PCUGR Shareware SIG -
June 30, 2001
Rawls Frazier,
Facilitator
rfrazier
As is
typical, we looked at a smorgasborg of programs, pictures,
and web sites. But, our main focus was directed to one of our
regular attendee's past request to show what Napster was all
about and how to use it. To make things more interesting (no
telling if it would work!), we actually did the whole process
from scratch - created an account, downloaded software and
fetched a MP3 or two. More below.
Iceberg
To
get things started, and, in opposition to some of the hot
weather we have had lately, we took a look at a really cool
(pun intended!) picture of an iceberg from a rig manager for
Global Marine Drilling in St. Johns, Newfoundland.
Evidentally, the water was calm and the sun was shinning
directly overhead so that the diver was able to get a picture
of the berg above and below the water. They estimated this
berg to weight about 300,000,000 tons! And these guys
actually divert such monsters away from their rigs by towing
them with ships. Spectacular. (click on the picture to see a
larger image (500x683 - 50KB).
GNU
Meditation
We also took a look at a funny picture on the new T-shirt
from the Free Software
Foundation.
Firehand
Lightning
Firehand Lightning is a "picture display and
distribution system" for pictures (including video) with
audio and text annotations. The key features are a nice
graphical, step-by-step album creation, drag and drop
organizing and the ability to export standalone, self-running
photo albums, slideshows and screensavers. We took a look at
a couple of demos: a slideshow of Machu Picchu and a
screensaver cum photo album of a visit to London. We also
looked at the album viewer using a supplied collection of
Dodge Viper pictures. The slideshow demo was a bit ambitious,
with a background photo, slide photos overlaid on top,
multiple transition effects (shutters, wipes, pixel
dissolves, color dissolves, etc.), text and music - all a bit
taxing on the demo computer! A less fancy show we made with
the Lightning software performed better. Using the Lightning
software itself, was straight forward. First, there is a nice
"Getting started" help tutorial and the program
interface makes good use of buttons for each step of the
process. We walked through the basics of taking some
pictures, adding some sounds and text and then creating a
self-running slide show. These shows, incidentally, are saved
in a single, compressed file - pictures, music and text. Very
handy. The software is $50 shareware. Unregistered, you get
to use it 30 times and your creations have a nag screen on
them. From Firehand
Technologies Corporation.
Our next
topic was FTP clients. We discussed what FTP is and reasons
why you might want to have a stand alone FTP client. We
talked briefly about (but did not demo) CF Simple FTP (OK for simple
uploads, but very limited, freeware), FTP Explorer (Explorer like
interface, but the program got stuck (stop responding) a few
times when testing). Also mentioned were the popular CuteFTP and LeapFTP ($40 and $30
shareware respectively) We then looked at a couple of other
freeware clients that, in testing, worked OK.
LeechFTP
LeechFTP
has a nice GUI interface which implements a multi-threaded
ftp engine. The screen is divided into a menu/toolbar (with
"tool-tip" popup help), a log window which shows
all the main communication between the ftp client and server,
and 3, side-by-side windows showing the job queue (file
transfer requests), the current local directory contents and
the remote directory contents. Drag and drop is implemented,
so file uploads or downloads are simple. Whole directory
transfers reproduce the directory tree and queues up the
files for transfer as a series of processing threads. The
usual sort of file/directory manipulations are available:
delete, rename, create a directory, change directories etc.
In addition, you can compare directory contents between the
local and remote computers to determine, e.g., missing files
from an incomplete transfer. You can also manipulate remote
file attributes, which is handy if permissions need to be
changed. In general, LeechFTP worked OK, but there were a few
times it got stuck trying to navigate to a directory,
possibly because of some formatting issues in the remote
computer's file listing (the program helpfile lists such as a
potential problem). One work-around is to issue ftp commands
directly via the provided command window, but this pretty
much eliminates the GUI ease of use. None-the-less, this
freeware program warrants a looksee. Further development of
LeechFTP has been stopped and presumably replaced by a new
product called BitBeamer, but this product does not appear to
have been released. Also, the author's original web address
appears to have gone, so, if you are interested in this, look
for it at www.download.com (enter LeechFTP in the search
window).
WS_FTP LE
This
is a venerable free FTP client (LE stands for Limited Edition
- there is a more full featured "Pro" version for
$40) in both 16-bit (for Win3x) and 32-bit (Win9x/NT)
versions from Ipswitch. Older and free does
not mean bad, and, overall, our tests found this client to be
the very reliable and quite easy to use. Granted, only the
basic file/directory manipulation functions were provided and
none of the fancy resume download or multiple-threaded
features were there, but the program performance was snappy
and, in demonstrating transferring files, etc. everyone
agreed operations were straightforward and easy to do. You
can download this freeware ftp client directly from Ipswitch,
but you will have to fill out a pesky form first. As an
alternative, try one of the shareware archives such as download.com.
