 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Members' Tips 'n' Tricks Ron Taylor |
Much of the enjoyment I get from PCs is in trying out new things, hopefully learning a bit as I go. Since my introduction to this club many years ago by a now happily retired workmate, (Hello out there, Frank), I have always found it a friendly, useful source of attraction to "keep me at the keyboard".
The diverse range of informative, yet socially oriented coverage has always seemed to have that something special, keeping the "Personal" in the Personal Computer. This month we have a great selection of tips for you, including some very useful ideas as follow up to the excellent "comms theme" edition of March PC Update. Enjoy!
Telix BBS Automation
by Greg McKernan
Do you use Telix? Are you sick of not being able to utilise the full power of this comma package? Would you like a script system that can totally automate your BBS needs? Would you like to sleep while you computer does all the work for you? Interested? Well, do not sent any money I repeat do not sent any money. (Sounds like a TV commercial doesn't it!)
I have completed a system that is capable of logging onto the Melb PC BBS, uploading any reply messages that I have written and downloading messages from areas that I have tagged in the offline reader section of the BBS. Sorry to all those BBSers who use the Bluewave door. I might write some scripts for this if the demand is there.
Other features included are:
- You can specify a time for Telix to wait before starting to dial the selected BBSs for the night.
- Using the dialling function within Telix, the script asks which BBS you would like to contact during the night. Just enter the relevant number.
- Any system activation is recorded in Telix's usage and capture logs, i.e. which BBSs have been accessed and which ones are still to be phoned.
- Uses the "dial" feature of Telix, and the link script field to control script flow, for easy user control.
- If you know how to program then you can build other scripts capable of logging onto different BBSs. I currently log onto three different BBSs every second night.
- Script asks for filename and area number and when logged onto a BBS downloads the requested file.
- Answering a simple Yes/No question, the script will download the "allfiles" or "newfiles" lists from the logged BBS.
Below is a small extract of a script I have built to upload message replies. The script needs to check if a file exists, if it does then it automatically performs the upload.
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// Telix script sample: Greg McKernan Upload_message_file() { str up_file[64], buffer [64]; strcat(up_file, up_dir); strcat(up_file,"\"); strcat(up_file,"MELBPC.REP"); strupper(up_file); if (filefind(up_file,0,buffer) !=0 ) { // message reply file is found, // so upload it! cputs("u"); delay(20); send("Z","MELBPC.REP"); } } |
Lotus 1-2-3 r34 in Windows
by Peter Young
For those users who have a lot of 1-2-3 files that they want to use in 1-2-3 and not convert, or for others who just like using the DOS version of 1-2-3 but use Windows to get the multitasking benefits, this is for you. For a while, for some reason I could never get enough memory to load large worksheets even though Windows would report a lot of free memory. The solution is an environment variable to tell Windows to assign more virtual memory to 1-2-3. You can either put a SET statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file or start 1-2-3 from a batch file that sets the environment variable before starting 1-2-3. For AUTOEXEC.BAT, add this line:
Note the 2048 means 2 megabytes. This should be whatever meets your requirements. For starting 1-2-3 with a Batchfile, make a batchfile called 123.BAT - Include the following lines:
SET 123MEMSIZE=2048
123
SET 123MEMSIZE=
This sets the environment variable, loads 1-2-3 and after exiting 1-2-3 it resets the environment variable. Make sure that you change your PIF file command line to 123.BAT instead of 123.EXE.
Smart Storage for Games
by Lester Stone
My kids, like most, like to play a lot of different games. But you soon tend to run out of hard disk space. Of course if you take one of their games off so you can have a little space for something you want... well I am sure you get the idea. I found this helped me a lot and kept both parties happy.
All the games I have compressed as *.ZIP files on my hard disk. What I did was to make RAM disk (drive E:), large enough to take the game. Then I created a batch file called GAMES.BAT as follows:
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REM GAMES.BAT REM by Lester Stone @echo off set game=%1 set p1=%2 set p2=%3 E: cd\ md %game% cd %game% pkunzip c:\games\%game% -E nul call %game% %p1% %p2% pkzip c:\games\%game% -rPf nul cd\ deltree /y %game% C: exit |
To run a program, you simply type
GAMES [zipfile parameters].
To make it work you have to give the *.ZIP file the same name as the BAT, COM or EXE file that runs the program once it is unzipped. For example, to start Wolfenstein, WOLF3D.EXE is the executable file, you would call the file WOLF3D.ZIP.
I use XTGold's Application Menu to start things (WordPerfect, Lotus and of course the Games). All the kids have to do is start the game and the rest takes care of itself, unpacking and repacking leaving the RAMdisk empty for the next game.
