HINTS & TIPS - PLEASE SEND IN YOUR HINTS & TIPS SO WE CAN SPREAD THEM AROUND. RESUSCITATE YOUR REALLY DEAD DISKS Colin Tringham (see the "BasicRules" article this issue) reports a way to revive even those disks which you can't format. Using the Mirror Hack Pack NIBBLE mode, copy any disk onto the dud. Having done that, format (initialise) your disk and in 3 out of 5 cases, according to Colin, you'll have a usable disk again. [To INITIALISE a disk, ie, make it recognisable to AmigaDOS, whether it be corrupt or new, click on the disk icon once to highlight it, then select INITIALISE from the Workbench menus, after which you'll be told what to do.] CHEAP PAPER If you get through a lot of paper, in routine listings or whatever, it might be worth your while to get a TELEX roll from your local stationer. They come in plain and telex-logo variety, so get the plain, and of course your printer will have to be friction-feed, and you'll have to contrive some sort of stand since it's a roll. Likewise, if you run a thermal printer such as an Okimate 20, you can always get FAX paper, again much cheaper than getting 100 A4 sheets for $12 or whatever. MULTIPLE UTILITIES IN ONE Just as there has been a proliferation of DIRECTORY UTIIITY programs (such as Diskman, DUIII, etc - see previous Megadisc), so too numerous MULTI-UTES have been surfacing. I speak of DMOUSE by Matt Dillon, and MACHII in particular. Both of these programs are usually run in your startup-sequence, and give the following capabilities - ClickToFront: ie, click anywhere on a window and it comes to the front "SunMouse": as your pointer passes over a window it becomes active InvisiblePointer: becomes invisible after a specified time of no use PopCLI: a 2-key combination pops up a CLI anytime, anywhere MouseAccelerator: you can speed up your mouse to ram through window frames Macros: assignable to function keys in the case of MachII and so on. I used MachII for a while but found that it did strange things with some programs, particularly regarding windows coming to the front, and generally speaking, while a good idea, didn't add to my sense of security and increased the rate of Gurus. DMOUSE, however, like all Matt Dillon's programs (CSH, A CLI shell; DME, a text editor, etc), is tightly written in assembler and is well thought out when it comes to error trapping. On the other hand (I write this later), even DMOUSE seems to be upset occasionally by some unknown background process. I've reverted to POPCLI, the original and the best for popping up a CLI when you want it, as well as blanking your screen after a period of neglect. I've seen another PD contender called QMOUSE as a multiple-utility program, but can't judge. Can anyone clarify all this, and make recommendations? RECOVERABLE RAM DISKS So far we've had ASDG's RRD, and VDK (on Megadisc6), and WorkBench 1.3 has a similar one called CARD: . What VDK has over the other two is the fact that its size is dynamic, meaning that it becomes as big as it needs to be, and no bigger. The other two figure in the Mountlist in your DEVS directory, and have LOWCYL and HIGHCYL entries, meaning fixed number of cylinders, so that the size of the RAM disk is fixed. Worth thinking about if you're conserving memory. A500/2000 users will be interested in the existence of a public domain program called FIXVDK, which does that - sometimes on those machines, after a warm boot the recoverable ram disk wasn't recoverable. Curses and gnashing of teeth! Find it on Amigan #16. Have a look at the article "1.3_System" this issue for more information on RRDs, and it's worth noting that the 1.3 Kickstart will allow you to warm-boot from the RRD which comes with 1.3 - very useful, since it's so fast; and it can be used with all kinds of hard disks as a way to rapidly assign control to them without inserting disks. ICPUG TIP FOR SUPERBASE To create keyboard shortcuts for ANY menu options that don't have them, or to change or remove those that do, use the program ADD2 on Fish 73. Get a CLI going (via Popcli or a command requestor) and put FISH 73 into df1: . Enter > df1:add/add2 Superbase: 2 4 G and you'll find that DUPLICATE on the RECORD menu has acquired an AMIGA-G key option. By replacing the "G" with -kill you can remove any key shortcuts that are already present. The "2" and "4" options above mean the 2nd menu strip, 4th item. Have a look at Fish 73 if this would be useful to you. ATTACHING ICONS TO ICON-LESS FILES This is no arcane mystery. An icon only exists for a file called, say, MYDOC because there is a file called MYDOC.info in the same directory. So if the file is a PROJECT (ie, the result of a program, such as a document from a Word Processor), all you have to do is find another project icon somewhere, and copy it to the directory containing your icon-less project. Then RENAME the imported ".info" file to MYDOC.info. When you next open the drawer containing