September OS/2 Shareware

This month we take a look at some particularly helpful utilities that make dialling in to a server much easier and more productive.

By Christopher Relf

If your ISP provides more than one phone number that you can use, you'll appreciate iLink's multiple number support. The phone number(s) field allows you to enter more than one number. These numbers now show up in the list box on the main window, and if no number is selected, iLink automatically cycles through them from top to bottom on unsuccessful attempts. A basic CPS (characters per second) display is included -- although we all know not to trust them! -- as well as a byte tracking function that includes all of the TCP/IP packet header information.

If you set up the PM version correctly, you can use iLink/2 from the command line by simply providing your ISP's name (as defined by you in the entry notebook) as a command line argument. If you are disconnected from your ISP for a 'non-user requested reason', iLink will attempt a reconnection, but may only try once, depending on your redial selection (see above).

iLink is a great alternative to the DOIP, although some users may not appreciate it enough to pay the registration price.

NoIdle will keep your connection alive while you are busy with something else. It does this simply by looking up nonexistent hosts and attempting to randomly connect to nonexistent IP's. One thing about this nifty little utility is that it is exactly that -- little! A tiny bar is loaded and that's all you will see; there are no menus or icons, so it's not bloated with features that drag you down. If you're tied into an 'active' contract with your ISP, download this one, it could save you a bit of money and a lot of frustration.

Without the need for additional hardware, InJoy can put your LAN on the Internet, and then take it off again when requested through IP Masquerading and Dial On Demand. It works fully with 32-bit PPP or compressed SLIP connections (compliant with the latest RFCs), and has full terminal mode capability, just in case you get into trouble!

One of InJoy's best features is IP Masquerading, which means you can share a PPP connection simultaneously with other workstations on your LAN, including Windows 3.1 or 95, Macintosh and all other TCP/IP clients. Hardware and driver permitting, you can select port speeds up to 345,600, and the client version has a rather low CPU resource usage (PMPatrol reported 0.08%). You can also have a list of up to 10 phone numbers, with user-selectable dialling sequence. If the carrier drops unintentionally, InJoy will reconnect you. This is very useful if your ISP provides several phone numbers for you to try. InJoy even releases your modem's COM port when not in use. Finally, there's null modem support -- it's PMPatrol aware. Feature packed, and not badly priced either.

slip.exe the main SLIP driver (you can't do much without it!)
slipwait.exe waits until SLIP is up and running
slipterm.exe a simple terminal program
sliphold.exe holds a COM port open
sldetach.exe kills a SLIP connection
slcfg.exe test-parses SLIP configuration files

He also provides a couple of extra files:

slip.cfg a sample SLIP configuration file (store this in the ETC directory)
slipup.cmd a sample SLIP script (keep this somewhere in your path)

If you're only using a SLIP interface (no LAN stuff), then there's ifndisnl.sys, which is a null version of ifndis.sys.

All in all, it's a good little package, but will only appeal to a fairly small number of OS/2 users.