Because of the amount of time and effort needed to maintain NetStripper (and get v3.0 ready for release) I can no longer provide it as freeware. So, from now on, NetStripper is becoming a shareware program. The price I am asking is US$10 - not that much at all really - or £5 if you live in the United Kingdom. If scraping together that small amount of money is really a problem for you I'd be grateful if you would let me know, by email, that you are using the program. (This will also let me berate you on your miserly ways :-).
Users who pay their registration will be entitled to priority access to new versions of NetStripper, and the ability to take part in the testing programme. This way you get to play around with new versions before I have finished them, and can make suggestions about how you think they can be improved. You also get free updates, and the registration fee for my TagStripper program is waived. Please note that I can only send out these upgrades by email: mailing floppies around the world is a costly, complicated and risky business.
How To Pay.
Paying for NetStripper is simple: just open the Register program that
accompanies it. Enter your name, your email address, and the number
of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site
or Word-Wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program
and send the data and payment to Kagi Shareware. More specifics on the Register
program to follow. Kagi Shareware handles my payment processing.
NetStripper has the following pricing:
Single user license: $10 per user.
A Site License costs $250 and covers all locations for your organization within a
160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is
that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.
A World-Wide License costs $600 and it covers all locations for your
organization on the planet earth.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to
Kagi Shareware. Their email address is shareware@kagi.com and their fax
number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste
into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach
that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already
pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an
email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10
days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email
acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or US$ Check you should print the data using the
Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi Shareware
1442-A Walnut Street #392-AL
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if
you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi Shareware
cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-US$ checks
is around US$15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register
program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of
the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight
the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi Shareware can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and
generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as
the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer
physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be
processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi Shareware and then up to 10
days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear
from Kagi Shareware when the form is processed.
NB: if you live in the United Kingdom, you can pay me by sending a UK Pounds cheque, drawn on a UK bank, for the princely sum of £5 to:
Adam Lloyd, Park Lodge, Bishops Down Park Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 8XR
You'll probably find that easier than using the Kagi system. Don't forget to include your email address, though, as only that way can I give you your free updates, notifications, etc.
Installing NetStripper
NetStripper needs Apple's Thread Manager in order to run. If you are running System 7.5 or higher, the Thread Manager is included in the System and you do not need to install a separate copy. If, however, you are running System 7.0 or 7.1, you will need to install the Thread Manager, which is supplied in the NetStripper package. To install it, just follow these steps:
1. Make sure that the NetStripper v3.0 ƒ window is open on your screen, and that you can see the icon of your system folder (you can usually see this by double-clicking on your hard disk icon).
2. Double-click the Thread Manager ƒ folder's icon.
3. In the window that opens, drag the file called Thread Manager on to your system folder icon.
4. An alert box will appear asking if it is all right to put the Thread Manager into your extensions folder. Click OK.
Once the Thread Manager has been copied into your extensions folder, restart your computer by choosing Restart from the Special menu. You can now finish the installation of NetStripper itself.
As NetStripper works by dragging and dropping files onto its icon, I recommend placing either the application itself on your desktop in a prominent place, or an alias to the application. Alternatively, if you use Apple's Launcher control panel, you can put it in there somewhere. Or if you use any other icon-based launcher such as the excellent Malph, you could place it there instead.
Once you've put NetStripper somewhere where you can get at it easily the installation is complete.
NetStripper: What It Is And How To Use It.
NetStripper is a small utility that translates plain text files between several different formats. I originally wrote it to convert Unix® and DOS text files downloaded from the Internet into Mac text files, but I have since expanded its capabilities, both because of user demand and because I felt like it.
This version, 3.0, supports the following translation modes:
• DOS/Unix to Mac (this is one mode that handles both translations, and is the default)
• Mac to DOS
• Mac to Unix
• Carriage Return Strip (CR Strip to its friends)
Of the modes listed above, CR Strip is probably the one that needs more explanation than the others. I shall attempt to explain what it does here, but do be aware that there are two alternative CR Strip modes, selectable as a preference.
