Disk Space Logger Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ------------------ September 2013. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | | * Why is this useful ? / Why do this ? | | * Using this Program | | * The Future | | * Special Greetings / Thanks to | | * Program License / Limitations / Restrictions | | * Warranty | | * Amendment History | | * Contacting the Program's Author | +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Disk Space Logger for Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT / 2000, Vista, 7, 8, 32 or 64 bit, etc. Disk Space Logger enables you to quickly and easily keep track of the amount of free disk space on a particular drive in or attached to your machine. Settings allow you to specify a wide range of logging options, including: * The drive to log. e.g. C:, D:, etc. * The number of seconds between log events. e.g. 10 seconds means that the free disk space is checked and logged every 10 seconds. * The order in which data is added to the list (at the top or at the bottom) * When to log the first disk space item - when the start button is pressed or when the timer reaches zero, * The Units of Measure: KB, MB, GB, etc all the way up to YB. Given that current harddrives drives are measured in TB, with the largest being around 4 TB for desktop use, it will be probably be decades or centuries before the YB measure is needed. * The Conversion factor. i.e. whether a KB is 1024 or 1000 bytes. * The number of decimal places to display. All but one of these settings can be changed while the program is logging the free disk space. This could be useful if you need to drop down to MB or even KB to really keep an eye on how much disk space is available. The only setting you cannot change while the programm is logging free disk space is the Drive setting. If you could change the drive on the fly, then the Average, Min, Max, from the prior drive would be either be lost or corrupted and meaningless, and the log would become meaningless - which drive is this for ? So, if you want to change Drives, click "Stop", and then click "Reset" to reset everything, change the drive, and then click "Start" to start the logging again. This seems the only safe way to handle this, but if anyone has any suggestions, email me and let me know. :) Changing the settings does NOT effect existing / prior log entries (they are history, and they cannot be changed), but only future log entries. This provides maximum flexibility. e.g. you can do some logging in GB and then in a tricky part where you want to see greater detail, you can log in MB or KB, or increase the number of decimal points for a while, and so on. Doing so will only effect future log entries. The abbreviations used for KB, MB, etc are all according to the IEC standard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrabyte). I adopted the IEC standard, because it covers everything. Others, like JEDEC, do not. For example, JEDEC does not go beyond TB (or, at least it doesn't according to Wikipedia). This means that if you have selected 1000 as the Conversion Factor then the disk size / space abbreviations are: kB, MB, GB, TB, etc. i.e. 1 kB = 1000 bytes, and 1 MB = 1000 kB, and so on. (Yes, lowercase "k" is correct in "kB" according to the standard). But, if you select 1024 as the Conversion Factor, then the disk size / space abbreviations are: KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, etc. i.e. 1 KiB = 1024 bytes, and 1 MiB = 1024 KiB, and so on. I cannot tell you how much this rankles me !!! I am definitely a traditional guy when it comes disk size / space units of measure. i.e. KB, MB, etc and I believe that a KB should always be 1024 bytes. Not a KiB ! If anything, the KiB should be when you divide by 1000 ! But the standard does not agree with me. And, I have abided by what the standard says. If you don't agree with this, blame the likes of the IEC, not me ! :P The "Start" and "Stop" buttons start and stop the logging. A blue progress bar displays an indication of the number of seconds left before the next disk space reading is logged. The "Reset" button resets the log, and the Min, Max, Average values displayed. Buttons are provided next to the Min, Max, Average values to enable you to copy and paste the values to Windows Clipboard. "Copy" and "Save" buttons are provided next to the log to allow you to copy it to Windows Clipboard and save it to file respectively. And that's about it. Everything should hopefully be pretty self explanatory. Any questions or problems, let me know. :) Developed using 32-bit Delphi. Why is this useful ? / Why do this ? -------------------------------------- I wrote this program on 23-Sep-2013 to keep track of the free disk space used by a *very* badly behaved installer, which said it needed 3,288 MB, when in reality it needed more than 11 GB. I wanted to log the disk space used so that I could provide information to the developers of the product so that they could fix their installer. This program would be useful for anyone maintaining installers. And for anyone who wants to keep a log of disk space usage on their computer while it is performing various tasks, for whatever reasons they may have. If you find any good uses for this program, please email me and let me know. :) Using this Program : -------------------- To use this program, simply unzip it to a directory (using PKUNIP, WinZIP, or similar), and run it. e.g. double click on the "Disk_Space_Logger.EXE" file. See "Introduction" above for further details about the settings and functionality provided. The Future : ------------ Anything ideas ? If you would like any improvements, please email me and let me know. Special Greetings / Thanks to : ------------------------------- - None so far. Program License / Limitations / Restrictions : ---------------------------------------------- This program is FREE software - any person and any company is welcome to copy it, use it, and distribute it as they see fit, as long as the EXEcutable and this text file remain intact. If you find this program useful or funny or think I need serious mental help, please visit my WEB page and check out some of the other software. Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know, and I will do my best to fix it ASAP. Amendment History : -------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0f 24-Sep-2013 First Public Release. (722 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source file.) (56,232 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary, library, and include files.) If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://moosevalley.fhost.com.au/ ____________________________________________________