Blawgg

Due to security concerns in our vicinity last year, I needed a way to keep tabs on our home while the whole family was away on vacation. The idea was to be able to view images of your home, live over the internet from whereever we were. CCTV solutions weren’t an option as they were expensive and none seemed to have a remote viewing option. I believe now there are advanced Logitech webcams in the market that also pivot and stream images to the net, but again they come at a price, and don’t take care of a few things like problems with your internet connection or laptop power when you’re not available to take care of them.

However, there are freeware/shareware solutions on the internet that allow you to capture your webcam and stream it online, even at a particular schedule.The software that I used was a super little app called Active Webcam from Pysoft.

Further, I needed a software that would take care of laptop restarts/windows crashes/net connection blips (and also auto logging into the net account if the login expires every 24 hrs) and that would automatically start Active Webcam every time the system started up – I decided to code that in VB.

Apart from the software I also needed my personal laptop, regular webcam and a DSL internet connection. I had gprs activated on my phone as well, in order to view the images uploaded.

First, i installed Active Webcam and set it up so it would stream images from the webcam to my website at a specific URL.  (Yes, you need a website host that offers FTP where the images will be uploaded to – possibly there are options to upload to photo services like flickr/photobucket too, or to send emails to you with attached images)

Second, compile the code below into an exe and include that exe in the Windows Startup so it runs at system startup.

When this program runs, it will
- check for internet connection availability, and if not available will to restart the local modem
- if the internet connection doesn’t come up after 3 modem restarts, it will restart Windows. It won’t restart windows more than once in 15 mins though.
- log the laptop’s battery status
- log everything to a remote php file so the logs can be viewed remotely too

Download the entire VB project.

This VB project has :
1. a form called frmMain
2. a module called Module1.bas

The code for both is shown below – a lot of the sections came from various sources on the net, so no claims there and a big thanks to them. Also, it all seemed to work at the time.

Also there are certain urls – while most are simply used to check the internet connection, the ’192.168.1.1′ is my modem’s local admin page that you may need to change accordingly. (In order to restart the modem, I used the code here to login to the local admin at 192.168.1.1 and post my username/password etc to the appropriate file (restartmodem.htm))

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frmMain.frm – code

Private Declare Function InternetGetConnectedState Lib “wininet.dll” (ByRef dwFlags As Long, ByVal dwReserved As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function InternetCheckConnection Lib “wininet.dll” Alias “InternetCheckConnectionA” (ByVal lpszUrl As String, ByVal dwFlags As Long, ByVal dwReserved As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib “user32″ Alias “SendMessageA” (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, lParam As Any) As Long
Private Declare Function OpenProcess Lib “kernel32″ (ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, ByVal bInheritHandle As Long, ByVal dwProcessId As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function WaitForSingleObject Lib “kernel32″ (ByVal hHandle As Long, ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function CloseHandle Lib “kernel32″ (ByVal hObject As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function GetExitCodeProcess Lib “kernel32″ _
(ByVal hProcess As Long, lpExitCode As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function TerminateProcess Lib “kernel32″ _
(ByVal hProcess As Long, ByVal uExitCode As Long) As Long

Private Const FLAG_ICC_FORCE_CONNECTION = &H1

Private Declare Function NetUserGetInfo Lib “netapi32″ (lpServer As Any, lpUserName As Any, ByVal Level As Long, lpBuffer As Any) As Long
Private Declare Function GetUserName Lib “advapi32.dll” Alias “GetUserNameA” (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetComputerName Lib “kernel32″ Alias “GetComputerNameA” (ByVal lpBuffer As String, nSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib “kernel32″ Alias “RtlMoveMemory” (Destination As Any, Source As Any, ByVal Length As Long)

Private Const UNLEN As Long = 256         ‘ Maximum username length
Private Const CNLEN As Long = 31          ‘ Maximum computer name length
Private Const NERR_Success As Long = 0&

