PowerKey Pro Read Me

PowerKey 4.3.1 -- PowerKey Pro 650

January 10, 2005

PowerKey^® Pro 650 is an intelligent power strip. It connects to your computer via USB, giving you complete control over your computer and peripherals. To learn more about PowerKey, check out the Help system on the PowerKey CD, or click the "?" button in the PowerKey control panel.

PowerKey 4.3 introduces a rewritten background engine that improves compatibility with Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther", adds the ability to turn outlets on after a power failure and includes some minor user interface tweaks and bug fixes. Version 4.3.1 fixes some minor cosmetic issues.

The Admin version adds the ability to run Python, Ruby and Tcl/Tk scripts (in addition to AppleScript, shell and Perl scripts), and to control Rebound!'s crash detection settings from AppleScript.

The current version of the PowerKey 4 software can be found on our web site at

<http://www.sophisticated.com/support/downloads/>

System requirements

The "OS X" PowerKey 4.3.1 software requires Mac OS X 10.1 or higher.

The "Classic" PowerKey 4.3.1 software requires Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x. It also requires that your system has CarbonLib 1.4 or later. The current version of CarbonLib will automatically be installed by the installer if necessary.

The PowerKey 4.3.1 software works with the PowerKey Pro 650 hardware. Older models of PowerKey are not supported.

The PowerKey Pro 650 hardware works with any model of Macintosh with a built-in USB port. It may work with some USB upgrade cards, but this configuration is not guaranteed. It can be connected to a USB hub. (Telephone startup is not supported by hubs and upgrade cards.)

The telephone startup and power failure restarting features work with Macintosh models that support keyboard startup. As of this writing (December 2004), these include PowerMac G4s made before September 2002, and iMacs made before September 2000. Later models, including the LCD iMac G4, G5, and XServe, do not support keyboard startup, but do support wake-from-sleep.

Installing PowerKey

Hardware
Refer to the Quick-Start guide that came with your unit to install your PowerKey hardware. If you have lost this, you can find the instructions in the online help system in the PowerKey application.

Software for Mac OS X
To install PowerKey, simply copy the "PowerKey" application from the disk image (if you downloaded it from our web site) or folder (if you're using the CD). You may place it in any location you choose, such as the Applications folder. If you own the Admin version, also copy the "Rebound!" and "iDo Script Scheduler" applications.

Then open the "PowerKey" application. A dialog box will appear asking if you wish to install the background software. Click "Install" (or "Update" if a previous version was already installed). No restart will be necessary.

To uninstall PowerKey, remove the "PowerKey" folder found in /Library/StartupItems, and restart your computer. If you wish, you may also remove the PowerKey application, but this is not necessary. (Tip: You can reinstall PowerKey at any time by opening the application as described above. As long as you did not remove the preferences, your schedule will be restored.)

Software for Mac OS 8.6-9.x
To install PowerKey, double-click on the "Install PowerKey" icon that you downloaded from our web site or found on the CD. If you own the Admin version, check the "PowerKey Pro Admin" box. Click "Install" to install the software. After installation, your computer will be restarted.

To uninstall PowerKey, remove the "PowerKey Extension" in the system's Extensions folder, and restart your computer. If you wish, you may also remove the PowerKey control panel (and the other control panels if you own the Admin version), but this is not necessary. (Tip: You can reinstall PowerKey at any time by either replacing the "PowerKey Extension", or running the installer again. As long as you did not remove the preferences, your schedule will be restored.)

Configuration

If you own the Admin version of PowerKey Pro and wish to use its crash recovery features, you must configure your Energy Saver control panel to restart after a power failure.

Mac OS X: From the Apple menu, select "System Preferences..." Click the "Energy Saver" icon. Then click the "Options" tab, and check the "Restart automatically after a power failure" box.

Mac OS 9.1-9.x: From the Apple menu, select "Control Panels -> Energy Saver". Click the "Advanced Settings" tab. Check the "Restart automatically after a power failure" box.

Mac OS 8.6-9.0.x: From the Apple menu, select "Control Panels -> Energy Saver". Select "Server Settings..." from the "Preferences" menu. Check the "Restart automatically after a power failure" box.

When you're done installing your PowerKey, you should open the PowerKey application and click the "Hardware Setup" button to name your unit and its outlets, and tell it which outlet your computer is plugged into.

