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1998-02-18
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WOODCNCT
Copyright (C) 1998 Woodall Enterprises. All rights reserved.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. What is in the name, "Woodcnct."
II. What is the purpose of "Woodcnct?"
III. Change the name and install.
IV. Entering your personal data into "Woodcnct."
V. Editing "Woodcnct.cmd" for file name change.
VI. Preparing to edit the "Woodcnct" log file.
VII. Why edit the "Woodcnct" log file?
VIII. About the "Woodcnct" icon.
IX. Light my fire.
X. Stuff you don't want to read.
Copyright (C) 1998 Woodall Enterprises. All rights reserved.
I. What is in the name, "Woodcnct."
The immediate expansion of the name is Woodall ConNeCT. The name
of the author being Don Woodall.
I am no english scholar, but to my untrained ear, the pronunciation
of the words "wood" and "would" are identical. So I am engaging in
some double talk and/or puns. The whole purpose of InJoy is to
connect.
II. What is the purpose of "Woodcnct?"
The purpose of "Woodcnct" is to create a log of my connections with
my local ISP, (Internet Service Provider). For a period of time I
was having a hard time getting a real connections. The modems would
connect and squawk at each other, the little green window in InJoy
would pop up, then the connection would fail.
The premise from which I worked was that I was dealing with BAD
modems at my ISP. They had just recently upgraded from 28,800
modems to 56K modems.
Since InJoy was reporting and recording both "Your IP address" and
"The Gateway IP address" I figured that if I could record this
information in a log for every connection, then I could throw it at
my ISP's Tech Support personnel in the future when there was a
problem.
Also, I was thinking that "Your IP Address" would represent a specific
modem and that this log would guide the Tech Support people to the
exact bad modem in room with hundreds of modems in it.
III. Change the name and install
It is my recommendation that you copy the REXX program to a different
name for the operational copy of the program and place it in the same
directory where InJoy is located.
The name of my ISP is The Iserv Company, Iserv as it is better known.
My operational file names are:
coniserv.cmd
coniserv.log.
This way, they are in alphabetical order with InJoy's file:
connect.txt.
A second reason to rename the program is, if you have more than one
ISP, you can have a log for each ISP this way, instead of just one
log with all the ISP's mixed together in it. You could even do it
both ways.
My recommendation on how to configure InJoy to run "Woodcnct" is
to go to the Host Setup screen,
|------------------------------ Host setup ------------------------------|
| |
| Configuration name... |
| TestOne_____________________________________ |
| |
| User ID.... |
| YourID______________________________ |
| |
| Password... |
| ********____________________________ |
| |
| ┌ Protocol ───┐ |
| │ (o) PPP │ |
| │ ( ) SLIP │ |
| └─────────────┘ |
| |
| ┌─────────┐ ┌────────────────────┐ ┌─────────┐ |
| │ Ok │ │ Autostart per host │ │ Cancel │ |
| └─────────┘ └────────────────────┘ └─────────┘ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
and LMB (Left Mouse Button) click on "Autostart per host." Again,
doing it this way will enable you to run a separate copy of the
program for each ISP and have a separate log for each ISP.
|------------------------ Autostarting modules ---------------------------|
| |
| Path and filename ┌─────────┐ ┌[ Autostart list ]───────────────┐ |
| F:\INJOY\coniserv.cmd │ Add-> │ │ F:\TIMESET\time868.exe |
| └─────────┘ │ F:\INJOY\coniserv.cmd ■ |
| │ G:\MR2-ICE\mr2i.exe ▒ |
| Parameters ┌─────────┐ │ ▒ |
| ___________________ │Update-> │ │ ▒ |
| └─────────┘ │ ▒ |
| Working directory │ ▒ |
| F:\INJOY___________ ┌─────────┐ │ ▒ |
| │ Remove │ │ |
| └─────────┘ └■▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒┘ |
| Start Stop |
| at at Other program specific options |
| [ ]-[ ] my command ┌─────────┐ [ ] Start minimized |
| [ ]-[ ] InJoy startup │ Ok │ [ ] Don't start |
| [ ]-[ ] dial (before) └─────────┘ [ ] Start only once |
| [X]-[ ] host connect |
| [ ]-[ ] discon.(before)┌─────────┐ General autostart options |
| [ ]-[X] discon.(after) │ Cancel │ [ ] SetJoy wait (caution) |
| [ ]-[X] InJoy exit └─────────┘ [ ] Disable ALL autostarting |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
This is the original way I have gotten "Woodcnct" to work. It is not
the first program InJoy is automatically starting for me. I am using
this at part of a pause, or delaying tactic. Also, I have checked
the "Start at" "Host connect" box.
