PROGRAMS

 

Here are some programs I've written to help me & my partners get our job done just a little bit better or quicker. I will post more as I refine them or create them. You will notice that many have TODOs on them -- those are items I will implement as soon as I get a chance. If you really need the feature in question, just drop me a line and I will try to tackle it as quickly as possible.

To install any program, just unzip into its own directory and create icons as needed. No muss, no fuss. No install programs, registry bloat, etc. To uninstall, just delete the directory.

 

To run any program as a service (if the ability isn't native), I recommend a program called FireDaemon. It is quite nifty, and can run nearly ANY Windows program as a service. The cost is free for up to 100 installations, and the cost is only $1 per license over that. Unless you have several thousand servers, cost shouldn't be an issue (and if you are running thousands of servers, what is a couple grand anyway?)

 

IRcptTo

Release: 1
Version: 1.0
REQ: Exchange 2000

Adds an X-Rcpt-To header to incoming SMTP mail on an Exchange box. Technically this could also be used with an IIS SMTP virtual server, but I have not tested that configuration.
Mostly this is useful to track what address, from a user's list of many, caused the message to end up in THEIR specific box.
Reformater

Release: 1
Version: 1.0
REQ: .NET runtime

SOURCE CODE

Reformats text documents that have had their columns hard limited to a specific character size. This often happens with email messages, newsgroup postings, etc.

I use this mostly to reformat text eBooks so that I can pull the files into my Microsoft eBook creator and make a decent-looking project out of them for reading on my iPaq.

Source code available.
   
RegBack

Release: 1
Version: 1.0.0.0
Platform: Win32
REQ: none
Docs: none
Backs up the Registry; ideally should be scheduled to run overnight. Keeps the last seven backups on hand.

Some basic documentation on install and restore is included in the ZIP file.

Runs on Windows NT 4.x, 2000, and XP.

d  
ServiceMon

Release: 3
Version: 1.0.0.49
Platform: Win32
REQ: VM6, WMI
Docs: ReadMe



SOURCE CODE
 Monitors running services at a set interval (from 1 to 60 seconds.) If the service(s) are not started, it will automatically restart them. It can also monitor services on any number of remote machines, and it can find machines via NetBIOS or IP address. It does require the Windows Management Interface library, which is shipped standard with Windows 2000. You can download the NT4 version at the link shown below, or from Microsoft's Page. It also has plugin support, so you can run a plugin designed to check the services of that particular servuce (such as connecting on port 110 to see if the POP3 service is actually servicing clients.) You can read about designing plugins.

To make this program run at startup, use FireDaemon and add the "/Unattend" switch to the command line -- this will cause ServiceMon to run in unattended mode, and no dialog boxes will be raised.

 

   
SPEditor

Release: 1.6
 

This program lets you edit stored procedures and functions in Microsoft's SQL Server. It has intellisense, color syntax highlighting, and much more. So much in fact, that it has its own page.

Click here for the SP Editor website
d  
Weather-Downloader

Release: 3
Version: 1.0.0.34
Platform: Win32
REQ: VM6
Docs: incl.

Does everything Auto-Downloader does, and more. It can process HTML files to change image paths, trim headers and footers, and make replacements. It also works properly with normal and authenticated proxies. It comes setup to automatically download the weather forecast from the National Weather Service for several cities, and prepare a file 'weather.htm' for inclusion in another page. It runs on our Intranet server at work, pulling down the forecasts and slapping them on the Intranet.

This program has no TODO items, so email me if you have any suggestions for improvements. The docs are fairly self-explanatory.

SOURCE CODE

 

 

*VM6: Microsoft Visual Basic Virtual Machine, version 6. MSVBVM60.DLL -- This file comes with Windows 2000 by default, and also in NT4 since at least Service Pack 4 (if someone can confirm that it shipped with earlier service packs, please contact me.)

None of these programs, unless otherwise noted, require any other controls or custom DLL files. All operations are performed with the built-in standard API calls. I am a big fan of no muss, no fuss installations.