Whistle Blower 2.0 Copyright 2000, James Sentman <james@sentman.com> All Rights reserved Whistle Blower is a server monitoring utility. It can regularly connect to your servers and verify that they are responding properly and within a reasonable amount of time. If a problem is discovered Whistle Blower can alert you via e-mail, send a page via either Simple Pager or MarkSpace’s Page NOW! If you have a Master Switch from APC or a Power Key from Sophisticated Circuits Whistle Blower can actually restart a failing server without any further intervention from you. Whistle Blower also fully supports the new KickOFF! server restart device from Sophisticated Circuits. Whistle Blower can also launch Apple Scripts to help you customize your response to an outage as well as play custom sounds or speak phrases as part of the alert process. Whistle Blower can directly connect to the following server types: Web Servers LDAP Apple Share IP News DNS POP3 Filemaker Pro QuickTime Streaming First Class Radius Authentication 4D Servers (4D Open Required) SMTP FTP Telnet Hotline IMAP You can also verify a server by sending a standard Ping and connect to anything that listens for incoming TCP connections via the Generic TCP task. Whistle Blower 2.0 ©2000 by James Sentman, all rights reserved. page 1 1. Setting up a task The first time you run the program the Edit Task window will come up. At any other time you can select ‘New Task’ from the File menu. Double clicking on a task in the main window opens the Edit Task window for editing the existing task. Task Name: Every task must have a unique name that will be displayed in the Main Window display. Server Address: This is the DNS name or IP address of the server you want to connect to. By entering the IP address, or entering the DNS name and clicking on the ‘Resolve IP’ button (PPC only) you will still be able to connect to the server if your DNS server should go down. Whistle Blower 2.0 ©2000 by James Sentman, all rights reserved. page 2 1. Setting up a task Connect To Server Every: How often you want to verify the server. Task is always active: The task will check every interval. Task is active during shift: Shifts are discussed in detail later in this documentation. If you select this option and a shift from the popup dialog the task will only check while the selected shift is active. This can be u…

Se ES | neh Way anaes a -% —— ee F New! Version 11 Enclosed | The FreeSoft Company | Here’s What White Knight Will Do For You: Supports Macintosh Plus, SE, Il and all later models. Not Host Mode with optional password protection allows for use on 128K or 512K Macintosh’s. unattended file transfers from a remote machine. 270+ page manual has plenty of step-by-step’s for Multiple Phonebooks to keep track of your most beginners. Simple enough for a beginner, yet enough frequently used services. meat to keep experienced users happy for along, long Full text selection and Clipboard support including time. Copy, Copy Table, Paste To Modem, Copy Then Paste, Capture all incoming text to a file that can be imported Append Selected Text To New Or Existing File, Print to your favorite word processor. Selected Text. Import data to or export data from your favorite Macintosh applications with the greatest of Send or receive files using the richest set of error ease. correcting protocols of any Mac communications program, includingXMODEM/checksum, XMODEM/ Full support of all printers (including all Laserwriter CRC, XMODEM/IK blocks, Supercharged XMODEM, models and third party printers). YMODEM/CRC, YMODEM/IK blocks, YMODEM-G, Buffered keyboard option lets you compose text (up to ZMODEM, Classic Kermit, Long Packet Kermit, Sliding 32,000 characters with multiple embedded lines) Windows Kermit, Flash, and CompuServe QuickB before sending it. Great for real-time conferences and protocols. packet radio applications! Will work completely and transparently in the back Fully moveable/sizeable/zoomable windows takes ground under MultiFinder. advantage “big screen’ monitor sizes. We even let you True and complete terminal emulation of TTY, VT52, “colorize’” the windows to your own preference (if VT100, and VTI02 terminals with exceptionally fast your machine supports Color QuickDraw). throughput speed makes it easy to connect with other Use any font in any point size for text display with no microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, time- throughput degradation. sharing networks, laboratory equipment, bulletin …

2 How to Use This Book 4 Shopping 158 7 How Computer Professionals Buy Software Languages, operating systems, software design library, software engineering, software maintenance, utilities 10 Computer Magazines 14 Hardware 175 22 Buying Simulations, problem-solving, math, reading, science, money handling, etc. 23 Discount Mail Order 25 How to Get Free Software 192 28 Music, weaving, nutrition, exercise, astronomy, meditation, appliance control, slide show control, Strategy games, action games, computer sports, postal services, betting, artificial intelligence adventure and role-playing games 46 200 Point Foundation Word processors, spelling and style checkers, typing tutor 202 202 Magazine Index 64 202 Book Index Spreadsheets, statistics programs, stock market 202 Public Domain Index programs 202 Publisher/Vendor Index 202 Apple II Index 78 203 Atari Index File managers, database managers, text organizers, 203 Commodore 64 Index computer organizers {keyboard enhancers) 203 CP/M-80 Index 203 Radio St1ack TRS-80 Index 94 204 Radio Shack Model1 00 Index Personal finance, small business accounting, 204 IBM PC and Compatible Index sophisticated accounting, tax programs 204 Hewlett-Packard 150 Index 204 DEC Rainbow Index 106 204 Macin…

