Monitors Your Internet Traffic

Depending on who your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is, you could be limited to the amount of data that is uploaded and downloaded every month. I’m lucky enough to be on an unlimited and uncapped service, but that same ISP also offers free broadband where the bandwidth is capped at 2GB each month which is mainly for light users. The trouble is it wouldn’t take much effort to go over a low usage limit these days and possibly incur extra charges.

With that in mind, if you have some sort of usage limit on your broadband connection or would just like to keep track of what is using the bandwidth, a tool that could be of great use is something to monitor what programs on your PC are using the internet and how much data they’re consuming. As you might expect, there are a few bandwidth monitor programs around and one or two have beencovered here before. A few days ago I came across another piece of software to monitor your internet traffic called Cucusoft Net Guard. While Net Guard is primarily a program that watches how much internet data is going in and out of your computer and notifies you if specified limits are being reached, it can also be used as a basic security monitoring tool allowing any process or service accessing the internet to be monitored, and if necessary, terminated.

Although Net Guard is freeware, it does require you to register for a serial number with your email address. But that’s not a problem if you don’t want to give away your personal email, simply use adisposable mail service. I did and the serial was received with 20 seconds. Just a small note; the serial number I was sent had a comma on the end which as it turns out, was part of the serial number.

When you first run the program after install, the settings window will appear and ask you to enter a monthly bandwidth limit if you want to set one accompanied by a visual alarm which can be set to trigger at a certain threshold. Then when the settings have been confirmed a small meter will be displayed on the desktop showing the current upload/download speed. This meter can be dragged anywhere, made translucent or disabled by using it’s right click context menu.

Hover on the meter and you will be presented with a popup window that shows the daily usage statistics including programs that have downloaded or uploaded the most, their current activity and the total bandwidth consumed in the day so far.

Double clicking on the activity bar or choosing “show main window” from the icon will open the main interface. Although it might not be as advanced and full of options as some other monitoring software, it is presented in an easy to use and functional way.

The Net Usage tab gives the current information about the bandwidth limits including current usage and even projected usage. The lower half of the window is a weekly/monthly/yearly chart which shows the usage for any given period. Hover over a bar to get the process and total traffic stats for that date.

The Net Monitor tab is where you can get a more detailed look at which processes and services are accessing, or have accessed the internet. It’s from here you can find out if certain programs are, or have been using the internet connection when they shouldn’t, or which processes are sucking up too much precious bandwidth. Any running process or service can be terminated by right clicking on it and clicking the only option available, Kill. Trying to kill anything like svchost.exe will throw up a warning that killing the process could have unforeseen consequences. Take note…

The Connections window displays the current processes and established connections along with ports information and the local and remote IP address. This window is for display only, there is no user interaction in here.

The Speed test tab is pretty obvious and will simply run a quick broadband speed test. It takes around 20-30 seconds but I wouldn’t put much trust in the results as the speed it gave me was around 1/3 of what it should have. Speed tests need to be run from a location as close to you as possible, but a quick trace showed this test was being performed from Houston, Texas in the U.S. so is never going to be very accurate for the rest of the world.

The last tab is Statements and produces very detailed PDF document reports for the date periods either listed in dated order or through a custom date range. The report is pretty good with totals, averages, most active downloads and uploads, and complete process usage. You obviously need a PDF reader to view the document.

A small thing to note is perhaps memory usage is a little on the high side sometimes, fluctuating between 20MB and 40MB but unless you’re a bit low on RAM, it’s not really a major issue.

Cucusoft Net Guard works on Windows XP, Vista, 2003, Windows 7 and 8.

Download Net Guard

NetWorx 

NetSpeedMonitor

glasswire

Send 100% FREE Instant SMS Worldwide

e-FreeSMS.com is able to send free SMS worldwide. The best part is it doesn’t require registration where you can immediately start sending SMS by filling up the form. First you will need to select the country where the country code will be automatically filled in to avoid mistakes. Then enter the phone number that you want to send the SMS to, your message containing a maximum of 140 characters, type in the CAPTCHA code and press the SEND NOW button.

