










                                 BackUp Flagger 2.1
                                      (BUFLG)




                          Copyright 1990 by Bruce D. Feist
                                 September 27, 1990

                          An Enlightened Software Product



            September 27, 1990   Backup Flagger 2.1       Bruce D. Feist



                 BackUp Flagger (BUFLG) is a utility that will help you
            decide whether or not your disks need to be backed up.  By
            examining each file on the disk's MS-DOS 'Archive' flag, it
            checks to see which files have been backed up and which
            haven't.

                 BUFLG reports on the total number of bytes that haven't
            been backed up yet, as well as listing the newest backed-up
            file and the oldest un-backed up file on the drive.  All
            three of these are measures of how badly the disk needs to
            be backed up.

                 The syntax of BUFLG is:

            BUFLG parm1 parm2 ... parmN

                 In the above, each parm can be either of four things:
            a flag, a drive, or an '@' sign followed by a command file.

                 The only flag available in this release of BUFLG is /L,
            which controls whether or not un-backed up files are listed
            by name.  It should be specified as /L+ to list them, or /L-
            to suppress the listing.

                 Each of the Drives is the MS-DOS identifier for the
            drive to be checked up on, including the colon.  Actually,
            if you want to examine a specific directory, including all
            of its subdirectories, you can specify a directory rather
            than a drive.

                 Command files are new in this release.  If you specify
            an '@' sign followed by a file name, the contents of that
            file will be interpreted as more parameters.  The file can
            contain more flags and drives; it can even contain the names
            of more command files!

                 As an example of BUFLG's usage, I have a system with
            two hard drives, C: and D:.  Included in my AUTOEXEC.BAT
            file is the command:

            BUFLG C: D:

                 This checks both drives and tells me how much data I'll
            lose on each if I have a disk crash.  If I wanted to, I
            could have set up a file called (for instance) BUFLG.CMD,
            containing the following:

            C: D:

                 or



            September 27, 1990   Backup Flagger 2.1       Bruce D. Feist



            C:
            D:

                 The BUFLG command could then be executed as

            BUFLG @BUFLG.CMD

                 and I would get the same results as above.  This can be
            a major convenience if you want to check a large number of
            directories.

                 Now, let's take a closer look at the meaning of the
            report produced by BUFLG.  It consists of five columns.  The
            first is the drive or directory being reported on; there
            isn't much to be said by that.

                 The second column displays the number of files which
            have not been backed up.

                 The third column displays the number of bytes which
            have not yet been backed up.  This is how much you will lose
            if your disk, or the data on it, gets trashed.  It's also
            the amount of data that will be backed up if you do an
            incremental or differential backup; I use the number largely
            to decide whether to do a differential backup or a full one.

                 The fourth column displays the date of the oldest file
            which has not yet been backed up.  If you haven't loaded any
            new files onto your disk since the last backup, your most
            recent backup was done on this date or earlier.  If you have
            copied files onto the disk recently, this date doesn't mean
            much.

                 The fifth and last column displays the date of the
            newest file on the drive which has been backed up.  Your
            most recent backup was done on this date or more recently.
            This date, along with that in the fourth column, can help
            you notice that you haven't backed your drive up for a long
            time.

                 BUFLG is shareware.  Try it for two weeks.  If you like
            it, please send me a registration fee of $10.00.  My address
            is:

            Bruce Feist
            926 Kemper Street
            Alexandria, VA 22304-1502

                 If you don't like it, send me a note why.  If I agree
            with your complaint, and can fix BUFLG to make it better,
            I'll do so and send you a copy.  Then, once you like it,
            send me the ten bucks.



            September 27, 1990   Backup Flagger 2.1       Bruce D. Feist



                 In any case, your comments are welcome.  Please send
            them to me at the above address, on Compuserve (my ID is
            71320,3635), or call my bulletin board, which is the
            Enlightened Board at (703) 370-9528.

                 You can also contact me at any of the above for
            technical support, whether or not you're registered.



            September 27, 1990   Backup Flagger 2.1       Bruce D. Feist





                 I have also distributed (or will distribute in the near
            future) the following shareware products:

                 *    USAGE, which calculates the space used by files in
                      each directory on a disk (including
                      subdirectories)

                 *    FORFILE, which wildcards any command-line driven
                      MS-DOS command in a very flexible way

                 *    APPLY, a companion to FORFILE which executes a
                      command-line driven MS-DOS command against every
                      file in a list

                 *    LF, a directory program which complements APPLY

                 *    SECURE, a password protection program to
                      discourage others from meddling with your PC

                 *    MOVE, a program to move files from one directory
                      to another

                 The same $10.00 covers all of the above; if you have
            already registered for one of them, you don't need to send
            me a check for BUFLG.  Of course, if you really want to, I
            won't stop you. . .

                 May your files never fragment, and may your restore
            program be shelfware.