#C++ thread repost #1
7 messages in this thread
Thomas and Greg:
in light of the appearance of AutoPilot with its history and parent
message features, could we stop this quoting? I thought the whole purpose
of those features _was_ to provide the contextual information relating to
a particular message or reply.
Until I was forced to drop down to 2400 (flaky 8520), I did not pay
much attention to how much online time this repetition of messages was
consuming. Since then, I figure I'm out a few bucks just monitoring these
threads.
Just a thought. After all, isn't information handling what these
beasties were designed for? I could understand it for highlighting code,
but for replying to mail? Enough!
Brian
->on AutoPilot
Brian:
I'll look into using AutoPilot. I can't speak for Greg, but if his
usual machine is a Unix or MS-DOS box, suspect it's not an option for him.
Isn't AutoPilot shareware? Could you tell me what features it uses you
would like to see others use to obviate the repitition of messages so that
I could possibly avoid the obligation of paying for yet another
perhaps-not-quite-essential program? Thanks. -TE
Thomas,
the main feature I like is the Parent button on the Messages window.
If you turn on the History function of AutoPilot, it will keep, as near as
I can tell, a linked list of old messages. If a message is a reply to a
previous message and you have "read" it, you can 'auto-magically' call it
up by selecting the Parent button.
Although this can eat some of your valuable hard disk space, it isn't
as bad as I thought at first. I've been using it in this manner since AP
came out and so far have only 6 MB of HD consumed, including all of AP's
normal files.
AutoPilot is ShareWare of a sort. It is one of those
try-before-you-buy types. If you like it, go to SWREG and register it to
receive the "magic bullet" to convert it to the full version. I can
forsee one problem though, since, as I recall, the history function is not
available in the unregistered version. I can't see any way around that.
But, on a brighter note, if you are not using one of the other CIS
navigation/auto-retrieval packages, AutoPilot will pay for itself within
the first couple of months of usuage, since it automates almost all
aspects of CIS.
Just a thought, or two.
Brian
->on AutoPilot
Even for the PC, there are packages such as Tapcis (which I use) that will
do the history tracking for you.
John, I see you are a sysop here. I promise I'll spend some time with
Autopilot today to see how this history tracking stuff works. Greg and I
have been getting down to a lot of rather fine details, though: so I hope
it works well. I don't like the idea of having to pay for a very
special-purpose communications package, though. I'm already paying a lot
to use Compuserve. –Tom
Actually, it is BECAUSE you are paying a lot for CIS that you WANT to pay
the money for a package such as AutoPilot/Whap/Tapcis. The time you save
in dealing with everyting offline easily offsets the cost of the packages.
Plus, you get the extra benefit of a very nice history of everything.
Tom:
While AutoPilot initially costs you some money, if you use (or plan to
use) CompuServe on any regular basis it will end up saving you lots of
money in the long run. Before I first started using Whap! (the first
automated CIS access program) I was spending about $200-$250 per month,
and NOT reading that many messages. Since I started using Whap!, and now
AutoPilot my monthly bills have dropped to $100-$150, so I'm averaging a
savings of about $100.00 per month, and now I read lots more messages than
I ever did before, and reply to many more, in effect making me much more
active here, with less money. In fact, with my usage, AutoPilot pays for
itself within the first month.
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale