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1. Introduction Thank you for purchasing PowerKey Rebound Rebound constantly monitors your Mac system to make sure it is running normally If the system crashes Rebound restarts it automatically It also works with many popular server applications Once you install Rebound you can sleep well knowing your server will stay up and running System Requirements Rebound works with any Power Macintosh desktop or server computer and later 68040 Macs that respond to the keyboard command control power on key restart com mand Rebound uses patent pending technology from the Power Key Pro family of smart power strips to monitor your computer If it crashes Rebound automatically sends the command control power on key signal to restart it Older Mac models do not respond to this signal reliably and must be physically turned off to be restarted For these models we recommend PowerKey Pro with the Server Restart Option PowerKey Pro has the ability to turn off its outlets effectively pulling the plug to restart your server The Rebound software requires System 7 or later and runs in native mode on both 68040 and PowerPC based Macs It supports Balloon Help Apple Guide Apple Events and AppleScript PowerKey Rebound Page 3 Installation PowerKey Rebound detects crashes using both hardware and software working together The software gives the hardware the feedback it needs to determine2. have Rebound support written into them An application with Rebound support periodically communicates with the Rebound software If this communication fails Rebound can restart the computer If any running applications with Rebound support crash the Rebound software will attempt a Finder Restart command If that fails the Rebound hardware will attempt a command option power on key restart a few minutes later as determined by the Restart if system doesn t respond slider A The amount of time that Rebound will wait for communication to resume is set by each application See your application s user manual for more information A list of applications which support Rebound can be found on our web site at lt http www sophisticated com gt or check with your application s developer to see if they support Rebound 9 If you wish to monitor an application that does not support Rebound you can install the Macsbug debugging tool in your system folder Macsbug will cause any application crashes to completely halt the system just like a system crash Rebound s system crash detection will then restart the computer Macsbug is available at no cost from Apple s web site at lt http www apple com gt search for Macsbug No special configuration of Macsbug is necessary simply drop it into your System Folder and restart your computer PowerKey Rebound Page 9 Using Rebound with AppleScri
3. whether or not the system has crashed so you must install both to use Rebound Hardware Installation The Rebound hardware was designed to connect directly to your computer s Apple Desktop Bus ADB port as labelled with the icon shown to o the right It has a pass through connector allow ing you to connect your keyboard and possibly other devices in a chain 1 Shut down your computer normally 2 Disconnect your keyboard cable from the ADB port on the back of your computer 3 Connect Rebound s short cable to the ADB port on the back of your computer A 4 Connect your keyboard cable into Rebound B 5 Start up your computer normally Page 4 PowerKey Rebound Software Installation 1 Insert the PowerKey Rebound disk into your floppy drive and double click the icon labelled Installer The Installer window will open Install Rebound Click the Install button to install Rebound Extension Rebound Control Panel Destination Disk Eject Disk Macintosh HD Switch Disk 2 Make sure your startup disk is shown in the Destination Disk panel If it is not click the Switch Disk button until it is shown 3 Click Install The Installer will ask if it can quit any open applications before it begins Make sure you don t have any unsaved documents then click Continue When the installa
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5. Reb Reb Um User Manual by Jamie Green Rebound Designer Amar Singh Rebound Software Richard Elmore Critical Mass Jonathan Feinstein Copyright 1998 Sophisticated Circuits Inc All rights reserved MANPKRB 0498 Service Requirements In the event of equipment malfunction all repairs should be performed by our Company or an authorized agent It is the responsibility of users requiring service to report the need for service to our Company or to one of our authorized agents Service can be obtained at Sophisticated Circuits Inc PO Box 727 Bothell WA 98041 0727 425 485 7979 FCC Statement This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to 1 KRB Part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to PowerKey Rebound P B M provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This Tested To Comply equipment generates uses and can radiate radio Cc frequency energy and if not installed and used in With FCC Standards accordance with the instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur ina FOR HOME OR OFFICE USE particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interferen
6. Rebound software When the system crashes this communication will stop and the Rebound hardware sends the keyboard command control power on key signal to restart it Y It is a good idea to uncheck this box before doing any unusually processor intensive task such as long calculations or file copies on some systems See Restart if system doesn t respond below for more information Restart if system doesn t respond This slider lets you set how long the Rebound hardware will wait before deciding that the system has crashed If an application runs certain long uninterruptible tasks the normal communication between the Rebound software and hardware can be temporarily stopped To keep from inter preting these pauses as crashes you can set this slider to a higher waiting time A Be careful not to set this waiting time too low The lower the waiting time the more likely a long task will be interpreted as a crash Time allowed for system to restart This slider lets you set how long the Rebound hardware will wait to reestablish communication with the software after a restart PowerKey Rebound Page 7 Normally the Rebound software reestablishes communica tion as the system finishes restarting If the system crashes again during restart the Rebound software won t be able to do this If the Number of restart attempts slider see below is set to a value higher than 1 the hardware will wait for the co
