Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Splitting image: Aladdin Systems' ShrinkWrap lets Macusers make exact byte-for-byte copies of their hard-drives, CD-ROMsor floppies. ShrinkWrap is ideal if you're looking to clone Macconfigurations throughout your office--it even places the icons inthe right place. A drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to createan exact disk image of an original source disk or CD-ROM fortransmission over the Internet, giving you an effective way to sendand receive data as images. It also makes it possible for userswithout a CD-ROM to run the "CD" directly off theirdesktop and includes StuffIt compression to minimize a file'ssize. Great for backups and archiving, ShrinkWrap requires Mac OS7.1.1 or higher. It's free for a 30-day trial ($29.95 afterthat) at http://www.aladdinsys.com/shrinkwrapor by calling (800) 850-3388.
PC manager:MyITware is designed to help optimize PCresources and reduce the total cost of ownership for organizationswith a minimum of 25 PCs. To reduce the cost of your company'sPCs, you need to enact certain usage policies, such as acceptablesoftware applications, Web access and so on. MyITware conducts aninventory to show what's installed on all systems, and a usageauditing feature lets you monitor how the applications are used.This can eliminate costly technical support issues, reduce yourliability for unlicensed software usage, and even save you themoney you pay for support for unused programs. This is anaffordable, Windows-based computer management option at $29 perclient. Visit http://www.myitcorp.com or call(888) 694-8927.
Just Zip it!Sending pictures and other images over theWeb can be a heavy burden to the downloader. To reduce your filesize, check out ZipMagic 2000, a file compression utility for PCs.This unique software lets you use zip compressed files withoutunzipping them first. It can stop and resume Internet downloads, aswell as split self-extracting Zip files into predetermined sizes(for example, a 5MB file can be split into five 1MB segments). Thisversion also comes with support for popular antivirus programswhich scan incoming zipped files. Various wizards make usingZipMagic simple, including the Zip&Mail wizard, which letsusers choose files to zip and then automatically attaches them to anew e-mail message. The Zip&Backup wizard simplifies Zip fileformat backup. ZipMagic will run under Windows 95/98/2000 and NT,and requires 8MB RAM and 11MB hard-drive space. Available fromOntrack Data International Inc., ZipMagic 2000 costs $39.95(street) and can be purchased at http://www.ontrack.com or by calling(800) 872-2599.
Cassandra Cavanah is an entrepreneurial-minded computerjournalist who's made a homebased career of writing andconsulting on tech-related issues. She can be reached at ccavanah@earthlink.net
