My Time & Chaos page 
of absolute truth!

Time & Chaos 5.x -vs- Outlook 2000

PIM (Personal Information Management) is an old story. My first PIM experience was when I used SideKick on my 8088 (1987) . Later & for many years I was using schedule, a great small TRS Dos free program came from PC Magazine . Win 3.x came but most business users were still working under Dos platforms . I was using schedule until 1994 . 

Time & Chaos is an award winning organizer from iSBiSTER . For many years T&C earned my respect , but many times I try to test some competitive programs . Today I tried MS Outlook 2000 . I 've noticed T&C superiority , power & ease of use from the first minutes ... I uninstalled Outlook half an hour after working with it . It's about the same reasons I uninstalled Lotus Agenda :-( . Here are some:

- Outlook is too slow and big . Needs 84MB if you haven't install MS Office 2K or about 25MB more if you did . When working with it some functions runs slow even on my AMD/400 . T&C needs only 2.5 MB of your HD , loads fast, runs fast . My laptop with 32MB RAM feels much more happy with T&C . Yours ? ...

- Yeah... sure , Outlook supports networking ... but you have to buy MS Exchange Server (& WinNT Server) and spend xxx hours of setting up PC's & apps . Using T&C help I set up a network environment within minutes . As most PIM , T&C supports many databases (each for one person) that can be viewed / edited from all the group . But the feature I love in T&C is that the engine is real multi-user: It's possible to work 2 users with the same database at same time (the data does not refresh automatically but there is no conflict) . This is great in case of a 2-3 user LAN so there is no need to have more than 1 database, everyone can edit a single one .

- T&C has this bloody killer "all in one window" GUI . I got tired pushing buttons & or clicking mouse when I want to see everything on my monitor NOW . All data are viewed much easier and all of my jobs are done with less keys or mouse use using T&C .

- MANY power features , easy to be found & use them: Data Overlays, Transportable records, Color marks, Backup / Restore, Networking, Dial, Mailmerge,  Label print , Global Replace etc . Transportable records and Backup / Restore tools was the main reason to use this applications since your data can be easily transferred from one PC to another . MS Outlook 2K has also many nice tools that T&C does not have like searching parameters , report options etc, but they cannot be compared with the unique features of T&C . The main advantage of MS Outlook 2K is it's perfect integration with Internet jobs . It's more handy if you work with email reminders & jobs . But this is not the main purpose of a PIM , at least in my case .

- Can't figure out how MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, or any other xxx MB , with xxx menus and $x,xxx is so popular since it doesn't have even the 1/10 of T&C features & efficiency . Also a PIM application must be small & fast because we load it most of our time and we don't want to take all our PC resources . A PIM application must give you the most with the less buttons or mouse pressed . It seems that those lamers reviewing PIM programs haven't tried them under a REAL work , they just sniffing & searching for features . Probably T&C didn't get their respect because it looks simple , but that's how a PIM must look like . Hey guys (knock knock...) when I'm on work I want to see the MOST with the LESS effort and specially without bloody mouse clicks  .

Regards
12/08/2000
Michael Hondrosmos

Memory Allocated by various PIM programs:

Time & Chaos 5.x (32bit) 

I was using T&C 16bit from 1994 . Finally today after a long time of use the old 16bit, I moved to the newer 32bit version (v. 5.3.8) .

- What T&C 32bit does NOT have vs. T&C 16bit:
1) I didn't find a way to send a message to another user . Sending an appointment or a to-do item is OK but there is no way to send a simple draft message . Yes, actually a simple mail is a to-do item but it would be nice if there was an option to send a simple message . 
2) You cannot save a phonebook filter selection as a default on start-up . You can create instead an new 'overlay' phonebook category and you can start-up the program from a default overlay category .
3) You cannot save or copy the same configuration from one PC to another . (Read my tips)
4) T&C32 runs OK but doesn't feel comfortable on a 486/100 - 24MB RAM . Don't try it on slower PC's .

- What T&C 32bit does have more (vs. T&C 16bit):
1) Unique kick-ass option to separate phones , appointments or to-do items and transport it to other users or PC's . Ability to filter the duplicates when receiving the data so this can be used to sync 2 applications . Also great for loading holidays from other users .
2) Great printouts needed for making hardcopy duplicates (read below) .
3) Customizable windows & fonts . Move to-do here , resize phonebook , add user list there etc.
4) Keyboard use is more efficient . Sending jobs to users is much more easier .
5) Some other handy options like save customizable reports , global edit , the 'overlay' concept etc .
6) Many many more things that you'll discover that there are not exists on any similar application .

