Day 984: LAN Shark

I hate networking. I really hate it.

Specially after going through with extreme patience having to mull about wiring a UTP CAT5 (Straight or Crossover), climbing the roof of our house, dangling knotted wires, untangling them while performing a balancing act, going down, making wires go through unseemly holes in a wall (or window), hammering at concrete, using a staple gun for making the darn wires stick to the cabinet, going inside the toilet (which unfortunately was not flushed by one of my kids), balancing act with staple gun, through window again, staple staple staple, then scratching my head whether its supposed to be Straight or Crossover again, upon deciding finally realize that I forgot what the other end of the configuration is.

Very very exciting.

The sad part is knowing that, after all the trouble, we still cannot connect.

As a consolation, we were able to connect to each other - using Microsoft Windows. Albeit there are some minor issues like dropped packets during ping and the incapacity to transfer large amounts of files to each other.

We are connected in the sense that we can see each other's names in our workgroup and in multiplayer games.

Sooo, that didn't really address our most important need which is to share files.

It is upon realizing this fact that we decide that:

1. We are all connected to a certain extent to each other because:
   a. We can ping each other - although there are dropped packets.
   b. We can see each other in multiplayer games
   c. We cannot share large amounts of files

2. We need to share files



In reaching #2 we discovered LAN SHARK. It is a cross platform program at its very early stages in development that basically makes it easier to transfer files across a local area network.

We downloaded the exe file for Windows, tried it and it worked, to a certain extent. We were able to transfer bits and pieces but when it came to a large file, we were not able to resume. It is forgiveable because it is after all only version 0.0.2. A resume function wouldn't hurt.

The interface looks pretty much like GTK and at first glance is a little bit confusing.

5 minutes with it solved that confusion.

It has clients for Windows, Debian and Ubuntu.