miXed is a little program that takes a given number of characters and generates every possible variation of these. For example, there are nine ways you can mix up the letters in "abc": abc, acb, bac, bca, cab, cba.
So that's what miXed does, it generates all possible combination of letters/ numbers for you. It does up to 9 characters. You ask, why nine? Well simply because 9 characters have 362880 combinations, and when it's saved to the disk 362880 has to be multiplied by 10 (since there are 9 characters that have to be saved for each combination plus a separating space key). Generating all possible combinations of 9 characters takes 3.4 MB of HD space. 10 characters would take up 10 times this size, and I think that it's hard enough to read through 3.4 MB of information as it is, and if you have the patience to read through 34MB of variations, then you should talk to a professional about your problems!
--==< Uses for miXed 1.0.b >==--
How many times have you peeked over someone's shoulders only to catch part of his/her password? Well miXed might just solve this problem of yours! If you are sure that the person used, for example, "i", "c", and "r" in his password then you can take these letters, punch them into miXed and see all possible combination of them! And maybe this will help you figure out what the password is!
Another use could be to descramble a word...
--==< User Guide >==--
When you boot up miXed, nothing special happens... So you should select New from the File menu. This should bring up a dialog box, where you can enter the characters you want to mix up. These may be numbers or letters. After entering the characters press the return key or click on the OK button.
After this a window should appear, followed shortly by a dialog box asking you where to save the combinations. Save the combinations and then open up the file in your favorite word-processor.
You can tell when miXed has finished saving the combinations because a cursor starts blinking in the upper left corner of the active window! At this point I advise you to quit miXed (read on for further debate on this issue).
When I started writing miXed I was thinking that I will create my own word-processor allowing the user to at least view the different combinations from within miXed. But then I realized that the Macs built in text editor is too small, and I couldn't get it to work properly either! So I decided it'll be easier to let everyone use their own word processor. Plus this way the whole combination generating process is speeded up about 200 times!
While it took 22 secs to generate all different combinations for 6 numbers using TEdit, now it takes about 1 seconds!
NOTICE: as this is only a Beta, there are still a few bugs here and there! They shouldn't freeze your computer, but they might lower the user-friendliness of miXed! Read more about these in the "Known Bugs" section!
I advice you to quit miXed after every combination generation! I've noticed that things don't happen as they're supposed to if you generate all too many numbers after each other!
If you do decide to generate several combinations without quitting miXed, you MUST CLOSE THE WINDOW AFTER EACH COMBINATION GENERATION! miXed is not designed for multiple window handling! And if you don't close the window before a new combination, YOUR COMPUTER MIGHT FREEZE!!!
--==< Speed issues >==--
I've run miXed on a PB 5300cs with 16MB of RAM plus 3MB of Virtual RAM under OS 8.0. I've also tested it on a Performa 400 with 6MB of RAM. Off course it was a lot slower on the Performa, but even there it took only 5 seconds to generate the combination of 8 characters. On a PPC you should not notice too much of a delay. On my PB it takes about 3 secs to generate the combination of 9 characters! And maybe another 2 to save the combinations to the HD! If your computer seems as though it has frozen wait for about 30 seconds, if nothing has happened after that then it might have frozen.
--==< Error Dialogs >==--
- RAM errors: miXed can run just fine with 1000KB of RAM! If you, however, want to generate the combination of 9 characters you might get a dialog informing you that there's not enough RAM available! If this happens quit miXed and in the Finder, change the amount of RAM available to miXed in the Get Info Box (refer to your Mac user manual for more info about allocating more RAM to an application). I usually just change the RAM from 1000 to 4000 KB. With 4000KB miXed should have no problems generating 9 character combinations!
- HD errors: if there was an error while trying to save the combination an error dialog will appear informing you about it.
- Character errors: if you enter one, two or more than nine characters, an error dialog will inform you about miXed's limitations! (I'm sorry but if you can't figure out the combinations of a two letter word, you shouldn't be sitting in front of a computer!)
- Key usage errors: if you press down a key without the apple button, an error will appear informing you that text editing is not allowed.
--==< Known Bugs >==--
As I said before miXed is a beta and it still has bugs.
- The biggest bug is that miXed can only handle one window at a time! So ALWAYS close the active window before generating a new combination sequence!
- I've noticed on the Performa that it doesn't always allow me to save in the same folder as where miXed is! It might be something to do with system 7.1...
- If you select New from the File menu, and then click on cancel in the dialog box, the Save dialog will still appear!
- After generating several combinations the Save dialog might not save to where it is supposed to!
--==< Freeware >==--
miXed 1.0.b is a freeware. This means that you don't have to pay for using it, and you may distribute it freely to whomever you want, but only under these conditions:
1.When distributing miXed 1.0.b you will include this "Read Me!" file as well!
2.You will not change anything in the application miXed 1.0.b nor the "Read Me" file, without my permission. (If you want to change it around I probably won't refuse your request, it's just that I'd like to have a copy of the new program)
3.You will not blame me for any damage that is done to your (or anybody else's) computer because of miXed 1.0.b.
--==< Disclaimer >==--
I take NO responsibility to whatever happens to anybody's computer because of the use of miXed 1.0.b or any related use. I have tested miXed 1.0.b extensively not only in it's final state of existence, but also as I was developing it. I have tested miXed 1.0.b on a PowerBook running under OS 8.0, as well as on a Performa 400 running under System 7.1 without any problems. The coding (as I released this software originally) did NOT contain any "destructive" traps nor purposes (nor was it virus infected to the best of my knowledge!). So if anything goes wrong because of miXed 1.0.b I WILL NOT take responsibility for it! If you use miXed 1.0.b it's under YOUR OWN responsibility!
--==< THE END >==--
miXed 1.0.b may be updated in the future if I'm bored or there's any demand for it!
Do me a favor and if you wanna spread this file around, don’t change anything in it!!! If you do decide to change it please send me a copy of the new file to me! You can reach me at ProZaq@usa.net. You can send me attached files to ProZaq@hotmail.com
Also I would not like some punk’s name instead of mine on the end of the file, if you know what I mean!!!!
