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OS/2 Help File
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1999-04-10
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70KB
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551 lines
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 1. About Carrie R. Lust ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Carrie R. Lust is a highly configurable phone-cost and online time tracking
utility for OS/2 in the tradition of Richard Papo's "MemSize" systemresources
monitor.
You may choose freely which values out of 11 available should be displayed, may
let Carrie warn you in several ways (Beep, messagebox, etc.) when certain
events happen (end of current unit, user configured time limit reached, user
configured costs reached, etc.) and may log all connections to a file.
The scheme, after which the charges to be applied are determined, may be
configured by the user to suits her/his needs (though especially this feature
is still far from what I want it to be ...)
What's new?
If you want to find out, what is new or was changed in this release, see the
version history
Please note that there are more things that could (and will) be included into
the program in future versions. Send me your comments about what you would like
to have ... (though I do not promise anything ;-).
"Registering"
Carrie R. Lust is mailware, so please write me a short mail (or a postcard or
something if you like) if you use Carrie R. Lust! (see also "The Top 10 reasons
why not to register Carrie R. Lust" ;-)
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 2. The windows ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This section should inform you about the various windows of Carrie R. Lust,
what functions they offer and how to use them.
But as most of them are pretty self-explaining and I am a little bit overworked
right now, it doesn't ;-)
Anyway, if you have got a question, just write me a mail!
Just a few short notes:
You may change the font and color of the display window by drag'n'drop
from the appropriate palettes. This information will be automatically
saved and restored at the next start of the program.
Pressing mousebutton 2 in the window will bring up a context menu, where
you can perform various interesting actions.
You can drag the window across the screen by clicking inside and dragging
while holding the mousebutton. The position of the window on the screen
will also be saved.
You can hide or show the titlebar by double clicking inside the window
with mousebutton 1. The state of the titlebar will also be saved.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 3. The settings ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Press mousebutton 2 in the main window and choose settings from the context
menu. The settings window will appear, where you may adjust various, well ...
settings :-)
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 4. Commandline arguments ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Carrie R. Lust accepts the following commandline arguments:
-a [n]
If you give this parameter at program start, Carrie R. Lust will
automatically start counting the connection time and you do not have to
press the "Go" button first. The optional parameter that may be given
after "-a" is the number of seconds Carrie R. Lust shall wait before
starting to count the time.
Example: If you type "clust -a 10" on the command line, Carrie R. Lust
will wait 10 seconds and then automatically start counting the time. If
you just type "clust -a", Carrie R. Lust will start counting the time, as
soon as it is loaded. If you just type "clust" without the "-a"
parameter, you have to start the counter manually by pressing the "Go"
button.
Note: If you enabled the connection-autodetect (see below) this feature
will get disabled.
-d [com [n]]
If you give this parameter at program start, Carrie R. Lust will try to
automatically detect, when the connection starts and ends and start and
stop the counter accordingly. You may give the number of the com-port
that should be checked ("com"), 1 is the default. With "n" you may give
the number of seconds it takes from when the connection is established
until a carrier is available.
Example: "clust -d 2 10" means "Check COM2 and as the connection is
actually running for some time until there is a carrier, add this 10
seconds to the initial counter value".
Note: This feature is still experimental and not guaranteed to work.
-D [com [n]]
Pretty much the same as "-d" above, with the exeption, that when the
connection ends, the counter is reset and the window is hidden. When the
connection starts the window is automatically shown. Useful if you start
Carrie R. Lust from your startup folder or similar - just have it running
and it will automagically appear when you need it, do its work and vanish
again afterwards.
-f filename
This parameter tells Carrie R. Lust, which file she shall read the
charges data from. If you do not give this parameter, Carrie R. Lust will
try to load the data from the default file "charges.dat" in the current
directory.
-s filename
This parameter tells Carrie R. Lust, to what file the total connection
time shall be written to. This information is restored when you start the
program again. This may be useful e.g. when you have a certain amount of
hours free with your internet provider and want to keep track how much of
that time you already used. If you do not give this parameter, this
information will not be saved/restored.
Note: You may change this also in the settings window. The name will be
stored in CLUST.INI.
-t
If you give this parameter, the timelimit will be applied to the total
connection time and not to the connection time of the current session.
This will not work (i.e. parameter will be ignored) when "units" is
selected.