MYDOC, it will have an icon and you'll be able to see it on WorkBench. The same goes for other kinds of icons - TOOL (ie, program), DRAWER (ie, directory), DISK and TRASHCAN. The only thing to watch out for is making the icon do what you want it to do when you double-click it. Say you used ED the text editor to create a file MYDOC, and did what's recommended above by copying the icon file of a Notepad Note icon and renaming it MYDOC.info. Now that icon is set up to look for the program NOTEPAD in the SYS:UTILITIES drawer, whereas you want your file to be shown using PRINTEXT off Megadisc, which you've copied into the C directory of your disk, where all good commands should live. What you have to do is this (this is only for PROJECT type icons): * click once on your new MYDOC icon to "select" it * select INFO from the PROJECT menu of your WorkBench * up comes a screen describing your icon - click in the DEFAULT TOOL box, press R-AMIGA and X together to remove any entries there (which will be SYS:UTILITIES/NOTEPAD if you used a Notepad Note icon) * now type in SYS:C/PRINTEXT (or just :c/printext if you simply want to refer to the C directory of the disk your icon is on) * click on SAVE in the bottom left corner of the screen, and the new info will be recorded in the icon file itself. Now when you double-click on your new icon it will look for the PRINTEXT text-showing utility in the C directory to show your text file on screen. If you're interested in finding out more about icons, see the articles called USING_ICONS on MD1 & 2, or alternatively, get our ICON THEME disk, which collects all sorts of info and utilities about icons. A FEW BUGS REPORTED BY USERS Publisher 1000 seems to have a few problems with the A2000, particularly with the SAVE and PRINT functions; and it's said to look for a dongle, and doesn't find it...ok on the A1000, however. Devlin, who told us about this, says that neither Imagineering nor the US producers knew anything about these problems. Likewise Shakespeare (a DTP product) is said to be pretty shaky, particularly when it comes to printing (its namesake never had such a problem). And Professional Page V1.1 in recent tests does various odd things - it's possible to knock out whole blocks of text while editing with the Backspace key; Gurus do occur from time to time handling demanding operations such as moving large boxes around BIT BLITZER & GPTERM The Bit Blitzer modem came with factory settings including CARRIER ON on Dip Switch 6, which I found got in the way of the Viatel Comms prog GPTERM (reviewed in MD7), which is set up to recognise when the CARRIER signal is actually on, rather more logical. Having done that, no problem. Speaking of Comms, it seems that the ZMODEM protocol (see COMMPROTOCOLS on MD6 for more info on this topic) is fast becoming a standard, since it can send multiple files, will maintain the names of files sent and is fast. Both ONLINE2.0 and GPTERM(next update) use this protocol. The best buy in modems at the moment is the MAESTRO 2400ZXR, a fully intelligent modem supporting all baud rates up to 2400/2400 (including 1200/75 for Viatel) at about $399 at MICRO-EDUCATIONAL Tel: (049) 264122. DiskWorks also sells the SUPRA modem, also 2400 baud for $299, stating that it's not Telecom approved. Contact them on (02) 4362976. SOME TIPS FOR BEGINNERS Some people who have just bought Amigas have contacted us, wondering about a few things which are not obvious until you've been using the machine for a while. Such as: * "Workbench disk" - this is often referred to in manuals and explanations, and simply means a disk which can be booted up, which has the bare minimum in terms of libraries and devices for the disk to perform all the normal functions such as disk-copying, formatting, etc. Also referred to as a "boot" disk or "system" disk. Once you've booted with a particular disk, however, that is the specific one required for that session, and no other will do, even if it's got all the necessary stuff on it. Your program disk, say DPAINTII, is a Workbench disk, although it's only got on it what's necessary for it to be able to run DPAINTII. USING THE CLI COMMAND "RENAME" If you use the CLI much, and you should if you want your Amiga to zoom, it's worth avoiding excessive typing. So use the RENAME command to rename some of the often-used CLI commands. For example, "execute" can be renamed to "x", "binddrivers" to "bd" and so on. Worth keeping a little list beside you until you memorise the changes. Another way of cutting down on typing is by using a CLI SHELL (such as WorkBench 1.3 will have) - the benefits are having a "history" facility: ie, the up & down arrow keys will recall previous commands which you can edit and re-use. Such Shells include CONMAN on FISH disk #133, Matt Dillon's CSH on FISH DISK # 107 and a couple of other commercial ones, such as MetaComCo's SHELL. Saves a lot of time and