AnyMessages? 2.0 & ClockFix 0.0d1

     AnyMessages? 2.0 fixes a long-standing bug with Newton
alarms:  Now if you miss one and your Newton goes to sleep,
the alarm will not be hidden.  Alarms will now play longer,
and at maximum volume, even if youve turned sound off
elsewhere.  Version 2.0 can also be operated manually, like
version 1.0; click on its icon in the Extras Drawer to see
the last four messages your Newton displayed.  
     ClockFix should diminish the Newton clocks gradual loss
of time.  Usually when your Newton restarts, it remembers
the time in minutes, but forgets the number of seconds, so
your clock will generally be slow.  ClockFix tries to set
your clock ahead by its estimate of how much time your clock
loses; this won't solve the problem, but may nearly take the
square root of it. 
     AlarmPak by Allan Marcus was released after I wrote
AnyMessages, and has more features, though it lacks
ClockFixs functionality.  AnyMessages is simple; I try to do
as little in system patches as possible. 
     AnyMessages should work if installed on a card, though
this would let you miss a message when the card wasnt
inserted.  ClockFix will probably be inaccurate unless
installed internally.  Remember: always have at least two
independent backups of your Newtons data, even if youre not
running my code.
     This is delayed nagware:  Its free until the end of
January 1995.  In February, it will nag you to send me money
each time you reboot your Newton.  After that, the alarm fix
will not work, and it will still nag you.
     A non-nagging version via electronic mail costs $10. 
There are two ways to get it.  You can pay by credit card or
cyberdollars for this and other Newton packages with my
program, Register.  You should have received Register with
AnyMessages; the latest version will be on my Web home page
<URL:ftp://ftp.rahul.net/pub/flasheridn/Register.sit.hqx>
and various bulletin boards.  If you have it installed, you
can begin registering AnyMessages by pressing the '$' button
in AnyMessages.  CompuServe members may instead register in
the Shareware Registration Forum (GO SWREG).  The ID is
3558; my address is 72540.1731.  

What the Packages Do (Mostly for Programmers).  

     AnyMessages? has two parts.  One part is essentially
version 1 of the program, a display of the Newtons last four
messages, with the times at which they occurred.  The new
part is a patch of the system :Notify method.  If the
message is important enough, rather than using the system
notification dialog (which disappears when the Newton goes
to sleep), I put up my large message window, which doesnt
disappear until you tell it to. In addition, if the message
is an alarm, I beep five times at maximum volume.  (This
means you can safely turn the sound volume all the way down,
which will save battery life and may speed up typing.)
     ClockFix tries to set your clock ahead by its estimate
of how much time your clock loses.  The first part of the
guess is that, on average, you rebooted your Newton at
thirty seconds past the minute.  This guess means that at
best I can reduce the problem from a linear progression away
from the correct time to a Drunkards Walk around it, which
is a substantial improvement.
     This is trickier than it sounds, since I'm not allowed
to set your clock to a specific time, and setting the
minutes ahead also loses the number of seconds. ClockFix
tries to wait until the true number of seconds is zero, and
then set the clock ahead.  But your Newton may be busy then,
which introduces more randomness.  (Jim Schram of Apple, in
his infrared synchronization sample code, uses a more
sophisticated technique, but his code knows what time it is;
without a trustworthy clock, my code can only guess.  And at
startup time I try to do as little as possible, since things
can get weird then.)
     Another new complication:  Packages which do an
extremely clean reboot don't seem to lose the number of
seconds, but there's no way for ClockFix to know this.  This
is not too big a deal for two reasons:  Many, perhaps most,
reboots seem to be unclean, and even after a clean reboot
ClockFix will make your Newton about thirty seconds fast,
which is generally better than thirty seconds slow.  My
Newton seems to gain a little bit of time running ClockFix,
which is a lot better than losing a lot of time.  
     Note to users of my Disabler: ClockFixs technique is
slightly more sophisticated, so Id recommend turning
Disablers time adjustment off and using ClockFixs.  Note
that ClockFix is an autopart; these were invented after I
wrote Disabler, and arent disabled by it.
     The nagging has two phases, and starts at the end of
January 1995.  After March 1, the notification patch wont
run, and at reboot time a little blinking icon will appear
in the upper left corner of your screen.  You can make the
icon go away by tapping on it, at which point it will tell
you to send me money.  During February, everything will
work, but youll have to tap on the icon twice, and then you
get asked for money.


