                                Internet Status

	This utility is useful for monitoring the current status of your Internet 
	connection in real time.  It is very small and unobtrusive residing in your 
	system tray. If your Internet connection is bad the tray icon will change 
	its color. At any time you can point your mouse to the tray icon and see 
	your current IP address. When maximized it provides more detailed information 
	about the status of your Internet connection: the three LED indicators are 
	lighting to show if you are connected to Internet by modem, by LAN with the 
	Internet IP address or by LAN with the intranet IP address.


                                More information.

	The program is utilizing the ICMP protocol and advanced  multithreading 
	technique to analyze the status and health of your Internet connection. 
	Every 15 seconds it is sending the ping packets to several major Internet 
	routers in various parts of the world: Europe, North and South America. 
	By analyzing the return packets it is possible to evaluate the relative 
	quality of your Internet connection at any given time. To achieve this 
	the program is employing a special custom algorithm.
	
	The installation of the program is very simple. Just run the Setup file,
	choose the folder you wish to install the program to and the program will 
	be installed automatically. After the installation you can start using
	the program immediately without rebooting.

	This is version 1.0 with minimal set of features. The author is working on 
	version 2.0 which will include a lot of new and useful options, and will be 
	fully user configurable. You are encouraged to test this program and send 
	your comments and ideas which could be be implemented in future versions of 
	the program. This program has been tested under Windows NT operating system. 
	It will work also with Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000. It can also work 
	with Windows 95 (you probably will need Winsock 2 upgrade and Internet Explorer
	4 or higher).

	The program will be launched automatically each time you start your operating 
	system. On the start it will pop-up briefly and minimize itself into a system 
	tray. Since then it will do its job silently in the background. If the tray icon 
	is green it means that your Internet connection is good and you can reach Internet 
	hosts in various parts of the world. If the tray icon turns yellow for extended 
	period of time (more than 1 minute) it is indicating that your Internet connection
	is going down. If it is constantly yellow for at least 10 minutes it means you 
	have extremely bad Internet connection or no connection at all!
	
	However, during the periods of heavy file transfers the tray icon may turn yellow 
	which is not an indicator of bad Internet connectivity in this case. This behaviour 
	will be corrected in version 2.0 which is about to be released later this year.

	In order the program could work properly it is necessary to make sure that your 
	personal firewall or your providers firewall is not blocking both incoming and 
	outgoing ICMP traffic. With some Internet sharing proxy software (like Wingate) 
	the ICMP traffic may be always blocked on a client machine, so you will never 
	get a green light on your tray icon, although your Internet connection may be 
	very good! This is a known issue and will be resolved in the future versions 
	of the proxy software, as well as Internet Status program.

	You can maximize the program window by clicking the tray icon. The first two LED 
	indicators are refreshing with 1 second interval. The top LED is lighting 
	whenever there is an active or passive TCP/IP modem connection. It will go on 
	and off when your modem connects to Internet or disconnects. The middle LED will 
	light only if you are currently connected to Internet with other  type of adapter 
	(certain Local Area Networks, ISDN line, cable or satellite). The bottom LED is 
	the same as the tray icon LED with the only difference that it will be off when 
	either the Internet connection is bad or there is no Internet connection at all.
        It will turn green within 20 seconds after the Internet connection is restored.

	You can close the program manually at any time by right-clicking the tray icon and 
        selecting Exit in the pop-up menu. Due to the nature of its operation there might 
        be a few second delay before the program is actually closed. This is pretty normal.

	The program is consuming very few system and Internet resources. The average 
        network payload will not exceed 20 kb per hour of both incoming and outgoing 
        TCP/IP traffic.

	The current version of the program is freeware, you can use it for free, 
	distribute it without any limitations, but under no circumstances are you 
	permitted to modify the program files.

	The program comes as is, without any warranties. Under no circumstances the 
	author will be liable for damage, loss or any other negative effects caused by 
	the use of this software.

        You can contact the author at the following E-mail address: firsov@bigfoot.com 
        The latest version of this program is always available at 
        http://www.mercedes.kz/sms

2 April 2001,
Alexander Firsov,
Novatorov St..
Moscow, Russia.



