Ability Database 2000 2.0.009 is part of the Ability Office Suite. The database, which bills itself as similar to MSAccess, will cost you $30 to keep from www.ability.com.

Ability Spreadsheet 2000 2.0.009 is also part of the Ability Office Suite. The spreadsheet will cost you $30 to keep from www.ability.com.

Acceptable Usage Policy 1.1 is a utility that lets you add "acceptable use policies" to a PC's logon protocol. Not much use for the home user, but small businesses and offices can get some use out of this one. Free from www.btinternet.com/~lythos/aup/index.html.

As-Easy-As, from www.triusinc.com/dloads.htm, is a slim, trim spreadsheet program that isn't quite as easy as Excel to use, but a darn sight smaller, and at $59, a bit cheaper. Try it free for 30 days.

Atrex is a full-featured inventory control utility that small businesses might find extremely useful. It isn't cheap at $249, but that's cheaper than most non-shareware programs of this type, and this does just about everything that the big boys do. Besides, you can try it for free from www.atrex.com/atrex.shtml.

Bill Central 2.1h is a management tool that lets you keep up with your billing and analyze your billing efficiency. Small business owners, pay attention. $59 from www.integsoft.com.

Bitlocker is a Web site that offers a free collection of small-business and consumer-oriented databases; works best if you can use one of the prebuilt databases. Take a look at www.bitlocker.com.

BrainMatter is a Web site that offers free Excel 2000 spreadsheets through any Web browser. Lots of customizable templates. Check it out at www.halfbrain.com.

Brainstorming 101 is a virtual workshop that provides 3 to 6 hours of training in generating and applying good ideas. It's free to non-profit and government agencies; corporate profiteers must pay $15. Get it from www.brainstorming.org.

Brother's Keeper 1.9 is a genealogy and family-tracking that lets you keep records, charts, pics, and other useful tidbits organized together. $49 from ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/
Brothers_Keeper/homepage.htm.

Business Plan Master 3.1 is exactly what it says, a program that helps you create a business plan, along with cash reports, flow charts, income statements, balance sheets, whatever. Snag it from users.aol.com/versatiles/files/vssi.html.

Business Plan Pro Demo 4.0 lets you prepare your plans for corporate domination and share them with cohorts via password-protected Web documents. $85 to keep, and loaded with sample pages and templates. A huge (23+MB) download, available from www.palo-alto.com.

Cash Express for Windows, from
www.zdnet.com/products/stories/
reviews/0,4161,401948,00.html (Silicon Programming, the manufacturer, doesn't seem to have an easily locatable Web page), is a solid, no-frills money management program. $20 to keep.

CashFlow 1.2 is a free money management program from home.t-online.de/home/ulrich.hilger/dlcf.htm. Most of us don't need anywhere near the capabilities of MSMoney or Quicken, and who wants to pay their prices? For home or small business money management, this program may just be enough for you.

CDBF 1.06 allows you to view and edit .DBF files, along with viewing and editing of memo fields in dBase III, dBase IV, FoxPro, and VFP formats. $35 from www.whitetown.com/cdbf/.

Chartist 4.0 is designed to create, edit, and print flow charts, organization charts or other diagrams that use similar components. Using the Windows Clipboard, you can paste all or part of the flow chart you create into other documents, providing the application can read Clipboard bitmaps or metafile pictures. The program supports OLE, allowing other applications to link or embed Chartist information. $49 from www.novagraph.com/.

Check Printing Software 2000 1.0 prints checks on your printer with ease. Free from www.checkprintingsoftware.com.

Convert 1.50 converts measurements from/to metric, American, British, and even old Russian standards. A measly $5 from www.telecom.ozersk.ru:8101/~slasha/.

Credit Card Checker 1.2 is a freebie that helps small businesses verify credit card numbers. Not intended as a stand-alone verification method, but it'll help. Spy it out at www.blueice.org/programs/.

