.KEYWORD dialup1099
.FLYINGHEAD ESSENTIAL UTILITIES
.TITLE Getting the most out of DialupMaster options
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Want to learn more about the great DialupMaster utility? Read Dan Huber’s article and save yourself a whole lot of time.
.AUTHOR Dan Huber
Last month, we introduced you to DialupMaster, a program by Peter Koch that substantially improves the Remote Networking component of Windows CE. DialupMaster is chock full of options and, as promised, this month we’re going to describe those options in detail.
A program like this is bound to have plenty of options to let the you customize the program to your needs and tastes, and DialupMaster is no exception. When you select the icon in the system tray representative of DialupMaster and choose Options, a pop-up menu appears, which you can see in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A DialupMaster can be tailored to your tastes through plenty of options.
That pop-up menu gives you the options shown in Table A, which you can toggle on and off.
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE A Pop-up menu options
.TAB_TABLE_WIDTH 25% 75%
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Option What it does
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Sound On Enables sound effects that act as confirmations to menu selections, pop-ups, etc.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Tray Timer On Enables the small numerical timer that resides in the system tray to time your connections.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Login Scripts On Enables the use of scripts which are used with dial-up connections.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Keep-Alive On Enables the ping utility that attempts to keep your ISP from disconnecting you.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Skip Connect Window When using DialupMaster to dial, this skips the need to press Connect when the dialog box is launched.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Properties See below.
.END_TAB_TABLE
When you choose "Properties" from the DialupMaster tray menu, you’re presented with a tabbed window that a number of tabs. I’ll explain each in order.
.H1 The Pop-up Menu tab
The Pop-up Menu tab, which can be viewed in Figure B, is a tabbed window with two boxes that dictate how the connection entries are displayed.
.FIGPAIR B This is one of the most versatile dialog boxes in DialupMaster.
The first box, labeled Show, has three entries:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET System entries (prefixed with `): connections listed in DialupMaster’s connection list that are part of the system, such as serial ports and infrared ports, will have a ` character in front of them to add distinction from dial-up connections;
.BULLET DIRECT device entries: include the actual serial port and infrared connections in the connection list;
.BULLET MODEM device entries: include dial-up connections that are created in Remote Networking.
.END_LIST
All of these options can be toggled on and off.
The second box, labeled Sub-Menus, contains several more options. Your device’s serial and infrared ports can operate at more than one speed and Windows CE already designates the names of the connections as "Serial\@ 115K," etc. An option available in DialupMaster, called "Split entries into sub-menus", lets you group connections of similar nature by the use of a user-defined character that’s present in all connections.
For example, all of your Windows CE-based device’s serial connections are labeled with the "@" character in them. By default, DialupMaster is configured to use the "@" character as the dividing character for a submenu of all related connections. The characters that precede the "@" character act as the "main folder" for the similar connections.
You have the option to change the character if desired, though the default does integrate well with Windows CE’s system connections, so I recommend using it. Peter also informed me that although the documentation doesn’t indicate it clearly, "you can have multiple separator characters for the split menus, not just one. So you can use @ and some other character if you don’t want @ in your own, like +, etc."
This feature may not seem that significant but I really find this feature to be very useful. My Philips Velo 500 is fortunate enough to come equipped with an internal modem and I also have a Zoom external modem for use at home. Rather than changing the device used each time I wanted to connect, I decided to create two identical connections but with one type of modem or the other. As evident in Figure C, I named one of the connections ProLog\@28.8 to represent my internal modem. ProLog\@33.6 represents the external modem.
.FIGPAIR C ProLog\@28.8 uses the internal modem and ProLog\@33.6 uses an external one.
In DialupMaster, as illustrated in Figure D, you can see that I have a folder named ProLog with "28.8" and "33.6" listings in it. This makes choosing the appropriate connection, whether based on location or available hardware, as easy as it can get.
.FIGPAIR D If dialing your ISP looks easy, that’s because it is.
.H1 Login scripts
Fortunately, my ISP doesn’t need a script in order for me to log in properly, though I do need one for our desktops. Unfortunately, I could not test the functionality of this part of the program simply because I had no need for a script. I’ve heard, though, that this works with regard to automating the CompuServe login process, so reports are that it appears to function properly.
So you can understand the functionality and need for a login script, I’ll give you a brief overview. A login script is a simple text file that contains a set of connection commands. These are used to automate a certain procedure that’s performed while dialing an ISP. This is most commonly used during the authentication process, where your ISP asks for your user name and password. Remote Networking, unfortunately, lacks the integrated support for login scripts, so DialupMaster is used to fill this gap.
Whether or not you need a login script usually depends on one thing. If you find that simply entering your login information into Remote Networking’s designated fields and selecting Connect doesn’t complete the process by itself, and have found that you must open a terminal window to manually enter it yourself, you’re a victim of this extra task. This is where DialupMaster comes into play.
