Category: code

Opening programs from browsers on windows

Posted on August 30, 2024August 30, 2024 by Gus

These days a website that opens an app is pretty common although this feature does not have any kind of user interface or accounting

A uri is the start of a url, for example, https.

mailto:// has been around for as long as the internet for email and call:// since the dawn of smartphones. These uri’s send the address as a parameter (text after the path and file for the app, seperated with spaces) to open the application and it saves you a few clicks

Many applications will show you these parameters by opening it from the terminal with application.exe /? Or application.exe –help

In 2009 while in a helpdesk role, I was told doing this was impossible. So I made a script and some registry entries that opens applications and sends the contents of the link, like the ip address and user name, to be formatted and sent as a parameter to putty, vnc and others.

I made a php/JavaScript intranet site using multiple mysql databases to scan networks and populate the database with ports used and the appropriate links for every client in the region. It was similar to modern managed service providers software for internal use

At the time, Mac and Linux were handling things like ssh and vnc but windows applications had little documentation about how to use it. Most software had to be opened and an address and protocol entered, nothing came with those crucial registry entries.

Now it is a component of most software packages but in the days of Windows XP it was up to the user and now, a majority of them can be handled with winscp and most vnc clients

The real magic happens when you start making your own. Automating tasks that require a command line parameter or address can be a click away with as many parameters as you need

An application or script can be used to proxy to other programs using the same method as these uri’s can be entered anywhere, the address bar, run prompt, bookmark, shortcut or command line. They can even be separated or delimited with a , or _ for even more functionality

I wrote a python script to view and edit them for windows which shows the contents of the registry and allows you to add your own if you have administrator access to the system and backup and restore registry files aswell

https://github.com/drogueship/uri

Self hosted web sites for older browsers with the Raspberry Pi

Posted on March 23, 2023March 23, 2023 by Gus

The modern internet is too much for the old ipad. Secure sites and the latest javascript features render most of the internet unusable

The solution for this was to use self hosted sites to make the early 2000’s versions of safari and chrome usefull again, but it could also be usefull on other devices

Keep in mind you will need a fair bit of storage for kiwix, 53gb for Project Gutenberg ebooks or 78gb for wikipedia with no video’s. There are quite a few sites available that are a lot smaller

Due to limited space on the device, it is nice to have access to music streaming

The following command will add a repository on the pi, enabling you to use apt to grab whatever php modules you need

wget -q https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg -O- | apt-key add – echo “deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ buster main” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list

On the pi zero and pi1 A and B this won’t work, you will need to compile php from source as I couldn’t find a package for ARMv6 architecture

I used mariadb-server-10.0 for older ampache versions to support obsolete features but I did have to edit a few SQL files and replace instances of TYPE= with ENGINE= to get them going

And remember…

Do not host these on the internet. This is for internal use only due to vulnerabilities in old software versions

Winamp 5.∞ and R4 visualization on Windows 10 – Part 2

Posted on February 12, 2020April 5, 2020 by Gus

I recently posted about script notifications on Winamp’s R4 plugin but didn’t give many details on how it was done so I thought I would post a little more information about how to get it going.

Once you have enabled network access to R4 (and changed permissions on windows 10), you have control over R4 via the network in a browser

Now you can send text to R4 using GET variables over HTTP. The contents of the “txt” variable will be displayed on screen or if you select the countdown option, it will count down to 0 from whatever number you enter. The display can only handle 250 characters so when using the countdown option, there is a limit to the size of the number and it will ignore numbers too big

I made a simple HTML page for testing, using code from R4’s web interface for trying things out

This may not interest many people but I thought I would follow though for the people that do. As a notification system, it’s really not that fantastic. Those who run visualizations rarely stare at the screen for long enough to see the messages although a loop that repeats a message untill it has been acknowledged is possible. Also without HTTP Authentication it is not an ideal solution for people with other users on the network or public access. As a pleasant looking way of outputting text on the screen, it does its job. Although I think this is cool, even with the fact that I rarely use it, it still works well enough to document in case someone is interested.

Raspberry Pi in the car

Posted on November 19, 2019November 19, 2019 by Gus

This project was a big one. Displaying text only GPS information on the screen in the car. The Pi has no way to use the touchscreen input so you control it with Tasker on a smart watch, using services from your phone. It shows you your speed, GPS Coordinates and the street you are on by default but can show more with a push of a button.

I recommend NOT trying this but the startonbt.sh code was fun so have a look if bluetooth and bash are your thing.

more info and code here

Raspberry Pi Answering Machine

Posted on November 19, 2019April 23, 2022 by Gus

Only get scam calls or telemarkers that don’t respect the “do not call” list on your home phone?

Got a Raspberry Pi and a recent/shitty USB Modem?

This script will answer the phone, play a greeting and record a short message and let you listen to it at your leisure in a web browser.

By default it will store the message as an mp3 and play it if you have speakers attached.

There is logging and some conditions to see what you can do, if you want to add touch tone menus and run scripts.

This script was made for the fish but the motor movements have been removed in the link.

more details and the files can be found here soon

gglist

Posted on November 18, 2019September 8, 2021 by Gus

the code

A python script for windows to log selected running programs to CSV for use in excel.
I will generate some reports with it one day but for now it works well enough for me just logging the data.

ggconnect

Posted on November 18, 2019September 8, 2021 by Gus

get the code

A script to open programs from various URI in links, bookmarks, shortcuts and even into the run prompt or address bar. It will open SSH and Telnet links with Putty, SFTP with Filezilla, RDP with the built in Windows Terminal Server Client, VNC with RealVNC Viewer and will even ping hosts with a link!

This was written out of frustration as it should be a feature of windows and or each application. The links that this code handles work on Mac and Linux without needing this, except for ping

It will log successful and blocked attempts to a CSV file

There is no installer so put it into c:\ggconnect\
Run the Reg File to associate the URI’s to the script which formats the links and send them to the appropriate programs (which need to be installed if you don’t already use them) and away you go.

get the code

ggtype

Posted on November 17, 2019September 8, 2021 by Gus

Click here for me

Click here for a robot

Click here for code/download

I wrote a game for Hemi when I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Just something simple that made a lot of noise and was educational. You press a key, it is shown on screen and is read aloud by a robot voice.

At first he mashed the keyboard in excitement but with a bit of encouragement, he is pressing one at a time and checking the screen too.

It’s not perfect and never will be, my favorite kind of ongoing project. A digital zen garden.

It only works on a physical keyboard, no tablets, no phones.
No ads and a free software licence. I don’t think anyone should have to pay for something that helps kids learn. No function keys for the people with fancy keyboards and at this time it is for English keyboards only.