Normally the maximum characters for a text message in SMS is 160 and the reason why you’re limited to 140 in e-FreeSMS.com is because they might embed advertisements at the end of your message. There are two SMS servers to choose from at e-FreeSMS.com but we only received the test SMS we sent from Server 1. It is possible that the Server 2 is temporarily offline due to maintenance and will probably get back online at a later time.

The sender’s number cannot be changed or set. If you send a free SMS using Server 1, the recipient will see that the text message come from +1-407-968-7512 which is a number from Florida, US. So make sure you identify yourself in the message if you intend to let the recipient know that it is sent by you. There is a 3 minute wait time before you can send another message to prevent users from abusing this valuable and useful free SMS service.

From what we’ve noticed, you will get the message saying “Your message has been sent and will be delivered shortly!” as long as you filled up the form correctly. You should not fully trust the message because Server 2 reported the same thing but we have not receive the test message we sent a few hours ago.

Visit e-FreeSMS.com

Software to Turn your Computer into Video Surveillance System

There’s a number of software applications that can turn your computer and webcam into a surveillance system, each has its own pros and cons with different features. There are some that are difficult to configure which are meant for more advanced users while there are also user friendly ones that are lightweight. Below you can find our recommended list of 12 free webcam monitoring software based on your needs.

 1. Camera Viewer Pro

Camera Viewer Pro is one of the best in terms of usability and system resource usage. It comes with the right balance of features which makes the program easy to use and configure. Moreover, normally a video surveillance software will constantly hog the CPU but Camera Viewer Pro is very intelligent and uses merely 0%-1% of the CPU during monitoring.

The only thing that you may want to change in the settings after adding a camera is the Frame Rate which by default is 1. A higher FPS gives a smoother recording but you’ll need to decrease the sensitivity level by lowering the threshold level. The only drawback on Camera Viewer Pro is that the official website is no longer accessible which means that the development has stopped. It was last updated in April 2013 and fortunately works perfectly in Windows 8.

Download Camera Viewer Pro 

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2. ContaCam

ContaCam is another free video surveillance software that is just as good as Camera Viewer Pro. It has all the necessary features to turn your computer into a CCTV system but the scheduler is a bit limited where you get to specify only one range of time frame per day for motion detection recording.

Do take note that by default ContaCam saves the recording as a SWF animation for motion detection. It is very rare for a video surveillance software to use SWF format for recording because of the 16,000 frame limit. That would mean you only get to record nearly 9 minutes of video if you set it to use 30 frames per second. You can of course change it to AVI at the Movement Detection tab in “Device Settings”.

Download ContaCam 

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3. Genius Vision NVR Community Edition (CmE)

Genius Vision NVR is an enterprise-grade IP camera recording shareware originated from Taiwan. They offer a free version called the Community Edition with full functionality but it has a limit of 16-channels with 4-channel intelligent video which is mostly enough for non-commercial use.

Out of all the video surveillance software listed on this page, Genius Vision NVR CmE is the most difficult to use and configure because of the different terms that are being used on the program. For example, the motion detector is called the “Video Analytics”. The online user manual documentation is not much of a help either. The graphical user interface (GUI) looks a bit dated like it has been made for Windows 98/2000. We experienced a few crashes when testing out this software.

Download Genius Vision NVR Community Edition (CmE) 

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4. iSpy

iSpy is an open source camera security software that comes with a huge list of features including audio monitoring which is rarely found in video surveillance software. Because of its rich set of features, there are many scenarios and uses of iSpy such as monitoring a sleeping baby, machinery, nanny, pets, staff and etc.

iSpy is a good example that not all open source software is fully functional. Although iSpy comes with a huge list of features, there are some very basic functions such as remote access streaming and email alerts that are only available for paid subscribers. Furthermore, there is an annoyance in playback where by default it plays in iSpy which requires you to sign up for a free iSpy account when all it does in the end is play using your default media player.

