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1996-11-13
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The New York Telephone Scheduler Version 2.04 8/7/96 11/13/96
By Stu Mark. (read all the crap at the end if you want to find me now instead
of wading through this whole file.)
(Freeware: Free. Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away now.)
I. What the hell is this/do I really have to read more?
NYTSII is a major revision of my old OS/2 PM scheduler called NYTS.
It worked okay, but was limited in features and useability, so I
fixed it up to make it more useable and efficient.
NYTSII allows you to easily set up a schedule of programs to
automatically get executed at a given time and interval. If you
turn your machine off after using it for a particular application,
this software is probably not very useful to you, but if you leave
your machine up 24/7 and want a backup program run every day, NYTSII
is perfect for the job.
Even if you don't run a machine all the time, since it's so easy to
set a schedule, I've found it's useful to add daily reminders.
If lets say, you have a meeting in 20 minutes, click add, and the
current time comes up, just increase the minutes by 20, and put
"pmpop go to meeting" in the command line and hit okay. I find this
very useful. Hope you do too.
(pmpop is a 2 liner that puts a message box on the screen, if you
don't have this program, let me know, I'll get it to you)
II. "OS/2 comes with a scheduler."
OS/2 V3.0 and later comes with a bonus pack which includes a scheduler.
I've used it and it sucks, and it's a memory hog because it loads in
half of IBM Works just to make it function. NYTSII is small simple,
quick and clean. (toot toot)
III. Installation:
To install NYTSII, just make a directory somewhere, and unzip the
contents of NYTSII.ZIP into that directory and run the NYTSII exe.
It's also useful to put a shadow of the exe in your startup folder
so that the scheduler runs automatically in the case of a power
failure.
IV. Usage.
When you run NYTSII for the first time, it will inform you that there's
no schedule file and that it will make one when you add a schedule.
This is not entirely true. NYTSII stores a lot of shit in the schedule
file (window position and such) and will probably create the file by
the time you go to look for it. It's not that I'm too lazy to change
the message (really, I mean that), I'm just trying to keep you on your
toes.
It's fairly obvious what it does and how it works. You click File and
Add Schedule to add a new item to the schedule list.
To delete or change a schedule, you must hilight the schedule item you
wish to delete or change before selecting the menu option.
The important things to remember is how the scheduler works. It's
based on a day-at-a-time scheme. Each event is checked for it's
validity at the time of the event for the current day. Yes, I'm trying
to be confusing. I'll explain in a moment. Read on.
You can schedule events down to the minute, or up to once a year.
All settings are made from the Add/Change dialog box.
To have a program run only during a specific month, choose the month
in the Month listbox. If you want it to run every month, select "ALL."
To have a program run on a specific day, choose the day from the
Day listbox. You can choose day of the month, or day of the week. Again
select "ALL" to have it run every day.
The usage of Start hour and Start Minute should be obvious. For those
who don't know: Midnight is 12:00AM and noon is 12:00PM.
To have an event occur multiple times in one day, you select the
Occurrences, Interval Hour and Interval Minute as follows.
If you want something to run from noon 5PM every half hour,
the start time would be 12:00PM, the interval would be 1:00, and
the occurrences would be 11. So it runs 11 times, once every half hour,
and the last one will be at 5. The table below shows this.
Occurrence Run time
-------------------
1 12:00PM
2 12:30PM
3 1:00PM
4 1:30PM
5 2:00PM
6 2:30PM
7 3:00PM
8 3:30PM
9 4:00PM
10 4:30PM
11 5:00PM
Obviously, if there's no * next to the schedule (it's not active)
it will not trigger.
This is the confusing part.
There are limits. If you schedule something to run on Mondays starting
at 11PM every hour for 4 hours, the event will only run once. This
is because at the second interval, it is no longer Monday. So even
though you've told it to run 4 times, it will not. Similar problems
arise over month boundaries.
If you want to run something on Tuesday and Thursday, you have to set
2 schedules.
Also. Since the schedule info is stores in the raw data structure
format, to easily get a text version of the current schedule, pick
"Save Schedule to file" from the menu. It'll save the text version
in a file called NYTSII.TXT in the directory the EXE is in.
V. Programs that can be run.
When NYTSII fires off a task, it actually executes cmd /C <command>
where command is what you put in the schedule. The idea is that you
can run CMD files, os/2, DOS and Windows (cough cough) executables.
Oddities, for whatever reason, you have to do this: If it's an exe
file and it's on your path, cmd will pick it up without having to
specify a full path and filename, but if it's a .cmd file, you
have to specify the path, even if you make that your current directory.
(That might have been a bug which was fixed in version 2.04)
VI. Saving. Anytime you touch anything, the .STU file is rewritten with
the changes, so you don't have to worry about saving anything. As a
side note, don't be dumb and run it off a floppy.
