Weather Station Crash

I was checking the backlinks to my website when I noticed this link.

I ran the software successfully for a month but within days of going on holiday the weather station software would inexplicably randomly crash every couple of hours but the next day it seemed to sort itself. This was short lived as within 12 hours of leaving to start my holiday it crashed and remained so until I returned. On my return I tried a number of things to improve the reliability including daily re-boots of the computer but it did not stop the intermittent crashes. I searched the internet and found a program called Watchdog - O - Matic from Kwakkelflap. This program monitors running programs looking for problems. I tried the trial version and found it successfully restarted the program after a crash. I purchased the full version and have been very pleased [with] it. I could now run my weather station reliably 24 hours a day.

I think it's a great example of someone using Watchdog - O - Matic.

Service - O - Matic 3.00 released

I'm happy to announce that Service - O - Matic 3.00 has been released. It took a while to get to this version, but I wanted to get it perfect. I corrected some user rights problems and included some new features like Flap detection among other things.

With this release all conversions to 64bit are finished. I also tested everything on Windows 2008 Server so I'm confidant that our applications are ready for the future.

It doesn't end here of course. I'm still working on the next Watchdog - O - Matic version that has some great new improvements.

Code signing, part two

I just received word from Comodo. Seems I can't use their certificate in Vista making it useless for me. You'd think companies would adapt to a new OS after a year. Too bad they didn't tell me about this a week ago. Better yet: warn me when ordering the certificate that it can't be used on Vista. I received a refund the minute I asked about it, so no complaints there.

I'll be checking other certificates, but I don't think I'll postpone the Service - O - Matic release.

Code signing

Code signing is more important than ever with the release of Windows Vista. People that use your software get a scary warning message when starting your application if the code isn't signed. This might scare potential customers which isn't a good idea.

So I decided to sign all my software. I bought a certificate from Comodo a week ago. It was the cheapest solution and I've read it doesn't matter much where you get your certificate from. But maybe I was wrong.

First they had me send them my ID and two other documents to prove I'm legit. Then they tried to install the certificate. This didn't quite work cause I always use Firefox. Seems they can only install it in Internet Explorer. A warning would have been nice. So I tried it a second time and the certificate was installed. The certificate had the wrong name on it (why did I send those 3 documents?). Also, I couldn't sign my software with this certificate. Contacted support again. They asked me to create several files and try again. Didn't work. Then they asked me to order again right until the payment step. Didn't work.

So a week later I'm still not able to sign my software. I'm testing release candidate 1 of the new Service - O - Matic and I'm eager to release it. But I still have to wait until I can sign it before I can actually release.

IPv6 Fping

Seems I won't be using RentACoder. I was creating a framework for the coder and I thought it would be easier to do it myself. So after 3 hours of coding and testing, Fping is now able to ping IPv6 addresses.



Some features are disabled for IPv6 (most importantly the features which won't work like Type Of Service and the don't fragment flag). I'm not sure when I'm going to release the new version. I'll have a look at my todo list first.

RentACoder

I'm swamped with work. I've released a new version of Fping this weekend which should have been released a month ago. And I'm working on a new Service - O - Matic and Watchdog - O - Matic release at the same time.

I also need to add some features to Fping. Basically I want Fping to ping IPv6 addresses. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to do this so I thought I'd contact someone else to do it for me.

I went to RentACoder, a site that helps getting developers together. Basically you post a software project you want to create and people will place bids. Then you can choose the bid you like most and they can get to work.

I have 5 different bids after 48 hours. 3 of them seem interesting, most of them charging around $100 which is very cheap if you ask me. How can someone earn a living if they estimate 5 days of work at $100 total, living in the US?

I'm not sure if I'll take any bid. I fear I'll have a serious amount of work telling the developer what I want, creating a platform they can work with and checking the work when it's finished. It's probably easier and less time consuming to do it myself and I know I'll have what I want for sure. But it might be a good test for bigger projects later on.

Vista Reliability Monitor crash information

I'm sure everyone has programs crashing on their computer. Our Watchdog – O – Matic application can help out. But how can you check which programs crashed, and when?

Windows Vista has a program called 'Performance and Reliability Monitor' which tracks the crashes on your system. You can track how stable your computer is, based on the number of crashes. The graph like you see below includes information on various system failures.



So all you need to do is check the Reliability Monitor to discover which programs are crashing and create a new watchdog for each crashing program. With Watchdog – O – Matic these programs won't crash anymore so you won't see these items in the Reliability Monitor. This proves that your system will be more reliable and stable.