Using PowerKey

To configure your PowerKey, open the "PowerKey" control panel application. If you own the Admin version, you can configure your crash detection settings with "Rebound!", and schedule scripts with iDo Script Scheduler. An extensive help system is available in each application from the "Help" menu or by clicking the "?" icon in the window.

Known issues

In Mac OS X 10.1, when the PowerKey software is reinstalled with old preferences still present, the control panel will appear in its background state until quit and relaunched. This behavior is due to a system bug which was fixed by version 10.1.3.
In Mac OS X 10.1, scheduled startups don't always function on computers without keyboard startup capability. (See "System requirements" above.)
In Mac OS 9, sometimes the control panel display flickers when an event runs.
In Mac OS 9, the caps lock key is significant when creating and using hot key events. (In Mac OS X the caps lock key is ignored.)
If the same hot key trigger is used in both PowerKey and iDo Script Scheduler, only the first event created will run.
On some models, if the computer is unplugged from power, then replugged in, a brief "glitch" in the USB port may cause PowerKey to think the computer is starting up, and turn on its outlets for a few seconds.

Revision history

4.3.1 -- 1/10/05

If the control panel was resized vertically, the help button didn't follow the bottom of the window -- fixed.
In Mac OS 9, sometimes the icon in the help button disappeared -- fixed.

4.3 -- 12/23/04

Added a column of check boxes in the Power Saver panel allowing you to turn on chosen outlets after a power failure. Adjusted minimum window size to fit these new controls.
Added the ability to run Python, Ruby and Tcl/Tk scripts to the Admin version.
Straightened out controls and windows, especially in the event editor dialogs.
The "help" button now matches other applications in the version of the operating system being used.
Added an internal setting to allow changing the delay for turning off outlets after shutdown. (Note that this option is not available in the control panel; please contact us if you wish to alter this setting.)
If PowerKey was connected to some USB hubs (including the Mac keyboard), outlets set to turn off during sleep would briefly blink when the computer wakes up -- fixed.
Telephone startup was incorrectly disabled when running on early G4 ("Yikes") models -- fixed.
If a scheduled event to toggle an outlet occurred at the same time a scheduled wake or sleep event, the outlet would toggle twice, just before and just after the waking/sleeping -- fixed.
In Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther", PowerKey could only be configured by the first user logged in; if additional users logged in using fast user switching, their changes would not be saved -- fixed; the background software has been rewritten to work better in a multi-user environment.
Added checks when reading and writing schedules to ensure that they haven't been corrupted. If a corrupted schedule is found, PowerKey displays a warning and reverts to a default (empty) schedule.
Fixed a tiny memory leak that occurred when updating events in the hardware.
If the system clock was set before 2001 (as can happen when a computer with a dead clock battery is unplugged), the PowerKey unit(s) wouldn't be recognized, and scheduled restarts wouldn't run -- fixed.
In rare circumstances, when the software failed to initialize communication with the hardware (due to a data corruption in the hardware), the software would crash -- fixed; now the software exits more gracefully.

4.2 -- 10/24/03

Added compatibility with Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" fast user switching and shut down, restart and sleep events.
Added support for the "distinctive ringing" phone service. If you use distinctive ringing to provide multiple numbers for your phone line, you can configure PowerKey to answer only if a chosen ring pattern is heard.
Added the ability to "cycle" an outlet, i.e., to turn it off for 15 seconds, then back on (Admin version only). This feature is useful for resetting devices plugged into your PowerKey's outlets, e.g. printers and network equipment.
Added the ability to run AppleScripts, shell and Perl scripts in events (Admin version only). This adds the ability to execute scripts using your telephone. (For hot-key and scheduled events, this is equivalent to using iDo Script Scheduler.)
When the PowerKey control panel was first launched after installation, the outlet names and status icons did not appear -- fixed.
If the "BSD Subsystem" was not installed in a Mac OS X installation, the PowerKey background software could not be installed, because gzip wasn't available -- fixed; now we just put the background software in a tar archive.
In rare circumstances, a corruption in the EEPROM in the PowerKey unit would cause the PowerKey background software to fail at startup -- fixed; now the software clears the EEPROM if it detects the corruption.

4.1.4 -- 3/14/03

In some circumstances, if the PowerKey 4.1.3 software was used in conjunction with iDo Script Scheduler 1.5, the scheduled scripts failed to run -- fixed.
In Mac OS 9, hot key events were affected by the state of the caps lock key, even though it was not displayed in the event editor -- fixed. (In OS X, the caps lock key is ignored when creating or activating hot keys.)