7. ce by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help Shielded cables and 1 0 cords must be used for this equipment to comply with the relevant FCC regulations Changes or modifications not expressly approved in writing by Sophisticated Circuits Inc may void the user s authority to operate this equipment Copyright Notice The PowerKey Rebound documentation program product design and design concepts are copyright 1998 Sophisticated Circuits Inc All rights reserved Your rights are subject to the copyright laws of the United States of America Under the copyright laws this manual may not be copied in whole or part including translation to another language or format without the express written consent of Sophisticated Circuits Inc Trademarks PowerkKey is a registered trademark and PowerKey Rebound is a trademark of Sophisticated Circuits Inc Apple AppleScript Macintosh Mac and Power Macintosh are registered trademarks and Balloon Help Finder and System 7 are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation Frontier is a trademark of UserLand software Page 2 PowerKey Rebound
8. ebound unit interprets this as a crash Raise the value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider Some applications including some disk utilities and games will take control of the computer for very long times If you need to run one of these programs you should temporarily uncheck Rebound s Enable System Crash Detection box Page 14 PowerKey Rebound Index A ADB port 4 13 Apple Events 11 AppleScript 10 appTimer elements 11 properties 10 Application crashes 9 14 C Crash Test 12 D Detecting crashes application crashes 8 9 system crashes 7 E Enable Application Crash Detection check box 8 Enable System Crash Detection check box 7 F Force Quit 12 Frontier 10 G General Controls control panel 14 l Improper shut down warnings 14 Installation hardware 4 software 5 PowerKey Rebound K Keyboard switches 13 M Macsbug 9 14 Mini debugger 12 Monitor keyboard switches 13 N Number of restart attempts slider 8 P PowerKey Pro 3 13 Rebound control panel 6 Restart if system doesn t respond slider 7 Restart keystroke 3 S Server Restart Option 3 System crashes 7 14 System requirements 3 T Testing application crashes 12 system crashes 12 Time allowed for system to restart slider 7 Troubleshooting 13 14 Page 15 How To Reach Us Mailing Sophisticated Circuits Inc PO Box 727 Bothell WA 98041 0727 Shipping Sophisticated Circuits Inc 18618 129th
9. mputer to finish starting up If the Rebound software doesn t respond within this time the hardware will attempt to restart the computer again Number of restart attempts This slider lets you set the number of times the Rebound hardware will attempt to restart the computer if it crashes again during the restart process This feature works in conjunction with the Time allowed for system to restart slider above After detecting a crash and restarting the system the Rebound hardware will wait for the Rebound software to reestablish communication signifying a successful restart If this doesn t happen within the time allowed the hardware can try again up to four more times AN For most purposes this slider should remain at 1 If your com puter often requires multiple restart attempts it usually signifies that something is wrong with your system and overall reliability is reduced Enable Application Crash Detection If this box is checked Rebound will monitor applications which include Rebound support See Detecting Applica tion Crashes on the next page for more information Page 8 PowerKey Rebound Detecting Application Crashes Sometimes it is possible for an application to crash allow ing other applications and the System software to keep running Since the Rebound software continues to commu nicate in this situation no crash will be detected Rebound includes the ability to monitor applications which
10. n has crashed and perform a Finder restart If that fails it should try a hardware restart a few minutes after that Page 12 PowerKey Rebound Troubleshooting AN Using Rebound with PowerKey Pro Because Rebound uses the same crash detection technology as PowerKey Pro the Rebound software cannot run while the PowerKey software is running The PowerKey software allows you to configure Rebound from within the Power Key Editor The Rebound software will disable itself if it detects the PowerKey software running at startup See the READ ME PowerKey Pro document on the PowerKey master disk or updater for information on controlling Rebound from the PowerKey software Rebound is supported in version 3 4 or newer of the PowerKey software You can download a free updater on our web site lt http www sophisticated com gt Using Rebound with Monitor Keyboard Switches Rebound must be able to remain connected to your computer s ADB port constantly to detect crashes If you wish to use Rebound in conjunction with a monitor keyboard switching unit you must place Rebound directly into the computer s ADB port We have found some switching units which do not implement ADB correctly If any other ADB device including Rebound is used with one of these switches the mouse and keyboard may appear frozen after startup The computer is still running but the switch stops reporting mouse and keyboard activit
