Smart Mute - Info & Help (last updated 3-6-2000)

Supported OS: Win95/98

Description:

Smart Mute is a tray application that has several functions aimed at the person who sits in front of his computer all day like I do. Every time I personally need a hard to find function on my computer I will add it to this program... I don't want 50 tray icons so I like to consolidate many functions in one, right now there are three major functions. Feel free to visit the Smart Mute chatwall to suggest more!

Thanks for trying this product, please feel free to send any suggestions or bug reports. Be sure to check out "Known Quirks" at the bottom of this before reporting any bugs.

- Seth A. Robinson

Features:

• Can change your computers master volume to any level after a specified time of inactivity.
• "Timed Sound Playing" feature - can play a wave sound in specified timed intervals.
• Keystroke logging function.
• Minimizes to Tray.
• Auto install/uninstall itself from your boot sequence option..
• Auto upgrade check notification on startup. (optional)
• Tiny overhead and processer usage
• Completely free! No ads, no gimmicks.
• Won't check for update unless network connection is connected.
• Compatible with modem and lan connections, proxy information is autodetected.
• Interactive Chatwall, read and leave comments and suggestions in real-time online.
• Doesn't clutter up your registry or windows dir. (options are saved in its own data file)
• Smart Mouse detection - a slight bump or thud won't reset the inactivity timer, only a real mouse movement.
• Help system reads directly from our webpage if net connection is detected. (will always be up to date)

Suggested uses for smart muting:

• Being forgetful is ok. Set your inactivity to one minute. You will never again say "Darn, hear that honey?  I forgot to turn my mp3's off". Your computer will never again disturb you while you are eating, watching tv or sleeping.

As soon as you move the mouse or click a key on your keyboard the music and sound will spring back to life.

• Sleep confident. If you use a security program that plays a siren noise for 15 minutes upon an IP attack like I do, set inactivity for an hour and you'll never be woken up by it in the middle of the night. (I could never remember to turn my volume down each night.. and just why should I have to? :) )
• Use for self motivation - set to 30 seconds. If your music shuts down you know you were not working hard enough.  (likely you got stuck reading some webpage) The sudden absense of sound can help you break the trance of 'web surf hypnotism' so you can get back to work. (set to 1 second to go insane)
• Reverse mute torture technique - Set your regular wave volume to 0, then set Smart Mute to mute to 100 percent. Put on a really bad MP3 song you hate. Set the smart mute timer to 10 seconds. Now, everytime you stop working you will be punished acoustically!

Suggested uses for "timed sound playback"

• Rest your eyes. Are you so hardworking you sit hunched in front of your computer for hours at a time without thinking of anything else? Sure, you get a lot done but.. the headaches and eyestrain are the price. Set a .wav to play every 45 minutes. When you hear it, get up and stretch - and look at objects through a window to rest your eyes.
• Lucid Dream better. Lucid dreamers are always looking for a way to be reminded to do 'reality checks'. Play a wave that asks "Are you dreaming right now?" and do some tests such as reading something twice or attempting to levitate something. If you do it enough, it will become so ingrained in your life pattern that you will also do it in your dreams.. and when the answer to your question is "yes, I am dreaming." prepare to have some fun. For more information on this facinating subject visit the newsgroup alt.dreams.lucid and look for a FAQ.

Suggested uses for keystroke logging

• Document your day. Wouldn't it be great if without any extra effort you could go back to any date of your life and see what you were doing? What email you wrote, what ICQ's you sent, what webpage URL's you typed and more.. all in one place? That's what keystroke logging is all about. **WARNING** Don't use this if your computer is not secure.  It logs typed names and passwords. (even if they show up as stars, they show up normally in the log) I could add key based encyrption if anybody really uses this feature...
• Spy on your mom. Has mom really been visiting porn sites with your computer? With this you can finally be sure. You can also get her juno password and use it to prank mail nasty stuff to all her church friends.

