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From: rrr@u02.svl.cdc.com (Rich Ragan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Alarming Events (was Indispensable INITs...)
Message-ID: <25667@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 11 Sep 90 19:48:52 GMT
References: <4098@lib.tmc.edu> <7353@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: news@shamash.cdc.com
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In <7353@milton.u.washington.edu> owen@raven.phys.washington.edu (Russell Owen) writes:
>Alarming Events seems to offer most of the features that are missing in 
>Smart Alarms. But is it really a good program? Anybody used both programs 
>enough to compare them? How buggy is Alarming Events?

I used Smart Alarms for several years and found it quite satisfactory
except that the alarm dialog box is modal. My communications package
that supports multiple connections via a packet protocol has a handshake
timer which drops circuits on a timeout basis. Alas, Smart Alarms'
modal dialog prevents the foreground application from getting any CP
time until it is dismissed so I lost lots of connections. I complained
to Jam Software and they said they might fix it and they would put me
on their beta test list. The result with their new release was: it
was not fixed and I never got a shot at beta testing. As a result,
I bought Alarming Events when it came out. It is more elaborate than
Smart Alarms but perhaps not quite so easy to use (I have made
suggestions to CE Software in this area). As for stability, there
are known problems with the initial release (1.0.1 if memory serves)
that are being actively worked on. In particular, AE interferes with
SCSI device number 1 such that popup alarms don't work. I have
had two other types of crashes that I have traced (via TMON) to AE
and reported to CE. I'm not entirely pleased with the crashes (and
have remedied one by patching SuperClock) but I have had enough
good experiences with CE Software in the past to believe that they
will fix the problems and listen to the suggestions for improvement.
Therefore, I plan to stay with Alarming Events.
--
Richard R. Ragan (408) 496-4340
Control Data Corp., Silicon Valley Operations