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│ The Log Analyzer v3.1 │ │ Documentation │ │ │ │ Written by: Don MacElrath │ Legal BS ──────── This software package is released under the FREEWARE concept. I don't believe in SHAREWARE (or TRY BEFORE YOU BUY). This package is fully functional. It may not be offered as an incentive towards the purchase of another product. It may not be distributed by any organization that requires a fee. This program can be distributed as long as it is made available to everyone FREE OF CHARGE. Although I have tested & use this program personally, I will not be held responsible for any damages that may occur by use of this program. I will also not be responsible for any misleading information that this program may provide. Use this program at your own risk. Why TLA? ────────── The purpose of this program is simple, to keep tack of the amount of time you spend on a BBS in a 1 month period. It should help to reduce the "PHONE BILL SHOCK" syndrome. Although most communication packages keep a log of all the boards that you call, it doesn't add up the total time you spend on each board - A very valuable piece of information. Suppose you are registered with the phone company and their SELECTIVE CALLING PLAN (or SCOPE). Wouldn't it be nice to know if you were approaching your 20 hour limit? Or suppose you wanted to make "JUST 1 MORE LONG DISTANCE PHONE CALL". Thinking to yourself that you really haven't made that many long distance calls this month, you decide to go for it. This process does have a way of repeating itself. Well, now you will know just how much time you spent calling out. NO MORE EXCUSES WHEN YOU GET YOUR MONTHLY PHONE BILL! *grin* * SPECIAL NOTE ON THE SELECTIVE CALLING PLAN. The Selective Calling Plan is not available in all states. What it allows you to do is add a group of TOLL exchanges to your LOCAL calling area. There is a monthly fee for this service (couple dollars, not much at all). It will let you call those exchanges FREE OF CHARGE (There is a 20 hour limit per month). Check with your local telephone company and see if it is available in your area. I know it is available in Southern NJ. Requirements ──────────── 1) A computer (yes, you do need a computer to run this software). 2) A supported communication software package (See SUPPORT.LST). Optional Equipment (For PEAK Performance) ───────────────────────────────────────── 1) 5 Gigabillion Megabyte Hard Drive. 2) 1,423 Megs of RAM. 3) ZZGA Video Support. 4) 7 High Density Floppy Drives (required for the Install). 5) Asprin and/or Beer. Miscellaneous Stuff - General ───────────────────────────── When entering a date to calculate, you must provide a number that is 5 characters in length. 1/92 is not acceptable, 01/92 is the proper format. If you have a habit of changing the board names (or the phone numbers), they will appear as separate entries in the TLA output. For Example, lets say 1 entry in your dialing directory is JOE'S PLACE, but you realize that the actual bbs name is JOE'S BBS. Naturally you change it. The TLA output will show both names! When you change the name in the dialing directory, the DIALING DIRECTORY gets updated, not the LOG file! Remember that. That's why the output shows the BBS name and Phone number - to clear up any doubts as to why there might be 2 entries for the same bbs. It might be a good idea to make sure you have a few entries in your log file before running TLA. TLA Syntax ────────── TLA [/OPTION] /SETUP - Run Configuration Program /MONO - Force Monochrome Display (Don't ask me why I included it, it just looks better now that I have 2 OPTIONS) Only 1 option can be entered on the command line. TLA /SETUP /MONO is invalid. (Setup defaults to monochrome anyway) Getting Started ─────────────── 1) Place each of the files in your communications directory. NOTE: you can use whatever directory you like, but the 2 files TLA.EXE and TLA.CFG must be in the same directory. 