CoSTa Comms

The CoSTa Comms

Worried about the cost of comms? Neil Martin uses CoSTa to keep tabs on his phone bill...

CoSTa began life over two years ago as a simple utility for NOS users. Since then it's evolved into a comprehensive phone bill monitor.

CoSTa extracts the call details from the log files generated by OASIS2/ICE, CoNnect, CixComm and MINTnet. Unfortunately STiK doesn't generate a log file but is still supported via another utility, called STiKtime, which monitors the STiK cookie and generates a log file CoSTa can utilise.

Installation is straightforward, select Preferences from the Options menu and set the GMT adjustment as required. For example 01+ for British Summer Time, then select Paths and locate the log files for each program. CoSTa interrogates or ignores each log file depending on the checkbox at the right hand end of each line.

If you have a screen resolution with a width of 720 pixels (or more) click on the 'resize' button to stretch CoSTa's main display window and eliminate the need for the horizontal scroll bar.

The next task is the set the call rates for individual telephone numbers via the Costs dialog. After receiving the first telephone bill, compare CoSTa's details with the bill and use the Duration Offsets dialog box to compensate for any consistent irregularities, such as the variation in the time different modems take to dial and connect. After checking CoSTa's information against the bill the Pay Bill dialog can be used to mark calls prior to a specific date as paid. The registered version offers a powerful Filter option to decide which calls details CoSTa should display.

The Costs dialog can handle 100 entries and copes fine with unusual services such as Phonebase or Orange SMS

Registered users have excellent control over which call details are displayed or printed

Gary is continuing to develop CoSTa and hopes to develop support for anyone using more than one telecoms provider. At present it's only possible to specify one minimum cost figure in the Costs dialog. I got around the problem by installing two copies of CoSTa on my hard disk. By renaming the COSTA folder to COSTA.BT and COSTA.ACC and COSTA.PRG to COSTA_BT.PRG and COSTA_AC.PRG I could select between them under MagiC. The call details for each provider are now listed the appropriate folder.

If your system clock stops one day, or if a rogue log entry causes a silly error, CoSTa allows all individual call details to be adjusted or even recalculated.

Money for nothing Recently after Demon internet installed some new modems, there was an intermittent fault somewhere in the system between BT, Demon and Energis (who supply the virtual POPs which offer local call access around the UK to Demon's modems in London). This resulted in BT charging me for a significant number of calls which didn't connect. The problem has been solved and thanks to my CoSTa logs I managed to persuade BT to give me a œ20 refund!

Set the call rates to the cost per minute, excluding VAT

Product name: CoSTa v1.42
Author: Gary A Priest
Contact:
32 Castle Street, Inner Avenue, Southampton SO14 6HF
Email:gary@the-gap.demon.co.uk
URL: http://www.the-gap.demon.co.uk
Price: £6.00
System: All Ataris

Pros:
Daily monitoring of on-line expenditure, no more unexpectedly high phone bills, breakdown for each program at a glance.

Cons:
Can only display details of ten calls on-screen at a time, insists on displaying itself centre screen, horizontal scrolling to view details on most screens. You know your bill is high so you worry even before the bill arrives!

Score: 87%

For really accurate results enter the average variation from the actual telephone bill for each program used


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