Monday, March 4, 2002		Downloads of the week

This is a download accelerator that can increase download speeds by up to 400 per cent. Unlike similar applications, it is completely free. It does not contain any banner ads or spyware. The acceleration is achieved by splitting the file being downloaded into several parts and downloading these parts simultaneously. Download speeds are further increased by downloading the file from the fastest mirror sites. You may automatically resume broken downloads if your connection is lost or if your computer accidentally shuts down. With the scheduler, you may download files at certain times of the day. Star Downloader can also automatically connect to your ISP and hangup upon completion of downloads. An integrated unzipping utility can automatically unzip and install downloaded files. Star Downloader also integrates with your anti-virus program to automatically scan files upon completion of the download. It supports FTP and HTTP. Proxy is also supported. Star Downloader offers you features that do not exist in most browsers. By splitting the file to be downloaded into different parts, downloading them separately and then combining them on your computer, the speed of download increases significantly. If your download is unexpectedly interrupted for any reason (server error, ISP disconnects you, windows hangs, power cut...), you can always resume downloading from the point were you stopped.

Do you ever wonder how all those persons got hold of your e-mail address? Well, some people use a special tool that harvests e-mail addresses. You can fight those bots using this utility as your weapon. This thing will turn any e-mail address on the site into "browser-readable Unicode," which essentially means that those bots will have a hard time finding anything worth using. Yet another tool in the eternal battle against spammers. It is simple to use. In fact, it takes just four simple steps to do the needful. First, fill in the e-mail address and the alternate text. Two, press the Make Code button to create the cloaked link code in this window. Three, press the Copy Code button to put the code in your system clipboard. And lastly, in your HTML editor, paste the code into your page HTML where the link should appear. Here are some usage hints. Alternate Text:The Alternate Text is the text to show instead of the actual email address. If the Alternate Text checkbox is unchecked, the email address will show, however, the address is nonetheless fully cloaked. (Normally you will use the Alternate Text). Formatting the Link: Formatting of the link (text size, font, style, colour) can be done as usual in your HTML editor, or by surrounding the link with standard HTML <font> and formatting tags. Pre-Testing the Code: To test the code, click on the link in the Test Area. (This is actually a small Internet Explorer browser window). The link will open in your default email client. Download available from www.codefoot.com/d/ec2003.zip

Google is great for finding just about anything, but what if you want to find information on the latest novel by your favourite writer? You'd probably go to Amazon for that. Perhaps you're trying to remember that movie Michael Keaton starred in back in 1982. You can't beat the Internet Movie Database for that kind of search. But what this program does is add a search bar to Internet Explorer, allowing you to instantly search Google, Amazon, the IMDB - and even Dictonary.com and DayPop. Instead of having to navigate to the site and type your query into their search engine, you can do it quickly from any IE browser. You can enable or disable it with a quick click. After installing your Nutshell toolbar launch Internet Explorer, right-click on the tool area, and choose the Nutshell menu item. At this time you should also make sure Lock the Toolbars is de-selected so you can change the position of your new toolbar. Using your new toolbar is pretty straight-forward. Type a search term in the edit box, click the "Go" button, and choose a site from the menu list. You can also just type a phrase into the edit box and hit your Enter key. This will let you search using Google's search engine. If you don't type a search term and just select a site from the list, you will be taken to that site's front page. Nutshell costs nothing to use. Download from www.torrez.org/projects/nutshell/install.exe

This program effectively converts any file to plain text: once a file is processed with MakeTXT, you can load it into any word processor or text editor, including Notepad. This free version of MakeTXT can only process files that are less than 128 kb but that is enough for normal users. To install copy MakeTXT.exe to some directory in your path. The best way to do this is to type (from the command prompt): copy MakeTXT.exe %windir%. It is then recommended that you create a shortcut on your desktop to the program. Right click the desktop, select New, then select Shortcut. Type maketxt in the box, press Next, then enter a description such as "Convert to Text". Click Finish, and shortcut will appear. You can start the program by double-clicking on its icon. You can convert a file by selecting convert from the File menu (or Ctrl + O as a keyboard shortcut). Select the file to convert in the first dialog box, then in the second dialog box, specify the output file (by typing in a file name or double-clicking on an existing file). The .txt extension will be added to the file unless you specify another extension. A progress bar at the bottom of the screen will then indicate conversion status. The Custom Filter feature of MakeTXT will allow you to specify an additional ASCII filtering rule in addition to the program's default text filters. It allows you to convert all occurrences of a specific character with a new character. The filter you define will be applied before all other default text filters, but all text filters will still be applied. From the Options menu, select Custom Filter, then check or uncheck the Enable box. If it is enabled, you can then enter two ASCII values: the first one defines the character to convert, and the second defines the resulting character. Once you click OK, the filter is in effect and will be used upon any file that is converted. The filter will remain in effect until you exit the program, or uncheck the Enable box. It is available at www.pc-utils.com

— Raman Mohan