Version 1.1.5
June 1998
Whether you downloaded the software from our Web site or received it in the mail, you should have a file called AreaCode.prc on your computer or floppy disk. Here's how to install it on your Pilot:
Run the program InstallApp. Click on the Select button, set the List Files of Type to All Files, locate and select the file AreaCode.prc, and click Open. Now click on the Install button. The next time you HotSync your Pilot, the program will be downloaded.
Run the program INSTAPP.EXE, which is located in the C:/PILOT folder. Click on the Browse button, locate and select the AreaCode.prc file, and click Open. Now click on the Install button. The next time you HotSync your Pilot, the program will be downloaded.
From the Applications window on your Pilot, look for the icon labelled AreaCoder which looks like this:
When you start the application, you'll see this screen:
Tap on the "License" button, and you'll see this screen:
Use Graffiti (or the on-screen keyboard) to enter your serial number (supplied to you by Stevens Creek Software); when you're done, tap on the OK button. If you enter an incorrect number, the software will let you know. If necessary, tap on the Cancel button to dismiss the Enter Serial Number screen.
If you run into a problem, this probably means that when you provided your Pilot
name to Stevens Creek Software, you did so incorrectly. To find the name, tap on
the Applications icon in the lower left of your Pilot, then tap on HotSync.
Look at the top line of the screen and it will read, "Welcome, XXX". Read
the name which follows the word Welcome, and write it down exactly (including case,
i.e., whether the letters are upper-case letters like THIS or lower-case letters
like this) and email it to Stevens
Creek Software technical support and wait for a new serial number to be provided
to you.
Once you have licensed AreaCoder, you'll see the main screen of the program which looks like this:
At the bottom you see two fields where you will input two area codes; the current Area Code which is changing on the left, which we'll refer to from now on as the "From" field, and the new Area Code to which it is being changed, which we'll refer to as the "To" field. Let's say some of the numbers in Area Code 415 are being changed to Area Code 650. Enter those numbers in the two corresponding fields. When the program starts, the "From" field on the left will be active, so the first numbers you enter will go into that field.
To switch to the "To" field at the right, you can either tap in that field, or enter the "Tab" character in the Graffiti area (in case you aren't aware of it, you can enter a Tab character in the numeric Graffiti area; you don't have to switch to the left part of the Graffiti area).
There are three methods you can use to change Area Codes - interactively by name, interactively by exchange, and automatically by clipboard. These modes are governed by the pop-up list in the upper right of the screen:
We'll now discuss these three modes in turn:
After you enter three numbers in the "From" field, AreaCoder will search through your Address Book and find all the phone numbers which match that area code. It doesn't matter whether your phone numbers have a "1-" at the beginning, or if the Area Code is surrounded by parentheses as many people do ("(408) 725-0424"), or if you have a dash or a slash or a space or anything else before or after the Area Code; the program will find the phone numbers with that Area Code and display them, like this:
Once you have entered a "From" and a "To" Area Code, you need to select the numbers you want to change. Chances are they won't all change, since Area Codes are divided to create new ones, which means that some of the old numbers will stay the same, while others will need to be changed. To help you determine which ones need to be changed, AreaCoder uses part of each line to display some of the name of the person in your address book, part of the line to display the city in which that person lives, and part of the line to display the phone number. Note that the city is not an absolute clue either, since the person may live in a city whose Area Code has changed, but work in a city in the same Area Code which is not changing. But in any case, you'll decide.
To select the phone numbers to change, tap on the line containing that number. If you want to change a series of numbers on successive lines, you can tap on the first one you want changed, drag the stylus down the screen to the last one you want changed, and then pick the stylus up. Numbers which you have selected are highlighted (displayed in inverse video, white on black). If you make a mistake, just tap on a highlighted line and it will be unhighlighted.
When you're satisfied that you've selected the right ones, tap on the Change button and the numbers you selected will be changed. In order to provide feedback on what has happened, AreaCoder will redisplay the same set of numbers, with the highlights removed, but with the changed numbers now changed, like this:
The program allows you to change one screen's worth (10 numbers) at a time. Once you've changed everything you want to on that screen, if there are more entries in your Address Book, use the scroll arrows which appear at the lower right to scroll down to the next bunch of numbers, and repeat the process.
The "exchange" is the first three digits of the phone number which follow the Area Code. When an Area Code is divided, it is divided by exchanges. That is, some of the exchanges remain in the old Area Code, and other exchanges take on the new Area Code. You will find lists of the exchanges which are changing in your phone book and on the Internet which you can use to decide which Area Codes should be changed. To facilitate your work updating your Area Codes, we have assembled from various places on the Internet a series of listings of the exchanges corresponding to new Area Codes. You can view or download appropriate lists of exchanges from this page.
