Puts the power of the Internet right inthe palm of your hand!

Welcome to NewtonOSPersonal Data Sharing 1.5

Introduction| System Requirements| Get Started

Why the New Name?

  1. New Features!
    Serve A Custom Default Page! Set Default Font, Size, Background Color! Better support for Non-ASCII characters!
    Access your Datebook! Bug Fixes! Automated Setup of your Notpad
    Post Notes to your Notepad from the WWW! More Helpful Error Messages
  2. Since its conception and earlier release, Notepad Server has begun to transcend its humble beginnings as a simple text-to-html markup device and emerge as a tool for sharing all sorts of data with other users on the WWW. Since the initial release, I have heard of this package being used as a replacement for NCU, a web server, a calendar server (sing Herb Otto's DateSum), and much, much more. The new name reflects the promise that our humble little package represents and that is cross-platform sharing of many types of personal digital assistant data using established protocols.
  3. During the initial development cycles, the components of this package were numbered separately in anticipation of possible divergence in development times. However, since the second release it has been obvious to me that all components of this package should be updated simultaneously and therefore share a version number.
  4. Finally, this software package is modular and with this release, I introduce three more modules. Attempting to denote each version number separately would be inane!

What Are the Components of Personal Data Sharing?

  • Notepad Server allows you to use nHTTPd or better to serve web pages from your Newton Notepad. And that's it. (Although this is no small feat since as you know, the Newton doesn't have any notion of files and directories!).
  • Notepad Setup is an optional self-removing autopart that ensures that you have a proper Web folder and installs two sample Notes in that folder so that your server is even more ready to go right after installation!
  • Agenda Server examines your Dates and makes your Agenda (All Meetings and Notes) for the next 4 days available as a nicely formatted table. A HyperLink to Agenda Server (if installed) is accessible from pages served by Notepad Server. A future version of Agenda server will allow you to change the number of days shown and will present ToDo items as well.
  • nHTTPd is a small web server based on a technical writeup Ray Rischpater did for develop magazine in March 1997. In the form it was released in, nHTTPd was fairly non-functional, but after some tweaking of the publicly available source code, it is now capable of working with my Notepad Server CGP (included) to serve notes from your Newton OS Notepad. The original nHTTPd is released under Gnu Public License (see GPL.html) as will the source to this build when it is finalized but until then I will keep development of nHTTPd private.
  • nHTTPd Setup is an optional package used to configure nHTTPd's plethora of new features.
  • Whiteboard is a preview of what's to come for PDS. Installing this extension allows you and other clients to use a forms-enabled browser to post Notes right into the Web folder of your PDS-enabled Newton.

What do I need to use thesepackages?

Since NewtonOS Personal Data Sharing relies ona TCP/IP connection, Newton OS 2.x and NIE 1.1 (or greater) are requiredand because of the prestidigitation we do to generate web pages, a maximumof heap is recommended.

Although it's not required, a static IP is nice,too, as it is with any type of server you run.

OK. Let's Get Started.

I suggest you install NewtonOS Personal Data Sharingin 4 steps.

  1. Install nHTTPd and make sure you can get a connection with it. But you still won't be able to serve web pages.
  2. Not until you have installed Notepad Server and Agenda Server
  3. And written some web pages for service on the WWW.
  4. Serve some Web Pages!

After you get that running, you may want to:

Miscellaneous Items:

This documentation and the software to whichit pertains
is Copyright 1998 by Matthew Vaughn

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