1997

24th October 1997

Okay, I really like this one, a cute program that sits and plays the soothing sounds of a forest stream, the ocean by day or night or a jungle, while you work. I downloaded it expecting to laugh at its sheer naffness, but actually it is quite effectively relaxing. It works even better when used at the same time as WindChimes (see 26th July Thingummy below), and gets its name from the rotating smiley controller that sits in the taskbar - you can silence it with one click as well, which is useful! Win95 shareware.

Update!
SmileyPro is now available, with the four standard sounds plus the ability to download and add in more sounds, create your own sounds easily then post them on the Smiley website for others to share. Even better than the original program (plus yours truly made a plug-in for it, the first on the site!)

Download me here...

9th October 1997

Crybaby

26th September 1997

Time for a useful thingummy methinks. If you're like me, you keep coming across interesting URLs in newsgroups, emails, people's sigs and so on and never manage to check them out at the time, or forget to make note of them for later. ClipAid is a clever wee thing that lurks in the taskbar and makes a note of any URLs you copy to the clipboard. Later, simply paste the URL from ClipAid back into your browser and robert is your parental male sibling, as they say! Win95 freeware.
Download me here...

19th September 1997

Icons, icons, icons. Boring thingies really, looking like disks or trashcans or whatever. Give your desktop a lift with silly fun kids icons, click on Garfield to launch your favourite program or have the cheshire cat guard your screensaver shortcuts! Free.
Download me here...

12th September 1997

One of the best screensavers around, I like this one for 3 reasons -
1) It's free!
2) The picture collections you can buy only cost $10 which is pretty cheap (plus the answerphone order system is simplicity itself), and most importantly,
3) Its incredibly easy to collect your own pix, make them into a collection and have a very personal screensaver - I have Gina Gershon as Corky in Bound (happy sigh). Available for Win3.x/Win95/Mac. Free.

Update!
There are now a number of sampler collections featuring different picture types, eg fantasy, impressionist art, nature etc. so be sure and browse through instead of just picking the first one you come across.

Download me here...

5th September 1997

This is an Esheep, a very silly, very cute screenmate for your PC and thanks to Tigger sending me a copy (thanks, Tigger!) a worthy Thingummy for your collection. Yes, you too can have an overly cute sheep bouncing all over your screen, falling off windows, getting beamed up by spacecraft, doing handstands etc - open it several times and have whole flocks knocking each other over, how can you even exist without your little Esheep friend? A tiny program so it won't eat memory (just flowers) plus it seems to do more things the more you work, so your boss surely won't object! Freeware (I think).

Update!
Esheep can now be downloaded from the Friday Funnies site, since the old site went down.

Download me here... (new site)

29th August 1997

Another clipfont, featuring cool cats (and one less cool duck...). I really like this font, especially the cats at z and Z, and it fits the Thingummy criteria for a change! Yay! Freeware.

Update!
Oops, hadn't noticed the old link was dead. So I went hunting, and here's a new link to get this and many more.
Download me here...

22nd August 1997

Yet another screensaver? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but a pretty unusual one. The Pagan Daybook is a calendar with a difference, ensuring you don't miss out on any of the Roman, Norse, Wiccan, or whichever festivals through the year. It's amazing how many feastdays there are in the pagan calender, and each is accompanied by a suitable painting, usually pre-raphaelite. There are midi files of traditional music to accompany the screensaver, and you can set the Daybook to pop up on start-up to see which of the gods is celebrating. Bookware.
Download me here...

15th August 1997

Clipfonts are a very cool invention, which you may have come across in the form of dingbats. The ones I've found are extra special though, as you can get whole alphabets of pictures such as mythology and mediaevel, even insects and parts of the body. I was spoilt for choice when picking a thingummy, so go and pick your favourites at Emerald City Fontworks; shareware and freeware Windows TrueType fonts.

Update!
Yay! Those nice folks at emerald city emailed me today, I dunno where they were hiding, but they're back back back! Go get some clipfonts folks!
Download me here...

9th August 1997

ICQ - or I seek you - is one of the bestest most useful programs a body could have, in fact, strictly speaking it isn't really a thingummy. ICQ is like an IRC chat and email program rolled into one, the big difference being, you get to choose who you can talk too. You add your friends' emails to your personal list, make sure they all have ICQ, and then every time one of you is online, the rest will know, and can mail you instantly or start a chat session of up to 8 users. I don't know how I ever managed without this little miracle, it makes email seem slow and clumsy!
Download me here...

2nd August 1997

Following on from last weeks Wind Chimes, another Syntrillium wonder, the Kaleidoscope screensaver. This beauty has wonderful hypnotic patterns in a multiude of colours, with lots to fiddle with. I'm still not bored with it, plus it works in sync with Wind Chimes or responds to any music playing on your PC. Win95 shareware.
Download me here...

26th July 1997

A lovely soothing set of windchimes to play in the background while you work - there are lots of preset "moods" plus you can fiddle around with the voices, scale used, even the strength of the (virtual) breeze! Win95 shareware.
Download me here...

19th July 1997

A pointless, useless little bit of freeware that puts a tiny animated lava lamp on your Win95 taskbar - you can change the colour and how fast it bubbles too! I absolutely adore this gizmo, sad to say.

Update 2000!
LavaLamp was created by Lonnie Foster. Since his page disappeared, I've put a copy on my own site for people to download - this is a new link for anyone who found the previous source gave errors. Oh, and Lonnie if you ever read this, I hope you don't mind!
Download me here... (new site)