Wouter Dhondt - Software Products

Fping

Ping is one of the most useful network debugging tools available. The first ping program was written by Mike Muuss in December 1983 for use on Unix machines. Muuss named his program after the sonar sounds used for echolocation by submarines, although some say ping stands for "Packet InterNet Grouper". Ping sends a small packet of information containing an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to a specified computer, which then sends an ECHO_REPLY packet in return. The ping program then evaluates this reply, and a report is shown. You can check several things with the ping program: can you reach another computer, how long does it take to bounce a packet off of another site (what is the distance), ... You can ping either a domain name, or an IP address. Functionality to show domain names when using IP addresses is supported. Even routing options are available, alas only 9 routes can be shown due to the structure of the IP header (RFC 792). Why did I write my own ping program? There are two main reasons: a) It wanted to know how the ping program worked. I found it really intriguing and was very curious and b) There was a need for a better ping program here at the lab where I work.

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Watchdog - O - Matic

Everyone hates program crashes. The fact is: they happen frequently even in normal environments. Wouldn't it be great to get rid of crashes, and keep programs running... Watchdog - O - Matic will check and diagnose other programs. It will log all errors the other programs encounter. If the monitored application crashes or hangs, Watchdog - O - Matic will handle this and restart the application. It can even notify you by email if this occurs. From the user point of view, this will result in a more stable / reliable environment. Check popular applications like ICQ, outlook, ftp servers, download managers, game servers, ... Main features: - Automatic crash handling and program recovery - No user interaction required once configured - Detection of hanging (not responding) applications - Shell Integration - Notification by email of program crashes - No noticeable speed impact - Low on system resources - Does not replace the Just-in-Time Debugger - Logging of first-chance exceptions

Keywords: watchdog crash protect monitor program icq ftp restart watch email debug bug exception access violation keep programs running

Gravitational Lensing

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity demonstrates that a large mass can deform spacetime and bend the path of light. So, a very massive object, such as a cluster of galaxies can act as a gravitational lens. When light passes through the cluster from an object lying behind it, the light is bent and focused to produce an image or images of the source. The image may be magnified, distorted, or multiplied by the lens, depending upon the position of the source with respect to the lensing mass. The characteristics of the gravitationally lensed image depend upon the alignment of the observer, the lens and the background object. If the alignment is perfect, the resulting image is an Einstein Ring. With this program, one can draw images to see the effect of gravitational lensing. You can easily test the effects of several parameters by changing them and redrawing the image.

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Service - O - Matic

Service - O - Matic enables you to run almost any windows application as a windows service. Running a program as a service has several benefits. You will be able to utilize automatic start at boot-time to ensure maximum uptime of your system-critical applications (even if no user logs on), run your programs in the background without user intervention, automatic restart when a program fails and more! No need to adjust your application, Service - O - Matic will easily run your program as a service. Installing your application as a service is easy with our intuitive GUI interface. Service - O - Matic has most service features and works with the least amount of CPU power possible.

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