Currency 2.0b1 is a freebie from www.belgraver.demon.nl/currconv2/ that translates currencies from over 200 countries into good ol Amurrican dollars, or into another currency. Downloads current exchange rates on command.

dbzEuro v2.3 is a free Euro-centric currency converter from www.division-by-zero.de/dbz/download/euro_eng.htm.

e-Business Applet is a downloadable Java applet designed for the small business Web site owner who wants to provide his customers with the ability to browse, search for, and order products online, but doesn't want to spend a lot of time or learn a lot of techie stuff. $35 lets you own this little gem; check it out at www.javazine.com/catviewpro.

Easy Money 3.06 is a personal money management utility that lets you make and keep track of your in and outgo in a number of ways. If you like, you can export data to a spreadsheet or database for some real number-crunching. $19 from www.waverlystreet.com/ezmoney.html; a nice, cheap alternative to Quicken.

EDGE Diagrammer 3.0c is a $130 shareware utility that lets you create flow charts, organizational charts, and logic diagrams. Lots of templates and organizational aids are provided. The trial version limits the complexity of your charts. For more info, visit www.pacestar.com/links/edgwin.htm.

Edwin's Power Tools is for Excel users who want a quicker, easier way of doing tasks in Excel. The trial version is limited in functionality and only lasts for 15 days; $40 to download a registered, fully functional version. Get it from users.vol.net/~edwintam.

Euro Calculator 2.0 is a freebie that quickly and easily performs 2-way conversions of the 11 currencies of the European Monetary Union members and the euro itself. Snag it from www.hdvb.demon.nl/en/euro/index.html.

Everything I Own! 2.01 lets you create an up-to-date inventory of your family's possessions. It's an application/database that will help you keep track of serial numbers, model numbers, dates of purchases, warranties, notes, condition, and pictures. This application also includes a print and backup/restore feature.

Excel Recovery 2.1 is a pricey ($148) utility that keeps Excel from losing or corrupting spreadsheet data. A demo version is free from www.conceptdata.com/excel/index.html.

ExcelFix 3.3U recovers text, numbers, and formulas from files created in Excel versions 97 through XP. It rebuilds multisheet workbooks and saves recovered data in a new Excel file. A Pro version recovers formatting such as column widths, row heights, fonts, borders, and number formats., and also recovers "lost strings," a common form of corruption in Excel files. $89 from www.cimaware.com/.

ExcelToHTML 2.0 is an ActiveX DLL for Visual Basic, ASP, etc., that automatically creates HTML tables and files from Excel workbook files. $10 from ic.net/~kusluski/.

FF Billing Manager PRO 2.0 lets you manage customer accounts, billing, invoices, and products. It's pricy at $70, but have you priced some of the on-the-shelf business management software products lately? Find it at www.mrtec.com/bmpro.htm.

Files2Excel works very simply: when a disk or folder icon is dragged over the Files2Excel icon, the script opens a new workbook in Excel and puts folder and file information (such as name, size, attributes, creation date, and last modified date) into a sheet in the workbook. Requires Excel and the VB6 runtime files to function. Free from home.hiwaay.net/~rcfinch/progspc.html.

Financial Freedom Billing Manager Pro Deluxe 2.5 is a useful accounting package suitable for both home and small business needs. $109 isn't cheap, but compare it to off-the-shelf programs and you'll see a difference. Find out more from www.mrtec.com/bmpro.htm.

Flow! LT 4 helps you create charts and diagrams for business presentations. The free version doesn't time out, but the registered ($50) version has more features. Check it all out at www.imsisoft.com/.

GDIdb Pro 5.0.1 is a utility for publishing ODBC-compatible spreadsheets and databases on the Web, with its own FTP facility. If that tickles your fancy, be ready to pony up $76 ($220 for commercial users) to the fun folks at www.gd-ind.com/.

GS-Calc 5.5 is an Excel add-in with lots of goodies that costs a measly $20 to keep. Find out more at www.jps-development.com/.

jGnash 1.8.0 is a Java-based application for managing personal finance accounts. Free from sourceforge.net/projects/jgnash/.

LiveWebs Markets 2.0 is an Excel plug-in that lets you upload spreadsheets as Web-ready pages. $120 from www.livewebs.com/.

