ImaginOn 21 Madera Avenue San Carlos, CA 94070 support@imaginon.com WebZinger(tm) Shareware (Version 0.75) Information 8 May 1997 WebZinger(tm) is Shareware. Please see the legal agreement in the attached file IMOL.TXT for the license and the limitations on distribution per that agreement. What is it? WebZingertm is a Web utility that combines "Intelligent Agent" and "Data Push" technologies to assist users of the Internet. The user interface is based on the tape deck analogy of Recording and Playback. During recording, a commercially available Web search engine is employed to locate potential Web sites that are likely to contain the search topic. Sites are then automatically visited and inspected. In the default settings, if a site has an image of over 8 kilobytes in size, and under 100 kilobytes in size, the image is downloaded along with the title of the page and an associated paragraph of text. The site's address is also recorded. This data set of image, title and text is referred to as a "snapshot". During playback, a slideshow-like presentation of each saved snapshot is presented from within the user's browser. At any time, the user can pause playback and go directly on-line to the Web site from which the snapshot was taken. Features Easy to use Finds information using search engines or from any URL Easy to use to quickly summarize an entire web site for quick viewing Run searches in the background Find images and their descriptions automatically Play Web page "slideshows" Go directly from playback to the web page whose snapshot is seen Make multiple recordings in parallel to optimize your data channel Play back a recording in progress after only 3 snapshots Play back a previous recording while a new recording is in progress Easy to use settings via a graphical interface System Requirements: You will need... Microsoft Windows 95 Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or Netscape Navigator 3.0 A Java environment An IBM PC or clone with a Pentium Processor 16 MB of DRAM, or more A 14.4 kilobaud modem, or faster An Internet service provider (ISP) account 150 Kbytes of drive space for WebZinger itself and 1 or more megabytes for WebZinger recordings 10 megabytes or more of free hard drive space for temporary files Installation from a Win 95 Executable (.exe) file. Copy WZ075.exe from the distribution floppy or Web site to the disk drive you wish to install it on. Then change to that drive and double-click on WZ075.exe. The files will be decompressed and two icons will be placed on your desktop: WebZ Recorder and WebZ Player. If you do not have a Java environment (ie. you get a "bad command" message from DOS because DOS can not find jview or Java), you can get a free one from our Web site or by installing the Microsoft Network and downloading their latest ActiveX drivers. Even after uninstalling MSN, the Java environment remains. Installation from a (.zip) file. If your copy of WebZinger is enclosed in a zip file, then to install it follow these directions: 1) Make a directory with recommended name webzinger on your local hard disk. 2) CD (or move) to that directory. 3) Place the zip file wz075.zip into that directory. 4) Unzip it into that directory (the zip file is flat and will place all files into the directory named in the unzip directory field). 5) On Windows 95 systems, run the executable file wzinstall.exe. This will create icons for WebZinger Recorder and Player on your desktop. 6) Enjoy WebZinger. Recording From the Win 95 desktop, double-click on the WebZ Recorder icon. Read the Shareware License. If you agree, click to to so on the "I Agree" button. If you are not already connected to the Internet via modem and ISP, connect now. When the WebZingertm Recorder screen opens, type the topic you wish to obtain information about. Separate words with spaces and try phrase the terms naturally. For example, Chicago hotels. One or two-word search terms work best. Do not use +, & or other symbols unless they are part of the topic you are searching for. Type in a name for the folder that will be used to hold the Web snapshots. If you do not type anything "Default" will be used. Each new recording will use, and thus overwrite the "Default" folder, unless a name is typed-in for the playback folder. The status of your search will be displayed on-screen unless you minimize the window. (For your information, the file that starts up the recording process is RECORDER.BAT in the WebZinger directory. From a DOS Window prompt in the WebZinger directory, type RECORDER and then the Enter key.) Playback From the Win 95 desktop, double-click on the WebZ Player icon. Read the Shareware License. If you agree, click to to so on the "I Agree" button. If you would like the ability to go online during playback, and you are not already connected to the Internet, do connect now. Select the name of the folder to play back, then click on OK. After about 10 seconds, snapshot slideshow playback will begin. To hold a snapshot on-screen longer, click the mouse. Clicking twice will pause playback and present a dialogue box that contains buttons for selecting "go on-line" or "resume playback". Clicking on resume continues playback. Clicking on go online causes the browser to attempt to connect to the Web site from which the current snapshot was derived. To return to playback from a Web site, close the browser window, then click on the resume playback button. To quit playback, click on the "Quit" button. To quit WebZingertm Playback, close the window. (For your information, Playback is a Java Applet that can be started from within Navigator or Internet Explorer by typing the following line in the Address Window: file://c:\webzinger\imoplay.html) Directory grooming To eliminate playback folders, use the Microsoft Windows 95 Explorer delete function. The list of available folders shown by WebZinger Playback is only updated during recording, so make a new recording after deleting folders. To remove WebZinger from your system, delete the Webzinger folder and all of its contents. Then, drag the WebZinger icons from the desktop to the Recycling bin. When the recycling bin is emptied, removal will be complete. Known bugs, idiosyncracies, and their workarounds Occasionally, Internet Explorer does not initialize when called by WebZingertm Playback and is immediately terminated by Win 95. Try again and it usually restarts fine. Netscape Navigator does not have this bug. During playback of snapshots, Internet Explorer causes a page fault due to IE mishandling of an image file. Delete the image file following the last snapshot viewed from the folder. If IE still page faults, delete the next image. The "go online / resume" dialogue box disappears. Make it visible by clicking on its icon in the Win 95 Task Bar at the bottom of the screen. Hard drive space seems to be disappearing and does not become available even after deleting all the temporary files in windows\temporary internet files and windows\history. Surprise! Internet Explorer makes hidden copies of images when it downloads images or plays images from disk that were previously downloaded. Restart Windows and the drive space will magically reappear. Nothing happens when WebZingertm is connected to the Internet via America On Line or Spry Mosaic. Both AOL and Spry Windows 95 drivers use a 16-bit Winsock to connect to a network. Use a Web browser that calls a 32-bit Winsock, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. Contact Questions and comments should be addressed to info@imaginon.com.