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Reasons to use software from Sheepdog Software

This page could be considered my "hard sell". You don't need to read it, but I hope you will, and learn of my idea of "good" software. It influences my design philosophy, and the sort of programs you will get from me.

Before we start on those topics, here are links to material that might be more exactly what you were looking for...

    A page of "How do I..." type question answers, and
    A page telling you a bit about me, why this is called Sheepdog Software, etc.

Why would you want to use my software?



(If you are not a user of Windows or DOS PCs, you wouldn't!! See- I've saved some people time already! (Even if you are a Linux or Mac user, though, please visit my homepage, though?))

I am primarily a computer user. As such, I have suffered the frustrations that some software inflicts. I try to remember those lessons when I write software. Almost always, software I release through the Sheepdog's Kennel began life as something for my own use. It goes from there into the marketplace.

My programs will not revolutionize your life. Don't you hate the claims you see for some products? I like to Keep Things Simple. That is not to say that my programs are trivial or useless... I hope! They do have well focused ambitions, and I would be upset if any were dubbed 'bloatware'.

Many are free, prices for the others are around $16.

My programs don't do silly things to your disc, to your registry, or to system .ini files. I really dislike programs that do that, don't you?? (Especially if they don't at least check with me first.) How many times have you clicked "Go ahead and do whatever you like to my system, without even telling me what you've done" in the guise of an innocent "Next" button of an installer? It once cost me $200 to get my machine back to a bootable state after a failed install.... and the program concerned came out of one of the big games houses.

I have started to use InstallShield to distribute some packages. InstallShield puts a .dll in the folder the program goes into, and I think it makes an entry in the registry. I believe they are both connected with making uninstalling easy. Other than this, my software won't inflict .dlls on you or make registry entries.

I don't make presumptions about how you want to set up your computer. It is probably best to put my programs in a folder called Sheepdog, or some other name of your choice. Generally speaking, neither the programs nor their installation routines will put things outside the folder you have chosen to use. Generally speaking, it is probably best... though unlikely to be necessary... to put my programs and their associated files in sub-folders of the Sheepdog folder, one sub-folder per program. Some of the simpler programs will not benefit from this, but it won't do any harm.

Explanation of why I STILL (April 04) think DOS programs are valid in our Windows world. (2020: Ummm... I can't say I've used one for a while. I would try one, though, if it did something I wanted to get done!)

(Apr 2020: Sigh. I have to admit defeat, on the ONE old DOS program in my stable of freeware that I tried to use. Pity.)

Suitable DOS programs run just as well within Windows as they do from the DOS prompt. Having said that, and what follows, due to lack of customer demand, I'm writing few new DOS programs today.

A 'small' Windows program takes up 200,000 or more bytes of space on your disc. There are many jobs that can be done perfectly well without the space overhead. Not only does a Windows version of a program use more disc space.... it also takes a lot more time and effort to write. Would you rather have five small, useful programs from me, or one of them in a Windows version? The Windows version would do very little that the DOS version doesn't!

I don't mean to suggest for a moment that NO program should be written for Windows... There are many things that benefit enormously from the Windows environment... but there are plenty of things that don't need it, too.


Click here for the Sheepdog's New Kennel (Freeware, shareware, and other good stuff.)


Here is how you can contact this page's editor.

Why is there a hidden graphic on this page? I have my web-traffic monitored for me by eXTReMe tracker. They offer a free tracker. If you want to try one, check out their site.

Neither my webpages nor my programs incorporate spyware. (I first started talking about spyware on my pages in 2004! Originally, I gave a post to someone else's discussion of the problem. That disappeared in 2011, but you can view the page as it was in 2004 courtesy of The Wayback Machine!