- What I missed using T&C 32bit:
1) Outlook 2000 has a very handy option when repeat an action with infinite extension . So you don't have to define a 10 or 20 year activities . 
2) Goldmine 5.0 has excellent tools for querying and filtering a database . It can use SQL , or dBASE or script commands .
3) Unfortunately iSBiSTER seems to be a small company . Many bugs appears for years without fixing them . Most of them pass from one version to another . Although the application is very satisfactory , the team seems to be unable to make radical improvements . T&C can be very easily improved if the programmers was interesting a bit more ... like:
- There are very few shortcuts making our lives difficult .
- More printing options & templates would be nice .

Regards
M.H.

first publ.: 27/08/2000
latest upd: 01/01/2002

Tips & Fixes:

- Bugs found (v.5.4.0): 
At last ... v.5.4.0 looks more mature fixing some bugs and made some practical modifications that was so easy to be done .  

- Fatal Bug: In case that you use some Regional Settings other than UK or US, T&C may not alarm. Also some particular months the in Time Bar hangs the application with a message: "Runtime Error 13 - Type mismatch" .
- On File -> Preferences , the items are not saved if we change another tag . After editing a tag press Apply before you hit another tag .
- The new Find command (Ctrl-F) does not work with foreign characters .
- Category Filters cannot be saved as active by default .
- When I mark a To-Do item and go to right-mouse click menu , pressing 2 times 'P' does not get you to the 'Priority' .
- Appointment calendars are a bit buggy. When I tried to print Monthly Calendar I didn't see foreign characters. When I fixed it (e.g. I put Arial Greek) there was not day enumeration on boxes . I played a lot with fonts combination and finally I discovered that If check the Bold most problems are gone and the report looks OK. I saved the report but even now I have to push "Apply" each time before printing. If I make several adjustments sometimes the program gets crazy and start calculating 12 to 16 periods instead if 2. Finally I discovered that these problems appears when working with Unicode fonts . When I choose fonts from the older Win 3.x format (Truetype 1 ?) , the problem does not appear .
- Similar problems with appearance fonts . The program does not understand foreign characters when I work with most Unicode fonts . The problem bypassed when choosing fonts from the older Win 3.x format (Truetype 1 ?) .

- Fatal Bug Fix: In case that you use Regional Setting other than UK or US, T&C may not alarm. In this case change the  decimal symbol to "." and the thousand symbol to "," . Date & time formats can be the same you use before. So these are the steps:

- Take a backup to your local folder .
- Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Regional Settings-> Numbers-> Decimal Symbol -> "." -> OK
- Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Regional Settings-> Numbers-> Digit Grouping Symbol -> "," -> OK
- Reboot for sure . Run again T&C and restore your data from your local folder .

It is possible (specially if you make your own font appearance) that after changing these settings T&C will run but you can't see anything on windows . The reason is that font size value is corrupted . Go to File -> Preference -> Appearance and change the size again to a normal value .

- Keep a hardcopy organizer: If you want to have small organizer when you are traveling , you don't need anything like Palm , or Win CE -like solutions , just make printouts of T&C . Print a copy of every area (Phonebook , To-do , Appt) . When you are into the print preview window, chose Layout -> Format -> 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Daytimer . Also: Device -> Paper -> Size -> A4 . This will make print a page on 1/2 A4 page . In one paper you got 2 pages . So you cut the paper in the middle and you put it in a small handy booklet . Smart ahh ? ... The difficulty is to find a small booklet but there are some . You can make smaller printouts if you can find a smaller booklet .

Keeping a hardcopy organizer is much better than buying a PSION or Palm organizer:
- You don't afraid of loosing it, wet it, destroying it . It's a near-zero cost solution .
- You can make a hardcopy duplicates for keeping them in your home, car, office etc .
- No need to solve foreign character, battery or PC linking problems :-) .
- It's much more comfortable to manipulate data from PC than from a palmtop .

- Fix the paper orientation bug: When I print a Monthly Appointment calendar , I use 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 Daytimer Layout . In the current version you cannot change the Orientation from the Layout tag . In order to fix that, you can change the orientation from Device -> Printer -> Properties -> Orientation .

- Save Configuration: As I reported you cannot save or transfer an exciting configuration of T&C 32bit. If you know how to handle registry entries with regedit.exe (if you do not, forget it) , you can find all the T&C parameters under:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\TCHAOS] 

Furthermore you can save a specific option like a report settings, saving only:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\VB and VBA Program Settings\TCHAOS\Report# 0]

So far I know that Report #0 is the Monthly Calendar, Report #3 is To-Do List , Report #4 is the Telephone Book & Report #5 is the Address Book .

 - How to: the program cannot dial the prefix digit (i.e. "9") although you correctly set up the dial properties . The solution is simple but hard: All the phone numbers you enter must have the appropriate format: i.e. +30 (41) 556778 .

- How to: You print 'To-Do" list but the program prints only today actions. Go to the end of month or the end of next month and try again . It will be include all the "To-Do" actions of these months .