Download iSpy 

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5. Netcam Studio

From the creators of the popular WebcamXP and Webcam 7, Moonware Studios have developed a new product that is similar to their previous webcam software except using a new architecture and graphical user interface for better performance. You can expect a huge list of supported and pre-configured network cameras to make configuration easier. If you are looking for a video surveillance software that is packed with features, Netcam Studio is the answer. Apart from the common features found in a video surveillance software, Netcam Studio has audio detection, license plate recognition, sync recordings to Cloud and NAS.

Do note that Netcam Studio is still in beta and we’ve encountered problems during installation itself, but managed to get it installed by custom installing one module at a time. Both .NET Framework 4 and Visual Studio 2012 C++ redistributable are required by Netcam Studio. The free version embeds a non-intrusive watermark of the Netcam Studio logo at the bottom of the recorded video which blends in nicely with the time overlay.

Download Netcam Studio 

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6. Rear View Mirror

Instead of a full featured camera surveillance software, Rear View Mirror is a pretty simple one with its own unique feature where the window of the monitored camera only shows up when motion is detected. It can also be configured to enable sound alert playing your favorite .wav file and record a video on motion alert.

Despite not having a lot of security camera features, Rear View Mirror uses up quite a lot of CPU power ranging from 17%-20% when tested with only 1 webcam.

Download Rear View Mirror 

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7. SecureCam2

The SecureCam2 installer size is the smallest at only 343KB but it has all the necessary basic features for a security camera software. You can find the ability to manually record or automatically record based on schedule, detect motion, embed a text overlay to frames and a web server for online streaming. It also includes a player to play the MJPG recordings.

The only limitation in SecureCam2 is it only supports up to 4 cameras. A donation to the software author will increase the limit to support 100 simultaneous cameras.

Download SecureCam2 

Go to page 2 to continue viewing the remaining video surveillance software and also the features comparison table.

8. Sentry Vision

Sentry Vision is free webcam surveillance software that only works on webcams and not on IP cameras. It can record both video from a webcam and audio from a microphone if it is available on the computer. Motion detection, broadcast, schedule, email and sound alert are included.

Two unique features that can be found in Sentry Vision are the ability to remote control the software by sending commands to a listening Gmail account and also the ability to hide the program so that normal users won’t know that the webcam is being monitored. There is a password protect function but didn’t work for us.

Download Sentry Vision 

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9. Sighthound Video

Previously known as Vitamin D Video, Sighthound Video aims to be a more intelligent video software by being able to recognize humans or objects on camera rather than simply detecting motion through frame comparison. After adding a camera, the actions can be easily configured from the flexible rules editor. It comes with a remote access option to turn on or off the camera and view recordings.

Sighthound Video is very user friendly but it runs multiple processes that take up a huge amount of memory. The free version of Sighthound Video is limited to only 1 camera with low resolution recordings.

Download Sighthound Video 

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10. Yawcam

Believe it or not, Yawcam has been around for a decade! Although Yawcam’s development isn’t very active, the author of this video security software has at least made an effort to keep the project going by releasing updates from time to time, mainly to fix bugs. Yawcam supports both webcam and IP camera, has motion detection with actions such as save file, ftp upload, send email, run executable file, or play sound, video streaming from built-in webserver and overlay.

Yawcam requires Java to run and it is the only video surveillance software that outputs the recordings as images and not video. It does however come with a built-in tool to merge multiple images to a movie file.

Download Yawcam 

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11. Cyberlink YouCam

A free version of Cyberlink YouCam software can be found bundled into HP laptops and some OEM webcam. Starting from version 2, it comes with motion detection recording which turns your webcam into a basic security camera.

As you can see from the screenshot above, you are only able to set the recording end time and define the area that you want to detect for motion. Oddly the auto e-mail feature is disabled in version 5 prompting you to upgrade to a paid version 6 while it is fully enabled in version 4. So if you need to be notified via email when a motion is detected by Cyberlink YouCam, use version 4 instead.

