There's a lot of software out there in the wide world, some of it freeware, some of it shareware (in the original sense) and more and more crippleware. Some of it is genuinely good and useful and some of it is just a waste of hard drive space (or worse). Here at the Bar & Grill, it sometimes seems like we've tried all of it.
Indeed, we've been at various times beta sites for the biggest and smallest software houses in the world and have the multi-gigabyte HD space to hold it all. We're not running an ftp site here, we'll just point you in the direction of some of the best sites on the 'net and make a few suggestions along the way. We'll break up the groups here into three sections: Windows 32-bit (Win95 and/or Windows NT), the Mac family and, of course, *nix goodies. We don't know that much about the older Windows 16-bit stuff since we haven't run that DOS shell since the earliest days of the Win95 beta cycle back in October 1994, so you're on your own for those toys. Usually (but not always) there's a 16-bit companion to the 32-bit wares, though.
Make sure you have adequate download space and then start cruising the net... And check back often, as we'll be updating this page whenever we find something (or somewhere) that might be of use to you!If any of the links to major sites are broken, please drop us an email; if a link to a specific software is broken, it could be that there's a newer version available - most of these software-specific items are intentionally breakable so you won't be getting stale goods from here. Check with a major site for details and email us about it as well.
Do remember one thing as you play with your new toys - If it weren't for all the quality shareware authors out there, we wouldn't have the vast array of choices we enjoy. If you like a product and use it, register it! Doing so keeps the "little guys" fed, happy and cranking out new and innovative things that Microsoft could never dream up on their own. The shareware concept works only when you support it.
Windows 32-bit Sites
- One of the better Win sites is Stroud's Consummate Winsock Apps. Not only will you find a metric boatload of wares, there are two excellent indices, name and category sorts.
Get those winsock apps, term programs or comm clients, ftp, archie and finger agents, the ever-necessary virus scanners, HTML editors and much more!
Our favorites include NetTerm, "one of the best telnet agents available;" WS-FTP, the slickest ftp agent we've ever used; WS Archie for finding those remote files; WS Finger which is the best finger agent we've ever seen and Pegasus Mail, the mailreader that made us give up our long-used favorite Eudora Pro.
Also at Stroud's, you'll find Free Agent - if there's a better newsreader out there, we sure haven't seen it! Although we use a text editor and keyboard macros to do HTML, we have played with a few nice HTML editors - we kinda like HotDog even if it's timebombed and leaves a little pile of dog doo on your HD when you uninstall it; WebEdit Pro is snazzy and feature-rich.
The only compression utility you'll need is WinZip. You'll leave that favorite DOS-box one forever! On the 'net it's not a matter of if you'll get bitten by a virus but when. Get yourself a good scanner now and start practicing safe hex. The two we use are VirusScan and ThunderBYTE. Don't say we didn't try and help you!
Do you do imagemaps on your Web page? Always wanted to but didn't know how? Grab the freeware Map This! and make some really cool bandwidth-wasting eyecandy! Speaking of images, if you're not using Paint Shop Pro for image manipulation for your pages, you're not using the best.
The IRC has come a long way over the years. The hands-down best IRC client we've ever seen is the freeware mIRC. An interesting little IRC client we sometimes use is done by Quarterdeck; they also have a nice IRC server available for evaluation.
- The next site on our tour is TUCOWS (The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software). From their page, select a mirror site near you and have a look around - there's the usual suspects plus a couple of categories of tools and utilities you might not find elsewhere.
- Not to be ignored is Windows95.com where you'll find even more stuff: drivers for your hardware, applications to play with, Win95 Magazine to read and learn from, TCP/IP tools, an internet hypertext glossary and much more. Well worth the time to look it over!
- If you download the hypertext glossary from Windows95.com, you'll want to also get a good .PDF (portable document file) reader. We use Adobe Acrobat, available free directly from Adobe. More and more documents are hitting the 'net in this format, so this one should be part of your toys collection.
Macintosh Sites Mac sites can be harder to find than hen's teeth, but we found a few. If you know of any more that should be listed here, please feel free to drop us an email.
- Obviously, Apple Computer is a first stop for news and information about the platform, links to events and sites and, in our humble opinion, is one of the nicer-looking corporate sites on the Web.
- The Com Vista General Store is the place to begin your search for Mac internet tools and toys. They've got the goods, whether you're a surfer or a server. This is our top choice site for Mac stuff!
- Also from Apple is their Shareware page with links to all kinds of sites, including A/UX and Newton. Tasty!
- For a few choice treats, look into Ric Ford's MacInTouch page. For those of you who haven't seen it, it features a chronological progression of news, tips and software updates from top to bottom and is a very clean page.
- Finally (for now) is Chip's MacOS Resources Pages out of Indiana University. The guy's on the ball and has the news and links to make your Mac the happiest clam at the pig roast. Highly recommended!
*nix Sites Linux
- The two biggest (and most comprehensive) Linux sites should be well known to you: Walnut Creek's SlackWare ftp archive and the UNC-CH SunSite's ftp archives. If you can't find it at either of those, it's probably not been hacked yet.
- Of course, the mothership for the Linux OS is the Linux Home Page. Information, man pages, links to software sites and newsgroups make this the first one in your Linux bookmark file. Don't miss the Linux Journal or the Doc Project pages.
- Our own ISP here, NandO.net, has a fairly comprehensive source of Linux goodies (mostly links) on their Linux Page.
FreeBSD
It's not for no reason that some wag(s) declared that the only good things to come out of Berkeley were LSD and BSD. We call the town Berzerkeley and would add the Free Speech Movement to their list of exports, but no matter. FreeBSD is gaining a good rep at sites up one side of the pike and down the other for good reason. Have a look:
- The only place to visit (don't you just love one-stop shopping?) is the FreeBSD home page. Plan to stay awhile and poke into all the little corners. If you thought Linux was your only hacker-friendly *nix choice, this site will open your squinty little eyes in a New York Minute!
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rev 11 Jul 96