Recommended Software

The following is a run down of software I use and recommend, and why. Installing dodgy / crap software annoys me, and although this isn't a review as such, it gives me a place to air my greviances and praises.

Winamp Audio Audio Player Windows 9x
http://www.winamp.com/ Free
What can I say, Winamp is, and always has been the be all and end all of Windows audio players. It's also about the only skinned application I have time for. 99% of the time, skinned applications completely suck, and it's obvious that more time has gone into the skinning, than into making the program do what it's suppose to do (and similarly NOT what it's not supposed to do). Winamp is the obvious exception.
  • Preferred skin: Swank Amp + some modifications. I have no idea where I originally downloaded it from, and haven't been able to find it since. Only downside is that it's an early skin, so only the main window is skinned. Of course, I've made some modifications (playlist color, and VIS colors).
  • Plugins:
    • DSP
      • MuchFX2. DSP stacker. Allows for daisy chainly DSP modules. Only annoyance with it is that it steals the focus from Winamps main window.
      • Pacemaker. Look no further when it comes to pitch / speed / tempo adjustments. Pacemaker is certainly the best. Not only does it shift pitch and speed, but tempo (keeping the pitch the same), which is great for working out those fast guitar solos.
        Version 1.1 craps out with CDReader. To use Pacemaker with CD's, use version 1.2. For extra shifting ability, use MuchFX2 and load up versions 1.1 and 1.2 together.
      • Normalisation - I think I've tried almost every normalisation plugin ever made for Winamp. Because of the Winamp plugin system (which sends samples, doesn't scan the whole audio file), there are unfortunately no worthwhile normalization plugins out there. You're better of using Winamp's preamp.
    • Input
      • MAD. MAD is a MP3 input plugin for Winamp - it's supposed to be better quality than Wiamp's Nitrane decoder. I'm currently testing it out, I can't really tell any huge difference. The attentuation feature is pretty nice though (and IMO works well, dispite the huge discussions there have been on the topic), which makes MP3's that clip sound pretty decent. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to handly ID3v2, and it's file info box is pretty crap.
      • CD Reader. CD Reader is a CD input plugin, which does digitial extraction (rather than Winamp's CD input plugin, which sends CD audio straight to the soundcard, rather than through Winamp). These means that you can have CD audio run through Winamp's EQ, VIS and DSP plugins (read section on Pacemaker to use CDReader + Pacemaker). It also uses cdplayer.ini (which the Nullsoft plugin doesn't). I find it, unfortunately a bit jumpy, but I think it's just a case of digital playback on my machine sucking, not the plugin itself.

        Okay, with some playing around with the plugin, I've discovered that setting the buffer size to 1 sector (rather than the default of 128 sectors) makes CD Reader play perfectly. (Excuse me while I re-instate that as my CDDA plugin. ;-) )
      • Liquid Audio Winamp Plugin. Plugin to play Liquid Audio in Winamp.
      • ID3 Tag Reader. An ID3 Tag reader input plugin for Winamp. It makes up for missing ID3 support it most MPEG decoder plugins (Nitrane, MAD). I like this plugin a lot, and it serves all my ID3 tag needs within Winamp - go figure, since I wrote it. ;-) Here's more on what it does.
    • Output
      • Dudesoft Gapless Output. Simply little plugin that removes the small delay between tracks in a playlist. Obviously great for when tracks are supposed to run into each other (can you say "live show"?). I have no idea where I got this from, I've had it too long to remember, but think it came with an earlier version of Winamp.
      • SqrSoft Advanced Crossfading v1.5b. Not that I actually use this much, but it's a great crossfader.
    • General Purpose
      Currently, General Purpose plugins make Winamp choke when using Explorer (ignoring the setting to run only one instance), however...
      • Playtime. Records Winamp usage, and is what I use to compile my Top 25 list. I don't care for version 2.0 though.
      • Keyboard Lights. Not a vital plugin by any stretch of the imagination, but if you want to have your Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock lights become a LED indicator...
      • Bluecave Winamp Slider. Slides Winamp off the screen when inactive. To be honest, I don't really use this, but it is a quite good plugin if you have a use for it.
    • Visulization
      For the most part, visualisation is a toy, but...
      • Sexy Attached Analyzers. One VIS plugin that I admit, I do like. A nice configurable spectrum analyser.
Radium Mpeg Layer-3 ACM codec v1.063 Audio > MP3 Codec Windows 9x

Best thing about it is it's a internal Windows codec, which makes it simple to use. Works insanely well on everything but analog sources (CD-Rs / Cassettes / Line-In), which sometimes work, but often come out warbled

Lame Audio > MP3 Codec Windows 9x

Lame is a free, open source MP3 encoder. (Despite LAME standing for Lame Aint no MP3 Encoder. smiling face ) Since it's a stand alone console application, it's slightly more annoying to use than the aforementioned Radium Mpeg Layer-3 ACM codec v1.063 internal codec. However, provides a lot more options.

I keep it on hand for ananlog sources that the Radium codec chokes on, which Lame handles beautifully.

A lot of rippers these days are configured (or configurable) to use Lame, which makes it's usage less difficult.

ID3 Tag Editors

I've searched high and low for a decent ID3 tag editor. None seem to exist. All I've seen are lame, for example, only support ID3v2 tag fields that are the same as ID3v1, or the few extra ones that Winamp supports. I got fed up with looking, and wrote my own ID3v1/v2 code library, and incorporated tag viewing and editing into my Playlist Explorer program. 'Nuff said.

