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Text File | 1998-01-28 | 20.8 KB | 509 lines

FileHound 1.1 (Change log at end of file) ----------------------------------------------------- WHAT DOES FILEHOUND DO? One thing. Downloads files from the Internet. That's it. It's designed to be extremely foolproof and requires absolutely no setup. If you are successfully running a web browser, FileHound will work out of the box (tech detail: any system that supports WinSock32 will run FileHound). HOW DO I MAKE IT WORK? You have to obtain a file's internet name, commonly referred to as its URL, and give it to FileHound. FileHound is not a plug-in, and it's not a web browser. You'll use your web browser as you always have, but when you come across a file you want to download, instead of clicking on the link in the browser, you'll instead COPY the link to the clipboard, then PASTE the link into FileHound's URL field. Then click on download, and away you go! And you'll never have to worry about another broken download. WHAT DO I HAVE TO SET UP? Nothing. The configuration screens, options, multiple tabs and so forth are merely auxiliary settings, archive listings, etc. to extend the basic "download a file" functionality far beyond what you are used to having in your web browser. FileHound does not make any changes to your system, and it does not modify any system settings or move any files. Feel free, then, to experiment with FileHound and see what each feature does. You can't hurt anything just playing around with it. HOW DO I UNINSTALL FILEHOUND? To keep the download size of FileHound smaller, we decided to omit an uninstall program. To delete FileHound, do two things: Delete the \Program Files\FileHound directory. And, delete the \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Hound Agents directory. Note that by default, FileHound puts downloaded files in a subdirectory called download within \Program Files\FileHound, so if you want to keep any of your downloads, move them before you uninstall FileHound. EXPLAIN THE BANDWIDTH SETTINGS TO ME. Usually when you select a file to be downloaded, your FTP program or web browser will retrieve the file as fast as possible. That's nice if you're in a big hurry, but the cost is that your further web browsing is slowed down, because your modem is very busy retrieving all the file data. FileHound lets you "throttle" its downloading to only use a small part of your modem's capacity for retrieving files. By using slow downloads, you can keep surfing the web at near full speed while your downloads proceed in the background. They will take longer, yes, but you can keep working online. FileHound has two speed modes, normal (or slow), and FAST. FAST mode is typically used when you want FileHound to soak up all of your bandwidth; for example when you're reading email or chatting, or away from your desk. Normal mode is used when you want to continue surfing the web without getting lagged by a download. FAST mode is enabled when you push the GO FAST button. Other options, including telling FileHound how much data you want it to retrieve in each mode are available on the Bandwidth settings page. WHAT ABOUT VIRUSES? FileHound recognizes that files you retrieve from the Internet are by their nature unsafe. We have built in external virus- check support into FileHound. Although FileHound does not have a virus check program built in, it can work with any virus check program you have installed on your system. This will require a little bit of research and set-up on your part, but we've made it as easy as possible. The Virus Check settings page contains all the information you'll need to fill in to enable FileHound to start automatically checking your downloads for safety. We tested it with both McAfee VirusScan and Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus, and it works like a charm. GOT ANY BELLS AND WHISTLES? Oh my yes. FileHound can be very noisy if you wish! Open the Sound settings page and you can assign your own favorite windows WAV files to different circumstances in FileHound. It's very easy, and adds a lot of fun to your downloading! HOW ABOUT A NIGHT-LIGHT? FileHound has that, too. If you're like most people, you'll want to use FileHound to download multiple files when you're away from your desk or sleeping. By using the "Good Night" button, you tell FileHound to go ahead and shut down your Internet connection when all files have been transferred. This can save money if you pay by the hour for your connection. There's also an option on the Miscellaneous settings page to tell FileHound to actually shut down your PC when it's done downloading. (Both of these options give you a 60 second warning in case you decided to stay awake, and you can countermand the order any time.) ARE THERE ANY MORE FEATURES? Dozens, but it would be exhausting for both of us if we were to list them all out. FileHound has been honed over nearly half a year of interactive testing by hundreds of beta participants, and has many time-saving features and lots of