Overview

My usage meter has been built to overcome problems I was having with the other available meters (ie not working)

I also wanted to have a visible indicator of how my usage was going. I decided that the tray icon changing with usage would be the way to go.

***NOTE*** At present the icon only reflects Peak/Standard usage. I would like to provide the option of changing the default usage displayed or maybe alternate or some other idea. (any thoughts?)

On top of that my meter will give you your download usage when you hover over the icon (tooltip) and all usage is available immediately from the popup menu.

I have a few ideas for the reporting section, but am open to any suggestions. I have recently had an idea for the usage stats that appear in the popup menu. When you click on one it will display a graph of your stats for that usage for the past day /month / year. I was going to include this in the reports section somewhere but this might be a quick way to access the stats for a given type.

The usage meter will ask you on the first run to enter your details in the settings. After that it will check the usage website at intervals you set in the settings file (Note: I think Netspace only update hourly, although i allow you to check every 5 minutes)

Technical Specs

The usage meter is written in VB and uses the Wininet DLL to communicate with the Netspace website. For more details email me.

The usage meter is lightweight in size (the installer is larger than the program) weighing in at 160Kb. I should be able to add all the reporting features and keep it under 500Kb with ease.

Memory usage is hovering around 8Mb (total including virtual) which I am not too happy about and will try and reduce later. (maybe by moving to C++)

The program writes nothing to the registry.
All settings are stored in two XML files. userconfig.xml and plans.xml . The plans.xml file is slightly superceded as the program now works out your plan from the initial usage download. This is easier than keeping up with Netspace's constant plan changes

Advanced users can feel free to change the XML file directly. If you screw it up grab another from my downloads page.