Manifest Time Trap 2.0 is a useful business utility from www.entertec.com/index.html that tracks billable time by client and/or type of task. Try it for free; pay $25 to keep it.

MasterList-XL Standard Version 1.08 lets you manage projects using MS Excel. You can add info from a PDA or e-mail message and more. Free from safarisoftware.com/.

Microsoft Excel Viewer 97 lets users without Excel on their PC view Excel files and presentations. Free from www.microsoft.com/office/000/viewers.htm.

Microsoft Money 2003, a 90-day trial version of Microsoft's popular money management program, is free from Microsoft's Web site at www.microsoft.com/money/default.asp.

Microsoft Project 2000 is a $7 program designed to make it easy to do project management online. No more depending on fax machines or FedEx to ship copies of the latest project info to your subsidiaries across the country. Check it out at www.microsoft.com/office/project/default.htm.

Money Manager 1.0 is a no-frills but powerful home accounting package. It features management of savings/checking accounts, credit card accounts, and fixed deposit accounts, reminders for upcoming deposit maturity dates, you can enter and reconcile transactions, organize transactions in various categories, have multiple users, and more. Requires .NET protocols to function. Free from www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/1710/download.htm.

Money Matters and Real Estate are two programs that provide information on real estate procedures, law, terms, finance and ownership issues. Built-in calculation tools help you figure investment earnings, rate of return, and debt obligations. Free from www.multisource.com/.

MoneyBox 7.4 helps you keep track of your finances. Make the entries and the program manages your credit card and bank balances. Monthly bills are automatically entered into the program on their due dates. Free from www.moneybox.ai/.

NextWord InfoTree 32, $30 from www.nextword.com/, is an easy-to-use database program that requires no programming.

Personal Knowbase 2.01 stores and manages your personal info. $40 from www.bitsmith.com/.

Power Utility Pak 5.0 is a batch of plugins that extend the features of Microsoft Excel. $40 from www.j-walk.com/ss/pup/pup5/.

Prime Time Desktop 1 helps you organize all your financial data in one place. Sounds like a good deal for those of us whose financial situation doesn't need a huge bloatware dealie like Quicken or Peachtree for managing our lemonade-stand proceeds. Free from anil.kumar.org/prime/.

Process Revolution 2000SE is a utility that lets you create professional diagrams easily and quickly. $70 from www.siliconmindset.com/.

Produra 2.1 tracks the hours spent on various services industry projects. Its status tracking feature enables you to clearly distinguish between the planning stage, project implementation, project completion and billing. $98 from www.produra.de/.

Quicken 2003 Deluxe is a trial version of the ubiquitous financial management program. Surf to www.quicken.com/ and be prepared to pony up $50 for the full version.

Seagate Analysis and Seagate Info 7 are free, powerful data analysis tools that businesses can use to, well, analyze data. The first is for single users, the second is for multiple users (up to 50). Download it or order the free CD from www.fetchseagate.com/.

Simple 2D Grapher 1.0 is used to plot collected data, incorporating features of cricket graph for applying a function to the data. Extrapolate gradients of curves to find an equation that best fits the data and print it. The program calculates regression and can predict values. Free from simplegrapher.sourceforge.net/.

Simple Checkbook 1.0 is just what it says: a simple checkbook register program. It's compatible with MS Excel, MS Works, and Sun Star Office. Free from junior.apk.net/~jbarta/checkbook/.

SmartDraw 5.03, $49 to keep from www.smartdraw.com/, lets you create and keep flowcharts, diagrams, forms, and materials suitable for presentation (sounds like PowerPoint turf to me, but compatible with other Office programs, along with Corel and Lotus products and basically any app that supports OLE). Also exports drawings to your word processor or spreadsheet, or imports them from other programs.

Spinnaker Tools, from www.spinnaker.org/, is a group of Excel plug-ins that lets you change formula and status bars, adjust column and row headings, and more. Try all of the tools, pay for only the ones you keep. $50 buys you the whole batch.

SpreadPro 2.00 calls itself "the most advanced shareware spreadsheet currently available." 130 functions, compatible with Excel, and only $25 to keep from www.techmarc.co.uk/.