Now, if the different InJoy configuration options can't provide you
with enough delay to get a correct log, we have one more trick up
our sleeve. This was biggest difficulty I had in writing the
program, to get the current connections information recorded,
instead of recording the previous connections IP addresses. That is
why you see two time stamps in the log. The first one is what
"Woodcnct" reads form the system and the second is the time and date
stamp of InJoy's file, "connect.txt." The two time stamps should
be very close to one another. If they are not, you have probably
recorded the previous connections info. See the sample file
"Woodcnct.log" for a good sample and "Prevcnct.log" for a sample of
recording the previous connections.
Also, it is recommended that you check off the "Stop at" options as
shown above. This is especially important if you are using the
masquerading and/or Dial On Demand (DOD) features. Not doing so
has bitten a lot of InJoy users as a reading of the history of the
message traffic in the InJoy e-Mail list will show.
One more configuration option you might want to consider is:
"Start Minimized." On my system I have not check this off. Neither
have I ever seen the "Woodcnct" program appear on the desktop. If
you ever see it, I recommend that you place an "X" in the "Start
Minimized" check-off option.
Back to delaying "Woodcnct" to get a correct log. Part of the
program looks as follows.
/* Preregistering 'syssleep' */
/* -------------------------- */
/* function_to_load = "syssleep" */
/* call rxfuncadd function_to_load,'rexxutil',function_to_load */
/* Pause until InJoy has written the data to the file "Connect.txt" */
/* ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* call syssleep 5 */
This is set to produce a 5 second delay. You can change the five
to what every value you need. You also need to uncomment some of
the lines so it looks like the following for the "syssleep" to
work.
/* Preregistering 'syssleep' */
/* -------------------------- */
function_to_load = "syssleep"
call rxfuncadd function_to_load,'rexxutil',function_to_load
/* Pause until InJoy has written the data to the file "Connect.txt" */
/* ------------------------------------------------------------------- */
call syssleep 5
IV. Entering your personal info into "Woodcnct."
You can edit "Woodcnct.cmd" with almost any text editor, or word
processor, you have and which knows how to produce an ASCII file
output.
> /* The name of this file is: woodcnct.cmd */
>
> /* LITERAL Declarations */
> /* ----------------------- */
> lline = '----------------------------------------------'
> First = "Don(ald)"
> MI = "O."
> Last = "Woodall"
> space1 = ' '
> phone = "(616) 245-4450"
> ISPid = "Iserv Customer Number: "
> acctnum = "12345678"
> modemid1 = 'My modem is an External U.S. Robotics Courier'
> modemid2 = 'Voice/Data Dual Standard V.34 FAX with V.32bis'
> opsys = 'Operating system is: OS/2 Warp Version 4, Fix Pack 5'
> dialr = "The phone dialer is: Bjarne Jensen's InJoy, Version 1.12b"
> mailr = "The mail reader program is: Nick Knight's MR/2 ICE, version 1.42"
>
Editing the literals. I created my set of "literals" based on the
recording I listen to when I call my ISP and sit on hold waiting
for Tech Support. It just seems easier do enter the data once and
to ALWAYS have it.
You are free it add, change, delete, or do whatever you need to do
to meet YOUR needs. As you can see, a literal starts out with a
variable name. Create your own, like I did. Then an equal sign
followed by what you want to print surrounded by apostrophes (')
or double quotes (").
Then, later on in the program you can see where the literals are used
in write statements. You will see the literal name, but what gets
written is what is surrounded by apostrophes or double quotes.
/* Writing Literals to file */
/* ---------------------------- */
call lineout writefile, lline
call lineout writefile, First MI Last space1 phone
call lineout writefile, ' '
call lineout writefile, ISPid acctnum
OH, yes. The " ' ' " produces a blank line.
V. Editing "Woodcnct.cmd for file name changes.
/* The name of this file is: woodcnct.cmd */
^^^^^^^^^^^^
The first edit, which won't affect anything, except your ability
to keep file names straight is underscored above with the
carrots (^). This is the first line of the program.
The second thing to edit is the name of the log file the program
will produce. Just replace "coniserv.log" below with whatever
you want it to be.
