Miscellaneous Last updated, May 1^st 2006.

Miscellaneous E = Essential H = Handy New = Updated $ = Buy

Look up any date, any decade, forward or back, to see what day of the week it was. Even to count how many paydays until Christmas.

Actual size below.

Atomic Clock Sync 2.5 (431kb)

Synchronize your computer clock with the World Atomic Clock. This program will contact an atomic clock server and adjust yours accordingly. It can even be set to automatically check the time once a day to keep your PC's time accurate forever.

If you would prefer to use it manually from time to time, then don’t let it start with Windows or Auto-synchronize daily. It will try to dial up all of the time. (see File menu)

XP Users: Your clock is altered automatically when surfing anyway.

Bagpipe Player Software (1.44kb)

Bagpipe Player is a music Writing and playing software program for the Great Highland Bagpipe. It will run under MS Windows 95/98/2000 and Windows NT . It will read and play BMW DOS and BMW Gold file formats. There is also a file conversion utility for converting other bagpipe software file formats (ABC, Electric Pipes, Piob Mhor, BMW DOS, BMW Gold). It has playing, printing and display capabilities that compare to the best commercially available bagpipe software programs.

Calendar Builder V3q (1.6mb)

Calendar Builder is primary for designing and printing calendars, such as you would hang on your wall. It is not intended as a time management tool - its primary function is designing and printing great looking calendars. Try before you buy it at $19.95usd.

Check out the screen shots at their website.

Currency Converter 2.3

(1.35Mb)

The Currency Converter 2 is a freeware program to convert between over 200 currencies. You can keep all the exchange rates up-to-date by using the one-button Internet Update-function (with proxy support) to load the Exchange Rates from the Internet.

Once installed, click the Rates button to include your Country.

Check Settings to Update automatically.

DigitalMax

(2.2MB)

Download a program that works as a Wizard to send your photos for printing on the Internet.

Basically you buy a pre-paid card, use the program to register and send your photos, and you pick them up the next day.

Your balance is left until you next use their services.

No need for a creditcard, any size, Matt or Glossy, free delivery to shop.

Easy LP Recorder

(782Kb)

A fully functional 14 day trial version. Record your records & cassettes onto your computer for transferring onto cds. It has filters for taking out clicks, pops and scratch noises. It will even split a whole LP into tracks for you. After the trial it will cost you $34.50 usd. Approx. $50 - $60.nzd.

Excel Reader

(10.2Mb)

Ever get Excel spreadsheets(.xls) from accountants and you just can’t open them. All you want to do is read it and you don’t want to buy the whole program. Download this add-on for a Read-Only capability. This may be all you want to do!

Font-a-Rama zip

(25kb)

Create a catalogue of the Fonts installed on your computer using this MS Word template. Font-a-rama.dot

Just open it in MS Word and choose a font size, then the alphabet will be listed using every font .

I tend to go through the list and delete some entries that are plain or just the Italic or Bold versions, and print the pages off for a folder.

This makes for a great resource if you are Scrapbooking or love to make Greeting Cards, and other desktop publishing projects.

This file was created in 1999, and now I find it is no where on the Internet, so this is very rare.

Global IME 5.2

(3 - 5 mb)

Asian character writer.

Who Needs the New Global IMEs?

Global IME is designed to help individuals and businesses who want to communicate in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean without having to run a separate Chinese, Japanese, or Korean version of Windows. Anyone who needs to input East Asian text.

Users who are running:

•	Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows 95, or Windows NT 4.0 and not running Office XP should download Global IME.
•	Windows Me, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0 and running Office XP will want to upgrade to the Global IMEs for Office XP.
•	Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 can use the built-in, full-featured East Asian input support that works in all applications.

Basically; it comes with Windows XP and you must install it through the Control Panel>Regional and Languages Options>Languages and tick Install files for East Asian Languages, then restart computer.

Then go back to Control Panel>Regional and Languages Options>Advanced and choose from the dropdown menu Japanese, apply and restart again.

A toolbar will appear and maybe EN and JAP on it, when you go to write an email click it onto Jap and choose which characters, so when you type in English the letters will be replaced with characters.

Eg. Dog in Japanese = inu, if in the JAP mode inu will turn into 犬

If you have an earlier version of Windows then you must download IME.

Leech FTP 1.3 (624kb)

A File Transfer Protocol client, this is used to upload & update your website.

