If you use computers to make a living, and especially if you are using
them in a development or electronic support mode, the standard programs
provided by Windows aren't really "industrial" enough for most jobs.
These programs are lean, mean, stable and fast, yet provide more
functionality than what you already have.
This collection is FREE for personal use and is a subset of a
more-encompassing collection.
Here then are the basic FREE utilities:
Notepad: This Windows Notepad replacement is designed for programmers,
testers, and other power users. It offers a variety of useful functions
that are helpful with program and script debugging (e.g. goto line
number, commenting), SQL manipulation (e.g. column removal), and
teaching (e.g. add line numbers), as well as basic and enhanced text
manipulation. Unlike Windows Notepad, the program can automatically
invoke your MAPI email program and can have the color combination
controlled (black on white isn't what everyone prefers.) In addition to
text capability, this program can double as an RTF editor with full
control of fonts and color.
Notepad is especially friendly for users of Borland's (Wordstar based)
editors; the standard shortcut keystrokes are supported. We wrote this
originally to be able to be productive with a Borland style editor when
consulting with places that use nothing but the vanilla Microsoft
stuff...
File Wiper: This program functions as a file deletion utility such that
when files are deleted they are first overwritten with random ASCII
characters. What makes this program more useful is that it can handle
multiple files at once. Files that are deleted STAY deleted, forever.
HexView: This is a simple hexadecimal file viewer that contains ASCII
string search capability. Very handy for file format verification
because it's small and fast -- there's no need to invoke a full blown
editor to look at a file when you have no intention to edit it.
PaintAssist: This utility is designed to aid painting programs by
adding functionality that most don't have: frame grab from AVI movie
files, conversion of WMF vector graphic files to bitmaps, fancier text
effects, and transparent image pasting (i.e. combining images
together.) More Info.
Cookie Eater: This is a simple utility that has only one function --
eating cookie files. It can be optionally be controlled via an ini file
(eatcook.ini) if your browser cookies are in a directory other than
c:windowscookies. Just doubleclick and it will happily munch every
cookie...
ImgView: This program is an image viewer utility. It's sole purpose is
to simply display standard pictures files (e.g. web graphics like GIF
or JPG, or windows files like BMP.) It is provided because you can drop
files on to it (i.e. a desktop icon) therefore it is command line
invoked; it is used by GUIGREP to quickly display image files (this
viewer, unlike full blown paint programs, is VERY fast to load and
display a graphic.)
GUIGREP: This is a GUI version of a GREP utility. For those of you
unfamiliar with GREP searches, GREP looks for text inside files. (The
built-in "search files or folders" part of Windows also has GREP-like
functionality but is harder to use.) The advantage of this program is
that the result set remains in a list box that can be doubleclicked to
invoke an editor, plus different types of files will invoke the proper
viewer of choice. Also, searches can be invoked at a programmable macro
level, which means you can have it look for "internet files" and it
will search for *.htm, *.html, *.phtml, etc.
Zipper: This is a basic ZIP utility meant to quickly and easily create
or open ZIP format (2.04g) files. This program has a basic GUI
interface for the casual user and a command line ability for the expert
user. The command line ability also means that you can design
automation using ZIP archives. What it does not do that the big names
do is nag you for money.
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