When you are in the Display Exchange mode (as selected by the pop-up list in the upper right of the main screen), once you enter a "From" Area Code the program will search through your address book for all the phone numbers in that Area Code, and will then present you with a numerically sorted list of the different exchanges it finds, like this:
Compare this list with the one you have in your Phone Book, on the Internet, etc., to decide which of the exchanges are changing. Tap on them individually to change individual exchanges, or tap and drag to select a whole range of exchanges, like this:
Now if you tap the Change button, AreaCoder will go through your address book, find all the phone numbers in the starting Area Code which have the selected exchanges, and automatically change them; at the end it will display a message telling you how many numbers were updated. If there are more than ten different exchanges, scroll arrows will appear in the lower right of the screen; tap the down arrow and select exchanges from the next group which are displayed, continuing until you are finished.
AreaCoder has a third mode in which it can automatically update all the phone numbers in your Address Book in a given Area Code. This mode involves putting onto the PalmPilot clipboard, using the Copy Menu command in some other application such as MemoPad, a list of the 3-digit exchanges whose Area Code is changing. Because you can find lists of changing exchanges on the Internet, there is the possibility of either downloading these lists directly to your PalmPilot (if you use your PalmPilot to browse the Web or receive email). Alternatively, you can browse the Web on your desktop computer, find a list of exchanges, cut and paste the list of numbers into a Memo in your Pilot Desktop software, and then HotSync the information into your PalmPilot.
The list of exchanges can be handled by AreaCoder in almost any format - with words included, with spaces, commas, new lines, or any other punctuation separating exchanges, or even with all the numbers bunched together with no spaces at all. The one limitation is that the PalmPilot clipboard can hold a maximum of 1000 characters. If you have a list of 3-digit exchanges separated by a space, this means the clipboard will hold a maximum of 250 different 3-digit exchanges, which is actually fewer than the number of exchanges typically involved in an Area Code switch. In this case, you'll need to first copy half the numbers to the clipboard, use AreaCoder to update those exchanges, and then repeat the process for the remaining numbers. Incidentally, if you try to copy to much information to the clipboard, the PalmPilot will inform you about the problem and then not copy anything to the clipboard, so there's no harm in trying.
Now when you start AreaCoder and select Display clipboard from the pop-up list (or if Display clipboard was the last active mode in AreaCoder), if there is something on the clipboard you'll see a display like this:
The program doesn't show you the entire contents of the clipboard, just the first few (maximum of nine) numbers that it finds so that you can verify that what you thought was on the clipboard really is on the clipboard.
Now enter the "From" and "To" Area Codes at the bottom, press Change, and any phone number in the "From" Area Code with one of the 132 (in this example) 3-digit exchanges found on the clipboard will have its Area Code updated. The screen will show you the progress being made as the program sorts through your Address Book, and a message at the end will let you know how many phone numbers were updated.
A special situation occurs if the Area Code in which you live is divided, which applies to all three of the modes described above. This is a special case because, if you're like most people, many or all of the phone numbers in your own Area Code will be entered in your Address Book without an Area Code at all. In order to deal with this situation, you'll need to configure AreaCoder properly. Tap on the Menu button, then tap on Set Home Area Code in the Options menu. You'll see this screen:
Enter your home Area Code in the top field, and then out of the six check boxes on the bottom, select the one which you want to use when you add the new Area Code to the numbers which don't currently have one. In other words, let's say that 725-0424 is a number in your current area code (408), and the Area Code for that number is changing to 666. If you want the number entered in your Address Book as "666-725-0424," select the first box. If you want it entered as "(666) 725-0424," select the last box. And so on. In case it isn't clear, on the second and third lines of choices, the difference between the choice on the left and the choice on the right is that the one on the right is followed by a space; the one on the left is not (and therefore will be immediately followed by the phone number).
Once you have entered your Home Area Code and clicked on OK, now if you enter 408 in the Change From field on the main screen, the program will display not only phone numbers with Area Code 408, but also those phone numbers which have no Area Code at all. When you select either kind, and tap on the Change button, they will be properly changed to the new Area Code.
AreaCoder doesn't keep a record of what it has done, so there is no "Undo" function. If you do make a mistake, though, it's easy to reverse, because all you have done is change the Area Code. Thus if you are changing Area Codes from 415 to 650, for example, all you need to do is to change the "From" Area Code to 650 and the "To" Area Code to "415", select the same names or exchanges (or use the Clipboard), and change them back again.
If you have any problems using AreaCoder, you can contact Stevens Creek Software in one of the following ways:
By email: | pilotsupport@stevenscreek.com |
By phone: | 1-408-725-0424 |
If you lose this manual, you can find this same information on the "About" screen of AreaCoder (tap on Menu, then on About AreaCoder in the Options menu).
Copyright 1997-8 by Stevens Creek Software
All Rights Reserved