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- Tessler's Nifty Tools (tm) (TNT)
-
-
- Copyright (c) 1986-1995
-
- All Rights Reserved.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- *** Tessler's Nifty Tools (tm) ***
-
-
- "Tessler's Nifty Tools" is a collection of over 30 ultra low cost
- DOS and Windows programs for both the casual and power user who
- desires to increase his/her PC productivity and enjoyment. Many of
- the unique programs are so incredibly useful that you'll never
- understand how you lived without them.
-
- Many programs have been reviewed in InfoWorld, PC Computing,
- COMPUTE, and PC Techniques magazines.
-
- Each program is available separately ($19 or $29), as a complete
- collection, or TNT may be purchased in "mini" packages -each of
- which addresses the needs of a specific type of user. Each "mini"
- package offers significant savings over purchasing each program
- separately. The complete collection offers even more savings.
-
- Any one "mini" package: $69
- Any two "mini" packages: $119
- All three "mini" packages
- (the complete collection): $159
-
- Add an additional $5 for shipping. (California residents must
- include state taxes.)
-
- Each program has on-line documentation. "Mini" package and complete
- collection purchases include a printed manual. TNT is distributed
- only on 3+ HD disks.
-
- U.S. checks, money orders, and purchase orders (NET 15) are
- accepted. Returned checks will be charged a $15 processing fee.
- Credit card orders are not accepted. Corporate and institutional
- site licenses are available at substantial discounts.
-
- Technical support is provided through CompuServe, U.S. Mail, and
- collect return telephone calls.
-
-
- Designed and developed by:
-
- Gary S. Tessler, P.E.
- Copyright ( 1986-1994 by GST
- All Rights Reserved.
-
-
-
- Tessler's Nifty Tools (TNT)
- 430 Canyon Woods Place Suite A
- San Ramon, Ca. 94583
-
- CompuServe: 71044,542
-
-
-
-
-
-
- *** THE EXPERTS ARE RAVING ABOUT TNT... ***
-
- Tessler's Nifty Tools is the utility package that's different from
- all the rest. Instead of supplying yet another version of the same
- familiar programs, TNT gives you unique utilities that let you
- maintain, fine-tune, and control your system in ways you can't do
- with anything else. If you want to control your serial port's UART,
- or modify Windows INI files through a batch file, edit a Windows
- group file, or check on various Netware operations, TNT is the one
- package you need. This is one of the most useful and original sets
- of utilities on the market."
- -Edward Mendelson Contributing Editor
- PC Magazine
-
- "TNT's new edition of some much needed tools provides a powerful
- way to maintain alternate Windows configurations... I especially
- like DIR2BAT, which writes batch files to carry out commands on any
- file specification..."
- -Brian Livingston Infoworld 8/30/93 and 4/11/94
-
- "If you need to configure Windows on the fly, I think you'll find
- that these programs give you a degree of control that has
- previously been very difficult to achieve."
- -PC Computing 11/94
-
- "Vdel - the command that Microsoft forgot."
- -PC Computing "DOS Application of the Month" 3/94
-
-
-
-
-
-
- *** "MINI" PACKAGE DESCRIPTIONS ***
-
- Power Windows User, Multiple Configuration & Control Pkg.
-
- Cfgcntrl -Intelligent text file controller for Windows INI,
- LanManager, Autoexec and Config.sys files.
- Grp2ini -Convert a Windows GRP (group) formatted file into a text
- file for editing.
- Ifonscrn -Check if specific characters appear on your screen and
- act on them by stuffing keystrokes into your application.
- Ifwait -Beep or buzz your PC's speaker or any LPT port device.
- Ini2grp -Convert a Grp2ini text file back into a Windows GRP
- (group) formatted file.
-
-
- Power User & Programmer's Pkg.
-
- Capstat -Determine if your printer is being Netware
- captured.
- Chek4dup -Check for duplicate EXE & COM programs.
- Chkparm -Determine if pathname is drive, directory, filename; new
- or existing; local or Lan reference.
