******************************************************** * *** * This is readme.txt for PM Timer version: 1.17 *** * *** ********************************************************* ******************************************************** What is it? =========== PM Timer/2 is an online phone costs calculation program for OS/2 Presentation Manager. It gets rid of the hassle of having to use a different logfile for every communications program you use, not to mention the programs that don't even keep a logfile (think about Dial Other Internet Providers in the OS/2 Warp bonuspak). PM Timer - when used in the right manner - logs all your outgoing calls in one single logfile and calculates the phone costs made in a specified period of time on your demand. PM Timer will monitor the serial port to which your modem is connected and detect any connections you make with your modem or ISDN-card. (The latter only if you access your ISDN-card through a virtual comport provided by e.g. Cfos/2) Furthermore, if desired you can run PM Timer unattended from batchfiles using commandline parameters. And, with PM Timer running you'll always keep track of your online (surfing) time, even if the PM Timer window is invisible. PM Timer places a small clock that displays the online time and costs for that session in the currently active Presentation Manager window's titlebar. Installation ============ I recommend you to install PM Timer in its own directory. Installation is simply a matter of copying all the files from the PM Timer archive to an empty directory. In case you want to be able to start the program from other directories you have to make sure that the file IOPL.DLL is located in a directory in your LIBPATH statement in config.sys. Also make sure you have IOPL=YES in your config.sys. NOTE: If you install PM Timer into the same directory as a previous version, it may be nescesary to delete the pmtimer.ini if it exists. Also, if for some reason the dialogs and windows seem out of proportion, use an ini-editor to delete a possible PMTIMER application entry from a previous version in os2.ini. Usage ===== The main idea is to start PM Timer together with your communications program from a batchfile (.CMD). That is the way I use it myself. You can also put PM Timer in your startup folder and let it startup minimized with the /h commandline parameter. Note however, that PM Timer at the moment is not able to tell the difference between an incoming and outgoing call. So this option is out of the question if you run a BBS, PM Timer would be logging your incoming as well as your outgoing calls. Maybe it is an idea to setup events in your mailer software that startup PM Timer before your mailer is going to make it's outbound calls and shutdown PM Timer afterwards. Personally I prefer the first method, because that way you can setup different startup parameters (i.e. what distance zone to use, hide/not hide) for the different communication programs you use. If you use the first method, simply create a batchfile in your communication program's directory that looks like this: @ECHO OFF START X:\PATH\PMTIMER [/Zx /H /W /INI=filename.ini] COMPROG.EXE X:\PATH\PMTIMER /Q Where: * X:\PATH\ is the drive and directory where you keep PM Timer files. * COMPROG.EXE is the executable file which starts your communication program. * /Zx commandline parameter (optional) If specified, PM Timer will startup and select Zone x (x = 0..7) settings for costs-calculation. So it's basically an alternative for selecting the zone via the spinbutton in the main window. Zone names are configurable in the program settings, but the value for x is proportional to the costs-pages in the settings dialog. (i.e. /Z0 indicates costs-page 1, /Z1 indicates costs-page 2 etc.) * /H commandline parameter (optional) If specified, PM Timer will startup invisible. You can make it visible by doubleclicking its entry in the window list. * /Q commandline parameter (optional) Well, it's kind of optional. In the example above it is required. If PM Timer is started with this option specified it will try and find an already running copy of itself in memory and correctly terminate it. (Same effect as choosing Close from the system menu or hitting ALT-F4.) * /W commandline parameter (optional) If specified, PM Timer will not display the warning dialog if you attempt to close the program while it's still timing. (The use of this parameter is only recommended if you run PM Timer unattended from a batchfile.) * /INI=filename.ini commandline parameter (optional) If specified, PM Timer will use the file "filename.ini" instead of the default pmtimer.ini to store and retrieve it's configuration. You should only specify a filename, no PATH. The file will be created (if it doesn't exist) in the PM Timer directory. Next I will discuss some of the PM Timer menu options you'll find in the main window's system menu. Settings... =========== This will bring up the settings notebook which is pretty much self explanatory and has 'fly-over-help' all over the place. Make sure that - on the hardware settings page - you select the comport where your modem can be found and specify an accurate value in the seconds-to-carrier field. (That's the number of seconds between the time you actually connect and the time that the program detects a carrier.) Also on the hardware settings page, you can tell PMTimer to access the comport either using driver access (SIO.SYS/COM.SYS) or direct hardware access. If you choose the latter, make sure you have the line IOPL=YES in config.sys. The disadvantage of driver access is that (with COM.SYS) DOS/WIN-OS2 sessions have exclusive access to the port, so PMTimer won't be able to access the port. Also, there are