-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Fw: Karen's Power Tools Newsletter September 17, 2003
- From: ~OoO~ <SirTroth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 08:55:50 -0400
Thanks Dave.
Downloading it now as I type.
---Troth
At 07:34 PM 9/17/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>---Troth
>Here is the information about the drive info program from Karen's Power
>Tools I wrote about the other day. Hope this helps.
>Dave
>
>--------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: "Karen Kenworthy" <powertools@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: "
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 08:33:46 -0500
>Subject: Karen's Power Tools Newsletter September 17, 2003
>Message-ID: <APPSruJfE9MswF0SsAt00005fbc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>KAREN'S POWER TOOLS NEWSLETTER
>
>~~~~~~~~~~ This Week's Power Tools Sponsor ~~~~~~~~~~
>
>Karen's Power Tools are now available on CD!
>To learn all about it, and securely order online,
>visit: http://www.karenware.com/cd.asp
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>September 17, 2003
>
>By Karen Kenworthy
>
>Read the Web version of Power Tools online!
>http://www.karenware.com/newsletters/2003/2003-09-17.asp
>
>IN THIS ISSUE
>* More Drive Info
>* Really Big Drives
>* Quotas
>* All of Karen's "Power Tools"
>* Subscription Center
>
>
>You can feel the season changing, here at the secluded Power Tools
>workshop. Just a few days ago, the days were long and hot. Now there's a
>chill in the early-morning air. The afternoons, and the all too early
>evenings, are wonderfully cool.
>
>There's energy in the air, as people and animals prepare for the long
>winter sleep. My friends, the turtles, are on the move again. And I hear
>our magnificent hawks and eagles are packing their bags, preparing for
>their annual return from Canada.
>
>
>More Drive Info
>---------------
>I'm not planning a migration. But I have been especially busy lately.
>I've
>explored a new version of Windows, and updating a few web sites. I've
>also
>managed to produce a new version of one of the oldest Power Tools, the
>popular "Drive Info" program ...
>
>Since its birth, way back in 1997, this little utility has performed the
>same basic job. When run, it scans your computer, detecting each local
>drive, and any drives connected via a network.
>
>Once the inventory is complete, the program has always examined each
>drive
>individually, discovering lots of interesting facts. For example, Drive
>Info determines the type of file system Windows uses to organize data on
>the drive. It also learns the drive's name, volume serial number, cluster
>
>size, total size, and amount of free space.
>
>Over the years, the program has become more curious. It learned to
>display
>the type of each drive (hard disk, CD Drive, removable drive, etc.), and
>whether the drive supports long file names. It even computed exactly how
>many characters each file or folder name could contain. The program also
>determined if Windows can automatically compress the entire drive, or
>transparently compress just selected files and folders.
>
>
>But the new Drive Info does even more. It now displays 25 fascinating
>drive facts, and several important totals. All in all, it's more than
>enough to make you the life of the next office party or family get-
>together.
>
>What can the new version tell us? Let's take a quick look at some of the
>new drive details it reports:
>
>Network Name. This is the name of the drive, used when accessed across a
>local network, often called the drive's "UNC" (Universal Naming
>Convention) name. In most cases, it consists of two parts: the name of
>the
>computer where the drive physically resides, and a "share" name assigned
>to that drive. The final result looks something like this:
>\\computername\sharename.
>
>Space Used. Earlier versions of the program displayed the total size of
>each drive, and the amount of that space that was "free" (not yet used to
>
>store data). Now the program also computes and displays the amount of
>used
>space on each drive -- the amount of data the drive contains.
>
>Used %, Free %. These two new items let you tell at a glance if a drive
>is
>nearly full, or still has plenty of room for your data to grow. If half
>of
>a drive's total space already holds data, its "Used %" will be 50%. If
>two
>thirds of a drive's total space is free, its "Free %" will be 66.67%.
>
>Encryption. Newer versions of Windows can encrypt individual files,
>folders, or even entire drives. This item reveals whether your Windows
>supports this feature on a particular drive.