Dim actcamShellID As Long

Dim nwErrorCounter As Integer
Const nwErrorThreshold = 1

Dim WinHttpReq As WinHttp.WinHttpRequest
Const HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_SERVER = 0
Const HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_PROXY = 1

Public Enum shutdownTypes

Logoff = 0
Shutdown = 1
Reboot = 2
Force = 4
PowerOff = 8

End Enum

Private Type LUID

UsedPart As Long
IgnoredForNowHigh32BitPart As Long

End Type

Private Type TOKEN_PRIVILEGES

PrivilegeCount As Long
TheLuid As LUID
Attributes As Long

End Type

‘
‘The function used to actually send the request to shutdown windows. Set the ‘shutdownTypes’
‘parameter to whether you want windows to “shutdown, reboot, logOff, ect…”
Private Declare Function ExitWindowsEx Lib “user32″ (ByVal shutdownType As Long, ByVal dwReserved As _
Long) As Long
‘
‘Will get a handle to the process this function is called.
Private Declare Function GetCurrentProcess Lib “kernel32″ () As Long
‘
‘
‘The functions below are all used to give the application that the library is bound to the proper privilege so
‘the OS will allow the app to Shutdown Windows.
‘
‘
Private Declare Function OpenProcessToken Lib “advapi32″ (ByVal ProcessHandle As Long, ByVal _
DesiredAccess As Long, ByRef TokenHandle As Long) As Long
‘
Private Declare Function LookupPrivilegeValue Lib “advapi32″ Alias “LookupPrivilegeValueA” (ByVal _
lpSystemName As String, ByVal lpName As String, ByRef lpLuid As LUID) As Long
‘
Private Declare Function AdjustTokenPrivileges Lib “advapi32″ (ByVal TokenHandle As Long, ByVal _
DisableAllPrivileges As Boolean, ByRef NewState As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES, ByVal BufferLength As _
Long, ByRef PreviousState As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES, ByRef ReturnLength As Long) As Long

Private Sub cmdStart_Click()
‘ moved below  2 to formm load now
‘Log “Starting timer…”
‘Timer1.Enabled = True

‘In my case I started Active Webcam using the windows startup options – if you want this healthchecker to start the app, uncomment this line and also the one cmdStop_Click()
‘actcamShellID = Shell(“C:\Program Files\Active WebCam\WebCam.exe”, vbMinimizedNoFocus)
End Sub

Private Sub cmdStop_Click()
Timer1.Enabled = False
Log “Stopped timer.”

‘Debug.Print EndShelledProcess(actcamShellID)
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
Set WinHttpReq = New WinHttpRequest
Log “Application started…”, 1

Log “Starting timer…”
Timer1.Enabled = True

nwErrorCounter = 0
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Terminate()
Log “Application terminated.”, 1
End Sub

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
DoEvents
Dim nwTrulyBad As Integer

If (nwErrorCounter > nwErrorThreshold) Then
‘ too many times nw error – just restart network
Log “Timer off…”
Timer1.Enabled = False
Log “restarting network”

nwTrulyBad = 0
While (nwTrulyBad < 3)
Log “… restart attempt ” & (nwTrulyBad + 1)
restartModem
If (InternetCheckConnection(“http://web182.ixwebhosting.com”, FLAG_ICC_FORCE_CONNECTION, 0&) <> 0) Then
Log “… restart attempt succeeded ”
nwTrulyBad = 0
‘Exit Do
Else
nwTrulyBad = nwTrulyBad + 1
Log “… restart attempt failed.”
End If
Wend

If (nwTrulyBad >= 3) Then
Log “… Modem restart failed. Need to restart system”
‘ Network did nost cmoe up even after restarting modem 3 times. Should restart system now.
‘ however do not restart if last system reboot time was less than 15 mins ago
If ((Now – LastLogon2()) > 0.0104) Then
shutdownWindowsOS shutdownTypes.Reboot Or Force
Log “PC RESTARTING”
Else
Log “TOO SOON TO RESTART”
End If
End If

nwErrorCounter = 0
End If

Timer1.Enabled = True

If InternetCheckConnection(“http://web182.ixwebhosting.com”, FLAG_ICC_FORCE_CONNECTION, 0&) = 0 Then
nwErrorCounter = nwErrorCounter + 1
Timer1.Interval = 15000
Log “No internet connection detected…nw counter: ” & nwErrorCounter
Else
nwErrorCounter = 0
Timer1.Interval = 10000
Log “Internet connection detected…”
End If

