The Small Utilities for Windows CONTACT: Scott McMahan 30 Clairmont Ave A8 Asheville, NC 28804 softbase@mercury.interpath.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Scott McMahan is proud to announce the general availability of the Small Utilities for Windows 95 and 3.x. These utilities make Windows easier to use by filling in some of the gaps between the shipping product, third party extensions, and other shareware tools. All of the utilities are designed from user feedback with Windows 95 and 3.x -- so these utilities allow you to take back control over Windows! Each utility is small and modular, making it easy to combine the Small Utilities with batch files, macro languages, and other Windows programs. For anyone who is serious about making the most out of Windows, these programs are essential additions to your toolbox of solutions. These programs are shareware, and have a $7.50 registration fee for individual users (site licensing and other agreements are available). Copies of the programs are now available directly from the author (contact him via e-mail for details), and the programs will be uploaded to major FTP sites and other Windows software archives. If you would like to place the distribution on your archive, please contact the author. ************************************** *** YOU CAN FTP THE DISTRIBUTION *** *** FROM FTP.INTERPATH.NET *** *** in the /tmp/ directory. *** *** The file name is "sutils.zip" *** ************************************** The Small Utilities consist of: SHUTDOWN: Windows 95's Start/Shutdown, and 3.x's File/Exit Windows, are built into the shell and you can't create a shortcut to them or run them outside of the shell. SHUTDOWN is a complete, standalone program which allows you to shut down the system, restart Windows, or exit to DOS mode. It has a command line interface which allows completely noninteractive shutdowns. (This last feature makes it possible to implement a shutdown procedure, a batch file of tasks to run at system shutdown time, something Windows has never supported.) RUN: The origin of RUN is similar to SHUTDOWN. This utility makes up for a deficiency in the shell for both Windows 95 and 3.x. Like Start/Shutdown, File/Run is part of the shell and can't be used outside of it in batch files, shortcuts, or anything. RUN is a complete, standalone dialog box that allows any program to be run. It has a persistent command history and a common dialog box-based browser. QB: A small, fast utility which allows you to walk up and down the file tree and see what is there, as well as load what you find into their default programs or other applications. NOTE: Although Windows comes with two notepads, one is really a mini-word processor, and the other is a mini-text editor. Neither is truly a notepad that allows you to jot things down, or have a quick place to paste text. NOTE is a small, fast, and specific program that lets you take notes. It is persistent, and supports the clipboard. LZX: Until now, if you wanted to uncompress a file off of a distribution diskette for Windows or any other program that ships itself using the built-in Windows compression scheme, you would have to drop to DOS and issue a command. No longer! LZX is a graphical interface to the uncompression routines built into Windows. Now you can point and click your way to restoring files. XALC: Pronounced "eks-AHLK", XALC is a calculator for people who have to do arithmetic in whole number decimal and hexadecimal. Can you believe most computer users who do this kind of arithmetic still have a handheld calculator? Windows' calculators are a dime a dozen, but hex calculators are almost impossible to find. XALC provides what programmers and troubleshooters need: whole number arithmetic (+, -, *, /, %) in base 10 and base 16, with quick conversions and clipboard support. More! The Small Utilities comes with a toolbar from which you can access all of the utilities and the online help. What better way to get to know all of the utilities? And the programs come with complete documentation in a Windows help file. It isn't just dry documentation, either, but an in-depth look at how the programs work, the reasons why they were written, background tutorial information, sample uses of the programs, and samples of their use in batch files and macro languages. Did you know you can shut down Windows 95 from within 1-2-3 for DOS? You will after reading the online help! System requirements: The Small Utilities will run on any system which can run Windows. Although this is Scott McMahan's first shareware product release, Scott McMahan has been helping people make the most of computers for over five years. The Small Utilities are the result of Scott's desire to help people work easier by increasing productivity and understanding of how things work. His tips and notes have been seen in Microsoft Magazine, PC Magazine, and Maximize among other places. He is active on Usenet where he wrote the Cyber Reviews.