Tools of the trade

It's a sad fact of life that computers and software simply aren't as efficient and reliable as they should be. Things can go wrong with your hard disk and a piece of rogue software can muck up your BIOS, cause Windows not to load, or simply make your computer crash with an attendant loss of data. Uninstalled software can leave files behind which over time accumulate to gobble up hard disk space and impair the smooth running of your computer. And then there are viruses ...

Thankfully, when things go wrong we can turn to utility software to put it right. But you shouldn't think of utilities as just something needed when things go wrong or to prevent things going wrong in the first place.

There are also programs that can improve or add to features already available in Windows - and once you've tried them, you'll wonder how you ever managed without them.

Here we present what we consider to be the top twenty utilities, grouped into five main categories. Paul Begg

Fix-It Utilities 99

The major players when it comes to error prevention and cure are McAfee Office (£70), Norton System Works (£89) and the new Fix-It Utilities 99. McAfee combines nine programs but there's no integration between them (leading to inevitable duplication). Of the more integrated other two, Fix-It Utilities isn't as fully featured as Norton, but it compares favourably when it comes to main items. Both check for viruses and hard drive problems, along with Registry errors and year 2000 issues. Both also have uninstallers and crash protection, but Fix-It includes the indispensable PowerDesk Utilities 98. It also occupies only 40Mb of hard disk space and will set you back just £40.

Fix-It checks fixed and removable drives, defrags, optimises and gets rid of unwanted files, and has an undelete feature to bring back deleted files. It also fixes problems with the Registry, offers system diagnostics, tests for Y2K compliance, has crash prevention, and virus checking (with a free one-year online update). All this and PowerDesk on top. Could you ask for more?

£39.99 (inc VAT); Atlantic Software: 01297 552222 (www.mijenix.com)

WinDelete 5.0

To get rid of unwanted files and other garbage you need an uninstaller.

If you have a set of utility tools such as Norton or Fix-It, you'll already have one of these. If you haven't, you need one. The choice is between Quarterdeck's CleanSweep Deluxe and the new WinDelete 5.0 from IMSI.

WinDelete is faster but it has had serious safety deficiencies. However, a lot of work has been put into improving this aspect of the program.

It now offers a Clean-Up Wizard to guide users through the uninstall procedure.

Critical files can be hidden to avoid accidental deletion, sensitive files are identified by coloured icons, there's a new undo feature to reverse deletions and restore files to their original locations, and a feature which allows users to identify and protect specific personal files. WinDelete also cleans up Internet files, and updates itself via the Net. And it's almost half the price of CleanSweep! We have yet to put the brand-new WinDelete 5.0 thoroughly through its paces, but it appears to offer good efficiency at a sensibly affordable price.

£29.99 (inc VAT); IMSI: 0181 581 2000 (www.imsiuk.co.uk)

Norton AntiVirus 5.0

This year April 1 was ushered in by Melissa, but for many users this macro virus was no joke. It was distributed by e-mail and provided another reminder of the need for good anti-virus protection.

There are an estimated 17,000 viruses around, though only about 300 are actually 'in the wild'. Good anti-virus software should detect all 300 and at least 90 percent of the 'zoo' viruses. They should detect macro viruses as the infected file is opened and have facilities for spotting new strains.

In the past we have recommended McAfee VirusScan and we still think it is a fine product, matching Norton AntiVirus point for point. But in comparison to Norton it has lost out in the increasingly important factors of ease of use and speed. Norton AntiVirus has comprehensive virus protection, plus useful features such as Quarantine to safely isolate suspicious files, and Scan and Deliver which automatically sends infected files to Symantec for analysis.

£45.25 (inc VAT); Symantec: 01628 592222

(www.symantec.com/region/uk)

Norton 2000

The so-called Millennium Bug affects not only your PC's ability to recognise the year 2000 but also the way many of your programs recognise the new date. Y2K packages check to see if your computer will run after 1999, and if you need to resolve any problems with your installed software.

The differences between them rest in their ability to fix problems or otherwise recommend measures you can take. None are perfect but Norton 2000 combines the most effective solutions with ease of use.

Norton 2000 includes a DOS application which examines and fixes BIOS problems and a Windows program that guides you step by step though the examination of the operating system, applications and data files, producing a colour-coded report listing problems in the order of their severity.

It can also install a memory-resident utility that will fix the millennium rollover problem when it occurs. If problems are found and these need fixing manually, Norton 2000 provides as much help as it can.

£57.58 (inc VAT); Symantec: 01628 592222 (www.symantec.com/region/uk)

ZipMagic

The only sensible way of sending one or more files over the Internet, especially large text and graphics files, is to compress them. The industry-standard file-compression utility has always been PKZip, but over the last year or so ZipMagic has won a large number of firm followers with its innovative ability to let you use ZIP files on the fly.

