I like to share with you cool tools and utilities that I run across in my travels. One that I have used for years is called Ping Plotter. This program has proven itself over the years to be a powerful ally when troubleshooting network connections, performance, what have you. Basically this tool provides a very nice, graphical way to ping and perform a traceroute to the specified address, including drawing a map of the traceroute and latency along the way. You can even have it perform, map and record traceroutes at certain intervals, thereby monitoring your target over time.

You can download and use Ping Plotter for free (with some nag screens it seems), or you it can be purchased in a couple of versions. The price has gone up since I bought it, it was $15 years ago and now is up to $24.95, and well worth that price. There is a “pro” version available too, but it’s a bit pricey at $199.95, but that gets into some advanced features and licensing that most folk probably won’t need. I have been quite happy with my version, and have found it very useful time and time again. I recommend checking it out!

Here is something really cool for all of us that work with Windows based machines, that goes for servers and desktops alike.   Have you ever been looking at your free disk space, wondering where the heck all of your ruttin space went to?  I know I have.  You are left wondering what the heck is using up all your space, and now you can see it very clearly.

There is a tool called Windirstat, that scans the drive of your choice and gives you various report options that show you quite clearly what is using up all your binary real estate.  It has a nice and intuitive interface, plus some cool reporting options.  Best of all, it really does give you a good idea of where all your free space went, and the ability to work with it within the program.  I give it 5 stars!

Check out Windirstat right now!