some OS/2 apps that won't hang up if PMTimer is monitoring using driver access. For those reasons I recommend using direct hardware access. Note however, if you have virtual comports that you want to monitor ( as provided by Cfos/2 for example) you _have_ to use driver access. The general options speak for them selves I think. Same goes for the costs. There are 8 cost pages which cover eight different distance zones. For every distance zone you can have ten different time periods with different costs. Furthermore I want to point out that on the general options page you'll find two buttons for Importing or Exporting ZOC .FEE (*) files. On import only the TIME and FEE lines are read. Only the first 8 (non empty) FEE lines will be used because PMTimer can't handle more at the moment. (Normally this should be sufficient though.) FEE files exported by PMTimer can be read by ZOC and (of course) by PMTimer. On export, the Charge/second checkbox-state won't be preserved. The costs/time-unit however will be converted to costs/second if you have checked the option to charge per second. So for example, 0.12 per 60 second with charge/second checked will be converted to 0.002 per 1 second. This will show up in the fee-file as 2/1@Tx since the fee-file format handles fees in cents. In the archive you'll find some fee-files, if there is one for your country, import it and you don't have to bother about setting up the costs yourself. I would recommend to check the imported values though. I can't guarantee that all fees are up to date. (I can only speak for the Dutch fees, they are up to date.) If you have an updated fee-file (or a new one if there isn't one for your country) you're welcome to send it to me (see bottom of this document for my address) and I'll include it in the next distribution of PMTimer. Calculate... ============ The calculation dialog is also very much self explanatory. Fill in a start and end date for the period over which you want to calculate your phone costs. The Costs field will be update on the fly as you adjust the spinbuttons. The defaults for both from and to date fields is the current date unless you checked the "Save on exit" checkbox the last time you used the calculation dialog. "Save on exit" always remembers the last used From: date for calculation. Calculation is done by reading values directly from the ASCII logfile created by PM Timer. So I would not advice you to manually edit that file, unless you really know what you're doing. Results could be unpredictable if the program finds stuff in the logfile that doesn't belong there. Also in the calculation dialog you will find some statistics for the complete log-file and the currently selected period. NOTE: The currency symbol in the costs field and the date fields are country dependant. So if you don't see the costs displayed in your own currency it's because you're COUNTRY= line in config.sys doesn't reflect the country you live in. Both Settings and Calculation dialog will accept and keep dropped fonts and colors provided you have checked "Use OS/2.INI" on the general option page. Log window ========== This is just there for your convenience. It displays the logfile in a separate scrollable window. Product information =================== Displays a dialog with some program info and how to contact me. Note about the timer-display ============================ Sometimes it may seem as if the timer skips a second. This is normal behavior. PM Timer internally uses the hardware IRQ0 timer interrupt to keep track of your online time. This way the timer always runs independent of system load. However the timer-display *update* does run on a simple OS/2 internal timer and thus is dependent on system load. The reason that PM Timer does not simply take timestamps from the system clock, is that I (and maybe you and a lot of other people) use programs that synchro- nize your PC's systemtime with an Internet timeserver while online. With the current implementation of PM Timer, this doesn't effect timings at all. Please send any bug reports and/or suggestions to enhance the program to the author: Jeffrey Habets snailmail: Generaal Eisenhowerstraat 41 6224 XH Maastricht / Netherlands e-mail: jeffh@xs4all.nl http: www.xs4all.nl/~jeffh FidoNet: 2:284/312.3 Reported bugs will be fixed as soon as possible if necessary. I can't make any promises on implementing enhancements to the program though. I also have my final exams to think about this year. At the moment this program is released as freeware. Despite that, I would like to hear from you if you intent on using PM Timer on a regular basis. (e-mail is fine, but I also would appreciate a nice postcard of your home town. And of course I am not exactly *forbidding* you to send me any money. ;-) That way I can keep track on the number of people that use PM Timer and in what countries they live. This will help me to decide on future releases for the program. Copyright and Warranty ====================== PM Timer/2 and all files that come with it in the archive may only be spread in unmodified form with or without the author's permission. If you decide to spread the program on a certain media (say disk or CD) you are only allowed to charge minimal fees to cover expenses. In any other case the author's written permission is needed. PM Timer comes without any kind of warranty. The only thing I can guarantee is that the program uses harddisk space, RAM and CPU-time. The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss of data arising from the use or inability to use this program. * ZOC (Zap-O-Comm) and it's FEE file-format appears courtesy of EmTec. The ZOC generated fee-files provided with this program are used with permission from EmTec.