Mac Widget: Vidéotron Internet Usage Monitor

Download the widget version 1.3.9

What’s new in 1.3.9 Bugfix: During the 1st day of the month, you could see a warning about reaching ‘infinity’ at the end of the month!

Update: There is now a Google Chrome extension that replicates this widget’s functionalities (and adds notifications). Get it on the Chrome Web Store.

Having received earlier this week a letter from Vidéotron, my ISP, about my account getting capped at 100GB monthly in the upcoming months, I decided I needed an easy way to monitor my monthly bandwidth usage. A Dashboard widget was a good fit.

I downloaded a couple of widget samples from Apple.com, and started a new widget from there.

The end result:

A nice little widget, sitting on my Dashboard, that can tell me how much of my monthly quota I’ve used so far. Preferences are: Vidéotron Use Key (something that looks like FFFFFF1234567890), and if you’d like to visualize upload (versus download) using a different color, on the graph.

Enjoy, fellow Vidéotron users.

Changelog

• 1.3.9 - Bugfix: During the 1st day of the month, you could see a warning about reaching ‘infinity’ at the end of the month!
• 1.3.8 - Improvement: Give a warning when the entered User Key is not the right length (16 characters).
• 1.3.7 - Bugfix: date conversions were broken!
• 1.3.6 - Bugfix: Small fix for the ’now’ arrow in the small UI. Bugfix: finally working on 10.4 and Lion (10.7). Improvement: New version available looks better in French and on small UI.
• 1.3.5 - Bugfix: Incorrect end date calculation placed the ’now’ cursor at the wrong position. Bugfix: trying to make it work on 10.4.
• 1.3.4 - Improvement: try to prevent getting blocked by Videotron, for sending too many requests too fast. Also, better overall error handling.
• 1.3.3 - Bugfix: minimal UI was broken since 1.3.0. Also added surplus calculation details in Console, and changed back surplus number in green (was changed to red for no reason).
• 1.3.2 - Bugfix & improvements: spinning wheel now disappears when it should. Current now appears in the preferences. New versions notifications will appear below the widget.
• 1.3.1 - Bugfix for Mac OS X 10.6 and lower (1.3.0 only worked on Lion… Sorry!)
• 1.3.0 - Bugfix & Improvement: Now using the new public Videotron API, instead of data scraping the consumption web page! You’ll need your User Key. You can find it in your Videotron Customer Center, in the User Key tab of the Your Profile page.
• 1.2.8 - Bugfix: wrong plan would become selected when new plans became available. Improvement: the bandwidth used today is now accounted for. Improvement: better warning text when your limit is busted, including the approx. amount you’ll be charged for the extra.
• 1.2.7 - Bugfix: typo in JavaScript made the widget unusable on Lion. Fixed. (Thanks Anonymous for the pointer.)
• 1.2.6 - Bugfix: regression in 1.2.5; couldn’t save preferences!
• 1.2.5 - Bugfix: Basic (2GB) plan couldn’t be selected.
• 1.2.4 - Updated Vidéotron logo; bug fixed: accumulated daily surplus and ’now’ arrow were 1 day off; clarified that the last updated date was in fact “$date @ 23h59”; visual fix when new versions are available.
• 1.2.3 - Changed text in options, to clarify that the data transfer packages are ’extras’, and the ‘Plan’ option is what will define your monthly limit.
• 1.2.2 - Added option to select data transfer packages bought this month. The selected value will be reset when the billing month changes.
• 1.2.1 - Missing Business plans from 1.2.0; added an option to display upload using a different color on the graph.
• 1.2.0 - Easier configuration; new version available notification; now displaying numeric deviation from daily limit (surplus) - this was only shown using a small arrow on the graph before; added overcharge ($) you should expect on your invoice, if you’re over your limit.
• 1.1.6 - Better handling for wrong username; people entering anything else than their VLXXXXXX Vidéotron username will now get a relevant error message.
• 1.1.5 - Fetch new data less often; was previously checking for new data every 15 minutes when the Dashboard was open; changed that to once a day.
• 1.1.4 - Added small arrows on meters to show the current date. If the meter is higher than the arrow, it means you’ve transferred too much in regard to the current date versus the date you’re invoiced. Red arrow = bad; green arrow = good.
• 1.1.3 - Beta for 1.1.4
• 1.1.2 - Small visual changes: loading animated GIF, numbers formatted as 0.xx instead of .xx.
• 1.1.1 - New French localization option; new minimal look option; fixed incorrect dates (all dates were one month early).
• 1.0.1 - Fixed missing percentage when using combined quota.
• 1.0 - First version.

• Mac OS X
• Open Source