Telework
Teletrade
Telecooperation
Page updated:
11 September 2000
Page owner:
eto site team
This page has links to a variety of tools which will make your life that much easier, whether you use a PC or a Mac. They range from file viewers for popular applications to compression utilities and tools for creating web pages and managing web sites. The majority are shareware programs but some are free.
Email Applications
Eudora: For those who don't have MS Outlook bundled with their computer, or who don't like it, Eudora is one of the most popular mail clients for Internet, in Windows, Mac and Unix/Linux versions. Now in Version 5.0, there is a "sponsored" version (it has advertising built in), which you can download free of charge, or a "no advertising" version, priced around $50.
http://www.eudora.com/
We also liked Pegasus Mail, which at one time was popular as Eudora and was always freeware, you could buy the manuals if you felt the need. Sadly there appears to be a problem with it now because the website is not responding:
http://www.pmail.com/
- if anyone can throw light on this please let us know!
File Compression and decompression
When you receive a file in the format xxxx.zip you need:
PKzip has been the baseline standard fro file compression and decompression on PCs and Internet since 1986. There are versions in German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese as well as in US and International English. You can download the shareware version. When you use it the software will prompt you to register, for between $25-$40 depending on the level of function you require. A $25 version, PKZIP Explorer, integrates with MS Windows Explorer.
http://www.pkware.com
WinZip: Now on version 8.0 (Spring 2000), you can download an evaluation copy. If you like the interface and features, the registerd copy costs $29 for a single user, with steep discounting for site licenses. This is the most popular and widely used file compression utility other than PKZip itself.
http://www.winzip.com
Beware: Only unzip compressed files if you have confidence in what is there. Zipped files can include executable files that might be some kind of virus. Also xxx.exe files might include a virus. If in doubt ask the sender of the file to confirm the contents.
File Viewers
You may need a file viewer if you want to look at a document that has been created using software you don't use - for example if the file is in Word format and your word processor cannot read Word files. Or if the person creating the file has used Acrobat (ie the file is in xxx.pdf format):
Acrobat (PDF) Reader: Download the free reader from Adobe's web site for the following platforms - Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows
3.1, Macintosh, LINUX, IBM AIX, Sun SPARC SunOS, Sun SPARC Solaris, SGI
IRIX, HP-UX, Digital Unix & OS/2 Warp.
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
MS PowerPoint
MacOS 68K: PowerPoint Viewer 4 for 68K Macs.
ftp://ftp.flinders.edu.au/pub/mac/Graphics/Viewers/MS_powerpoint/MS_PowerPoint4_Viewer.sea.hqxMacOS PPC: PowerPoint Viewer 98 for PPC Macs.
http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/productinfo/98dl/pptvdl.htmWindows 16-bit Operating Systems: This is a PowerPoint reader for Windows 3.x.
http://129.219.3.182/exe/viewers/pptvw16.exeWindows 95 And NT: This is a PowerPoint reader for Windows 95 and NT.
http://129.219.3.182/exe/viewers/pptvw32.exe
MS Word
Windows 16-bit Operating Systems: This is Microsoft's free Word reader for Windows 3.x.
http://www.microsoft.com/msword/internet/viewer/viewer97_16/Windows 95 And NT Workstation 3.51 Or Later: The same as above but for Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation operating system 3.51 or later.
http://www.microsoft.com/word/internet/viewer/viewer97/default.htm
Peeper: The File Viewer for Windows - PEEPER is a multiple document file viewer. This means you can display up to nine different files at the same time. It is capable of Viewing over 21 file formats including ASCII, HEX, PCX, TIF, GIF, BMP, WMF, ICON, MS Word, WordPerfect, AMI PRO, xBase, Paradox, Lotus, XL, ZIP, LZH, Quattro Pro, MetaFiles, Q&A,
Windows Write, and Microsoft Works. Extract Version identification info from Windows DLLs, EXEs, and other Windows file types. File contents can be marked and copied to the Windows Clipboard.
http://www.fineware.com/peeper.shtml
Graphics (image) processing
LViewPro: A powerful image-handling product, available as shareware for free downloading and with a registration price around $50.http://www.lview.com
Graphic Workshop Professional: another good image handling product, you can download it for free and register for $40.
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/gwspro.html
HTML Authoring
WebEdit, originally written by Ken Nesbitt and now owned and marketed by Sandiego Software, is a useful and straightforward web page authoring tool. No longer shareware, there are standard and professional versions at $79.95 and $129.95 respectively.
http://www.thegroup.net/webedit/
Aspire: This is not a full web page authoring package
but very useful if you know a bit of HTML to take out a lot of the effort involved in writing web pages. Freeware - ie it costs you nothing to try it and to use it.
http://www.aspire-x.com
Lorenz Graf's HTMLtool: This is the one we now use for hand-edited pages at European Telework Online. It is shareware and the cost of registering it is only $25. Now on release 3.5 the software is regularly updated and has useful help material for those of us who are not full time Webweavers.
http://www.lograf.com
Newsreaders
Forte's Agent: Provides improved facilities for reading and responding to messages in News Groups, including the ability to read and respond offline then use batch processing to reduce online time and costs. There is a free version (Free Agent) and a higher-functioned version that can be downloaded for evaluation and purchased for $29.
http://www.forteinc.com
Website Management Utilities
CyberSpyder: CyberSpyder Link Test is a Web site management
program to be used for verifying that the URLs on a site are not broken.
Quite a powerful program, which can test very large sites, but shareware, and may be used free for up to 60 days for evaluation purposes, with registration at $35. For all versions of Windows from 3.1 and NT.
http://www.cyberspyder.com
Website Garage: A service now owned by Netscape, with several useful features, including:
- Hitometer, which posts you a weekly report analysing the hits received by a nominated page.
- Tune Up, which checks a web page for bad links and for browser compatibility; assesses the contents of the page's contents and keywords meta tags (for search engine "readiness"; and can also tell you something about the page's positioning in search engines (often this feature is down, it depends on search engine response times). It also comments on spelling and on html design and on the load time of your page.
- Register It!, provides automated registration at selected search engines - there is also a more sophisticated chargeable service.
Doctor HTML: We've found this to be a more powerful diagnostic for html errors than the facility in Website Garage, it picks up browser compatibility problems that Website Garage misses. There is a free-of-charge analysis for single pages, and a subscription service for sites and multiple pages. But there is a fairly small daily limit to the number of single pages you can diagnose for free.
http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML