Super Alarm Have you ever been working in Windows and suddenly realized that you had gotten so involved with what you were doing that you lost track of time and missed an important appointment or a TV show you had wanted to watch? Have you ever gotten so involved that you forgot to take a break and suddenly realized your eyes were hurting or your body was all stiff and sore? Do you sometimes forget important dates, such as your anniversary, and end up in hot water later? If the answer to any of these questions is YES, Super Alarm can help you. Super Alarm is a program that lets you store messages and have the computer pop up these messages at any given time and date. The date can be the same day you create the message if you want to remember to do something later, or it can be years in the future. When the appointed day and time arrives, Super Alarm will pop up the message. Of course, you must be running Windows and Super Alarm for this to happen, but Super Alarm can be minimized to an icon and you can be running other Windows programs at the same time. If you are not running Super Alarm when the appointed date and time arrives, Super Alarm will inform you that you missed the appointment the next time you run it. Installing Super Alarm To install Super Alarm in Windows, move all the files that come with Super Alarm (SUPALARM.EXE, SUPALARM.TXT, SUPALREG.TXT, SUPALARM.GRP, etc.) to your Windows directory. DO NOT create a separate directory for this program. Run Windows. Click on Program Manager's Files option, then click on New. When it asks if you want to install a program item or group, select group. On the next form, ignore the Description box. Put SUPALARM into the Group File box and click on the Ok button. The Super Alarm Group will then be installed in Windows. This group contains the Super Alarm program, the Super Alarm Instructions, and the Super Alarm registration form. Note: This program requires that you have VBRUN200.DLL in your Windows SYSTEM directory. This is a general purpose file required to run any program created with Visual Basic 2.0, and can be found anywhere that Windows shareware programs are sold or distributed. Because most people already have it and because it would substantially increase the size of the Super Alarm archive, it probably is not included with Super Alarm. Once you have installed Super Alarm, you may want it to come up every time you run Windows. You can accomplish this by moving Super Alarm into the StartUp group. Just open both the Super Alarm and StartUp group boxes and drag the Super Alarm program icon from the Super Alarm group to the StartUp group box. You may want to set Super Alarm to run minimized when it first comes up by checking the Run Minimized box in Program Manager's Files/Properties option. Using Super Alarm When you run Super Alarm, you will first see a title page. Press ENTER or click on the Ok button to clear this page. (When you register you will learn how to get rid of this title page completely.) You will then see the main form, which has a menu at the top. The main menu consists of Options and Help, which are explained below. Options Set Alarms - This option allows you to set a new alarm. If you select this option from the Options menu, Super Alarm will display a window with boxes for the time, date, and message for the alarm you are creating. The time and date boxes will contain the current time and date as the default. You will certainly want to change at least the time for the alarm. You can input the date in either 12 hour or 24 hour formats. You can also input the date in just about any recognizable format, such as 12/1/1995, 12-1-95, or Dec. 1, 1995. The large box is for you to input a message to yourself remind you of what the alarm is for. Although the box is large, it is generally best to keep the message short and simple. A typical message might be "Dentist appointment at 3 PM" or "Today is your anniversary." If you are setting an alarm for another day and you want the alarm to come on as soon as you run Super Alarm, just set the time for a time before you expect to run Super Alarm. The simplest thing is to set the alarm for 1 AM. When the alarm goes off, it will display the time and the message. At the bottom of this window there will be three buttons. The Delete button deletes the alarm so it will not pop up again. The Snooze button will cause the alarm to disappear and pop up again soon. (The snooze button is not available if the alarm was set for a previous day and is activated now because you did not run Super Alarm on the day the alarm was set for.) You can set the amount of time you want the alarm to snooze, as will be explained later. The third button is the Year Snooze, which causes the alarm to go off same time next year. This is for annual alarms, such as anniversaries or birthdays. Delete Alarm - This option allows you to delete an alarm you have set. When you select this option, you will see a list box containing a list of the dates and times of all your alarms, and at least part of the message for each alarm (some messages may be too long to list). Simply click on the one you wish to delete and click on the Ok button, or double click on the one you wish to delete. If necessary you can scroll the list box. If you decide that you do not want to delete an alarm after all, just click on the Cancel button or press the Esc key. View Alarms - This option allows you to see a list of your alarms. It shows a list box containing the time and date of each alarm and at least part of the message for each alarm. This window looks a lot like the Delete Alarm windows, except that there is no Cancel button and clicking on the Ok button does not delete an alarm. Break Reminder - This option allows you to turn off and on the break reminder. The break reminder will pop up a small window that says "Stop. Time to take a break" at set intervals. You can then click on the Ok button or press ENTER to erase the box. This option is designed to remind you to take a break every once in a while to prevent eye strain, muscle fatigue, and carpel tunnel syndrome. You can set the time intervals for these breaks, as explained below. The Break Reminder option is a toggle switch. It turns on if you click on it when it is turned off and it turns off if you click on it when it is turned on. A check mark appears beside this option when it is turned on. Like all the options in Super Alarm, if you set this option, the new setting is stored in SUPALARM.INI. This means that you do not need to reset it every time you run Super Alarm. Set Break Times - This option allows you to set the length of time between break reminders. When you select this option, it will show you an input box. You can input the number of minutes you want between break reminders. The default is the current setting. The setting if you have never set it (the factory setting, so to speak) is 60 minutes. Set Snooze Time - This option allows you to set the amount of time an alarm snoozes if you click on the Snooze button when Super Alarm pops up an alarm message. The amount of time is expressed in minutes. The "factory setting" is 5 minutes. Set Correct Date/Time - This option allows you to set the computer's internal date and time so the alarms will go off at the right times. On most systems, this sets the clock so it will be right even if you turn the computer off and then on again. (This feature alone can make Super Alarm worth the price of registration is your computer clock gains or loses time and you want it to be correct.) When you choose this option, you will first see an input box to allow you to input the correct date. The current date is the default. You can input the date in any reasonable format, such as 12/1/95, 12-1-1995, or Dec. 1, 1995. You will then see an input box for the correct time. Input the time in a reasonable format such as 3:30 PM or 15:30. The clock will be reset and start running as soon as you click on the Ok button. Exit - This function in the Options menu exits Super Alarm. Remember that Super Alarm cannot cause other programs to move to the front of the screen once you have exited the program. Help There is also a Help item in the menu at the top of the Super Alarm main form. This has the following items: Instructions - This option displays this instruction manual using Windows NotePad. You can stop viewing this manual using NotePad's File/Exit option. Register - This function displays the handy registration form using Windows NotePad. You can use NotePad's File/Print function to print the form and send it in with your registration (hint, hint). This option will disappear from the Help menu when you register (see registration instructions below). About - This Help option displays the Super Alarm title page again. Registering Super Alarm Super Alarm is a shareware program, not a free program. You may use it for a one month trial period. After that, you are required to either pay for it (register it) or stop using it. Super Alarm will start displaying reminder notices (also called nag screens) after one month to help you remember to register the program. When you do register, you will receive a letter telling you how to turn off these reminder notices. Turning off the reminder notices will also cause Super Alarm not to display the title page when it is run and remove the Register option from the Help Menu. You register Super Alarm by filling out the registration form and sending it along with $15.00 to: David Leithauser Leithauser Research 4649 Van Kleeck Drive New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-4205 Payment should be made in US dollars drawn on a US bank. If this is not possible, the next best alternative is a US postal money order or an American Express money order in US funds. As a last resort, a check drawn on a foreign bank in US funds MUST have the proper routing numbers at the bottom. When you register Super Alarm (or any other shareware program by Leithauser Research) you are automatically registered for all future upgrades, even if the new-and-improved version has a higher registration fee than the version you registered. You are therefore free to obtain (download from BBS's, buy from shareware vendors, etc.) and use future versions of this program without paying any further registration fees once you have registered this program. When you register, in addition to the letter telling you how to turn off the title page and reminder screens (and a clear conscience), you will receive a disk full of other shareware programs by Leithauser Research. You are free to try any of these programs to see if you wish to register these programs too. Distribution Because Super Alarm is a shareware program, you may distribute it freely. This means that you may give it to friends, pass it around at computer club meetings, post it on BBS's, and so on. The only conditions or restrictions are that you include all the files that were in the original archive (SUPALARM.TXT, SUPALARM.EXE, SUPALREG.TXT, etc.) and that you not modify or edit these files. You especially may not leave out or modify the references to how to register this program. The only exception to this restriction on modifying or editing the files is that you may translate the documentation into other languages if you want to distribute this program in countries where English is not the primary language. The translation, however, must still contain the information on how to register this program. Bug reports, suggestions, comments, etc. If you have any problems with Super Alarm or wish to suggest any improvements, you can send your comments to the above address. You also can send EMAIL to the following addresses: Compuserve: 74046, 1556 GEnie: D.LEITHAUSER America Online: Leithauser InterNet: 74046.1556@compuserve.com Custom software The primary function of Leithauser Research is developing custom software to customer specifications. If you need a program you cannot find anywhere, or you have an idea for a program that you want to sell but do not have the programming skilled to write the program yourself, contact Leithauser Research at any of the above addresses (postal or EMAIL) with a description of the program you have in mind for a price quote.