trouble. DE BUGGER! Apparently not documented anywhere - during a GURU, if you press DELETE on a remote terminal connected to the serial port at 9600 baud, you'll drop right into the ROM debugger. CHEAP PRINTER STAND Saw this in a magazine somewhere and it works - to store your tractor-feed paper for feeding into the printer, a neat solution is to get one of those in/out plastic trays from your stationer for about $6. Turn it upside down with the open end towards the back of your printer and it fits quarto page sizes very neatly, leaving printed pages to fall to the floor. DESKTOP PUBLISHING HINTS * While using PROFESSIONAL PAGE, you can get speedier text editing if you choose "Black & White" from the Preferences menu, simply because the screen can be refreshed more easily with fewer bitplanes. * If you produce POSTSCRIPT files from capable DTP programs such as Professional Page, Pagesetter (with Laserscript) or Excellence!, it is possible to save them to disk as Postscript files without going directly to the printer (which you won't do anyway unless you're lucky enough to have a Postscript laser printer sitting by your desk). Then you can take them on disk, or send them via modem to a DTP bureau and get them sent to a Postscript laser or even a Linotronic for very high resolution output. Note that Postscript files are computer-independent, so you can send your file via modem to any IBM or Mac which is connected to a modem and a laser printer. POSTSCRIPT/LINOTRONICS/BITMAPS Ross Kellaway has been sending Postscript pages from Professional Page 1.1 to a DTP bureau in Surry Hills, Sydney (McQuade's) and returns somewhat chastened from his experience. It seems that the Linotronic really takes its time when printing "Bit-mapped" graphics, ie like a digitised pic, to the point where the Linotronic is grinding away for a long time. And at 80 cents per minute of Linotronic time, more than we make, it gets expensive. If you want to send off your Postscript files to a DTP bureau with a Linotronic Typesetter, make sure that the bureau has the latest Raster Image Processor if your document has graphics. Most current RIPs owned by bureaus don't, and printing of images is very slow, if it happens at all. Meanwhile it seems that if you use 1.3 Preferences along with the 1.3 printer drivers you can get graphic output of very high quality, colour and black/white. For those interested, the latest "Amigan Apprentice & Journeyman" mag (see MD6 & 7) goes into the Epson X & Q drivers in great depth. And even better, look at Jim Bolf's "Print.Manual" article this issue to get the full low-down by someone who's spent months experimenting with 24-pin dot matrix printers. Speaking of printers - George Vokalek sends me a letter created with AmigaTeX and a HP Deskjet printer. The printing is fabulous, and as good as laser printer output to my eye, so worth thinking about if you want very clean print for your letters and documents. NOTEPAD NEEDS INSECTICIDE Never liked the program (GIZMOZ has a much better MEMOPAD utility) but people will continue to call it in their icons (see above for how), so you double-click a harmless-looking icon and the machine goes into spasms as it looks for Notepad, then Notepad looks for fonts, etc. Trouble is, if you've got a big bunch of fonts in the FONTS: directory of your disk (especially a hard disk), Notepad goes ga-ga and dies. So if you just want to display text, change the icon info as described above to something like PRINTEXT or MORE (on you Extras disk) or LESS as used on the MD catalogue. ERRATIC STATIC I don't think I've ever had any real problem in this regard, but it is often reported to be a worry in computer environments. James Lawrence, a friendly electrical engineer, recommends care, particularly if you are given to shuffling across synthetic carpets in rubber-soled shoes, whereby you become electric, man. Before laying hands on your machine, touch something hard and cold, such as the metal windowframe, to ground yourself. And avoid attaching disk drives and things while the machine is on, and generally realise that you're sometimes like a moving electric motor. Would anyone like to advise on this problem in detail? CHEAP MAXI-MONITOR Colin Tringham tells the tale of his 20" monitor - he found a sale of Arcade games machines, noted that they used large RGB monitors and bought one and hooked it up with a power supply and an amplifier to his Amiga. Just the thing for presentations. Call around for possible sales. FFS HARD DISK PROBLEMS Reported from a couple of people using the Gamma release of the Fast File System on their hard disks - it bombs if you fill a partition with more than about 12 Megabytes, so better to wait until the official release before you go reformatting, backing up, etc. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX END OF HINTS&TIPS XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX