Web Walk: Applied geekishness

Every now and then I like to bring you a practical column, a lesson in applied geekishness - no, stay right where you are! Nobody leaves…

This is for your own good. You'll thank me later.

First, to ease the trauma of downloading large files, we'll visit Headlight Software for GetRight 3.2 [www.getright.com], "a full-featured downloading tool for the serious downloader and novice alike". Its features include scheduled downloads, dialing and disconnecting your modem, error recovery, resumption, finding the fastest server to download from and many other dull but useful things.

We might go even further and sell our souls to Wintel by joining the Intel Owner's Club [www.intel.com/home/club/index.htm]. It's free, and you don't necessarily have to have Intel Inside to claim your copy of their handy Download Calculator. At my current connection speed, I can download their very sexy Avengers screensaver [1.4Mb] in around four minutes.

While there, we notice [ironically] a banner ad for WebWiper 1.02 [www.webwiper.com], a new shareware utility which claims to remove ads as you surf, so we'll download that as well, just to see if it works. Live dangerously, I say - and it's only 410Kb.

If smoke starts coming out of your com-port after you install it, I refuse to be held responsible.

Downloading software usually involves satisfying the nosiness of its creators, so let's misinform them in comfort with a copy of FillOut Manager 1.02 [www.conquerware.dk/fillout.htm]. Once you've filed everything you're prepared to divulge about yourself, thereafter it's just a matter of dragging and dropping your lies.

That's why I like cyberspace - I'm still in my thirties there...

The same sort of functions can be performed by my favourite Keyboard Express from Insight Software Solutions [www.wintools.com] which lets you enter text or auto-capture for quick playback. It's suddenly become exponentially more powerful as Macro Express - it edits, schedules and runs mouse and keyboard macros, adds dates, time, delays, pauses, symbols, sounds, repeats, windows commands, and it would probably play God Defend New Zealand if you asked it to.

At Comdex last Sunday, Thornsoft Development [www.thornsoft.com] previewed ClipMate 5.0, the latest incarnation of its clipboard extender which won Best Utility at the Shareware Industry Association awards last year. Now with a new drag'n'drop, thumbnail-enhanced Explorer interface, it features every bell and whistle known to God and Bill Gates. Still in beta, it will be available from the 23rd - as a beta-tester, I can promise you it's very good indeed.

Effective searching is the only key which can unlock the riches of the Internet. I've never been a great fan of Infoseek [http://guide.infoseek.com], now 43% owned by Brierley's saviour/nemesis, Disney; but its new multi-engine Express plug-in is outstanding, meshing seamlessly with your browser to present a tightly-targeted hierarchy of hits, your choice of which it preloads and presents in sequence. Try it - I'm using it more and more.

For business, StockTick 5.1 from NA Consulting [www.naconsulting.com] will allow you to watch helplessly as your shares plummet. More than a ticker, it's a sort of minibrowser for market-watchers which lets you create an unlimited number of personal portfolios detailing the latest prices, percent changes, highs, lows, and volume. Excellent charting ability plus daily email reports of gains and losses. Printing and exporting are disabled in this unregistered version, but everything else is, and I quote, "absolutely FREE FOREVER!"

Or why not replace the bleak industrial landscape of Notepad with Note-Book 5.2 from CT Software [hometown.aol.com/ron2222/index.html]? It's not just that you can pretty it up with fonts and colours, you can also drag and drop stuff [more or less essential these days], and it has the very useful ability to print only selected text.

Then there's… well, like StockTick, the virtual gadgets go on forever; but I'd better leave some room for the classifieds.

BOOKMARKS

MOST SPECTACULAR: Chiang-Mai News - Leonids 98

Another Internet first - a live webcast of this year's Leonid meteor shower. Every 33 years we get pelted with rocks by remnants of the comet Tempel-Tuttle at a rate of up to 10,000 meteors an hour, and we're right in the thick of it - it's due to peak a little before dawn tomorrow. Prime viewing of the celestial bombardment would be Mongolia at around 2:30 AM, but they don't really have the computers, the cameras or the inclination in Ulan Bator, so this enterprising Thai newspaper is laying it on instead.

Advisory: if you thought Guy Fawkes Night was fun…
www.chiangmainews.com

MOST SOBERING: AfriCam

Nature remains red in tooth and claw, and if you doubted it view these live images [refreshed every 30 seconds] from cameras trained on waterholes in the Djuma Game Reserve, Kruger National Park. During the dry months (April - November) animals would give anything for a drink of water, and quite often it's their lives. The world's first mobile game camera trundles round capturing lion and leopard kills, chortling hyenas, elephant births and deaths. Much patience required - when I visited, nobody was thirsty.

Advisory: That Was Your Life for antelope…
www.africam.mweb.co.za/homepage.html

petersinclair@email.com