-h
If you give this parameter, the online help will be disabled. Useful when
you start Carrie R. Lust from some other directory, so she will not
display the "Help file not found" message.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 5. Remote control ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
An interesting feature of Carrie R. Lust is the ability to control actions of
the program remotly via a named pipe ("\pipe\carrierlust"). Using the named
pipe, other processes can send commands to Carrie R. Lust e.g. to start or stop
the counter. This works even if the process issuing the command is running on a
different computer (connected to the computer, the program is running on, via a
network).
By now, Carrie R. Lust understands the following commands:
start Starts the counter
stop Stops the counter
reset Resets the counter
hide Hides the display window
show Shows the display window
exit Quits Carrie R. Lust
You can use OS/2's "echo" command, to control Carrie R. Lust from a
commandline:
[c:\]echo start > \pipe\carrierlust
e.g. will start the counter.
If Carrie R. Lust would be running on a computer different from the one you
are using, the line should read:
[c:\]echo start > \\server\pipe\carrierlust
where "server" is the name of the computer Carrie R. Lust is running on.
This feature is very useful, if you want to include Carrie R. Lust in your
login script; you can start the counter as soon as the connection is
established and stop it when you disconnect, simply by sending the appropriate
commands through the pipe.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6. Past, present & future ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This section provides info about the history of Carrie R. Lust, some info about
(bugs in) the current release and things that may be added or changed in the
future.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6.1. Version history ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Here you can see what was added or changed in the different versions of the
program.
Version 1.15
"Bugfix!" the programmer cried ...
(Hopefully) fixed the bug that caused Carrie R. Lust to sometimes
crash on exit.
The limit can now be used with the total connection time rather than
with the session connection time if user wants (see commandline
arguments for more info)
Reduced the flickering of the display window.
Version 1.10
Well, I didn't expect it to come so soon, but here it is!
Implemented the much requested connection-autodetect feature (though
it is still only experimental and not guaranteed to work!)
Connections where the counter never was started will no longer get
logged.
Extensive error messages that appeared when two instances of Carrie
R. Lust were started and tried to access the pipe are now only shown
once.
Two new remote commands, "hide" and "show" to hide and show the
display window.
The total connection time savefile now can be set in the settings
window.
Time- and currency-values are now displayed using your system's
country-settings.
Better parsing of the charges-file.
Version 0.96
Just a bugfix release.
Added the example/default charges file "charges.dat" (I forgot to
include it in the 0.95 archive).
Fixed a small bug.
Version 0.95
Several features were added:
Possibility to autostart counter (possibly delayed) when program is
loaded.
Total connection time may be saved to a file and restored at the
next program start.
Added a popup menu to the window, so most actions can be performed
this way too.
Added option to "count down" the last 10 seconds of every unit and
have Carrie R. Lust output a beep for any of them.
Added the online help (much improved version of the old
"clust.doc").
Improved the definition of the charges to be used, so charges for
all weekdays and special dates now can be stored in one single file
and the right charges will automatically be applied.
Added the remote control feature, that allows to control several
actions of Carrie R. Lust from outside.
Version 0.73b1
This was the first public version of Carrie R. Lust.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6.2. Known bugs ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
No "real" bugs are known at the moment, but there are still many things that
should be improved, e.g. the scheme for the charges requires still much work.
Other inconveniences include:
Carrie R. Lust may get "slightly confused" if you change the system time
while the program is running.
What charges apply for the current day is only checked when the program
starts. If you use Carrie R. Lust crossing midnight, the charges of the
day passed will still be used for the new day.
The entry in the context menu does not reflect the state
(running/suspended) of the counter.
The parsing routine for the charges file is still a little bit
error-prone in some cases when entries are not entered properly.
When starting/stopping the counter remotly, the "stop/go" button does not
change it's text to reflect the state (running/suspended) of the counter.
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 6.3. Future enhancements ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
There are still a lot of things to be done, especially the handling of the data
files for the information about the different charges still needs much
additional work. NLS support (language), possibility to store all chargesinfo
in one file with different providers & zones, automatic "detection" of special
dates, possibility to change provider and zone from inside the program, etc.
are other things that will follow in the future. If you have some other feature
that you want to see included, just let me know!
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7. Files ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This section informs you about some of the files that are used by Carrie R.
Lust
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7.1. The charges data file ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
This file is parsed by Carrie R. Lust at program start, to load the various
charges that might be used. Carrie R. Lust by default tries to load this
information from "charges.dat", but you may give any other filename, using the
"-f" commandline argument.
