OS/2 e-Zine! - NetExtra v1.0.5

NetExtra v1.0.5

- by Trevor Smith

Some time ago, InnoVal Systems Solutions brought us WebExtra. WebExtra simplified the organization of WWW URLs and provided a "persistent jump list" -- a catalog of every WWW page a user visited during a given month. In September, InnoVal released NetExtra, a product that might be mistaken for an "update" to WebExtra. NetExtra is much more than an "update" though, it provides many new features and complete Netscape, WebExplorer, Warp 3 and Warp 4 compatibility. Oh, and it's been completely rewritten in C/C++ (the original WebExtra was written in VXREXX) for additional "pep".

Something Old

Customers of InnoVal's WebExtra will be right at home with the interface of NetExtra. The familiar floating toolbar (GIF, 2K) is still the main interface to NetExtra. With this toolbar, users can customize NetExtra, open WebExplorer or Netscape Navigator (whichever they have specified in the NetExtra Properties... notebook), open a new URL, add a URL to a bookmark folder, search for a URL they have been to in the past and more.

As with WebExtra, the biggest benefit of using NetExtra may be the "persistent jump list". All sites users visit on the WWW when running NetExtra are automatically logged to a list which can be sorted, searched and used to revisit pages. Most of us, at one time or another, find something thrilling on the Web and then forget where we saw it. For this reason alone, the persistent jump list is essential. With it, you will never again curse that you forgot to write down the address of that great OS/2 site -- NetExtra has already written it down for you!

Something New

New to NetExtra are a few things. First, nickname support for URLs has been added. This allows web surfers to enter URLs in a "nickname list" and then (presumably later) access those URLs by their nicknames. This comes in very handy for pages with long complicated addresses; instead of typing "http://www.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/sources/fax.htm" to get information for IBM's Storage Division's Fax Back service, you could use the nickname "Fax Back" to jump to the same page.

For URLs with shorter addresses such as "http://www.ibm.com/", NetExtra saves you even more time by automatically entering the most common WWW prefix, "http://www.", in the Open URL dialog (something WebExplorer should have done a long time ago).

Also new is the addition of Page Mining Agents (GIF, 4.2K) and the related CacheUp feature. Page Mining Agents are just what they sound like: agents that grab a page and start digging through all the links and graphics found on that page. The depth of the search and various other features are user configurable. The result is a local copy of remote sites for off-line browsing.

If you are using this feature on a slow modem to "mine" a large site and you're retrieving graphics, the operation can take a while. For example, it took quite a few minutes to gather the entire November issue of OS/2 e-Zine! using the Page Mining Agent. And not all the interconnecting links on the pages were properly aliased to point to the cached version (some were still pointing to http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n12/) [editor's note : InnoVal is aware of this problem and has already been testing improved algorithms to solve it]. In our case, it would probably be much easier to just grab the zipped copy provided by OS/2 e-Zine!, but for sites that don't offer this service, Page Mining is great.

The CacheUp feature allows a similar operation to be performed on a list of pages selected from a NetExtra folder or list but without any customizing of options such as "get graphics" or "level of search".

Users will be glad to know that they can also convert their old WebExtra bookmarks, their WebExplorer Quicklists or even their Netscape Navigator bookmarks to NetExtra bookmarks. This is an excellent feature for those in transition from WebExplorer (or WebExtra) to Navigator -- as I'm sure many Warp users are!

Performance

InnoVal has done a good job with NetExtra. While WebExtra was somewhat sluggish due to its VXREXX roots, NetExtra seems to be snappier thanks to completely rewritten code.

Previous purchasers of WebExtra need not fear being left to fend for themselves either. InnoVal has promised a maintenance release for WebExtra by the end of October, which includes rewritten code in C/C++. And of course, they are offering an upgrade to NetExtra to take advantage of its significant new features and the ability to use it with Netscape Navigator in addition to WebExplorer.

Drawbacks

About the only real drawback with NetExtra is that it has so much going on, it may be a little busy and confusing to some. There are books full of bookmarks, jumplists of past sites visited, search facilities, nicknames, Page Mining, CacheUp, and on and on. Users just starting out with NetExtra will want to read through the well written documentation to orient themselves. But again, this is just a matter of how many useful features NetExtra has.

Conclusions

NetExtra is a pleasant and timely step forward from WebExtra. InnoVal has shown once again that they are committed to providing useful software that home and business users of OS/2 will appreciate. This one's a winner.

NetExtra v1.0.5
by InnoVal Systems Solutions
MSRP: US$49.95

Trevor Smith is the editor of OS/2 e-Zine! and full time WWW surfer.

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