When you compress a file or create an archive by compressing a number of files, the only way you can use or even view a ZIP archive is by uncompressing it. With ZipMagic you don't have to. It treats ZIP archives as ordinary folders and compresses and uncompresses files as and when you need them.

You can browse ZIP archives as quickly and as easily as you would an ordinary file. There are commands to compress, extract, repair, convert, test, and edit the comments of ZIP archives. ZipMagic can also make and view self-extracting archives, as well as convert existing ZIP archives into them, and it includes a browser plug-in so you can view ZIP files online.

£29.99 (inc VAT); Atlantic Software: 01297 552222 (www.mijenix.com)

System Commander

The benefit of having multi-boot facilities on your PC is that you can install more than one operating system (OS). So, for example, you could keep your trusted Windows 95 while trying out Windows 98. Or you could run two versions of the same OS, using one yourself and reserving the other for the kids to protect your system against the accidental deletion of crucial files. Or, if you try out lots of software, you could load the applications on one OS while keeping the other clean and free of unwanted space-gobbling files.

The distinction between multi-boot utilities and hard disk partitioning tools has ever been vague, all of the former coming with one of the latter and the latter incorporating the former. For the time being the one you choose still depends on the primary task you want to perform. If you are more concerned with using multiple operating systems then System Commander is your clear choice. It's powerful, packed with features, and allows you to install in excess of one hundred operating systems.

£49.99 (inc VAT); Media Gold: 0171 372 9762 (www.v-com.com)

Partition Magic 4.0

With large hard disks now common, hard disk partitioning has numerous advantages, not the least being the reclamation of disk space absorbed by inefficient FAT partitions. Partition Magic was formerly a DOS program, but with the new version 4 it has entered the modern Windows world with lots of large icons and a feeling of fun and ease of use. Behind this cheery interface there's a lot of power and a wealth of features.

Simple wizards guide you step by step through the process of partitioning your hard drive, and you can preview the effects before actually making any changes. The program also lets you create, move and resize partitions on the fly, easily move programs between partitions and do much more, such as switch between FAT and FAT32 file systems. And mentioning file systems, Partition Magic supports more than any comparable program, including FAT, FAT32, NTFS, HPFS and Linux ext2.

£50 (inc VAT); POW! Distribution: 01202 716726 (www.pow-dist.co.uk)

FreeSpace

If you run out of hard disk space you could opt either to buy a larger hard disk or employ drive-compression software. But now there is also a third choice. FreeSpace lets you selectively compress your files en masse to regain those missing megabytes.

The program comes on a single floppy disk and installs with ease. Wizards then take you step by step through the process of compressing files. You simply tell FreeSpace how much space you need and the program searches your hard disk for the files to compress. First it shrinks the files to their smallest possible size, then the TightCluster feature compresses them even further. Space gains can be considerable. 150Mb of TIF graphics files can be compressed to a mere 31Mb, immediately releasing 119Mb of hard disk space for other uses.

The beauty of FreeSpace is that the compressed files open as quickly and work in exactly the same way as uncompressed files, and you can even specify that certain types of files are automatically compressed as they are created.

£29.99 (inc VAT); Atlantic Software: 01297 552222 (www.mijenix.com)

LapLink Professional 2

One of the most exciting aspects of computing is that we may be on the verge of a work revolution as profound as the Industrial Revolution.

People may not have to travel into a city to work, but could work from home with the same access to their office computer as if they were sitting next to it. If this is a possibility for you, but the need to access files on the office computer ties you to your desk, there's a range of solutions available. One of the best is LapLink from Traveling Software. It is expensive, but more time at home and less travelling stress may make the investment worth it.

Feature-rich, LapLink lets you access applications and data on your office machine as quickly and as efficiently as you could in your office. A well-established product, it is robust and designed to take most of the hassle out of setting up and connecting to you office via modem, over a corporate network, and through the remote networking feature included in Windows 95/98.

£233 (inc VAT); Traveling Software: 01344 383232 (www.travelingsoftware.com/home.asp)

Your Eyes Only

You don't have to have business-sensitive documents on your PC to need data security, just that e-mail that, if your boss saw it, might result in a P45. Then there's all your personal correspondence, including those letters you haven't run through the spell-checker. And how about your personal accounts held in Microsoft Money?

Your Eyes Only lets you encrypt files manually, so you need only hide from prying eyes those files you consider sensitive, or you can encrypt all files automatically, simply by designating which directories you want to secure. Another feature, called Screen Lock, lets you blank your screen at the touch of a hot key, or lock access when your machine is left unattended.

