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![[The Awards]](25lead.jpg) ![[The Shareware Awards]](25lead.gif)
Avina Lobo
Shareware, the software we download for free trial, is a whole industry in itself. Developed by individuals or small or large companies, shareware brings us those handy tools that most of us swear by. Winzip, ICQ, IrfanView, ACDSee and Paintshop Pro are just some of them.
The annual Shareware Industry Conference honours the best software in various categories from business to gaming and education. Here's a look at the programmes that walked away with gold and those that came close.
Best Internet communications
Winner
ICUII is a video chat programme. With a Web cam you can broadcast video, voice chat and text chat. You can carry out a conference, or a group chat, and create private rooms. ICUII contains profiles of users with a still picture and contains security settings for family chat rooms. It allows blocking access to adult chat rooms. You can also send quick messages and picture email and neatly manage all of it.
Nominees
Best Web enhancement
Winner
CoffeeCup Firestarter. Creating simple Flash effects doesn't always involve hours of painstaking work. Not if you get CoffeeCup Firestarter. With just a few clicks you can create Flash intro pages, graphic logos, animations with ready-to-use effects like 'explode', 'fade' or 'assemble'. You can also add MP3 sounds and music to accompany your flash files, convert animated gifs to small Flash files and copy and paste HTML code to your page by using a built-in HTML code generator.
Nominees
- Have you ever been completely mixed up with usernames and password for various programmes and sites? Darn! Passwords! helps you remember! Just drag and drop the username and password as soon as you enter the site's URL.
- Tired of IE and Netscape? NetCaptor is a custom browser application that works with Internet Explorer to help organise and enhance your surfing experience with tab based browsing, a Web page translator, a built-in popup buster and 'Captor groups' to organise groups of sites or links together.
Best Internet enhancement
Winner
CuteFTP. You've created some amazing Web pages and now it's time to upload them to a Web server. CuteFTP makes this task, which can be tiresome, really simple and uncomplicated. CuteFTP packs in amazing tools for easy file transfers. You can drag and drop files, manage pages on your site, search the Net for images, create macros for file transfers and schedule your file transfers.
Nominees
- FTP Voyager. This is another good file transfer tool.
- Mailbag Assistant helps you organise email, extract attachments, create compressed email archives and export messages.
Best overall utility
Winner
FolderMatch. As you work your way through editing, saving and deleting files, documents and images, it's hard to ensure that multiple folders with the same content across a network stays updated. FolderMatch lets you compare and synchronise data in two folders on your hard disk across a local network or removable drives like floppy disk or a ZIP drive, ensuring that both folders have up-to-date data. FolderMatch does this by automatically comparing the differences in individual files like size or the time modified. It also has features like batch file renaming and several file sections and display options.
Nominees
- Backup Plus is another backup tool.
- WinRAR is a utility for backing up and archiving data while reducing file size.
- WinZip is the most popular file compression and archiving utility.
Best application
Winner
Sure Thing CD Labeler. You've burnt a whole lot of cool CDs with music, important files, your portfolio or favourite recipes. You now need to distribute them. But labelling them with a black marker or a sticker or a printout inserted in the jewel case can be so ugh! Sure Thing CD Labeler lets you choose from hundreds of templates with great backgrounds and text layouts to create labels for CDs and jewel cases that look professional. Instead of you having to type out a play list manually, SureThing reads the tracks right off your CD.
Nominees
- Textpad is a text editor for Windows that's more powerful than Notepad.
- UltraEdit is a text and HTML editor for programmers.
Best graphics program or utility
Winner
Microangelo. Have you looked at your Windows desktop lately and realised how boring it has become? Use Microangelo to find, edit, create or animate new icons and completely change the look of your desktop and your system! Microangelo contains a browser and a library to let you ferret out hidden icon libraries on your system. You can then pick and alter the look of your icons in just a few clicks without messing up your system. You can download cool icons from sites like Pixelplace and the Iconolog.
Nominees
- ACDSee is a graphics viewer, image and graphics manager and enhancer.
- IrfanView is a graphic viewer that takes up very little space on your hard disk and lets you do minor editing and touching up of images.
- Paint Shop Pro is a powerful image editor that lets you retouch, repair, enhance, animate and optimise images.
Best sound programme or utility
Winner
Cool Edit 2000. If you're mad about mixing and editing music, you certainly need Cool Edit 2000. You can turn your PC into a recording studio with CoolEdit. You can record from a CD or a microphone and add sound effects and loops. You can mix tracks and use professional editing tools. You can even clean up old audio files and convert files to MP3 and other formats.
Nominees
- Blaze Media Pro is an audio recording, editing and conversion software.
- With Visual MP3 you can rip CDs and organise MP3s and create play lists. It also has karaoke playback.
- WinAmp, a popular programme on Windows desktops is a great audio player that plays files in different audio formats and creates and saves play lists.
Educational programme or game
Winner
SkyMap. Fancy yourself as an amateur stargazer? Instead of staring at the sky with a telescope and map, get SkyMap, a planetarium and star charting software for Windows. It displays the sky and shows you detailed telescopic charts. You can also plan and record your observations with various tools.
Nominees
Best hobby or personal interest
Winner
Crossdown brings you a wide variety of interactive crossword puzzles, cryptograms and acrostic puzzles.
Nominees
- Just Relaxing brings you the sounds of birds chirping and nature to your PC.
- Smart Backup is a data backup and synchronisation tool.
Non-action gaming
Winner
Kyodai Mahjongg is an amazing Mahjongg solitaire card game that has 2D and 3D modes and a layout editor.
Nominees
Action/Arcade games
Winner
Charlie II is a 'family friendly' game where Charlie the duck collects diamonds and coins and fends off evil creatures that come in its path.
Nominees
- Quake 3 is what hardcore gamers swear by.
- Warheads SE is another place to get some action.
You can check out the complete list of nominees and winners and People's Choice Awards by users who voted online for their favourite utilities.
Resources
Apart from sites like CNET's download.com, ZDNet and Tucows, there are other sites from where you can download shareware and freeware:
- Crazy about music? Hitsquad has the largest collection of music software, re-mixers, CD rippers, burners, encoders and composers.
- Jumbo has a good collection of freeware and shareware.
- Rocket Downloads features excellent reviews of the software on their site.
- Check out Lockergnome's software picks and email newsletters.
- Dave Central brings you the best freeware and shareware from various developers.
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