RasMon v1.4

Welcome to RasMon v1.4, A shareware application to monitor all of your Dial-Up Networking connections. There are numerous online timers already out on the Internet, so you may say why another one.

I have evaluated numerous online timers but none of them provided exactly what I wanted. Some of the problems were:

  1. For such a simple requirement some of the program were overly complicated or had special requirements.
  2. None of the programs out there were able to accurately take into account the many different costing rules being used by ISPs and telecom providers.
  3. The types of reporting available in some programs were limited or non-existent.

What I wanted was a nice flexible program, small in size, unintrusive and easy to use. So with that in mind here is a list of RasMon features:

  1. The size of RasMon.exe itself is less than 100k and the code inside it has been designed in such a way to affect system performance as little as possible.
  2. The program leaves all of the reporting and costing issues to an external program. This leaves RasMon to the job of monitoring connections and leaves all the complications of costing / reporting to more capable programs.
  3. Instead of providing reporting, RasMon generates a log file which can be easily imported into programs such as Microsoft Excel. The format itself is totally customisable. The program also generates a "schema.ini" file which allows the CSV file to be used as an DAO data source.
  4. The program is simple to use. Just run it and forget about it, until you want to review your Internet usage.

Leaving the reporting up to a program such as Excel means that you are free to implement whatever reporting/costing you want using all the powerful functionality programs such as this provides.

 

 

Contents
History
Installation Requirements
Usage
Settings
Shareware Notice
Planned Enhancements
Contacting the Author

 

 

HISTORY:

V1.0 (5 July 1998)

V1.1 (26 July 1998)

V1.2 (6 November 1998)

V1.21 (9 November 1998)

V1.22 (11 November 1998)

V1.23 (17 November 1998)

V1.3 (2 February 1999)

V1.4 (21 February 1999)

 

 

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS:

 

 

USAGE:

 

 

SETTINGS:

2 tabs are presented in the settings property page, namely "Output"l and "Advanced". 

 

Output

The CSV log file RasMon generates is by default Rasmon.txt (in the same directory as RasMon.exe) and is a simple text file which contains a record per line. The format of each record is by default as follows:

Name, Start Date, Start Time, Duration, Device Type, Device Name.

The Device Type will normally be something like "Modem" while the Device Name will normally be the name of the modem used to connect through.

It is left up to you to decide when you want to delete / archive the data in the log file. RasMon which just continue to log to the same file. The program only opens the file when it wants to write a new record to it. This means that you can review the log file in any program while RasMon is running without any file sharing problems.

 

The format can be customised by using the Settings property page. The fields that are supported in the log file are as follows:

 

Connection Name

Available formats are:

%s which means display as a string

"%s" which means display as a string and put quotes around it.

 

Connection Device Type

Formats provided are the same as for Connection Name

 

Connection Device Name

Formats provided are the same as for Connection Name

 

Connection Dial Date

This is the date when the connection was made. Available formats are:

%d Day of month (01 - 31)

%m Month of year (01 - 12)

%x Short date format appropriate for the current locale

%y 2 digit year (00 - 99)

%Y 4 digit year (e.g 1998)

%#d Day of Month (1 - 31)

%#m Month of Year (1 - 12)

%#x Long date format appropriate for the current locale

%#y 2 digit year (0 - 99)

 

Connection Dial Time

This is the time of day when the connection was made. Available formats are:

%H Hour of Day (00 - 23)

%M Minute of Hour (00 - 59)

%S Second of Minute (00 - 59)

%x time of day format appropriate for the current locale

%h Hour of Day (0 - 23)

%m Minute of Hour (0 - 59)

%s Second of Minute (0 - 59)

 

Connection Dial Duration

This is the duration of the dialling. Available formats are:

%D Days in the duration (>= 0)

%H Hours in the duration (00 - 23)

%M Minutes in the duration (00 - 59)

%S Seconds in the duration (00 - 59)

%h Total hours in the duration (>= 0) (shown with 2 decimal places)

%m Total minutes in the duration (>= ) (shown with 2 decimal places)

%s Total seconds in the duration (>=0)

%#H Hours in the duration (0 - 23)

%#M Minutes in the duration (0 - 59)

%#S Seconds in the duration (0 - 59)

 

Connect Date

This is the date when the connection was made. Available formats are the same as for Connection Dial Date

 

Connect Time

This is the time of day when the connection was made. Available formats are the same as for Connection Dial Time

 

Connection Duration

This is the duration of the connection (excluding dialling). Available formats are the same as for Connection Dial Duration

 

Hangup Time

This is the time of day when the connection was closed. Available formats are the same as for Connection Dial Time

 

Hangup Date

This is the date when the connection was closed. Available formats are the same as for Connection Dial Date

 

Computer Name

Available formats are:

%s which means display as a string

"%s" which means display as a string and put quotes around it.

 

User Name

Available formats are:

%s which means display as a string

"%s" which means display as a string and put quotes around it.

 

Connection Speed

Available formats are:

%d which means display as a integer in bits/second. Please note that this value is always reported as 0 on NT as currently there is no documented way of retrieving this value on NT.  Another point to bear in mind is that on 95/98, this is the accumulated connection speed of all current RAS connections. This means that if you are using multilink features or have two separate RAS connections active at the one time, then this value will be the total of both connections. Also note that the value reported by RasMon is the value when the connection is closed and  some modems can change the connection speed when connected.

 

Total Bytes Received

Available formats are:

%d which means display as a integer in bytes. Please note that this value is a total for all RAS connections similar to the Connection Speed above.

 

Total Bytes Transmitted

Available formats are:

%d which means display as a integer in bytes. Please note that this value is a total for all RAS connections similar to the Connection Speed above.

 

The settings dialog also allows you to configure where the log file is to be located and the field separator to use plus whether or not to output a "schema.ini" file which allows the log file to be used as a database source. The schema.ini support is pretty rudimentary, so please let me know if it has problems on your system.

 

 

Advanced

The second tab allows you to configure:

 

 

SHAREWARE NOTICE:

RasMon is shareware and this trial version is fully functional except for the NAG screen which appears when RasMon is first run. This means that you are free to evaluate and use it for up to 30 days. After this period if you are still using RasMon then you should register RasMon with the author. The cost is $10 US dollars. Payment should be made by cheque and be made out to:

PJ Naughter,
Cahore,
Ballygarrett,
Gorey,
Co. Wexford.

 

Please don't forget to include your email address so that I can reply ASAP with instructions on how to unlock the program.

 

 

PLANNED ENHANCEMENTS:

 

 

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

PJ Naughter
Email: pjn@indigo..ie
Web: http://indigo.ie/~pjn
21 February 1999