June Mac Shareware

This month's selection is mostly concerned with text handling; though recognising that much text now moves over the Internet, two interesting email utilities are included. Epson printer owners can now share their printers with network colleagues. A classic address book completes the set.

By Steve Cooper

Section Index
Products in this section:

Windows: WinZip 7.0 SR-1, Pacquet Builder 2.0.1, TurboZip 3.0.1, Archiver Shell 6.0, FreeZip 1.4.7, WWPack32 1.12

OS/2: Electronic Teller 3.13, CHECK+ 2.1, BanK 1.1.0b, Money Tree 1.0b, PM$tock

Mac: Address Book 4.0.8, New Note Pad II 1.7.2, TypeIt4Me 4.7.0, Text Cleaner Lite 1.5, JustMail 1.0.6, MailSiphon 1.0, EpsonShare 1.0

Linux: Webalizer 1.22, Synaesthesia, Freeamp, Cdparanoia, BladeEnc

Other Workshop Files:  Windows Workshop, C++ files, Java files

 

Address Book 4.0.8
Back in the days when payment of a shareware fee would bring you a printed manual, Address Book made its mark on the Mac world, and it remains an elegant and trouble-free keeper of your contact information. The fact that the manual extends to 96 B6 pages indicates the extent of this application's capabilities and flexibility.

A relatively small (900K) database application, Address Book enables you to sort and search your contacts according to categories which you can define, or 'marks' you can apply for a special purpose, as well as by the obvious name and address fields. Intelligent name entry permits the inclusion of titles and suffixes while preserving the ability to sort by any name part.

Address Book is one of the most flexible envelope formatters and printers in the business, and can also print labels, Rolodex cards and the like. You can specify fonts and sizes for your main and return addresses, and even add a PICT logo if you wish. If you prefer, address lists can be exported in standard merge file format for use with other programs.

This program is also a phone dialler and can maintain a log of your calls, with notes if you wish.

Since all records are held in memory for super-fast searching, memory requirements are dependent on the size of your data file; however, a modest 1M can manage a 750-record file, and it can run on System 6 or later, including Power Macs.

add_boo1.gif (5575 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

MacOS
   
Publisher: Smith Productions (Jim Smith)
Price: $US30
Requirements: Any Mac; System 6 to Mac OS 8.5.1
Links online: http://www.jimsmithsoft.com/
Rating: score_35.GIF (1292 bytes)

 

New Note Pad II 1.7.2
New Note Pad II incorporates just about all the improvements possible to Apple's original, short of creating a mini-word processor.

Notes can be up to 32K and the number per Note Pad is effectively unlimited. Each can have its own font, size and style, and they are scrollable, resizable and relocatable.

Notes on related topics can be grouped together. Since each note and each group has its own title, it is possible to display the list in an outline-style hierarchical arrangement, complete with 'expansion triangles'. Within this list, files and groups may be rearranged by dragging, as in a browser's bookmark list. Groups and notes can be labelled with Finder colour labels.

These features make it possible to use New Note Pad II as a simple database and/or diary, and the included search facility is welcome in this context.

You can export and import text files and Note Pad files, and note contents are drag-and-droppable to and from compliant applications.

A 'URL Jump' feature is intended to enable you to link directly to Internet URLs appearing in notes, but it depends on the old Internet Config application and currently does not work with Mac OS 8.5's Internet control panel. (8.5 users can get equivalent functionality with either IceTee or Apple Data Detectors.) This site is written in Japanese.

  new_not1.gif (6163 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

Mac
Publisher: Hisaura Hiroki
Price: $US20
Requirements: 68K or Power Mac; System 7 or later
Links offline: http://hisadon.cup.com/
Rating: score_4.GIF (1372 bytes)

 

TypeIt4Me 4.7.0
The inclusion in so many applications of a macro function has spelled the near-death of specialist programs such as QuicKeys; yet there's one really useful function that few applications include. TypeIt4Me rectifies the omission by providing an easy-to-use glossary function, which can be invoked anywhere you can enter text -- even in dialog boxes.

The essence of TypeIt4Me is that the typing of a user-defined abbreviation, followed by an 'expansion trigger' character (usually a space, but you can choose) results in the entry of a much longer or more complex text passage. Thus you could type 'ad<space>' to enter your complete company name, address plus phone and fax numbers, or a similar abbreviation to enter a whole block of boilerplate text in a professional document.

Anything you can type on the keyboard can be triggered by an abbreviation, and by including ASCII codes in your text you can even trigger arrow-key actions, backspaces and the like.

The advantage of TypeIt4Me over most built-in macro utilities and glossary functions is that you can define each abbreviation to suit yourself, not being confined to weird key combinations. You can also easily override the expansion function if you really want to type one of your abbreviations as such.