- Comspeed -Determine actual modem DTE line speed during a call.
- Controlp -Control printer echoing ^P within batch files.
- Dir2bat -Perform a series of commands on a series of files.
- Dvcpu -Set Desqview's Share-CPU option from the command line.
- Dvprompt -Embed a Desqview window's switch number in the DOS
- prompt.
- Dvrun -Determine if Desqview is running.
- Feefifo -Enable and control 16550a UART serial chip's FIFOs.
- Growp -Grow and change your DOS prompt each time you shell to
- DOS.
- Rlist -Display or print a portion of a text file.
- Setbeep -Control the duration of your PC's beep sound or silence
- your PC.
- Vers -Set DOS' version better than Setver does.
- WinRun -Determine if Windows 3.n Enhanced mode is running.
-
-
- Safer & Easier Computing & Multimedia Pkg.
-
- Chk4root -Check for a root directory reference & protect DELTREE
- from deleting every file from your disk!
- Copywa -Copy files along with their attribute bit.
- Crtdump -Copy your monitor's text screen to a disk file for
- editing.
- Expndtab -Convert tab characters to spaces with document alignment
- preserved.
- Parkhead -Park your hard disk(s) before turning off your PC.
- Pdel -Permanently delete a file so that it can't be recovered.
- Player -Play a wav or voc format sound file.
- Prtscrff -Send a formfeed (paper eject) command to your printer
- whenever you press the Printscreen key.
- Rwdir -Display files that are read/writable (not read-only).
- Thot4day -Display a random humorous thought of the day on your
-
-
-
-
-
-
- monitor.
- Tune4day -Play a different sound file every time you turn on your
- PC.
- Vdel -Delete files (including read-only files) with
- verification.
- WrapUp -Just as Windows executes your StartUp group's programs,
- WrapUp allows Windows to execute any programs in your
- "ShutDown" group right before it exits.
- Zdir -Determines the size of sub-directories nicer than DIR
- does.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- *** COLLECTION SUMMARY ***
-
-
- CAPSTAT ($19) determines if your local printer is being Netware
- captured.
-
- CHEK4DUP ($19) generates a list of files that exist in both .EXE
- and .COM form. This usually occurs when software is
- upgraded from a COM format to an EXE format and the old
- COM version is accidentally left on the system when the
- new EXE program is put onto the system. DOS will always
- invoke the COM program before the EXE program so you
- should delete the older COM program.
-
- CFGCNTRL($29) (Config-Controller) is an intelligent text (ASCII)
- file controller. Just what does this mean? Well a bit of
- history is required to explain this new type of software
- utility... I created CFGCNTRL to solve common office and
- home Windows computing problems.
-
- Before CFGCNTRL, the typical office had MS-DOS laptop PCs
- running Windows software and LanManager LAN software that
- had to have specific LAN device drivers and video drivers
- installed and activated when the laptop was plugged into
- its desktop docking station with a LAN card and external
- video monitor, and a different set of device drivers
- installed and activated when the laptop was out in the
- field running remote LAN access software with its
- internal LCD display which required custom video drivers.
- The PC "techies" were managing this mess by keeping two
- copies of Window's configuration files -WIN.INI and
- SYSTEM.INI files and LanManager PROTOCOL.INI files
- present on each PC -one set for the docking station mode
- and one set for remote access mode. This didn't work
- well, for every time the user added/deleted or moved a
- group on his/her desktop, these changes were never saved
- to the other set of configuration files. Installing
- software that modified these configuration files had to
- manually be added to the other set of configuration
- files. Maintenance became a total nightmare. Similarly
- having two separate LanManager PROTOCOL.INI files was
- just as difficult to maintain.
-
- In the home, my users wanted a way to configure Windows
- in a 'minimal' mode so that their kids would not have
- access to certain programs on their PC, and then have
- their 'normal' mode with full program/group access for
- themselves.