Log “Battery status: ” & GetBatteryStatus()
If (InStr(1, GetBatteryStatus(), “Low”)) Then
Log “BatteryRed” & GetBatteryStatus(), 1
End If
End Sub

Private Sub restartModem()

DoEvents

‘ Assemble an HTTP request.s
WinHttpReq.Open “POST”, “http://192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/webcm”, False

‘ Set the user name and password.
WinHttpReq.SetCredentials “admin”, “admin”, HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_SERVER

‘Set Content-Type header
WinHttpReq.SetRequestHeader “Content-Type”, “application/x-www-form-urlencoded”

On Error GoTo nextpt
‘Send the form data To URL As POST binary request
WinHttpReq.Send “getpage=”"http://192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/html/tools/restartmodem.htm”"&var:com=”"restart”"&var:ip=”"”"&var:restart=”"1″”&logic:command/ppp_disconnect=”"”"”

‘ Display the status code and response headers.
Debug.Print WinHttpReq.Status & ” ” & WinHttpReq.StatusText
Debug.Print WinHttpReq.GetAllResponseHeaders & “  ” & WinHttpReq.ResponseText

nextpt:
End Sub

Public Sub Log(txt As String, Optional priority As Integer)
‘txtLog.Text = txtLog.Text & vbNewLine & txt

‘Open “c:\hclog.txt” For Append As #2
‘Print #2, Now
‘Print #2, txt
‘Print #2, String(91, “*”)
‘Close #2

If (priority = 1) Then
WinHttpReq.Open “GET”, “http://www.YOURSITE.com/log.php?txtlog=” & Now & “, ” & txt, True
WinHttpReq.Send
On Error Resume Next
End If
End Sub
Public Function EndShelledProcess(ShellReturnValue As Long) _
As Boolean

‘PURPOSE: End a process started with VB’s Shell Statement
‘INPUT: Task ID returned by Shell
‘RETURNS: True if succesful, false otherwise

On Error Resume Next

Dim hInst As Long
Dim hProcess As Long
Dim lExitCode As Long
Dim lRet As Long

hInst = ShellReturnValue
If hInst = 0 Then Exit Function

‘Get handle to process
hProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, 0&, hInst)
If hProcess <> 0 Then
‘get exit code
GetExitCodeProcess hProcess, lExitCode
If lExitCode <> 0 Then
‘bye-bye
lRet = TerminateProcess(hProcess, lExitCode)
EndShelledProcess = lRet > 0
End If
End If

End Function

Private Sub AdjustToken()
Const TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES = &H20
Const TOKEN_QUERY = &H8
Const SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED = &H2
Dim hdlProcessHandle As Long
Dim hdlTokenHandle As Long
Dim tmpLuid As LUID
Dim tkp As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES
Dim tkpNewButIgnored As TOKEN_PRIVILEGES
Dim lBufferNeeded As Long

hdlProcessHandle = GetCurrentProcess()
OpenProcessToken hdlProcessHandle, (TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES Or _
TOKEN_QUERY), hdlTokenHandle

‘ Get the LUID for shutdown privilege.
LookupPrivilegeValue “”, “SeShutdownPrivilege”, tmpLuid

tkp.PrivilegeCount = 1    ‘ One privilege to set
tkp.TheLuid = tmpLuid
tkp.Attributes = SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED

‘ Enable the shutdown privilege in the access token of this process.
AdjustTokenPrivileges hdlTokenHandle, False, _
tkp, Len(tkpNewButIgnored), tkpNewButIgnored, lBufferNeeded

End Sub

Public Function LastLogon2() As Date
Dim nRet As Long
Dim Server As String
Dim User As String
Dim ui3(1 To 29) As Long
Dim lpBuffer As Long
Const evServer = “LOGONSERVER”
‘ Retrieve current user and logon server names.
User = CurrentUserName()
Server = Environ$(evServer)
If Len(Server) = 0 Then Server = CurrentMachineName()
If InStr(Server, “\\”) <> 1 Then Server = “\\” & Server
‘ Retrieve Level3 information on current user.
nRet = NetUserGetInfo(ByVal StrPtr(Server), ByVal StrPtr(User), 3, lpBuffer)
If nRet = NERR_Success Then
‘ Results are returned as a pointer to buffer.
‘ Copy 29 dwords/pointers into array of Longs.
CopyMemory ui3(1), ByVal lpBuffer, UBound(ui3) * 4&
‘ Return last logon date/time, which is 14th element.
LastLogon2 = NetTimeToVbTime(ui3(14))
End If
End Function

Private Function CurrentUserName() As String
Dim Buffer As String
Dim nLen As Long
Const NameLength = UNLEN + 1
‘ ANSI method.
nLen = NameLength
Buffer = Space$(nLen)
Call GetUserName(Buffer, nLen)
‘ Trim results and return.
If nLen > 1 Then CurrentUserName = Left$(Buffer, nLen – 1)
End Function

Private Function NetTimeToVbTime(NetDate As Long) As Double
Const BaseDate# = 25569   ‘DateSerial(1970, 1, 1)
Const SecsPerDay# = 86400
NetTimeToVbTime = BaseDate + (CDbl(NetDate) / SecsPerDay)
End Function

Private Function CurrentMachineName() As String
Dim Buffer As String
Dim nLen As Long
Const NameLength = CNLEN + 1
‘ Fall back to the ANSI method.
nLen = NameLength
Buffer = Space$(nLen)
Call GetComputerName(Buffer, nLen)
‘ Trim results and return.
If nLen > 0 Then CurrentMachineName = Left$(Buffer, nLen)
End Function

Function shutdownWindowsOS(ByVal shutdownType As shutdownTypes) As Integer
‘
‘This function will call the ExitWindowsEx function to request the system to shutdown/reboot or
‘whatever is specified in the “shutdownType” parameter. It of course, will call the “AdjustToken”
‘sub to give your app the privilege to use that function first.
‘
AdjustToken
‘
‘Calls the function to begin executing.
shutdownWindowsOS = ExitWindowsEx(shutdownType, 0)

End Function

————————————————————————————————————

Module1.bas

ByRef lpSystemPowerStatus As SYSTEM_POWER_STATUS) As Long

Public Function GetBatteryStatus() As String ‘ Get the status of the laptop’s battery
Dim btFlag As Byte
Dim SPS As SYSTEM_POWER_STATUS
Dim lReturn As Long
Dim sRet As String
Dim lFlag As Long

lReturn = GetSystemPowerStatus(SPS)
btFlag = SPS.BatteryFlag

lFlag = CLng(btFlag)

Select Case lFlag
Case BATTERY_FLAG_CHARGING
sRet = “Now Charging…”
Case BATTERY_FLAG_CRITICAL
sRet = “Critically Low !!”
Case BATTERY_FLAG_HIGH
sRet = “High Charged!”
Case BATTERY_FLAG_LOW
sRet = “Low Charged!”
Case BATTERY_FLAG_NO_BATTERY
sRet = “(No Battery)”
Case BATTERY_FLAG_UNKNOWN
sRet = “Unknown”
End Select

If (SPS.ACLineStatus = 1) Then
sRet = “[On AC] ” & sRet
Else
sRet = “[On Battery] ” & sRet

End If

GetBatteryStatus = sRet
End Function

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Recently, my personal laptop succumbed to an infection by a new trojan called “Security Tool”. Masquerading as a PC security tool, this trojan will create executable files with random names, and display a sleek dialog box that appears to scan your PC and then warns you to clean up infections by buying the full version of this tool.

