The Best on the Boards Copyright (c) 1993, Russell Mirabelli All rights reserved Many bulletin boards across the nation have a huge amount of software to choose from for download. Most have so many titles that determining which ones might be worth the download time is difficult. In this column, I will attempt to help you sort through the huge morass of shareware available and let you know which titles I feel are worth your evaluation. All the software reviewed in this column is available on many bulletin boards throughout the country. If you have difficulty locating a particular title, I recommend that you contact its author at the address listed. DRAG AND ZIP is a Windows shell for PKZIP and PKUNZIP. In that brief description, it may not sound like much, but it is so very easy to use that it falls into the category of "can't live without" software. Most of my days are spent entirely within Windows, and I often am bringing compressed files form one computer to another. Until I met DNZ, I had to exit Windows, change directories, run PKZIP from the command line, and then bring Windows back up. NO MORE! now, I simply double-click on a .ZIP file in the file viewer, and DNZ will take care of making sure that the files all reach the directories I want. Zipping files up is equally easy. DNZ's zipping program sits, minimized as an icon, and all that the user needs to do is drag the files from the file manager and drop them on top of the DNZ icon. A dialog box will ask for a file name and options, and then it's taken care of. Another nice feature of DNZ is that it allows the user to get use of all the obscure command-line parameters that PKZIP offers. Without DNZ, I would never use fast memcopy, EMS, 386 protection, or any of the other two dozen options I now use regularly. DNZ does require that you already have a copy of PKZIP, and it will support the latest version (as of this writing:2.1g). This may sound like a rave, and it is. I simply could not get much of my work done as quickly as I do if it were not for Drag and Zip. Its $25 registration fee is a pittance for the heavy-duty functionality that it provides. If you haven't downloaded this one yet, DO IT NOW!!! Value 10 Usability 9 Performance 7 -------------- Overall 9 Dan Baumbach Canyon Software 1527 Fourth St. Ste 131 San Rafael, CA 94901 If you are a shareware author and would like to see your product reviewed in this column, please contact me either via e-mail at the STTS bulletin board, through RIME, WME, or P&BNET, or via conventional mail. My conventional mail address is: Russell Mirabelli 1216 Lamar Blvd E #508 Arlington, TX 76011