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NOTIFY
A date reminder program
Copyright 1988, 1991 Jules Brenner
Runtime module copyright Microsoft, Inc.
v1.03 Released 7/91 as SHAREWARE. Users are invited to freely distribute
this program in unaltered form for non-commercial use. If you find yourself
using this program regularly (as in adding and leaving it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT),
please send $14 to:
Jules Brenner
P.O. Box 46116
Los Angeles, CA 90046
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WHAT IT DOES: It notifies you of dates and messages you put
in a file it creates and maintains (NOTICE.LST). It does
this automatically if you install NOTIFY in your AUTOEXEC
file. That way, NOTIFY is invoked every time you boot up.
If it's added as the last item in AUTOEXEC, the notification
will be on your screen before you go to work. Alternately,
it can be invoked from the command line.
SYNTAX: The format, including optional [bracketted] parameters:
C>NOTIFY [mo/day message] [CANCEL [mo/day]] [I] [E day] [R] [L] [S] [D]
Where:
NOTIFY w/o params & w/o notices prints this syntax message
NOTIFY w/o params & w/ notices presents MENU
NOTIFY (date) (message) adds message (notice) from command line
I prompts for date and message for new insert
E (day) (message) adds notice for every (day)s
R reads and reports all notices for current date
L lists all notices
CANCEL [date] deletes all notices for date specified or current date
S prints this syntax message
D prints the program documentation (this file)
Notice that the delimiter is a space. You do not use slashes
except in the date field. One of my programming philosophies
is to require as few keystrokes as possible.
There are two modes for input: directly from the DOS command
line and from the menu within the program.
To use in conjunction with AUTOEXEC.BAT, NOTIFY.EXE should be
placed in your root directory.
SOME SAMPLES:
C>NOTIFY 8/25 8:00 - Buy 200 shares MICROSOFT
Everything after the date and a space is the message -- no
matter how many more spaces or other characters are used. Length
is limited to 256 bytes including the date. This notice (string)
will be posted to NOTICE.LST and be brought up on the date
indicated. The year is not a parameter since many notices,
such as in a birthday list, are recurring. Deletions are done
by you, not by the program. When the program finds a match
between the current date and a date in the notice list, the
appropriate notice(s) for that day will be printed on your screen.
In the above example, when booting on 8/25 and only on 8/25.
You can notify yourself not only for birthdays, but what day to
shop for the birthday card, what day to mail it for best effect,
what day to call the birthday boy or girl to needle them about
their age. Whatever you find useful.
OTHER EXAMPLES:
NOTIFY 11/5 Shop for XMAS cards
NOTIFY 12/26 Call Tracy to confirm New Year's Eve
NOTIFY 8/2 Send check for NOTIFY (only fair)
NOTIFY 7/16 SELL MICROSOFT IF BELOW 90
There's more: you can also post recurring notices. To remind
yourself about paying the rent on time, enter:
NOTIFY E 25 SEND RENT CHECK
The `E' stands for Every. That is, on the day specified (25th)
for every month.
`I' is an alternate way to insert a new message. With:
NOTIFY I (cr)
the program will prompt you for the date and for the message.
You'll be returned to the DOS prompt.
In order to (R)ead the file for the current date's messages,
you must use the `R' switch. If you add NOTIFY to your
AUTOEXEC.BAT, be sure to include it in order to get the desired
results. As:
NOTIFY R (cr)
Just plain NOTIFY does something else as the syntax description
above indicates.
To see ALL the members of the notice list, use the `L' switch.
To check the syntax from the command line, use the `S' switch.
And, of course, the `D' switch lists out this file.
You may cancel notices at will. If you type
NOTIFY CANCEL
all notices for the current date (if your system has a clock or
if you entered the date) will be CANCELLED. If you type
NOTIFY CANCEL 6/28
all notices for 6/28 will be CANCELLED. Simple? We hope so.
To make it even more so, you can do all of the above from a
handy, internal menu. Just type
NOTIFY M (cr)
and it will be accessed.
