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Macs <-> pagers! |
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The View From Here: The Palimpest Moves
September 1996
This screen-shot shows how I've entered frequently-paged persons into the PageNow! address book, and how I've selected a person (me) and entered a message to be sent. You've already seen the pager preview screen. Things to notice: at the top right is the total number of characters in this message and how many pager messages will be sent to convey the complete message. These kinds of hints encourage one to compose pithy messages.
I've created two PageMe! apps (collect 'em all) with which you may page me. One of the apps shows the image at right as my "business card" the other shows the image at left. I believe these apps will be common rather shortly, perhaps before we've realized the advantages of being on our electronic leashes. Once pager services move to using toll-free phone numbers (so that you can page without incurring a charge) this'll become a viable way of keeping in touch. What do you think? Let me know. Page me.
Michael 'Mickey' Sattler lives in the sunny part of San Francisco with several housemates (including a baby), six cats, one sister, and several fish. During daylight hours he can be found downtown, bringing the business community into a modern era of computing. At night he lies in his garden, watching the stars.
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This month I'll be prattling on about using your Macintosh to communicate with an alphanumeric (text) pagers. I spent a good portion of last month running around - what with moving to a new apartment (in San Francisco's "sun belt") and starting a new consulting gig downtown (at a well-known investment powerhouse, "Charles Schwab"). Because the phone lines hadn't yet arrived at the new apartment and my daily routine was shattered I depended upon my alphanumeric pager to keep me in touch with my clients and housemates. This was a life-saver, so much of one that this month I'll describe some of the software we used to keep in touch - all produced by "Mark/Space Softworks" - and even give you a chance to page me (for a limited time). Paging services are getting cheaper and cheaper and I suspect more of you will be getting text pagers for your belts. Your choice of pager software will make or break your pager experience.
Text pagers have the great advantage over numeric pagers in that a complete message can be sent to you, and rather than playing phone tag you already have the information you need. The image at right shows the PageNow! pager preview feature: you see how your message will appear on a typical four-line pager. I actually have a different pager model, but it's only barely worth mentioning. Intelligent paging software allows you to send page-mail as easily as e-mail, and PageNow! does. Let's look at a typical setup.
So what about paging me? Well, the Mark/Space folks have just released the PageMe! Constructer Kit, which allows pager owners to create a custom paging application that you can give away to your friends and clients: just double-click and you can send a pager message. These PageMe! apps can have an expiration date or require a password for use. The apps can also limit the length of messages.
