JR-Informant V. 1.0 - Jim Payne - Usage Analysis. July 21, 1990 As most of you know by know; JR-Comm has got to be the greatest gift to the Amiga Telecomputing Community since the invention of the modem. After using terminals on almost every computer platform imag- inable; I am still of the opinion that JR-Comm is the best I have ever used. There is one thing I have always wanted in a good terminal program, though. That is the ability to do some pretty good house- keeping on the BBS's that I call. That is where JR-Informant comes in. It takes the jrcomm.log file that JR-Comm sets up and analyses it to give some usefull infor- mation. Below is a brief description of its features. First off, it is abosuletly imperative that you properly log out of Jr-Comm each time you leave it and that you maintain the log file that is defined within the program (usually jrcomm.log in your S: device). JR-Informant relies solely on this file and will only be truely accurate if this file is accurate. When JR-Informant is run, you can select the file you want analysed from the files menu. It will then ask you for the name of your logfile. If you do not enter a filename it will assume the file is named JRCOMM.LOG and is located in your S: device. Please see your JR-Comm documentation for the proper creation and maintanence of this file. After the file has been analysed, the computer will inform you that it is done and you can now choose to either print the report to screen or printer. The report will give you the following information: BBS : Name of the BBS you have called. Calls : Number of times you have called. D/L : Number of files you have downloaded from there. Kbytes : Total Kilobytes you have downloaded from there. AVG KB : Average Size of each download in kilobytes. Error : Total Number of errors encountered while d/l'ing. K/ER : Average kilobytes between each error. U/L : Number of files you have uploaded there. Kbytes : Total Kilobytes you have uploaded there. AVG KB : Average size of each upload. Error : Total upload errors encountered there. K/ER : Average kilobytes between each error. CPS : Average characters per second during transfers. Note that if you are using PC Pursuit; then be sure to name your local PAD number "PC Pursuit" and then JR-Informant will automatically track all of your current month's PCP usage. From the above information; you should be able to quickly find where you have uploaded the most to (as well as downloaded the most from)... But more importantly, you can tell which bbs's are going to have the greatest number of errors during a transfer and which bbs's are going to complete that transfer fastest. >>>>>>>> JR-Informant 1.5 <<<<<<<<< July 24, 1990 Boy! Quite a few changes in quite a little time! The first and biggest change in Informant right now is that it now can scan a file (or files); compile all the information and save the information to a file for later use. What this means is that you can now reset your logfile without losing valuable information from Informant! All pertenant information is written to the files and can be called up at a later date and automatically be added to. This includes any PC Pursuit usage you may have had for the current month. The program will also keep track of the date of the last entry and will not compile info on any entry which is equal to or earlier than the last. This way you can scan a file today; save it. Scan the same file next week and Informant will only record the changes. A note on PC Pursuit users: Please make sure you name the local number you call "PC Pursuit" in your phonebook. If you don't, Informant will simply assume that it is another BBS and not clock your time. Also, if you ever leave JR-Comm without selecting "Quit" from its menu then your logfile will not have a session finished indicator on it and this will certainly screw up your PC Pursuit accounting. Informant will warn you when it encounters a log with this problem and it tends to err on the liberal side so you tend to think you have used more time than you actually have. Also note that PC Pursuit time is only reported during the month it is active in. For instance; if you use 10 hours in June, and scan a log which contains a July entry; then the program will erase June's PCP usage and report July's. Also new to 1.5 is the ability to sort your lists by Name, number of Uploads, number of Downloads, number of Calls, and overall speed of the system in transfers. A note on this last one; Informant takes the overage average speed of both the uploads and the downloads on this BBS in order to make its sort criteria. If you have uploaded but not downloaded (or vice versa) then Informant will assume that the BBS will do both at the same speed (a fact we know is not always true, but I can't think of a more logical way out). You can print any of your files now and they will now include the filename and the date of the last entry on the listing. Also you now have the Upload and Download speeds listed sep- erately for your information. >>>>>>>> JR-Informant 1.6 <<<<<<<<< July 27, 1990 Well... This version was originally going to be just a bug fix for 1.5. It appears that my compiler was set incorrectly for certain math operations and it would cause unreliable reports of PC Pursuit usage. Then I decided to add something else into it. When run, JR- Informant now checks for a configuration file in your s: directory; if it can't find it, it will tell you so and the only options you will have is to create one. The computer will prompt you for the following information: Phone Entry to Track Usage : Now you can specify what account to track. For example, "PC Pursuit" will track time spent on all calls to the entry called "PC Pursuit". Now you can also track time spent on calls through StarLink and even to Delphi or Genie! The only requirement is that you must immediately quit JR Comm after leaving a tracked entry. This is due to the fact that JR-Comm has no way of recording how long you were on a partic- ular BBS/Service (maybe in the future?) Age In Days Of Unused BBS's : This will allow you to automatically remove BBS's from your lists in they have had only one call and no other activity. Enter the age an entry must be before it qualifies for removal. An entry of -1 will disable this option. Default Name For File : This is the default path and name for the file that Informant saves your information to. Default Name Of Logfile : This is the default path and name for the log file that JR-Cimm leaves. You can contact me at the address listed below or at my BBS Sha Ka Rhee (302) 734-0179. This number is only up from 10pm to 8am. NOW FOR THE LEGAL MUMBO JUMBO: JR-Informant IS NOT in the public domain. It is however freely- distributable shareware. This means if you like and intend to use the program then you should send me some monetary compensation. Now I know this isn't a perfect world and that things aren't expected to always work the way we would like them. So if all you feel moved to do is to send me a note with your comments, compliments, criticisms, ideas, etc; then that will also make me happy. JR-Informant is herby presented AS-IS without any warrenty, express or implied that it is fit or suitable for any purpose other than personal whim. Under no circumstances shall any charges be leveled at me for any use, misuse, or intended use of JR-Informant. In other words folks; I'm not saying this program does anything; or that it is suitable to do any particular task. But I do encourage you to play with it. JR-Informant may not be posted on any BBS or Informational Providing Service on which the Service/BBS claims over-riding copy- rights on any information found there (no matter how illegal their claims are). You may however; give this to your friends, put it in your user's group library, and upload it to any electronic SERVICE/BBS which does not meet the above criteria. It must always be accompanied by this file. If you like this program please feel free to drop me a note with your comments, etc (donations are welcome). My address is a follows: Jim Payne 17 Parkview MHP Dover, DE 19901 USA THINGS PLANNED FOR VERSION 2.0: Graphs of all data!!!!! Anything else I can think of.....