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The Top Downloads Available on the Net


March 13, 2000 (SmartPros) The saying "there is no such thing as a free lunch" may apply to a lot of things, but it does not apply to software. Thanks to thousands of industrious programmers who believe in sharing their creative efforts with the rest of us, there are actually quite a few useful free downloads available on the Web.



Keeping Tabs on Your Memory
Infoman 1.0 is a freeware 32-bit program that provides users with a continuous update of their PC's available physical memory in Windows 95 and 98. (The program has not been tested on NT but according to Kyle Brant, program developer, it should work just fine on NT).

A small dialog box makes its home in the upper right corner of the screen to keep you informed of your available free physical memory. If you right click on the words "Free Memory" in the dialog box, the display cycles through three different modes: Free Memory, Total Memory and % of Free Memory. In addition, it updates the information every six seconds.

The program runs at "idle" priority, which in English means - it will not interfere with your other programs. To download Informan 1.0, visit Kyle Brant's Web site at msnhomepages.talkcity.com/cerfst/kylesb/infoman.htm.

Surfing With a Gator
Have you ever thought of getting a gator as an online companion? Well, if you have not you may want to reconsider.

Gator is designed to automatically fill out forms, remember passwords and log on IDs with one click of the mouse. In other words, you do not have to type in all the information that these forms request because Gator remembers it and puts it in for you. It also remembers account numbers.

Gator appears only when needed and works with thousands of sites. It also protects and encrypts your personal data securely on your PC. So, the next time you have to fill out a form, your Gator will surface and fill in the exact information (name, address, telephone number - whatever) that the form requires.

The program downloads in about 3 ˝ minutes at 56K and comes with $50 of coupons that can be used at various e-commerce sites on the Web. To download Gator, check out the Gator Web site at gator.com.

Save Your Butt With This Program
Save Butt does exactly that - it saves your butt - or more specifically it rescues destroys documents when an accidental shutdown or file corruption occurs. The program is free for 30 days but after that you will have to plunk down $29.95 to keep the application running.

Save Butt replaces damaged or deleted files with a clean, recent version. The program is completely unobtrusive as it sits quietly in the system tray waiting for something to happen. It works by tracking the changes made to files (it does not matter what application is being used). Every time a file is altered or deleted, Save Butt makes a copy and saves it on the hard drive.

To make things even easier, the program allows you to determine how much disk space it can have and how many revisions it tracks for each document. The program default is 5 but it will save up to 99. The user can even tell Save Butt what applications to work with.

It works with Windows 95/98 and requires 8MB of RAM and 15MB of disk space. You can get Save Butt from the Tucows Web site at www.tucows.com.

Big Brother is Watching
Scotland Yard by Yale & Associates, Inc., is a network ready program that gives employees a way to manage their busy schedules. It comes with a sign-out screen so employees can enter their status - like out to lunch or do not disturb. It allows employees to leave telephone messages, and will even check out what everyone else is doing with its Employee Detective feature. If that has not piqued your curiosity, the program will even change the status of multiple employees at the same time.

Scotland Yard is a shareware program and works with Windows 95, 98 and NT. Scotland Yard 6.1 is a 32-bit program and is available to try for free. If you want to keep it you will have to pay $99. Once the program is registered, you have unlimited use for your entire company - no matter what its size.

For more information on downloading Scotland Yard, visit the Trio Computers Web site at www.triocomputers.com.

Eight Arms are Better Than Two
If you are tired of having to constantly search the Web to get the desired information, an Octopus can do the work for you. How? Octopus.com has cataloged some of the best resources on the Web.

Users simply drag and drop the information needed into a new View or customize a published Octopus View. Just go to the View tab and click New View to create a View from scratch. Or select a published View from Favorites, then browse through the Customize menu and find the information you would like to add. You no longer have to search through Web pages and then sit and wait for downloads - just use the programs drag and drop feature and the information is at your fingertips.

Octopus members have created some their own Views of the Web and they are all in the Octopus Directory. Simply navigate the Directory by topic or Search by keyword and instantly access the best of the Web. Once you have created the coolest new View using Octopus or customized an amazing published View, you can share it with friends or colleagues. Simply click the Send button and e-mail it anywhere in the world. For more information and to download Octopus, visit the Octopus.com Web site at octopus.com.

Disconnected Again!
Anyone who has downloaded a program from the Web knows the frustrating, annoying, rage-provoking feeling one gets when disconnected in the middle of a 2-hour download. It is maddening! An angry call to the ISP may result in a ten-minute apology, but they really can not help.

Well, GoZilla to the rescue. GoZilla starts working by first searching for the fastest download link available and then stays with the file while it is going through your telephone line. If the connection is lost in the middle of a download, GoZilla resumes the download right where it left off - after the connection is reestablished. The program will even allow you to allocate how much bandwidth you want to devote to your downloads.

To download GoZilla, visit the Download.com Web site at www.gozilla.com. GoZilla features allow you to recover from download errors, find the fastest download site worldwide, stop, pause and resume downloads, schedule downloads at a later time (like when you are sleeping), and it even lets you download and surf at the same time.

2000, Smartpros Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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