Rich's Ramblings by Rich Schinnell

Published in the November 1996 issue of the Monitor, the monthly magazine of the Capital PC User Group, Inc.

Rich's Ramblings
by Rich Schinnell

As I am involved in the database stuff for CPCUG, mailings and such I would like to ask you all to try to let the CPCUG office know when you move or change your address. It costs us 50 cents for each returned address correction and this can get expensive if you don't let the office know in time. Some of you have been great about that and it is appreciated. The office staff and myself thank you for helping us keep the membership database clean and accurate. The rest of you <G> now you can send the office a note with your membership number and your new address and phone numbers. Thanks.

Invitation to Flame!

As a regular columnist here in the Monitor, ofttimes I receive free copies of software products that the authors want to push. I received one a few weeks ago that was called DiskMapper. It is designed to show you a real colorful map of the files on your hard disk. Interesting display which I am sure some of you will be thrilled at. I was quite un-impressed. Sure it did show you where all the files were, pretty colors and such. It allows you to delete files to free up space, which is both good and bad. If you like pretty pictures and/or have nothing else to do, then this is for you.<G>

Normally, I don't pan products but I could not find any socially redeeming value in this one. Or the documentation was not as clear on exactly what it was supposed to do for me.<G>

Windows 3 or Windows 95, 386 or greater and 4 megabyte RAM required.

Disk Mapper list $49.95
Micro Logic,
http://www.miclog.com
(Special price is $39.95 if ordered from the web site) (201) 342-6518
(Flames to Rich at schinnel@cpcug.org)

VOPT 95

Save your money and buy a good disk optimizer like VOPT from Golden Bow (800) 284-3269 $59.95. VOPT works under DOS and Windows 95. I have used VOPT for almost the past 10 years and would not be without it. I feel like a shill for them because I mention it so often. But it is a good product and safe. Works on compressed disks, Stackker and double space. All the popular types of hard disks including removable media. The increase in file access speed is well worth your investment. Mention that you are a member of Capital PC User Group and you will receive a $29.95 discount from Golden Bow. That's right, for only $30 you can have your own copy of VOPT 95. This is through a special agreement that I talked them into. Call (800) 284-3269 and tell them that you're a member of Capital PC User Group and you want the special deal. You won't be sorry.

I still see people partitioning their huge hard drives as one large primary partition. Remember that this creates huge minimum allocation sizes.

Just to clarify it all, I will reiterate here the partition and cluster sizes for the different choices you will be making.

    Greater than
    or equal to             Minimum for
    Megabytes               each allocation
    --------------          --------------
    128 to 255                 4K
    256 to 511                 8K
    512 to 1023               16K
   1024 to 2047               32K
   2048                      64K

Remember that this is in rounded Megabytes so your actual disk bytes will be larger.

Type CHKDSK to see how many actual bytes you have available and the minimum allocation and clusters available.

Sample from my Windows95 C drive

CHKDSK C:

524,050,432 bytes total disk space
9,912,320 bytes in 137 hidden files
3,416,064 bytes in 390 directories
460,595,200 bytes in 9,632 user files
50,118,656 bytes available on disk
8,192 bytes in each allocation unit
63,970 total allocation units on disk
6,117 available allocation units on disk
(524,050,432/1024 = 511 Megabytes)

So you can see that if you end up with a 1.2 Gig drive partitioned as one large drive, you are limited to a minimum file allocation of 32,000 bytes for any single file, regardless of how small it really is. And if you end up buying one of those 2.x gigabyte drives, watch out for those large clusters.

Food for thought for those of you that are going out and purchasing those humongous hard disks now that they are getting cheaper.

My recommendation, but not caste in stone is to partition your drive into 511 megabytes each.

This way the cluster size is set to 8K and it will more efficiently use your disk space. If I were to decide to partition a 1.2 Gigabyte hard disk, I would make it

C drive of 511 Megabytes
D drive of 350 Megabytes
E drive of 350 Megabytes

Or you can make the D drive 511 with the extra 200 to E

I would install most of my applications programs on drive C with the data on D or E, split it up. Ending up with a maximum allocation of 8 K clusters. This way the thrashing of your hard disk should be reduced and if you run a hard disk optimizer on a regular basis, the files should not get fragmented as much. Fragmentation occurs when a file is rewritten to your disk and there is not enough room in contiguous space to write it. The hard disk has to write part of the file in the next available free space. In time this can get pretty bad. Optimization cleans this up and re-writes all your files into contiguous sectors. This reduces access time in loading your programs and accessing their data.

November should be a good month as Richard Katz of Intuit will be our presenter on the 11th at NIH in the Masur Auditorium. Richard is known throughout the User Group community as a generous presenter. No one falls asleep at one of Richard's presentations and lots of people go home with great products. Most everyone is familiar with Quicken and Intuit's other fine products. Parson's technology is a member of the Intuit family and they make lots of neat home and home office products. One thing is that once you register one of their products, you will not be wanting for offers in your mailbox <G>

Intuit generously provided the software for our CPCUG office and treasurer to keep our books in order. Quickbooks Professional is a great product and well worth it if you have a small business. Quicken has been the standard for home financial record keeping, budgeting and tax preparation for a long time. Great product and everyone should use it.

Rich Schinnell is past president of CPCUG, presently the Program Director and has probably served in more different positions for CPCUG than most anyone else. He continually works at keeping the office staff on their toes and enjoys helping out on the Helpline. He has run a BBS since early 1982 and it is still up and running at (301) 949-8848. Now that he has retired from The USN and Vitro Corporation, he does a bit of private small business and network consulting. Rich can be reached at (301) 949-9292 in the evenings from 6-9 pm or on the Internet at schinnel@cpcug.org. As a Techi, he even has his own World Wide Web home page at http://www. cpcug.org/user/schinnel.

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