behind-the-scenes magic to try and eliminate as much complexity as possible from downloading from the Internet. Odds are any request you might have or feature you'll need is built into the program already. If you're into buzzwords, here are some of the things we've added to FileHound to make your life easier: HTTP Basic authentication, FTP and HTTP file resume, URL login/password decoding, filename defaulting, automatic HTTP redirection, per-server automatic login name and password for FTP connections, UNIX->MSDOS text file translation, overwrite protection, power-fail download resumption, full session logging, file launching, perpetual URL archive with a re-download feature, multiple simultaneous downloads (no built-in limit), very accurate estimated download timer, and on, and on, and on. But remember, FileHound is first and foremost EASY TO USE. These features sit quietly in the background until you need them, and then they're right there by your side. So all of these options and settings work for you by making downloads easier and more reliable, instead of against you by adding confusion and hard to understand dialogs. In every case, FileHound will guess as best as it can in order to provide you with the perfect download settings. HOW CAN I MAKE USING FILEHOUND EVEN EASIER? There are several ways of getting URLs into FileHound, and the best one of all is to enable clipboard sniffing. In the miscellaneous settings page, there is an option you can turn on that will make FileHound monitor your clipboard for URLs. When you copy one, FileHound will ask right away if you'd like to download it. There's even an option to just automatically say "yes" to that question, so starting downloads in FileHound is actually easier than in your web browser -- you don't even have to hit OK, just right click on the file link and copy the link/shortcut to the clipboard. TELL ME ABOUT THE 1.0 RELEASE OF FILEHOUND. FileHound has finally achieved a 1.0 release. After a six- month beta period, we're feeling pretty good about FileHound's robustness and ability to turn the nightmares of downloading large files over the Internet into something you just don't think about anymore. WHAT IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG? Even though this release has undergone a very long testing cycle and there are no remaining outstanding issues, there may yet be problems. Your comments and feedback are very much desired, particularly on these points: o Bugs, crashes, erratic behavior. To report a bug, please list the steps required to reproduce it. Be specific! o Downloads that break but shouldn't. The goal is to make FileHound be able to download all URLs that Netscape and Internet Explorer can using these protocols: ftp:// http:// and file:// If you can't download a URL you think you ought to be able to, please forward both the URL and the session log from the failure. I'll fix it. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT PLANNED FOR FUTURE RELEASES OF FILEHOUND? These features were intentionally omitted from the 1.0 release in order to have a solid and robust 1.0 version. Now that we've achieved it, we're ready to expand FileHound's functionality. If any of these options are something you want or need, please write in and express your support. Also, if there are any other ideas you have for FileHound, let us know! o Proxy support, including "passive" FTP, CERN, SOCKS, TIS and other firewall support mechanisms. o HTTPS/SSL secure web URLs. o gopher:// and other URL protocol types. o FTP and HTTP directory browsing. o Plug-In Integration with browsers. WHAT IS FILEHOUND'S COMMERCIAL STATUS? FileHound is truly a "shareware" program instead of crippleware/trialware. You have full functionality without any time limit, and it is left to your personal sense of honor whether or not to remunerate us for our efforts. If you honestly cannot afford $15 for FileHound--remembering that if you use it all the time, you're certainly getting a lot of value for it--or simply cannot obtain the necessary currency for payment, please continue to use it in good health. Send us a note, let us know you're out there! HOW MUCH IS IT TO REGISTER? FileHound is $15US to register, and you can register over the phone, via email, fax, or secure website. We take MasterCard, Visa and Discover as well as their international variants, and you will receive a registration key either instantly (phone orders) or within two business days (web or email orders). The registration key will remove the very occasional reminder screens and put your name on the title bar of FileHound to give you a "warm fuzzy" feeling about having registered! WHAT DOES THE LICENSE GRANT ME? Your license will entitle you, and only you, to use FileHound on as many computers as you like. Once registered, your name will appear in the title bar of the application. So, if you are using FileHound and someone else's name appears in the title bar, you should register FileHound immediately in your own name. We do NOT sell blanket licenses to businesses. Each