Download Cyberlink YouCam

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12. Logitech Webcam Software

Since Logitech is a commonly used webcam, we thought we should mention that the Logitech Webcam Software comes with a very basic Motion Detection module that is able to automatically record both video and audio when motion is being detected. Some branded computers such as Dell can use Logitech webcams which makes it possible for the software to be installed and used. To determine if your OEM camera is Logitech made, look for 046D in imaging devices hardware ID from Device Manager.

You are able to set the motion sensitivity and maximum recording duration, time stamping recorded videos, simultaneously recording audio with motion detection video and scheduling motion capture.

Download Logitech Webcam Software 

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Below you can find four comparison tables which we’ve created to easily compare the features and usability of the 12 video surveillance software listed above.

The main features table above shows that all software supports webcam and motion detection. Audio/sound detection is only supported by iSpy and Netcam Studio which can be used as a baby monitor to alert you if it detects a baby crying.

The additional features table above shows if video recordings can be played back directly from the software itself or you have to manually locate the video files and play them with a compatible player. You can also find if the video surveillance software can do live streaming automatically or through manual refresh. Rear View Mirror, Sentry Vision, Sighthound Video and YouCam don’t have text overlay support to embed additional information such as the time and date of recordings to the video.

It is important to configure the motion detection actions correctly. You may want to be notified via email or SMS when a motion is detected so that you can instantly login to view the live stream, automatically upload the snapshots/recordings to a remote FTP server in case the burglar takes away your computer/laptop, run some custom actions such as playing a really loud warning sound and turning on the lights as a deterrent.

This last table shows the user friendliness of each video surveillance software because some of them can be really difficult to set it up correctly. Do note that the CPU and memory usage shown in the table are taken when motion detection is enabled on 1 webcam.

The best webcam surveillance software?

Our current favorite choices would be either Camera Viewer Pro or ContaCam mainly because both are very light on system resource usage, easy to use and have nearly all the important features. Camera Viewer Pro has a very flexible scheduling functionality where you can create multiple schedules per day while ContaCam only allows one. ContaCam has an additional feature for advanced users that will allow you to execute a custom command with parameters which is not available in Camera Viewer Pro.

In short, ContaCam is more suitable if you need to execute custom commands. Otherwise Camera Viewer Pro is an excellent choice for multiple schedules. If you prefer something that is really easy to use, Sighthound Video’s step-by-step camera setup wizard gets your webcam up and monitoring in just a few mouse clicks. Netcam Studio has a lot of potential because it comes with tons of features except the developers still need to work hard on the stability to get it out of beta development stage.

Additional Tip: Even though most of the mentioned software above doesn’t support SMS notification on motion detection, it is still possible to receive SMS alert by using World-Text’s Email to SMS Gateway . You’ll need to sign up for a free account, top up credit and register your mobile number so that World-Text will forward any email message to the given number via SMS.

and additional Blueiris.

Read More:https://www.raymond.cc/blog/set-up-logitech-webcam-as-motion-detector-and-send-alert-via-sms-text-message/view-all/

Create a Free Home Wireless Hotspot With Login Page

What is an internet hotspot? Most people with even a small amount of technical knowledge will be able to answer that question in this day and age. An internet hotspot is simply a broadband/fibre connection that offers wireless internet access, and they are literally everywhere these days. Many shops/shopping centers, food and drink outlets, hotels and various other businesses/industries offer free or paid internet access via a hotspot. Even ISPs sometimes offer nationwide hotspots as an inclusive or optional part of your internet package.

Creating a hotspot on your computer is actually quite easy but with an ordinary hotspot your protection consists only of the WEP or WPA WiFi key, you have to tell everyone the key to give them access. If you want to refuse someone access, the wireless key needs to be changed and a new one resent to those other users who still are allowed to connect. Have you ever wondered how to create a login page on your hotspot like businesses and commercial services do? This way everyone will be able to connect to the hotspot but when they try to browse the web, they’ll be presented with a page that requires a username and password login before the wireless internet can be used.

