Welcome All

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog on Net Usage.

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded and installed the Net Usage add-on for Firefox. This add-on polls your ISP's usage page and displays your usage in a small graph in the toolbar.

"So what, there are heaps of internet usage programs out there." Yes there are, but the simplicity of this one is what makes it so good. It doesn't track usage on your computer, or try to track usage across the network. It just polls the ISP's page and reports back what the ISP has recorded on your account.

The other outstanding feature of this add-on is the author, Critter. He provides an amazing amount of support via the Whirlpool forums. In particular, this thread. I don't know how he finds time to support all the requests for ISP additions and fixes due to ISPs changing the format of their usage pages.

After installing Net Usage on my sister's computer for her Optus account, I decided to install it and try to modify the ISP file to work with my ISP (iSage). Critter provides all the source code via svn from his svn repository. I have never modified a mozilla add-on or programmed in Javascript. It took me a few days to figure it out but I eventually got it working.

I offered to provide Critter with a dedicated forum for people to discuss Net Usage. However, he is happy with the forums at Whirlpool and not convinced dedicated forums will work better than what he is currently working with. I've decided to create this blog to document what I've learnt and hopefully assist other people add their ISPs or modify their ISP configuration when it suddenly stops working.

Please post comments and point out error's in my posts. As I said, I have never programmed in Javascript so I am expecting to get a few things wrong and am relying on you guys to help me out.

May I finish this post by encouraging everyone using Net Usage to donate a couple of buck to Critter for all his work. He has a donate button on the bottom of his page.