Main dialog

Idle time before changing volume

This number can be any size. It is either seconds or minutes of inactivity before muting occurs. (based on the next option..)

Timing

Let's you choose seconds or minutes. Normally you would use minutes but you might need greater accuracy. Try setting it to 1 second just to test it out, so you don't have to wait forever to see Smart Mute in action. Don't touch your mouse or keyboard and wait.

Timing

Let's you choose seconds or minutes. Normally you would use minutes but you might need greater accuracy. Try setting it to 1 second just to test it out, so you don't have to wait forever to see Smart Mute in action. Don't touch your mouse or keyboard and wait.

Idle volume

Generally set to 0 - (full mute) If you set it at 50% this will cause your sound to drop to 50% level instead of completely mute.

About

Takes you to the about dialog. You can learn more about us, leave comments on our chatwall and check for an upgrade.

Advanced

Takes you to the about screen.  Some nifty features here.

Ok (or the minimize button)

This causes Smart Mute to hide itself. If you want it back, click on the little Smart Mute icon on your icon tray. (lower right hand of the screen by your clock by default)

X (the close button on the upper right of the dialog)

Hit this and smart mute is history. It will completely unload. To get it back, double click on smartmute.exe or reboot your computer if you have the 'load with reboot' option checked.

Advanced Dialog

Check for upgrade at startup

With this, everytime Smart Mute starts if an internet connection is detected it will attempt to ask www.rtsoft.com (our site) what the latest version is and where to download it.  If the version is newer than yours, you will be given an option of opening the download page in your default browser.

Automatically load at boot

When checked, Smart Mute will load minimized automatically when you boot. (Technical stuff: It places a key in Run under HKEY_CURRENT_USER) If you uncheck it, it removes this key and won't load at boot anymore.

Enable keystroke logging

Logs absolutely every keypress while on, including URL's typed, passwords, email written, ICQ's written, IRC text typed, and a bunch of seemingly random letters if you're playing Unreal Tournament. (the keys I use to move)

You can use the view and delete buttons to view and delete the file, or open the file manually from outside the program.

So you aren't constantly writing to the log, Smart Mute buffers the information and writes to it in little bursts...often enough to save most information in the event of a crash.

Ok

Saves all changes and returns to the main dialog.

About dialog

Help

Displays this file with your default webbrowser.

Check for upgrade

Hits www.rtsoft.com (our site) and checks for a new version. If none exists, it will tell you that you have the latest version and what version it is. If you have the "Check for upgrade at startup" you never need to use this feature.

Visit the RTsoft website

Launches your default browser to www.rtsoft.com where you can learn more about us and what we make. You might want to check out our freeware RPG Dink Smallwood.

Visit the Smart Mute page & chatwall

See what other people are talking about and add your own line of wisdom on the Smart  Mute Chat wall. Any other important chatwall information will be posted here too. (bugs, emergency work arounds, ect)

Ok

Returns to the main dialog.

Known quirks

• Key strokes in a DOS session are not logged.
• NT/2000 isn't officially supported. I think it works fine but keystroke logging translates some chars incorrectly and the net detection code wasn't tested fully.
• If your audio card doesn't support mixing wave devices, you will not hear the "Timed Sound Playing" if the wave device is busy, such as playing an mp3. Newer cards such as the Sound Blaster Live do not have this problem.
• There seems to be a bug that causes unchecking "Check for upgrade at startup" to not save correctly.  This will be addressed in a future version.
• If you have Windows 95, you must have IE 5 installed to use Smart Mute. (not required for Win 98, as the same functionality is built into the shell)

Special thanks

• www.codeguru.com - every time I had a weird problem I found the answer here.
• Dan Oliver (beta tester)
• Greg Smith aka Pap (beta tester)
• RevK (beta tester)
• Tom Mundal (beta tester)
• A very special thanks to my Print Screen button for taking the screenshots of the app.