Death to 1904.pkg "Grandpa, what were you doing on New Year's Day in 1904?" I settled onto the old man's lap as he reminisced. "The first thing I did was to go sledding with Scoopy Daniels," he said. "Then I did my paper route and had a wonderful holiday dinner with all the family." With a mischievous twinkle in his eye (the real one) he tickled my ribs and asked "And what did you do on New Year's Day in 1904?" I pulled out my Newton MessagePad. "Looks like I went sledding with Scoopy Daniels III, did my paper route and had a holiday dinner with all the family." The old man grabbed the rifle that had not seen service since the Spanish Civil War. "DEATH TO 1904!" he roared. I remember things like that. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Why do I need it? Every so often, something will go wrong in your Newton. No, besides it being killed by Apple. What I'm talking about is a "rogue meeting." This is a repeating meeting like any other, excepting that it starts on January 1, 1904, the day from which all Newton timekeeping is done. You probably weren't doing anything important back then. And frankly, I don't know why this crops up. Like the lemmings, it's a mystery of nature. (OK, so the lemmings were thrown off the cliffs by nature documentary cameramen looking for spectacular footage. The Newton one is still a mystery.) But it is bloody annoying. It doesn't get in the way very often, but it's hard to delete. And when I was trying to synchronize my Newton Dates data to ClockWork, I ran into trouble. ClockWork assumed that it was a valid repeating meeting that spanned 94 years, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. It took a long time to synchronize. The fine folks at Century Software said that it was most likely the fault of a repeating meeting. The next day, I wrote this program to fix such errors once and for all. At the moment, only repeating meetings are addressed. Non-repeaters are stored in a diffferent soup and don't cause as much of a problem. This package has been tested on the MP2100 and the OMP (Original Message Pad). It has worked for me on both of them. However, I can't guarantee that it'll work for you. Therefore, I will not be held responsible for damage to data that you might cause by using this package. If you're faint of heart, look under "Not using the package." Or just go buy a Palm Pilot, you sissy. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Installing You can install this package using the Newton Connection Utility, the Newton Backup Utility, or another package utility (such as LunaTech ResearchΉs PDA Package Downloader). The program will exist happily on either internal memory or a memory card. It can be deleted by scrubbing it out (NOS 2.0 or later) or going to "Prefs:Memory" and removing the package (NOS 1.3 and earlier). When deleted, it will leave no entries in your System soup or anywhere else. This utility is something that you probably will not keep around. Why bother? Just keep it on a floppy, and occasionally re-install it if you need to whack a rogue meeting. Or put it on a RAMcard that constantly gets in your way at your desk, except when you really need it, which is when it disappears mysteriously only to resurface six hours after you download a new copy of this program from the Internet. It's probably laughing at you. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Using the package Upon tapping the icon, the main view is displayed. It has a status bar with an info button and a "Kill!" button, and a large text box that holds the rogue meetings. If you don't see anything in this box, congratulations! You don't need the program. You may go watch cartoons. On the other hand, if you do have one or more rogue meetings, you can select which of them you want to eradicate by checking them off. (You probably want to get rid of all of them, so the program starts off by selecting all entries.) Now tap "Kill!" In a trice (which is an archaic word for wallpaper paste, but that's beside the point) the offending meetings will be gone, and you may get on with your lives. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Not using the package You don't actually have to run Death to 1904 to eliminate rogue meetings. All you really have to do is launch the Dates application; then "Find," "Dates after," "1/1/04." This will list every blessed one of your meetings, even the ones that are lost in the system. You can now tap on each in turn, and see whether the "repeating" date starts on 1/1/1904, and delete it if it does. Warning: This may not work even after you've gone through all this trouble. Yeah, I figured you'd decide to use the package. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹ClockWork, huh? Why, yes. It's the best calendar manager that I've seen so far. It has a decent set of features, and most important of all it synchronizes to my Newton-- the only PIM that can claim that. Claris Organizer used to have a Newton Connection Utilities translator, but now that it's been bought by 3Com, makers of the Palm Pilot, do you really think that Newton synchronization is going to be a priority? Me neither. In fact, the only thing ClockWork lacks is a contact manager. I understand that Century Software is hard at work on one, and I've started programming one as well. (It'll be announced in the usual places when ready.) It has a flexible view, good printing options, AppleScript support, and some unusual features that the others don't have. There's a generous trial period, too. Visit their web site, . ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Shareware fee Absolutely free. I wrote this to fix an annoying thing about synchronization with the desktop computer PIMs I've tried to use. If you find it useful, check out my other Newton programs! Most are freeware, a couple of them are shareware; if you feel like giving me money you can always register one of those. Another free program that was meant to solve an issue with desktop PIMs is "Phone Setter," which cures the "generic phone" problem. Desktop PIMs aren't as flexible as the Newton. They require all your friends to have one home phone, one work phone, one fax line, and so forth. While it's awful that you have to adjust to what some programmer did to save some time coding, it's a fact of life (until more advanced contact managers come out-- see above); in the meantime you can use Phone Setter and Death to 1904 and solve two of the biggest problems with synching your Newton! ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Distribution Death to 1904 may be distributed freely, as long as [1] this ReadMe file is included and [2] no fee is charged for its distribution. Online services which charge a reasonable hourly rate but do not charge extra for downloads may place it in their libraries. Distributors of CD-ROMs and other software libraries may include it if prior permission is given; write to the author for details. The author has also released a number of other small but useful pieces of shareware and freeware. TheyΉre uploaded regularly to the usual sites. I can be reached at Saint John Morrison PO Box 7352 Philadelphia PA 19101 email web ftp ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Copyrights Apple, the Apple Logo and Newton are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. MessagePad is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. ClockWork is a trademark of Century Software. Although Death to 1904 may be copied and distributed freely and used without charge, I retain the copyright on it; it is ©1998 St. John Morrison. All rights reserved. ‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹‹Version Info v1 Initial public release.