-
- Out of these needs was born CFGCNTRL... CFGCNTRL does
- away with multiple configuration file sets. You only
- have your single set of standard Window's configuration
- files and LanManager files to deal with. CFGCNTRL and
- DOS' batch file capabilities allow you to control all
- aspects of your configuration files including adding or
-
-
-
-
-
-
- deleting complete groups of programs to or from your
- desktop.
-
- CHKPARM ($19) analyzes the file specification and returns via
- DOS' ERRORLEVEL whether the specification is a drive
- letter, file or sub-directory, whether it exists or not,
- and if it is a local reference or a network (remote)
- reference. Great for use in batch files.
-
- COMSPEED ($19) determines the actual baud rate that a COM (serial)
- port is set to. With today's high speed modems that can
- adjust their phone line and data rate (speed)
- automatically, it is often very difficult to determine if
- your line is operating at the proper rate. Use COMSPEED
- to check your COM port's data rate after establishing a
- data connection.
-
- CONTROLP ($19) allows you to turn on screen to printer echoing as
- if you had pressed Ctrl-P or Ctrl-PrtScr. Read your DOS
- manual for more information on printer echoing.
-
- COPYWA ($19) will copy files with the source file's attribute
- copied into the destination file too. Great for
- preserving your read-only file's attribute when copying
- them.
-
- CRTDUMP ($19) copies the contents of a text mode video screen to
- a disk file. Great for preserving screen messages for
- later review or printing.
-
- DELTREE-CHK4ROOT ($19) uses CHK4ROOT to determine if a file
- specification refers to the root directory. DOS'
- DELTREE.EXE can easily delete every file on your hard
- disk. Now use CHK4ROOT to protect yourself...
-
- DIR2BAT ($19) performs a series of commands on a series of files:
- Will write a listing of files that match your file
- specification to the file DIR2.BAT. Each file found may
- be prefixed and suffixed by user provided strings. This
- batch file will then be able to perform actions to the
- files. For example, if your C:\ disk contains the
- following files:
- list.doc printer.doc readme.doc
- then the command:
- DIR2BAT c:\*.doc "attrib -r ! /s" "del !" /f
-
- will create a DIR2.BAT file with the following contents:
- attrib -r c:\list.doc /s
- del c:\list.doc
- attrib -r c:\readme.doc /s
- del c:\readme.doc
- attrib -r c:\printer.doc /s
- del c:\printer.doc
-
- DVCPU ($19) is a DesqView utility program that is meant to be
-
-
-
-
-
-
- run right before running a program that requires full
- usage of the CPU's computing power. It pops up the
- DesqView window and sets 'Share CPU when in Foreground'
- to Yes or No depending on the parameter entered. Useful
- for programs that insist on running in a non-multitasking
- environment such as voice sampling and digitization
- programs.
-
- DVPROMPT ($19) is a DesqView utility program that facilitates easy
- recalling of your current DOS window's switch number by
- retrieving and embedding its switch number in its DOS
- prompt. For example, upon opening and using several DOS
- windows with command line programs, the user often finds
- it difficult to remember which window he/she was doing
- what task in. Since each window has the same DOS prompt,
- DOS gives him/her no visual clue to the identification of
- the current window. Will change each DOS window's DOS
- prompt into the typical form of:
- 1 C:\> for DesqView switch window #1
- 2 C:\> for DesqView switch window #2
- 3 C:\> for DesqView switch window #3
-
- DVRUN ($19) is a DesqView utility program that determines if
- DesqView is running. Useful within batch files.
-
- EXPNDTAB ($19) copies a source file to a destination file with any
- embedded tabs converted into spaces in the destination
- file. Document tab alignment is preserved. Great for
- printers that don't expand tabs correctly or word
- processors that don't expand tabs into the proper number
- of on-screen spaces.
-
- FEEFIFO ($19) enables the FIFO of a 16550A high speed UART chip
- at the serial COM port specified by you. This allows
- many non-FIFO aware programs to use and benefit from FIFO
- serial ports.
-
- GROWP ($19) grows your DOS prompt each time you shell to DOS.
