by Douglas Mechaber, MCSE, MCNE, CCDA, LACS

Whack! No it’s not Tony Soprano taking care of some goombahs who violated protocol. Whacking a web site refers to the process of copying a web site to local storage so that you may view it later when more convenient, or downloading it over a slow connection overnight so that you can view it offline without waiting.

The software is advertised for Windows 95/98/NT, but I ran it on Windows 2000. The minimum requirements listed are a 486 CPU, 8 MB of RAM, and 10 MB of free disk space. I think these requirements are understated. On my under-powered 200 MHz machine with 192 MB of RAM, WebWhacker slowed down response enough that I had trouble switching between programs, something that usually only happens between major programs, such as Office 2000.

Installation proceeded smoothly, from the installation CD. Included with the CD was a small insert advertising other Squirrel products, on the CD (but no V.I. P. key for these others). A PaperDirect - crass commercialism at its worst - catalog completes the package. To register the program so WebWhacker won’t expire, you type in the usual series of 5 blocks of numbers.

WebWhacker is fairly intuitive. There are some advanced features that let you filter various elements from web sites: pictures, pictures over a certain size, and so on. The basic window shows four panes, and a familiar tool bar overhead, similar to browser controls. The first two panes to the left represent locations and subfields within categories for storage. The browser is to the right, in the larger pane. The bottom pane lists the progress, and size of the current file or location being downloaded. There are three tabs on the bottom of this pane, to change to display errors, and so on. A floating tool bar, in the default installation lets you either make a quick copy or grab a web site.

There are two ways to whack a site: use your browser in the normal fashion, and select Grab from WebWhacker, or use the URL window within WebWhacker. I selected only two levels (which is 3), beyond the opening page to download of the Novell site. You may enter a username and password if some site requires security. You also select whether to whack immediately, or schedule a later download.

The problem I had was that I limited pictures to 100KB or smaller, in order to maximize my whack efficiency, as I still have a dial up connection. I received constant script errors, because many pictures were missing from my download when I tried to examine the Novell site in the WebWhacker storage. The manual does not track the software version I set up. Under Tools, you select Options, not Preferences, to find Proxy settings and other Browser settings (under Internet). The setting to allow proxy pass through, as indicated in the manual, doesn’t exist.

This program is the one that lent its name to the task of downloading a web site for later review ("Whacked"), but with the advent of cable and DSL, is no longer as relevant. WebWhacker is most useful when you have a web site presentation to do remotely, where only (or no) dial-up connection exists. The other use, downloading or notifying you when a web site has changed, is less useful. Other web sites will remind you when sites change. Scheduling a site for later download, since most of us aren’t interested in the whole site, but only a small part, typically buried many levels deep, is simply not as useful as it was a year or more ago.