Want to be a Webmeister on your own computer?
I wrote an article for the Microsoft Systems Journal that explains the fundamental concepts of
HTML and the HTTP protocol.
The source code for Webster, the tiny Web server described in the article, is available both
here and from
MSDN Magazine.
Yet another screen saver, named
Swarmer.
It's simple, but quite entertaining.
I've seen other Windows applications and screen savers based on this algorithm,
and I hope you find my implementation interesting. Click
here to download the Swarmer Screen Saver.
Note: The following utilities are provided "as-is", with no documentation.
I hope the operation these utilities is intuitive enough that detailed instructions are
not necessary.
I both love and hate cookies.
Sometimes cookies are your friend, but they can also be used for nefarious
purposes. While I want to periodically purge cookies that have been left on my
computer to track my surfing habits, I also want to retain others that hold useful
information, such as my Amazon.com identity.
My cookie manager has three lists of cookies that are on your computer at any given
time; cookies that have not yet been identified, cookies that you have marked as
"evil", and cookies that you wish to keep. You can move cookies between these
lists, and purge the "evil" cookies whenever you want, leaving the others intact.
Click
here
to download the the Cookie Manager.
Does anyone out there like spam?
Well I sure don't! The problem I have with e-mail client software is that they don't
filter the spam at the source. Microsoft e-mail clients, for example, always download
all the messages from your POP3 server to your computer, then leave it up to you to
clean up the crap. Furthermore, if you have the preview option turned on, then when you select
the message it is automatically rendered. If all you want to do is to delete the message, you still
have to wait (and hope that it's not a prank message that will drop a cookie, or worse) while it's being rendered.
My spam eliminater connects to your POP3 servers and lets you peek at the e-mail messages
that have been sent to you before downloading them to your computer.
It has three lists of messages that are on your POP3 servers at any given
time:
- messages from senders that have not yet been identified
- messages from senders that you have identified as spam
- and messages from senders that you know and possibly love.
You can move messages between these lists, and purge the spam directly on your POP3 servers selectively,
leaving the ones you wish to retain. The big advantage of this is you never again have to wait for
an HTML-formatted e-mail message to download, along with it's associated graphics. You can nuke it
as soon as you identify it as spam. You can preview the message text in its raw form, avoiding the "convenience"
of the Outlook rendering. Based on what you see, you can determine if the HTML content is legitemate
or not.
In practice, you run my spam eliminator periodically to check for new messages. After cleaning the
garbage messages off of your POP3 servers, you then fire up your regular e-mail client software and
download the messages that you have decided to keep.
Click
here
to download the the Spam Manager.
There are occasions when your Internet
service is intermittent or just plain down. The Pinger program lets you keep an eye
on your Internet connectivity. If the service is going up and down, it indicates
the current status. Or, if the service is down due to an outage, it indicates when the
service comes back on line.
Click
here to download the Pinger utility.
Included with the Pinger executable is a file that loads the Windows registry with sample
settings. Loading these settings is not necessary, but if you wish to use them to get started:
- Right click on the Pinger.reg file.
- Choose the "Merge" action from the context menu.
Amateur radio is one of my hobbies.
I had lost interest in it for a number of years and recently discovered that there is a lot
of new technology being developed by amateur radio enthusiasts. I jumped into the fray and
have developed a number of ActiveX components for the benefit of the amateur radio
community. You are welcome to browse my
amateur radio components
pages.