Online Command Center
OnlineCC (Online Command Center) is a program to
control a SLIP/CSLIP or PPP connection to the main online providers in Germany
and to calculate your phone and online costs.
I wrote this little program because of the extremly complex cost structure
of the "Deutsche Telekom" and to have an overview about my phone and online
costs.
Therfore it is only interesting for people living in Germany, but I think
it is no problem for a Perl-Guru to adapt it to other internet providers.
The program is distributed as freeware under the terms of the GNU General Public Licenses.
Please let me know if you find OnlineCC useful.
I also appreciate comments and suggestions for improvement to the program.
Screenshot of OnlineCC
What are the features of OnlineCC ?
Some features are :
- Motif Graphical User Interface.
- Start and stop your DIP connection to T-Online or CompuServe (scripts are included).
- Start and stop your Datex-J (BTX) connection to T-Online.
- Start and stop your PPP connection to an Internet Provider.
- Calculation of the costs of an online connection to your online provider.
- Document your online connections into a logfile.
- Calculate the resulting costs over the logfile.
Future features :
- Multi language support (English, German).
- Expand the program to use it with AOL and MSN (if possible).
Restrictions :
- I assume that your online provider is reachable at the rate "Citytarif",
therefore OnlineCC works incorrect when you use long distance calls.
- The phone and online costs are dependent of german holidays. I programmed
only the holidays for 1996 and 1997.
- The CompuServe mode is in a beta state, so don't expect too much.
- AOL is currently not supported, because they have no SLIP, CSLIP or PPP access.
- MSN is currently not supported because I cannot get informations about this Online Service.
What is the actual version of OnlineCC and where can i get it ?
The actual version of OnlineCC is 0.8 from 09.04.1997.
As I received almost no bug reports, the program is considered to
be a beta version. It is useable, most things work, but there
may be some bugs left and some features are not perfectly
implemented. Because of the really complex cost structure of
the "Deutsche Telecom" I am not sure if I calculate always correct.
Especially I am not shure what happens when day type, time rate and/or
online rate changes during the connection.
If you find some bugs, errors or missing features,
please drop me a mail. I'm working on it, so I may help you.
The latest version is available at
http://privat.swol.de/ReinholdSchoeb/Online/OnlineCC-0.8.tar.gz
or under
http://sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/System/Network/serial/
Documentation is always available at
http://privat.swol.de/ReinholdSchoeb/Online/OnlineCC-doc-en.html
Revision History
Version 0.8
- New button for HTML help.
Version 0.7
- Support for Internet Provider added.
Version 0.6
- Support for CompuServe added.
- Therefore it makes no sense to call the program T-OnlineCC, I changed it
to OnlineCC.
- In T-Online mode you can now also start a Datex-J connection via XCept.
Version 0.5
- Calculate the resulting costs over the logfile.
Sorry, I had to change the
logfile format, so you can't use your old logfile from version 0.4 !
- Dial-up delay time added.
- Some bugfixes.
Version 0.4
What is needed to run OnlineCC ?
OnlineCC is based on Perl, so you need a machine where Perl
is running. For most Unix like machines, Perl is available.
You also need Finesse, an excellent graphical enhancement for shell and
Perl scripts. OnlineCC is tested under:
- Linux 2.0.0
- Perl 4.0
- Finesse 4.1
- Motif 2.0
Where can I get Finesse ?
Finesse is a product of
science + computing gmbh
Hagelocher Weg 71
D-72070 Tübingen
Germany
Phone +49 (0)7071 9457 0
Fax +49 (0)7071 9457 27
http://www.science-computing.de/
It is available in english and german at nearly all Unix platforms.
For Linux it is free.
You can get it under http://www.science-computing.uni-tuebingen.de/pub/finesse/
How to install and use OnlineCC ?
- You should have set up your kernel and network environment for CSLIP (T-Online)
or PPP (CompuServe). Dip should be reachable by your path. Look here
for more informations.
- For a Datex-J (BTX) connection to T-Online you need XCept. It is a commercial
product and you can get it under http://www4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/CEPT/.
XCept should also be reachable by your path.
- Log in as root
- Copy the tar.gz-file to /usr/local/
- Expand the tar.gz-file
- Go to the new OnlineCC directory
- Copy app-defaults to /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/OnlineCC
- For use with T-Online edit T-Online.dip and insert your T-Online-Kennung and T-Online-Password,
if necassary change the modem intitialisation.
- For use with CompuServe edit CIS.dip and insert your Member-No. and Password,
if necassary change the modem initialisation.
- For use with a normal Internet Provider edit OnlineCC and change the pppd command.
- Start OnlineCC with /usr/local/OnlineCC/OnlineCC <param> &
Which command line parameters are available
- -to : T-Online mode (default)
- -cis : CompuServe mode
- -ip : Internet Provider mode
- -h : Help
Enjoy - Reinhold Schöb schoeba@str.daimler-benz.com
visitors at this page since 02/20/97 (Counter by SPRYNET).
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Screenshot of OnlineCC