The 'standard' CR Strip, which is the one that will be used unless you specifically request the other one, takes a Mac text file and replaces all double carriage returns with single carriage returns, while removing any existing single carriage returns. The alternative CR Strip removes all existing single carriage returns but leaves double carriage returns alone. If you need either of these modes, you will know it.
The way NetStripper works is very simple. You just drop the files you want to process on to its icon, and hold down a modifier key to select the translation mode you want to use. So, for example, to translate a batch of DOS text files to Mac text files, simply select them all in the Finder and drop them on to NetStripper. The program will start up, translate the files and quit automatically.
As I said just now, the other translation modes are activated by holding down a modifier key. You must hold down the relevant key from the moment you drop the files on to NetStripper's icon, and keep it held down until processing starts. At that moment you can release the modifier and let NetStripper get on with the translation by itself. This table summarises which keys to hold down to get which translation modes:
All files that are being processed have their names displayed in NetStripper's progress window, and the type of translation that is being applied is listed next to the file's name in brackets. This is so you can tell at a glance what files are being processed in what way.
It is also possible to translate files from within NetStripper once it is already running. Just choose Open… from the file menu, locate the file you want to process and click the Open button. You can select a translation mode by holding down the modifier specified in the table above when you click on the Open button.
Be aware that you can switch to other applications when NetStripper is running, and it will continue to process files in the background. The aim of this is to let you get on with something else if you have a lot of files to translate. To switch applications, just click on a window belonging to the program you want to use, or use the application menu at the top right hand corner of your screen.
If, during processing of files, you decide that you want to stop or realise that you have made a mistake, you can click the Stop button in NetStripper's window. This will cancel the current translations (ie: the three that are working), reverting those files to their original states. Any files which are pending translation will be removed from the queue.
NetStripper: The Menus.
The menus in NetStripper v3.0 are fairly self-explanatory. In the Apple menu there is the About NetStripper… command, which simply displays the About Box (if you have already registered as a NetStripper user, either by email or postcard in an earlier version, you can ignore the $10 request). Just click in the about box to get rid of it.
The File menu contains the Open… command, which is described in the previous section. It also holds the Preferences… command, which brings up a dialogue in which you can set the type of translation to be performed by the CR Strip option. Quit should be fairly self-explanatory.
One point to be aware of with the Quit command is that, if you try to quit when translations are in progress, an alert box will appear asking you to confirm your choice. If you tell NetStripper to go ahead it stops all translations, in the same way as the Stop button, and then quits.
Final Points: AppleScripting.
NetStripper is fully AppleScriptable, in exactly the same was as previous versions. The supplied script Scripting Example shows how to use the translation features via AppleScript.
Finally, if you have any problems with v3.0 of NetStripper, or any comments concerning it, don't hesitate to let me know at ajlloyd@kagi.com. And don't forget your registration…
Apple, for the equally amazing Macintosh and PowerMac.
Frontier Internet Services Ltd (info@ftech.net), for providing me with reliable Internet access in the UK.
Eddy J. Gurney and Matt Slot for the Progress Bar CDEF 1.4 (their copyright, of course).
Jim Carr for discovering that v1.0 didn't work at all on a Mac IIfx and being very patient while I sent him countless versions over a period of three or four days.
Herb Wideman for suggesting the CRCR->CR, CR->nil! feature.
Peter Baum for suggesting the progress bar.
Bob Erickson for enquiring about the possibilities of AppleScript compatibility.
Toby Moore for helping with the PCI PowerMac testing.
Special thanks go to Mike Coan, for helping an awful lot with the testing of earlier versions and v2.0, as well as suggesting numerous enhancements and pointing out little flaws in the program. And for assisting in testing the PowerMac native version, of course, and finding the Malph-related problem. Thanks again Mike.
Anyone else I haven't mentioned specifically but who deserves it, including all those people who shouted 'v2.5.2 doesn't work on my [SE/PowerMac/AnythingYouCareToName]!'. The so-called bug fix release 2.5.2 was in many ways a disaster. Sorry, and thanks for the patience you mostly showed.