VII. UnInstallation
Here's something you don't see in most Freeware programs. Did I mention
this was a Freeware program? Give it to everybody you know. Send me
e-mail and say "Thanks" or "Neat program" if you like. My email address
is at the bottom of this file. Remember email is free and easy.
The most crap you'll get out of NYTSII is three files:
NYTSII.EXE: the program itself
NYTSII.STU: the schedule data file
NYTSII.TXT: the text copy of the schedule list
Delete these files and no more NYTSII.
VIII. Legalooze.
This piece of art is not published under the GNU licence because,
while I stand for what they're doing, I'm personally not too thrilled
with the way they do it. So let's call it Ford-ware or Stu-ware.
I have the source, you don't. You have the executable, and this DOC
file. It all comes in one nice neat zip, and it's simpler if you
distribute it that way. I wrote it. It's mine. Say what you want, but
the copyright belongs to the original creator, which is me: Stu Mark.
Give it out freely, but give out the original zip.
There is no warranty expressed or implied, and all that other crap.
You use it at your own risk, I make no claims about what it will and
won't do, but it's a scheduler. What the fuck could it possibly do?
I suppose you could put it on somebody's machine and set it to
deltree c:\ at 1am, but I didn't do that, you did. I just gave you
the idea, and told you not to do it.
IX. Future releases/bug fixes.
Version 2.00 and later releases will be available on my BBS for sure,
and probably the two other IGnet BBS systems. I'm going to try
to get it on Hobbes. That would be neat, no?
If you find bugs that I don't know about, let me know, I'll fix them.
Kinda simple no?
X. Known bugs.
I tend to keep my scheduler minimized so chances are I'll
fix this bug real soon, because it's so annoying. NYTSII remembers
it's window position and size by storing it in the .STU data file.
So when you restart it, it comes up where you last left it. What it
doesn't do, is store the mode it was in. So if you minimize the window
and quit the program, then run it again, it comes up restored, but
really small, and you have to drag out the edges to see the schedule
list. I will fix this. Soon.
The next one isn't a bug. If it happens, it's because you're an idiot.
You can (and need to) only run this program once. If you try and run
a second copy, it'll beep, and you won't get a message display.
This is because I make a timer with a specific name. The second time
you run the program, the name's already in use and OS/2 won't make
another timer with the same name. So it beeps, and won't display the
clock or run anything. Grow up.
XI. Update history.
Version 2.01 8/19/96
1) If a schedule command is too long, the scheduler will blow up
just after it fires off the task. This has been fixed.
2) Re: The paragraph above. If you make the window too small (I.E.
minimize) it won't save it's new position and size. It was pissing
me off.
Version 2.02 8/20/96
1) If you don't put a comment in, the command is assumes as the
comment.
2) Added a 'duplicate schedule' feature. This enables you to add a new
schedule, but instead of defaulting to the current time and date,
it defaults to the currently selected schedule. This allows for
the ability to quickly add similar schedules.
Version 2.03 10/28/96
Sorry this one took so long, guys. I was in Israel asking my
girlfriend to marry me. (She said yes.)
1) Spelling misteak. Mailed in from Emil Kucera. Dude, I'd love to
follow your advice and change "occurance" to "occurence" except
that the word is actually spelled "occurrence." Thanks for the
note though. I'm not being sarcastic when I say I appresheeateit.
2) This one sent in by Olli Maksimainen. View settings. Some people
use 24 hour clocks and dot separators. Now NYTS II reads os/2's
country information from os2.ini for the time format, and separator.
(Sorry, I'm from the U.S. and naturally assume that I am self
centered.) It does not change the order of the date, because
I don't really write out the date in a mm/dd/yy format anywhere.
It's written as it's read. Ex: October 28th, 1996.
3) Rudy Davis sent in a complaint that he couldn't see anything, but
the program worked fine. I had been having color problems myself,
so I futzed with it a little. Now it works for me, I hope I fixed
your problem too, Rudy. Drop me a line when you get it.
4) I've included pmpop in the distribution because numerous people
have asked for it. PMPOP displays a PM message box containing
whatever is passed to it on the command line. So you you want
to be reminded of a meeting at 8 in the morning, (note the 12 hour
clock reference :) you can enter a schedule with the command line
reading "pmpop Go to meeting NOW!" and a little message box
will appear to remind you.
Version 2.04 11/13/96
I haven't really looked through this file in a while, so some of
the information may not be quite right. So these version update
lists are the latest and greatest. Scanning back, though I see
a reference to the user being an idiot. Guess I was in a mood then.
Keep in mind, that the version number 2.04 bears no connection to
the obviously misteaken version number of PKZIP. Think about it:
Version 2.00 was released. Found that it didn't uncompress correctly
in some odd circumstances. So there was a 2.01. Then more similar
problems we found, so there was a 2.02, two more gets you 2.04.
