to do this is on the author's web site and to do a little expirmentation with RegEdit -- again: BACK UP FIRST -- if you goof, Windows may not start. With that said, I have to tell you that it's fun to hack system files -- if that's your idea of fun.
The MTU Speed program is actually only a safer way to modify the registry communication settings than RegEdit.

MTU Speed can actually **DOUBLE** your download speed (sometimes). Win9x default setup for MaxTransmissonUnits and other communication settings are chosen to maximize speed on a network -- this results in poor internet modem speed. Note these settings are independent of internet software. I don't expect MicroSoft to change their default settings anytime soon since they make a lot of money from businessesthat run LAN's. And the internet techies picked a MTU of 576 because it was an effective speed for the internet.
Read all about it at the website (highly recommended before you use the program!). All of the following jargon is explained there.
Here are the settings I used:
  MTU = 576 RWin = 2144 MSS = 536
  Time to live = 64 NDI cache size = 16

Before I changed the settings I got Peak download speeds of about 3.2K Bytes/sec (28,800 bits/sec) which equals the speed of my modem. -- 8 bits per byte + 1 inter-byte guard (stop) bit. After changing the settings I now get 3.9K frequently and sometimes get 6.5K peak!! This is equivalent to a 58,500 bits/sec modem! This only happens when accessing a high bandwidth server and/or few people accessing it.
Try CNet or CNN for a heavy duty server.

By the way the internet term "high bandwidth" is a misnomer (like so many buzz words) -- bandwidth and the rate that data is transmitted are related (like Volts and Watts) but are not the same thing.

Having got that off my chest I'll comment on another buzz word: "quantum leap".
-- Since a quantum is the SMALLEST energy shift possible at a given wavelength, I guess a quantum leap is an insignificant change.
Here's another: "these data are".
-- Since data means more than one datum it must be treated as a plural, right? -- But data is a group noun and takes the singular. "These mob are rioting" sounds as ungrammatical as "these data are".

One more if I may: The 21st century starting date is not Jan. 1, 2000, it's Jan. 1, 2001. A century is 100 years not 99 -- the 20th century started 1/1/1901 and so on back for hundreds of years (there was no year zero).

(Excuse my editorializing. Back to the subject.)

Try MTU Speed, it doesn't change how fast a web page downloads most of the time but occasionly the page really flys into view. At a WebExpo here on Kauai they had a T1 connection. The page downloads were almost instantaneous - sometimes. Most of the time you had to w---a---i---t . . . like I do most of the time. -- Because the delays are on the other end (or over the web interconnections).

ºº The Thinking Man's Thesaurus ºº
  (not on disk01.zip or disk02.zip !)
Download from:  www.ozemail.com.au/~kevsol/sware.html
    Lots of other good software here!
- Thesaurus and word-prompter - v1.2
This is an pop-up utility useful when the right word is eluding you. I usually don't like to use a thesaurus while writing, but this one is so convient and versatile that I keep on clicking it back to the desktop. It includes a powerful thesaurus and a dictionary which can check the spelling of individual words as well as provide you with a list of similarly spelled words. Automatically links to the popular freeware dictionary WordWeb (see below), for looking-up definitions.
For Windows 3.1 or Windows 95.
The Thinking Man's Thesaurus (808Kb THTHES12.ZIP)
If you have space on your hardisk (Thesaurus 1.3Mb and WordWeb 8 Mb), I highly recomend getting both Thesaurus and WordWeb since they work so well together. -- Note: You must use the Win3.1/Win 95 version to integrate with Word Web -- the Win9x version won't work.

ºº Word Web Thesaurus/Dictionary ºº
  (not on disk01.zip or disk02.zip !)
Download from:  www.netword.demon.co.uk/wweb
WordWeb is a free thesaurus/dictionary. Can be used from your word processor or as a standalone program (but I can't size the window when I use it with MSWord). It received the top five star rating in its ZDNet review. In addition to displaying sense definitions and synonyms, WordWeb can also find sets of related words including

Antonyms - Words opposite in meaning, e.g. bright/dull
Hypernyms - Less specific words, e.g. jungle/forest
Hyponyms - More specific words, e.g. forest/jungle
Meronyms - Words which denote a part, e.g. tree/forest
Holonyms - Words for a collection, e.g. forest/tree

You can filter the synonyms by sense and by part of speech. WordWeb matches case of synonyms, e.g. search for "pulpits" and WordWeb finds "podia", "rostra", "ambos", etc, search for "pulpit" and you will get the singular synonyms. WordWeb comes with a template file so you can use it directly from MS Word 6,7 or 97, and macros for use with AmiPro, Word Pro 96 and Word 2. WordWeb requires a 386+PC with 4MB+ RAM and 8MB free disk space running Windows 3.1x or Windows 95. WDWEB153.ZIP - about 4 Mb

ºº I have included software here only if: ºº

* It's truly free.
- Some "freeware" adds nag screens to advertise their "pro" version, etc.
* It's not difficult to install or uninstall
- I especially avoid installation programs that copy old, buggy .DLL's, etc, over my up-to-date DLL's.
* It fulfills a need I have or makes my life easier.
* It's as good or better than any shareware or commercial software I've run across.

After 26 years of programming, I dislike "bloatware" programmed in Visual Basic, Visual C+++++++, etc. They take up a lot of disk space and memory, they are slow, and they scatter DLL's, VBX's, etc. all over my hard drive. For example, the visual basic file MSVBVM60.DLL takes over 1 Meg of memory. It needs to be in memory for any visual basic version 6 program to work. This DLL contains hundreds of functions, only a percentage will be used by a given program - so where is the logic behind this? If MicroSlop wanted to put out a quality product they could have had a library of functions that could be linked into a program only if the program needed them instead of having a separate DLL using wasted memory. Get a program that lists running processes and find out how much memory is being used by these ill-conceived methods (sometimes dozens of Megs).
-- Try Process Viewer  www.teamcti.com/pview/  (free)
or DLLShow  www.gregorybraun.com  (no-nagged shareware)

To add insult, these program-on-the-run apps leave parts of itself in memory after the program closes down. Even if I don't run out of memory or user resources, these orphan "handles" slow down my computer. Commercial software is especially bad about this: The executives upstairs (who wouldn't know a quality program in any case) want to get the software out the door before their competition comes out with a super deluxe version. The programmers and analysts have to toss together any old thing to please the boss. And as long as the product has lots of cool features, the boss is pleased. The buyers are pleased with the features (many of which they will never use), but they sometimes have a nagging feeling that things are supposed to work better than this.

On the other hand, freeware is usually written by individuals who want to produce something they can be proud of.