Rob Keir Software

http://keir.net

Rob Keir is a games programmer. Hailing originally from Wales, he's been on the US west coast for some years now. Every now and then he writes a Win32 program for the PC.

One wishes it would be more often now than then - Rob Keir is a software genius. Not only does he do incredible work, he also has impeccable taste. And if Rob Keir should happen upon something he does not know, he attacks it with calm determination and in no time flat has the answer he is looking for.

The cartload of free apps at the Rob Keir Software site all bespeak a sense of design that is staggering. Each application is a gem in its own right, and their consistent profile taken together a wonder. Consider the following - and let it really sink in:

• You never have to run an install program with a Rob Keir Software product. You simply unzip the package and you're ready to run. There is no junk in your Registry or obscurely hidden on your disk because of Rob Keir Software.
• The downloads are over almost before they start. This is because Rob Keir is a real programmer. He packs more into 10KB than all your VB wannabes do with four meg.
• When Rob Keir writes something, you can know it's good. He knows the algorithms. He studies them. He works with them all day long - and he gets paid real money for it too, so his talent is verified.
• You never have to uninstall a Rob Keir Software product either. Uninstall is as non-existent as the install. Simply remove the program from your disk.

All software could be like this. All software should be like this. But with Mr. Monkey reigning supreme in Redmond, and all the Delphi, MFC, and VB wannabes polluting the market, gems like Rob Keir are veritable needles in a haystack.

Like many contributors to net software, Rob Keir went public because he'd had it up to his Welsh eyeballs with bloatware and bugware, and decided he'd rather take the time and do it himself and do it right than leave the job to somebody else that was doing it all wrong.

His program BinText is a case in point: this age-old programming exercise, most recently diatribed in Brian Kernighan's latest book, has never been written better. Rob has taken up where Brian left off and written a version that must be the fastest ever. What does BinText do? It looks for character strings in executables - all of them. The classic algorithm says you should discard anything less than six readable characters in a row, and normally sets a static upper limit as well, but BinText lets you set both as you want. Meaning Rob is dealing with dynamic memory allocation, something most wannabes have never even heard of and couldn't grasp if they had. And as listviews are notoriously slow, you know BinText must be capable of so much more, because even Mr. Monkey looks good on this one. You've got a plethora of settings to choose from, gobs of characters you can flag, and when you hit that Go button, BinText is finished so fast you'll do a double take.

He automatically flags what kind of string he's found as well, whether it be Unicode, ANSI, or 'resource', so at every step of the way, BinText knows exactly where it is and what it is doing. Which in turn makes it even more of a wonder that this program can scan such large files almost instantaneously.

ShoWin is, as Rob himself claims, the one (or maybe one of two) programs in the world that can find any window on your desktop, anytime. Others might do it - Spy++ and 007+ - but none do it better than Rob Keir. Again, his overwhelming sense of tasteful UI design comes to the fore. And again, this very handy program is yours for the taking and a ten second download tops. And it freaks no Registry, trashes no disk, is self contained, has no nags, requires no registration key, and is robust in a way shareware and freeware users are not accustomed to see.

There are a whole slew of programs like this. Rob Keir has an excellent port scanner, and a rather useful program called 'Attacker' which in one fell swoop (and no cost to you) does all Lockdown 2000 claims to do (but fails at) and more, and $99 cheaper too (it's of course free, like all Rob's products).

Rob writes all this incredible stuff in his spare time. Days are spent hacking out the latest successes in the games industry. So one wonders what would ever happen if Rob Keir devoted his entire work day to PC Win32 application development. The rest of the ISV world would have to run for cover.

A visit to the Rob Keir Software site is a no lose proposition. Maybe you will really need all or several of his free products; maybe you will only enjoy seeing and using quality software engineering again. Whatever.

Wander over to Rob Keir Software now - and you'll be glad you did.