UPDATES: There will be more work done on this to make it more
sophisticated and useful. To get a later version, watch for it
on the BBSs you contact. If you're a registered user (if you
send in your $14 payment), you'll get the latest version if it
has anything your current version doesn't have. Mention the
version number you're using.
10/10/88: Version 1.01: Small bug corrected.
1/15/89: Version 1.02: Compiled by QuickBasic 4.5 therefore
smaller .EXE file and quicker.
7/5/91: Version 1.03: Additions to file archive and to this
document file, including registration
option below. Registration form now
included.
I welcome your comments, reports on bugs and suggestions. You
can write even if you're not registered -- you won't be reported
to the BBS police. If you do register, please send a feed back
note with your registration check.
REGISTRATION OPTION:
As an alternate to remitting a fee, you may purchase our book, THE BRENNER
RESTAURANT INDEX, A Computerized Guide to Selected Restaurants in the Greater
Los Angeles Area. Its cover price is $12.95, plus $.91 sales tax if you live
in California, plus $1.05 shipping. The book may be ordered directly from us
and all you have to do is enclose a check or MasterCard/Visa authorization.
With your order, just mention that you wish to have your copy of NOTIFY.EXE
registered. As a registered user, you will receive an update as well as
additional JB Utilities. By ordering the book, you get two for one: the book
AND the registration.
And, now, the commercial:
Among restaurant books, this one is quite unique. It's organized in such a
way that it will help you pick your restaurant according to what
considerations are important on any given occasion. In L.A., with its
massive size, it's common to find yourself in a part of town you don't know
too well. Just check the restaurants in the Location section for those in
that specific area, and you get an immediate summary of the selected
restaurants there (and, on your way there). Another section sorts the
restaurants by cost in case you're on a budget or want to just consider a
certain price range. If you're in the mood for a particular kind of food,
check the Cuisine section. Finally, there's the alphabetical listing. All
restaurant listings include vital details, including special dishes, hours,
parking, credit cards, and more.
THE BRENNER RESTAURANT INDEX is available in some Los Angeles bookstores,
so if you live here, you can also ask for it in your local bookstore. If you
obtain it that way, just send us a note that you request registration for NOTIFY
and include a photocopy of your receipt.
CHARGE YOUR REGISTRATION:
Note to those using credit cards: Please include the following with your order:
your name (printed) as it appears on the card (include middle initial), the card
number, the expiration date and your signature. (See the registration form
included in the NOTIFY library (zip) file).
WARRANTY: No warranty expressed nor implied. To our
knowledge, there is nothing in this program that can be
considered a risk under normal usage, but the risk of using it
falls entirely to the user.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This was written with an assist by Jake
Angelin, who is credited also with doing the original BBS
uploading.
APOLOGEA: Because of time constraints, this first version
was rushed out a bit. I therefore have some trepidation
about how bug free it is. One thing I know: there isn't
a lot of error trapping, so be careful to use the prescribed
syntax carefully. Any departure from it may cause unknown
results. I take no responsibility, but I do recommend you
practice on a dummy file to learn your way around the program.
I hope you'll find the effort worth while.
TECHNICAL NOTES: NOTIFY was originally written with QuickBasic
3.1, under DOS 2.1. Of course, it works under subsequent
versions of DOS. DOS is copyright Microsoft, Inc.
LAST WORD: I have a preference for utilities that are simple,
flexible and not memory resident. I wrote this program as an
alternative to a similar program I had problems with. Mainly
it was too verbose. You'd get a report even when booting on a
day for which there were no notices. You'd also get a large
logo and another appeal for the registration fee. No good.
Outside of the extra time it takes to boot the program and
check for messages, you won't be aware of NOTIFY until you
get a date match or if you want to use it intentionally. It
is otherwise invisible and, best of all, does NOT take away
those increasingly precious bytes of memory!
I hope you find it useful.
Jules Brenner
Los Angeles 1991