The 1996 Annual Steve Jenkins WINner Awards

Each year, Windows95.com Webmaster Steve Jenkins picks the shareware programs that really made a difference to Windows 95 shareware users over the past year. This honor is awarded annually to those shareware programs that stand out from the crowd in usefulness, design, creativity, usability, and functionality. In sum, WINners are the programs you can't live without.

As always, the best way for you to show your support for the authors of these applications is to download the apps and register them. Many of the authors are starving college students, and an extra $10 in the mail every now and then means a lot for many of them.

Congratulations to the following recipients of the 1996 Annual Steve Jenkins WINner Awards. Clicking an application's icon will link you to the program's listing in the Windows95.com 32-bit Shareware Collection, where you can download it at your leisure. If you're browsing our software collection, you'll notice a graphic next to the current WINners, and past WINners will have an alternate graphic that includes the year they received the award.

Congratulations once again to all the WINners!

Internet Explorer by Microsoft Corporation: Internet Explorer captured 1995 WINner honors alongside its market-share rich rival Netscape Navigator last year. But Microsoft proved to be the spoiler in what some predicted to be a 1996 Netscape runaway market. With its 3.0 release, Internet Explorer ushered in the next generation of Web browsers with more power, more speed, and more support for exciting content and technology than any of its competitors. And with 50% of Windows95.com's visitors using Internet Explorer, and the other 50% using Navigator, I'm sure I'll get plenty of flame mail by picking IE and not including Navigator as a WINner. But the truth is that while Netscape made minor improvements over last year's model, Microsoft Internet Explorer came exploding out of the Gates (no pun intended) with new feature after new feature. And in my book, that deserves some credit. Plus, this is my Web site. Don't agree with me? Get your own...
pop!site by Pragmatica, Inc.: If you're a Web designer of any self-respect, you simply cannot live without pop!site. After a few hours of using this mega-powerful Web document management tool, you'll wonder how you ever got by without it. pop!site's macro-based approach to building, maintaining, and updating your Web pages is, to put it mildly, revolutionary! What used to take hours and hours of cutting, pasting, searching, replacing, hour-and-hour wasting (cool rhyme, eh?) is reduced to a few seconds of sheer bliss as I watch pop!site's lightning-fast engine spit out HTML documents with gusto. I have yet to show anyone the raw power of pop!site without getting at least a "Whoa! Cool!" out of them. And I'm usually saying it right along with them.
Dunce by Vector Development: Ben Reser's little "dial-up networking connection enhancement" ain't so little any more. The filesize and memory overhead are still miniscule, but 1996 brought functionality bursting from the seams. Over the past year, I watched Dunce integrate program launching ability, a keep-alive ping function, and the ability to customize its performance based on the dial up profile you're using. All this and more finally moves Dunce to the top of the heap among my dial-up networking utilities picks.
WinZip by Nico Mak Computing: It seems that each year, more and more compression utilities keep popping up - but Nico Mak just keeps widening the gap between WinZip and the competition (if you can even call it competition). I would normally question messing with perfection, but the enhancements to Winzip over the last year (some cosmetic, some more subtle, all well placed) are too good to let this staple of computer-based diet go unnoticed. One of the first back-to-back WINner recipients, WinZip has the compression tool battle neatly zipped up.
CuteFTP by Globalscape: This "cute" FTP client isn't just a pretty face. And although it isn't exactly a new kid on the block, 1996 brought to CuteFTP some added features and benefits that place it at the top. Its robust functionality combined with its ease of use make CuteFTP a top choice among beginner surfers and veterans alike. And did I mention it's cute?
NetScan Tools by Northwest Performance Software: I used to have a folder on my hard drive that contained all the little Internet utilities that I used on an almost daily basis to keep me informed of the status of my network connections. NetScan Tools replaced the bunch! DNS lookup, finger, ping, traceroute, whois, daytime, quote, Winsock info, socket services, and socket protocol information are a few clicks away - and all in once place. Why didn't someone think of this earlier?
LinkBot by Tetranet Software: Any Webmaster with a bunch o' links to manage can finally get some sleep - as long as LinkBot's on the job. It not only verifies the integrity of HTML links and graphic elements, but FTP links, Java applets, and a host of other links and page components, as well! If you're sick of dead links, you're ready for LinkBot.
WebTrends by e.g. Software: If you want to know the who, what, where, when, and why of your Web server's log files, WebTrends has all the right answers. Informative graphs, an intuitive interface, and log file crunching power to spare, WebTrends should be a part of any serious log file analysis.
CRT by Van Dyke Technologies: There's stiff competition among telnet clients, but CRT pulls ahead of the rest with a solid set of great features, including slick support for login scripts. If you need telnet connectivity, you need CRT.
HotDog Pro by Sausage Software: If you think HTML editors are boring, then you've definately never tried HotDog Pro. This HTML editing suite has the power (and the attitude) to prove itself "top dog" among graphical HTML editors. I usually recommend this program to beginning HTML authors who are just getting to know their tags, since HotDog Pro's drop-down menus, floating toolbars, and built-in preview features put all the tools necessary to create great looking pages right at your fingertips.
Paint Shop Pro 32 by JASC, Inc.: JASC's Paint Shop Pro is still one of the most powerful graphics tools (shareware or otherwise) available anywhere. With features and functions rivaled only by the $500+ software titles, PSP's under $70 price tag will come as a welcome surprise. And with support for piles of graphics formats, easy-to-make transparent GIFs, and batch conversion capabilities, there's no wondering why Paint Shop Pro is STILL the only graphics package that I use on the Windows95.com Web site. If you're already using it, then you know why I dig it so much. And if you're not using it, what's your problem?
NetMeeting by Microsoft Corporation: This conferencing and collaboration tool took the 'Net by storm in 1996, and it doesn't look like 1997 is going to slow it down any. Microsoft NetMeeting combines live text and voice chat, application sharing and collaboration, whiteboard functionality, and a built-in user location service - with no need for specialized hardward or high-speed connections. Plus, it's free! How can you beat that?
TextPad 32 by Helios Software Solutions: Once you're finished with the hand-holding, beginners only, soft-spoken HTML and programming editors, it's time to move on to raw, hard, in-your-face, no nonsense text editing business - which is EXACTLY what TextPad lets you do. All the features you want to make managing text files easier are there - but none of them get in your way. Plus, its coolest feature is the ability to integrate with text processing software (like pop!site) or your favorite compiler, making your input and output come together seamlessly. Are you a cool enough HTML coder so that you don't need wimpy little drop-down menus to remind you which tags to use? Are you a cool enough programmer to not need your little help files to remember APIs? Then you're cool enough to use TextPad. And even if you're not, use it anyway.

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