The UI this trojan shows is pretty good and convincing:

Security Tool trojan screenshot from pc1news.com

When your system boots up, this UI begins to scan your computer. The trojan also seemed to disable AVG antivirus from running and updating, and removed your desktop icons (only hiding them – not deleting them afaik). It will also prevent the Task manager from showing up and cause issues with browsing using IE or even Firefox, making it very difficult to do anything in order to remove it.

More info on the trojan is here and here (though I haven’t used the spyware removal tool on this second link and have no idea about it)

How I removed it:

Since the trojan will hijack your pc upon reboot, you need to take action before it can. If you are able to boot Windows in safe mode (with networking), then do that and try updating your antiviruses etc. I had issues with doing a safe mode bootup.

So when my laptop booted up, immediately as the desktop begins to show up, press Ctrl-Alt-Del to have the Task Manager show up. In task manager ‘processes’ tab, look for processes that have names like ’16501874.exe’ or ‘wpv42345234534.exe’ or ‘restorer_32a.exe’ (not sure about the last one, but it didn’t seem like a normal file). Click each of these processes immediately (select process, press Alt-E and click OK). New processes with names like these may continue to spring up – keep killing them.

After doing this until your Windows has completely started, if you have killed all such processes, you should now be OK for a while and be able to use your browser/antivirus etc.

I had AVG 8.5 free installed which I updated using its UI. I also downloaded free MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware, and Trojan Killer (great little app) 30 day trial.

I performed a full scan using MalwareBytes first, then Trojan Killer. When I first installed and ran these two scanners, I had to reboot a couple of times, and each time I had to immediately bring up Task Mgr as described above and kill any trojan processes. After the scans were complete, subsequent reboots were clean and did not show the trojan again. The Security Tool trojan’s UI does not show up either, so I guess it is gone for good for now.

Currently I have all 3 (Malware, Trojan killer and AVG) to start along with Windows startup. Needless to say, all these softwares to update their virus definitions automatically and frequently.

(Click on image for more)

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, the movie

This is definitely the next level of human-computer interaction.

Augmented Reality refers to a set of new technologies that allow us to interact with our computers/mobile phones etc in a totally new way that includes touch sensitivity, 3d movement and possibly also sound based interaction. Examples include Microsoft Surface, the PerceptivePixel touch screen (used in CNN’s american elections coverage) and even the iPhone’s touchscreen.Beyond those, there’s also ‘self aware’ alphabet blocks called ‘siftables’, the Nintendo Wii and some other basic gaming interfaces.

But there’s another level even further out on the ‘coolness’ radar – basically being able to interact with the computer generated scenario (a game for e.g.), using just your webcam.

GE Energy released a new advert for their windmills that demonstrates this ultimate tech – check out this video of how it works first. And if you’d like to try it, this is the original GE link.

The software basically first recognizes the pattern on the printout, develops an internal 3d mode, then overlays the windmill animations, and then as you move around your printout, follows you in realtime. And that’s not all – if you blow into your microphone, the windmill goes faster!!

I think this is basically Flash + Webcam + motion detection sw + pattern matching sw + 3d modelling sw. Also sound patten recognition to some extent.

Just plain awesomeness.

A friend hosts a website that he hadn’t paid attention to  many days. Recently he noticed the homepage was throwing up a code error. After some checking he found an unknown php code inserted randomly, that contained a link to http://internetcountercheck.com.

The malicious code didn’t actually execute anything – in fact it tried to spout a hyperlink, but only resulted in a runtime error resulting in the whole site being down. If it happens on an active site, it’d be detected in a minute and fixed.

Several years back I had once observed what looked like a star moving quickly in a straight line across the zenith, on a clear night in Dehradun. That was an artificial satellite, which are frequently visible (with the naked eye too in clear environs) during dusk or dawn.

Satellite spotting is a regular hobby with many skygazers. And there are websites (surprise!) that generate satellite paths on sky charts for tracking. The first google link turned out to be at hobbyspace.com – a great list of such websites. And particularly useful is a German site called Heavens-above (this link takes you directly to the satellite predictions for New Delhi – may not work in Firefox 3.0).

