LISTEN CLOSELY AND YOU'LL HEAR THE OCEAN

Ever run commands in DOS? You've used a shell. A "shell" in computer world is a place where you enter commands and run files by name rather than clicking around different windows.

Most web hosts let you operate a shell remotely. This means that you can type commands in window on your computer, that are actually run on your web host, thousands of miles away.

I'd like you to log in to your shell now. If you can't do it by going in to DOS and typing "telnet your.domain.here", your web host probably uses "SSH" -- a secure shell. You'll have to ask your host how you can log in to shell, they might tell you to download a program called "PuTTY" and give instructions how to use it.

If you can't login to your shell, or aren't allowed, you'll just have to sit back and watch what I do.

Now that you're logged in, type: echo hi

On next line will be printed hi

Try this: date +%Y

This prints current year. That's 2004 for me.

So what if we combined two? Try: echo date +%Y

Well, that doesn't work, because computer thinks you're trying to echo TEXT "date +%Y" instead of actual COMMAND. What we have to do here is surround that text in what are called "back quotes". Unix will evaluate everything enclosed in back quotes (by evaluate, I mean it'll treat that text as if it were entered as a command.)

Your back quotes key should be located on upper-left corner of your keyboard, under Esc button.

PIPE DOWN, OVER THERE...

Type this in: echo `date +%Y`

Gives us "2004". You could even do something like this: echo `dir`

Which puts directory listing all on one line.

But now, we put our newfound knowledge to good use. Unix has another neat feature called piping, which means "take everything you would normally output to screen here, and shove it whatever file I tell you to." So say I had something like this:

echo "hey" > test.txt

Now type "dir" and you'll see a new file, test.txt, that wasn't there before. View it off web, or FTP it to your computer, do whatever you have to, to read file. It should contain word "hey".

Likewise, dir > test.txt would store directory listing into "test.txt".

HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

But say we wanted that text file to be named according to current date. You already have pieces to figure all that out, if you think about it. Type: date --help to get a listing of all possible ways to represent date. The ones you want to represent year, month and day are %Y, %m, and %d (capitalization *is* important here).

This is what you want: echo `date +%Y%m%d.html`

Running this today, January 8th, 2004, results in: 20040108.html

I've just echoed this year, followed by this month and this day, with an ".html" at end. This will be our output file.

Now, to pipe it: echo "hey" > `date +%Y%m%d.html`

If this sort of thing were to run every day, it would save "hey" to a file called 20040108.html today, and tomorrow to a file called 20040109.html, then 20040110.html, and so on.

The easy part now, is figuring out what you want archived. I use wget, which takes an option to store output file, so we don't need to use piping. Here's an example of how to use wget to save page "http://www.google.com" to a file representing today's date:

wget http://www.google.com --output-document=`date +%Y%m%d.html`

PUT IT TOGETHER

And now, to setup your crontab. I won't explain how crontabs work, just that they're equivalent of Windows Task Scheduler, which automatically run a particular command at a given date and time. The following will save http://www.google.com to a different filename every day.

0 0 * * * wget http://www.google.com --output-document=`date +%Y%m%d.html` > /dev/null

Keep in mind that if you want to put it in a special directory, just put path in, i.e. change what's in "output document" parameter to: `date +/home/user/wwwroot/your.host/%Y%m%d.html`

I know so many people who seem to have a lot of problems when they try setting up an Internet connection. Some are unfortunate enough to have been victim of endless and tedious free CDs that we all receive in our post now and again, or that fall off front of a magazine, or that we have idly picked up from a local shop counter. The last thing you should do is use one of those to get connected. Really, you should know better! 99% of CDROM will be stuffed with advertising rubbish and spy-ware that gums up our computers and makes us vulnerable to advertisers on Internet. This type of product should be banned, in my opinion. Not only is a CDROM totally unnecessary to get us connected, it is a downright infringement of our privacy. Not to mention fact that it will impregnate your computer with registry entries and files that will make it virtually impossible to remove without a complete re-installation of your operating system. Watch out for spam e-mail that you will receive as soon as you log on World Wide Web, if you have installed CDROM software.

Besides all this, you will be trapped into using a particular web site as a search point and, to make matters worse, you will find that software has modified your web browser with all sorts of home-page advertising and a silly spinning logo up at top right where Microsoft or Netscape logo used to be. You can remove it, but it does require a registry edit, and that means strong coffee and trembling knees, even for stout-hearted. You can create your own logo for your web browser. Make something original and pleasing to sooth stressful wait while those unnecessarily large web pages load.

How can you avoid all this hassle? Simple DIY. Everything you need to set up a connection to Internet is right there in your operating system. It doesn’t matter which operating system. All current Microsoft Windows™ operating systems have necessary software installed ready for you to configure it and get connected. All flavours of Linux have same type of setup and so does AppleMac’. The principles are all same, but method varies from vendor to vendor.

For this article I am going to set out method for getting an Internet connection set up on a Windows XP Pro™ operating system. The rules and actions for Windows XP™ Home and Windows 2000 Professional™ are pretty much same. Windows™ ‘95/’98 and Me are very similar and so, to some extent, is Windows™ NT4 Workstation. I am not going to include Windows™ servers as it is unlikely that you would be using a server operating system in a home environment. Plus, you should not set-up an Internet connection of this sort on a network server. Server connections must be secure and protected. The configuration process is far more complex and beyond home or casual user.

Remember, we are going to do this without any ISP CDROM disks or a safety net. Just hang on tight and follow instructions carefully and meticulously. You can’t do any great damage and if you do get into a knot, it is fairly easy to back up by simply deleting connection. Frustration is going to be big demon in all matters concerning configuring computer services.

What you need:

You must have a computer! It must be running and you must have one of Microsoft Windows™ operating systems, mentioned previously. You will need a modem, internal or external, (external is best as it is easier to reset if required. An internal modem reset will need a complete computer shutdown), or an ISDN TA, (terminal adapter, needed to connect to your ISDN2e box that BT fitted). The modem/TA will be plugged into computer via a USB or Serial port connection. You should have correct cables and connectors supplied with your modem/TA. Look carefully at instructions and plug everything in. Power up modem/TA and you should see it do a power-on-self-test. Basically, all lights on modem/TA will flash on and off and then settle down to a power-on light and a light that indicates it’s default bandwidth, (probably 56K for a modem).

Now comes tricky bit. You have to install modem/TA software connection to computer. It may be that it has already been installed by your operating system’s Plug and Play technology. That is, when you plugged it in and powered it up, operating system recognised it and displayed a message telling you it had found new hardware and was installing supporting software for you. If it is successful, that will save you hassle of doing it manually. If it doesn’t you will have to go to Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add/Remove Hardware and double click on icon. This will launch Add/Remove Hardware Wizard. Microsoft operating systems are full of Wizards. They are supposed to be helpful? I leave you to judge that one. Once your new hardware has been detected, and providing it is a well known bit of kit and is fairly new, you should have no real hassles other than, possibly, having to supply a disk which contains ‘drivers’ for hardware. The drivers are code which operating system needs to act as a translator between CPU (computer processing unit, computer chip) and modem/TA internal software. Once drivers are loaded/installed you will be told all is well. If you are having problems finding a driver for your modem/TA from list in hardware wizard, locate Universal drivers and load a 56K driver. It should work fine. You can download a specific driver from vendor’s web site when we have you up and running further down this page.