Mp3 Trim 1.78b (207kb)

An essential tool that trims mp3 files. It will detect that hissy silence before & after the track finishes, and cuts it away. Adds fade, and can increase volume on inferior recordings. Trimming gives you the ability to sneak in that extra track on a cd.

MS Reader 2

(3.6mb)

Ebook reader for the Microsoft format. (.lit)

Download novels to read for your laptop, or home PC.

In America they actually buy handheld readers the size of a calculator. These can also play audio books as well and are great for commuters.

In NZ you would have to sit at the computer to read a book.

It comes with a dictionary, bookmarks, and the facility to leave notes.

Classics are free from http://esspc-ebooks.com/

Retail titles are from $5.95, and the latest best sellers range from $15.95 - $31.95 USD. Ideal for commuting with a Laptop.

MusicMatch Jukebox

V9 - (10.5 mbs)

Manage your MP3’s sound files. Copy tracks onto your hard drive to play while you work. Record from cd-rom/turntable/tape deck/mic .

Buy the PLUS version for $19.95usd and Organize a track play list for custom making a cd with your cd-writer, as well as printing the covers, and downloading the original album graphics as supertags.

Converts Wav. to Mp3. Win98/XP - 32 mbs Ram.

NZ Home Page

An informative NZ site with News, Weather, and links to search engines.

OPEN OFFICE SUITE 1.1.0

(65Mb)

This is a FREE Office Suite, that will allow you open MS Office files, as well as create Documents, Spreadsheets, Flowcharts, Presentations like Power Point, Database Access, Export anything into a PDF file or as a Macromedia Flash presentation.

See features here http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/1.1/index.html

If your connection inhibits you to download over a 4 hour period, either use a resumable download manager like Freshdownloads (above), or buy it for next to nothing on CD from a distributor in your country.

For a list of countries go here http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/#cdrom

For NZ try here http://www.openoffice.org.nz/order.php

Paradise

An ISP with a very patient “free” 24hr help-line, fast connections, 5 email addresses, free 10mb web page, and great rates @ $20 for 250 hrs, $15 for 150 hrs, $10 for 20 hours. Antivirus & spamming options available.

PowerPoint Reader

(1.9mb)

New

Well-meaning buddies may send you a funny slideshow that was composed in MS PowerPoint, and you can’t open it. You don’t have to buy Office, just download this add-on for viewing .pps files.

Quicktime 5 for Windows

(9.8 Mb)

You will need this to view .mov movie files and film trailers. This Latest version will also play most of Windows Media files.

Read Assistant 1.3 (346kb)

Read text files inside a large font browser. This simple program has auto-scrolling, and changeable font & background colours.

Uses? - text files are usually read with Notepad which has only one small unchangeable font . R.A. saves you having to put your glasses on to read instructions.

PLUS, there are many sites (libraries) with free novels to download as small text files, R.A. dresses those up for easy reading.

PLUS, you can easily write your own novels using Notepad and then display them in R.A.

Great for hands free, site impaired readers, including aspiring writers.

Screen Saver Toolbox 3.3 (1.6Mb)

I have used this often to create a portable screensaver, one that can be installed onto any computer. I recently went on a school trip, which visited an apple packing plant. The photos covering all of the stages made for an excellent classroom screensaver, for their theme of Production Lines.

Cost? $14.95usd including upgrades.

Trial version available.

Send To Printer (28kb)

Here is a tool that will send to your printer, any (.prn) file without opening the application that created it.

I prefer a manual version; so see my Tips & Tricks page for a tutorial on setting it up. Basically you end up with a shortcut for each often printed document or form, which sends it directly to the printer without opening the original programme.

Turbonote 3.3

(510kb)

Leave notes on your desktop, give them alarms, and they stay until you delete them. Great for the office and home.

Visual Business Cards (1.4Mb)

Design and Print your own Professional Business Cards. Create one and have it duplicated 10 times over a page for printing.

30 day trial available or buy it for $19.95usd.

Printer Drivers

It always pays to check to see if your printer or scanner driver has been updated since you installed it. Many times a bug has been fixed, or extra features have been added, and then included in the latest driver.

My Downloads:

Please Note; that if you are printing pdf’s straight off the website or saving them to your hard drive, that you must use the Print or Save icons within Adobe Reader rather than the top icons on I.E.’s toolbars. If nothing opens up, then you may not have Adobe (formally Acrobat) Reader. This is a free download from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html or off a Netguide Magazine cd.