
    The WindoWatch
                         PLUG  OF  THE  MONTH


    A Shareware SuperStar!

  Frank McGowan had the fun of touting the software Plug of the Month.  In
  the past we've tried to keep our choice a surprise....to build expectation
  and a bit of anticipation. He is so genuinely enthusiastic about the
  product that he blurted out the WindoWatch shareware Plug of the Month
  with absolutely no build up! His delight with the product should not be
  kept from our readers.  Therefore, we present to our readers McGowan's
  entry...

                       PLUG-IN     FOR     WINDOWS


  Plug-in for Windows lives up to its billing.  Behind this rather dreary
  nomenclature lurks a real winner.

  Our Plug this month, fills many missing window panes, eliminating most of
  the chilly drafts. While the current product runs on Windows 3.1 and 3.11,
  they're already working on a version for Windows 95!

  The software  has many features that make it an outstanding package. For
  one thing, you can choose among several entertaining cursors to use as
  pointers and wait indicators. This is worth a lot all by itself: I dont
  know about you, but I was getting pretty tired of that silly hourglass.
  My favorite is the one that reads "Please Wait (I'm trying to think)."

  You can also specify icons for program groups, to make them more
  meaningful than the plain vanilla, and totally meaningless icons provided
  by Microsoft. I teach an after-hours class in Windows at a local community
  college, and one of the things I invariably harp on is that an icon should
  be so symbolic that no text is needed to discern its meaning. The program
  group icons that come with Windows 3.1 fail big time in that regard. For
  one thing, theyre all the same. For another, they convey no information
  sans their titles. Lastly, theyre boring. Plug-In makes it possible to
  choose icons that indicate what the program groups are about. Okay, it
  still takes some imagination, but at least they'll be different.

  Another winner, though minor, is that you can choose an I-beam you can see
  when you're working in Word, or the word processor of your choice.  Plug-In
  is well worth $20 in reduced eyestrain, in my opinion.

  More significant is the QuickRun Menu feature that lets you jump from task
  to task quickly and with minimal fuss. As specified by Plannet Crafters,
  QuickRun provides rapid transit to the Task List, Accessories, File
  Manager, DOS prompt, something called Easy Alarm, Plug-In specific
  features, an improved version or Run, and a spiffier Exit from Windows
  (which lets you reboot the computer or restart Windows besides exiting in
  the usual way).  You can reconfigure QuickRun to your own specifications
  by adding or deleting menu items. Being in the technical writing business,
  I found it helpful to add paths to Word and to the Print Manager. Now I
  can get to either of these with just two clicks, regardless of what is
  running at the moment. The QuickRun menu is accessible through a little
  icon next to the menu control button in the title bar, in the form of an
  electric plug ( plug,  get it?). You can even change the icon to a socket,
  if you like.

  Resource Alerts is another nifty feature. We all know how frustrating and
  counter- productive it is to try to save a file, only to find out we dont
  have enough space left on the hard drive to do it. This is really
  maddening when youve just spent an hour or more editing the file to the
  ultimate in perfection, and find you are stuck with the old, extremely
  imperfect version. Resource Alerts will set off an alarm whenever your
  systems resources are about to hit the wall, which can prevent you from
  climbing it.

  To keep you abreast of what's happening at any given moment, Plug-In lets
  you modify the title bar. You can put the time of day at one end and the
  amount of disk space at the other, for instance; or choose from several
  options to display, such as available system resources, date and time, free
  memory, evena stopwatch (especially useful for keeping track of how long
  you've been surfing the net). You can even toggle among several of these
  displays, if you choose.

  You can fiddle with Plug-In's settings any time you like, by clicking on
  the plug icon and selecting "Configure Plug-In" from the QuickMenu. It's
  always at your beck and call, yet it is surprisingly unobtrusive.  For a
  software package with so many features, it consumes relatively little
  space (less than 1.5 meg).

  Plannet Crafters have done a marvelous job of filling in the gaps in
  Windows. In the less-than-two-weeks that I've been trying Plug-In, I've
  become quite hooked. It's hard to imagine running Windows without it. And
  I've only started to dig beneath the surface. Heck, I'll send 'em the 20
  just for what I've seen and used so far. For registration information:

      Plannet Crafters, Inc.
      P.O. Box 450
      Alpharetta, GA  30239-0450
      Phone: 404-998-8664
      FAX:   404-998-8197





 If after reading the PLUG of the Month, should you have recommendations
 of shareware we might look at, let Frank McGowan know!



                                      ww
