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{subhead} Sooping Up Your System, 101{def}{p}
Article by Mark Tierno
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Almost everyone has extra utilities running in the background; those programs
that either enhance function, form, or appearance. If you're like me, you have
your favorites and are always on the lookout for anything better. Well, this
article is for those that either haven't been with the Amiga too long or just want
to see a new slant on increased Amiga productivity. All of the programs I'll be
mentioning are available on Aminet; I'll not give a full review of any of these
programs (I'll leave that job to the Utils section), but rather will give a quick
overview of their use.
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This first article will cover programs that enhance the function and
productivity of your Amiga; next month we'll look into appearance and other
extras.
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First off, a good multi-function commodity goes a long way towards covering a
good number of other utilities and funcctions. I personally use "MCP", though
"MultiCX" is another option.  Some might argue that a few of the separate
utilities function better than the multi-commodity versions, but I've found that
not to be so. As well, the functions in something like MCP are integrated and
so there is a lot less conflict between them, not to mention greater efficiency.
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A good deal of crashes are do to insufficient stack for a program; to solve this
something like "StackAttack" is good. Then for a faster overall system response,
having a program to map your Roms into RAM on startup is also a good idea;
"QuickRom" is one option, or "CyberMap" for any Phase 5 '060 boards out there.
Then, as long as we're getting into patches, a better method of inserting and
removing them is needed; "PatchControl" fills this need.
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"WinSpeed" is about the best simple->smart window speeder out there and has
remained stable on my system. For 060 users, "speedychip" will speed up chipram
access, and for them and everyone else as well, "PoolMem" will eliminate ram
fragmentation as best it can (another little thing to nudge out some speed).
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Until OS3.5 comes out, IPrefs is still a bit bug-ridden. "FastIPrefs" is a good
replacement for it, though make sure it's version 40.35, as 40.36 has produced
some crashes onmy system.
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Adding a little convience, "TrueMultiAssigns" allows you to handle multiple
directory assigns such as "assign FONTS: RAM:Fonts/ ADD".  And while we're in
the matter of convenience, "KingCon" is legendary as the best shell replacement
around, I don't care if there *hasn't* been an update in years. Then, if you
want a better way of handling libraries that are are kept in the same directory
as the one and only program that uses them instead of just LIBS:,
"BetterOpenLibs" does it so well you'll forget it's there in your user-startup.
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For those with about five file systems running like I have, "MultiFileSystem" is
the only solution around but it's more than enough. "PrtSc" actually makes that
PrtSc button on the number pad function as a print screen button, to either file
or printer.
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And speaking of printers, of the several printer patches out there, one deserves
note; not because it's so good, but quite the opposite. "PrinterCGFXPatch" is
supposed to make Wordworth more functional with printing graphics, but there's
two things I've found out about it. One, always run it after any and all other
prointer patches, and two it not only *doesn't* make Wordworth print better but
actually makes it crash with amazing regularity.
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Finally, everyone needs a good toolbar, iconbar, or menu hack, to put in all
those programs you use often enough to make window-diving more than a pain. 
I've always prefered menu-hacks, as tool or icon bars take up valuable screen
realestate while a menu hack costs you no more space than the original workbench
menu. "ToolsDaemon" is my choise, it latches in all your custom menus rather
nicely after the Tools menu, with as many added menus and submenus as you can
physically fit on your screen, and allows for both single program and small
scripts to be run at a single menu click."TDPrefs2" is a good companion to it,
providing an easier to use prefs interface.
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The only exception to not using tool bars I make is "M2I" (for menu 2 icon),
which is actually a good way to round up all your left-out icons into a single
neat window with it's own configurable background pattern and other features.
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Well, that's about it for the basics, except to say to make sure you always have
an anti-virus program running in the background. My personal choise is "Virus
Checker", though there are others out there such as "VirusZ" and many more.
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Next month, we go for those extra bells and whistles that make your workbench a
lot more fun to use.