>
>Unicode Support. In the early days of computing, each letter of the
>alphabet, each punctuation mark, and each numeric digit, was represented
>by a unique value stored in a single 8-bit byte. This meant computers
>could recognize and display as many as 256 different symbols and
>characters.
>
>This was more than enough, back when computers only spoke English. But as
>
>computers learned other tongues, they quickly discovered there are more
>than 256 written symbols in use worldwide. The solution is something we
>call "Unicode". It sets aside 16 bits of data to store each character,
>allowing computers to use a greatly expanded alphabet containing as many
>as 16,384 different symbols.
>
>What does this have to do with disk drives? Windows NT, and its
>descendants (Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003) can use
>Unicode to store file and folder names. If these multilingual names can
>be
>stored on your drives, the new Drive Info will let you know, reporting
>that Unicode is supported.
>
>
>Really Big Drives
>-----------------
>Over the years, we've all seen capacities of personal computer hard disks
>
>grow. When I started working with these strange machines, a "large" disk
>could store a few hundreds of thousands of bytes (KB). Today, drives
>holding several gigabytes (GB) are common. A few folks now have drive
>arrays that can store more than a terabyte (1 TB, or 1,000 Gigabytes).
>And
>there's no end in sight ...
>
>As disks grow, software has often struggled to keep pace. If you've been
>around computers a while, you'll remember times when Windows couldn't
>support the largest drives then available.
>
>Sometimes a third-party driver provided a temporary solution, while
>Windows raced to catch up. Other times, we resorted to partitioning of
>large drives, making them appear to be two or more smaller drives. I even
>
>remember formatting only a portion of a "large" 40 MB drive, abandoning
>some of its capacity because the Windows of the day simply couldn't cope
>with the drive's enormous size.
>
>Now other programmers may struggle with these growing pains for years to
>come. But I believe I've solved this problem once and for all, at least
>for the Drive Info program. The new version of this Power Tool supports
>drives as large as 18.01 YB!
>
>To see where this fits into the history (and future) of disk drive
>capacities, take a look at the following table. It shows the relationship
>
>between several data units of measure:
>
>1 Kilobyte (KB) = 1,000 bytes
>1 Megabyte (MB) = 1,000 kilobytes
>1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1,000 megabytes
>1 Terabyte (TB) = 1,000 gigabytes
>1 Petabyte (PB) = 1,000 terabytes
>1 Exabyte (EB) = 1,000 petabytes
>1 Zettabyte (ZB) = 1,000 exabytes
>1 Yottabyte (YB) = 1,000 zettabytes
>
>So now you know. The new Drive Info program can work with drives (and
>groups of drives) containing as many as
>18,010,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
>bytes! Put another way, the new version compute and display drive sizes,
>used space, and free spaces as large as 18,010,000,000,000,000 gigabytes.
>
>
>What could you do with that much storage? Experts say digital video
>requires a lot of disk space. But 18 YB is enough space to store
>600,000,000,000,000 years of uncompressed, round-the-clock, full-color
>HDTV video, and CD-quality stereo sound. If you had the time, you could
>record the entire life of each person on earth, and use only one-tenth of
>
>one percent of your drive's available space!
>
>Of course, few people will want to watch this much video. But the point
>is, when drives this large arrive, the new Drive Info will be ready to
>tell you all about them. :)
>
>
>Quotas
>------
>No doubt those big drives will come in handy. But for now, most of us
>still struggle with smaller drives and limited disk space. Fortunately,
>newer versions of Windows provide us with several tools that help us
>conserve this valuable resource.
>
>One such feature, which first appeared in Windows 2000, is called "Disk
>Quotas". In a nutshell, quotas allow you to limit how much disk space
>each
>user of a computer can consume.
>
>Does your son's download habit keep your computer chronically starved for
>
>disk space? Does a co-worker forget to store large files on a network
>server, tying up limited space on the local drive? If so, quotas can come
>
>to your rescue.
