Microsoft Word 7
Excellent for typing your papers. You can also use Wordperfect. For more experienced users who wish to do
"power-user" page-layout, PageMaker is better for that task. MS Word 7.0 will read a variety of file formats.
The program contains a large number of features which include drawing, charting, grammar and spelling checkers, inexhaustibly customizable
toolbars, while-you-type spelling correction, etc. You can create graphics for your documents in PowerPoint or in Excel (if you want charts).
A new feature of Word 97 lets you save your formatted documents as HTML files; this will allow those of you who have not yet learned HTML to build Web pages quickly and easily.
Microsoft Works 4
This program is often dismissed as a poor man's alternative to MS Word, but it is actually quite useful. It provides a number of
ready-to-use document templates for invoices, business letters, RESUMES (for all of you graduating in May!) and many other documents which require more involved formatting than
your average letter or essay. We've had a number of requests for this application over the last couple of semesters, so here it is.
Microsoft Excel 7
This is a powerful spreadsheet program, complete with statistical functions and the ability to create a wide variety of charts and graphs. While it is reasonably easy to figure out, you will probably need to refer to the manual (ask the Lab Assistant for it) and/or the on-line help files.
Similar in nature to Corel Quattro Pro, Excel may be the better choice for people more familiar with Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Access 7
Access, the fourth component of the Office Suite (along with Excel, PowerPoint and Word), is for those of you who wish to create databases. Access is easily the leading database program on the market, and is used by everyone from small startups to major corporations
to organize just about any kind of information you can think of. It has a fairly steep learning curve, but once mastered it is an extremely powerful program.
Microsoft Photo Editor
Photo Editor, a neat little application which comes with Office 97, does a lot of the same things Adobe PhotoShop is capable of.
It might not satisfy hardcore graphics people, but it can do most of the things we mere mortals want to do to our graphics.
Microsoft FrontPad
FrontPad is a handy little HTML editor Microsoft bundles with Internet Explorer. It lets you format an HTML document in much the
same way you would format a document in Microsoft Word. It might be a little redundant to include this application
when just about everything else we offer formats files as HTML, but some people prefer using a program which is JUST for HTML.
Corel WordPerfect 7 Word for Windows' major competitor. The two programs are similar in more ways than they are different. Each program has its own camp of followers, but if you just want to type your paper, either will do. Again, if you want to do heavy-duty page-layout, use PageMaker. You can create graphics for your documents in PowerPoint or in Excel (if you want charts).
WordPerfect 7.0 also, like Word 97 and PageMaker 6.0, lets you save formatted files as HTML documents. HTM . . . what?
Corel Quattro Pro 7
Quattro Pro is Corel's answer to Microsoft Excel. Like WordPerfect and Word, there are more similarities than differences between Quattro Pro and Excel.
For those of you more comfortable with WordPerfect, Quattro Pro may be the right program for you if you need to whip up a chart or a spreadsheet.
Corel Presentations 7
Presentations 7 is, you guessed it, Corel's own variation on Microsoft PowerPoint. The name says it all; it's geared toward the creation of nifty presentations, with lots of pre-made and -formatted stuff for you to use.
Like Quattro Pro, Presentations may be the program for you if you're familiar with Corel WordPerfect.
Corel TextArt 7
TextArt 7 is a great little application that lets you format text by changing the color, having the words twist and curl
in strange shapes, and adding shadows. It does a few of the things you can accomplish with Adobe Illustrator; the difference
is, we can actually afford to run it on all of these machines! When you're done formatting your text, you can just copy it and paste it
into another document in Word, WordPerfect, or PageMaker.
Adobe PageMaker 6
PageMaker does an excellent job assembling pre-made text and graphics into a finished document. You can create graphics for your documents in PowerPoint, or in Excel (if you want charts). This version of PageMaker also lets you save your files as HTML documents, which is handy if you wish to do a web page and don't know a single tag of HTML.
NCSA Telnet
Telnet (also called Host Presenter) will allow you to log into a remote computer. The most common thing it is used for is checking email on Unity\EOS and accessing the Library's databases.
To get to D. H. Hill Library, go under "Connect" to "Remote System", and type "library" in the "Host Name" window. The instructions are
fairly self-explanatory from that point on.
Pegasus Mail
Use this to check your Social Sciences E-mail account.
P-Mail to Unity
This is a different version of Pegasus Mail which allows users to access their Unity email with a more friendly graphical user
interface (GUI). Before you can use this version of P-Mail, your CHASS and Unity login name and password MUST be identical so
that your K:\ drive appears under "My Computer" in Windows 95.
WS_FTP
FTP stands for "file transfer protocol", and has to do with moving files around between different computers in different places.
This program allows you to download files from, or upload them to, a remote server. You can use it to move files to and from your Unity account.
You just log into it like you would log into Telnet. Use "ftp.ncsu.edu" as your remote server, and use your Unity login and password. The left half
of the window shows where you're moving the file to, while the right side shows where you're copying it from. Use the arrow keys between the two
windows to move files to the appropriate location.
Adobe Acrobat Reader
This great utility by Adobe lets you read PDF files, a format that is becoming more and more common on the World Wide Web. If you
come across a file that is in this format, you can download it and read it using Acrobat.
Microsoft Paint
This is the stripped-down graphics program that comes with Windows 95. It's nothing to write home about,
but it at least lets you create basic images. If you're tired of stealing all of your webpage graphics
from other people's pages, you could do worse than to sit down and doodle with this program for a while.
Gif Construction Set 32
This program lets you manipulate graphics for web pages, and even lets you create basic animated GIFs. A nice option if
you're interested in jazzing up your homepage a little.
HTML Writer
This is another HTML editor. You probably won't see this program on the cover of PC World anytime soon,
but it covers the basics; it lets you format headers, lists, and links without having to know a scrap of that
nasty old HTML coding.
Dr. Solomon's AntiVirus Toolkit
This anti-virus package is provided free of charge by NCSU. It is installed on all of our PCs and does a great job of scanning both floppy disks
and hard drives for viruses. Be sure to scan your disks frequently in order to protect yourself from the multitude (13,000+) of viruses
running around our computerized world. If you'd like to download Dr. Solomon's for your home machine, click
HERE for NCSU's download page.
Remember: All we can do is make the software available to you. If you choose not to take advantage
of it, you have no one to blame but yourself if you lose a valuable file (like a thesis or novel) because of a virus.
Note: if you download the split installation of Dr. Solomon's (onto 4 floppy disks), you will have to copy the 4 parts (assuming the files are named
w95dat1.exe, w95dat2.exe, w95dat3.exe and w95dat4.exe) onto your hard drive, then recombine them
by typing the following at a DOS prompt:
copy /v /b /y w95dat1.exe+w95dat2.exe+w95dat3.exe+w95dat4.exe full.exe
Then, from the DOS prompt, type full to install the full program.
Notepad
Yep, we wasted server space for this nothing word processor that comes with Windows. But sometimes it's handy to have
a word processing application available that DOESN'T take forever to load, you know?