
About the Catalog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   The rest of Software Shopper Online is our database or "catalog" -- 
the majority of the shareware programs in our archives, which are 
neither new nor updated this month. While you'll see more than a 
thousand programs listed in the database, please keep in mind that more 
is coming! We're still in the process of converting records, so future 
issues will be more complete. If your favorite shareware title is 
missing from the database now, it will probably soon be added.

   Also, a note about how the database is structured. There really is a 
method to the madness! We divided the database into 32 sections (usually 
32): 16 broad categories for DOS and the same 16 broad categories for 
Windows. (Categories include Business, Education, Games, Utilities, 
etc.) Each rather generic category is in turn broken down into smaller 
subcategories -- for example, "Business" is broken down into Accounting, 
Contact Management, Personal Finance and others.

   When you read the database, it will look like each category starts 
out nicely in alphabetical order -- but then does several A-Z cycles! 
The reason for this is that the subcategories are also in alphabetical 
order. Yes, we COULD have separated the database into distinct 
subcategory files, but your SysOps would have wanted to murder us for 
making them deal with hundreds of files instead of the slightly unwieldy 
32! As long as you know the subcategory structure is there, you should 
have no trouble finding the kinds of programs you're interested in.

   We do not have registration fee information available for all titles, 
so for those "Author's fee" fields that show a fee of "0.00," please do 
not assume that registration is free!


>>[ An Invitation to Shareware Authors ]<<

   Shareware authors: we invite you to monitor our catalog to help keep 
us up-to-date with your titles. Although we receive the ASP Advantage 
CD-ROM and get disks sent to us by shareware authors, we don't get 
everything we'd like -- so we turn to BBSs and online services for files 
we're missing (and of course read the vendor info to make sure we're 
allowed to distribute the programs we download). We'd rather that the 
programs came directly from you -- and we're sure you'd prefer that too. 
Feel free to send us your updates and new titles. Our mailing address 
is: Software Shopper, P.O. Box 385, Prospect, KY 40059. Our shipping 
address is: Software Shopper, The Falsoft Building, 9509 U.S. Highway 
42, Prospect, KY 40059.

   We've got to tell you about our new high-density line. Many shareware 
vendors are still putting out titles on low-density floppy disks only, 
but we're proud to have launched our "HD" line: which means we can 
competitively distribute titles like DOOM, Raptor, GeoPublish and 
NeoBook Pro on high-density disks (complete with nifty, laser-printed 
labels). So, large programs don't upset us! We do request that, when you 
send us large programs, you break them into chunks that would also fit 
on 1.2MB floppy disks. But if you can't, that's OK -- we'll just insert 
a note asking readers to order the program on 1.44MB disks only.

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