RasMan v1.44

Welcome to RasMan 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, unobtrusive and easy to use. So with that in mind here is a list of RasMan features:

1. The size of RasMan.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 RasMan to the job of monitoring connections and leaves all the complications of costing / reporting to more capable programs.
3. Instead of providing reporting, RasMan 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.

HISTORY:

V1.0 (5 July 1998)

• First public release.

V1.1 (26 July 1998)

• Updated to include the time in the tray ToolTip text when connected.
• tray icon is changed to red when connected.

V1.2 (6 November 1998)

• The filename of the log file RasMan uses is now customisable.
• All the fields and the formats used in the log file are customisable.
• Major optimisation added to reduce memory usage (c. 3 MB) on NT when RAS service is not running. Thanks to Daniel Harth for this very neat optimisation.
• Internally the code now uses a hidden window to perform the monitoring instead of a worker thread. This helps avoid potential deadlock problems which can occur as previously the code used a worker thread.
• Tidied up the help file.
• A context menu option is now available in RasMan to display the log file.

V1.21 (9 November 1998)

• Default extension for the log file is now ".txt" instead of ".log". This will ensure that the file association required for the view the log file will work on a default Windows set-up.
• Updated the message box text when the log file fails to be shown.
• Updated the help file to explain the "view the log file" error message.

V1.22 (11 November 1998)

• Fixed a crash which was occurring when you selecting one of the buttons in the settings dialog if no item was selected in the fields list box.
• Updated the version info in the about box.

V1.23 (17 November 1998)

• Added support for a 2 new formats. See the settings section for further details.
• Product is now shareware instead of freeware. This means that it will bring up a nag screen each time it is run until you register the program.

V1.3 (2 February 1999)

• Now includes a menu option to delete the log file.
• Now uses v1.32 of my CTrayNotifyIcon class.
• The program now only logs dial-up connections which were successfully made.
• View & Delete menu options are now disabled if the log file does not exist
• The program writes out recovered RAS records when restarted in the event of an unexpected application or OS crash.
• The program now stores all settings under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry key instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This will affect both registered keys as well as your log file settings.
• Updated the documentation to describe how you import the data in Microsoft Excel 97.

V1.4 (21 February 1999)

• Now includes bytes sent, bytes received and connection speed as possible field values.
• A "schema.ini" file can now be output. This allows other programs to connect to the CSV log file which RasMan generates through DAO as if it were a native database table. This is of use when developing applications which use the RasMan log files for reporting purposes.
• A parental / supervisor mode has now been added which when activated prevents someone from inadvertently changing the settings or closing the program without knowing the correct password.
• A hide function has been added to hide the tray icon of RasMan. This can be used in conjunction with the supervisor mode for discreet background monitoring of Dial-Up networking connections. For example in a home setting where the children use the family computer to connect to the Internet.
• An auto start option has been added to allow RasMan to be started automatically when Windows boots. This uses the registry instead of the StartUp start menu group. This is to make the running of RasMan more discreet. Again this is useful in conjunction with the hide function as described above.
• Fixed a crash when settings were been edited and you selected one of the buttons when no items were selected.
• When a field is removed from the list, the item above the old item is now selected.
• Nag screen and about box were showing the wrong version number, that has now been fixed.
• Limitations on bytes sent, bytes received and connection speed have been documented.
• Installation requirements have now been expanded.
• Settings were previously being lost because they were being stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER part of the registry. All values are now stored under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. This means if you have previously registered RasMan, then you will need to reregister. A default list of fields will also be used, so you may need to customise your settings again.
• Renamed the "General" tab to be "Output".

V1.41 (5 September 1999)

• Fixed a bug which was causing an access violation when the first RAS connection was detected when RasMan was run on NT.
• Now uses v1.01 of my CPdh class.
• Updated the documentation to include my full postal address.
• Updated my email address in this file.

V1.42 (8 September 1999)

• Updated install instructions to ensure RasMan works correctly on NT.

V1.43 (13 September 1999)

• Updated product name from RasMon to RasMan to avoid conflict with a similarly named application from Microsoft.
• Now uses v1.02 of CPdh class of the authors, which fixes more problems discovered when the application is run on NT.