2) Type: TLA /SETUP <ENTER> Just answer the questions and you're all set. Enjoy! Setup Help ────────── Question : Select the Communications Software that you use: 1) Procomm Plus 2.01 or compatible 2) Qmodem 4.5/5.0 or compatible 3) Telix 3.15 or compatible Answer : Just pick the number that corresponds to your communication software. EASY! Question : Provide the complete NAME and PATH to your LOG file: Examples - C:\PCPLUS\PCPLUS.FON C:\QMODEM\QMODEM.LOG C:\TELIX\TELIX.USE Answer : This is the path and name of the log that your software creates. The examples above are probably where you will find those files, providing that you used the defaults when installing your communication software. Check your communication software to make sure that you have calling logging automatically start. Question : Select Output. 1) Screen 2) DOS Text File. Answer : You have a choice of sending the data created by TLA to the Screen, or to a DOS TEXT file. Select 1 or 2. If you select an output to a text file, the next question will prompt you for the name and location of the file you want to create. Question : Name and location of output text file. Example: C:\TLA.LOG Answer : This question is not displayed if you choose SCREEN as your output. This is just the name & location of the TEXT file to create / overwrite. Should you choose to create a text file instead of sending the results to the screen, the text file will be over 80 characters in length. If you choose to print this file, you may want to set your printer up in LANDSCAPE mode (or 132 column mode). See your printer manual for help. See you DOS manual for help printing TEXT files from dos (look under the TYPE command). Procomm Plus General Help ───────────────────────── Although I have tried to make setting up this software as easy as possible, some users maybe a little confused. Hopefully reading my vague remarks below will clear up any problems you might be having. There is on option in Procomm plus to enable/disable call logging. Go into Procomm Plus Setup, and under GENERAL OPTIONS you want the one that corresponds to the letter H. Make sure it is ON. Sample PCPLUS.FON File ────────────────────── NAME NUMBER DATE ONLINE OFFLINE ELAPSED Bogus Board ?-???-???-???? 09/24/92 19:39:09 19:42:13 00:03:04 Just Another Board ???-???? 09/24/92 20:31:11 Just Another Board ???-???? 09/24/92 21:08:02 21:09:47 00:01:45 The Bar ???-???? 09/24/92 21:11:14 21:12:31 00:01:17 John Doe's BBS ???-???? 09/24/92 22:45:18 22:45:43 00:00:25 Computer BBS ???-???? 09/24/92 22:58:54 23:09:42 00:10:48 Bogus Board ?-???-???-???? 09/24/92 23:21:31 23:24:57 00:03:26 John Doe's BBS ???-???? 09/24/92 23:26:16 23:27:51 00:01:35 John Doe's BBS ???-???? 09/24/92 23:28:17 23:43:08 00:14:51 John Doe's BBS ???-???? 09/24/92 23:46:17 23:48:49 00:02:32 NOTE ENTRY #2. This is an example of an invalid entry. This could have been caused by the user rebooting while online, or perhaps there was a power failure. Obviously, it isn't good to have this kind of entry. Shit happens. If your communication package outputs a file similar to the one above, then you should be able to use this package. Just change the the name of the FON file to your file log name when you run setup. Invalid PCPLUS.FON Entries ────────────────────────── There will be times while you are ONLINE and your computer locks up (or some other odd thing happens like a power failure). This will leave blanks in the PCPLUS.FON file in the ELAPSED & OFFLINE fields (see the example .FON file above). Since there is no way to determine the actual time you spent on the board, those entries are skipped. All of the invalid entries will be displayed to you at the end of the program. That information could be important, especially if you have 10 invalid entries to 1 long distance board. That's at least an additional 10 minutes of LONG DISTANCE calling! If there are no invalid entries, that screen will be skipped. Qmodem General Help ─────────────────── Again, I have tried to make setting up TLA as easy as possible. If you are confused, read on and hopefully things will become clear. Or, try reading the Procomm Plus section. There might be a similar situation there that was explained a little bit better. Qmodem gives the user an option of having the QMODEM.LOG file automatically start whenever you run Qmodem. YOU MUST SET THIS TO AUTOMATICALLY LOG ALL YOUR CALLS!! Once you are in Qmodem, type ALT N/O/T. Look for the autolog on/off question. Make sure it is ON! If it is off, and you have to turn it on, make sure you save your changes when you exit Qmodem's setup. The first time you turn the LOG file on and go to call a BBS, you will be prompted for the LOG filename. The default is QMODEM.LOG. You can change this if you want, just make sure that the name you give the LOG file is the same name that you enter in TLA SETUP. If you are still having problems with the QMODEM.LOG file, read the manual that came with Qmodem. It probably can help you more than I can. Sample QMODEM.LOG File ────────────────────── 08:03:46 09-29-92 Connected With : Joes Place 08:03:46 09-29-92 ++ Phone Number : ???