Windows API Calls

Right,

so at the moment I'm working as a Junior C++ software Engineer. Really enjoying the job, but that's not what todays post will be about.

Currently I'm working on a project that should be able to fetch all the Drives on a system and display the VolumeName and FreeSpace on those Drives.
To make this as fast as possible, I'm using direct API calls to the Windows API. According to alot of people and sites this should be the fastest way to get the information I need, but it is still taking up to 14 seconds before I even get a response from the application.
I understand that there could be a small delay due the act I have 2 network drives that need to be accessed and that this could take up time.

To test this I made a VCL C++ version and a Visual C++ .NET application to test this. When I run the code from the .NET application on my laptop this goes instantly. If I run the same code on the development PC this also takes a long time to complete. So at the moment I still blame the Network Drives.

The code I'm using at the moment is the following:

// Fetch the Drives from the System
array^ allDrives = DriveInfo::GetDrives();
// Iterate through the array and check if the drive is ready.
// If it is ready then create a display string and add it to the listbox.
for(int i = 0; i <>Length; ++i)
{
if(allDrives[i]->IsReady)
{
String^ drive = allDrives[i]->Name;
drive += " [";
drive += allDrives[i]->VolumeLabel;
drive += "] , ";
__int64 size = allDrives[i]->AvailableFreeSpace / (1024 * 1024 * 1024);
drive += size.ToString();
drive += " GB available.";
// add the drive to the listbox.
lstDrives->Items->Add(drive);
}
}

So I'm still a but clueless as to why the real slowdown is occuring in this code on my development PC (Windows Server 2003) opposed to my laptop (Windows XP).....

Staying up to date...

Since the technologies constantly keep evolving, I've started to read up on books regarding these new technologies. I've ordered the following book on Amazon.com to keep up regarding the latest ASP.NET technologies, "Professional ASP.NET 3.5 In C# and VB".

This "little" book contains 1600 pages about the .NET 3.5 technology for ASP.NET pages. I hope to get through it at a reasonable pace and understand what's beeing discussed in it. I don't foresee much problems with it, because it's in my field of interest and I really wish to devote myself to the .NET technologies.

During my interview with Digipoint (that's http://www.digipoint.be for those interested) I learned that .NET 4.0 is already in the make and that I appear to be running behind reagrding technologies. This only motivates me to learn the technologies faster and keep up to date regarding the .NET framework.

This book however is not enough for me. There's alot more technologies from the .NET framework that I wish to learn. Silverlight, Sharepoint and WPF to name a few. I know roughly what to expect with these technologies and what they're for, but the finer details currently elude me due lack of experience. I hope to start reading up on those books pretty soon so I can use this knowledge in future jobs and job interviews.

The Customer is King...

NOT!

Don't get me wrong on this, as each company should always strife to get as much customers as possible and treat them well, otherwise they will not stick around long.

I'm active as free techsupport and customer support for online games, and I'm pretty sure that everyone else who works in a similar branche encounters the same problems.
Users will always try to get on your nerves and demand that they get helped or refunded for things they are not even entitled too.

In worse cases they just demand that you do as they tell because they are paying for your services and demand to be treated like a king because the mantra says "the customer is king".
I agree that we need to help the people, but just jumping at their winks and filling their demands is where I draw line.

This is especially true if they come with problems created by their own stupidity or are telling you how they know things better.
Again, I'm not against helping the people as not everyone can solve problems without guidance or simply lacks the knowledges for doing so, but some people really ought to learn that respect has to go 2 ways.