Software Reviews

In the last 3 newsletters , I've been talking about the importance of archiving programs: specifically, WinRAR, WinZIP, and WinACE. Unfortunately, neither of these popular software titles are freeware, which is why I asked Infopackets Readers to ... send me their favorite alternate picks. Ionut C. wasn't alone when he recommended ZipGenius: " ZipGenius is a zip tool suite that offers a variety of features. It offers ... drag and drop and features and an 'intelligent' wizard to get you started. Among other things, ZipGenius offers 5 different compression levels, full customization and ... (view more)

Yesterday's newsletter was a real whopper; I must have spent over 6 hours writing it. Incase you missed it, yesterday's article was about WinRAR, WinZIP, and WinACE. I briefly overviewed how archiving software can be used to compress multiple files ... into a single large file, and then split (if necessary) into pieces to be stored on smaller-sized media for backup purposes. The truth is, knowing how to extract (or compress) an archived file is essential, especially in today's world of online computing. WinRAR, WinZIP, and WinACE are not freeware, which is why I asked Infopackets Readers to send ... (view more)

Last week, Rose J. asked how she could to back up the "How to Install / Reinstall Windows" video tutorial and eBook on floppy disk: " I need to [copy your] video on to a [floppy] disk, and I can't seem to do that. Can you explain the procedure in ... detail? " I mentioned in the previous newsletter that this would be a time-consuming task and that backing up files to a floppy disk is generally not a good idea. In brief, here are a few reasons why: 14 floppies would be required to complete the task, since the video and eBook have a combined size of 19 megabytes. The time to ... (view more)

Today I received an email from Rose J. who recently downloaded my video tutorial and eBook on How to Install / Reinstall Windows: " I need to [copy your] video on to a disk, and I can't seem to do that. Can you explain the procedure in detail? " At ... first, I thought Rose was asking about how to burn the files to a CD Recordable. I later out found that she doesn't have a CD recorder, and she wanted to use her floppy disk drive to back up the files. That makes things a bit difficult, since the tutorial is almost 19 megabytes in size. Before I go into instruction on how this would be ... (view more)

Last week, I received a question pertaining to a free Windows backup program. I took this opportunity to ask the readers of the Infopackets Gazette newsletter, and received MANY suggestions. So, without further adieu, here are some top picks: ... Karen's Power Tools: Replicator : Replicator copies from any source to any destination; it works with ZIP, CD-R, and HD. It can be set to freshen files that are updated/deleted and can be set for unattended operation. Required: Visual Basic 6.0 . My Own Backup (MOB) : A flexible piece of software that allows for Disk Spanning (CD-R backups). Some ... (view more)

With regards to the last issue of the Infopackets Gazette which informed our users of a Data Recovery program called Drive Rescue , I wrote a comment: " If you accidentally delete a file, don't write anything else to your hard drive -- even if you ... are attempting to install Data Recovery software in the first place! Otherwise, the drive may overwrite the area of the data you're attempting to retrieve, making the rescue operation impossible. " Denise R. wrote in with a response to the above comment: " I have Drive Rescue on a floppy for use in recovering files on the C: drive; ... (view more)