There are various methods to create wireless hotspots that incorporate a login page (also known as a captive portal) but many of them are complicated to set up. Some require you to use Linux, others need extra access points connected via a second LAN adapter. You can also use specialized routers for this task or use a router that has a customized firmware but not everyone can use this method. There used to be a Windows application called 2Hotspot which made it very easy to create a login page for your hotspot, sadly that project died many years ago.

In this article we’re going to show you how you can easily create a wireless hotspot with a login page, but the great thing is you need nothing special apart from a WiFi enabled PC or laptop and and a wired/wireless connection to the internet! It does require 2 pieces of free software installed on your computer but needs no special networking knowledge to setup. The guide below is for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 only, it’s not really a good idea to use a hotspot like this on Windows XP because it will be more vulnerable to exploits after support ends in April 2014.

Installing A Hotspot Onto Your Computer

This first step is needed to turn your computer into a wireless hotspot that the other computers on the network will connect to. It basically takes the place of a hardware access point meaning you don’t need to use any extra hardware. Other hotspot creation software may work but we found this program the easiest to setup and use.

1. Download WiFi Creator  and then install it.

2. Launch WiFi Creator and making sure Automatic configuration is selected, either leave the settings at default for now or give the hotspot a new name and a new 8 character or more password. Then select the network adapter that connects to the internet from the dropdown, this can be either a wireless or wired adapter.

3. Click “Set up and Start Hotspot”. A new virtual network adapter will be created using the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter and and the adapter that connects to the internet will now be set up to share the internet with the new connection.

If you didn’t want to actually setup a login page, you could stop here and give users the network key entered into WiFi Creator, although that obviously defeats the object of the article. Do note that WiFi Creator uses WPA2-PSK WiFi encryption which some older wireless adapters might not work with.

Installing Software To Create A Login Page

Setting up an additional login page requires the software to sit in between the adapter that acts as the access point and the adapter that accesses the internet to intercept web traffic and redirect to the login page before allowing access. There are very few free Windows applications that can do this without the need of external access points or extra hardware, here are the quick setup guides for three applications that can do the job, each has its own plus and minus points.

ARPMiner

What makes ARPMiner useful is the fact it’s very easy to configure while offering enough to get a simple login page up and running. There are more advanced options such as RADIUS accounting but they are only available in the paid versions which start at $220.

1. Download ARPMiner  and then install it. After installation, launch ARPMiner making sure the WiFi Creator hotspot is already running. You need to make sure TekpSpot.exe is allowed in your firewall from the ARPMiner Program Files folder which is the proxy/DNS service used. Or for testing, temporarily disable your firewall.

2. Go to the Users tab and create a new hotspot user. In the boxes at the bottom enter a name, password and session duration in seconds. Although the user will get logged out after the time is reached, they can simply log back in, so the timer will not block expired users. Press Add/Update to add the user to the system.

3. Click on the Settings tab then click NAT underneath. This sets up the Internet Connection Sharing which was done by WiFi Creator earlier, but if ARPMiner tries to set things up differently, it won’t work. Make sure the adapter which connects directly to the internet is set as the Public Network and the Virtual WiFi Miniport adapter created by the hotspot program is the Private Network. Click Save and then click the Start button icon to start the ARPMiner service.

4. Now go to a computer you want to connect up to the network and look for the hotspot you created earlier, then connect to it, the default SSID is “MyHotspot” and the default pass is “12345678”. You can also of course connect to the hotspot from other internet enabled devices like smartphones and tablets.

5. Now open a webpage in a web browser and you should be redirected to the ARPMiner login page instead, where any credentials can be entered that were created in the Users tab in step #2.

6. After pressing Login you’ll be redirected to the Session Information page which will tell how long the session lasts and when it was created. The web can now be browsed until the time runs out when you will be asked to login again.

The state of user sessions can be viewed from the Sessions tab in ARPMiner where you can see the MAC/IP address, which username is in use and when the current session expires. To disable the login box simply use the Stop button in the Settings tab. Custom login pages can be created if you know html and a file called login.html needs placing in the ARPMiner Program Files folder, read the docs for more details.

