[ale] More special Wondows stuff

Matthew Brown matthew.brown at cordata.net
Tue May 4 09:21:59 EDT 1999


I'm running nt (proper spelling!) workstation at my office.  i have
installed IE5.0 to test for compatibility of my web work.  I recently
uncovered something very new and special with nt/i.e. that I know you will
all find very endearing.

I opened Chris Ricker's email containing the URL for the ISO for RH6.0 at
gatech.edu.  Since I do not pass the TCP wrappers inspections there I had to
use the http:// download site.  Using the very handy automatic launching
capability of the fullty integrated Windows UI, I simply clicked on the link
within the message and up popped i.e.5.0 and began to download the file.
Very handy, but it gets so much better so please listen carefully...  The
file itself is ~550MB, so it takes a bit, and it's always good to monitor
large downloads like this for speed and quality - you don't want to ruin
someone else's throughput after all!  So, I tried a few times and it began
having trouble, so I had to restart, and it picked up where it left off -
sometimes.  Again - very handy.

But here's the really great part... Since I was downloading to my D:\ drive
I was not at all careful about checking my C:\ drive to make sure there was
space for the file.  (You should know here that evidently i.e. has a feature
of downloading everything to the C: drive before putting it where you
actually tell it to do.)    So, can you guess what i.e. did when it ran out
of room on C:?  Did you say "Nothing"?  How'd you know?  i.e. downloaded the
_entire_ file to nowhere evidently.  Having completely filled my C: drive
with 60% of the requested file, i.e. continued downloading the _whole_ file
without saving it.

Isn't that tremendous?

-Matthew Brown

BTW, I downloaded the thing three times in all.  Thinking I had erred in
some way, I tried again.  Figuring it out the second time, I used another
machine the next time!    -mab






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