-???? 08:03:46 09-29-92 ++ Comm Speed : 2400-8-N-1 08:03:46 09-29-92 Online Timer Started 08:05:45 09-29-92 Elapsed Online 00:01:59 08:06:23 09-29-92 Connected With : Bills Place 08:06:23 09-29-92 ++ Phone Number : ???-???? 08:06:23 09-29-92 ++ Comm Speed : 57600-8-N-1 08:06:23 09-29-92 Online Timer Started 08:08:55 09-29-92 Elapsed Online 00:02:32 08:09:14 09-29-92 Connected With : Just Another BBS 08:09:14 09-29-92 ++ Phone Number : ???-???? 08:09:14 09-29-92 ++ Comm Speed : 57600-8-N-1 08:09:14 09-29-92 Online Timer Started 08:10:25 09-29-92 Elapsed Online 00:01:11 08:11:02 09-29-92 @SHELL 08:11:36 09-29-92 ++ @SHELL Successful 08:14:17 09-29-92 ********** HOST STARTED ********** 08:14:17 09-29-92 ++ HOST Header file created 08:14:17 09-29-92 ++ HOST Detail file created 08:14:37 09-29-92 ++ HOST CALLER > DON MACELRATH 08:14:37 09-29-92 Online Timer Started 08:14:47 09-29-92 ++ HOST HANGUP > DON MACELRATH 08:14:53 09-29-92 Elapsed Online 00:00:16 08:15:00 09-29-92 *********** HOST ENDED *********** 13:18:34 09-29-92 Connected With : Really Bad BBS 13:18:34 09-29-92 ++ Phone Number : ?-???-???-???? 13:18:34 09-29-92 ++ Comm Speed : 57600-8-N-1 13:18:34 09-29-92 Online Timer Started 13:19:26 09-29-92 Hangup Command entered 13:19:29 09-29-92 Elapsed Online 00:00:55 07:24:37 09-30-92 Connected With : ModemSex 07:24:37 09-30-92 ++ Phone Number : 1-900-WAS-TE$$ 07:24:37 09-30-92 ++ Comm Speed : 57600-8-N-1 07:24:37 09-30-92 Online Timer Started 07:25:00 09-30-92 @SHELL 07:25:07 09-30-92 ++ @SHELL Successful 07:26:38 09-30-92 Download Batch 07:26:38 09-30-92 ++ Protocol : Zmodem 07:26:39 09-30-92 ++ File C:\DOWN\TEST.ZIP 07:31:09 09-30-92 ++ Chars Per Second : 1387 07:31:09 09-30-92 ++ Effective Percent : 96.3 07:31:16 09-30-92 @SHELL 07:31:22 09-30-92 ++ @SHELL Successful 07:31:25 09-30-92 @SHELL 07:31:30 09-30-92 ++ @SHELL Successful 07:31:45 09-30-92 Elapsed Online 00:07:08 Invalid QMODEM.LOG Entries ────────────────────────── I tried to find out what happens when there is a power failure while you are online with a BBS. Apparently, Qmodem makes ALL log entries after you hangup. I called a board and rebooted my machine while I was online (my apologies to the sysop...*grin*). There was NO ENTRY for that call! Not even a start time. Where Procomm plus at least provides a start time, but no ending time. Oh well. It looks like there can't be an invalid log entry for Qmodem. Watch out for that in case I'm wrong. I did include some error checking for the QMODEM log file. If TLA does find an error, please report it so I can fix it. Miscellaneous Stuff - Qmodem Specific ───────────────────────────────────── The BBS name field will get truncated if it is over 24 characters. The QMODEM.LOG file looks like it could grow rather quickly. You may want to consider deleting it every 4th month or so to save on calculating time, and disk storage space. Telix General Help ────────────────── Since this log is so similar to Qmodem's log, there isn't much difference between the Telix and Qmodem. There is an option in the Telix setup to AUTOMATICALLY start the log everytime you start Telix. Make sure this is ON. After turning it on, you may have to exit Telix and reload it in order for the logging process starts. BBS name field length shouldn't be a problem with Telix. This file will also grow rather quickly. You may want to delete every once in a while to save on calculating time and disk space. I don't think you can have Invalid entries for Telix either. Keep an eye out in case there is such a thing as an Invalid Entry for Telix. Sample TELIX.USE File ───────────────────── 92-09-30 16:51:26 Telix Usage Log Created. 92-09-30 16:51:26 Telix Usage Log Opened. 