Ham University
By MICA
Ham University - Morse Training and Testing QST Review by Dan Miller November 2001 Actual Morse code lessons are accessed by clicking on ?Lessons.? You must first put a Lesson Plan together. This is easily accomplished following the directions guided by Morris the Cat?an animated cat who assists by describing each function the mouse pointer indicates. My favorite method is the ?Exercise? approach done by copying with the keyboard. What you type is shown in the lower panel. At the end of the exercise, you can compare what you typed with the sent message displayed in the upper panel. Variables that you can manually adjust include speed in words per minute, character speed, message length and word length. In addition to all this, Ham University offers a Morse game called PENTODE. The object is to build a large number of points in a short period of time. These points are received by connecting two or more tiles (the more the better), each containing the same character, as a diode (side by side), triode, tetrode or pentode. Personally, I found the game far less exciting than the speed exercise to copy Morse on the keyboard in the shortest possible time. Conclusion Ham University is an excellent tool for anyone wishing to use a computer to study for an Amateur Radio license, regardless of which level they wish to pursue. Of course, my recommendation is to use such a program in conjunction with a class. In the absence of such a class, Ham University provides everything you need to go from ground zero all the way to Amateur Extra?in the comfort of your own living room. I?d be remiss in this review if I neglected to mention something else. Displayed at the top of each page of the instruction booklet is a flag of a foreign country. Next to the flag is the appropriate country name, accompanied by its latitude and longitude, CQ Zone number and call sign prefix. This is a very nice touch, adding to the educational and instructional factor of the Ham University program.
Mail Redirect
By Helexis Software Development
Mail Redirect is easy to use mail redirecting tool. It can be used to share the mail between multiple mailboxes. With Mai Redirect you can automatically synchronize your Office and Home mailboxes and get access to office mail from home. Other common usage example is redirecting mail from the Internet email box to the MS Exchange server in your local network. Supports secure SSL connections and connections through SOCKS proxies. The program utilizes minimum CPU and memory resources and works fast as a background task or as native Windows NT service.
Zilla CD-DVD Rip N'' Burn
By ZillaSoft.ws
Zilla CD-DVD Rip & Burn for CD & DVD burning & ripping. Data Burner - create & burn traditional data CDs, DVDs, and ISO-images as well as multi-session & bootable. Audio Burner - create & burn audio CDs easily from WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, RAW, VOX, etc files & burn CUE-images to disc directly. Features - Record Discs by Drag & Drop data or audio information contained in files onto icons on the desktop, start automatically with windows start up, Create Discs from a DVD, best Audio or Data Discs that can be read with any PC, Supports most IDE, USB, IEEE1384, SCSI DVD+R/RW, CD recorders, Records DVD+R/RW & CD discs On-the-Fly, erases re-writable discs, Supports Buffer Protection systems, Burn Proof & others error free recording types, Creates fully compatible ISO9660 Level 1, 2 & Joliet data CDs & DVDs, Imports multi-session CDs & DVDs & merges new files with an existing session, Detects drive(s) type(s), prevents you from trying to record a DVD on a CD-RW recorder, Allows fast ripping from audio CDs to WAV, MP3, WMA or OGG formats directly without intermediate WAV files using your own codec presets, Gets CDDB information for audio CDs, Supports jitter-correction ripping modes to restore damaged tracks from scratched CDs. ASPI is not required for NT/2000/XP.
WireFusion
By Demicron
Create interactive, plug-in free and very compact Java presentations and product simulations for the web. Development is done by visually connecting preprogrammed objects or by coding in Java. Several add-ons are available, for example a realtime 3D engine, where textures can be replaced with interactive 2D presentations. Other add-ons are an MPEG video player, slide show viewer and an MP3 player.
File Encryptor
By Titlebar Software
This is an excellent file encryption tool in that it is very easy and quick to use. ''File Encryptor'' is freeware. The encryption method used will result in your files being ultimately impossible to run without first being decrypted. At the File Encryptor''s web site you will notice there are two versions. One version requires a password in order to encrypt or decrypt files. No Splash Screen. No advertisements. No spam from the producers. No ad-ware.
Periscope Image Browser
By Papyrus Software
It is an image browser, searcher and viewer. You can select a set of folders and drives that will be searched for images with many-option filters. Images are displayed in multiwindows in groups of optional size up to 99 images at the same time, arranged in many optional ways. You can easily move between thousands of groups whether animated or not. You can limit search to image width, height, whether animated or not .etc. You can select images with certain properties (number of colors, transparency, animation, interlace .etc) Image can be sorted by width, height, colors .etc. Animated images can be played normally, slowly or step by step. Interlace can be viewed as it appears on the Internet. You can view image comments, if any, like copyright info, designer name, program used to generate the image and so on. The program can check whether the image file is conforming to standards or not, and displays notifications. You can easily find and delete interactively duplicate images. It can be used to organize image files by using multiple copying and renaming. This version supports images with GIF, JPEG and Bitmap formats.