Review: DragStrip and ShrinkWrap

By: Kirk Hiner

Format: CD or Download

Developer: Aladdin Systems, Inc.

Minimum Requirements - DragStrip:68020 Processor, System 7.1.2, 1MB RAM

Minimum Requirements - ShrinkWrapSystem 7.1.1, 4MB RAM

Retail Price - DragStrip: $20.00

Retail Price - ShrinkWrap: $30.00

Availability: Out now

What do you people think I do, play games all day? Not so. Every now and again, when the temperature is right and the dew point hits optimum levels, I get some work done. Granted, it's not real work. I'm not saving lives, and I'm not farming the land. Everything else is bunk, with apologies to those who do everything else. But I'm one of you. I spend my days in front of a computer, and I spend my evenings doing the same. Thank God for my fiancee who forces me to do something else on the weekends...like watch TV.

It's really not that bad, thanks to an abundance of utilities designed to improve the functionality of my computer, thereby decreasing the amount of time I must spend in front of it. In this review, I'll take a look at two of them from Aladdin Systems, Inc.: DragStrip and ShrinkWrap.

DragStrip

Unlike its name implies, DragStrip is not a knock-off a James Dean movie. Rather, it's a desktop organizer that helps you control the multitude of folders, documents, applications and whatever else is currently cluttering up your desktop. Like Apple's Launcher, DragStrip allows you to launch applications from one source, alleviating the need for diving 20,000 folders under your desktop to launch an application. But unlike the Launcher, DragStrip affords you plenty of flexibility.

DragStrip is not just for applications, first of all. Anything your computer can launch and open--and even some things it can't--can be stored there. For instance, I do a lot of writing and am currently working on quite a few projects. Because I'm an anal retentive sort, I've got all my works tucked neatly away in their folders. If I want to copy chapter ten of my current novel to Zip, for instance, I have to open the partition it's on, open my Writings folder, then the Novels folder, the "Mowin' the Heavenly Lawn" folder, and finally drag chapter ten over to its destination. To make life easier on myself, in DragStrip I created a strip called "Works" and simply drug each folder to a square within the strip. This automatically created aliases to those folders, so I can now open them with a single click...without also opening every other folder in which they sit.

So what makes DragStrip better than the Apple Menu? Simplicity. Creating buttons is as simple as dragging the icon onto the strip, as opposed to digging down into the System folder to get to the Apple Menu. It's also just as easy to delete items from the strip. Simply drag the alias to the trash on the finder, or shift click multiple aliases and select clear.

DragStrip does even better with applications. If you shift click multiple documents and drop them onto the application alias, DragStrip will launch the application and open each of the documents. If you click on an application and hold the mouse button down, DragStrip will open a window of documents recently dropped onto that application, allowing you to chose from any of them. So...let's say I wanted to open four chapters of my novel. With DragStrip, I need only click on the folder alias in the strip. I then drag all the icons in the now open window onto my Word alias, and they're all open. The next time I go to open any of them, I can skip the folder and go directly to the application using click and hold.

Sweet.

And DragStip doesn't stop there. You can link to everything from complete volumes to MP3 files to text clippings in strips, and get them out again just as easily. You can even link to files on removable media such as Zip drives or files over a network. If the media is not present, the alias is greyed out until the volume is mounted.

But as much as DragStrip does to clean up the desktop, by nature, it also does a little to clutter it. Although you've got some control over DragStrip's appearance, it's still another window that has to remain on your desktop. Even if you chose to compress it to nothing more than a thin line, it must still be opened to be accessed. Plus, DragStrip opens only down or to the right, so you can't store it at the very bottom or far right of the monitor without having it open off of the screen. And although DragStrip allows you to customize the color scheme, it would be nice if it could take into account the chosen Appearance Theme or Kaleidoscope Color Scheme. The windows reflect these choices, but the tabs and strips themselves do not.

So now you've got easy access to all your files...that's great. But what if you need to make disk images of them? Aladdin improved on the Launcher; can it improve on Apple's Disk Copy as well?

Oh, you just know that they can.

ShrinkWrap

Aladdin's ShrinkWrap is a utility that mounts exact duplicates of disk images on the desktop. Why would you want to do this? The reasons are far too numerous to mention here, so I'll just list a few uses I've found.

Back when I purchased Quark XPress, the software required both a floppy disk and the CD to install. This was all well and good when I had the software on my 9600. I knew I wouldn't be able to set up this computer for a few months after moving from New York, so I transferred all my main apps to my PowerBook 3400. The 3400 swaps the CD drive for the floppy, so I couldn't have access to both at the same time, rendering Quark impossible to install. The solution? Create a disk image of the Quark floppy and mount the image on the desktop. I could then keep the CD in the PowerBook and launch the installer off the floppy.

When I bought Tieraney her iMac, I took it upon myself to outfit it as a computer of that caliber should be. I've got a lot of great software that's either out of print or that I don't use anymore (oh, the games I've accumulated), but from which Tieraney could benefit. However, most of these titles are so old they only came on floppies. With a Zip drive and no floppy, how do I install from these disks to her iMac?

You've got it. Disk images. Making a disk image with ShrinkWrap creates a byte-for-byte image of the disk, making it safer and easier to use than simply copying the disk's contents to Zip. Even the exact icon placement is saved when making a disk image. Installing software of disk images is as accurate and even easier than installing off the original disks themselves. In fact, when I tried to reinstall "Leisure Suit Larry 5" on my 9600 a few months ago, I kept getting disk errors. I created disk images and tried it again, and the game installed perfectly. Of course, it being a Sierra title, it didn't play perfectly, so I just had to trash it all over again.

But ShrinkWrap doesn't stop there. You can use it to mount CDs directly to your desktop, improving their performance and freeing up your CD ROM drive for the new Yes CD.

ShrinkWrap's disk images are much smaller than those created by Apple's DiskCopy, and it makes them up to five times faster according to the press release. ShrinkWrap is also well integrated with Aladdin's flagship product, StuffIt. Stuffing the disk images creates even smaller files sizes for maximum storage (it's possible to store multiple disk images on on 1.4MB floppy) and faster transmission over the net. And speaking of the net, you can use 40-bit encryption for added security.

Granted, some of you may have no use for this sort of technology. Fair enough. But those who do will find ShrinkWrap to be an indespensible tool. Whether you're using it to create RAM disks, back up floppies or install disks mounted by other companies (most Apple updates are downloadable as disk images), ShrinkWrap is simply the best tool for the job.

And speaking of jobs, I'd better get back to the games. What do you people think I do, review utilities all day?

.

February 08, 2012