- How to: Ctrl-G go to a specific day. But it's too hard to press 12/08/00 . Pressing 12,08 makes the same thing and you do it faster .

- How to: Data Integrity Check . It's good to check sometimes the health of your database . Unfortunately T&C does not include any database maintenance tool . Go to an area (appt, to-do, phones) & use "Search" feature (Ctrl-S) . On the upper right you will see a message: "Record Count xxx " . Press "Find Now" . After finished counting it will display "xxx of xxx" . If this number is smaller than the first then something goes wrong. Check out for possible mistakes and prepare for a restore .

- How to: Avoid Backup defected data . Sure ... backup saves you but what if you back up an already corrupted database ?. The following all-time-classic steps will help you .
- Take a backup on a floppy. Zip the contents and give filenames like with date format like yyyymmdd (e.g. 20000812.zip ) . It's better to avoid long filenames and prefer the standard 8.3 format like 000812.zip .
- Depending on the flow of data keep backups every week or every month . Keeping a Backup history helps you to retrieve the backup that was not defected . It's up to you to decide how many .zip files you will keep . With this steps it's easy to see which .zip files you will delete: the first .zips displayed on a directory are the oldest .

- How to: Pack a database. As happens to most databases, deleting records does not reduce the size of your database . The deleted area is allocated for future records . Since T&C does not includes any data maintenance tools , Pack procedure is a bit hard. The following steps taken for packing the appointment database. Make similar actions for the other databases :
- Backup your database to local folder .
- Goto search , select all , make them transportable records and save them to a dir .
- Quit T&C , using "My Computer" , go to T&C directory (and your user dir if specified) , delete all ~appt. files .
- Run again T&C . If you did right , your appt database must be blank . Goto Network -> In Basket -> File -> Open Package -> your dir , ixp file . If you did right you must see all your appt there .  Select All & Accept them . Delete the temporary .ixp file .
- If for any reason did something wrong , all you have to do is to restore your data from local folder .

- Import / Export Ascii: Ascii Import is easy, just go to File -> Import . If you want to export your phonebook follow the next steps. Actually this is the way I imported data to Outlook 2K since "Outlook Express Import File"  didn't work successfully .

- Highlight the phonebook are and press Ctrl-S (or press the Search button) .
- Don't enter anything and press "Find Now" .
- Press Ctrl-A to select all .
- Mouse Right-Click -> "Ascii Comma Delimited File" -> "All Exportable Fields" -> ...
- After making a file load Outlook and go to file, import menu and choose that you want to load a coma delimited (Windows) file . You have to make some field mapping (which field go to where) but you can save this time consuming job .

- Bypass shareware date limitation : It was not on my intention to crack this application (there are so many cracks out there...) but it's so easy to be discovered . See the parameters on:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\System95\Serial Number]
Read the next paragraph (for T&C 16bit) and you 'll get to the point . Keep in mind that this action is illegal if you don't purchase the program .

* SOS * Data corruption : 22/08/00 - 13:00 and I just discovered that my appointment database was corrupted . Current year was looking fine but Search tool could not find some appointments . Appointments of 2001 was not displayed at all although they could be found with search tool . My backup was also corrupted . Since search was not working OK , transportable records was useless . I wasn't sure how this problem occurred but I knew that I had to solve it . If you have a similar case, here is my steps:
- I took a backup of my database in a floppy .
- I created a new blank database (Demo) . I transferred Phonebook & To-Do list that was OK with Backup / Restore tool .
- I login back to my normal database , I pointed each day that had an appointment and I "Send to Demo" user . It was painful but with the use of some macro programs (I use Sensiva) it's just a piece of cake .
- I login as Demo user and received all these messages . Now current year appointments was OK but not their repetitions .
- I pointed all appointments that have repetitions , and press [Enter] 2 times (Enter for Edit mode , Enter for OK)
- Finished . I took a backup now , checked if everything was all right and then I restored into the my normal account .

* Warning * Avoid non-dedicated servers : Finally I found the cause of the above mentioned data corruption: The use of non-dedicated server .  Most people in home & small business use to link two Win9x PC's . In such LAN if the PC that contains the database is busy due to a printer or scanner or whatever stack then there is a probability of destroying your database . Most of today's devices (like printers & scanners) are multitasking but some aren't . For example OKI4W laser is not . When printing the hole systems stack for a few seconds . The external IOmega Zip - Parallel is such a device: Whenever it reads/writes every other job stops (the USB / Atapi / SCSI models are OK, they do not behave like that) . Also most of old scanners with ISA cards (like my Artec A3) did not accept any multitasking until it finishes the scan procedure . So when I tried to access a database in such a server when printing or scanning , the client PC stacked with a Blue Screen of Death , being responsible for the destruction of data files . You must be totally sure that you don't have such demanding device attached to your server otherwise you have to put data on idle PC's or better on dedicated servers . Now I have my data on a Novel 3.11 - dedicated - server and never had again any problem .

