			    Brothers CRC File Checker


 Current Versi on   :  BCRC103.ZIP
 File Size          :  503,352
 Authors            :  Bill and Peter Guethlein
 Technical Support  :  The Solar System BBS at 714-837-9677/3218 24hrs
 Registration Price :  $35 by mail or online at authors BBS


    Sysops face many problems, Users with duplicate accounts, Kids
continually bothering you by paging, or people using profanity on networks
that don't allow it. But one of the things I find a pain is people
changing the names of files, uploading them, just to raise their upload /
Download ratios. It seems that it happens all the time. Not only is this
"cheating", but that file is now taking up room on my Hard Drive, which
isn't that big anyway <G>. So the question has always been, how to stop
them. Well, I've found a program that is fairly new, very easy to set up,
and works like a charm with TriBBS. It requires no special adaptation to
work with TriBBS and that is one thing I liked about it. I looked at ZDCS
but it is designed for PCBoard (sorry, for the blasphemy <G>) and requires
more work than I wanted to go to. So when I found the Brothers CRC File
Checker, I decided to take a look.
    First, the bad news, it will only work on ZIP, GIF, JPG, and self
extracting ZIP's. But since most sysops use ZIP, I guess we can't expect
too much. For this reason, I decided to switch over from ARJ to ZIP.
(which is a whole nother story <G>) It is designed to run with the
DOOR.SYS drop file, which makes it a snap with TriBBS.
    The program is basically two programs. The first one, B-BUILD.EXE is
the program to build your data base of CRC's.  B-CRC.EXE is the checking
program. There is also a file designed to work with fossils, B-CRCF.EXE
that is included, but the author states it is a Beta version and may not
be stable.
    Starting the installation is very simple, Just type B-BUILD and you
will be taken through a series of menus on the Configuration. Since it is
very simple, and provides help during the set-up, I'm really not going to
go through it here. But I will give you a few important notes on
operation. Before staring to build your data base, make sure you have
plenty of hard drive space. During the initial build, BCRC requires about
5MB of hard drive space for 8000 ZIP's. This allows space for the DUPES.x
log file. This is very very important. Make sure you have the space !!
    Building the initial data base is a very time consuming process.
According to the docs:
  - Files on a CD with an access time of .8 seconds are logged at
    approximate rate of 1000 files per hour using a 386/20 with a 13msec
    access time ESDI drive holding the database.
  - With the above computer, files on the HARD DRIVE are processed at
    about 1500-3000 files per hour.

    With this in mind, I'll tell you that on my system, I've built the
Data Base on over 14000 files, on three CD-ROM's and the hard drive for a
total time of about 9-10 hours. (I lost count) While this may seem like a
long time, remember, its a one time operation, and it will save you many
headaches latter on. The process, once started, needs no supervision, so
you can start it in the morning before work, and let it run all day.

    When setting up the program, you will be able to set the percentages
of duplicate files within the zip that is to be considered bad, along with
the percentage of duplicate bytes. As a further test, you will be able to
set the maximum number of duplicate bytes for files to be considered bad.
With these three, there is very little chance of duplicate files making
it through the process.
    During the setup process, you will be able to select CD-ROM drives,
multiple drive letters to scan. For the CD-ROMs, BCRC will scan every
directory on the drive, for the Hard Drives, you will be prompted to
select which directories to scan for your file areas.
    Once configured, you will come to the main menu for B-BUILD. This menu
can be run with a mouse or keyboard and has a pull down menu on the top
line. Once again, it is very simple, and almost idiot proof <G> Since
you've selected your drives, and the directories you want to check
already, its time to build your Data Base. Using your mouse, or keyboard
(ALT R B) start the process and grab a Beer, this will take a while.
During its running, the screen will keep you informed of its process of
how many files per min, what directory it is on, and much more. It can be
very informative for awhile, but alas, the football game on TV will win
out and you will boar of the display. Just let it run, go christmas
shipping and hopefully, everything will be done when you get back.
    Another nice feature of the program is you are able to read in
commercial crc-32 values from a file. These values must be in HEX, LEFT
justified and contain 8 characters. Where will you find this info, Well,
the author does have a file on his board loaded with common files that
users will attempt to upload (JILL2.ZIP and such) I also have the file
available on Imagine. With this file, you will be able to stop those users
that don't seem to know what shareware really is, or don't care and just
want to upgrade their access.
    B-BUILD can also be run from the command line. This allows you to take
files uploaded and add them directly to the Data Base. You can either do
this by typing:
	B-BUILD C:\TRIBBS\UPLOAD\TEST.ZIP

    or within your UPLOAD.BAT as:

	B-BUILD %1

    (for those who don't know, the %1 is used so TriBBS will pass the
filename to the program)
    As an alternate, if you add a whole new directory to your BBS, you can
have B-BUILD do the entire directory by simply typing:

    B-BUILD C:\DIRNAME\

    The trailing \ slash is very important here.

      The B-CRC.EXE is the program that actually checks the upload against
the data base. In order to run this program, you will need to place the
EXE in your BBS Home directory. This is critical, a copy of your B-CRC.CFG
must also be in each of your Nodes directories.
    This program will take the uploaded file, and compare every uploaded
files against your Data Base and provides an errorlevel of 1 if he file
passes, and 0 if the file passes. Using these errorlevels will allow you
xfer the file to another directory for your review latter. Bellow is a
copy of my UPLOAD.BAT While it is not fancy (for me is it <G>) it does the
Job:

    CD\TRIBBS                        - Go to home directory
    B-CRC %1                         - Run B-CRC
    IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO NOGOOD      - If file's bad, skip this next part
    CD\TRIBBS\BCRC                   - Move to the BCRC directory
    B-BUILD %1                       - Add the file to DB
    C:\TRIBBS\THD\THDPRO.EXE %1      - Run THDPRO Upload scanner
    GOTO GOOD                        - Skip down to the end

    :NOGOOD                          - If file is bad, it goes here <G>
    COPY %1 C:\TRIBBS\HOLD           - Moves file to look at latter
    DEL %1                           - Gets rid of the file

    :GOOD                            - File was good, so it skipped to here
    CD\TRIBBS                        - Back to TriBBS


    So, what are the limitations, none really. There is an irritating pause
until you register it, but now days, that is normal. About the only thing
I don't like about it is the .KEY setup. The author uses a dated key and
you can only get a demo key from his board. I feel some kind of internal
timer would be a better plan, but I will respect his decision.
Registration is $35.00 and can be ordered online at the authors BBS at
714-837-9677 / 3218.

    Final notes, the Program is a dream come true. I've only had it set up
for two days, but have seen it dupe out several files that were re-named
games. I myself have uploaded about 30 files and it has not missed one
yet. It is a very quick running program and makes a great addition to any
BBS. I highly recommend it to any sysop who is having dupe problems.
