Sharing Wares #1

File Association Wizard

Windows 95 -- Shareware

One of my personal favorites. In Windows 3.1, changing file associations (which programs open up files with which three-letter extensions) was simple. An easy tool in File Manager made it a five second project which even a monkey could not screw up. In Windows 95 though, Bill Gates once again screwed up, and complicated file associations to the point where even experienced computer users can have problems doing the simplest of tasks. Along comes File Association Wizard, a small (about 900K) and amazingly easy-to-use piece of shareware, to fix the problem. By simply dragging an file icon (i.e. blah.txt) onto the File Association Wizard icon, you can decide what program opens every file with that extension (i.e. whether Notepad or Wordpad opens .txt files), and what icon is used for every file with that extension. No frills or complex procedures like Windows' native method for accomplishing the same task. Can be a major utility for those who explore their Windows 95 desktop more than they explore their physical surroundings.

Macromedia Shockwave Flash Plug-In

All Platforms -- Freeware

There are few mandatory plug-ins for your web browser. Most of the plug-ins found on the Net repeat the same video-viewing or sound-streaming capabilities, and are hardly worth downloading the page describing their functions, let alone the several megabytes of software. One item that is worth its download time in gold several times over is the Shockwave Flash plug-in, produced by Macromedia, the makers of Shockwave and Macromedia Director. For the first time the streaming animation of sights and sounds moving in harmony, formerly seen only through Director programs, can be viewed on the Web. Among its current applications are streaming audio and video, animation environments, and interactive arcade-style games, all created using either Director or Macromedia's new Shockwave Flash creator program, which is a fraction of the size and price of Director. For some incredible examples of the what can be done using Shockwave, visit http://www.macromedia.com/shockzone/.

File Shredder 2.22

Windows 95 -- Freeware

This freshly updated piece of freeware does what the world has been seeking since our lives revolved around 1.44 MB floppy disks: breaking up huge files into 1.44 MB chunks for archiving. Using File Shredder, a file of infinitely large size can be divided into however many pieces you want of any size, whether to archive onto floppy disks or to e-mail to a friend across the country. Whoever is "gluing" the file back together does not need any special software, not even File Shredder, to fit the puzzle pieces together. File Shredder creates a .bat file (DOS batch file) which does the gluing when double-clicked. This can easily be run in Windows 95, Windows 3.1, or DOS. The user-friendly interface and versatility of who can use the resulting files makes this software enormously valuable if you spend long hours in the night compressing files, trying to squeeze a file down "just a few more K" over and over again with a zip utility so it will fit into the crevice where it needs to go.