• Now allows registration by entering electronic keyed code that will cause the program to metamorphosize (“bloom”) into a fully enhanced version, sans the registration screens. Hopefully this will cut down on paper, packaging, and disks. It may be the most environmentally correct way to distribute software.
• Data compaction via encryption now makes it possible to fit the entire McZip™ on an 800k floppy. Previous versions required a 1440K floppy.
• Better icons, especially the small icons and data file icons.
• 32-bit compatability.
• The ability to start a search in the West or East, affording the possiblity of reducing the search time of previous versions to half of what is was… (in earlier versions).
• When searching, McZip now tells you what it is you are looking for (i.e. City, State, or Zip) instead of just the name of what your looking for. (ex. “Looking for the city of New York”, instead of “Looking for New York”)
• New floating, modeless dialog box interface. You can drag the window anywhere. Includes close box for quick quit (except when in help.)
• Better window refreshing. (The window does not refresh if you drag it while searching, until through searching. This is currently intentional. We didn’t add our nifty progress indicator either… for one reason… it slowed down a search.)
RELEASE NOTES
=====================
McZip is a stand alone application that enables the Macintosh user to access over 42,120 cities and five digit zip codes in all of the continental United States, Alaska, Hawai‘i, and U.S. territories in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, including the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. This is approximately 1,000 pages of data.
It is compatible with all Macs from the Mac Plus up, running Systems 4.8 (with or without multifinder) and is also compatible with System 7 and 32-bit addressing.
The user may search by either a city, a state (two letter code), or a zip code. McZip will return the complete parameters based on the single input of any one parameter. A complete search of all 42,000+ cities (on the average) takes between 2 and 2.5 minutes when run from a hard disk. Ultimately the time spent depends on the speed of the environment in which it is run (i.e. speed of the CPU, hard disk seek time, etc.).
The search is sequential. Searching by street or Zip+4 is not an option. (This is available separately for about $500. CD-ROM required.)
Keep uppercase city letters uppercase. The city search parameter is case sensitive.
If the general location of the City, State, or Zip is known, the sequential file search time can be cut in half by clicking on the EAST or WEST checkbox, which gives the user the option to start searching in the East or West first. For instance if you are looking for Honolulu, it would be best to click the WEST checkbox and save yourself a minute of searching.
A search may be aborted at any time by pressing down the “command” and “period” keys at the same time and holding them down until an interruption is accomplished.
For the stressed individual ridden with anxiety two minutes may seem like a long time. Compared to driving down to the local post office and thumbing through all the cities in the entire zip code book with cumpulsed fervor, it isn’t, and it will save you gas.
The program can also be run from the floppy. Albeit this is slower than running from a hard disk, but if you only use McZip™ occasionally you may wish to leave it on a floppy to save space on your hard disk. If speed is important, move the program to your hard disk for an eight-fold increase in speed.
Usefulness:
• Need the state and zip code for a little town like Mexican Hat? No problem.
• McZip can be a very helpful utility to look up the correct spelling for a city such as Anahola on the island of Kauai, or any other city, knowing only the zip code.
• Identify the location of a package, or receipted mail by using the zip code ID on your yellow pick-up slip before going to the post office to pick it up.
• Find all the cities named “Cumberland” or “Sunshine” (or whatever) in the U.S. (Meterologists may use this one for spicing up their national temperature reports.)
• New uses for McZip are still being discovered. Do you have one?
Important Tips:
• Move the program on to your hard disk to improve speed approximately eight-fold. Operating from a floppy disk is S-L-O-W. (But not as slow as it would be to find a city like Mexican Hat by hand using the USPS 5-digit catalog, knowing only the name.)
• Only do a search with one parameter; city, state, or zip.
• Once a specified city is found, McZip keeps looking for more cities with the same name. Ex — Searching for Portland in the city field will bring up Portland, Maine as well as Portland, Oregon.
• Only two letters are expected for the state field, such as HI for Hawai‘i. These letters may be lower case if you wish.
• The city field IS case sensitive. In other words, enter "New York" with the capital letters instead of "new york," which would not find a match.
• If you have copied a screen, when you paste... you are pasting a graphic bitmap. This means you can not paste into TeachText™ and similar applications in which you can only paste text.
• Only five digits are expected for the zip field, such as 96836.
• McZip may abort to a help screen if a search parameters has an error.
• You may go directly to the Help Screen by clicking on the Search button with no parameters defined for the search (leaving all the edit fields empty.)
• From the Help Screen you may go directly to a window containing all the abbreviations for the States and territories. You may find this very handy.
• You may terminate a search at any time by pressing command-period.
• Ballon Help for the application icon of McZip in the Finder is available.
Registering:
==========
Send $10 plus $3 for the complete version for the entire United States ON DISK (800k).
OR
To register this copy, electronically upgrading it to a full working version, and eliminate the registration screens in the process just send $10 by check or money order. We will supply you with your unique registration code.
You may also call or fax for your registration code if you have an American Express card. Please include your name, number, card expiration date, and a signature. Call (808) 947-6543 M-F, 8-11, 2-6, Hawaiian Standard Time (2-3 hours earlier than California time)
If you use this software please register it. Mahalo! (Thank-you!)
COCONUT INFO®
P.O. Box 75460
Honolulu, HI 96836
VOICE (808) 947-6543 (8-11, 2-5 HST)
FAX (808) 947-6544 (24HRS.)
E-MAIL ADDRESSES:
AppleLink: COCONUT.INFO
GEnie: COCONUT.INFO
AOL: Coconuts1
Notices:
Portions of the source code may be copyrighted by Microsoft Inc.
Apple, Multifinder, TeachText, and AppleLink are registered trademarks
of Apple Computer.
McZip is a trademark of Coconut Info
Coconut Info is a registered tradename of Coconut Info.
Disclaimer:
Apple Computer has absolutely nothing to do with any of this except make the hardware that makes all of this possible.
