Running programs only when online

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

"Gail Gurman" <gail@homemail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns950568E775625gailhomemailcom@63.223.5.250...
> Is there such a thing as a program that detects an Internet or network
> connection and runs starts certain programs (and perhaps closes them when
> the connection is lost)?
>
> My laptop is usually connected to the Internet via wireless cable router.
> But it is in the nature of a laptop to not always be in the same place,
> and sometimes I don't have an access point. Besides, sometimes I just
> lose my wireless connection for some reason.
>
> Whenever I boot without an Internet connection, I have a few programs
> that try to connect, fail, and complain. I can usually avoid this by just
> having the laptop hibernate instead of turning it off. But occasionally I
> have to actually reboot in a situation where I have no connection.
>
> It would be nice if, instead of running the programs that need
> connections during startup, I could run another program that controlled
> those programs, only allowing them to start if a connection is available.
>
> Is there such a thing?

Yes, the ICQ NetDetect program does this. I don't have ICQ on this machine
but I seem to recall that you can configure NetDetect to launch other apps
as well.

HTH
-pk

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

Gail Gurman <gail@homemail.com> wrote in
news:Xns950568E775625gailhomemailcom@63.223.5.250:

> Is there such a thing as a program that detects an Internet or network
> connection and runs starts certain programs (and perhaps closes them
> when the connection is lost)?
>
> My laptop is usually connected to the Internet via wireless cable
> router. But it is in the nature of a laptop to not always be in the
> same place, and sometimes I don't have an access point. Besides,
> sometimes I just lose my wireless connection for some reason.
>
> Whenever I boot without an Internet connection, I have a few programs
> that try to connect, fail, and complain. I can usually avoid this by
> just having the laptop hibernate instead of turning it off. But
> occasionally I have to actually reboot in a situation where I have no
> connection.
>
> It would be nice if, instead of running the programs that need
> connections during startup, I could run another program that
> controlled those programs, only allowing them to start if a connection
> is available.
>
> Is there such a thing?
>

Why not just NOT start those programs everytime you re-boot and instead
you can create a dos .bat file to place on the desktop which you can
double-click once at boot time to start all of your programs that require
an internet connection.

I futzed with this for a while trying to start a bunch of MRTG scripts
all at the same time w/o having to start each individually.

The trick is not to start the exe file in the batch file, but rather
execute a .lnk file (shortcut).

I just created a .bat file to test it out and this is all that's in it,
the full path to the shortcut must be there as well as DOS equivalent
folder and .lnk names:

C:\Docume~1\ds\StartM~1\Programs\Internet\filezilla\FileZilla.lnk
C:\Docume~1\ds\StartM~1\Programs\Audio\Winamp\winamp.lnk

When I double click it, both winamp and filezilla start and then the .bat
file terminates automatically. This won't work with the .exe file because
if it is done that way, it will execute the first line and wait for that
program to end before it executes the next line.


DS

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

DS <t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a..n.e.t> wrote in
news:Xns9505D55CDFC44idispcom@216.65.98.77:
>> It would be nice if, instead of running the programs that need
>> connections during startup, I could run another program that
>> controlled those programs, only allowing them to start if a
>> connection is available.
>>
>> Is there such a thing?
>>
>
> Why not just NOT start those programs everytime you re-boot and
> instead you can create a dos .bat file to place on the desktop which
> you can double-click once at boot time to start all of your programs
> that require an internet connection.

That would be great if I didn't normally have an Internet connection, but
the default situation is that I am connected. I don't want to have to
manually run a batch file almost every time I boot. It's really when I'm
not connected that I want something different to happen.

Archived from groups: alt.internet.wireless (More info?)

In article <Xns9505D55CDFC44idispcom@216.65.98.77>,
DS <t.h.i.s.n.t.h.a.t@a.d.e.l.p.h.i.a..n.e.t> wrote:
> Gail Gurman <gail@homemail.com> wrote in
> news:Xns950568E775625gailhomemailcom@63.223.5.250:
>
> > Is there such a thing as a program that detects an Internet or network
> > connection and runs starts certain programs (and perhaps closes them
> > when the connection is lost)?
>
> Why not just NOT start those programs everytime you re-boot and instead
> you can create a dos .bat file to place on the desktop which you can
> double-click once at boot time to start all of your programs that require
> an internet connection.
>
> I futzed with this for a while trying to start a bunch of MRTG scripts
> all at the same time w/o having to start each individually.
>
> The trick is not to start the exe file in the batch file, but rather
> execute a .lnk file (shortcut).

Or put in the batch file:

start foo.exe
start bar.exe
....

--
-eben ebQenW1@EtaRmpTabYayU.rIr.OcoPm home.tampabay.rr.com/hactar

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Ben Franklin