Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!munnari.oz.au!bruce!monu1!monu6!minyos!rxcob
From: rxcob@minyos.xx.rmit.oz (Owen Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: v08i108: checktd, response from the author....
Keywords: shareware
Message-ID: <5996@minyos.xx.rmit.oz>
Date: 11 Oct 90 04:01:22 GMT
References: <2022@sixhub.UUCP> <1990Oct5.103423.8051@uwasa.fi>
Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia.
Lines: 89

As I wrote the utilities that are being commented on here I felt I should
respond to some of them to at least give another view. I hope no one is 
offended and I welcome further comments:

>ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:

>I have taken a slightly closer look at some of the wares distributed
>in the binaries, admittedly partly because I have written and
>distributed a similar programs myself in a couple of instances. 
>Here are some of my observations on four programs all by the same
>author.  Perhaps I'm too harsh, but in my opinion (with one
>exception) they fail to reach a fair quality limit for
>comp.binaries.ibm.pc. 

Hmmmmmmm, I am not really sure what you mean by "fair quality limit".
Maybe you should give us some guidelines? As regards the relability of
programs I could not agree more but as to the "usefullness" I feel that is up
to the end users. I can only say that I have had many postive responses
as well as negative about the programs.

>ALARM 
> A simple, but useful TSR alarm to remind the user at times
>prerecorded in a text file.  Slightly inaccurate, because wakes up
>only once in a minute.  When I set two alarms go off at minute
>intervals, I only got one, but might have made a mistake in my
>experiment.  One of the nice features is that alarm can remove
>itself from the memory.  I would rate this definitely useful.

Yes it does only wake up once a minute and I would be surprised if anyone
needs an alarm more accurate than that or if their system clock is that
set that precisely! I chose also to wake it up once a minute to avoid
unnecessary interuptions to the system every few seconds. The program does
work at one minute intervals so try the experiment again and if it still
does not work please mail me and I will look into it.

>CHECKTD 
> Is one of many potential a batch enhancer commands.  It returns an
>errorlevel to make a comparison whether we are at, before, or past
>a given date/time.  This is potentially useful as a part of a batch
>package.  But distributed as a standalone program I fail to see any
>merit in it. 

Sorry I dont agree, what is wrong with it as a standalone program? The
advantages as I see it are that it is quick to load being so small and
can be included in a standard DOS batch file without the need to use a 
batch enhancer. I have steered away from the batch enhancer programs
becuase most of them load on top of DOS's own command processor which
reduces the available memory, and in some environments (such as networking)
they run fowl of login programs and other non-standard DOS operations.

>CURSOR
> Can be used to change the cursor size and location, or hide the
>cursor temporarily (that is it is not a TSR).  I've written the same
>utility to work with the additional TSR and size-selection options
>myself.  It is in my /pc/ts/tsutld18.arc package that was recently
>distributed in the binaries and is also available from
>chyde.uwasa.fi.

Yes, I have tried your program and its very good but I do not always want
TSR's loaded for various reasons. I also like to be able to unload them
without resorting to rebooting or MARK and RELEASE and I was unable to find
a way to do this quickly.

ENCRYPT
> Here is yet another program with a great number of precedents
>including mine in /pc/ts/tsfcom23.arc.  I can't find anything novel
>in this new addition to the bunch. 

>It is always nice to have new programs available, but I would
>definitely have tied these utilities together in a single package. 
>With the positive the exception of ALARM the utilities are either
>far too trivial or too common to warrant a separate distribution. 
>These programs are simply not yet up to what shareware is about. 
>But this is just my opinion. 

As previously stated I (any many others I know) do not like batch
enhancers or one program that "tries" to do it all. I see nothing at all
wrong with "little" programs other than if you use lots of them then you
have to wait a little longer perhaps for them to load. If its against
the norm for c.p.i.b. then fair enough.

BUT I appreciate your opinion, it's nice to get some constructive feedback
for a change, thanks.

+-------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|  Owen Baker                   |  Communication Services Unit              |
|  rxcob@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au   |  RMIT - Victoria University of Technology |
|  (61) (3) 660-2038            |  Melbourne, Victoria, Australia           |
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