Figure E shows you that the Login Scripts window in DialupMaster has several functions. The first function is the ability to enable (and likewise disable) all of your login scripts for your dial-up connections.
.FIGPAIR E No more manual terminal windows with DialupMaster; it’s automatic.
The next option, visible in Figure F, is a drop-down menu containing all of your connections, whether through serial ports or dial-up. When you select a dial-up connection, you start the to define a login script when it’s required by your dial-up service.
.FIGPAIR F Though all available services are in this list, only use the dial-up connections.
The New button to the left of this drop-down menu brings up a dialog box that asks you to name a new script file and place it in the desired location. Once you select OK, the designated script editor is launched with sample text, as you can see in Figure G.
.FIGPAIR G I use PhatWare’s HPC Spell as my script editor.
If you changed the location of your login script for some reason, you also have the option to update the path to it by simply selecting the button with an ellipsis (…) to find the new path. Also, if you need to reconfigure your script, simply select Edit to launch your designated script editor with your script in place and make and save your changes. This makes troubleshooting a breeze.
There are just two commands that DialupMaster uses (the following script information is found in DialupMaster’s included online help):
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET DELAY=n: Wait for n seconds
.BULLET SEND=text: Send the text as if it was typed
.END_LIST
DialupMaster enters your login information using the following macros. Note that the macros are surrounded by a pair of brackets (i.e., "<>") that tell DialupMaster that the text is a macro:
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE B DialupMaster’s login macros
.TAB_TABLE_WIDTH 25% 75%
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Macro Login information
.TAB_TABLE_ROW <username> Send the username.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW <password> Send the password (you must use the option to save your password in Remote Networking).
.TAB_TABLE_ROW <domain> Send the domain.
.TAB_TABLE_ROW <cr> Send a carriage return (similar to pressing the Enter key).
.END_TAB_TABLE
DialupMaster includes additional documentation on using the scripting feature, but it isn’t hard to master. As I stated earlier, I don’t require this feature with my current ISP, but this will really come in handy if you use CompuServe or an ISP that requires scripts to properly authenticate you.
.H1 Keep Alive
Fortunately for me, my local ISP does not seem to practice a habit of disconnecting me at the slightest hint of inactivity. However, you may not be so lucky. Yet again, DialupMaster is here to help.
Keep Alive is the third tabbed window, shown in Figure H. Keep Alive affords you a few simple choices on configuring the built-in ping utility. Ping is a tool commonly used on the Internet to simulate activity when a user is inactive. This sort of utility attempts to confuse an ISP’s timer, which is set to automatically disconnect a user exhibiting little activity for a set time. By pinging an address or server on the Internet, it appears as though the connection is in use, and this discourages your ISP from disconnecting you. This approach is not guaranteed to work all the time, and your connection may still be interrupted despite the use of this utility. Since it’s included as part of the package, it’s worth a try.
.FIGPAIR H Unlike a regular ping utility used by a system administrator, this one is used to hold a line open.
The first option is the ability to toggle on and off the ping utility. Below that small check box, there is a text box preceded by "Ping the host." This is where you enter the desired server to be pinged. It’s not evident if the host must be a URL (meaning an address like the sample http:\//www.yahoo.com that’s found in Keep Alive). It’s also not clear if it would accept an IP address (this address is numerical; for example, 209.20.239.200).
The last option is where you select how many minutes separate each ping. You adjust this to suit the practices of your ISP; if they disconnect an inactive connection after ten minutes, then I recommend setting Keep Alive to nine minutes. My ISP is somewhere between ten and thirty minutes and, as I stated earlier, one good aspect of my local ISP is that they do not regularly disconnect you.
.H1 Advanced settings
The last tab is called Advanced and allows you to configure a few more useful settings.
If you require a script for authentication while dialing your ISP, you’ll first need to write it with some sort of editor. Remember, the script must be written and saved as an ASCII text file. If you look at Figure I, you’ll see that the first text box is Script Editor, located inside the box External Programs.
.FIGPAIR I You can set some minor additional settings using the Advanced option.
This is where you provide DialupMaster with the location of your desired script editor. You can either manually type it in or use the convenient ellipsis (…) button to open a file browser window to find it. I believe the default was associated with InkWriter, which I think is found on H/PC Professional systems. I had to change this as I am using a Windows CE 2.0 Philips Velo 500. Do take note of this when you first begin using the program, because leaving this as-is may lead to unnecessary frustration.
The other text box named "Window Name," found in the "Post Dial Terminal" box, simply allows you to edit the name of the terminal window. Most likely, you won’t need to change this.
DialupMaster’s a very powerful little tool that will save you a whole lot of time.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
The BMT Micro Inc. registration page is located at http://www.bmtmicro.com/catalog/dialupmaster.html.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