The format for the file is as following:
# Carrie R. Lust charges data for German Telekom, City region
# This and the line above are comments
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day: Monday
Day: Tuesday
Day: Wednesday
Day: Thursday
Day: Friday
Charge: 00:00:00, 2400, 12, Mondschein
Charge: 02:00:00, 2400, 12, Nacht
Charge: 05:00:00, 1500, 12, Freizeit
Charge: 09:00:00, 900, 12, Vormittag
Charge: 12:00:00, 900, 12, Nachmittag
Charge: 18:00:00, 1500, 12, Freizeit
Charge: 21:00:00, 2400, 12, Mondschein
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day: Saturday
Day: Sunday
Day: Dec 24
Day: Dec 25
Day: Dec 26
Charge: 00:00:00, 2400, 12, Mondschein
Charge: 02:00:00, 2400, 12, Nacht
Charge: 05:00:00, 1500, 12, Freizeit
Charge: 09:00:00, 1500, 12, Vormittag
Charge: 12:00:00, 1500, 12, Nachmittag
Charge: 18:00:00, 1500, 12, Freizeit
Charge: 21:00:00, 2400, 12, Mondschein
...
The file is interpreted line by line. Comments (lines starting with '#') and
empty lines are ignored.
Lines starting with "Day:" are used to determine for what weekdays or dates the
later following charges are to be used. The value after "Day:" may be one out
of "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday" or
"Sunday" meaning, the following charges should be used, if Carrie R. Lust is
started on this day of the week, or a date in format "Mon nn" where "Mon" is
one out of "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep",
"Oct", "Nov" or "Dec" and nn is the day of the month.
If you give a date, this has higher priority than the weekday, so if in the
above example, the 25th December would be a Tuesday e.g., Carrie R. Lust would
still use the charges from the second "block".
Lines starting with "Charge:" are used to define the various charges that may
be used for the days given before. The format of this line is "Charge:
hh:mm:ss, ll, nn, name", where hh:mm:ss is the time of day, from when on this
charge applies, ll is the length of one telephone unit in 10th of a second, nn
is the costs for each unit (in the smallest currency unit available) and name
is the name of this charge (must be present, even though it is not used by now
:-)
So there ... I hope everyone understands what I mean. If not ... well, I'm
tired and it's pretty late already ... ;-)
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 7.2. The save file ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
If you give the "-s" commandline argument, you may specify a file, where your
total connection time will be saved to, when the program ends. This data is
reloaded, when you start Carrie R. Lust again.
This may be useful e.g. when you have a certain amount of hours free with your
internet provider and want to keep track how much of that time you already
used.
If you want to reset this time to 0, simply delete the file or set the stored
time to 0 (can be done with any text editor, the time is stored as a simple
ASCII number).
Note: The time is stored in 10th of a second, not seconds or whatever else!
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 8. Disclaimer & legal stuff ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Following are the usual disclaimers. For those of you, who have read them far
too many times, here is just the short version:
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it! Butthead did it!" ;-)
Everyone else, please read this and keep in mind:
Though this program has been tested quite a lot, there may still be lots of
bugs in it (even serious ones - though I do not think so). Do not blame me, if
this program screws up your files or whatever.
YOU ARE USING THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK! I don't take any responsibillity
for damages, problems, custodies, marital disputes, etc. resulting from use,
inability to use, misuse, possession or non-possession of this program directly
or indirectly. I also don't give any warranty for bug-free operation, fitness
for a particular purpose or the appropriate behaviour of the program concerning
animals, programers and little children.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND
PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE,
YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
Or, in a few words: If its good, I am responsible. If its bad, its all your
fault. ;-)
Permission is granted to redistribute this program free of charge, provided it
is distributed in the full archive with unmodified contents and no profit
beyond the price of the media on which it is distributed is made. Exception to
the last rule: It may be included on freeware/shareware collections on CD-ROM,
as well as on magazine cover CD-ROMs.
All trademarks mentioned anywhere around her are property of their owners and
the like ...
(Strange, this sections is getting longer and longer with every program ... :-)
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 9. Author & Carrie R. Lust homepage ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Author
Snail mail
Thorsten Thielen, Postfach 3928, 54229 Trier, Germany
e-Mail
thth@gmx.net
WWW
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen
Fidonet
2:2452/455.999 (I rarely check my Fido mail, only once per month or so,
so answers here may take some time)
Proud member of Team OS/2 Region Trier (www.teamos2.ipcon.de or
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen/teamos2), the makers of the
"Team Trier Collection"-CDROM.
Suggestions and bug-reports are always welcome. Well ... bug-reports are
perhaps not that welcome ... ;-)
Carrie R. Lust homepage
Visit the Carrie R. Lust homepage for info and new versions:
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen/clust
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 10. Credits ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
I wish to thank the following people, for their help and support with Carrie R.