/* File Openings */
/* ----------------- */
writefile = 'F:\INJOY\coniserv.log'
call stream writefile,'C','open write'
VI. Preparing to edit the "Woodcnct" log file.
OK, you have "Woodcnct" all setup and operating properly. If
you are like me, there is one more step to do. That is to
prepare to edit the log file "Woodcnct" produces.
Why would you want to edit the log? This is so you can record
notes to refresh your memory. An unusual thing that happened to
me was to get a phone company recording "to try again later, all
circuits are busy." Now to get this recording on a long distance
call in prime time is not unusual, but, to get it on a local call
I found most unusual and very distressing. So things like that
I would annotate in the "Woodcnct.log" file at the time they
happened.
On the desktop, go to Warp's Program Template Icon and LMB
(Left Mouse Button) click on the "New Program" icon. Then RMB
click on it and choose "Create another" from the popup menu. The
name I chose was: "Edit Log Iserv Connect." Choose what ever you
like and find most descriptive of the program you are using and/or
what you are going to be doing, editing a connection log in the
InJoy directory.
Once you have filled in your program name in the window at the top
of the window OS/2 presents to you, click on create. Next you will
need to choose where you want the icon to be. After making that
choice, OS/2 will then present you with the "Program Properties
Window" showing you the "Properties" tab. It looks something like
the following. The sample shows how mine is filled in.
"Program" tab
"Required"
"Path and file name"
F:\QEDIT\q.exe
"Optional"
"Parameters"
coniserv.log
"Working directory"
F:\INJOY
The name of the "Qedit" text editor's "EXE" file is "q.exe" and is
located at "F:\QEDIT." The name of the file I want to edit is:
"coniserv.log," so this is the parameter passed to "Qedit." The
location of the file is: "F:\INJOY," so that is entered into the
working directory.
The icon for the text editor is placed in my Internet folder. The
same folder "InJoy" is located in. This way I can easily follow
the drop down menus from the Warp Center and start up the editor
to edit the log file right after a dropped connection even with a
screen full other programs.
VII. Why edit the "Woodcnct" log file?
You will find a file by the name of "Annotate.log" included in
the archive which contains some examples of how I have edited
the log file to document the problems I have run into.
VII. About the "Woodcnct" Icon.
The "Woodcnct" icon is NOT for "Woodcnct.cmd." NO? No, it is for
the text editor you are going to use to edit the "Woodcnct.log."
If you don't' like it, fine. It will get you started until you can
come up with one of your own choosing.
"Woodcnct.cmd" is an iconless program. It doesn't need one and
doesn't want one. On my system, it never runs in the foreground.
It very nicely stays in the background invisibly doing its thing.
VIII. Light my fire.
Its time for a philosophical discussion. One of the early reviewers
of this little program commented that he thought I should only
record the "literals", or personal information in the log one time,
at the top of the log.
Well, this bureaucrat wants that information recorded with each and
every connection recorded.
1. This is not meant to be a turn it on and forget it program. Most
of the time, you won't be using it.
2. When you start having problems, you will enable the program. Then
you will hammer your ISP with the logs daily or weekly. They will
not be THAT big.
3. It is expected that one will be giving these logs to your ISP to
assist them in solving a problem. While you are giving, give
them as much information as you can, the first time. Give them
too much information and let them decide what they need and what
they don't need. Don't make them have to come back to you and
pry out of you the information they need to do the job.
4. The vision I have is that the ISP will print the log out and each
connection will be a separate page. White space is intentionally
provided so there is room for the ISP's technician to write notes
on it as he is attempting to find and repair/replace the bad modem.
5. While I have the information and I only have to enter it once, I
would much rather provide too much info, rather than NOT enough
to help solve a problem. It is not a hardship to provide the
information.
IX. Stuff you don't want to read.
Disclaimer
=-=-=-=-=-
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Freeware
=-=-=-=-
Since this is the first release of my first program, one is free to use it
without charge. You are free to disassemble it, incorporate it into other
programs, or whatever, or however my may devise to use it.
Woodall Enterprises retains the copyright ownership of "Woodcnct.cmd."
All "ataboys" and other forms of remuneration gratefully received.
Don(ald) O. Woodall
3421 Hillcroft Avenue, S. W.
Wyoming, MI 49548-2149
If you are trying to find it on a map, look for Grand Rapids.
dwoodall@mail.iserv.net