Microsolut

Microsolut has a huge array of functions and incorporates a full hotspot billing system if you want to go down that route. One major drawback is the free version only allows 2 concurrent users online which may be an issue if you plan on making your hotspot system support several users browsing at the same time.

1. Download Microsolut  and install using the default options, it will take a while. Make sure your WiFi Creator hotspot is up and running.

2. Launch the program and when the login popup appears, simply press Login. The username and password for the server can be re-configured later.

3. Click Setup -> Web server on the left menu and in the IP Address drop down in the Web server tab select the “192.168.137.1” address and click Save.

4. Go go Connections -> Monitor and in the Adapter name drop down, select the adapter that was created by the WiFi Creator hotspot software. In our case it’s “Wireless Network Connection 4”, you can check the name in the Network and Sharing Center. Click Save.

5. To quickly test your hotspot, click Start Hotspot and if a Firewall popup appears, click to allow it. Go to General -> Accounts, a TEST user is already configured which users of your network can freely access for up to 5 minutes to quickly try out. The options for the TEST user are outdated though and need changing. Click TEST and then Modify, then enter a positive number in the “Expire in” box. Untick Print Ticket and press Save.

6. Using a device which is to connect to the hotspot, find the WiFi connection like in ARPMiner step #4. Open a webpage in the web browser and you should be greeted by the login page which is setup to accept the TEST user, tick the box to accept the terms and click Go. A Welcome window will show the limits of the account and then you’re ready to browse for around 5 minutes before the account expires. Unlike ARPMiner, this 5 minute usage is MAC address controlled and you can’t get another 5 minutes until the MAC is cleared from the Test Access settings window.

Although we’re simply showing you here how to configure Microsolut to work as a simple hotspot, there are tons of extra options such as creating a completely custom login page, speed/bandwidth/time limiting, setting up computers and websites to either give users free access or no access at all, URL filter to block keywords such as adult/illegal content, and a comprehensive payment system. If 2 concurrent users are not enough, paid options start at €39 to increase that to 15 users.

MyHotSpot

MyHotSpot is by the same developer as WiFi Creator we are using to create the virtual access point, and is perhaps the most complicated to setup because it’s geared squarely at being used as a full payment system. But with time and patience, it’s also a very powerful and effective program, and best of all, it’s freeware!

1. Download MyHotSpot  and install it, a reboot is required. Make sure your WiFi hotspot is running after the restart.

2. Launch the program and at the Network Configuration window, make sure Automatic is selected and choose the adapter that connects to the internet at the top drop down menu and the hotspot below. Click Next.

3. Enter a city and country at the next window and when asked to enter a username and password, simply click Login.

4. Here, we’re going to enable a simple test login to verify the connection works. Click on the Edit menu -> Hotspot Configuration -> Access, then click the blue Advanced setting button. Tick “Enable guest-login”, adding a password is optional, click Close.

5. Like the previous hotspot software you need to now go to a device which can connect to the hotspot, such as another computer or tablet, connect to it (remember the default is “MyHotspot” and “12345678”), and then try to open a webpage. You should be greeted with the MyHotspot default login page…

6. Simply type in username “guest” and a password if you entered one and click to login. If you have set things up correctly, a success window will appear.

There are more advanced settings to tweak the access rights as well as options to edit and design the login page, setup free access URLs which appear on the right of the login window, MAC address whitelisting to bypass login and SMS authentication. There’s also a simple Firewall which can block file sharing by default and the Web Filter is preconfigured to block well over 100 social networks, the user will receive a “BLOCKED” page in their browser if it’s enabled.

Unfortunately, MyHotSpot is setup to work with tariffs and payments which is fine if that’s what you want, more problematic if you just want to use access logins for time or bandwidth usage. What you will need to do is go to Edit -> “Tariffs and Security” and set all tariff rate options to zero money and then create a user from there. Once set correctly, it does work quite well. The icons down the left of the main window will show the log and information about who’s connected and duration/traffic used.

Read More:https://www.raymond.cc/blog/create-a-wireless-internet-hotspot-at-home-in-10-minutes-for-free/