Kwakkelflap: tools for the IT pro

HP 48G RAM upgrade

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:33:00 +0000

One of the things on my desk that I use all the time is my old faithful HP 48G calculator. I originally bought it some 15 years ago when I was a student. The HP uses Reverse Polish Notation which works great. I'm so used to working in RPN that I simply hate using regular calculators. That's one of the biggest reasons I still use it today cause, let's face it, I don't do Fourier or Laplace transforms these days.

The only problem I had with the machine was that I purchased the "budget" version ($200 on a student budget 15 years ago wasn't exactly cheap) which had 32K RAM. This means it can hold only 1 program most of the time. Some programs don't even fit at all. But then I stumbled on this page which explains the process of upgrading the HP 48G to 256K RAM. I loved the idea, but I'm not the most skilled person when it comes to soldering SMD chips or any other delicate operation for that matter. So I was a little hesitant to do this cause there was a possibility of ruining my beloved calculator. But I figured I'd try anyway.

I stopped after soldering the 128K RAM chip cause that was difficult enough for me and they warn people that soldering another 128K chip on top was very hard. The result: a HP 48G with 128KB RAM and a very ugly front. I don't mind the front at all cause when people ask me what I did to my calculator, I have a very nerdy story to tell.

Weather Station Crash

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:21:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:23:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:48:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:17:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:49:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:06:00 +0000

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.

Watchdog - O - Matic demo

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:54:00 +0000

I just finished creating a demo for Watchdog - O - Matic. It's very small and only shows the basic functionality. But it should give the user an idea of what to expect from the program.

You can see the demo here.

I will be creating more demos in the near future. I think they are an excellent tool to demonstrate the application.

Site uptime monitoring

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:12:00 +0000

It seems I'm not the only one with hosting problems. Andy points out a good tool to monitor your website. I've signed up right away.

Best of 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:46:00 +0000

Everyone has awards this time of year, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and have my own. These are my own private awards for 2007.

Software Tools

1) Inno Setup
2) Perforce
3) VMware Workstation
4) Visual Studio 2005
5) Adobe Photoshop

Inno setup wins without a doubt. It's so easy to create an installer with it. 32bit and 64bit versions in one setup? No problem. A check to disable UAC in Windows Vista? Easy.

Games

1) Call of Duty 4
2) Bioshock
3) Command and Conquer 3
4) Fear: Perseus Mandate
5) Crysis

A lot of shooters in my top 5, and it's not even my favorite genre. It's hard to choose between Call of Duty 4 and Bioshock for the number 1 spot. Both are brilliant games with a great storyline and superb graphics. In the end I had to make a choice and selected Call of Duty 4 as the best of those 2 cause it has a great multiplayer experience and it didn't crash (Bioshock crashed once). Crysis might seem low on the list. Yes, the graphics are great, although I think the graphics off Call of Duty and Bioshock are better. There's only so much variety you can have on an Island (don't get me started about inside the cave). The gameplay was worse than the other games on the list. E.g. I didn't like how to switch suite modes. Why can't you use function keys (like selecting a different plasmid in Bioshock)? Also, I'm not sure why most people are raving about open environment and that they can choose what to do. It is not as open and non linear as they think. If you don't do task x, none of the games storyline will continue.

Albums

1) Amon Tobin - Foley room
2) Jerboa - Rockit fuel
3) Soulwax - Most of the remixes
4) Daft Punk - Alive
5) Editors - An end has a start

I simply love Amon Tobin. Jerboa is great (and probably unknown to most of you) so I recommend you check it out.

Movies

This wasn't very hard, simply because I don't watch a lot of movies. I think I've seen one with the family in the theatre this year, and it was a kid's movie. So I can only have a top 1:

1) Plop en de pinguin

Currency rounding

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:20:00 +0000

I've talked about automatic currency conversion a while ago. Right now I'm using a home made script that uses the Plimus system to display the price in the users currency if this is different than the default currency.

The automatic conversion is nice, but it's even better if the converted number is rounded to a sensible amount. Right now, I use a rounding to 50 cents. And this is where I have a problem.

I sell my software in euros in nice round numbers. But now and then the rounding and the currency script combination act in strange ways:

As you can see, 55 euros was rounded to 55.50 euros. There is no need for rounding but Plimus does it anyway. And of course 55 euros is not equal to 55.50 euros so the conversion is displayed on my webpage. The amount is 55 euros when ordering though, so there is no error in the conversion there.

I suspect that there is a conversion from euro to dollars and then back to euros when using the script. This might result in a conversion error depending on the (daily adjusted) conversion rate.

Plimus is having problems in locating this bug so I've disabled price rounding again for the time being.

The Fping story

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:40:00 +0000

I created Fping in 1998 because I was frustrated with the ping application that comes with windows. I wanted to ping more than once a second, so I created a basic ping application that could do this. It didn't have many options at that time. Basically the only thing it did was sending ICMP 'echo request' packets and wait for the response. I had to give it a name and went with Fping (fast ping). How original.