H : MA GA ZINE OF FIN COM UTINC # ART KLEINER: Whole Earth Playing Editor Steven Levy, a veteran freelance journalist, offers the first entry in this new regular feature — software that doesn’t exist yet but should. Ifyou : can imagine a program that Ought toBe write it up and send it in. STEVEN LEVY: The most direct pleasure from word processing is ease of revision. But first inspiration often proves to be on the mark, and the tempting pales nessof changing a word or softening a than the original. Also, computers. allow "dragging the mouse across it, and on- and line numbers. _ pages screen that questionable passage appears The options are similar when you in boldface (or whatever). To insert a go over an edited BLUE PENCIL docu- word, double-clicking the mouse between ment on the computer. You can call up two existing words places a caret inthe — the document in its original form, in the _ space, pointing to the addition above. Blue Pencil format with the changes and _ Trying to legibly squeeze sentences suggestions in the margins and between between double-spaced lines has frus- the lines, or with the changes implemen- trated editors for years. It’s no problem _ ted. Or, as with a non-automatic search- using BLUE PENCIL — you can set the and-replace function in word processing, margins of your “change” andthe program _you can proceed to each change one by _ will automatically word-wrap, dropping one, study it, and in a keystroke decide the next line of the document down to _- whether to implement the change or — _ make room. [he marginal comments will leave the text as it was. Even if you don't appear in yet a different font. (Note that implement the suggestion, the program _ BLUE PENCIL permits both “‘changes’’ will ‘‘remember”’ it. Likewise it will save _ suggested replacements, additions, or _ the original passage when you do make deletions to existing text — and “com- _ the change, and atany time later on you ments,’ which call for further work and can access the “history” of a passage or ~ can even include the “Good point: s and word. “Wow!"'s that make a writer’s day.) Eventually BLUE PENCIL could be ~_=«é#BLUE PENCIL gives you several used for telecommunicating, where col- printout: choices. You can print the laborations between writers or long- original, with or without comment and _ distance editing relationships can take full — with or without changes marked. Or advantage of its features. But | suspect you can print it with the changes inte- that plenty of people will use the Blue _ grated to see how it would read. You can Pencil Mode for their own drafts, to — ___even print a list of changes and com- — preserve the revelations that come on _ ments wit…

OFFIX: Simple, Useful and Cheap New personal computer owners share certain frustrations. Their promising “productivity tool’ is complex. Software looks simple when the dealer demonstrates it; then turns out to be a bear to learn and comes with a book full of instructions, hints, dire warnings and Catch-22’s. If you want to read a book, you would have bought one, right? OFFIX attracts us with a seductive simplicity based on a graphic replication of the physical steps you go through to gather, organize and structure the information you use. It’s simple enough to be shipped without documentation. All necessary instructions are available on the screen and the codes used to make OFFIX perform are blessedly consistent and logical. They pop up on the screen at your command; disappear when they aren’t needed. All this good news is wrapped up in a most welcome trend. Software has cost too much since personal computers appeared. You can get a complete microcomputer for around $1,500 these days, but a single software package can still cost $500-1,000. That's wrong. OFFIX is part of a new direction in software pricing: downward. It’s a basic set of office tools for only $99. More about OFFIX starting on page 47. —Richard Dalton The book is the Whole Earth Software Catalog, first edition to appear late in 1984, published by Doubleday. Its subject is everything having to do with personal computers. Its function1is to” evaluate the best of what’s available for personal computers. The on-going magazine has the same subject. Its function is to find the best of what’s available for personal computers. A clear impossibility. Consequently, a clear necessity. Rather than quote the usual astounding statistics of the runaway growth and product proliferation, I can report on my own continuing dismay, delight and intensely educational confusion facing this marketplace as a shopper as well as would-be cataloger. A privileged participant in one of the inner circles of computer mania — COMDEX, the microcomputer and software manufacturer/vendor mating dance at Las Vegas last November — I faced eleven miles of aisles of _ exhibitors. Nicely dressed fast-track professionals gobbled their hot dogs crouched on the sticky concrete floor because there was no space or time for niceties like chairs. If that’s the view from inside, what does this bizarre bazaar look like to customers? Something has to provide an overview. Too bad, it’s too smoky and fast-moving a battlefield for an overview. And yet . . . if we can take it piece by piece . . . and assemble the pieces . . . and use the very technology being reviewed to maintain constant updates... . If readers are willing to do through a publication what they do in person — share advice. . . . If there’s a place with the products and equipment and expertise to compare and check the advice. . . . The impossible might become merely difficult.…

SUMMER 1984 $5 Review ENABLING COMPUTERS p. 46 Reviewer MARK O’BRIEN: “For the first time, | feel my writing can be private. | am free to keep a journal, write personal letters that really are personal, and rewrite as much as | want without having to pay a secretary ... Next to a power wheelchair, a peomputer is the most useful gadget “ eo |. 7 _ disabled person can own.”’ 7. ceaoee e cs “Telecommunications. Software: ‘Macintosh vs. PGi; oa SSeas ee te : - Artificial Intelligence Fa Research current through March 1984 CONGRATULATIONS. Yo u have survived Lauae I | This isn’t the replacenient for MS. PAC-MAN. T.REX iisa bee - new direction for animated ‘programs you maneuver with a ea joystick. This new focus iis on simulation of natural science environments where you get to live out the daily challenges — _ of being a dinosaur or act as manager of a beehive. ie Dinosaurs had a tougher time than you imagine. Tyranno- saurus had to wrestle with water supplies, where to find _ other dinos to feed on (and conserve energy while tracking "em down), the ambient temperature and even whether the _ terrain he crossed could support his bulky body. If that — doesn’t sound tough, then why did they disappear? : KERON Productions Inc., developers of T.REX, leave — that answer to you as you maneuver the beast through en- vironments they have created with scrupulous scientific — accuracy. That’s what simulations are all about and why personal computers are becoming more interesting — they can provide experiences that aren’t possible any other way. More information on T.REX and what simulations can offer is found in the article written by KERON’s chief executive officer, Ron Rollet, beginning on-page 69. | —RD : ENABLING COMPUTERS Art Kleiner, resident expert on systems designed for the disabled, has powerful examples of what can be achieved with a computer when used by some remarkable people in his article, “Enabling Computers” which starts on pa…