From: "Christian Langanke" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
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References:  <list-422144@2rosenthals.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 13:42:41 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Re: [OS2Wireless]OT(?):  ThinkVantage? Access Connections
To: "OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>
Reply-To: cla@clanganke.de
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> This may be somewhat OT, but I just happened upon this on the
> IBM/Lenovo site:
>     "ThinkVantage? Access Connections"
>>http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/think/thinkvantagetech/accessconnections.html
<snipped>
> Anyone seen or tried this?  To those of you who understand such
> technical details:  Any chance of taking advantage of some of this to
> port something similar for OS/2?  It would surely respond to a number
> of the questions that have appeared here.
>
> Carl

Hey Carl,

thank you  for the hint! Reviewing this solution could give more ideas on
what could make sense to implement with XWLAN, and on better usability of
course.

But, please don't mind, your idea of a port seems somewhat funny to me. I
mean, there is no way at all to even get old OS/2 source code of IBM (like
the old genprism drivers, which could greatly use some maintenance), so
why should we expect to get source code for to port a windows solution?

Let's just deal with what we have and what we could add to that (and
rememebr, only a few persons can do that). XWLAN has already connection
profile support, and can execute scripts if a given WLAN connection has
been established.

What I see that is currently not available is:

        (a) a central SW component taking care not only for wireless
conenctions, but for cabled as well, so a "Network Monitor" or
whatever it woul be called - XWLAN and Internet Assistant can be
seen as a subset of such a larger concept. If this was to include
to switch automatically to a faster connection to the same
network, this would require (b) first.

        (b) automatic detection of a cabled connection or unplug of a
network cable - this makes sense only if all (or at least most of
the) NDIS drivers are Genmac drivers only. The NDIS spec V2.x of
OS/2 native drivers is way too old for this, the connect status
can only be determined with Genmac supported devices (NDIS spec
V5.x).It would make sense to research how many of the NICs being
used are already Genmac driven. This number should increase again
with the upcoming Genmac release for XWLAN 3.00 !

        (c) setup more TCP/IP config items and perhaps app settings (such
as proxy settings in Mozilla & Co) - can be done, but would
require extra GUIs (like Internet Assistant offers to configure
DNS and routing when setting up dial-in / DSL access)

        (d) a nice GUI allowing to deine what to do on connect and/or
disconnect - a script is good for power users only. Requires much
more time though...


I would certainly like to have every single thing of that list (of course
instantly and for free ;-) ), but getting this all  requires a huge effort
(especially (a)) and will cost a lot of time. And as far as I see it, the
persons being able to create such a large solution, are already busy
keeping up with the current ans smaller solutions that we already have and
would like to have. I expect that for now only some additional features
can be implemented (depending on the feature, of course).

So I would like to invite everybody to ask for things that you really need
and I likely can implement quickly. Be assured that I would love to see
more featurs in XWLAN that improve usability. The automated switching
between connections by fastest speed unfortunately is still out of scope
because of (b), at least for the near future.


bye, Christian

-------------------------------------------------

Christian Langanke
COS2E & CWSE
Team OS/2 Ruhr e.V.
cla@clanganke.de