TweakDUN Clone  TweakDUN Clone

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This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project.

This project outline is not like the artificial tidy problems you are spoon-fed in school, when all the facts you need are included, nothing extraneous is mentioned, the answer is fully specified, along with hints to nudge you toward a single expected canonical solution. This project is much more like the real world of messy problems where it is up to you to fully the define the end point, or a series of ever more difficult versions of this project, and research the information yourself to solve them.

Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; or give you any additional materials. I have too many other projects of my own.

Though I am a programmer, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavor.

Please do not email me about this project without reading the disclaimer above.

TweakDUN is a utility that looks at your windows\hosts. file in Windows or your winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. file in NT and refreshes the IPs in it by looking them up via DNS. Your clone ensures that the entries for the IPs in your quick DNS look-up hosts. file are accurate. A hosts. file might look something like this:

IP domain comment
127.0.0.1 localhost #SKIP
# search engines
205.180.85.126 www.altvista.com
206.132.244.95 www.dogpile.com
198.3.98.99 www.excite.com
209.185.151.128 www.hotbot.com
209.224.233.192 www.networksolutions.com
198.41.0.8 www.lycos.com
# bix
199.93.4.67 x25.bix.com # alternate
199.93.4.127 bix.com # usual
To be compatible with TWEAKDUN, you should skip any entries marked with #SKIP like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost #SKIP
Unlike the real TweakDUN, your clone should not behave like a bull in a china shop and remove any comments or comment lines — text to the right of a #. This utility may be written in Java but only has application on Windows9x/NT. There may be equivalent files on other operating systems. You might tidy the file so that all the domain names line up nicely. One simple way to do that is to put lead zeros on each field of the IP address to pad them out to 3, though most people would probably prefer you not do that.
CMP homejump to top You can get the freshest copy of this page from: or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
http://mindprod.com/project/tweakdun.html J:\mindprod\project\tweakdun.html
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