RamDrive by Norm Steadman	Homepage is not available	If you have lots of ram to spare, this little utility may be just the thing to speed up your computers performance on certain functions!
	E-mail me for File!

RamDrive by Norm Steadman Do you have oodles of ram? Do you have so much ram that you don't know what to do with it!? If so, here's a great little memory utility which will take that excess and utilize it into it's own drive which you can use for anything your heart desires! Installation files, internet temporary files, anything that you feel you need instant access to. Being that RamDrive actually utilizes your memory, anything placed or retrieved there will be processed much faster than if it was put to your regular hard drive as access time is much faster from your RAM. Here's the info: Platform........ Windows 95, 98 only! Downloading........ Size zipped: 116k (.exe file) Size Installed: 393k in one directory only! E-mail me for the download. I'll be happy to send it along. Web Site.......... Finding this utility is a bit of a challange on their site. Speedcorp (the site that the url takes you to) deals with internet space and tools for computers. The layout is nice and easy to read. On the left is a list of differnet areas on the site. You will find RamDrive here under "Software/Tools". You are given the choice of operating systems right on their page. This will take you to the download area. While you are there, I suggest you check out the site as they seem to have quite a bit of good information. Installation.......... Double clicking on the file will give you a splash display window where you are told to read the aggreement and click on an icon which will allow you to move to the "next" area. Here is where you pick the install area. After another click, you'll be given a reminder to make sure you have enough ram for the size of the drive you choose. There is also two check boxes for starting the program and viewing the readme file. This file is found in the RamDrive directory. When you start the install (by clicking on the icon or by continuing from the install screen), you will be given a dos window which gives you an intro reminding you of which version your RamDrive is for. Then, your window will show you the choices for the size of the ramdrive that you can use. When you make your choice, some files are copied and that's it. After a reboot, your drive is all set and will show in your file manager, "My Computer", etc. Here's a couple of pics of the install screens: Help Files.......... Most of the help files are found in the directory as there are is no real interface to this program. After installation, you have the option of reading the Readme2.txt file. There is also a larger "readme.txt" file which is filled with tons of info on the program. After installation, I suggest you read this file to get a good idea as to how the program works with different systems. On their web site, there also help in the form of an article by Norm Steadman which will guide you through the install process. Interface........... Since this is a memory utility for Windows, there really is no interface to this program. It's installed only for what it does, and not for what it looks like! :) Setup........... I have installed RamDrive for the specific purpose of using it for my temporary internet files. As you may have noticed, this directory on your computer can fill up rather quickly with all kinds of pictures, pages, files and so on. This of course, is depending on your settings in your "Internet Settings" area. I have my settings at 50 megs of space and when I installed RamDrive, I allocated 100 megs of my ram, leaving me with 212 megs left. I also wanted to use it as my "Windows/Temp" directory, but I'm not sure yet how to do that. If anyone knows, please get in touch with me. I noticed that the program "wrote" to my autoexec.bat file in the root directory. These settings are retrived from a bunch of .txt files in it's directory. This command line has set itself up to be drive X:/ on my computer. To work, you need to reboot your computer. The program will ask you after it has copied it's files if you want to do this. You MUST reboot the system to install the drive. Does It Work......... Yes, I have noticed a very big difference in my pages when they are loading directly from each site. Since these files only go to the ram now instead of the hard drive, their distance travelled is shorter and faster! The real kicker here though, is when you go BACK to a previously visited page in the session after a bit of surfing! Since all of the files necessary to load are so close to the processor, they come up instantly!! It's really amazing! Now, if I could figure out how to set this up for my Windows/Temp directory, I'm sure that processes like the installation of programs would be much faster as this is usually the area that installation files are stored before the actual installation process starts for Windows. There may be many other applications where this great little utility will be benificial. Your imagination is the limit. Problems......... There maybe a couple. First, when you shut down for the night (or day!), your memory erases all of the data that was placed into it. This INCLUDES the RamDrive that you have setup. I'm not sure if this would be an actual problem, but your computer will have to download all of the internet files again on your next session. With a fast connection, this is minor. The help files are almost non existent and the Readme.txt file gets rather technical with it's lingo. You might have to read it a couple of times to get the jist of it. Closing......... This is a great utility and I'm going to keep it on my computer for a while. It's a big help with my internet surfing and, if I can figure out how to setup my Windows/Temp directory, I might be able to enjoy it that much more!! Enjoy Buzzy J

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