Neat Net Tricks Issue #75
April 1, 2000
http://www.NeatNetTricks.com
Reply-To: NNT@silver.lyris.net

IN THIS ISSUE:

01.  No pickpocket for this wallet
02.  Enhanced RealPlayer
03.  GuruNet
04.  Another slant on the weather
05.  Your Handwriting
06.  Lights, camera, action
07.  Your virtual fridge
08.  Snoop is just another word for search
09.  SurveyGold
10.  Quick path
11.  Attach with a flair
12.  Cool text
13.  Readers write
 
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Want to make your views known?  The second NNT survey is now ready at
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?TV185TMWVP3TB53MA9T7ENGW and your
responses will improve future issues!

01.  NO PICKPOCKET FOR THIS WALLET.  Its encryption and user-assigned 
passwords protect information on credit and calling cards, passwords, 
PIN numbers, bank accounts, and anything youd like to store on over 30
templates and free-form cards, including custom graphics and sounds.
Choose versions for handheld, palm size, or desktop PC. Try eWallet 
free at http://www.iliumsoft.com and buy the full-featured version for 
$29.95.

02.  ENHANCED REALPLAYER.  If you are an audio or video aficionado, 
chances are very good that you have some version of RealPlayer on your
computer drive.  They've improved it still further with RealPlayer 7 
Plus at http://realplayer.com.  This version, for $29.95, plays all 
RealAudio and RealVideo, provides a feature called Take 5 to showcase
entertainment programming, presets 150 live radio stations, and has a 
nice graphics interface and improved audio and video controls.

03.  GURUNET.  This is a slick little pop-up application described as 
a "one-click information service."  GuruNet is a small download at 
http://www.gurunet.com .  It requires MS Internet Explorer 4 or higher
installed on your system; but once installed it works with any 
browsers, email, MS Office, PIMs, or even any Windows text 
applications. Just point and ALT-click on any word on the screen and up
jumps reference information: dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, and 
real-time news, sports, weather, stock quotes, and, they say, more 
promised on the way.

04.  ANOTHER SLANT ON THE WEATHER.  Track weather in 3650 cities
worldwide with a myriad of display options, email alerts, and features
too numerous to attempt to itemize here.  WeatherXpress 2000 can be
tried for free at http://www.weatherxpress.com or buy for $20.

05.  YOUR HANDWRITING.  The idea intrigued me: that is, you create
your own font with your scanner, then import it into Data Becker's
Your Handwriting.  Thus, you can create documents in your own 
handwriting using a word processor.  The problem with a handwriting 
font is, letters of course don't link as they do in real cursive 
writing.  But this package will allow you to create any other drawn 
fonts or designs with minimal effort, and the price is very reasonable 
at $19.95.  Details are at http://www.databecker.com/p_yourhand.htm .

06.  LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION.  Granted, the film editor at 
http://www.saulbass.co.uk/psychostudio/ is a rudimentary one.  It takes
Flash 4 and you can download that on the site if you don't have it.  
Then, you can redo Hitchcock's famous shower scene by dragging and 
dropping, one clip at a time.  Or, if you'll excuse my pun, you can at
least take a stab at it.

07.  YOUR VIRTUAL FRIDGE.  Using this online community at 
http://www.thedigitalfridge.com, share your digital photos and videos 
with others.  You're provided 14 different fridges, depending on the 
topic, or create your own private fridge for just your invited guests 
to peek in and see what you have on ice.

08.  SNOOP IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR SEARCH.  Add Snoopa to your 
arsenal (probably already consisting of too many search engines).  I 
like this one at http://www.snoopa.com.  It has a nice clean interface
and goes beyond the typical filters for "all of the words," "any of the
words," "exact phrase," and the like.  It filters specific file 
formats, i.e., image, audio, video, shockwave, and mp3, with a nice 
mouse-over brief explanation of each.

09.  SURVEYGOLD.  If you have customers and believe it's important to 
know their opinions, check out SurveyGold 5.0 at 
http://www.surveygold.com/ . Try it for free, buy it for $120.  This 
package allows you to customize surveys, integrate with Microsoft 
Outlook and Word, import data, and conduct research by phone, printed 
form, or on the Web (with no knowledge of HTML coding necessary).  
SurveyGold then analyzes the results in full-color 3-D pie, bar, and 
line charts.

10.  QUICK PATH.  A golden oldie, but worth repeating: to determine the
path of an application, go to Start|Run, clear the box with backspace,
then just drag the file into that box, and the full path will be 
displayed.

11.  ATTACH WITH A FLAIR.  Proving once again that there's more than 
one way to skin a cat (Oh no! Not THAT again!!).  With Netscape Email,
to attach a file, minimize the composition window, locate the file you 
want with Windows Explorer, then drag it to the composition box on the
taskbar, hold it a second, and the mail composition window will again 
open.  Drag the file to the paper clip, in the addressee section and 
let go.  The file will be attached. 

12.  COOL TEXT.  At http://www.cooltext.com create and download logos,
buttons, and bullets with the special effects you specify.

13. READERS WRITE.  Mark Drone suggested some enhancements to the tip
a few issues ago about constructing a default file to get around 
WordPad's limitations.  It doesn't let you set a default font, margins, 
indentation, color, font size, and so on.  NNT's tip was to set these
and save them in a document named "default" or some such, then open the
file to construct future documents with those settings.  That was fine,
Mark noted, but it could stand some improvements.  Once the file is 
saved, browse to it, right click on it and open the Properties|General
window and mark it for Read Only.  This will safeguard the default file
so that the user is forced to go through the "Save As" routine each 
time work is to be saved (and thus, the user would assign a different 
file name to preserve the default template).  Saving the document with
the default .doc extension will likely call up MS Word next time you 
click on the file, which is not what you want.  Rename the file (a 
right click on the file presents that option to you) with the extension
.wri , the old Windows 3.1 Write application.  Henceforth, clicking on
the file will call up WordPad for your customized template.  Thanks,
Mark!

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