Windows: Dos Apps using PIF's
by Alistair Lloyd
I'll confess now - I'm a big Windows user. If like me, you were brought up with a Sinclair ZX81, you too would be happy with a tool that lets you run any two programs at a time. Like many users, I run Telix to communicate with Bulletin Boards across Melbourne. I launch it from Windows, up until recently I was calling it by having an icon pointing to the
TELIX.EXE program.
Often I'll have to wait for a free line into a service, while my modem dials & redials... sound familiar? It's a bit of a thumb twiddling exercise. I was swapping back into Windows to arc up a quick game of Minesweeper, when I noticed things had fallen strangely silent. My modem wasn't dialling, Telix had gone to sleep. Windows, like any bureaucratic system, will devote processing time to the application that screams the loudest. It tends to look down it's nose on DOS applications. However there is a way to remedy this.
One of the icons usually found under the "Main" window, is a device called "PIF Editor". PIF stands for "Program Information File". A PIF consists of information that Windows can use to run DOS applications more efficiently. In order to persuade Windows to devote more of it's precious time to Telix, I created a
TELIX.PIF, by using the DEFAULT.PIF that comes with Windows. Using the PIF editor, I set the following parameters:
Program Filename: C:\COMMS\TELIX\TELIX.EXE
Window Title: Telix
Video Memory: [x] Text
Execution: [x] Background
If you click the "Advanced" button, it will take you to a second panel, where the real work is done. I set the following:
Background Priority: 1000
Foreground Priority: 100
[x] Detect Idle Time
The Background and Foreground priorities are an informal ratio for Windows to use when distributing processing time. Setting a high Background Priority will give your application a better share when it is running minimised, or in the background. The Detect Idle Time toggle is used by Windows to give other applications more processing time if this application is sitting doing nothing.
Not that my Telix program is ever idle for very long. This trick is also handy if you run DOS applications with lengthy disk 1/O, such as dBase or Lotus. If you want more information on
PIFs, look in your Windows 3.1 manual, Chapter 8.
Favourite Windows Shareware
by Terry Day
When I purchased Windows 3.1 at the beginning of 1993, the first deficiency I noticed was the lack of a file viewer in File Manager. Finally I found a shareware program called Drag and View by Dan Baumbach, which fulfills all my needs. The version I am using is 1.1 and the file is available from the Me1bPC BBS (DRAGVIEWLZH).
On installation, Drag and View creates two icons. One allows you to launch Drag and View on its own. The second icon will launch File Manager and Drag and View together, with DV as an icon at the corner of the screen. 1b use it within file manager, you simply drag and drop any file to the DV icon. DV will attempt to determine the file type and then opens a window displaying the file contents. DV has built in viewers for most common wordprocessor, spreadsheet and graphic native formats.
If DV can't work out the file format, it will choose either a hex or ASCII dump (which ever it thinks is most appropriate). However, you can switch between hex/ASCII/viewer format at will. In ASCII mode you can search for a text string. In hex mode, you can Go To a specific address, or search for a hex or text string. In fact, if Vernon Buerg ever releases a version of LIST for Windows, I think it will be a lot like DV!
I own a copy of XTree for Windows v2.0. I have given up using it for many of my hard disk management tasks, because I found the File Manager/DV combination to be much easier and faster. I was recently browsing the contents of some CD-ROMs and found the FM/DV combo to be a really quick way of sampling documentation and graphic files. In a comparison test I did, DV was about twice as fast as X7ree in getting a GIF file onto the screen. The registration for DV is $US25.
Bluewave Colours Tip
by Peter Young
The colours that the Bluewave Mail Reader comes with when first downloaded are rather hard on the eyes and really downright ugly. However they can be configured and here is a suggested colour scheme that looks really great.
To make it easier for people to try out this configuration, I have uploaded BWCOLOR.ZIP to our BBS, containing this text file and the config file BWCOLOR.200 for the new colours.
Suggestion: Rename your current BWCOLOR.200 file to BWCOLOR.OLD so that you can easily restore your current colours if for some reason you want to go back to them.
| ITEM Message Header Window Header Border Header Labels Message Status Bits Header From: Field Header To Field Header Subj: Field Message # and Date Background Colour |
NEW COLOUR
LightCyan on Blue |
| MESSAGE TEXT
WINDOW Normal Text Quoted Text Tagline Text Tear Lines Origin Lines Keyword Highlight Extended Information Background Colour Status Bar Colour |
White on Black Yellow on Black LightCyan on Black LightBlue on Black LightGreen on Black LightRed on Black Brown on Black Black Yellow on Red |
Reprinted from the April 1994 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
