GCW Games & More & Wacky Windows Companion/gcw.iso/win/util/batmo/uzpower.txt

Text File | 1994-10-31 | 9KB | 193 lines

OVERVIEW
--------
    UZPower is a power monitor program designed specifically for
power-managed laptop computers running MS Windows (TM) 3.x. Its only
function is to constantly monitor the status of the battery, and
indicate the remaining charge and warn you when it becomes dangerously
low.

    Many laptop vendors do not bundle this simple feature in their
laptops.  Instead, they rely on some other mechanism for warning you
when the battery charge becomes low, such as blinking lights or LCD
displays somewhere on the laptop (usually in a place where you are not
looking), or with a pattern of beeps, which either is overridden by the
sound drivers that are bundled with other software, or which are easily
overheard, and which drain the battery even more. If you have lost work
before because you missed these warnings, you'll find this program
indispensable.

    UZPower, simply pops up a warning message when it detects LOW
and CRITICAL battery levels, which you have to dismiss to keep working.
In addition, UZPower tries to determine remaining battery charge by
automatically querying the computer's Advanced Power Management (APM)
subsystem.  UZPower is only as smart as the APM of your laptop, but if
your laptop does not provide this feature, UZPower will try to show an
ESTIMATE by guessing from past performance.  Once it has an accurate
estimate, UZPower constantly shows the remaining battery time on its
icon. In a sense, UZPower learns your power usage after running for a
while.

INSTALLATION
------------
    There are many ways to install UZPower, and one simple alternative
is to follow these instructions:

1) Make a separate directory (using mkdir from the DOS prompt) and copy
   the files from your distribution medium (either extract it from a
   downloaded archive file (PKZIP, LHARC, ZOO, ...), or copy from the
   diskette) into that directory.  It is highly recommended to install
   into a newly created directory, so that you can easily upgrade or
   uninstall later.

   NOTE: if you have a previous version of UZPower, we still recommend
   installing into a new directory. For example, if you named the old
   directory UZPOWER, you can rename it to UZPOWER.OLD. After having
   installed the new software, copy the old license file (eg.
   UZPOWER.OLD\UZPOWER.LIC ), configuration (UZPOWER.OLD\UZPOWER.CFG)
   and data file (eg. UZPOWER.OLD\UZPOWER.DAT) to the freshly installed
   directory.  This will save you the time (and cost!) of reregistering
   the software and keeps your old data. When you are sure that the new
   revision is working well, you can remove the old version by deleting
   the directory UZPOWER.OLD.

2) if you have not done so already, create a new program item.  You can
   do this in the Program Manager either by

   a) dragging the "UZPower" executable file from the File Manager into
      a program group (consult your Windows manual);
   or by
   a) restoring a program group (for example, by double-clicking on its
      icon); and

   b) choosing the "File" and "New..." menu entry of the Program Manager.
      Choose "Program item" and hit "OK".  Set its "Description" to
      "UZPower", its "Command Line" to "uzpower" and its working directory
      to the directory where you installed the UZPower files. When you are
      done, the "UZPower" icon should be in the currently selected program
      group.

3) double-click on the UZPower icon.  UZPower is started when its icon
   shows on the desktop.

    Once you are sure that UZPower works, you can put it in the
"Startup" program group, so that it automatically starts running when
Windows begins.

    To uninstall UZPower in the event you are not going to use it,
simply reverse the steps above, that is:

1) stop running the program.

2) remove the program item from any program group that you added it to.

3) remove the files from the directory where you copied them to.


USAGE
-----
    UZPower runs purely as an icon, with 4 additional menu options
in its System menu. These options are displayed and selectable when you
single-click the left mouse button on its (running) icon.

- The "About" menu option displays version and licensing information.