Then it became obvious that there were a lot more where that came
from. So there was an a, b, c, d, e, f, and finally, g. That's 10
versions of the same PKZIP program. Hopefully we won't have that
much trouble seeing as this isn't nearly as complex a program.
Speaking of version numbers. I try to make them meaningful. Version
1 to version 2 was pretty much a complete rewrite, the .01, .02 and
.03 were minor enhancements, and bug fixes. I try not to overinflate
my program's ego by skipping whole version numbers just to keep up
with other people in the same arena. If you haven't figure out
that I'm trying to bash MS here, remember that there was no MS Word
3, 4, or 5. Nor was there a Visual C++ version 3. And why is it that
MS can buy companies, add their product to the package and make
a new version of VB without actually changeing the program any?
Enough of that. New feature of NYTS II with version 2.04:
1) The maximum interval has been upped to 23 hours. This is so that
you can schedule something for 6am and 8pm with only one entry.
You have it trigger at 6am, with an interval of 14 hours with
2 occurances. It was for my internet connection.
2) Slight bug I found. When you set the current directory to run
the event's session in, it would set the current directory
of the drive you specified, but didn't make that the current drive.
So if you ran the scheduler on drive C, and ran a program on drive D
and set the directory to d:\work\path, the current directory of drive
D would be \work\path, but the current drive would be C, and if
the program looked for something in the current drive and path, it
would get the current directory on drive C when you ran the
scheduler.
The way it works is, it looks for a ':' in the dir path, and takes
the character before it as the drive letter. So if you just specify
\work\path it will try and set that on drive C (in the above example)
3) Alot of people asked for this one: Right click popup menu. Share and
enjoy.
4) Double clicking on an event causes it to pop up the change dialog
for that event. Useful for quickly changing active or any other
settings I suppose.
5) Trigger now. Trips the event you selected when you click it. This
is good for testing a new event to make sure you have the paths
set up right without having to keep setting the schedule time.
6) Somebody mentioned a problem with 'November' that it runs into
the day. I don't have this problem, so my guess is you're not seeing
the same font I am. I'm using Helv 8 point. My guess is you don't
have that and it's picking a larger font by default. This will
mess up the display a bit. Do you get columns of numbers, or don't
the items line up well verticly?
The reason I keep saying somebody, and not mentioning names is because
the guy who holds my mail upgraded to a new version of AIX and wiped
out all the mail of all the users on the system. So I don't know
who asked for what. I do like to give credit where credit is due though.
And for all of you following my personal life: I'm going to a
wedding in florida for a week (I live in New York) so won't be
here for a while, that's why I'm rushing this out. Hopefully I
didn't make too many large mistakes. I tested it and it works okay
here. Also, my future wife is doing okay in Israel, and I miss her
a lot. Nobody appreciates email like I do. Also, I just got
my BBS up on the internet. If you can telnet, try nyti.spaghetti.com
I am not going to leave it up while I'm on my vacation (11/14/96 to
11/22/96 I'll be away), but after then, it should be up from 5am
to 6pm EST for reasons I'll explain if you call in. Wrote it myself,
see if you like.
If you have any problems with the new version or other ideas, do tell
and send email. I just LOVE getting email.
Obviously I've left a lot of detail out of this piece of divine literature,
so screw around with it to see what it does. If I did my job well, then it
shouldn't blow up on you. And if I did a lousy job, then, let's just say
that you get what you pay for.
Feel free to get in touch with me. I'm human, just like you. And I like
to know the world needs me :)
-----------------------------=====================--------------------------
The New York TeleScheduler II V2.04 11/13/96 Copyright Stu Mark.
email: fordii@spaghetti.com or
fordii@j51.com or (my personal favorite)
god@nyti.spaghetti.com
or call my BBS: 914-368-2819
or telnet nyti.spaghetti.com (5am to 6pm EST after 11/22/96)
-----------------------------=====================--------------------------
The god thing is a joke. No I don't go running around with a god complex.
It's just neat to have my own domain name, so I set that up. It seems to
impress non-computer types.
It's funny, sorta like going to the bathroom and washing the soap.
Normally, I would have spent half the above document bashing Microsoft,
but I just couldn't work it in. This is an OS/2 program. Why ruin it by
mentioning MS. However, I always put in the following disclaimer.
(any nasty remarks sent in the general direction of window's capacity to
function, [are fully intentional,] are not opinion, but state of fact. So
don't try to slam me with some bullshit libel suit.)
I've also decided to start a campaign to make it a really loud notion to
compare The Microsoft marketing department to the Marketing department at
Sirius Cybernetics Corp. Anybody with me on this? If so, mail a message to
my BBS at doom@nyti.spaghetti.com
Hi From Stuzanne.