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The Top 10 Utilities of all time

Presented by Craig Crossman, original air date March 9th, 2004.

1: Still rules supreme - The Norton Utilities. Now known as SystemWorks. (www.symantecstore.com)

Yes there are other utilities out there that do most everything the Norton Utilities does, but The Norton Utilities really heralded in the concept of a computer utility program to the general personal computing industry. Introduced by Peter Norton (who was best known for his pink shirt with rolled up sleeves), Geeks who liked tweaking things under their computer’s hood were on their own when it came to recovering lost clusters and managing other disk catastrophes. And while almost thirty years have gone by since this utility first surfaced, most of us still reach for Norton Utilities when something goes wrong with a disk. There are versions for both Mac and Windows.

2. Compression – Stuffit, WinZip (www.aladdinsys.com), (www.winzip.com)

Aladdin Stuffit utility is the leading compression software on the Macintosh platform. This utility compresses most any kind of file making it smaller thus taking less storage room and expediting faster transfers over the Internet. WinZip is its Windows counterpart.

3. Macro Utility - CE Quickeys. (www.cesoft.com)

Quickeys began as a macro program manager but has grown to be a multi-functional utility that does so many utilitarian functions, we’d be here all night. Suffice to say that Macro Utilities are of great value on ANY platform!

4. Conflict Catcher (No longer available)

This turned out to be a program written by an Apple Employee for a company that just recently went out of business, Cassidy & Greene. This flagship program was a MUST-HAVE for anyone who owned a Mac. Basically, it would seek out, identify and automatically remove any drivers, extensions or control panels that would interact badly with the rest of everything else. Trying to find the one or more conflict manually from the dozens or even hundreds of extensions was far too daunting a task! To this day, I know of no comparable program in the world of Windows. Also with the advent of Mac OS X, a program like Conflict Catcher would still prove to be a valuable one. Unfortunately, no one has since attempted to write one.

5. Spell Checkers - Spell Catcher (www.rainmakerinc.com)

This amazing little utility is resident and active transparently throughout the Operating System. Therefore, interactive spell checking works in virtually ANY application that has any kind of text entry. Spell Catcher also has a completely integrated dictionary for definitions as well as a Thesaurus. It also has the ability to plug in dates and react to defined shorthand abbreviations and will expand them into the appropriate words. Available for Mac and Windows!

6. Keystroke Recorder – TypeRecorder (www.rampellsoft.com)

Viewed as some as a kind of spyware, TypeRecorder is there in case of a system crash or accidental erasure. It records all text typed on the keyboard. It stores them by applications and date. So if you want to recover lost typing efforts, it’s all waiting for you in a TypeRecorder document.

NOTE: Spell Catcher used to have this function and called it GhostWriter. According to the company, the next iteration will have a Ghostwriter feature.

7. Open and Close Dialog box Enhancers - Default Folder (www.stclairsw.com)

This is an amazing utility. Every Macintosh user out there should own a copy. Basically, it is a system ENHANCEMENT utility. It works with the Open and Save dialog boxes and makes them work… better! For years, Default Folder has helped speed Macintosh users through the process of opening, saving, and managing files. With the advent of Mac OS X, the familiar Open and Save dialogs seem to have taken a giant leap backwards. Default Folder X fixes a number of problems in OS X's file dialogs and adds convenient features to quickly get you where you want to go.

• It shows you where you are. The top menu in a file dialog lists the active folder and its enclosing folders and gives you back your bearings.
• It gives you access to windows you have open in the Finder. A popup menu gives you a list of all of the windows open in the Finder. Selecting one from the menu, or simply clicking on the window you want, switches the file dialog to that folder.
• It quickly takes you to recently used and favorite folders.
• It lets you click on a filename to copy it.
• It lets you rename, delete, and get information on files and folders without leaving the file dialog.
• It "rebounds" back to the last item that you selected in a folder. You no longer have to hunt through the file listing for a particular document you were working on before lunch - this gets you to work much faster. I LOVE THIS FEATURE!
• It opens folders for you in the Finder. When you really need to do more with a file or folder, use Default Folder X to open the folder shown in an Open or Save dialog in the Finder. Or use Default Folder X's convenient menu in the Dock to access recent, favorite, and other useful folders at any time.

8. Text editing - SmartWrap. (www.selznick.com/products/smartwrap/mac.htm)

Utility that strips out or adds carriage returns, line feeds and justifies text to any specific length. When I need every line to be no longer than say 72 characters so it will properly fit in an email, I use SmartWrap to accomplish this. It works by reading anything on the clipboard and transforms it from there.

9.Pop-up Notepads - Alepin, SideKick 1.0. (www.macchampion.com)

Alepin borderlines as a notepad utility like the Sidekick program. It’s a popup notepad that sports search ad find features, unlimited “pages” you can create of most any size and the ability to jump to any page. Besides being the first PIM (personal information manager), its pop-up notepad, calendar, and calculator made Borland International's SideKick the model for TSRs (That stands for Terminate and Stay Resident) which was an application type that was relatively rare in 1984. Pop-up mini-apps became commonplace in the DOS era, but Windows' task switching killed the TSR market in the 1990s.

10. Screen Savers - SnapZ Pro X. (www.ambrosiasw.com)

This is a screen capture utility of the Nth degree! Not only does it capture screen shots, but videos as well! Pressing any user defined key or combination, you hear a snapshot sound, the screen darkens and you can capture any portion of the screen by simply dragging a stretchable window to encompass what you want captured. Or you can capture any object like a pull down menu or dialog box. You can do it with or without the cursor and you can capture a video as well. So if some part of a web page for example has moving images, you can capture it and save it as a Quicktime or other standard animation along with its SOUND! Cool huh?