If you want to edit ID3 tags, just use Winamp. I've not seen anything (other than my own program) that does anything that Winamp doesn't.

Netscape Communicator Internet > Client > Browser / Mail / News Windows 9x

Not to start a browser war… smiling face I wouldn't touch Netscape 6 with a 10 foot poll. Nor Mozilla for that matter*. However, I still use Netscape 4.x, and don't see myself changing in the near future. Definately as far Mail and News is concerned, I wouldn't use anything other than Netscape. I guess it varies from person, but being bundled in one suits me. Of course, Netscape uses the UNIX mailbox format, and I'd never use a mailer that didn't.

*Why does Netscape 6 suck so much? The Netscape 6 concept is pretty cool. It's just a shame that so much of it doesn't actually work! Aside from that, it uses twice the resources that the 4.x bred use, and as a result is much slower. Even with it's memory bloat, it still doesn't handle style sheets much better than 4.x does. So, ignoring it's sidebars, for twice the resource consumption, it doesn't do much than 4.x can't. I really don't like the profile setup either. Most of this is also true for Mozilla.

AOL Instant Messanger Internet > Client > Chat Windows 9x

In this day an age, you can simply say <Insert your favorite company> Instant Messager and 9 times out of 10, you names an actual product! However, AOL's was an early one, one I started using, and have stuck with.

Trillian Internet > Client > Chat Windows 9x

Trillian is a cool program that helps with the “1001 Instant Messanger” problem noted above. It allows you to similtaniously connect to AOL Instant Messanger MSN Instant Messanger Yahoo Instant Messanger and ICQ from the one application. It's only downfall is that the save of chat sessions. It's definately handy for accessing ICQ without using the horrible ICQ software.

NetLaunch Internet > Client > Connection Windows 9x

NetLaunch is a program that sits in the system tray, and can be configured to run programs when an internet connection is made (and to close them when the connection is closed). I've been running this forever and a day, and saves having to open and close programs every time you connect to the internet.

TeraTerm Internet > Client > Telnet / SSH Windows 9x

Tera Term Pro is a great Windows telnet client. Also has TTSSH, an extension to become a SSH client. Much more configurable and functional than the telnet built into Windows. Supports VT100, telnet connections, SSH connections, serial connections, resizes remote terminal to window size, Kermit, X-Modem, Z-Modem, B-Plus & Quick-VAN transfers. Basically provides all telnet and SSH needs.

Telix For Windows Internet > Client > Terminal Windows 3x/9x

Telix is old Windows 3x terminal software, which I still use, even on Windows 9x. Has more features than most newer Win9x terminal programs, and supports telnet (which still works, even with the Win32 winsock stack).

Apache Internet > Server > HTTP Windows 9xLinux

Apache's HTTP server. The Windows port works great. Not much to say, I wouldn't consider another web server, I run my personal one on Apache.

WarFTPD Internet > Server > FTPd Windows 9x

War FTP daemon. Decent free FTP server. The only real complain about it is that it doesn't support resumed uploads. UNIX style configuration (like Apache) would be nice, but hey, it's a Windows program, so…

lcc-win32 Development > C > Compiler Windows 9x

lcc-win32 is the best free Windows C compiler I've come across. It produced quite small and fast executible code.

The IDE and resource editor both leave a lot to be desired, in my opinion. Which isn't really an issue, since I'm much happier with an editor of my choice, command prompt and make anyway. I just use Borland C's old resource editor instead.

All my Windows programming gets done with lcc-win32 these days.

BorlandC/C++ Development > C > Compiler DOSWindows 3x

I still use Borland C/C++ when (ocassionally) building DOS or Windows 3x applications. What can I say, it does everything you need it to. I still use the Borland resource editor, even when building Win32 apps.

Textpad Development > Editor Windows 9x

There are plenty of editors to choice from. In my opinion, TextPad is the best Windows text editor out there. To put it simply, there is very little that it can't do, and is very sensibly written and layed out. It's quite simply, the only text editor I use, for everything.

TaskInfo2000 Development > Task Manager Windows 9x

TaskInfo 2000 is one of many Task Managers for Windows 9x. One it's cool features is it's tray icon, which works a lot like Windows NT's task manager, showing the CPU usage in the system tray.

It also works quite well when developing applications, in order to visually see the CPU time and memory that your application consumes. Great if you, like me, tweek your applications to use the least amount of CPU cycles possible.

Also gives a lot of information about the system and OS, free / used memory, process times, loaded drivers, open files, ability to kill processes.

Healing Power. If not for the system information that Task Info 2000 provides, it's also quite handy for healing Windows. I don't know how or why this occurs, and doubt it's something done on purpose, but running it can fix freezes and Explorer loops. For example, when Explorer goes strange (Start button gets stuck, and Start menu fails to come up), running Task Info fixes it. Or when Explorer gets stuck in a loop (where Windows hasn't frozen completely, but running new applications doesn't open them), running Task Info again fixes it, everything you tried to load automagically loads. It obviously doesn't fix every problem, however it's always worth giving it a run when Windows begins to act strangly.

Again, I very much doubt that this was intended as a feature. To me, it appears that the program must just call an API, which as a side affect, somehow kicks Windows / Explorer back into working properly.

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