I am absolutely, totally in love with Forte. They put out really good, really solid software for reading Usenet Newsgroups -- and their "Free Agent" is absolutely free! For $29 you can get the full-featured Agent (which is what I use now). This allows "kill filters" and full-featured mailing capabilities.
Before using Agent, I used Pegasus as an e-mail reader. It's nice, it gets the job done, it has bells and whistles I don't even feel the need to use (filtering, for example) -- and, yes, it's free too.
Getting a new ISP has meant finding new software to replace some of the stuff that came standard with Netcom. I recently rounded out my suite with WS_FTP, a nice FTP client. Once I learned to check the option to confirm (or change) the name of a file before uploading, I was in business!
So now you're wondering how I found this great software? Well, some of it was by lurking in technical groups and seeing what was recommended, and some of it was by going to Stroud's, a HUGE resource for software. Not all of it is free, but Strouds lets you know about price and where to download, as well as giving reviews and links to the producers' homepages for more information.
Way back when, when I first started, I used a freeware version of HTML Assistant Pro. It didn't give you all of the bells and whistles of the professional version (not surprisingly), but the program worked relatively quickly and supplied assistance with basic coding.
When I got my new power machine, I had all the Win95 options open to me, so I hunted around some more. Probably the best overall program is Allaire's Homesite -- but you do need to pay for that power! If you can make do with less, try Nonags for Homesite v.1.2 -- it's totally freeware, and an excellent text editor.
Is that what I'm using? Nope.
For a while, I was using Webber32, which had a clunky interface, but terrific validation features. However, when the spellcheck feature expired, I started looking around again.
And most recently, I've come to . . . NoteTab Pro! In many ways, it's as bare-bones a text editor as you can get. In fact, it was not originally designed as a webpage editor, but as a way to simply expand the Windows Notepad program. However, this version now has HTML-syntax highlighting, a way to see HTML pages in the browser, plus spellcheck and all kinds of great editing commands.
The heart of the program are "clipboard libraries." With many free clipboard libraries available for HTML commands, easy editing of these libraries, and ways to create wizard-like interfaces, NoteTab Pro can be as powerful an editor as you can handle! (Of course, it requires some knowledge of HTML to use effectively, but that also has the advantage that you won't be using codes you don't understand, either.) And the minimalist interface really makes it easier to focus on content -- it's addicting to see all that space spread out!
As I said, I've only recently come to it, and I've begun exploring the great ways it can help me. For example, I've been working on preparing different clipboard libraries for each style of web page that I do. I have a court reporting student web site that has begun having a very popular penpal page. Instead of putting on formatting for each entry as I put it in, I created mini "wizards" that prompt me for particular information and fill in all of the paragraphing, list-item-ing, italics, etc. Very spiffy!
For $10, you can't do finer, in my humble opinion.
(All this said -- the current beta that I'm writing this on is without spellcheck, so please don't fall the program for any typos. <G>
A big thank you to Sam Choukri for the wonderful Web tools he's put on the internet. His TableMaker put the "table" in my "table of contents". His FrameShop helped me set up frames for my on-line book club. In addition, he's also provided the internet community with a ColorMaker to aid in color selection.
Meta tags can be confusing. Fortunately, I found a website that actually helps you generate meta tags really easily.
My favorite new toy? Powermarks! It's a terrific bookmarks management system. Instead of putting your bookmarks in folders, they're categorized by keywords (entered by you, or pulled from the title and or metatags of the site). To find them, you enter in as much of each keyword as you want. It sounds bulky, but it is incredibly fast and easy. And so much better than folders! It's easier to change categories via keywords than by dragging folders. And you can cross-reference as quick as a dream. Instead of trying to remember, "Did I file that book site on Beat Literature under 'Beats', 'Book Clubs', or did I just leave it in my general list without putting it in a folder?", you can enter keywords for beats OR for book clubs. Give it a try!