Turns out it wasn't original at all. There was (and still is) an open source Fping application available with very similar goals. Oops. I swear I didn't know about it until it was too late. I was adding options to my Fping application and the program was spreading on the net. It first dawned on me when I got a 'bug report' with an option that didn't work like the open source program did.

So the name of my ping application was bad. Very bad. But the program was also successful, spreading fast, and I didn't want to change it at that time because of this. Also, my Fping is not simply a copy of the open source version. Some features are the same and some features are unique (for both). I will keep it this way, cause it seems the best thing to do.

In all those years the maintainers of the open source version never contacted me. I can only hope the name confusion didn't cause frustration. My sincere apologies.

AdWords problems

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:40:00 +0000

I was fiddling with my adds one day. After adding some keywords to one of my campaigns, they all suddenly stopped working. I contacted Google, and received a default answer: are you bidding high enough? Did you pause the campaigns? That sort of thing. It didn't surprise me that the first mail was a default mail. I mailed them back right away writing I simply added keywords and ALL of my campaigns stopped working, not simply the one I changed.

The next mail I receive is 3 days later. They want to know if I'm happy with the support I received. I nearly fell out of my chair. No I'm not happy. All I got was a standard mail back and all my campaigns are still not functioning.

2 Days after I get another mail saying they are looking into it. So I wait another 4 days before I mail back to figure out if they finally found something. The answer is rather surprising: I received another default mail telling me they suspended my AdWords account because they believe someone else logged into my account.

I have a Vista machine and an OpenSuse machine on my desk, and I log into my account from both depending on what I'm doing. I even log in using my wife's laptop which has Windows XP and uses a different IP cause I'm using a wireless connection. This probably raised a flag in their system blocking my account.

Adds are back up after 2 weeks. Sales where a little slow, so I hope they will pick up again.

Hosting problems

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:18:00 +0000

Some of you might have noticed: the Kwakkelflap website was down for the last couple of hours. I've had some downtime before, but never as long as the last one. So I decided to pull the plug and switch to a new hosting service. I'm still uploading and installing everything on the new server, so part of the website might be down. E.g. the forum is down cause I'm having problems with installing the MySQL database. I'll try to get it fixed ASAP.

Debug message

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:53:00 +0000

It's only natural that I run Watchdog - O - Matic all the time and watch as many different programs as possible. I use my own program, and it helps me to stress test the application.

One of the programs I'm checking is Windows Live Messenger 8.1. I noticed that messenger would have some strange debug messages from time to time: “ThumbPosition got called! That never happens.”. Apparently it does happen. It happens every time I use the scroll bar to scroll my contact list.

It's funny to see some of the debug messages of the programs you're watching.

Weird crash problem

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:12:00 +0000

The new Watchdog – O – Matic version has been released for a while now. I noticed I had a strange crash problem in the new version when closing the program. It only happened on Vista 64 bit. No problems on XP 32 and 64 bit, and no problems on Vista 32 bit.

So I fired up ye olde debugger to locate the problem. The crash seemed very erratic. It crashed at a certain point for no obvious reason, and when I disabled that code, it crashed somewhere else. The Microsoft debugger couldn't help me find the problem. Then I stumbled on an innocent looking line of code at the beginning of the program:

m_pszRegistryKey = "SOFTWARE\\Kwakkelflap\\Watchdog";

This is a string that's part of the CWinApp class that you have to initialize in your application if you want to read something from the registry. It seems that in Vista x64 there is a problem freeing the memory allocated by CWinApp when you close the program causing the crash. So I simply disabled this and everything works like a charm.

Things like this prove once more that a program like Watchdog – O – Matic is very useful for everyone. I bet there are a lot of crashes and unexpected system behavior out there caused by the shift to Vista (and 64 bit operating systems).

µISV survey

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:08:00 +0000

Neil from the Business of Software forums made a survey for µISVs (micro independent software vendors). 96 people responded, including myself. The results are pretty interesting. It seems I'm like most average µISV people. Can't wait till part 2 to see the sales results.

Small progress update

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:34:00 +0000

Things are looking good for the new Watchdog - O - Matic release. I've received 1 bug report. Most users shouldn't encounter it and I'll be releasing a fix later this week (probably in the weekend). The 64 bit update of Service - O - Matic and Sniff - O - Matic are moving along nicely. I'll probably be able to release Sniff - O - Matic 1.07 in a few days. Service - O - Matic will have to wait cause I also need to implement some new features.

One of the disadvantages of the 64 bit versions is that the setup program is more than 2 times as big. The Watchdog - O - Matic trial went from 2 MB to 4.3 MB. Still very small compared to other downloads if you ask me (download takes less than a minute with a decent connection). But my server bandwidth usage is through the roof. I've contacted my web host and they assured me that it won't be any problem. Fingers crossed.

Watchdog - O - Matic 5.01 released

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 18:37:00 +0000

It took a while, but I'm finally ready with the new Watchdog – O – Matic release. I did a lot of testing on several operating systems, cause the number of changes I made in this version is huge.