4.1.3 -- 2/13/03

Added the ability for phone tone sequences to restart the computer if using an Admin version.
Added a contextual menu to create, edit and delete events.
The "No unit connected" message was sometimes cut short -- fixed.
In Mac OS 9, the Instant panel display sometimes flickered when an event ran -- fixed.
If a hot key was created with the caps lock key down, the hot key was not recognized -- fixed; the caps lock key is now ignored.
In rare circumstances, if the computer was shut down immediately after waking up from sleep, the outlets would go back into sleep state -- fixed.
If the power was very briefly interrupted (such as when some UPSes switch to battery power), this could cause the PowerKey unit to appear twice in the control panel -- fixed.

4.1.2 -- 1/2/03

Background software updated to add compatibility with updated iDo Script Scheduler 1.5 features.
Rearranging columns in the lists didn't work in OS X -- fixed.
Events in the lists didn't always highlight correctly -- fixed.

4.1.1 -- 10/17/02

Background software updated to support forthcoming iDo Script Scheduler 1.5 features.

Added a "self-install" feature to the Mac OS X version. Now the software can be installed simply by opening the control panel, with no restart required.

Added logging of events. When an event executes, an entry is added to monoLog (Mac OS 9) or the system log (Mac OS X).

Control panel now displays NFR or Evaluation info, if present.

If the user unplugged his PowerKey unit while the "do you want to register?" dialog box was being displayed, the control panel would unexpectedly quit -- fixed.

In Mac OS X, if several PowerKey units were connected to one computer, the outlets on some units would fail to turn off when the computer goes to sleep -- fixed.

In Mac OS X 10.2, once an event was created, it could not be selected for editing or deletion -- fixed.

In Mac OS X 10.2, update information between the control panel and background software was not returned -- fixed.

Columns in lists couldn't be rearranged -- fixed for Mac OS 9 version.

4.1 -- 5/30/02
First "Admin" version release.

Added support for Rebound! crash detection features.

In some circumstances, the registration dialog box would appear each time you opened the control panel -- fixed.

If the OS 9 and OS X software is installed and the "Classic" environment is launched, the OS 9 software would open -- fixed; now the OS 9 software detects when it's running inside OS X and exits.

In OS X, due to a file privilege issue, the PowerKey preference files were not removable by the user -- fixed; but preferences from old versions will still need to be removed using the Terminal.

Due to a memory allocation problem, the PowerKey software would fail to load in Japanese Mac OS -- fixed.

In AppleScript, attempts to reference outlets by name failed -- fixed.

In some circumstances, the OS X software could potentially launch two copies of the PowerKey Daemon -- fixed.

When creating Days of Week events in certain unusual conditions, the PowerKey Daemon would crash -- fixed.

In rare circumstances, the PowerKey control panel would fail to communicate with the background software, so changes would not be saved -- fixed.

Only the user who installed the PowerKey software would be able to see the control panel icon -- fixed.

4.0.1 -- 2/27/02
First OS X release.

Added support in the USB driver to automatically restore the connection if an electrical "glitch" causes the USB port to be closed.

Added a forward clock adjust threshold to keep events from running instantly if the system clock is advanced a large period of time.

Improved memory block handling, allowing greatly reduced memory requirements.

If multiple units are connected to a phone line and a tone sequence is run while the computer is running, the event could run twice (once per unit) -- fixed.

Days of Week and Day of Month events weren't always correctly written to the unit -- fixed.

If the computer is shut down by a scheduled event, other events weren't being written into the unit correctly (the most noticeable result is that outlets wouldn't turn off after scheduled shutdowns) -- fixed.

If you change the "CPU" and "Always On" status of outlet #1, the display wasn't updated correctly -- fixed.

If you change column widths in the event lists, the new settings weren't always saved -- fixed.

4.0 -- 1/3/01
First release.

How to reach us

Sophisticated Circuits, Inc.
PO Box 727
Bothell, WA 98041-0727

e-mail: ,
phone: 425-485-7979
web: <http://www.sophisticated.com/>

Copyright ©2001-2004 Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. All rights reserved.
The files in this package may not be redistributed in any way without express permission from Sophisticated Circuits, Inc.
PowerKey, Rebound!, Kick-off! and iDo are registered trademarks of Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. All other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.