- It adds a user specified growth character to the
- environment's 'PROMPT' string each time another copy of
- COMMAND.COM is invoked, and removes the growth character
- when the copy of COMMAND.COM is terminated. Each growth
- character represents a suspended program in RAM and gives
- you a visual warning that you should not turn-off your PC
- before returning to the suspended program and gracefully
- exiting it. This program is meant to be useful in
- situations where you invoke COMMAND.COM from within
- Windows, DesqView, a word-processor or from within a
- spreadsheet. In this typical scenario, GROWP gives you a
- visual reminder that you have suspended -not terminated a
- critical program. This program will also help avoid
- SMARTDRV write-ahead cache data losses.
-
- GRP2INI-INI2GRP ($29) (Group file to INI file converter and back)
- converts encoded (non-text/non-ASCII) Windows 3.0 and 3.1
-
-
-
-
-
-
- GRP (group) files into a plain text (ASCII) INI format
- file for your review and editing. It is considered a pre-
- processor to the CFGCNTRL program. After GRP2INI creates
- the textual INI formatted output file, you can edit it
- with your word processor or use CFGCNTRL to act on it.
- Then the companion post-processor INI2GRP (INI file to
- group file converter) must be used to reconvert the INI
- file back into the encoded GRP file format that Windows
- requires. GRP2INI-INI2GRP puts a powerful dimension of
- Windows configuration control into your hands with or
- without the use of CFGCNTRL.
-
- A 'group' in Windows is a collection of icons (programs).
- Example Windows groups are: Main, Accessories, Games, and
- Startup. Example items in a typical 'Main' group are:
- File-Manager, Control-Panel, Clipboard, and PaintBrush.
-
- GRP2INI reads the encoded GRP file and constructs an INI
- formatted text file that has a section of information
- associated with each item in the group. Each section's
- entries are explained in plain English. You can control
- every aspect of the complete group's window including its
- size, location, and name. You can control every aspect of
- your group's items including each item's name, program
- name, program location, working directory, short-cut-key,
- run-minimized state, icon picture (bitmap), icon size,
- icon colors, and location of the item's icon within the
- group's window, etc..
-
- Tired of waiting for Windows to start up? GRP2INI can
- help. As you add and delete more and more items from a
- Windows group, your GRP files grows in size. Windows does
- a poor job of recovering wasted space in your group's GRP
- file. In fact, Windows does no wasted space recovery.
- GRP2INI will automatically remove all wasted space in
- your GRP files. Just run your GRP file through GRP2INI-
- INI2GRP and notice the file size and speed improvements.
- This wasted space recovery is similar to disk
- defragmentation processes.
-
- Have you ever wanted to force Windows to load certain
- programs in your Startup group in a certain order? Before
- GRP2INI-INI2GRP you couldn't. Now you can! Windows loads
- items in the order that they appear in the GRP file.
- However, when adding a new item into your group, Windows
- simply finds puts the item into the first hole it finds.
- Simply generate the INI output file and move the sections
- around to suit your needs...
-
- If you've ever wanted to 'move' an application from a
- disk drive to another disk drive (perhaps because your
- hard disk was filling up and you wanted to rearrange your
- data), or even to another sub-directory, you were forced
- to uninstall the application (losing all of your
- application's settings) and reinstall it in the proper
-
-
-
-
-
-
- new location all because of Windows' encoded GRP
- formatted files. With GRP2INI and INI2GRP, you simply
- generate and edit the text INI file replacing the
- application's paths, locations, and working directories
- with whatever you want.
-
- IFONSCRN ($29) will examine the video screen for the appearance of
- up to three case sensitive trigger (search) character
- strings. Once found, a message box may pop up, and/or
- user keystrokes may be stuffed into the keyboard buffer
- including rebooting the PC. IFONSCRN may be run as a TSR
- (RAM-resident) or as a non-TSR program. Great for
- detecting how a program terminated if it does not set
- DOS' ERRORLEVEL. Great for detecting modem, gateway, mail
- router, and print server failures and then automatically
- reboot them.