For that final touch, BootLock protection allows you to lock an entire PC, so that unauthorised users can't access the hard disk, not even from the floppy.

A network version, Your Eyes Only Administrator, is also available.

£92 (inc VAT); Symantec: 01628 592222

(www.symantec.com/region/uk)

Lost and Found

Hopefully, you will never have to use Lost and Found. If you do, it will be because the worst computing nightmare has become a reality and you have lost all your data through hardware failure such as a disk head crash, corruption from a rogue application or virus infection. At a time like that, you'll be glad you had Lost and Found on the shelf.

Both scary and businesslike, it comes on a single floppy and requires you to boot into DOS before using it. It then rolls up its sleeves and gets down to work, scanning your hard disk; you have to have another drive or a pile of floppies to back your files on to. Once it finds all the files, the program lists them - colour coding the odds of recovery, and you choose what you want to recover.

Lost and Found is very powerful, and can't really be compared with an undelete utility like that in Fix-It Utilities 99. It's for when the crisis is major. It's expensive, especially as hopefully you will never have to use it, but then so is most insurance.

£49.95 (inc VAT); POW! Distribution: 01202 716726

(www.pow-dist.co.uk)

Quick View Plus

Windows comes with a built-in file viewer called Quick View, which you can access from Explorer to view files without launching the associated application - or, indeed, even having the application.

An extra, standalone file viewer can be used to improve this, not only increasing the number of files which can be viewed, but also adding enhanced file management. The best is Quick View Plus, which extends the built-in Quick View's file-viewing capability to around 200 file types, including Windows, DOS, Macintosh and Internet file types. You can 'pin' Quick View Plus's viewing pane to the side of Explorer so that each new file is viewed in the same window, or you can elect to open each file in its own window.

Quick View Plus also integrates seamlessly with PowerDesk and with Adobe's Acrobat Reader.

It also adds basic file management - you can print a file, convert an image to Windows wallpaper, and view a file in its native format or as text.

£39.99 (inc VAT); Roderick Manhattan Group: 0181 875 4400 (www.rmg.co.uk)

PowerDesk Utilities 98

When it comes to enhancements, this is the best £30 you can spend.

The core of PowerDesk is a replacement for Windows Explorer. It does all the things you'd expect Explorer to do, such as show directories and files, copy, move, delete and so on, but it also has an integrated viewer pane which uses the built-in QuickView utility which comes with Windows. This supports 80 different file types so you can quickly and easily view text and graphics files without having to launch the attendant application.

Also built in is an archive manager which supports .ZIP, .ARJ and .LHA formats. You can view the contents of archive files, and extract files from or add files to the archive. A graphics converter lets you convert graphics between 24 formats.

PowerDesk comes with additional tools including a powerful file finder, a file synchroniser to keep your desktop and portable in sync, a Size Manager showing you which folders occupy the most space on your hard disk, and an improved Registry Editor.

£29.99 (inc VAT); Atlantic Software: 01297 552222 (www.mijenix.com)

Paint Shop Pro

Choosing the best image-editing software isn't easy, especially if you think of and use it as a utility - a tool mainly for viewing graphics rather than editing them. You're looking for a balance between ease of use and functionality, coupled with a price that should be under £50.

Paint Shop Pro emerges as the best buy, even though it fails on price, the consolation here being that you can try out a free time-limited shareware version to see if it fits your needs.

Paint Shop Pro doesn't boast the most comprehensive range of features, and it has a couple of weaknesses, but it has the cleanest and easiest-to-use interface, the image-editing tools are excellent and, best of all, it browses folders for graphics images and displays them as thumbnails.

Double-clicking on the thumbnail opens the image. It also has what many regard as the industry-standard screen capture.

What recommends it even further is that it will run on a 486 and only takes up 10Mb of hard disk space.

- £88.06 (inc VAT); Digital Workshop: 01295 258335 (www.digitalworkshop.co.uk)

ClipMate 5

Windows' Clipboard is a frustratingly limited utility, a mere holding pen for material being copied from one application to another, and it is only able to hold a single item at a time. If you've ever wanted to copy several items to the Clipboard (such as several extracts from a document) or wanted to save copied items to the Clipboard so you could access them again, you'll immediately recognise the value of ClipMate.

With ClipMate you can copy multiple items and store them in files which ClipMate calls 'collections'. This in itself has generally been sufficient reason for ClipMate to be an invaluable utilty, but the latest version adds much more functionality. ClipMate now comes with the ClipMate Explorer, which enables you to select, preview, edit and manage clips. There's a List mode for reading text and a Thumbnails mode for viewing and selecting images. All this plus tools so that you can retrieve, append, print, reformat, and edit data - ClipMate even doubles as a screen-capture utility.

