95isalive - Fun Tools Free Software

The Bee, who bugged me until I started a web site, lives here:

95 Is Alive

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Fun Stuff

This page contains a listing of utilities found on the net that may be useful or just fun to play with.
Like other pages, this one will always be in constant update so if you have a suggestion just click on the link at the bottom of the page.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, the items here are Windows 98 compatible.

shoveling.gif Animated by R. Dagher. October 96

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View Icons	Some Icons to Download Windows has some great Icons. However some of them blend into the background and are hard to see on the Desktop. I "dressed" them up a bit and decided to post them here.
Go get it Image	Create, Extract or Edit icons with LiquidIcon XP Icon Editor I have tried them all and this is the slickest one I've ever used. It will even let you create multi page or "layered" icons, which are one icon file that contains up to 3 icon sizes. The folks at X2 Studios have done an excellent job with this one.
Go Get it Image	Place Post-It® notes on your desktop using Stickies Stickies, created by Tom Revell has to be one of the slickest utilities I've ever seen, and it's "Free." I got an email from a friend who saw it in TechTV's Call for Help Newsletter . You can edit them, make them stay on top or be hidden. You can set them to pop up as a reminder at a later date. You can even send stickies to another computer on your network if it has Stickies installed. They even have a time and date stamp. The icon lives in the Systray when Stickies is active, and opens the Stickie panel or a new Stickie.
Go get it Image	Use the Dragnifier magnifying glass to read fine print If you've ever had trouble trying to read the fine print on some web pages, this little tool will come in handy. The Dragnifier by Ed Halley places a little magnifying glass in the system tray. Just click the icon and drag the lens over the text you're trying to read.
Go get it Image	View dll processes and threads with Process Explorer Process Explorer, another utility from Sysinternals will show you the executable and dynamic link library files currently being used by your computer. A nice free utility that will give you an idea of how files interrelate when running programs.
Visit	Hubble telescope images If you like astronomy and the images taken by the Hubble telescope, click the link to the left. Each day they have a new image, and some of them make great Desktop Wallpaper. Click to download the large images and save them as .bmp files so you can edit/resize them with Paint.
Telnet Image	The seldom used Telnet program Tucked away in your computer should be a program named Telnet. Before the days of the graphical internet and click and go e-mail it was a fairly popular program. To launch a demonstration of Telnet and watch a Star Wars episode done in animated text, click the Telnet link on the left. ( Note: to just open the Telnet program window, click Start, Run and type telnet and click ok )
Go get it Image	Ever wonder what all of those .dll ( dynamic link library ) files actually do DLL Show by Gregory Braun will let you see. It shows all of the active dll and exe files on your computer, and if you click on one it will show you what other dlls it is currently "linked" to. It's "Shareware" but has a free trial. If you want it after the trial expires you have to pay for it. It shows some interesting information about what goes on "Behind The Scenes" in your computer. Make sure you check out the other great utilities while you're there.
Go get it Image	Check out files with File Snoop Another utility to check out the contents of a file. This one will even show the import and export functions of a dynamic link library ( .dll ) or .exe file. It ( and several other nice utilities ) can he found and downloaded by clicking Go get it
Go get it Image	Save screen shots using Capture If you've ever saved screen shots using the Print Screen function you know it takes several steps to complete. Capture, another free goodie from AnalogX makes this a very simple procedure. It places a camera icon in the System Tray and every time you click the camera, it saves a screen shot as a bitmap image, places it in the folder of your choice, and labels it with the date and time you "captured" it. A great time saving utility. Hint: If you set a "Hotkey" in the configuration panel you can "Capture" copies of those great images floating around in Power Point slide shows. They make great desktop wallpaper.
Go get it Image	IrfanView A neat little image editor. Lets you convert images to different formats. Great for saving images that will take up less disk space. Has a free version, which is what I use to convert bitmap images to gif images for this site. Has many options and features for editing and saving, and can be upgraded to add more features. Use it to convert bitmaps to gif images for sending in e-mails, as a 700kb bitmap image becomes a 38kb gif image which is just as detailed and clear.
Go get it Image	Find and extract Icons with Icon Sucker I didn't name it but it does what it says. The free version is what I used to extract the icons you see on different pages. The image shows the icons to be found in the pifmgr.dll in Windows\System. The Go get it link will take you to the Copsey Strain home page which has links to some other utilities I haven't tried yet..
Go get it Image	Gif animator by Ulead This extremely versatile gif animator/image editor is not free but has a 15 day "Try Before You Buy" feature. I used it to animate some of the icon images you see on different pages. Including changing the traffic signal icon into the blinking signal gif you see in the top panel. It is definitely added to my buy list.
Go get it Image	Convert text to speech with SayIt I saw this free one on the AnalogX site, and had to download it and try it out. Just type in some text and click preview and your computer will "say" what you've typed, and then click render to save it as a wave file. It's not as clear as Hal on 2001 or the computer on the "Star Ship Enterprise" but it's fun to play with and will give you an idea of the frustrations experienced by folks who write speech recognition software. Note the spelling I had to use to get the sentence to sound halfway right.
Go get it Image	Read text in any file Have some files on the computer that you've tried to open with Notepad or WordPad and all you could see was a bunch of unreadable dots or squares that resembled hieroglyphics. Try a freebie named TextScan from AnalogX. If there is any text in a file, TextScan will show it to you. Think your "empty" deleted messages file is really empty? Open the file named Deleted Items.dbx and you'll be surprised. Also try some of those .dat files hanging around. ( Not system.dat or user.dat though, they're huge and are just the registry files.)