You know the ones I'm talking about. The two networked computers with the little green monochrome displays that blinked as the modem sent or received data. The ones that were essentially your visual indication that your dial-up connection was in fact connected.

Users migrating to broadband will probably have to do so over ethernet. But as I learned a long time ago, ethernet connections mean no flashy-lights unless you can somehow see the ethernet adapter or the hub from where you sit, and even then that's no sure fire indication that you are looking at your own internet activity because Ethernet tends to blink quite a bit as it anyway. So I figured, there must be some kind of program out there that does what the Dialup Networking icon does, but works with Ethernet instead.

So I set out on my search. I could no longer resist, I longed to see the flishy-flash of my network packets as they scurried across my length of catagory 5. Overcoming every bit of resistance inside me, I caved in and went to Download.Com to see if any such program existed.

Indeed, there were a few finds, and I tried what looked like a few winners. Of these were Tray Ping, Gimme IP, and Lan Lights.

Tray Ping lost out because it crashed more than three times while I was doing my typical little "poke around" session with it. Shame, because it looked like it would have been useful for some things, though it didn't quite give me the flishy-flash I wanted. And going down on me a few times in one sitting might hook me on a woman, but for software it's a dead set turn off.

Gimme IP lost out because it did a lot of stuff I didn't want, and not really what I did want. However, It did function to show me if I was connected to the internet through my broadband. It did this by constantly pinging target IPs of my choice, and reflecting my online status by showing either a green icon in my tooltray or a red one. It lost my interest though, when I found out that it isn't free. For the price you pay to use it ($15.95) I don't even get to define the icons it displays (though I was able to change the their colors.) With a simple option of changing the icons, I might have been convinced to pay the registration and keep it, since it does have it's uses. But if I want to see my online status I just really have to look over at my Telocity Gateway on the other side of the room. (Yep, still connected.)

Then there was LanLights. Not only does it flicker in the tool tray, but it also opens up a small empty window that serves no purpose and must be closed manually, so it lost points on interface from me. I can't handle using something that doesn't feel very well done. I suppose the fact that it was coded in Visual Basic also turns me off, since I don't consider Visual Basic a language that real programmers use. I have more respect for dos .BAT files than I do visual basic. In fact, I have more respect for toothless crack-heads. The program DID work, however. And it did work well. I was even able to define the icons. I was quite close to being impressed, but then images of Dilbert lookalikes (sans teeth) came into my head and I had to continue my search.

That's when I found LanLED. It's 9k of assembler. It's functional. It's free. And it hasn't crashed on me once. My search was over and my internet now has that flishy-flashy-feeling back!

Life is almost not utterly terrible once again (for the moment).

Later,
Jace of Fuse!