Spreadsheet Assistant 6.01, from www.add-ins.com/assistnt.htm, adds over 180 functions to Excel. Keep it after 30 days for $40.

Spreadsheet Detective 6.1 quickly scans your spreadsheets for inconsistencies and erroneous formulae. $180 from www.uq.net.au/detective/.

StockAgent Pro allows you to track selected stocks, and find out when they rise or fall past a certain price. It's $25 to keep from igs.safeserver.com/stockagent.html.

StoreCreator 3.0 lets you create an online product catalog without getting your hands dirty in the actual code writing. $89 to keep from www.ziron.com/storecreator/.

SyTools32 3.11 is a utility designed to take the hassle out of creating and maintaining flowcharts. $19 from www.one-o.com/~avrsoft/.

TaxAct 99 is a free utility that helps you put together a personal IRS tax form. The "preview" version should be enough for most people. Get it from www.taxact.com/.

TeleChart 2000 4.3 isn't downloadable shareware per se, it's a free, functional utility that works to help you track and chart the stock market. You have to order it on CD-ROM at www.tc2000.com/, and they're hoping that you sign up for their updating service. As a standalone utility, it's quite powerful and flexible.

TickerPage 2.0 sends stock quotes through your pager. Configure your portfolio, and TickerPage connects to the Internet, downloads the stocks you designate, and sends them to you. $30 from www.breezesoft.com/breeze.html.

TimeCore 1.0 is a time management solution for individuals who need an easy-to-use way to track their time. It allows you to create multiple project, rates, and activities in a database and then track an unlimited number of entries, search them, and create reports. Free from www.time-sheet.biz/.

Totwise 1.0 manages billing and time allocations for children's organizations. Free from www.totwise.com/.

TravelJack 3.0 costs $39 to keep from www.extensionsoft.com/. Those of us who rack up the frequent flyer miles could find this utility extremely handy. It tells you the date and time for a variety of locations, performs up-to-date currency conversions, and serves as a personal calendar.

Trax Time 3.2 is a $20 goodie (with an unlimited trial period) that lets you keep track of time allocations for various accounts or projects. Good for businesses who bill time, track time efficiency, or track project profitability. Track it down at www.spudcity.com/.

VistaCalc does a lot of what MSExcel and other big-dollar spreadsheet programs will do, and will only cost you $20 to keep it. Get it from ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bfridley/ or, if the site is down (as it is now), hunt it down at www.pcworld.com/downloads/.

Design your own business cards with the $20 shareware utility, Visual Business Cards 3.3g. Some background and border images are included. Versions for all different Windows versions are available from www.rkssoftware.com/.

Visual Thought 1.4 is a free diagramming and flowcharting tool from www.bombshellstudios.com/samples/co/vt.html.

VIT iRates 4.0 is a freebie that tracks international currency rates for you in real time. Keep up to date by going to www.vitsoftware.com/.

WizFlow Flowcharter 4.16 is a $45 utility that lets you create, edit, and present a plethora of flowcharts to hungry middle managers everywhere. OLE-compatible for exporting finished products to other programs. Follow the arrows over to www.pacestar.com/wizflow/ for more information.

XLStat 4.4 is a relatively pricey add-in for Excel, but it includes some very useful tools for the money. $145 from www.xlstat.com/index.html ($75 for students and those with limited resources, but this must be done through the author).

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Accessories and Miscellaneous AntiVirus, Security Programs, and Password Managers Audio and Video Utilities Browser Add-ons and Bookmark Handlers Calculators and Mathematical Utilities Calendars, Clocks, and Time Management Utilities Chat, Phone, and IM Clients and Utilities Desktop Themes, Font Handlers, and Interface Modifiers Disk, Maintenance, Hardware, and Diagnostic Utilities E-Mail Clients and Add-ons File and OS Utilities FTP Clients and Download Managers Graphics Utilities HTML Editors and Web Page Creation Utilities ISP and Network Connection Management Utilities Macros Online Services Operating Systems Spreadsheet, Financial, and Data Management Programs Word Processor, Document Handler, and Text Editor Programs