Malcolm's Little Corner on the Web

Welcome to my little corner on the web. It has a little information about me and some things that I find interesting.

First things first... my warmest thanks go to Ken Badertscher of Miracle Max Media who produced the very cool image of Simeonof Island above and kindly gave me his permission to use it.

The Internet, Best and malch

One of my first voyages of discovery on the Internet commenced on December 29, 1994, when I opened an account with Best Internet Communications in Mountain View, California. Sadly, this once wonderful Internet Service Provider was acquired by HiWay, which was purchased by Verio, which was gobbled up by NTT. Long story. Notwithstanding the eventual demise of Best, I came to make many great friends there and learned much about the Internet.

Best Internet (motto: We suck less!) started out in a little store on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View. They had a few machines, and a whole bunch of Sportster modems nailed to a wall (literally). Founders Rich White and Mike Schwartz were joined by a motley crew including Matt Dillon, Sam Habash, Karl Mueller and Ron Echeverri and others. To preserve the history I have shamlessly stolen some pictures from Best's websbite. And if you doubt the historical significance of Best, you may be interested to know that other customers who started their websites at Best include Hotmail and eBay.

During that time, I registered the malch.com domain and started this web site.

Computing Stuff

I have multiple computers at home. They're all networked and connected to the Internet. For years I tolerated ISDN and then ADSL but recently I fired the phone company (see Companies that Suck) and hooked up with Comcast cable giving me a speedy 60 Mbps down and 6 Mbps up.

A few products I use and highly recommend, include:

Product Recommendations
Editplus	ExamDiffPro
Search and Replace	IrfanView
Super Flexible File Synchronizer	Mozilla Firefox
SysInternals Tools	Mozilla Thunderbird
Apache	Perl

You definitely need a firewall and I'll sell you the best for only $500. It stops all network intrusions stone-cold dead. And that includes all unwanted SPAM, viruses, worms, hackers and other nasties that you may encounter on the Internet. This device is so effective, it's Guaranteed Forever. It will completely eliminate every known and potential network vulnerability and installation is a snip. If you like my Guaranteed Forever Firewall, you're sure to love the WinDuck 2001 Install Accelerator.

Really, Really Hot Products
Guaranteed Forever Firewall -- Only $500	WinDuck 2001 Install Accelerator

Okay, that was just a bit silly. Back to some more serious items.

Free Computing Stuff

Windows Stopwatch

I wanted a nice simple stopwatch for Windows. After looking at a dozen or more shareware and freeware programs, I still couldn't find what I wanted. So, like any good programmer, I wrote my own which you are free to try and use. It runs in a small stay-on-top window which you can place anywhere. It has Start/Stop/Reset buttons and can also be operated by a user selectable function key:

Download SWatch.exe A Simple StopWatch for Windows

Robocopy with Shadow Service (for geeks)

Next up is a simple DOS/CMD script for serious geeks. This script will show you how to use the very powerful Windows Robocopy (Robust Copy) command in conjunction with the Windows Volume Shadow Service (VSS). This can be used to synchronize a copy of a volume or folder, even when some of the source files are currently open and in use. The following text file contains the script together with some documentation/instructions:

Download roboshadow.txt Combining Robocopy and the Volume Shadow Service

64-bit Windows File Manager

Finally, a File Manager. I was a huge fan of the original Windows File Manager (Winfile). Adding the FMStepUp plugin made it even better. However, over time it became outdated and hacks were required to make it work on Windows Vista and 7. Worse, there was no 64-bit implementation. I made many efforts to identify an alternative but failed to find real satisfaction.

Once again, I decided to try writing my own and I think it worked out pretty well although I'm sure it won't appeal to everyone. Relative to the old Windows File Manager:

• It has two fixed panels. This saves time arranging and rearranging windows.
• It has one drive bar for each panel. This saves time changing drives.
• It will recognize when new drives (e.g. USB devices) are added or removed.
• The filename/file size/modification time are displayed in sortable columns.
• It has a very simple filtering ability.
• It has a powerful and customizable context menu.
• Drag and Drop operations are always COPY commands unless the SHIFT KEY is depressed and then they are always MOVE commands.
• It includes the ability to quick preview many image types.
• It's configured via an old fashioned .ini file.

Feel free to try it. Extract the ZIP archive and be sure to see the README.txt file before starting the program:

Download Winfile64.zip My 64-bit Windows File Manager

Older Computing Stuff

I have some interest in chemistry, and the application of computers to that science. Below is a picture of a chemical structure. This particular example illustrates the structure of the drug omeprazole which is a proton pump inhibitor used in the treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers.

Molecular Design Limited (MDL) produced a lot of very cool software for chemists. They have since merged with Accelrys. You can even download their Accelrys Draw software:

Accelrys Draw

At one time I worked for Prime Computer. You'll find some interesting information about Prime on my site:

Prime Computer

Some years ago, in the Windows 3.1 era, I wrote a Data Communications FAQ. It's now pretty ancient.

Data Communications FAQ

Anyone still running Windows 3.1 might also enjoy this neat little shareware utility what I wrote. It's a clock, resource monitor, task switcher, program launcher and more. But, it's small, fast and intuitive the way software should be, but rarely is these days.

Finder Version 5.20 (26kb)

My favorite news reader is NewsXpress. Sadly it's no longer being developed although I still use it every day:

NewsXpress

Photography Stuff

I also have some interest in photography and created some resources here:

malch.com Photography

Legal

In our litigious society, everyone needs a legal disclaimer. I'll refer you to one drafted by my old friend George Schaft and hereby incorporate it by reference:

Legal Disclaimer