RasMon v1.23

Welcome to RasMon v1.1, 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 just 71k 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 customizable.
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 Rasmon uses is now customizable.
• All the fields and the formats used in the log file are customizable.
• Major optimization added to reduce memory usage (c. 3 MB) on NT when Ras service is not running. Thanks to Daniel Harth for this very neat optimization.
• 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 RasMon 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 the view the log file will work on a default Windows setup.
• 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.

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.

USAGE:

• Just run the RasMon.exe. It will add a telephone icon to the task bar and will sit there quietly monitoring all your ras connections to the log file.
• 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 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 setup to handle the extension of the filename which RasMon 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 Rasmon are being displayed.
• To make sure it does not miss any connections, simply create a shortcut to "RasMon.exe" in your startup folder

SETTINGS:

By displaying the settings dialog for RasMon, a number of its settings can be changed.

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 customized 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 dialing. 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 dialing). 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.

The settings dialog also allows you to configure where the log file is to be located and the field separator to use.

SHAREWARE NOTICE:

RasMon is shareware and this trial version is fully functional except for the NAG screens. 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:

Upon receiving the payment I will send you instructions on how to unlock the program.

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

PJ Naughter
Email: pjn@indigo..ie
Web: http://indigo.ie/~pjn
17 November 1998