Quick Latin
Latin?
No doubt about it, the Shareware SIG isn't anything, if not
eclectic! So what are we doing with a Latin translator? Well,
it seems that Ben Ezzell was the lucky recipient of a little
message in binary that, when decoded contained some Latin.
And, since turn about is fair play, he sent some choice Latin
back to the originator. But, that person, who, to protect the
innocent, will remain unnamed, doesn't know beans about
Latin, so... here we are. Actually this was a rather
interesting program, particularly the way it operated. The
interface was three panes and a translate button. The Latin
phrase or sentence was entered into the top pane (type or
pasted from the clipboard) and then the translate button
pushed. When complete, the English translation is presented
in the bottom pane. The middle pane is where the program
showed a bit of flare. After the translation is complete,
just pointing at a Latin word in the phrase caused a full
definition set to pop into the middle pane - you could simply
point at any word to see the dictionary definitions. Pretty
slick. And the translations? OK, but, just like most of the
automated translators on the web, not equivalent to an
idomatic, native speaker. $40 shareware from Roger Pearse.
John West
Salmon
While
we were taking a diversion, this seemed like a good time to
take a look at this video (our thanks to PCUGR member Jim
Noble who passed this one along as "Todd's Camping
Trip"). This evidently is an ad for John West Salmon
wherein a guy steals a salmon from a bear by fighting him for
it - very funny. Here's a link to see it on line: AdCritic.com.
Moving right
along, we turned our attention to Napster and like sites and
set about to see how to sign up, find MP3 files and see if we
could get some music.
Napster
By now, everyone on the planet has to have heard about the
Napster controversy. It has had a BIG impact on Napster,
itself. For those who used the service, the music practically
disappeared. As part of it's efforts to comply with the
court's orders and tune up it's filtering technology, the
service now has a new software release that is supposed to
put many of the missing files back on-line. To check this out
and to demo how to get connected to Napster and use the
service, we walked through the steps. First was to go to www.napster.com. Once there, we
downloaded the setup for the lastest software version. After
scanning this file for viruses (hey, this is part of the
steps you should do with any new software!), we did
the install (and, before running the installed program, we
checked it for viruses as well), and then ran it. At this
point the system goes through a whole bunch of steps to
create your on-line persona, asks a bunch of personal
questions (most of these, thankfully, you can ignore), lets
you specify where the downloaded files will go and then lets
you specify if and from where you will share files in turn.
Once this is done, you log onto Napster via this software and
you are ready to go.
With expert
assistance from our local Napster guru, Bob, we searched for
a couple of tunes, got a tutorial about how to read the
display (e.g., which files were potentially going to download
the fastest), made a selection and downloaded a song.
Fortunately our source was a fairly fast connection and in a
couple of minutes we had an MP3. A double click later, we
were listening to music. (BTW, in contrast to just a short
while ago, there are now files again to be found. Our
explorations, however, did not go too deep, so we don't know
in any detail how the filtering is working or if their are
mechanisms to ID tunes with surcharges or whatever. You will
have to find all that out on your own :-)
Audiogalaxy
As an alternative to Napster, we went to Audiogalaxy and, in similar
fashion, signed up for their service, downloading their
AGSatellite software. In contrast to Napster, this system is
primarily web based (you locate tunes via your browser) while
the downloaded software is just a download client/upload
server. We once again found a tune and did a download. This
time the source was a very slow connection, so it took some
time to finish (but gave a rather graphic illustration what a
typical modem user will face). One big difference with this
service is that you have no option regarding sharing - it is
a two way street by design. Also, upon installation, the
software sticks a shortcut in your Start Up folder so, unless
you get rid of the shortcut, the AGSatellite software will be
on and, when you are connected to the internet, you will be
sharing away.
Another
alternative to Napster we did not have a chance to look at is
Imesh. We left that as an
"exercise" for the SIG participants :-)
That wrapped
it up for this month's excursion into the shareware/freeware
world. Next time the plan is to look at some PC technology
related sites, a place to find hardware drivers, another
picture slide show utility, a network utility and more.
Thanks,
again, to Bob for making the coffee! And thanks, as always,
to Bernie Stepan for the meeting room, Internet connection
and coffee supplies at RE/MAX Marina, Petaluma.
RE/MAX Marina
775 Baywood Dr. #100
Petaluma, CA
|