- The "Full Now" option allows you to tell UZPower that the battery is
  full.  On laptops whose APM BIOS does not give remaining battery time,
  UZPower tries to determine full battery charge by making sure you have
  charged it for at least 2 consecutive hours. Since it may be fairly
  rare that you will have the laptop turned on for this long while you
  are charging, you can occasionally use this menu option to give
  UZPower a hint that the battery is full. UZPower will take it from
  there to make its estimates of remaining battery power: it will
  automatically determine the time it takes until the battery goes to
  LOW level, accounting for suspended periods.

  NOTE: this option is enabled only in the HIGH battery status.

- The "Accurate" / "Inaccurate" / "No Guess" toggling menu entry allows
  to select the guessing policy of remaining battery life (for systems
  that do not have the most powerful APM features). A "toggling" menu
  entry shows you the mode that you can change to (not the mode you are
  in, unfortunately).

  In "accurate" mode (which is the default), UZPower guesses at
  remaining battery time only from known states. This is the recommended
  policy in the beginning (together with the "Full Now" option above).
  For example, this mode will only display approximations when you have
  charged the battery for 2 hours (while UZPower is running).

  In "inaccurate" mode, UZPower will start guessing more frequently.
  The guesses are still pretty good.

  "No guess" means to disable the guessing functionality. This can be
  used if you don't like the estimates that UZPower displays.

- The "Topmost" / "Not topmost" toggling menu entry allows to force the
  icon to always be visible.

The icon indicates current charging status as a power cord, and at-a-
glance current battery power status with a gauge that shows either HIGH,
LOW or CRITICAL charge. It displays a warning message (which you have to
dismiss) when the battery charge becomes LOW or CRITICAL. You usually
have 5 minutes of battery life from the LOW power warning, and about 1
minute after the CRITICAL warning, depending on battery usage!  In
addition, if your APM subsystem has the feature, it will keep track of
the remaining battery charge in hours:minutes on its icon. If your APM
does not support this, it will try to estimate from past history, and
show an approximate remaining time.

LIMITATIONS
-----------
    Microsoft Windows (and Windows for Workgroups) version 3.11 has
bugs related to APM, which can cause the computer to hang while running
UZPower. The Microsoft Knowledge Base (on CompuServe, GO MSKB, search
for APM), contains problems reports that have the same symptoms, and
Microsoft admits that they have problems. For this reason, UZPower will
pop up a warning message. Before you continue, you should make sure that
you don't have any unsaved work.  If your computer hangs, complain to
Microsoft, and to your vendor. In either case, please let UZful Software
know.

    Since APM is still fairly recent, not all laptops have the most
powerful APM features. If UZPower detects that your laptop does not, it
will preface any of its estimates with the word "approximate".  If you
require more accurate predictions, demand from your laptop vendor that
they implement the full APM version 1.1 specification.

    Also, since the APM specification is so recent, some laptops'
APM BIOS does not adhere correctly to the APM standards. There is no way
to detect all the error cases (except at great cost), only that you'll
notice that UZPower will not run as designed (and described above). You
can make sure that your laptop has a good chance of working by running
the enclosed APMEXAM utility. If while running on battery power (not
connected to the outlet) it passes the first 4 items on the checklist as
shown in the example in APMEXAM.TXT, it should work. Otherwise, complain
to your vendor, if this is important to you.

    Unfortunately, UZPower can only do meaningful estimates of
remaining battery power if the computer has some minimal Advanced Power
Management features. If it determines that your computer does not have
sufficient APM features, it will pop up an error message with "No
Advanced Power Management!".


SUPPORT
-------
    If you are a registered user, UZful Software provides on-line
support via e-mail at  [e-mail] . Before you report a problem,
please look at FAQ.TXT. When you report a problem, please include
- the version of UZPower that you are running,
- the type of PC you have, and
- the symptoms of the problem (any special circumstances that make
  the problem appear? How often does it occur? Can you reproduce the
  problem?).  The more info you provide, the quicker we can fix it
  (please include the output of APMEXAM in your problem report).

If you have additional suggestions on how to make our products even more
useful, please drop us a line.

UZful Software
"We make the useful simple."