Product number one is AskSam’s
SurfSaver, a product that is so delightfully simple to use, and so damn useful it just
makes me smile. What it does is terribly simple, which is probably why I like it so much.
We have a lot in common. SurfSaver simply saves individual Web pages into folders that you
create, and then gives you search capabilities when you want to go and locate them again.
If you are researching multiple topics, as I always am, the ability to create folders and
then dump whole web pages, complete with their images into them, is just great. No longer
will you go back to a site to find that it is off-line, or fret that you can’t get
online, because the content you wanted to see will always be to hand. This comes in
especially useful when pages get changed, as you can store as many copies of the same page
as you like.
SurfSaver lets you add comments, alter the title and add keywords to each page, making it
much easier to search for them later on. You can also decide if you want to save graphics
with the page (handy when it’s only the text that interests you) and you can share
any content you save as well. Go and check it out at http://www.guildsoft.co.uk/, and see
what else it can do for you.
The second tool to fall under my beady eye
was Microsoft’s Vizact, a program that basically provides you with a way of creating
dynamic documents. What does that mean, I hear you cry? OK, for example, do you have a
document with lots of headings, and text underneath each heading? Of course you do.
Well, Vizact would let you make those headings interactive, so that as the reader clicks
on them, for example, the text associated with each header would appear below it, and then
go away when the header was clicked on again. All effects can have timelines added, and
you can do some pretty funky stuff. Absolute Positioning is supported, you just drag items
to where you want them to be on the page, and that’s that. I was mightily impressed,
until I discovered that after doing Insert/Picture, said image would remain just where it
was placed, and couldn’t be dragged anywhere, kicking and screaming or otherwise.
I eventually found a way round this however that didn’t involve using a timeline and
Vizact’s animation techniques. All you have to do is place a textbox on the page, and
then paste the image into the text box. Format the text box so that it has no lines around
it, and you can then drag your images to wherever you please.
If you are a Microsoft Office user, you are going to like Vizact. You’ll be
comfortable with the interface, and you’ll like what it can do. It might not be the
flashest item on the market, but what it does do it seems to do well, even if you do have
to do weird things like putting images inside text boxes. Still, what would life be
without some mysteries to solve, eh?
Next month one of the items I’ll be looking at will be NetObjects’ Authoring
Server 2000, another program that has both excellent, and highly irritating features.
Middle of the road would be so boring though, wouldn’t it?
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