Daily Cup of Tech

According to WiGLE, the Wireless Geographic Logging Engine, over 40% of the wireless networks in their database do not have WEP encryption. This means that there is a very large supply of “free” Internet bandwidth floating about among the radio waves.

Mark Hoekstra of Geek Technique thought that it was a real shame all that free bandwidth was going to waste so he built the little jewel on the right and called it Slurpr. Essentially, Slurpr looks for open (and potentially not so open) wireless networks and connects to them. It then takes all of those relatively small (up to 54 MBPS) Internet connections and then aggregates them together into one massive Internet link!

Not, don’t get me wrong. I’m not necessarily advocating that you actually do this (but, man would it ever be cool to try). The website is more than aware of the potential legal implications. But, they are planning to make it available in the near future.

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A great big “Thank You!” to everyone who donated to the release of the source code for DCoT Menu. Because of your generosity, DCoT Menu is now available to everyone as open source code. Feel free to download the code and start making your own derivative branches of this application.

Here are the generous people who we all have to thank for this:

• AlwaysWebHosting.com (twice!)
• Barry H.
• Brian C.
• Eric John W.
• Mark H.

So, here is what you have all been waiting for, the DCoT Menu source code: Read the rest of the story…

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/05/02/dcot-menu-now-open-source/trackback/

I have been getting a number of requests for access to the source code for some of the applications that I have made available as freeware on Daily Cup of Tech. Apparently, there are a number of people who would like to learn how I do some of the coding and also follow my examples.

I have been really at odds about what to do regarding this. One of the main goals of Daily Cup of Tech is to help others learn about technology and how to do things for themselves. And learning by example is an excellent way to do this.

On the other hand, I put a lot of time, thought, and effort into these applications. I do not think it is unreasonable for me to expect a little something in return. After all, I am doing this stuff as a hobby. Any time that I spend working on the blog and on applications for the blog comes right off my family time.

So, what is a blogger supposed to do? I want to help others but I don’t want to screw myself over in the meantime.

Donation Source

What I came up with is a new concept called donation source. Essentially, I will still release all of my DCoT apps initially as freeware with the source code being closed. But, you will be able to release the code by donating to the project. Most projects donation levels are set to $100 so it is not a ridiculous amount of money required to make the code accessible and I get a bit of monetary encouragement to push me to the next project.

First Projects

And, to add to this announcement, I am officially making DCoT Menu and External IP the first two projects eligible for code release. So, this is your opportunity to make this source code available to everyone.

Go forth and Release The Code!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/12/dcot-apps-now-donation-source/trackback/

Your Internet connection’s IP address is like your home mailing address. It is the key to getting access to the contents of the remote computer. If you know your home IP address, it gives you the ability to connect to that IP address from any other computer on the Internet and access resources that you have made available.

One of the problems that many people run across is that their IP address changes so even if they memorize their IP address, it may be different when they go to access it remotely. This is the problem that DCoT reader Shep was having:

Dear Tim,

First of all, I’m a big fan. I check in every day. I think the kid rescue story at Disney is great!

Here’s my tech help question. I realize it’s a bit obscure. Okay, it’s very obscure.

I use TightVNC (which I run off my Cruzer using DCoTMenu) to access my networks at home and at my office. My office network has a static IP but my home network does not. If I am away and the dynamic IP at home changes I can’t access the network (as it did last week while we were on vacation).

I realize that the solution to my problem is to get a static IP, or use one of those web services which assigns a “static” IP, or use Himachi, GoToMyPC, or a similar program.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that I’m not going to do any of those things.

My question is this: Is there a way for my home network to broadcast it’s IP on a regular basis (every 6 hours) to an email account or, preferably, upload the IP via FTP to my personal webspace (which is not hosted on my home or office network)?

Thanks.
Shep

Well, Shep, this has proven to be a worthy challenge but I have come up with a solution. I have written an application called External IP that will e-mail you or upload an HTML file to a web server with your IP address information on whatever schedule you like. This way, you will always know your home IP address.

Please be aware that this is a work in progress and there may still be the odd bug lurking in the code.

External IP is a freeware application and everyone is free to use and download the application as they see fit. But, if you find it useful, a donation would be greatly appreciated!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/04/10/get-your-home-ip-address-from-anywhere/trackback/

I have been working with Vista now for a couple of weeks and I an starting to get a feel for some of the odd quirks that are occurring to me. Many of these are because of how I have done things in the past and I will probably have to make some changes in how I do things in the future.

But, I thought that I would start documenting some of these odd things, what caused them, and how I have worked around them. Please keep in mind that I am writing this after only working with the system for a couple of weeks. I am no where even close to being an expert with this OS and I would greatly appreciate any (gentle) correction and addition that you can supply.

Too Far On the Secure Side

One of the things that I have discovered over time is that there is a sliding scale between a secure system and an easy to use system. Read the rest of the story…

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