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I’ve been curious about the iSwipe multi-network file sharing client for some time. I’ve posted news of frequent version updates to Shareware Beat, and several friends of mine who are enthusiastic music downloaders swear by it, but I had never gotten around to checking it and until this week. iSwipe is available in both Classic and Carbon versions. I downloaded the latter, which I find works fine in both OS X and OS 9.1. As you may have inferred, I’m not a heavy user of file-swapping software, but I concur with my piracy-prone friends that iSwipe is a very slick and intuitive piece of software, quicker and more user-friendly than the old Napster client, the late AudioGalaxy, or Limewire, which are others that I’ve sampled. 
The user interface has a field at the top showing the current online status of the various file-sharing networks ISwipe monitors, which include: the Web, FTP, Hotline, Napster, OpenNapster, FastTrack (Kazaa/Grokster), OpenFT, and Gnutella networks. It also searches the Carracho network. It includes a download manager, featuring retries and resumable downloads, and 4 slots each for FTP, HTTP/Gnutella, Hotline and Napster. It also features AutoSearch : it maintains a list of those elusive files that you want and can never find online, doggedly retries them everytime you use iSwipe until they are complete. The main window has tabs for Search, Downloads, Uploads, AutoSearch, Statistics, and Donate. To initiate a search, just type what you’re looking for into the Search field, select from one of the four search categories -- Music, Videos, Mac software, or PC software, and click the search button. A progress bar tracks how your search is going, and results show up in the main user window from which you can make a selection or selections by double clicking on titles. Clicking the Download tab will reveal the success and/or progress of your download attempt(s). A colored indicator shows the status of the download: grey for queued, amber for those in progress, red for an error, green for done. Other features: You must be running Gnutella to share files. Simply click the sharing checkbox in the Sharing Panel. AutoSearching is a powerful facility for automatically finding and downloading those hard to get files. It searches all selected networks (Hotline, Gnutella, OpenNapster, FTP). You can get to the AutoSearch panel by clicking the AutoSearch tab. iSwipe supports “swarming” downloads from several users and across multiple networks at the same time, and allows automatic adding of all tracks from an album of music. In the interest of research, I treid typing in “Anyone Who Had A Heart,” the old Burt Bacharach ditty sung by now-deposed finalist Kimberly Locke on American Idol Tuesday night. iSwipe turned up about two dozen versions of the song by various artists, including Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, Cilla Black, Linda Ronstadt, and others, all on the OpenNap network. I didn’t download any of them. Moving along in search of something legit to test, I decided to try WordPerfect 3.5, which is the freeware Mac software I get the most requests from readers for download links to. iSwipe quickly came up with three hits, all on HotLine. 
In summary, iSwipe works, and it’s very easy to use. New in version 1.3.1: System requirements: iSwipe is donationware For more information, visit: Re: Modem Misadventures From A MUGWump Say it isn’t so, Charles! Apple’s now foisting the miseries of the Winmodem (software modem) on the Mac world, too? I hate Winmodems. I hate ‘em, hate ‘em, hate ‘em! Those lobotomized pieces of silicon crap (Horta dung--I like that!--remember the Star Trek episode?) aren’t worth what you pay for ‘em, even when they give ‘em away with rebates at OfficeMax! I’m in full agreement with you; there is no substitute for a hardware modem (also called a controller-based modem). If that hunk of junk is integrated into your iBook, there’s not much you can do about it except, as you said, use an external hardware modem with a USB connector, or else an external hardware modem (traditional serial type) with a USB-to-serial connector. Might see if US Robotics has Mac support for that kind of hookup. It would make sense for them to do so; they sell the only internal PCI hardware modem I know of (I think it’s called the PCI Performance Pro or something like that), which would be a ready seller to the Mac market if they’re not exploiting it already. So it’d make sense for them to know how to get an iBook hooked up to one of their modems via the USB port. In the meantime, I have a suggestion for your file transfers. There’s a kind of program called a “download manager”, which works on a file, restarting or resuming as it has to until it’s DONE. Works on FTP or HTTP. There’s a boocoodle of ‘em in the PC world, and I’m sure there are some in the Mac world. I’m loading up the Tucows site as I type this to see what’s out there for the Mac. Those things are a big load off anyone’s anxiety level. As long as it can make connection, it’s just like the Energizer bunny; it keeps going and going and going until the file’s downloaded. And that’s even with broken connections, system crashes, power outages, picked-up telephones, and everything else that can foul up a download. If the system crashes, just start up the download manager again and start ‘em up again. The Opera browser does this to an extent, but with a download manager you can line up a whole MESS of files to be downloaded, and you can set it to download only a few at a time (mine is set for 3 files) and let it run so as not to hog the bandwidth. Plus, many of the download managers support multi-threading; they actually pull different parts of the file at the same time so that if you have adequate bandwidth, you can have 5, 6 or more threads going on that one file so it actually downloads quicker. BTW, broken connections are only part of the problem with Winmodems. I just replaced a Winmodem on the PC I’m writing from because I never got full speed in my connection using it. I was usually getting somewhere in the 45-50K range, even with file compression. I found a good deal on an external Creative Modem Blaster, and BOOM! With compression, I went right up to 115K. And wouldn’t ya know it; within 2-3 weeks of spending the buck$$$ on a new modem, Sprint FINALLY came up with a deal so I can get DSL for within a few bucks of what I’m paying for an ISP and a second phone line. My new service starts on Friday. (Wanna buy a nearly- new modem? I’m going to put the Winmodem back in for the rare occasions I need to send a fax.) COW-abunga, dude! Finally got to the page. Tucows has 14 files under their URL of <http://mac.tucows.com/connectivity_download_default.html>. There’s shareware, freeware, Classic OS versions, Mac OSX versions, and almost all that are rated (2 aren’t) have 4 cow ratings. One has 3. Get one and try it out, man! I’m extremely curious about the “Platypus Downloader”, but it’s OSX only. But it’s freeware, has 4 cows and seems to be rather popular. If you’re not familiar with download managers, it’s time you learned! Plus it’ll make good article material, too.Later on, Charles... Thanks for the excellent commentary, advice, and links, Dude. I’ll definitely check some of those download managers out. Multiple simultaneous downloads sound cool but with the maximum connection speed of 26,400 that I get here, just one download goes slowly enough. Nine and a half hours to DL the OS X 10.2.4 updater is my longest to date, interestingly with the iBook and its crappy software modem with no disconnects. Unfortunately atypical I’ve discovered. I’m not really hard up in this department, as the hardware modem in my Pismo and the Global Village Platinum 33.6 external modem on my UMAX S-900 give very reliable download performance, but it’s annoying to get WORSE performance in your newest machine. Apple is very close-mouthed about this software modem issue, but I understand that software modems are being used in several current models. Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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