Using their excellent charts, I was easily able to spot Cosmos 1674 and Cosmos 2263 (that passed just below Saturn today), using an ordinary 10x binocular. The satellites appear as a small dot racing past your field of view.

If you plan to spot any of these, I suggest being prepared at least 5 minutes before – make sure you locate the estimated position and the neighbouring (well, not literally) stars/planets, and scan the area around the path at the given time.

What would be ultracool? A webcam setup with a small scope that tracks these satellites automatically and uploads the video feed on the internet.

Setting up any existing broadband provider’s modems with another vendor’s wireless router is a nerve wracking task, but the advantages of a wifi far outweigh the troubles. After having setup an MTNL trband with my Netgear WGT624 v3 and run it for almost an year, I now bought a Reliance wimax 600kbps plan, to escape the wireline irregularities of an MTNL landline.

Setting up the netgear router again was a challenge, but in the end turned out to be simpler than with the MTNL modem.

Both MTNL and Reliance require you to login – MTNL with your CA # and phone #, and Reliance with a Subscriber ID and password. Now, I don’t know what the technical term for it is – but both logins are actually different – the MTNL log in is a network level login (that doesn’t use cookies) while the Reliance thing is on the application level and probably does use cookies since you keep the browser window open. So with MTNL, when configuring a separate wifi router, you need to reconfig your MTNL modem as a bridge connection instead of PPPOe (go to admin console 192.168.1.1->Home->Wan i think).

With Reliance however, you don’t make any changes to the Wimax modem (is it even a modem.. hmm). So with the netgear console it’s much simpler. All i had to do was

1) Reset the netgear router first using the rear hidden button

2) Skip the setup wizard – go to Basic Settings (you could run the wiz too and let it detect the DHCP internet connection)

3)  Mark ‘Does your internet connection require a login’ as NO

4) Account name/Domain name doesn’t matter

5) Internet IP Address – mark ‘Get Dynamically from ISP’

6) Domain Name Server address -  mark ‘Use these DNS servers’ and put in the Reliance wimax DNS servers (you can find them in your copy of the CAF)

7 – Router MAC address – mark ‘Use default address’

8 – The Wireless settings link is up to you

9 – Click LAN IP Setup  on the left menu bar. Change the IP Address to 192.168.1.2 instead of 192.168.1.1.

10 – Tick ‘Use  Router as DHCP’ and put the Starting IP Address as 192.168.1.33 (it’s basically to avoid conflicts with other IPs.. why 33? i don’t know.. picked it up from somewhere and it seems high enough to be safe)

That’s pretty much it. Remember to save your settings by revisiting the links to check if they still persist. Also remember that Reliance Wimax needs to be turned on about 5-10 mins before you can actually use it. To do a clean start, save settings on the netgear, switch everything off, turn Reliance on, and after 5 mins turn Netgear on. After another few mins, go to your browser and login to the Reliance site etc etc as you would normally do.

Hope this works for you!

Way back.. way way back when there was only dialup and the sound of a Dlink modem making screeching electric axe sounds was sheer music to the ears, there were some individuals who ran little host servers from their own homes on their expenses.

The servers hosted Bulletin Board Systems (or Services?) or BBSes, which could be accessed through Window’s Hyperterminal application, on a ASCII interface. BBSes allowed users to access a central file system to share files and chat with other users, all streaming down at a whopping throughput of 3.4 kbps.

And today I stumbled upon this dude’s site – called Mayank, he used to run a BBS called Tasveer that was one of the best around. I don’t remember what made Tasveer unique but it had a lot of users.

Ahh.. It wasn’t much, but it was 1997. 

Pipes, in tribute to Unix | pipes, is a RSS remixer. Basically an answer to “how do I manage so many RSS feeds individually?”, it allows you to pipe several feeds into one feed, while filtering out duplicate content.

Good explanation, and a list of pipes you can use. Example: this pipe takes the Nytimes and finds relevant photos from Flickr.