92-09-30 16:51:29 Elapsed time online 00:00:00 92-09-30 16:52:13 Connected with : Jimmy Joe's BBS 92-09-30 16:52:13 ++ At phone # : ???-???? 92-09-30 16:52:13 ++ Settings : 2400,N,8,1 92-09-30 16:53:33 Elapsed time online 00:01:18 92-09-30 16:54:42 Exiting Telix. 92-09-30 16:54:42 Telix Usage Log Closed. 92-09-30 20:18:36 Telix Usage Log Opened. 92-09-30 20:18:39 Elapsed time online 00:00:00 92-09-30 20:20:01 Exiting Telix. 92-09-30 20:20:01 Telix Usage Log Closed. 92-10-01 05:30:42 Telix Usage Log Opened. 92-10-01 05:30:46 Elapsed time online 00:00:00 92-10-01 05:32:54 Connected with : Lame BBS 92-10-01 05:32:54 ++ At phone # : ???-???? 92-10-01 05:32:54 ++ Settings : 57600,N,8,1 92-10-01 05:34:34 Download using YmodEm-g protocol. 92-10-01 05:34:35 ++ File : test.zip 92-10-01 05:38:25 ++ Chars per second : 1705 92-10-01 05:38:41 Elapsed time online 00:05:47 92-10-01 05:38:58 Exiting Telix. 92-10-01 05:38:58 Telix Usage Log Closed. TLA Output Explanation ──────────────────────── There isn't really much to explain. It should be self explanatory. The only thing that I would like to point out here is the 2 time columns. One is labeled ELAPSED 1 and the other is labeled ELAPSED 2. ELAPSED 1: This is the actual time that you spent on a BBS. This field contains hours, minutes and seconds. ELAPSED 2: Since the phone company charges by minutes and not seconds, the ELAPSED 1 field isn't very useful. If you called a board and spent 25 seconds on it, the phone company will charge you for a full minute! This field takes that into consideration and rounds the results. The time is displayed in hour:minutes. There can be a large difference between the 2 ELAPSED fields. It isn't uncommon for me to get results that vary by as much as an hour! All those seconds rounded up to the next minute really add up! I DON"T HAVE A CLUE AS TO HOW THE PHONE COMPANY GETS THEIR INFORMATION. No matter how much I try to keep track of my calls, the phone company seems to always have some unique figures on my phone bill. At least this program should give you a ballpark idea on your phone calls. Much better than actual guesswork (or figuring it out by hand!). USER RESPONSIBILITY ─────────────────── I use Procomm Plus. It is up to you to let me know if there are any bugs or screw ups in the other parts of the program. I have tried to cover all the bases, but not being a regular user, I may have overlooked something. If something goes wrong LET ME KNOW ABOUT IT! See the information towards the end of this document on how to get in touch with me. NOTE: I no longer use Procomm Plus. There were just to many problems with it at high speeds. Help screens, etc. were just to poorly written for me to figure out the problem. I have switced to Qmodem (using all the defaults) and have not had a problem yet! Final Words ─────────── I can be reached via ILINK in the appropriate conference. Procomm Plus users should get in touch with me in the Procomm Plus conference, and Qmodem users in the Qmodem conference...etc..,make sense? *grin* Be careful not to upset the conference moderators with off the wall topics. And try to be careful when spelling my name, I just might miss your message if it isn't spelled correctly. I am looking to support as many different software packages as I can. If you know of someone that could benefit from this software but doesn't use any of the supported packages. Drop me a note. I would be happy to *try* and include that particular communication package in the next release. If you are using a different version of a SUPPORTED software package, please let me know so I can add that version number to the SUPPORT.LST file. As far as releases go, I will release a new version whenever there is a need for one. If I released a version yesterday, there could be a new version tomorrow. It all depends. Keep an eye out for the HISTORY.TXT file to see if you could benefit from upgrading to a newer version. Opps, I have to put this in: ──────────────────────────── Consider becoming a member of an Environmentally Aware Organization, such as Green Peace. We all have to live on this planet and I would prefer to live in a clean environment. Lets keep all the crap IN the politicians and OUT of the environment. (What else could I say? It's election year.) Happy Modeming!