Subject: REVIEW: CyberPager 1.2
From: [email-masked] (Mike Meyer)
Date: 18 Jan 1994 18:22:42 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	CyberPager 1.2

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	CyberPager is a package that uses a standard (slow) modem to dial a
paging service and send pages to your pager.  A pager capable of displaying
alphanumeric data is very useful.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Christopher A. Wichura
	Address:	5450 East View Park
		        Chicago, Il.  60615
		        USA

	Telephone:	+1 312 684-2941

	Email:		[email-masked]
	BIX:		caw

LIST PRICE

	CyberPager is freeware.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Your Amiga needs a modem. You need a pager, but it doesn't
		need to be attached to the computer.

	SOFTWARE
	
		Requires AmigaDOS 2.0 or later, and OwnDevUnit.library 2.1 or
		better (version 3.3 is included with the distribution).

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	A3000 running AmigaDOS 3.0 and 3.1, 16 Meg of FAST ram, 2 Meg of
chip, and either a 1 or 2 Meg PicassoII for display.  The modems used were an
Supra 2400Z internal modem, and a Telebit Worldblazer attached to either the
A3000 serial port, or one of the serial ports of a GVP IO Extender card.

REVIEW

	While the idea of having your computer send you pages automatically,
with no human involved, may seem repulsive - especially if you already have
a pager - that's the wrong way to look at this particular piece of software.
	
	Instead, consider that it gives your computer an output device that
isn't attached to the computer, and could allow it to print useful
information even if you are on the other side of the country.  For instance,
I wake up in the morning in a hotel room, and my appointments for the day
are on my pager.  I get early notification of meetings from my calendar
manager - even though I'm nowhere near my computer.

	Of course, you can also use this to improve the accuracy and speed
of notification of important events.  Network outages, critical computers
being down, or just important pieces of mail can all be used to trigger
pages.  With a pager that can display ASCII characters, the pages can
actually say what's wrong, instead of being a number you have to decipher.

	With that out of the way, we can discuss with the actual software.
In installing it, there are three files that have to be set up.  They are:

	Config		The configuration for this installation.
	Services	A list of pager services that you can dial.
	Aliases		A list of people who can be sent pages.

In addition, you can create:

	Groups		Allows pages to be sent to multiple people with one
			command.
	
	Config is straightforward, and the first part resembles the Amiga
UUCP config file. It's a list of variable names and values representing the
name of the page spooling directory, location of the log file, and similar
configuration variables.  The second half of the file is a list of modems.
These are numbered by hand and include a serial device driver to use, the
unit number for that device, the baud rate to open the modem, whether the
modem has to be dialed at the speed the service expects for connection,
whether the modem supports CTS/RTS handshaking, and finally, the string that
is used to dial the modem.

	Services is probably the hardest file to configure, because the
information in it isn't liable to be readily available, and you will have to
find the person at your pager service company who knows it.  Such
information includes the number for your computer to call to send a page,
the maximum baud rate, the maximum page size in bytes, and whether or not
the service supports multiblock pages.  Generally, the answer to that last
question is "it doesn't matter."  Blocks are a maximum of approximately 240
characters, and pages are a maximum of approximately 230, so the longest
possible page fits in one block anyway.

	Given that information, the Aliases file is easy.  It's the name of
the person to whom you'll be sending pages, the name of the company listed
in Services that is providing pager service for them, the "PIN" number for
the pager -- just that pager's phone number, for the services I use -- and
whether that person wants a maximum number of pages/messages, or a maximum
page size lower than the service limit.

	Once this is all set up, you can arrange to send a page with the
"Spoolpage" command.  You tell it to whom (from the "aliases" file) to send
the page, whether the message is urgent, and the message itself.  Spoolpage
copies it out to the spool directory.

	You now run the "dialixo" command.  It will check each service to see
if there are pages waiting for that service.  If there are, it'll dial the
service (from the "Services" file) and deliver all waiting pages.  The
service then pages you... but be patient.  Paging services have a delay,
ranging from nearly nothing to as long as 20 minutes!

	Clearly, to be useful, you need to arrange for the dialixo command
to be run at regular intervals, with retries and the like.  Since dialixo
doesn't do anything if there are no pages, it's safe to run fairly
frequently.  Some form of "cron" (scheduler) utility is just the ticket,
though something based on the AmigaDOS 2.0 Notify functionality might be
better.  At the same time, arranging to have the log file trimmed at regular
intervals is probably a good idea.  You normally look at that only when
things go wrong, which is a rare event.

	Once everything is set up, there is a selection of scripts that
allow you to set up your address so electronic mail can be sent to your
pager; watch log files for interesting events to send pages on; watch
for incoming news; or to page someone chosen from a schedule.

DOCUMENTATION

	The documentation is a a single file with the distribution,
describing the system, its theory of operation, and what little is required
to set it up.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	The program comes with full source code - always a major plus in my
book!  The documentation could use some work, especially to cover configuring
the system for multiple modems.  In fact, the support for multiple modems
could be made a bit easier to deal with.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	The only similar product for the Amiga is an unreleased VLT (terminal
emulator) script I wrote myself.  This package has all the features I would
have liked to have added, and is much faster and more reliable to boot.

BUGS

	None that weren't fixed quickly.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	Excellent.

WARRANTY

	None.

CONCLUSIONS

	This product is excellent, if poorly documented. I've been using it
for months, and it does the job expected of it with no fuss, no bother, and
no headaches on my part.

	Kudos to CAW for providing this tool.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1993, Mike W. Meyer

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