Here are mini-reviews of three free software programs you might find useful to try out.

Included in this roundup are software to protect your key system files, to password protect your files, and to slice up images for Web friendly pages.

The first, 'Security System Safe Gold Classic', gets the five cows rating at the Tucows review site (www.tucows.com) for its ability to protect your key system files from accidental deletions.

While I've installed the program on my system I've been lucky enough so far not to have had the occasion to see it in action recovering files. 'System Safe' aims to protect your computer from the "file zapping effects of human error and power fluctuations" and from the corruption of your system files by glitches in your own operating system.

"While 'System Safe' cannot prevent the Microsoft operating system from becoming unstable, it can integrate itself with your operating system and actively repair system file damage," Rescue Me Systems state. Once installed, 'System Safe' integrates itself with the operating system.

Each time you start up your computer, 'System Safe' checks your crucial system files and reports on their status. If a file is corrupt, 'System Safe' will automatically repair it. If a file is missing, it will be automatically replaced.

Protection is placed on your main user system files — such as Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, System.ini, Win.ini, System.dat, User.dat, msdos.sys and o.sys — and other key program files such as dll, sys, vxd, dat and ini files.

To download the program visit: http://rescue-me.net.

Another useful free program is 'Password Protection System Lite'. The program allows you to add a password to prevent any other program from being opened by someone else. Just select the "exe" file for the program, type and re-type the password, then click "Add Pass".

The program can only be used by you or those in the know. This is a good way to protect certain files on a shared computer from being used by placing restrictions on what programs they can access.

The limitations of this program is that it shuts off entire programs so that family members cannot access Word for example, when all you want to do is protect a specific file. It is a blunt instrument to protect your files. I have not yet found a free program that will just protect specific files rather than whole programs, so if you know of any please send me the information via an e-mail.

'Password Protection' gets a four cow rating from Tucows and is available at www.necrocosm.com. The company's "Plus" version, which costs US$20, allows users to put password protection on individual files.

Another program I am keen on is 'CoffeeCup Free Viewer Plus'. While I tend to use a variety of other paid-for and free programs when manipulating graphics I find 'CoffeeCup' great for slicing up images to create image maps, or for automatically generating a Web page of thumbnails.

I would advise using 'CoffeeCup' in conjunction with 'IrfanView' (a free program reviewed in an earlier column). 'CoffeeCup Free Viewer Plus' allows you to view all images in a particular folder as thumbnails and has built in e-mail, ftp (for uploading images to your Web site), and Zip functions, in addition to some basic graphic manipulation features.

However it is the image slicer function that I use the program for. This function allows you to slice up a large image into smaller pieces, which can then be put back together again seamlessly on a Web page.

The program automatically generates the HTML code necessary for you to recreate the original image from the sliced up bits. You might want to do this to an image for two reasons.

First, a large image loaded in parts apparently comes up faster for viewers than a single large image. Second, you might want to create an image map on your Internet page. This is an image on which viewers can click on a particular section to get to a specific page.

For example you might have an image map of members of your family. Viewers can then click on a particular face to go to a page showing more photos of that individual.

The program is available at www.coffeecup.com.

Have fun using these programs and send me any information on others you might like readers to know about.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. You can contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com or (33) 467901474.