- $20 if ordered online, $25 by post and if your require a disk;

Thornsoft: 001 716 352 4223 (www.thornsoft.com)

MyFonts

If you have a lot of fonts - and it seems that every piece of software these days lands half a dozen or more onto your hard disk - then you need a font manager. MyFonts is shareware, so you can try it before you buy, and it is extremely quick to download over the Internet. And don't be scared of shareware. It's often as good as, and sometimes better than, commercial software. MyFonts is an example. It enables you to quickly install, uninstall and view TrueType and PostScript fonts up to 99 points.

To help manage things the program lets you print example sheets, choosing which fonts to include and how you want them printed, including a sheet showing every character in a font set. You can also work with uninstalled fonts directly from a floppy disk or CD-ROM, which saves having them loaded all of the time, and compare sets - very useful when applications load loads of fonts which are the same in every way except the name.

Shareware; $35 if you decide to keep it - registration means that all future upgrades are free; UniTech/MyTools.com: 001 314 770 2770 (ww.mytools.com)

TclockEx

The old adage about the camel's back being broken by a straw is true; it is indeed the little things which eventually cause us the most aggravation.

And a source of aggravation is the clock on the Windows Taskbar. While it is extremely useful being able to see the time at a glance, you have to roll the cursor over the clock whenever you need to see the date, which can become very annoying. This is where TClockEx comes in. It is a very small utility which simply adds the date to the time.

Other utilities do the same thing, but they generally replace the existing clock. TClockEx hooks right into the operating system and simply adds the date to the original clock. It is elegant and simple, it isn't intrusive and doesn't take up valuable screen space.

TClockEx can also show two visual guides to CPU and resource usage, and has a pop-up calendar and a Copy command which copies the time and date to the clipboard for insertion into another document. Overall, a very useful enhancement utility and what's more it is completely free!

Dale Nurden (http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dalen/tclockex.htm)

Net Accelerator

Browsing the Web can be a painfully slow process. Sitting waiting for a page to download is not only tedious, it also costs money as your phone bill ticks up with every minute you're online. Therefore, any program that claims to speed up browsing has got to be worth a look.

While browser accelerators can't actually make data download any faster than your modem can receive it, what they can do is download pages while the modem is inactive - while you're reading one page the accelerator is busy downloading the next page and the page after, so that when you go to those pages they are loaded straight from your hard disk and appear on screen faster.

Most of these products are more bother than they are worth, but Net Accelerator is actually trouble-free, works in the background and does produce noticeable speed improvements. Version 3 is about to hit the streets. It's faster and has several new features, such as the ability to strip ads and heavy graphical content from the pages that you browse.

£34.99 (inc VAT); IMSI: 0181 581 2000 (www.imsiuk.co.uk)

Copernic

If you spend too much time searching the Net for the information you want then don't hesitate, get Copernic now. It simultaneously consults all the major search engines - up to 32 of them - to find the greatest breadth of responses to your search criteria, and you can search the Web, newsgroups and e-mail. It also records the results of all your searches and when requested updates them, so you can always return to the sites you find. And what is utterly astonishing is that Copernic is free.

However, for a nominal fee you can buy a commercial version which enables you to narrow your searches within twenty-one categories, among them Books, Business & Finance, Games, Health, Kids, Life, Movies, Music, and Newspapers.

Searching in these specialist categories increases the number of search engines consulted to 125. The results of the searches are listed and scored, and keywords are also highlighted.

Free, or increased functionality registered version for $29.95; Copernic Technologies (Canada) (www.copernic.com)

CyberSitter

Filtering software gives you some control over what your children are likely to encounter while surfing, blocking access to material to which you'd rather they didn't have access. No software works perfectly but CyberSitter 99 is very effective, albeit a little idiosyncratic and with some weaknesses here and there (when filtering newsgroups, for example).

Essentially, CyberSitter has a database of words and phrases which could indicate the presence of unsuitable material and it scans a Web page looking for these. Updates to the database are free, which is a plus point in the program's favour. When it encounters what is considered an unsuitable site, CyberSitter responds in one of several ways, either by going to a known acceptable site, for example, or simply 'freezing' the loading.

It is an effective but highly inelegant way of blocking access.

There's some flexibility over what sites you block; if you don't agree with CyberSitter you can override it. Best of all it's a total snitch - you can configure it to maintain a complete history of all Internet activity, including attempts to access blocked material.

£34.95 (inc VAT); POW! Distribution: 01202 716 726 (www.pow-dist.co.uk).

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!