Monday, August 6, 2001		Downloads of the week

It is a browser for kids. The Internet has a lot to offer kids, though there is a lot of stuff out there that children shouldn’t see. There is in fact, a lot out there that adults shouldn’t see, either. Bottom line? You need a browser for your youngsters. Something that is limited only to "kid friendly" sites. As long as your kids stick to this colourful client, you shouldn’t have to worry. They have got a team of experts who study these sites to make sure they’re educational and above all appropriate for young surfers. The AmiWeb character guides your kids around the browser with voice, sounds and music! Parents can set different profiles for their children if they have more than one. The browsers open with a password set by the parents. In fact, the browser asks for the password anytime one of your bright kids wants to try something out that you or the browser thinks is not fit for him or her. The interface is very pleasing. Your kids should love to have a browser of their own. Download it from www.midmultimedia.com/download/internet/Amiweb20en.exe

Spychecker is a small application that queries the Spychecker.com online database for known "Spyware" applications. If you are not sure whether the freeware program you are about to download is actually advertising supported "Spyware" — simply type the name of the software into the box and click "Check". Spychecker will open the search results in your browser. Spychecker.com is a public database of Spyware products. The database is maintained on a daily basis and new software is added or removed as needed. Information is gathered from the Internet sources, ad companies and reliable sources in the software distribution industry. "Spyware" has become the Internet jargon for certain advertising supported products. Spychecker.com does not suggest that any of the advertising networks are using the collected data in any other way than stated in their privacy policy. Currently all products enabled with one of the following adware systems are commonly referred to in the Internet community as "Spyware": Aureate/Radiate, Conducent/Timesink, Web 3000, Cydoor . Even though the name may indicate so, Spyware is not illegal software in any way. However there are certain issues that a privacy oriented user may object to and therefore prefer not to use the product. This usually involves the tracking and sending of data and statistics via a server installed on the user’s PC. Millions of persons use advertising supported "spyware" products and could care less about the privacy hype. In fact some "Spyware" programs are among the most popular downloads on the Internet. If you download software from the Internet, you will sooner or later run into free products that are advertising supported and will install the tracking mechanism on your system. Depending upon the source of your download, it may not always be properly identified as Adware (or Spyware), and unless you carefully read the license agreement, you may not find out until it’s too late. To save you the trouble (and download time) this database contains a complete and update list of known Spyware products. Simply enter the name of the software and we will return the results. If the product is indexed in database, you will also be provided with the name of the advertising network and a link to their privacy policy. Download available from: www.spychecker.com

Background Magic is an easy-to-use program that lets amateur Web designers create professional looking graphics without the hassle of learning complicated image editing software or the inconvenience of having no real artistic ability whatsoever. Background Magic allows you to take two pre-made image tiles and blend them into a unique new image. Background Magic also allows you to apply various effects to the image to further customise your new graphic. Background Magic lets you do all sorts of cool things with your new, custom image. First of all, the image can be saved as a seamless 128x128 JPEG image, which makes it great for use as a Web page background. You can also save the image as a HTML document, which makes it even easier to design a Web page. Plus, this HTML document can also be used as e-mail stationery! Background Magic can also turn your new image into a left-border background, which makes great looking Web pages. You can turn your new image into a terrific looking button or banner to spice up your new Web page. Finally, Background Magic can easily set your image as your Desktop wallpaper, or use it to decorate your Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express button bar. Background Magic shouldn’t require any real beefy system to run. Generally, if you can run Windows you can run Background Magic. It was written for Windows ’98, but it has been tested successfully on 95/2000/NT/and Me as well. It is necessary that your display be set to 16-bit colour or higher, and it is advisable to set your resolution to 640x480 or higher. Background Magic image tiles should have their own special icon and should show the thumbnail preview when highlighted (if that feature is enabled on your system). If this isn’t the case, go to the Background Magic Options screen and select the option "Repair image tiles". If you had created or saved custom image tiles using a version of Background Magic older than 1.1, then those tiles will need to be converted to the new tile format used by this version. This can be done from the Options screen by clicking the Convert button. If no images are being shown in the image selection window, you may need to reinstall the program. Download it from www.backgroundmagic.com

 SpamMotel

This freeware program gives you complete control of your e-mail address, without the use of filters. Whenever you are online and about to give out your e-mail address — Stop! Do you really want to do this? SpamMotel has a better way. Simply type a short reminder memo to yourself, including why and to whom the e-mail address is being given. SpamMotel records this memo, and the date and time, and quickly sends you a special "disposable" address to use instead of your real one. The new address is automatically placed into the "clipboard" memory of Windows, where it can be pasted into any online form that you are filling out. E-mails sent to this special address are forwarded to your regular e-mail account, along with your reminder memo, that appears at the top of the e-mail message. From now on, you’ll know exactly when and where the sender or spammer got your e-mail address. But just knowing this information is not enough. So this program gives you the power to stop spam sent to any of these special addresses. This is done through the Log Page — your online control and information page — where you can delete any of the addresses you’ve given out. You can also suspend and resume forwarding for each address at any time. Because you retain complete control of the address, there’s no need to "opt out" or "un-subscribe" to mailing lists. No need to set up complicated filters. No more reading through lengthy and confusing privacy statements. Best of all, your real e-mail address is never given out, just the special ones you create using SpamMotel. Ideal when signing onto chat rooms, subscribing to newsletters, making online purchases, or filling out any online forms that request an e-mail address. Also useful in organising your e-mail folders more effectively. SpamMotel works with your existing e-mail account. Only the addresses you choose to create with SpamMotel are sent through the developer’s servers. All other e-mails remain unchanged. You can download this program from www.spammotel.com

This password-keeping program has nothing to do with that classic game show, but will provide you with a safe place to keep all of your passwords and account information. This is much better than writing 50 passwords down on 50 different scraps of paper. Besides having all of your passwords at your fingertips via the easy-to-use interface, you can also import, export, and print them as you see fit. The Main Window in CSPassword shows two panes. On the right is a list of all the accounts in the current file, on the left is the details of the currently selected account. To show an account’s details in the pane on the left, select it from the list on the right. Any change that you make to an account will be automatically updated in the right hand pane. Following are the Account Fields: User Name - The user name for the account, required for many websites and other password protected systems. Password - The password that you use for this account. You can set the password to be hidden by asterisks by clicking the padlock icon on the toolbar. URL - The Web page for logging in, if any. Notes – Any extra information, default is the date when the account was added. Download available from www.chrisseaton.com/downloads/cspassword.zip

— Raman Mohan