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View Full Version : Spb Time 2.1 Released


Darius Wey
09-28-2006, 06:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/time/?en' target='_blank'>http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/time/?en</a><br /><br /></div><i>" Spb Time is an advanced, skinnable time toolbox for your Pocket PC. Analog and digital clock modes, World clock, timers and stopwatches are combined in one application. Spb Time can work as a Screen Saver when the device is connected to external power. You may comfortably use Spb Time as a desktop clock when the device is in its cradle. Spb Time plug-in allows you to monitor time in your favorite cities. You can also add a nice clock applet to any tab of Spb Pocket Plus. A lot of time-related functions in this world''s bestselling application! "</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060929-spbtime.gif" /><br /><br />Spb Software House has just released an Spb Time update. Version 2.1 features an improved alarm engine, a one-time alarm, a new alarm pop-up dialog, and an updated city database. If you own an earlier copy of Spb Time 2.x, then this is a free update (simply download and install over your existing copy). Otherwise, you can sample a free trial version by heading over to our <a href="http://www.mobihand.com/pocketpcthoughts/product.asp?id=399">affiliate software store</a>. The full version is available for $9.95 (special offer ending October 2).

Brad Adrian
09-28-2006, 07:12 PM
Like all the SPB stuff, this one's very nice. If you're at all tempted to try this out, though, do yourself a favor and try it along with the other applications it integrates with (Pocket Plus, Weather, Diary, etc.). I used to not really understand the value of apps like Time -- until I saw how useful it can be when part of a well-planned suite like SPB offers.

ctmagnus
09-28-2006, 07:17 PM
I'm away from my main machine for several more hours, so I'll ask in advance: Does the old version need to be uninstalled first, or can this new version be installed over top? Some apps work nicely when upgrading on WM5 (namely WebIS apps) and some not so much...

buckyg
09-28-2006, 07:47 PM
I have WM5 and installed 2.1 right over the top of 2.0, no problem. That was a couple of days ago, it's worked flawlessly every morning since.

Denis Khitrov
09-28-2006, 08:35 PM
I'm away from my main machine for several more hours, so I'll ask in advance: Does the old version need to be uninstalled first, or can this new version be installed over top? Some apps work nicely when upgrading on WM5 (namely WebIS apps) and some not so much...

Hi!
New version can be installed over the old one. But we got a number of user messages reporting about problems with other Spb products after time upgrading.
This may happend if Spb Time was the first Spb application installed on the device. The problems is realted to new unexpected "features" of WM 5.0 installer.
We already prepared an update that trying to fix this issue. Solution is tricky so we want to make extra testing tomorrow.

If you like you can try the recent build.

Desktop installer:
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/downloads/beta/tt2/SpbTime211_935_setup.exe

Cab installer:
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/downloads/beta/tt2/SpbTime211_935.arm.cab

Jason Lee
09-28-2006, 08:49 PM
Does anyone have any experiance with using timers in Spb Time? I have a freeware app right now and use it to time something every day. However it is very inacurate when the pocket pc is in standby.
Basically i want to set a timer for 2:30 hours. With the freeware app the timer never goes off at the correct time. Sometimes it is waaay off.

So,
How does Time handle this? can i suspend the device for long timers? Can i have one timer start the next one when it ends. Say when the 2:30 hour timer ends it will start the next timer in the chain that is 10 minutes? my freeware app allows chaining of timers.

Thanks. This is one Spb app that I do not have yet. But if it will work better than my freeware app will probably pick it up. :D

Brad, how does time integrate with Diary and Weather? I thought it only integrated with PPlus. Or do you just mean it is useful when used at the same time?

fyyzer
09-28-2006, 09:32 PM
I tried out version 2 and was very impressed but one of the key functions I was hoping for was the ability to export the timers data to a text file.

I know it has the ability to export the lap times of a specific timer to a file but I'd like the ability to export each of the 5 (I think it had 5) timers (no lap times) involved.

I own fast food restaurants and would find this very helpful for timing our drive thru efficiency. Lap times don't help me as I start a new timer for each car and would like to dump those all to a text file and restart with a new 5 timers. Not sure if that makes sense and odds are I'm in a pretty specialized boat that wouldn't necessitate the time to address it. I suppose I could always use a piece of paper or flip back and forth betwen Pocket Excel where I'd record the times.

-Mike

Jason Lee
09-28-2006, 10:13 PM
Version 2.1 will export your laptimes and such to CSV so you can open them in excel. I dunno if 2.0 did this or not.. May be a new feature. Sounds like it will do what you want though. :)

Jason Lee
09-28-2006, 11:44 PM
One more question. What exactly did the "Enable Wakeup Tweak" do to my device without my permission? I assume it changed something in my registry.. I want to know what it did.

I guess i won't be purchasing it from the affiliate store... What kind of place does not take discover card??? :(

Edit: Ok i think the "Enable Wakeup Tweak" only changes ACResumingSuspentTimeout to 60 from 15 and the same for BattResumingSuspentTimeout. Is that correct?

Velvis
09-29-2006, 01:26 AM
Suggestion to the developer:

Is there any chance you might consider adding a "sleep machine" feature to the software? One of those things that plays soothing sounds as you drift of to sleep, ideal one that would slowly lower the volume after a period of time. I'd love to see that.

Nat
09-29-2006, 03:42 AM
In Spb Time versions prior to 2.0, it was possible to choose a snooze time when the alarm was ringing, that was really nice, I could choose if wanted to sleep 5 more minutes or 15 or whatever.

Why was that feature removed ??

Jason Lee
09-29-2006, 04:21 AM
I agree that it would be nice to be able to choose how long to snooze and alarm when it sounds.

Another thing I would like to see is one more option in the "Kind:" drop down box. currently the options are normal and auto restart. I would like to see the option to start the next timer down the list. The last timer would just start the first one again if it were set on this setting.

Joseph Moon
09-29-2006, 04:31 AM
Suggestion to the developer:

Is there any chance you might consider adding a "sleep machine" feature to the software? One of those things that plays soothing sounds as you drift of to sleep, ideal one that would slowly lower the volume after a period of time. I'd love to see that.


I have not used the program - but the above idea is a good one... Conversly, it would be great to have a similar feature for alarms - start them off with a low volume user defined setting and have the volume increase to a user defined set level over the course of a user defined amount of time.

Example - I heard someone mention that they have this jungle sounds .mp3 file... It starts with crickets and low sounding insects and escalates up to an elephant sound. He said he uses that as his wake up alarm off his iPod.

Joseph...

ctmagnus
09-29-2006, 06:24 AM
I'm away from my main machine for several more hours, so I'll ask in advance: Does the old version need to be uninstalled first, or can this new version be installed over top? Some apps work nicely when upgrading on WM5 (namely WebIS apps) and some not so much...

Hi!
New version can be installed over the old one. But we got a number of user messages reporting about problems with other Spb products after time upgrading.

Thanks!

But it turns out I had a few hours of downtime this evening ( :sleeping: ) so I took the time to do a soft-reset and uninstall older versions of several apps that are in need of upgrading anyways.

Jason Lee
09-29-2006, 07:11 PM
Well, i'm still not sure if this is a program i really need but it is fun to play with and $10 is witin my splurge range so i bought it. :lol:

I would kinda like to replace the default date plugin with Spb Time but it is too tall. Plus it doesn't have the option to display the long date format.

With Diary inside PPlus and Time at the top of the page (all tabs enabled in diary) your today page is just a bit too long to fit in landscape. :( With the default date plugin instead of Time and Diary with all tabs enabled inside PPlus all just bearly fits in landscape.. So what to do?
I put the new plus applet from Time on my main tab which was pretty coo. It can show the date but not the next alarm like the today plungin... :( I also put Time as a tab in PPlus but then i have to move to that tab to see it. Soooo... I moved all of the icons and meters from my main tab to the Time tab and just deleted my main tab. hehe

http://batcaveweb.com/uploaded_images/timetoday.png

It looks ok.. I just wish i could put icons either above the plugin or in the wasted space on the right... But it all fits and no scroll bar in landscape.
I just think it is kinda funny that the only tabs i have in PPlus now are other Spb apps. I have no actual PPlus tabs. :lol:

Nothing like reconfiguring your today page to waste some time at work. ;)

norad
10-02-2006, 04:10 AM
Still getting the "Cannot execute \Windows\SpbTimeNotify.exe" error after every sof-reset. I was hoping to get this fixed in the next version.

