                   ***********************************
                   *                                 *
                   *      BIRTHDAY SCANNER v1.2      *
                   *  (c) by Alexander Agranov 1998  *
                   *                                 *
                   *                                 *
                   *          USER'S GUIDE           *
                   *                                 *
                   ***********************************


                              Introduction
                              ============

  All of us have friends, relatives and other people, who would like us not
to forget to congratulate them with their birthdays. Unfortunately, most of
us can't keep in our minds all these dates and numbers, and, from time to
time, are missing some of the anniversaries.

  Birthday Scanner is the small utility that'll make your life a lot simpler,
not bothering your PC too much. It delicately reminds you in advance about any
upcoming birthday, thus allowing you to prepare for it and not to forget it.

  Of course, all this can be easily done by a lot of Time Scheduling programs
available on the market today (e.g. Microsoft Outlook). But most of these
programs are permanently residing in your memory, thus occupying a considerable
part of it. For those of us, who just need simple reminders about the upcoming
birthdays, these programs are too heavy and provide too much of unnecessary
functionality.

  Birthday Scanner differs from the typical Time Scheduler by the fact that it
doesn't occupy ANY memory at all. It simply loads itself during startup, scans
it's database, displays reminders of upcoming anniversaries (if there are any)
and leaves the scene, thus freeing all the memory. For birthdays such behaviour
is mostly adequate - user is informed of any upcoming events in advance (in 3
days), at the same time memory and resources are not wasted.

  In addition to running Scanner on startup, user can schedule it to run at
any specific time using any Scheduler utility (e.g. System Agent supplied with
Microsoft Plus).



                              Installation
                              ============

  Birthday Scanner consists of two independent applications:

* Birthday.exe  - Database Editor
* Scanner.exe - Scanner itself.

  For the proper operation the Birthdays Database file Birthday.txt, which is
automatically created by Database Editor, is also required.

  User can put these files in any directory of his choice. When Birthdays
Database is created, user should create a shortcut to Scanner.exe in StartUp
menu (refer to the Win95 Reference Manual on how to do it). After that Birthday
Scanner will be automatically executed each time the operating system boots up,
thus informing you of any upcoming anniversaries.



                            Database Editor
                            ===============

  Database Editor is intended for creating and modifying Birthdays Database.
This database is stored in plain-ASCII file Birthday.txt, which can be also
edited manually using any ASCII-text editor.

  Database Editor provides a user-friendly interface for adding, modifying and
deleting reminders. It automatically sorts them in alphabetic order and supports
searching functions. Pop-up hints are provided for all buttons.

  The following command buttons are available:

 *  << , >>  - move to previous/next reminder
 *    Add    - add new reminder
 *   Enter   - resort database (when reminder was modified - places it in
               the corresponding entry in database)
               (note, that this button is not generally required - because
               database will be anyway resorted as soon as user moves to the
               previous/next reminder)
 *  Delete   - delete current reminder
 *   Find    - find specific reminder (continuous search and case
               sensitive/unsensitive search are supported)
 *   Quit    - quits Database Editor, discarding all changes performed in
               database
 *   Exit    - exits Database Editor, saving changes in database



                               Scanner
                               =======

  Scanner is intended for scanning Birthdays Database and displaying any
upcoming events (in 3 days in advance). If there are no anniversaries in the
nearest future, Scanner automatically closes itself and thus is almost invisible
to the user. But when the time comes, it pops up with a nice window, which
gently diplays reminder(s) of the upcoming anniversary.

  Shortcut to Scanner should be placed in StartUp menu, as described in Program
Structure.


                        Changes in version 1.1
                        ======================

  Version 1.1 introduced longer fields and ability to customize the number of
days each upcoming anniversary will be displayed in advance. Special thanks to
Gary Allain who inspired me for these innovations.

  Those users who need to convert their datafiles from version 1.0 to version
1.1 can use automatic conversion utility supplied in version 1.1. Just copy the
old Birthday.txt file to the new installation directory and run Convert.exe there.


                        Changes in version 1.2
                        ======================

  This version fully solves the "Year 2000" problem - date field is converted
to 4-digit year representation.

  Color setup is now fully user-customisable. You can define your color scheme
in Database Editor and store it for future use by both Database Editor and
Scanner modules. Special thanks to Michael Magruder for usefull suggestions.

  Those users who need to convert their datafiles from version 1.1 to version
1.2 can use automatic conversion utility (just as in previous version).


                          Technical details
                          =================

  Birthday Scanner was completely written in Borland C++ Builder v1.0.

  Birthday Scanner is distributed as FreeWare, though the author will appreciate
any respond from those who use this application.

  If someone would like to modify the application on his own, all sources are
available at your request. You can get in touch with me by E-Mail or by phone.
Just in case, if you'd wish to send me some donations (I don't expect nothing more
that $5 anyway), you can use my address:


   Alexander Agranov

   Home address:  Rambam st. 13/3,  Bat-Yam,  Israel
   Home E-Mail:   alexagr@internet-zahav.net
   Home phone:    972-3-5061870

   Work address:  Telrad, Lod, Israel  (TMX100A)
   Work E-Mail:   alex.agranov@telrad.co.il
   Work phone:    972-8-9131187


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                                                                  (c) AGA, 1998
