DocsDiag.NET

For those using cable modem as their broadband internet connection maybe you're familiar with this tool : Docsdiag. With this application you can check the signal quality of your internet connection from your home to your ISP. Sure the cable modem has built-in feature to display the information from its web interface but this program has more feature & advantages which is not discussed here.

By the way, if you check the URL above, you'll find out that application itself is written using Java and so the story begin :) ... couple months ago I had this "homework" to run the Docsdiag on PDA using Pocket PC 2003. First time I thought ? okay, this supposed to be easy since I often heard that java has "write once run everywhere" jargon, and that, of course, as long as you have the right VM, especially for Pocket PC.

Find the right VM

I've download and tested several VM from IBM, Jeode, etc, etc. The conclusion is : Jeode is the best from all, the program can run just as I expected with minor alteration. But still, it has several limitations, eg : there's no scrollbars available for the output window, and the most important is I can't (find a way to) save the output to text file !

VS.NET comes to rescue :)

After lots of snacks, finally this idea cross my mind : yeah, why not create your own docsdiag application using Visual Studio.NET, since its support the smart devices. FYI, docsdiag itself is not a complicated application, it's just take values from cable modem via SNMP. So, I create a test application using Windows application, and yes, using WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) we can read the SNMP value from any devices but unfortunately (by the time I wrote the program) the namespace (system.Management) is not available neither in .net compact framework or OpenNETCF.

Praise the IPWorks

Looking for the alternate way means find the right 3rd party controls heuheueu, finally the search is over and I stuck with this control from IPWorks, with this control finally you can get all the fun networking stuff, such as SNMP, ping, pop3, smtp, ftp, etc. And fear nothing, because there's a trial version available for you to test.

The output

Voila ! .... Snacks+NET+DOCSIS Spec =

Conclusion

Well, in my case, the coding part is quite easy but the hardest part would be reading the RFC for the DOCSIS spec .. yay !

So moral of the story is ... always put some snacks in case you get stuck ^_^v