-
- IFWAIT ($19) will beep the screen or the IFBUZZ device either
- once or will wait until you press any key. It can run in
- a WAIT mode where the device beeps cyclically until a key
- is pressed, or in a BEEP mode where it beeps the device
- once and terminates without a key needing to be pressed.
-
- PARKHEAD ($19) parks an IBM PC 286, 386, 486, Pentium and most
- compatible PC's hard disks.
-
- PDEL ($19) permanently deletes a file so that it can't ever be
- recovered.
-
- PLAYER ($19) plays a wave or voc formatted sound file on a Sound
- Blaster or compatible audio. card.
-
- PRTSCRFF ($19) automatically appends a form-feed (paper eject)
- command to your printer whenever you press the
- PrintScreen key. Very useful to keep your printer always
- at its top-of-form position. For laser printers, this
- saves you from taking the printer off-line, and pressing
- the PageEject button.
-
- RLIST ($19) prints a range of lines from a text (ASCII) file to
- the screen or printer.
-
- RWDIR ($19) generates a list of non read-only files. Useful to
- see which files would be deleted when issuing a DEL *.*
- command. It is recommended to make most of your
- application programs (programs ending with com, exe, and
- bat) read-only to minimize the risk of accidental
- erasure. RWDIR will help you identify the files that
- might need to be made read-only.
-
- SETBEEP ($19) is a memory resident program that will set the beep
- character's (ASCII decimal 7 or control-G) duration to a
- user specified value or disable it leaving you with a
- silent PC. The PC's default beep tone duration is 1
- second which is too long and annoying for many people.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- THOT4DAY ($19) (pronounced "Thought-for-day") is a unique program
- that will display varying personalized messages on your
- PC's computer screen. You, the user can create a list of
- messages (THOTs) to be displayed by the program. Many
- Murphy's Law-like thoughts are included.
-
- TUNE4DAY ($19) plays a different sound file from a directory of
- files every time you run the program. Useful in your
- AUTOEXEC.BAT file to play a new sound every time you turn
- on your PC. Uses PLAYER. May also be used to run any
- program with a different filename as its argument from a
- directory of files.
-
- VDEL ($19) (Verify DELetion) asks you if you want to delete
- file(s) matching your filename. It can delete read-only
- files too. For each file that VDEL finds, you can
- configure it to or not to ask you if you want to delete
- it.
-
- VERS ($19) installs itself as a memory-resident program that
- will set the DOS version(s) to user specified value(s).
- This is useful when running programs that require a
- specific DOS version for no useful reason. (Many DOS
- supplemental programs require specific versions for no
- legitimate reason). VERS works better than SETVER does.
- VERS can set both the TRUE and FAKE (SETVER) versions
- that DOS provides to programs.
-
- WINRUN ($19) is a DOS utility program that determines if Windows
- 3.n Enhanced mode is running. Useful within batch files
- in a DOS box.
-
- WRAPUP Windows users have long enjoyed the fact that when you
- start Windows, you could have Windows automatically start
- any programs simply by putting the program's icon into
- the 'StartUp' group.
-
- Wouldn't it be great to have a similar 'ShutDown' group
- that right before Windows exited, it would run these
- 'WrapUp' type programs automatically for you? Imagine the
- uses for such a program...
-
- You could automatically:
- .oj off
- - Backup your PC's hard disk(s).
- - Log out of your PC network (LAN).
- - Synchronize your laptop PC's hard disk with your
- desktop PC's hard disk or visa versa.
- - Access your favorite online stock-quote system and
- retrieve your latest stock prices.
- - Send an email message.
- - Run your communications program and have it
- autodial your significant other, so you could pick
- up the telephone and tell him/her that you're on
- your way home.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- - Or any DOS program or batch file that can be run
- from within Windows.
- - Or anything else for that matter...
-
- WrapUp requires Windows 3.0-3.11 or Windows-for-
- Workgroups 3.11.
-
- ZDIR ($19) determines the size of sub-directories nicer than
- DIR does.
-
- <eof>
-
-
-