V1.44 (15 September 1999)

• Updated RasMan to work correctly in languages which do not use the "." symbol as the decimal separator.
• Now supports outputting a "Dial + Connect Duration" which combines the dialing duration with the Connect Duration"

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS:

• The program is for Win32 only.
• You must have the MFC 4.2 dlls installed. If you do not have these installed then go to the authors page at http://indigo.ie/~pjn for instructions on downloading.
• RasMan requires that the latest version of Winsock and Dial-Up Networking are installed.  Even if you are running the latest version of Windows 95 (Win95 B aka OSR2), you will still need to download and install this update.  Windows 98 includes the latest versions, so no additional downloads are required.
   
  The easiest way to determine if you have the correct version of Dial-Up Networking installed is to check the icon that is added to your system tray (next to the clock) when you establish a connection to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), as shown below:

  or	You need to download the updates
  	You already have Dial-Up Networking v1.3 or above installed.

  
  The updated versions are available from the Microsoft Web site.  At the time or writing, you can get the update by clicking here.  If that page has moved (which it has in the past), you can find the update by following these steps:

  Go to the Microsoft site (http://www.microsoft.com).
  Follow the links to Products, Windows, Windows 95, System updates.
  Download the Dial-Up Networking v1.3 update

  For NT users you need to ensure that you have the PSAPI.DLL and PDH.DLL installed into your system32 directory on NT. If these files are not already present on your machine, then you can download it from http://indigo.ie/~pjn/download/psapi.dll and http://indigo.ie/~pjn/download/pdh.dll.

USAGE:

• Just run the RasMan.exe. It will add a telephone icon to the task bar (if the hide function has not been turned on) and will sit there quietly monitoring all your RAS connections to the log file. Please note that unregistered versions of RasMan will first bring up a nag screen.
• Right clicking the icon in the tray will present a menu with a number of options. One is a simple about box, another option will allow you to close the program, another will display the log file, another will delete the log file, another will allow you to change its settings and the last option will display the help file. If the view the log file option displays an error message, then please make sure that Windows is set-up to handle the extension of the filename which RasMan writes its log file to. You can edit these settings by selecting "View -> Folder options" in Explorer and selecting the file types tab.
• To bring up the help file (this file), Just press F1 while any of the dialogs in RasMan are being displayed.
• To make sure it does not miss any connections, you might want to enable the Auto start option in the Advanced tab in the settings dialog.
• To import the log file into Microsoft Excel 97, follow the procedure outlined below:
  1. Bring up Excel and Select "File -> Open".
  2. Navigate to where you have the RasMan log file stored and select the "Open".
  3. Excel will determine that it is a CSV text file (assuming you have used the default settings in RasMan). Select the option "Delimited" and select "Next". Set the Delimiter to "comma" on the next page and select "Next" again. Select any date columns and ensure they are configured as dates in the correct order and select "Finish".
  4. Your RasMan log file should now be imported into Excel ready for you do do some calculations will the logged data.

SETTINGS:

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

Output

The CSV log file RasMan generates is by default RasMan.txt (in the same directory as RasMan.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. RasMan 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 RasMan 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 RasMan 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.

Dial + Connection Duration

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

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:

• A parental / supervisor mode which when activated prevents someone from inadvertently changing the settings or closing the program without knowing the correct password.
• A hide function which hides the tray icon of RasMan. This can be used in conjunction with the supervisor mode for discreet background monitoring of Dial-Up networking connections. For example in a home setting where the children use the family computer to connect to the Internet.
• An auto start option to allow RasMan to be started automatically when Windows boots. This uses the registry instead of the StartUp start menu group. This is to make the running of RasMan more discreet. Again this is useful in conjunction with the hide function.

SHAREWARE NOTICE:

RasMan is shareware and this trial version is fully functional except for the NAG screen which appears when RasMan 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 RasMan then you should register RasMan with the author. The cost is $10 US dollars. Payment should be made by cheque, payable to "PJ Naughter" and should be sent to:

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:

• Provide a binary file output from RasMan and present a user interface for this, possible even a separate reporting program so that for those who are happy with the log file will not have the overhead of a reporting program in the monitoring program. Support options in the reporting program such as cost allocation, date filtering, ISP filtering etc.

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

PJ Naughter
Email: pjn@indigo.ie
Web: http://indigo.ie/~pjn
15 September 1999