I switched to a new compiler and created 64bit versions of the application. This required more work and changes than I thought, so thorough testing was needed. I also moved some basic features from the professional to the standard version making the standard version a more complete product. It didn't make sense to leave these features out.

All of this has some influence on the standard version. The biggest change is I no longer support Windows 95, 98 and Me. Supporting these old Windows versions was keeping some cool features out of the standard version. And our web visitor logs shows that the number of people still using these versions is very low.

What's up next? Creating 64bit versions for Sniff – O – Matic and Service – O – Matic. Wish me luck.

Automatic currency conversion, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:44:00 +0000

I wrote about the automatic currency conversion system I wrote for the website some time ago. The system works, but there are some issues with it. The biggest problem for me is that the converted price is not always the price at Plimus. Obviously due to a slightly different exchange rate. So I could only display an estimate of the converted price and potential customers could be confused by the difference.

Then Plimus announced that users could use calls to their conversion script. A simple URL with your product ID and the visitor's IP address and you get the converted currency back. I did some tests with their system, and after some PHP tricks it seems to be working. Too bad they do a straight conversion and don't use their own rounding system. But these are both new features, so I expect they will implement this later on.

The system is used on a few web pages for evaluation. It's looking good so far. I'll probably remove the old system this weekend.

Software awards

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:45:00 +0000

There is some turmoil recently since Andy Brice posted his test results regarding software awards. Every software author suspected a lot of download sites where giving awards without even trying the software, and now someone stepped up and tested this. It seems that we where right in thinking there are a lot of bogus awards.

As a result, I've removed all awards from the website. Yes, there where awards that where not fake. But how can a visitor know which award is fake and which isn't. Awards lost every credibility.

x64 Conversion

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:04:00 +0000

I'm still working on 64bit versions of Watchdog - O - Matic. Right now, I have a beta version that's working on my Vista 64bit and XP 64bit. But there are still some problems on other test machines that need to be corrected.

All in all, creating a 64bit version isn't that hard, except if you have to do some low level stuff. One of the things I had problems with was the system to detect the command line parameters of a running program. You see, when the watchdog checks a running program, it need to know the parameters. Otherwise the program will not restart with the same parameters if it crashed. Windows has a function GetCommandLine() which returns these parameters of the current process. So in order to know the parameters of another process, I need to write in the target process memory, create a remote thread that executes the GetCommandLine() function, wait for the target process to execute the remote thread and read the target process memory to handle the result. You can imagine that creating a 64bit function, and running it in a 32bit application is lots of fun.

One of the biggest challenges however is creating a 64bit disassembler so we can mail disassembly info of the crash. This is a huge task without much gain, so I think that the first 64bit versions won't have this option on board. The primary concern is creating a 64bit version so people with a 64bit operating system can actually use the watchdog.

If anyone is willing to test the beta version, drop me a line.

x64 Versions and setup

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:13:00 +0000

I'm porting our Watchdog application to VC++ 2005. It's a lot of work, and the end result should be no difference for the user. But it's a step I'd have to take eventually.

One advantage of this port is that I'll be able to create 64bit versions of my applications. Some people think it's to early to worry about 64bit, but I don't believe it is. Every new PC sold nowadays is capable of 64bit. And I see a rise in people using a 64bit operating system. Also, it doesn't hurt to be prepared. It's something every misv will have to do eventually, so why not do this early on.

One thing I don't want is a separate download for 32 and 64 bit versions. The installer should check the operating system and install the 32bit or 64bit version. Maybe create an option to install the 32bit version on a 64bit system for compatibility. So I checked Inno setup and apparently they have everything I need (again). Simply set that x86 and x64 are allowed and your setup will automatically detect a 32 or 64bit install. Then, separate the 32bit and 64bit files and add a check with the IsWin64 function to install the correct file. That's all. The setup itself stays 32bit, but that shouldn't be a problem.

It will take some time to create the 64bit versions, and I'll need to test the new system on 32bit and 64bit operating systems. But you can expect 64bit versions of the Kwakkelflap programs in the near future.

Try, catch or miss?

noreply@blogger.com (Wouter Dhondt) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:54:00 +0000

I'm porting my applications from VC++ 6.0 to VC++ 2K5. Vista and VC++ 6.0 are not the best friends. I just finished porting Fping, where I had some linking problems cause I overloaded the printf() function. In the end, I simply renamed the function and each call to printf(). Next on my list was a simple MFC GUI application: the crash test application that comes with Watchdog – O – Matic.

The intent of this program is to generate first chance and second chance exceptions. To generate a first chance exception I have this code:

CDialog* pDialog = NULL;
try
{
pDialog->Detach();
}
catch(CException* e)
{
e->Delete();
}
catch(...)
{
}

Everything works fine when compiled with VC++ 6.0. The exception is handled. But when I compile this with VC++ 2K5, the exception isn't handled, and I have a second chance exception (a crash). Vista displays a dialog box, and Watchdog – O – Matic detects a crash instead of a first chance exception. I'm still looking for a solution. Hope there aren't many of these problems when converting...