Lust:
Thanks got to Sascha Weber for his wonderful beta testing of Carrie R.
Lust
This program does not only bear some resemblance to, but also uses some
code (the routines for window-draging and hiding/showing the titlebar)
from Richard Papo's excellent "MemSize" systemressources monitor. (You
can find out more about MemSize at http://www.msen.com/~rpapo).
Thanks also go to all the users who notified me of bugs, made suggestions
or just wrote me a mail about Carrie R. Lust!
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 11. "Registering" ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
You can become a registered user for Carrie R. Lust just by sending an e-mail
(or postcard or whatever) to me. Actually this is required, if you use Carrie
R. Lust (more than once a year or so ;-). Just write something like "Hi, I use
your program Carrie R. Lust!" and I'm satisfied. If you do not want to be
included in the mailing list for news and infos about Carrie R. Lust do not
forget to tell me!
But I guess there are a lot of people out there who have seen Carrie R. Lust,
worked with it for a while but just don't want to register by writing me a
mail. Well, for you I've assembled this list of ...
The Top 10 reasons why not to register Carrie R. Lust
In my opinion, Carrie R. Lust is a pretty bad program. I don't like the
color or font of the windows (and far less I like the idea of being able
to change them!), I am not interested in any of the stats it can show me
and I heard that there once really was found a bug! Not to mention the
crappy support; writing an e-mail to get help is far to complicated.
I'm totally satisfied with anything that Carrie R. Lust 0.73b1 offers.
I'll find my own workarounds for this bugs that might be discovered! I'm
never going to use this unit countdown thing or the online help stuff! So
spare me by your updates ...
Who cares for info on new releases? Why should I get on yet another of
these mailing-lists? My mailbox is overflowing on a regular base and I'm
daily checking the "incoming" directory of Hobbes anyway!
I just can't spare the time to write a mail to you! See, I've got a job,
a wife, 10 kids or so, a girlfriend, a car, a house, a swimming pool and
1000 Webpages that I still haven't visited yet, so I'm really busy night
and day! I really don't want to think of what I would miss in this lost
five minutes ...
Why should I make you feel that it's a good thing to develop software for
OS/2? There are far to many programs for OS/2 already, we don't want to
get the market oversupplied, do we?
There are lot's of other programs out there, that do the thing! Well ok,
maybe they don't have that nice PM interface, might be that they are
lacking a lot of the functionallity that Carrie R. Lust offers and maybe
actually there are only one or two of them, but at least I don't have to
spend hours and hours writing longish mails to their authors!
I don't find supporting the mailware concept of any use. Developers
giving away fully working programs and then hoping that someone actually
will write a mail when using them, when (s)he can get away without, are
an all too trustfull bunch of fools!
Why should I try to support OS/2 software? OS/2 is dead, believe me! "I'm
Bill Gates of MicroBorg. This OS will be assimilated. Development is
futile."
This space is reserved for future use ;-) (will be filled, when NLS for
Carrie R. Lust is working).
I can't write! I don't know how to send e-mail!! I don't even have an
account!!! And I'm using Windows!!!!
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 12. Dedication ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Carrie R. Lust is dedicated to Wendy O. Williams.
(1950-1998)
ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ 13. There's more where that came from ... ΓòÉΓòÉΓòÉ
Carrie R. Lust is by no means the only program for OS/2 that I have written.
Here is a little list of more freely available programs out of my editor:
Gotcha! (Screencapture program)
Capture windows, window interiors, (parts of) the screen. Timer
controlled, automatic, repeated capturing. Saving to file or clipboard,
etc.
Wanda ("Sticky notes" for the desktop)
Notes windows in all colors, sizes, etc. Large number of configuration
options. Printing, saving, etc.
Minta (MP3 tagging, listing and information utility)
Creating, editing, removing of ID3 tags, listing and showing MP3 audio
files with their information, autorenaming function, etc.
Xened ("Xenon II" editor)
Editing of weapon prices, editing of the maps, tips and tricks, etc.
Available also for DOS and Linux.
CAD/Off ("Reboot disabler")
Deactivates the CTRL-ALT-DEL key-combination until system shutdown.
Tomo (Tetris clone)
More "stones", configurable playground size, etc. Unfortunatly only for
DOS and only in german (I've lost the sources ...)
Apart from the programs listed here, there are others in developement right
now (even some games!). If you would like to get more information just take a
look at http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/thielen/projects.html !