 - Make more durable floppy disks : If you use floppy to transfer your backup files , it's better to format it in a lower density . The T&C backup files are very small anyway . When I format a floppy to 720KB size it's more durable . I also use my old DD 720KB floppies (from my 8088 !) and never lost a backup .

Regards

27/08/2000
01/01/2002

Warning:

Important Notice: The purpose of this project is to help people protect & restore their valuable work they own . There is no binary file (crack) here that intrudes the original application .

- If you used an illegal serial for previous version, DO NOT upgrade !! .

If T&C diagnose that you used an illegal serial number , it makes a very ugly action: It locks your personal data files . This is the ugliest of all protection schemes since it locks personal work . Even if a new serial or KeyGen appear, this does not necessarily unlock your data files (keygen unlock only the main program) . Installing back the previous version (even in another clean PC) does not help since the specific data files are "marked" to be locked . All your work is locked until you contact with the company's technical support . However if you did not upgrade it yet , you can use my own all time classic cheat .

- Actions to be taken before upgrade:
- Make a backup of your data ( File - Backup data to - A: ) . Copy all files to another place in order to be sure .
- Use Regedit and change the following variable:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\VB and VBA Program Settings\System95\Serial Number]
"Serial Number"="40000"
- Now you are ready to install v.5.3.9 . Choose to install an evaluation copy .

If you already did the upgrade and you locked your data I do not have any other solution apart from finding any backup you have (or calling the company & buying it ) ..

- How to regain access on a file locked installation:
- Use Regedit and delete the following variable:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\VB and VBA Program Settings\System95\Serial Number]
- As I mentioned above, your work is temporarily useless. Until someone find a solution , we will install T&C in another dir in order to leave your previous database untouched .
- Now install again the new version in another dir . Choose to install an evaluation copy .
- Now the program must run OK .
- Use my cheat instead of a serial. Run Regedit again and change the following variable:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\VB and VBA Program Settings\System95\Serial Number]
"Serial Number"="40000"
- Load T&C and make the restore , or copy all the backup data files s (~*.*) to the current dir .

Also if you did not have any previous T&C version but you are just installing the new version for first time DO NOT use any serial or KeyGen for previous versions . All of the sudden your precious work will be locked .

Time & Chaos 4.xx (16bit) 

Time & Chaos 4.95: PIM (organizer) . T&C is an award winning organizer from iSBiSTER . I use version 4.x from 1994 and still does not have any close competitor apart from the 32bit version . The program have been famous mostly because of its simple but revolutionary GUI: "All in one window". Supports many users (either from the same PC or LAN) which they can interact their time activities and also send emails to each other without using any other program . T&C engine is real multi-user: It allows 2 users to work with the same database at same time . These network features was unbelievable for a cheap shareware program in the age of Win 3.x . It's still unbelievable now !.

Although the company does not promote any longer the 16bit version, this version 1) it's a lot smaller, does not need installation (can be copied from one hard disk to another) , 2) conserves less RAM and it's faster . This program is a good reason to take out from the dust your old 486/66 - 8MB RAM with Win 3.x or 16MB RAM with Win 95 .

You can find & download this version using Ftp Search, and since it's discontinued & obsolete for the company, you can bypass shareware limitation without crack, just like this: 

Cheat for T&C 4.xx (16bit) 

The installation put the current date & time stamp on "Serial Number" value into tchaos.ini . After a period of time T&C starts to display very frequently a nag window. 

So:
- Go to \WINDOWS dir .
- Find tchaos.ini , open it using notepad or other editor .
- Find "Serial Number= xxxx " xxx = number .
- Put a greater value, i.e. instead of 35431,852373 make it 50000 This will give you another 14,500 days (40 years) of freedom !. 

As you understand this is a simple time stamp method . You can avoid all these and do something much more simple :
- Change the date 20 years after
- Install the program
- Revert the date .

Tips & Fixes:

- Bug Fix: In case that you use Regional Setting other than UK or US, T&C may not alarm. In this case change the  decimal symbol to "." and the thousand symbol to "," . Date & time formats can be the same you use before. 

So for Win9x go to: 
Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Regional Settings-> Numbers-> Decimal Symbol -> "." -> OK
Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Regional Settings-> Numbers-> Digit Grouping Symbol -> "," -> OK

if you think that you will mess it up change the whole format:
Start-> Settings-> Control Panel-> Regional Settings-> English (UK)

Notice: You must do this BEFORE entering any data , otherwise you might face serious problems .

- How to: the program cannot dial the prefix digit (i.e. "9") although you correctly set up the dial properties . The solution is simple but hard: All the phone numbers you enter must have the appropriate format: i.e. +30 (41) 556778 .