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Top 10 applications of all time

Presented by Craig Crossman, original air date April 14th, 2004.

10. VisiCalc – The spreadsheet. Apple II, PC

VisiCalc was just not an application. It was a landmark event. With VisiCalc came the acceptance of the personal computer into the world of business. No longer was a desktop computer viewed as a gadget, used for playing games, balancing a checkbook and performing other innocent diversions. With VisiCalc and the concept of a living spreadsheet that would instantly perform complex calculations and answer the ultimate business question… "What if?" the personal computer was granted admittance into the world of business. In fact, since it was first only available on the Apple II computer, many Apple's were purchased solely for the purpose of running VisiCalc! Later on, VisiCalc became available on the IMB PC running DOS. As time passed, other spreadsheet programs such as Excel eventually replaced the venerable program, but although VisiCalc is done and gone today, it still retains its place in computing history as the single most influential application ever developed for the personal computer.

9. Intuit's Quicken (www.intuit.com)

This application again began its life on the Apple II computer as a simple checkbook balancing program. Others predated it on the Apple II but Quicken was the first personal checkbook program to be backed by a software vendor and not written by an individual author, as were most of the other checkbook programs written in that time period. With Quicken, you actually had a COMPANY you could call for technical help. Also, updates were forthcoming in a timely manner. Today, Quicken is the best-selling checkbook program, or should I say rater, a personal finance program since balancing a checkbook is just one component of Quicken these days. Quicken does everything from managing your stock portfolios to producing complex charts and graphs, plus budgeting, generating all kinds of reports, and online bill paying complete this well-rounded personal finance program of today.

8. Desktop Publishing: Adobe PageMaker, Quark, InDesign

Desktop publishing was the Macintosh computer's reason for being. No other computer could produce page layouts, business brochures, design newsletters and manage the printed word like the Mac. Applications that let the Mac do its thing were programs like Adobe's PageMaker and Quark. Quark continues to be one of the leading desktop publishing applications. Adobe has ended PageMaker but has introduced its successor, InDesign, all of which are available for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms.

7. Word Processing – WordStar, WordPerfect, Word

Word processing software continues to be one of the top selling applications on a personal computer. What started it all was a program called WordStar 1.0 for an operating system called CP/M in 1978. And while there were other word processors out there that began even before WordStar like Super-Text on the Apple II, WordStar became the choice of business professionals, especially in law offices around the globe. It soon began to fade in the light of WordPerfect. Today, WordStar is but a memory in some faded RAM chip somewhere, as most all pf today's word processing applications exist only in the shadow of the word processing application from Microsoft, who basically has had the last "Word."

6. Drawing programs. MacPaint, MacDraw, Corel Draw.

Programs that let you paint and draw on the computer became popular, again with the advent of the Mac. And although you could only paint and draw little black and white images on the Mac's white background screen, using a mouse to express yourself graphically was very popular. Since then, drawing and painting programs such as Painter 8 from Corel

5. The Print Shop (Broderbund Software)

This venerable program again first appeared on the Apple II because of that computer's ability to display color graphics. The Print Shop was literally the poor man's desktop publishing program that let you create everything from greeting cards, signs, posters, banners, business cards and a lot more. In fact, an entire cottage industry sprung up around Print Shop with user groups, supplies houses, and even a magazine dedicated to the world of Print Shop. And while the fervor may have soften just a wee bit over the years, The Print Shop continues to be the flagship product for Broderbund. The application is now in its 20th year of existence and is available on DVD with literally thousands of clip-are images.

4. Adobe PhotoShop

With the introduction of Photoshop, pictures began to lie. No longer could you rely on the truth being displayed on a photograph,. Photo-manipulative applications like Photoshop and its ilk continue to modify and alter the world of photography. Today there are many other applications of this type but Photoshop continues to be the choice of professionals everywhere.

3. Communications applications: The Web Browser. AOL, IM applications like AIM and Messenger, Outlook, Zterm, MicroPhone Pro, Fetch (FTP).

All of these online applications have one thing in common. They communicate online. It began with simple "terminal applications" like Zterm and Microphone Pro that emulated dumb or smart terminals like the VT-100. AOL communicated over phone lines to its proprietary services. With the advent of the Internet, email applications like Outlook appeared. AIM let people chat to each other via instant messages. Today, Instant messaging, next to email applications has proven to be one of the most popular online applications today. And of course, let's not forget the Internet Web Browser. The Web browser like Internet Explorer continues to be one of the most highly used online applications today.

2. Media Players – Real One, Windows Media Player, QuickTime.

Media players give our computers a moving window to the world. Apple first appeared with their Quicktime application. The novel thing about Quicktime is that it required NO extra hardware! That was the milestone set for these little jerky windows of video. Today, Real, Windows media Player and other full-motion video software applications let us see and hear what's moving and shaking out there!

1. Multi-Functional applications : AppleWorks, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Although Office really is a COLLECTION of applications, it has become the number one application of the day. If you think Windows is Microsoft's biggest seller, think again. It's Office, hands down. With the suite of applications found in today's Office, this application is the most popular and widely used application on personal computers today. Honorable mention goes to AppleWorks, the multifunction application that was Apple Computer's best selling application on the Apple II and for some time, on the Macintosh as well.

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