>
>First, you'll need to log onto your computer as the Administrator, or as
>someone with Administrator privileges. Next, use your mouse to
>right-click
>a drive's icon in the My Computer folder. From the context menu that
>appears, select "Properties", then click the "Quota" tab of the "Drive
>Properties" dialog.
>
>Now you're ready to enable Windows' quota feature. Just place a checkmark
>
>in the box labeled "Enable quota management". On this dialog you can also
>
>select the amount of space users are allotted, and when they should be
>warned they are nearing their limit.
>
>Initially, the limit you specify here will apply to all users of this
>drive. But you can customize quotas, giving different each user his or
>her
>own disk space limit.
>
>Just click on this window's "Quota Entries" button. You'll then see a
>list
>of all users authorized to access this computer, alongside their
>individual quota settings. Double-click a user's name, and you can adjust
>
>the limit and warning level of the selected user. You can even remove
>quota restrictions from especially responsible and privileged users, such
>
>as yourself. :)
>
>What does this have to do with the new Drive Info program? Now, the
>program reveals whether quotas are supported on each drive. If so, it
>goes
>further, telling us if quotas are currently enabled, and reporting the
>current disk space limit and warning level for the current user. It even
>shows how close we are to filling our portion of the drive, by displaying
>
>the percentage of our quota that is already in use!
>
>
>There's a lot more to say about the new Drive Info. But it'll have to
>wait
>until our next get-together. In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more
>
>about your drives, download your free copy of Drive Info from its home
>page at:
>
> http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdinfo.asp
>
>And if you'd like to see how the program spelunks a drive, download the
>program's free Visual Basic source code too.
>
>Better yet, get the latest version of every Power Tool, including the new
>
>Drive Info, on a shiny CD. The disc also contains three bonus Power Tools
>
>not available anywhere else. You'll find the source code of every Power
>Tool, every back issue of my newsletter, and even some of my original
>Windows Magazine articles! The CD also includes a special license that
>lets you use your Power Tools at work.
>
>Buying a CD is also the easiest way to support the KarenWare.com web
>site,
>and this newsletter. To find out more, visit:
>
> http://www.karenware.com/cd.asp
>
>
>Until we meet again, I'm going to spend some time with my turtles. They
>get lonely if we don't play often. If you happen to see my hawks and
>eagles flying overhead, let them know we're looking forward to their
>return. And if you see me on the 'net, be sure to wave and say "Hi!"
>
>Karen
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>Visit Karen's Power Tools Store and check out her collection
>of Power Tools T-shirts, mouse pads, hats, tote bags, mugs,
>and more! A portion of each purchase helps keep Karen's
>Power Tools newsletter and programs free!
>
>http://www.karenware.com/store.asp
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>All of Karen's Power Tools
>--------------------------
> Note: For the most up-to-date list, visit:
> http://www.karenware.com/powertools.asp
>NOTE: You should use Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs applet to
>remove the old version, before installing a new version of a Power Tool.
>
>Note: Be sure to install the Visual Basic Runtime v6.0 before installing
>your first Power Tool. It's required by all the Power Tools, and must be
>installed first. You can download a copy of the Visual Basic Runtime v6.0
>
>installer, vbrun60-setup.exe, from any of the pages where you download
>the
>Power Tools themselves, or from my special Runtimes page at:
>http://www.karenware.com/runtimes.asp
>
>
>-- K-A-R-E-N-'-S--P-O-W-E-R-T-O-O-L-S --------------------
>Copyright 2003 Karen Kenworthy
>http://www.karenware.com/
>
>
>Subscription Center
>-------------------
>To subscribe to this newsletter, visit
>http://www.karenware.com/subscribe/
>or send a message from the email account where you'd like to receive the
>newsletter to: subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>To change or cancel your subscription, click this custom link to Karen's
>Power Tools Newsletter Subscription Center:
>
>https://secure.karenware.com/sc.asp?key=wool&id=80958
>
>You can also cancel your subscription by sending a message, from the
>email
>account where you are subscribed, to: unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
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