Is there a way of fetching the date/time or size of a file on the Internet?
in [Visual Basic]
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From: C. Kevin Provance on 9 Nov 2009 17:03 "Tony Toews [MVP]" <ttoews(a)telusplanet.net> wrote in message news:mhvgf59p0sh1n23o8plob0vo6csv9ja6a3(a)4ax.com... | "Karl E. Peterson" <karl(a)exmvps.org> wrote: | | >> Rather than downloading the entire file just to see if it's changed | >> I'd just like to get the date/time and/or size of a file on an HTTP | >> site. | > | >After reading this entire thread, I feel compelled to ask "for what purpose?" I'm | >thinking there are almost certainly easier ways to accomplish your goal, which I | >suspect is to decide whether or not to download an update. For example, you could | >have a tiny "flag" file that contains the date/time/version of whatever the latest | >is. This could be snatched, inspected, and acted upon with no changes at all in | >your existing code. | | I'm already doing that for updates to my software. See | http://autofeupdater.com/_download/currentversion.txt for what I've | done there. | | This chunk of logic is for license key files which would be specific | by client but might be 200 or 500 encrypted bytes long but there might | be dozens or, if I'm fortunate, hundreds. So if the license key file | changes for the particular user then I want to download it. | | Now granted 200 clients downloading a 500 byte file each day is only | going to be a 100 Kb load on my server so maybe I shouldn't even be | worrying myself about this. It's just that I like being efficient and | economical with bytes. In the 90s, that might have been a cause for concern. These days most providers give unlimited bandwitdh, which makes the worry moot. In my own case, I use Inno as a stub to check for file versions from one master version.txt file and download the updated file on demand, if required.
From: Tony Toews [MVP] on 9 Nov 2009 18:09 "C. Kevin Provance" <*@*.*> wrote: >In the 90s, that might have been a cause for concern. These days most >providers give unlimited bandwitdh, which makes the worry moot. Not in Canada and my utility is for businesses so not that big of a deal. >In my own case, I use Inno as a stub to check for file versions from one >master version.txt file and download the updated file on demand, if >required. Whereas my utility is a drag and drop onto the server deployment. It's distributed as a zip file so I'm not using Inno at all. Tony -- Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/ For a free, convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files updated see http://www.autofeupdater.com/ Granite Fleet Manager http://www.granitefleet.com/
From: mayayana on 9 Nov 2009 18:19 > Newsgroup Answers MDB - I designed the MDB to assist frequent > newsgroup answerers, such as MVPs, in quickly locating and pasting in > their favourite snippets of answers. > http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/newsgroupanswersmdb.htm > Thanks. MDB? Is that an access database? Is there a way to convert it to csv or text without having Office, so that I could store it in a different format?
From: mayayana on 9 Nov 2009 18:22 > > Would that be a case > > like accessing one's company network from outside > > to reach an intranet webpage? > > No it's the other way around. The employee is asked for a password to access > the Internet I see. A related issue: I actually built in a proxy check to the UC, so that it would raise an error if someone is connecting via proxy. Strangely, though, it tells me that I'm connected via proxy! I'm using cable with a router. Maybe the router is seen as a proxy. I don't know. But I have to comment out the proxy check to use the UC myself.
From: mayayana on 9 Nov 2009 18:32
> In the 90s, that might have been a cause for concern. These days most > providers give unlimited bandwitdh, which makes the worry moot. > I'd agree that such a small amount is not likely to matter...unless of course Tony ends up selling a million copies. :) But I don't think anyone *really* offers unlimited traffic. The ones that do usually have lots of restrictions. Apropos of that I saw a good definition of unlimited on Slasdhdot today: With Verizon's new Android phone one is forced to buy an "unlimited" data plan for $30, which provides for 5 GB traffic. Every GB used above that costs $50 additional! :) (Considering that something like 85% of Americans now have cellphones, the sheer hucksterism the phone companies get away with is remarkable.) |