
OVERVIEW
--------
	UZPower is a power monitor program designed specifically for
power-managed laptop computers running MS Windows. Its only function
is to constantly monitor the status of the battery, and indicate the
remaining charge and warn you when it becomes dangerously low.

	Many laptop vendors do not bundle this simple feature in their
laptops.  Instead, they rely on some other mechanism for warning you
when the battery charge becomes low, such as blinking lights or LCD
displays somewhere on the laptop (usually in a place where you are not
looking), or with a pattern of beeps, which either is overridden by the
sound drivers that are bundled with other software, or which are easily
overheard, and which drain the battery even more. If you have lost work
before because you missed these warnings, you'll find this program
indispensable.

	UZPower, simply pops up a warning message when it detects LOW
and CRITICAL battery levels, which you have to dismiss to keep working.
In addition, UZPower tries to determine remaining battery charge by
automatically querying its Advanced Power Management (APM) subsystem,
or, if your laptop does not provide this feature, by guessing from past
performance.  Once it has an accurate estimate, UZPower constantly shows
the remaining battery time on its icon. In a sense, UZPower learns your
power usage after running for a while.

INSTALLATION
------------
	There are many ways to install UZPower, and one simple alternative
is to follow these instructions:

1) Make a separate directory (using mkdir from the DOS prompt) and copy
   the files from your distribution medium (either extract it from a
   downloaded archive file (PKZIP, LHARC, ZOO, ...), or copy from the
   diskette) into that directory.  It is highly recommended to install
   into a newly created directory, so that you can easily uninstall
   later.

2) create a new program item in the "Startup" program group, so that
   UZPower starts running when Windows starts. You can do this in the
   Program Manager either by
   a) dragging the "UZPower" executable file from the File Manager into
      the "Startup" program group (consult your Windows manual);
   or by
   a) restoring the "Startup" program group (for example, by double-clicking
      on its icon). If you do not have a "Startup" program group, you can
      add the the new program to any of the other program groups; and
   b) choosing the "File" and "New..." menu entry of the Program Manager.
      Choose "Program item" and hit "OK".  Set its "Description" to
      "UZPower", its "Command Line" to "uzpower" and its working directory
      to the directory where you installed the UZPower files. When you are
      done, the "UZPower" icon should be in the currently selected program
      group.

3) double-click on the UZPower icon, or restart Windows (to verify that
   it works).  UZPower is started when its icon shows on the desktop.

	To uninstall UZPower in the event you are not going to use it,
simply reverse the steps above, that is:

1) stop running the program.

2) remove the program item from any program group that you added it to.

3) remove the files from the directory where you copied them to.


USAGE
-----
	UZPower runs purely as an icon, with 2 additional menu options
in its System menu. These options are displayed and selectable when you
single-click the left mouse button on its (running) icon.

- The "About" menu option displays version and licensing information.

- The "Full Now" option allows you to tell UZPower that the battery is
  full.  On laptops which don't give this indication, UZPower tries to
  determine full battery charge by making sure you have charged it for
  at least 2 consecutive hours. Since it may be fairly rare that you
  will have the laptop turned on for this long while you are charging,
  you can occasionally use this menu option to give UZPower a hint that
  the battery is full. UZPower will take it from there to make its
  estimates of battery power.

The icon indicates current charging status as a power cord, and battery
power with a gauge that shows either HIGH, LOW or CRITICAL charge. In
addition, it displays a warning message (which you have to dismiss) when
the battery charge becomes LOW or CRITICAL. You usually have 5 minutes
of battery life from the LOW power warning, and about 1 minute after the
CRITICAL warning, depending on battery usage! In addition, if your APM
subsystem has the feature, it will keep track of the remaining battery
charge in hours:minutes on its icon. If your APM does not support this,
it will try to estimate from past history, and show an approximate
remaining time.

LIMITATIONS
-----------
	Since APM is still fairly recent, not all laptops have the most
powerful APM features. If UZPower detects that your laptop does not, it
will preface any of its estimates with the word "approximate".  If you
require more accurate predictions, demand from your laptop vendor that
they implement the full APM version 1.1 specification.

SUPPORT
-------
	If you are a registered user, UZful Software provides on-line
support via e-mail at  uzful@mv.mv.com . When you report a problem,
please include
- the version of UZBlank that you are running,
- the type of PC you have, and
- the symptoms of the problem (any special circumstances that make
  the problem appear? Can you repeat the problem?).

If you have additional suggestions on how to make the program even more
useful, please drop us a line.

UZful Software
"We make the useful simple."

