BlueNotes


^CLost in the Mail

Dear readers,

This is my response to a letter for help on our Certificate
Creator program.  While it's not our policy to lose items that
are mailed to us--it does happen.







To surmise the letter:

Dear Jay,

Certificate Creator, help me, video problems, printer choices,
how, what, when, why, where.

^RRoger Young
^RDelta UT

Dear Roger,

I'm sorry that you're having problems with Certificate Creator.
Let's see if I can shed some light your way with some answers.

First off, not all compatible computers are compatible!  While
the standards have become more rigid with VGA, those good old
CGA cards do not all conform to the same set of rules.  That's
why CC can't locate your video card.   I wish I could fix that,
but I cannot.  Unless of course you want to buy a VGA card and
monitor, I can point you in the direction of a good deal. :)

Next on the hit list was the difficulty in the creation process.
I will assume you are not familiar with mouse-based
applications.  Pull down menus, dialog boxes, scroll bars, that
sort of thing.  In essence that's what CC is--a mouse-based
application.  We have taken great pains to provide an excellent
keyboard-mouse emulation package in CC for our friends without
those pointing rodents.  (We actually took the mice away from
the developers to make sure the interface was easy to use.) Like
anything new, practice will make perfect.  The mouse pointer is
used to select what you want to do, where you do it and how big
it should be when it's done.  To move the pointer without
actually having a mouse, lay a finger on any of the four cursor
direction keys (up/down/left/right arrow).  When you've got it
where you want it hit space to activate what it's pointing at.

The exception to this rule is the toolbox (that graphic list of
items on the left side of the screen.  Once the pointer enters
that region your up and down arrows traverse the different
tools.  Let me do a step by step on drawing something.

1. Move the pointer into the toolbox.

2. Press either the up or down arrow until the last item in the
tool box is highlighted.

3. Press the right arrow until the pointer is in the document
area.

4. Press space, the pointer should now be a little hand.

5. Use your arrows to move the hand away from the origin point.
Give it thickness as well as height.  You should see an outline
of a circle being formed as you use the arrow keys to move the
hand.

6. Press space again and you just drew a seal--it's an empty
seal, but a seal none the same.

All the tools work this way.  Try it with the border tool, the
next to the last tool in the toolbox.  This time you should see
a border being drawn upon completion.  When you get better at it
you'll find that you can use the pointer tool to point at
objects (and a line of text is just another object) and move or
change them.

Our final hurdle was printing.  The printing option in the menu
will be inactive if there is no document to print.  I can only
guess that this is what happened to you.  After completing the
example select print again.  It should work fine.

As for the printer selections, you are covered.  You see, all
printers worth their weight in green-bar paper come with an
emulation mode that makes it work like one of the printers in
our list.  You should set yours to be like the Epson MX and it
will work like a charm.

^R-J

Dear Jay,

Thank you for your quick reply to my letter last month.  I took
your instructions to my computer and it worked.  It seems that
you explained it better in your letter than I was able to
understand from the explanation on the disk.  So, I tried what
you told me to do and was able to complete a document.  I have
sent you a certificate that I made with the program to show you
that it did work.

Editor's note: Attached to the letter was a very
complementary certificate.  (blush)

Thanks again for the help.  With the instructions that you gave
me for the program, I was able to use the MAPIT program that was
on the last issue (ODM #59).

Keep up the good programs and again, thanks for your help.

^RRoger Young
^RDelta, UT

Dear Roger,

Thanks for the certificate, it's proudly displayed on my wall
overlooking my desk.  I will be including the text of the letter
I sent you, your original letter (if I can find it), and these
documents in the next Readers Write.  I hope that my
instructions will help any other users having difficulty with
Certificate Creator and MapIt be a successful as you were.  ^R-J

^CHow soon they forget

Dear Jay,

I enthusiastically opened my ODM package today and read about
the plans for a new menu interface.  I have subscribed to
BBD/ODM for over 4 years now and have enjoyed it immensely.
With excited curiosity I attempted to run the "SCREENS.EXE"
program to get a peek at the new look.  Much to my dismay I got
the "program too big to fit in memory" error.  No problem, I
just exited to DOS and ran it from the command line--same error.
Still not entirely defeated, I rebooted with all my TSR's
disabled--guess what--same error!  I used MEM and determined
that I had 520k as the largest executable program size.  Gee, I
can hardly wait for your new menu; I probably won't be able to
run it!  I ^Bcan^B run most any application though--so what's
up?  I have a TANDY 1000 SX with 640k, CGA, running MS DOS 4.01;
a system that has been more than adequate for my needs--til now.

Speaking of adequate systems, I kind of resented you telling Mr.
Richard Gilman that a 386-33 was ONLY $2500.00 and bargains
could be found in Computer Shopper, as he stated he was
financially unable to purchase a new computer at this time.  I
and most everyone I know reads Computer Shopper and already have
a "dream machine" picked out but can't swing the money at this
time.  I'll agree that I have over $2500 sunk into my computer
in a span of nearly six years--and today my little system is
probably only worth $450-$500 due to obsolescence.  I am a
housewife, a self-taught compu-nerd, a librarian for a computer
club, no longer a novice and have never used a computer in a
work setting.  My computer is purely for my own pleasure and I
too, as Mr.  Gilman, cannot afford my "dream machine" at this
time.  So before you and your programmers endeavor to create
big, fancy, MEMORY-HUNGRY programs on your state-of-the-art
equipment (no doubt a good tax deduction); please remember WHO
you are writing for: HOME USERS, NOVICES, and people like me who
have enjoyed ODM/BBD for so long...Please keep your software
downward compatible for us poor people and our obsolete
machines.  (I bet you won't publish this!)

^RKathy McGuire
^RClovis, NM




Dear Kathy,

I'm sorry that you (and the many other folks with Tandys or less
than 640k) were not able to run the screen show of our new
shell.  As you can see, the new shell works just fine on your
machines.  I won't go into the technical reasons why the screen
show didn't run for you.  Let's just say we made a compression
booboo.

As for my stating to Mr. Gilman that a 386-33 is available for
2500.00 (now down to about 1700.00), he asked me what options he
had for upgrade.  I told him what options he had--simple as
that.  Granted I would love to get a liquid-cooled 486-50, but I
can't afford it and will stick to my 386-33 at home.  (At work I
have a 286-12, hardly state-of-the-art!)  I also wrote what I
did for the many other folks who are in a position of
considering another computer.

You need not worry about us forgetting who we write for and the
machines that they use.  We are not about to play Apple Computer
Inc.  and completely ignore a base of computer users so large
it's equal or larger than some small European countries (I know
this because I used GeoTutor last month!).

^R-J