user must be registered individually. Discounts are available for bulk purchases (inquire). HOW DO I CONTACT YOU? Phone: (954) 401-4862 - DO NOT CALL FOR TECH SUPPORT OR BUGS Email: afs@nexi.com Web: http://www.nexi.com/albinofrog (secure) Mail: Albino Frog Software, Inc. Post Office Box 578 Port Salerno, FL 34992 USA Note: Do not CALL for support, or to report bugs. My wife takes the orders during the day, and she will NOT be able to answer your questions. Use EMAIL for all technical communications. HOW DO I ORDER? FileHound is $15 US for a single user license. When you register, you will NOT receive a disk. Keep up with the latest version of FileHound by downloading it from our website. You will receive a set of registration keys to unlock your personal copy of FileHound. No disk. No manual. Just keys! You may order by Check or Money order through the mail, to the above address. Payment must be in US funds drawn on a US bank. For this reason, we recommend that non US orders use a credit card. If you don't have a credit card and are feeling lucky, place US currency in a sturdy, opaque envelope and mail that instead of a check. We're honest, but can't guarantee the same of the postal service! Include your email address on all mailed orders so we can email you registration keys as soon as your funds clear our bank. You may order by Credit Card through the mail, over the phone, via email, and on our secure web site. Your account will be charged $15US. Currency conversion fees, if applicable, are your responsibility. You will receive a registration key for FileHound when your order has been processed. If you supply an email address, your registration key will be sent via email with a note confirming your order. Keep up with the latest version of FileHound by downloading from our website. Upgrades are free within the current major revision (1.x), and can be downloaded at any time. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE? Spread the word about FileHound! Tell your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors. Put a link to it on your website, and recommend your users try it for downloading your own files. Upload it to shareware BBSs. Mention it in Usenet posts. Get the word out: There's no need to ever suffer broken download again. WHAT IS FILEHOUND'S DEVELOPMENT HISTORY? (last question) Bugs Fixed in 1.1 ------------------------------------------------------------ - FTP downloads on multihomed machines (modem & network card) now work. - FileHound will now run on NT machines without RAS installed, but you lose the GoodNight button functionality. Go install RAS! Goodies and updates to achieve 1.0 ------------------------------------------------------------ - Made authorization-required files start up more quickly. - Changed double-click activity on authorized screen to "edit properties" rather than "queue." - Added "Offline" button in bottom toolbar. Pushing this button will cancel all downloads and prevent any further downloads from being started. When released, file transfers resume where they left off. Useful when you want to set up a bunch of downloads in the queue but would rather they didn't start right away, or when working away from a modem, or other situations. Someone requested it. - Added "Good Night" button in bottom toolbar. When Filehound is done downloading (queue empty) and this button is depressed, FileHound will disconnect your modem (and any other RAS connection you have active, so be careful if you're multiply connected to the world). If you like, Good Night will turn off your computer, too. A dialog box is presented at time of shutdown giving you 60 seconds to countermand the order, in case you decided to stay up late anyway. - Added ability to rename if you are downloading over a file that already exists. - Changed file open flags to permit you to inspect downloaded files during the download. (In other words, file sharing is now enabled.) - Added Auto-Start for Clipped URLS (Misc Options) - Changed connection limit settings to make more sense. - Sparked by release of Hexen II demo, added Rude Retry feature which can only be enabled on a per-file basis. This makes retries retry after only one second rather than progressively slower, which is more sane. Use with discretion, please, and pay attention to your error codes to ensure it's a busy server and not a bad password that's making your download fail. - Fixed problem with redirects on services such as ZDnet which use case-sensitive filenames (which FH converted to all lowercase unnecessarily in internal processing.) - Made filehound's datafile 8.3 compliant so it can be stored on non long-filename servers. It is now called fhound.dat instead of filehound.dat. On starting 1.0 in an upgrade, the previous file will be converted. - You can now stop a transfer that is in the retry cycle without having to start it first. (wierd, huh) - Added option to show transfer speeds as Bytes/Sec rather than K/Minute (user request). - Eased waaaay back on the hostility about registering the product. Instead