Once you have too many entries to remember even via mnemonic abbreviations, TypeIt4Me has a menu (under a small menubar icon) from which your standard text passages may be selected and entered.

type4m1.gif (2395 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

Mac OS
Publisher: Riccardo Ettore
Price: $US27
Requirements: System 7 or later.
Links online: http://members.aol.com/rettore/
Rating: score_3.GIF (1198 bytes)

 

Text Cleaner Lite 1.5
Text Cleaner Lite is for page layout folks, Web page designers and anyone else who receives text that needs to be 'doctored' before it can be used. Print designers need to remove extra spaces and other typographic errors, and add curly quotes, ligatures and other special characters. Web designers need to reduce some of the fancier characters to HTML-friendly equivalents.

Without a specialist tool, these changes need to be made laboriously in a word processor. Most commercial tools are beyond financial justification for the occasional user. Enter Text Cleaner Lite.

To clean your text, copy it (up to 32K at a time) to the clipboard, then launch the Text Cleaner Lite application, or click its window if already open. You'll see an array of check boxes via which you can select the cleaning functions to be used. Click the Clean Clipboard button, switch back to your application where the selected text is still highlighted and paste your cleaned text to replace it.

Anyone who has done this sort of thing by a find-and-replace method knows that there are traps that can produce unwanted results. Text Cleaner Lite's publishers concede that it is not immune from such annoyances. Nevertheless, in this area any tool, particularly a free one, is better than none.

  text_cl1.gif (5332 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

Mac OS
Publisher: Studio 405
Price: Free
Requirements: System 7 or later
Links offline: http://www.studio405.com/
Rating: score_3.GIF (1198 bytes)

 

JustMail 1.0.6
How would you like to be able to read email on your usual Internet account using a Web browser, from anywhere you could get an Internet connection? With JustMail it's a cinch, freeing you from the security and privacy concerns which plague commercial Web-based mail services, and allowing you to keep using your normal mail account.

To prepare for using JustMail, simply upload a small (42K) folder titled 'justmail' to your Web server directory (typically something like <isp.com/~user>). Then, use any browser to view <isp.com/~user/justmail/justmail.html>, and you will be presented with a dialog in which to enter your email account and password details. Only after entering these will you be able to read the first 32K of each email message waiting for you, in a neat window resembling that of a normal email client. This window loads quickly and if you wish, you can alternate between browsing and dealing with your mail.

You can reply to your messages or create new ones as usual, though you will not be able to view, retrieve or send any attachments. Read mail remains on the server, permitting you to recheck it and download attachments later, using your normal email client. Trashed mail is, however, deleted from the server.

Since the JustMail directory contains a Java applet which does the work, you'll need a v4.0 browser and your Web and mail servers need to be located at the same IP address. This is normal practice with most ISPs.

The free promotional version of JustMail adds a two-line advertisement to the bottom of each email you send using it, but this is probably an acceptable price for a capable system which will only be used occasionally.

justmai1.gif (2828 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

Mac OS
Publisher: Mainstay
Price: Promotional version free; full version $US39.95
Requirements: Java-enabled Web browser (eg. Navigator or Explorer 4.x)
Links offline: http://www.mstay.com/
Rating: score_3.GIF (1198 bytes)

 

MailSiphon 1.0
If you occasionally receive huge email messages which you would prefer not to download, or if you are the victim of mail bombing, you'll love MailSiphon.

Dial your ISP after configuring MailSiphon with your mail account details, and you'll be able to inspect the messages in your mailbox, deleting them there and then if it seems appropriate. You can even 'purge' your mailbox, which is a bit like reformatting your hard disk, so beware!

mailsph1.gif (4238 bytes)

Download the version for your operating system here:

68K Mac

Power Mac
Publisher: Alexandre Carlhian
Price: "Whatever you like", says the author
Requirements: Normal access to your Internet email account
Links offline: http://members.xoom.com/canardmac/MailSiphon/
Rating: score_3.GIF (1198 bytes)

 

EpsonShare 1.0
For users of Epson printers, EpsonShare is the equivalent of Apple's PrinterShare software, allowing the sharing of one printer by multiple Macs. It uses EpsonShareServer and EpsonShareClient software to direct printer spool files to a special folder on the originating client Mac, from where they are copied over the network to a matching folder on the server Mac (the one with the printer attached) and sent to the printer.

EpsonShare works over any network capable of mounting a disk server, and with all kinds of Epson printers, including USB. URL references are provided for the required v5.5 Epson drivers, if you are not already using one.

 

Download the version for your operating system here:

Mac OS
Publisher: NiceBoy Softwares
Price: $US39 for up to 3 clients
Requirements: Mac OS 8.x and Epson driver 5.5
Links offline: http://www.ses.fr/epsonshare/softUS.htm
Rating: score_35.GIF (1292 bytes)

⌐ Australian Consolidated Press 1999. All rights reserved.