Since you are reading this, you already know that the PsL CD-ROM now has an HTML interface in addition to our other access programs. This is our first crack at using Web pages on our CD (although we have had a Web site since 1995), so we are there may be some rough edges, such as trying to integrate the CD with the Web by linking to shareware author's sites, our own Web site and other interesting places on the Web, which your browser may or may not let you do.
One thing that you can do is click on CATEGORIES to get a list of all the software categories on the CD. (Each Category has its own directory.) Then select a Category for descriptions of all the programs in that category. Many of the programs have screen shots so that you can see what the programs look like without installing them first.
Each program also has a link to click on to bring up its ZIP file. You can either "save" the file to your hard disk for processing, or you can set up your browser to load an unzipping program and it will help you install the program. We recommend WinZip. If you do not already have it installed, you can make Winzip the first program you get off of this CD-ROM. If you do not have a program for unzipping WinZip, you can go to DOS and use UNZIP.EXE from the CD-ROM. Because the performance of broswers vary, we cannot guarantee that all features will work. One browser displayed an incorrect file name as a default when saving the file to disk, but we typed in the correct file name and it saved it fine.
Some of the pages, such as the Windows Games category or the Picks Of The Month, may be slow to load because there are so many screen shots in them, but after much experimenting, we felt that being able to page down and see the screen shots in the document (instead of having to click on a link to bring up each screen shot individually) was worth the wait.
The first sentence of each program description tells you the main purpose of the program. The rest of the description discusses features. To make it easier to browse the pages, we highlight the first sentence in red, as well as the program name, so that it is easier to scan each page at a glance.
Links to the Web in these CD-ROM files may not work for you. Links to program files and to screen shots are located on this CD-ROM, but we have also included a few links to Web sites such as our own. These links will work for some browsers on some systems, but not for all. If you can click on the link in the previous sentence and get to our home page on the Web, then you are home free. Otherwise, when you point to a link with the mouse, your browser should show you the actual Web address at the bottom of the window. You can write down the address and visit the next time you are on the Web.
We recommend the use of either Netscape Navigator 3 (or later) or Internet Explorer for accessing both this CD and the Web. If you are accessing the Internet through AOL or Compuserve, you may be paying a higher price for slower service. For example, a company named FlashNet offers unlimited access for $100/year (a little over $8/month). In Houston, our service provider, Networks Online, offers ISDN access for the same price that AOL charges for regular (much slower) access. Check your Yellow Pages and shop around.
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Copyright 1997 Nelson Ford, PsL
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