11. pt Advanced users can control all of Rebound s features with AppleScript or any other OSA compliant scripting language such as UserLand Frontier To change Rebound s settings place a tell block in your script as follows tell application Rebound Extension end tell Application Properties The Rebound Extension contains several properties which can be read or modified These properties correspond to the settings in the Rebound control panel version Version of the Rebound software sysTimerEnabled Set to true or false to enable or disable system crash detection crashDetectionTimeout Value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider in seconds restartInterval Value of the Time allowed for system to restart slider in seconds restartCount Value of the Number of restart attempts slider appTimersEnabled Set to true or false to enable or disable application crash detection You can examine and modify these values by using AppleScript s get and set commands For example to change the value of the Restart if system doesn t respond slider to ten minutes execute the following command inside your tell block set crashDetectionTimeout to 600 A It is possible to set values between or outside the marks on the control panel s sliders but they will snap back the next time the user modifies them from the Rebound control panel Page 10 PowerKey Rebound AppTimer Elements Rebo
12. tion is complete the Installer will restart your computer Rebound starts watching for system crashes as soon as your computer has finished restarting The next section shows you how Rebound works and how you can change its settings PowerKey Rebound Page 5 Using Rebound As soon as you finish installing PowerKey Rebound it will begin monitoring your system for crashes Rebound is designed to work unobtrusively in the background You will never see any sign that it is working until your system crashes The Rebound Control Panel Rebound s default configuration should work in most systems but you can customize its settings using the Rebound control panel This control panel is installed in the Control Panels folder and can be accessed from the Apple menu 0 Rebound H M Enable System Crash Detection Restart if system doesn t respond for rin Soe ows oe 3 4 5 3 10 15 20 30 45 60 Time allowed for system to restart _ Cannan ien z 4 5 3 10 15 20 30 45 60 Number of restart attempts I I I I I 1 2 3 4 5 Enable Application Crash Detection Page 6 PowerKey Rebound Enable System Crash Detection If this box is checked Rebound will monitor your system and attempt to restart it if it detects a crash Uncheck this box to turn Rebound s system crash detection off The Rebound hardware monitors your system by periodi cally communicating with the
13. und s application crash detection works by creating appTimers for each application being monitored Each application sets its appTimer periodically to keep it from reaching zero If an appTimer does reach zero Rebound assumes the application has crashed and restarts the sys tem You can use Rebound s application crash detection to monitor custom scripts databases or applications you have written To do this your application should periodically send a tickleAppTimer AppleScript command tickleAppTimer 300 The Rebound software will automatically create a new appTimer for your application if necessary and repeated commands will update that timer Y You can also set your appTimer with a simple Apple Event bypassing AppleScript Use Event Class PKPr and Event ID Tick and put the desired value as a long integer into the direct object parameter applications will usually not need to view appTimers themselves but if you do wish to do this you can deal with them like any other element of an application AppTimers have name and value properties You cannot set the proper ties of an appTimer but you can get them To set your appTimer use the tickleAppTimer command described above get name of every appTimer get value of appTimer My Application Y For development information on supporting Rebound see the PowerKey Software Developer s Kit on our web site at lt http www sophisticated com gt PowerKe
14. y The monitor switching capabilities of these devices will not cause these problems and can be used in conjunction with Rebound PowerKey Rebound Page 13 Common Problems and Solutions Rebound doesn t restart my computer after the system crashes Some crashes which appear to be system crashes are actu ally caused by applications Though the system may be unresponsive other processes are still running normally See Detecting Application Crashes on page 9 for more information Rebound doesn t restart my computer after an application crashes An application must be specifically written to support Rebound s application crash detection Contact your app lication s developer to see if they offer Rebound support You can use Macsbug to cause many application crashes to become system crashes See Detecting Application Crashes on page 9 for more information An error message appears at startup every time Rebound restarts my computer saying the computer was shut down improperly This is a standard message that appears in some versions of Mac OS after a crash occurs You can disable this message in the General Controls control panel Uncheck the box labelled Warn me if computer was shut down improperly Rebound restarts my computer when I run some applications Some long operations will take control of the computer and not give time to any other processes including the Re bound Extension The R
15. y Rebound Page 11 Testing Rebound Testing System Crash Detection You can test Rebound s system crash detection without waiting for an actual crash To simulate a crash simply hold down the command 3 key and press the power on key A small window will appear with nothing but a gt symbol in it This window is the Mac s built in mini debugger and while it is open no other software can run In a few minutes Rebound should think the computer has crashed and restart it Y There are also several test applications available which purposely cause a variety of system crashes We offer one called Crash Test which is available on our web site lt http www sophisticated com gt A Some crash utilities purposely quit all applications while crash ing These utilities have less real world validity real crashes aren t so polite and actually disable some crash detection tools including Rebound The Rebound software will display a warning dialog if another application attempts to make it quit Testing Application Crash Detection To simulate a crash in an application with Rebound sup port bring that application to the foreground and type command option escape You will be asked if you wish to force the application to quit click Force Quit Since the application wasn t able to quit normally its Application Timer will continue counting down In a few minutes Rebound should think the applicatio
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