Denis Khitrov
10-02-2006, 01:30 PM
Still getting the "Cannot execute \Windows\SpbTimeNotify.exe" error after every sof-reset. I was hoping to get this fixed in the next version.

Hello Norad,

I'm sorry for this. But we still have not succeeded with our attempts to find a reason of the problem. SpbTimeNotify.exe is used to notify Spb Time about system date/time change event.
It’s absolutely unclear why system needs it after every soft reset. And the other absolutely unclear thing is why it can’t execute it.

Our testers tried to reproduce the problem on different Pocket PCs without any success. Probably we missed some cases. We are continuing investigation of the problem and as soon and reason will be found we surely will fix it.
If you would like we could send you a special application that unregister SpbTimeNotify.exe, so it's never be executed. This will add a potential minor problem to Spb Time (date/time changes may be missed and Spb Time will need to be restarted), but it will save you from the boring message after soft reset.

Denis Khitrov
10-02-2006, 01:40 PM
In Spb Time versions prior to 2.0, it was possible to choose a snooze time when the alarm was ringing, that was really nice, I could choose if wanted to sleep 5 more minutes or 15 or whatever.

Why was that feature removed ??

Hi Nat,

We totally updated Alarm Notification module and in this version our goal was to make it stable and simple in use. Our idea was to most common use case when you either snooze for some time (5 minutes by default) or dismiss. Some good use cases were missed, but many good improvement were made.

We plan improve alarm notification screen in future updates and also add alarm management functions to the today plug-in and applet.

Denis Khitrov
10-02-2006, 01:54 PM
One more question. What exactly did the "Enable Wakeup Tweak" do to my device without my permission? I assume it changed something in my registry.. I want to know what it did.

I guess i won't be purchasing it from the affiliate store... What kind of place does not take discover card??? :(

Edit: Ok i think the "Enable Wakeup Tweak" only changes ACResumingSuspentTimeout to 60 from 15 and the same for BattResumingSuspentTimeout. Is that correct?

Yes you are right! Enabling this option is a last chance to get alarms working (if they were not working) on 2003 and 2003 SE. It is useful for 2003 and 2003SE devices only, while WM 5.0 seems more robust in terms of alarms and need no activation of wakeup tweak.

Denis Khitrov
10-02-2006, 02:01 PM
I agree that it would be nice to be able to choose how long to snooze and alarm when it sounds.

Another thing I would like to see is one more option in the "Kind:" drop down box. currently the options are normal and auto restart. I would like to see the option to start the next timer down the list. The last timer would just start the first one again if it were set on this setting.

Similar options were requested by other Spb Time users and we plan to redesign timer engine in next major update. There are also plans to make this engine very flexible and probably even add a possibility for some scripting.

Jason Lee
10-02-2006, 05:12 PM
Similar options were requested by other Spb Time users and we plan to redesign timer engine in next major update. There are also plans to make this engine very flexible and probably even add a possibility for some scripting.

Wow, that would be very useful. :)

norad
10-02-2006, 07:52 PM
Still getting the "Cannot execute \Windows\SpbTimeNotify.exe" error after every sof-reset. I was hoping to get this fixed in the next version.

Hello Norad,

I'm sorry for this. But we still have not succeeded with our attempts to find a reason of the problem. SpbTimeNotify.exe is used to notify Spb Time about system date/time change event.
It’s absolutely unclear why system needs it after every soft reset. And the other absolutely unclear thing is why it can’t execute it.

Our testers tried to reproduce the problem on different Pocket PCs without any success. Probably we missed some cases. We are continuing investigation of the problem and as soon and reason will be found we surely will fix it.
If you would like we could send you a special application that unregister SpbTimeNotify.exe, so it's never be executed. This will add a potential minor problem to Spb Time (date/time changes may be missed and Spb Time will need to be restarted), but it will save you from the boring message after soft reset.


Thank you for your reply Denis Khitrov...

Btw. does anyone know how to hide the system clock displayed on the top right corner? Now that I'm using Spb Time on my Today screen, I don't need the Windows time anymore.