Monday, November 26, 2001		Downloads of the week

Whether your dictionary is untouched or dog-eared and falling apart, this free program can replace it quite effectively. Not only does it include common definitions but also shows synonyms and antonyms as well. You can use it with any word processor or as a stand-alone tool. Its Lookup field lets you use asterisks and strings to find words in a number of different ways. If you enter *gry, for instance, the program will retrieve angry, hungry, and other words ending with those letters. You can add words to the program’s database too. Many words have more than one meaning, so when you lookup a word there may be more than one definition displayed. To show just the synonyms specific to a particular sense, just click on the sense number. Alternatively, you can press Tab until the cursor appears in the sense section, use the cursor keys to move the cursor onto the sense you want to view, and press Enter. For example, if the search word is diffuse then your sense list would be Verb: diffuse 1. move outward 2. spread or diffuse through 3. as of information. The synonyms include broadcast, disperse, spread out, permeate, etc. To show just the senses corresponding to move outward, click on the ‘1’. You will then only see the synonyms fan out, spread out and spread. Click another sense number to select a different sense or click the selected number to show all senses once again. The selected sense definition is shown in a different colour. The four buttons at the side of the definition box show whether the search word is a noun, verb, adjective or adverb, the most common word types. A button is greyed if the search word does not have a meaning of that word type. Click on one of the buttons to show only synonyms of that type, or use Alt+ the letter on the relevant button. Selecting a word type is also a good way to quickly view the definitions for that word type. To show all synonyms again (regardless of type) just click on the button again. WordWeb not only finds synonyms of words but also a whole host of other words related in some way to the search word. The different types of relations are explained in the glossary of terms. When you first look up a word WordWeb displays the synonyms in the list box in the lower half of the window. The other types of related word available are shown in the set of tabs at the top of the list box. Just click on one of these to show the related words of that type. It is a good freeware tool that can make life easier for all those who use word processors. Grab it from www.x-word.com/thesaurus

FreeCard lets you create multimedia greeting cards that play graphics or video, music, digitised sound and display text messages. It takes standard Windows bitmap (.BMP), video (.AVI), MIDI music (.MID), WAVE sound (.WAV) files and creates e-cards into self-contained, standalone Windows executable (.EXE) files to run on any Windows 3.1, 95/98, or NT systems. You can save your e-cards in diskettes or send them with e-mail to friends or family members. E-cards created with FreeCard are powered by the "SLIM SHOW" multimedia runtime engine. They are compact (final e-card size starts at about 70 KB), easy to use, and require minimal hardware resources. For using FreeCard 2.0 to create e-cards you require: IBM PC or compatible computer running Windows ’95, ’98, or NT 4.0 or higher, VGA with 640 x 480 by 256 colours or better, 5 MB free hard disk space, sound card and a mouse. To use graphic or video, click the graphic selection button and then choose a graphic or a video file for use in the e-card. A graphic must be a standard Windows bitmap (.BMP) file, or a .BMX file. A video clip must be a Windows AVI file or a .AVX file. The .BMX or .AVX are special graphic or video file types used in the FreeCard program. They are created by embedding information into standard bitmap or AVI files using the FreeCard WaterMarker program. The graphic or video will be displayed on the left side of the e-card in a 240 (width) by 280 (height) rectangle area. It is recommended that you use a graphic or video material file in this size and any other dimension material is also acceptable. When the material size is smaller than this dimension, it will be centre-aligned in the reserved region. If the material is larger, it will be shrunk to fit into the region with the original aspect ratio. A graphic may show on the e-card with a transition. You can pick a transition style from the List box located on the right of the graphic selection button. If you choose "Normal" from the box, the graphic appears instantly without any transition. If you do not wish to use any graphic or video on the e-card, you can choose the "Select none" button on the file selection window. In this case, the e-card will just show the background colour in the region. The program supports drag-and-drop so you can also select a graphic or video file by dragging it from a program that supports drag-and-drop (such as Windows Explorer) and dropping into the main window of the FreeCard program. To use music click the music selection button and then choose a music file to play in the e-card. A music file must be a standard MIDI (.MID) file. Download from: http://dl.winsite.com/486/win95/miscutil/frc201.zip

InfoRapid Search and Replace is one of the most powerful text retrieval programs currently available for Microsoft Windows. With its built-in converters, it is eminently suitable for searching and previewing HTML and RTF documents. In pure text files, the found text passages can be replaced after the search is over. The search and replace process can be automated with the help of batch files to replace several phrases in one step. The found documents can be opened in a preview window, in which the matches are highlighted. A special feature is that InfoRapid can use Microsoft Office converters to search WinWord, Excel, Lotus and other documents and preview them in their original layout. The advantages of InfoRapid Search and Replace lie in the diverse search options and in the simple operation and handiness. A click on a hypertext link in the search result list opens the corresponding file in the text viewer and jumps directly to the marked passage. Another click, this time with the right mouse button, brings you back to the search result list. You can browse through the search result list with the function keys F5 and F6, without shifting between the file viewer and the search result list every time. If you discover a word you want to look further on, a double click on it is sufficient to take it as new search expression and start a new search. Up to 999 search result pages and search parameters can be stored in a database, from where they can be recalled via a register. The main features, HTML and RTF files can be searched and previewed by using the internal text converters. If you have installed Microsoft Office ’95 or newer, then InfoRapid can use the Office converters to search and preview the most common file formats. Several search expressions can be combined by using boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR X CHARACTERS). The program also supports a phonetic search after similarly sounding words. Download available from: www.inforapid.com

— Raman Mohan