of shutting down after 60 days, the program will only gently remind you every tenth startup if it is still unregistered. Also, all functionality is enabled for both registered and unregistered versions. Note: A request was made to allow URLs with spaces. According to RFC1738, the URL standard specification, spaces are not permitted in URLs. Neither are any control characters or #, <, >, or ". FileHound follows these rules explictly. If you encounter a URL with an illegal character in it, please alert the owner of the file. Spaces can be encoded in a URL as %20 if needed, and any other unsafe character can be represented as a similar escape sequence (see RFC1738 for details). Fix for .95 ------------------------------------------------------------ - Windows NT web server didn't like it when FileHound sent an authorization header when it wasn't needed. Now Filehound must first try all http downloads without the auth header. if the auth fails for this anonymous connection, it will retry, but next time will send the header. if it fails again, it truly fails. Fixes and Enhancements for .94 ----------------------------------------------------------- - Audio Feedback support (new tab in settings) - Virus Scanner support (new tab in settings) - "Clip-And-Go" automatic downloading when things clipped - Very strange bug wrt saving the datafile just after downloads. May not be fixed -- if you get an error message mentioning Exceptions and Error Codes, please email me! - FTP downloading trouble on AOL fixed by not using the CWD commands anymore. We simply request a file by its full path. - default filenames with characters like ? * and \ are truncated to create a valid save file. - HTTP redirected URL save filenames are now re-genned automatically, fixing problems with sites like www.slaughterhouse.com that uses a CGI redirect to track hits on their downloads. FileHound meets world. Bugs fixed for .93 --------------------------------------------------------- - Bad parsing on HTTP headers fixed. - HTTP resumes were completely broken. Bugs fixed for .92 --------------------------------------------------------- - File list can be sorted in different ways by clicking on the column headers. - shows date file was downloaded when done - shows date clipboard item was added - made double-click functionality vary depending on which tab is active. the function that will occur is shown at the upper right, and seems to be the best for each tab page. - deletes zero length files. - made messages about odd length files more clear. - put in code to check for buggy servers that claim to handle content ranges but don't -- resumes of these files will be restarted from the beginning. (see buggy server list below) - made "resume or overwrite" pop-up smarter, won't offer to resume files that weren't broken, or that are located on buggy servers. - fixed window size restoration code. width was height. - arrgh. fixed bug introduced in .91 wrt "resume all" and "overwrite all" thinking "all" meant two files. - fixed HTTP and FTP request lines to all have a terminating CR / LF. (STARWAVE server is picky.) - made large lists of files draw more quickly, although there's still more work to do in this area later. - made clipboard code much faster when you copy a page with hundreds of links. it's still pretty slow, but at least it's seconds not minutes. BUGGY SERVER(S): Key string: "Server: Microsoft-PWS-95/2.0" Microsoft Personal Web Server 'Microsoft-PWS-95/2.0' does not resume HTTP transfers properly. This manifests itself as an oversized file. When you inspect the file, you'll find the resumed portion is actually data from the beginning of the file, not what was we asked for. Also, the length of the newly downloaded data is more than the HTTP header reports; it is always a multiple of 4096 bytes. The end result is a too-long file with a bad resume segment. Bugs fixed for 0.91 -------------------------------------- - Choosing Overwrite will delete the local file first, rather than just leaving it intact and copying data over what exists. - Exiting FileHound in mid-transfer either by design or suddenly will be able to resume correctly, assuming the server can too. - Starting an archived URL from the properties dialog now moves the URL from the archive to the pending page (centralized control paths), like it's supposed to. - FTP login failure is now non-fatal. it will retry these forever, since it now assumes the server is full (the same failure response is returned for both bad logins and full server conditions. what can I do?). check your logins! - ETA for resumed files is now estimated more correctly - HTTP "Basic" authentication/passwording is now supported. Password and user fields are always enabled, and the auth header is sent according to the http 1.1 spec encoded as base64 - When a URL is archived, any transfer log associated with it is deleted to save space in the history file. Initial public release 0.9 - "late beta." --------------------------------------------- - First release upon the world. It worked, mostly.