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Table of Content
I. Intro
Tired of those battery management programs that only tell you
the percentage of the battery? Power Center is a useful program to help you manage your
laptop computer battery. Most of the similar programs only display the percentage of the
power left in the battery. One of the best parts of the Power Center is the it can
estimate the amount of time the battery can hold up by learning by itself. It recalibrate
its estimation each time the battery lever drops and keeps a record on it. Therefore, the
estimation gets more and more accurate everytime. Power Center provides every single bit
of information you need regarding your battery. With the help of the Control Center, you
can set the Power Center to inform you whenever the battery is lower than a specific
percentage, at a specific percentage, when the AC power goes on, or when the AC power goes
off. You can set it to be always on top of every other programs or to hide all the buttons
to conserve previous screen space.
II. System Requirement
Pentium-90 or above suggested
Windows 95/98 (Not compatible with NT)It is now known that Power Center is not
compatible with Windows NT due the to security feature in the environment which prevents
Power Center from retrieving battery information. According to a
Microsoft support engineer, there is no way to retrieve battery information under Windows
NT.
1 MB hard drive space
Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Library SP1
Computer supports APM (Advanced Power Management) or ACPI (Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface) and equips with at least one battery
III. Installation
If you have not previously installed Microsoft Visual Studio Runtime, you must
have it installed before Power Center can be run correctly. See Appendix B for more information.
Power Center setup files are compressed into one
single zip file. Unzip the file using WinZip (downloadable at www.winzip.com)
and run the enclosed setup.exe. Follow the direction to install Power Center
Removal
To uninstall Power Center, goto Control Panel and
run Add/Remove Programs. Double-click on the item titled "Power Center."
Uninstallation program will automatically be run.
IV. Using Power
Center
Power Center window displays only the battery information. To access
options, right-click on the Power Center icon in the system tray. A list of options will
be available.
When Power Center is minimized, it disappears from the task list
(available by pressing ALT-TAB). Left-click on the Power Center icon in the system tray to
make the window available.
Options
Exit |
Terminates Power Center without prompt |
| Control Center |
Allow user to set informing events |
| Compact |
Minimize display area (See below for more info) |
| Full |
Normal display |
| Start with Windows |
Start Power Center when every time Windows starts |
| Always on top |
Make the Power Center window always on top of all other
programs |
| Register |
Display registration information and allow
user to input obtained registration code |
| About |
Display program information and contacts |
Control Center
Battery low warning |
Display a message when the battery is running lower than the
specified percentage |
| Percentage informing |
Display a message when the battery is at the specified
percentage |
| AC On |
Display a message when the AC power is turned on |
| AC Off |
Display a message when the AC power is turned off |
Compact Display
The compact display is specificly for people who are in need of
screen space. When in compact display mode, the "always on top" setting is
automatically set to true.
To move the compact display window, left click on the Power Center
icon and hold the button. Move the window to the new location and release the button.
To terminate Power Center under compact mode, you can either double
click on the Power Center icon or choose Exit from the option menu (see above).
If you hold your mouse cursor on the percentage bar for approximately
one second, more detailed information about the battery is displayed.
V. Registration
Power Center is a shareware program. You are allowed to evaluate
Power Center for thirty (30) days. After the evaluation period, you must either purchase a
license for Power Center, or uninstall Power Center completely from your computer. Once
you've registered Power Center, you do not have to pay for further updates.
Acceptable Methods
- Check (Payable to Tien-Hao Lan)
- Cash
- Money order
Detail
- Registration fee - US$5.00
- Enclose a 3 by 5 card with your E-MAIL ADDRESS and REGISTRATION
NAME printed neatly
- Indicate the TITLE OF THE PROGRAM that is being
registered
- Send to the address:
Tien-Hao Lan
P.O. Box 507192
San Diego, CA 92150-7192
VI. Frequently asked questions
VII. Contact the Author
In occasion you encounter problems regarding the Power Center program,
or you simply have an opinion, please contact the author as soon as you can.
Appendix A. Revision History
1.0 - Initial release - March 17, 1998
1.01 - Minor improvement - March 30, 1998
1.1 - Minor bug fix - May 19, 1998
1.12 - Minor improvement - December 12, 1998
- Improved color display supporting Windows Theme
1.25 - Major update - January 1, 1999
- Added "full" and
"compact" display
Modified "About" section
Bug fix
Appendix B.
Microsoft Visual Basic Runtime 6.0
What is Microsoft Visual Basic Runtime?
The Visual Basic 6 Runtime is a collection of Dynamic Link Library (.DLL) files from
Microsoft which are required to run programs written in Visual Basic 6, a popular Windows
programming language. All of my programs are written in Visual Basic 6, as are many other
common programs today, and these files are required for all of them. The files available
from the link below contain, in most cases, the latest versions of these DLL's available
and are fully backwards compatible. Any program which works with an earlier version will
work with these updated ones as well. The updates simply give the programmer more advanced
features to use in designing his program.
You MUST have these updated DLL's installed on your system first before you can install
any of my programs. If you do not, you will not be able to run my programs, although you
should be able to finish the setup process. These files are packaged in a self-installing
exe file called MSVBVM60.exe.
What Is Installed?
Below is the list of files that are installed by Microsoft Visual Basic Runtime
| ASYCFILT.DLL |
COMCAT.DLL |
MSVBVM60.DLL |
| OLDAUT32.DLL |
OLDPRO32.DLL |
STDOLDE2.TLB |
Do I Already Have
Microsoft Visual Basic Runtime?
Most likely, no. Visual Basic 6.0 was released after the release of Microsoft Windows
98 and therefore was not incorporated into the operating system. Unless you have
previously installed the runtime, it is required that you download and install the runtime
library.
Download
Click on any of the links below and download the file.
Install
Just download this file first, then doubleclick on the MSVBVM60.exe file and it will
install itself. It may require two passes. The first pass is required to update the OLE
Automation files, while the second pass occurs because it needs OLE automation installed
to be able to register the included OCX controls. So you may be prompted during the
installation to reboot your system and then return and run the installation a second time.
You don't need to understand this exactly, just run the installation twice if you are
prompted to do so.
Note that if you are prompted that your system contains a newer version of one of these
files, go ahead and select the option to "keep it" and not replace it with the
one from this installation.
Uninstall
There is no uninstall for the VB6 Runtime updates. There should be no need for this
since these are standard Dynamic Link Library (DLL) Files from Microsoft and are designed
to be fully backwards compatible, that is... any program designed to run on an earlier
version of this file should run normally on these updated versions.
Nevertheless, some people have occasionally asked how to uninstall these files. The
only way to do that is to make a copy of the files currently installed on your hard drive
first. Using the list, above copy all of those files presently in your Windows\System
folder to a backup directory, say C:\Windows\Backup. Later, should you decide for some
unknown reason, to return to your previous versions, you can do this very simply by
exiting windows entirely to a DOS prompt and typing: "copy C:\Windows\Backup
c:\Windows\System" (without quotes) and overwriting the newer files with your
original copies. You could then delete any of the other files which were not present to
begin with.
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