Needing a quick and dirty growl notification to know when a person restarted their computer, so I wrote up this originally one line script.

. '\libs\growl\Send-Growl 3.1.ps1';        #http://poshcode.org/1464
                                        #Might need to modify the file a little.

$str = @("down", "up");
$last_ds = $false;
while(1) {
        $new_ds = Test-Connection TargetHost -Quiet -Count 2;
        if($new_ds -ne $last_ds) {
                Send-Growl -Caption "Watchtower" -Message ("TargetHost is {0}" -f $str[$new_ds]);
        }
        $last_ds = $new_ds;
        sleep 5;
}

 
Just copy and paste in ISE, modify and away you go!
 

Bonus points protip: Run in the background.

start-process powershell @("Hidden", "-File" "\path\to\above\script.ps1") -WindowStyle Hidden

Dahlia laughing it up

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(Sorry for the shaky camera work!)

Dahlia tries tasting her feet!

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For a while now I’ve wanted to make use of PowerShell to do things like what you would use PHP for with Apache, but nothing I found worked, not even cgi-bin stuff. So I figured, why not just build my own? By using stuff like HttpListener, it’s pretty easy to get started and worry more about what the daemon will do with requests then how to handle the conversations.

Git logs and such can be found here and you can get the code by git cloning http://plan.snoj.us/repo/poshttpd.git

First commit comments

=0.0.1=
*Two “engines”.
**One passthru for static files like images and html.
**The second is for PowerShell scripts.

To build, you must first edit the rootDir variables in main.cs as well as the BG.prefix (if you desire), run buildntest.ps1. It will build main.cs and start poshttpd.exe.

After it’s built and running, open your brower (default: http://localhost:81) and run your PowerShell script. There is an example script in /sites/.

From PowerShell Experiments to Modern Trading Technology

The blog of Josh Erickson reflects the spirit of early independent developers who enjoyed building lightweight and creative technical solutions with PowerShell, web servers, and automation scripts. Projects like poshttpd demonstrated how flexible scripting environments could become practical tools for hosting and monitoring online services.

Today, this same mindset of automation and efficiency can also be seen in modern financial platforms such as exness indonesia. Trading companies increasingly rely on fast server infrastructure, monitoring systems, and automated technologies to provide stable access to financial markets for users across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Technology Evolution and Online Infrastructure

In the early 2010s, developers often experimented with custom HTTP servers and notification systems to improve reliability and user experience. Those ideas later evolved into scalable cloud-based systems that support modern online trading environments.

Platforms connected with Exness Indonesia focus heavily on uptime, low latency, and real-time execution. These priorities are surprisingly similar to the goals described in Erickson’s scripting projects, where monitoring host availability and rapid response were essential parts of the workflow.

Automation as a Common Philosophy

Whether it is a PowerShell script sending Growl notifications or a trading platform executing market orders automatically, both examples demonstrate how automation reduces manual work and improves operational speed.

The connection between independent developer culture and modern fintech services shows how small experimental ideas from personal tech blogs eventually influence larger commercial ecosystems, including online brokerage and digital investment platforms.

I recently saw the “We are the 99 Percent” blog on Tumblr. Which if we’re going by “millionaire” status, should be more like “We are the 96.777777 percent”.

Reading the about/introduction page, I have to say that some of that applied to me. Then I attended some Financial Peace University classes. I started planning my finances better, deliberately putting aside money for rainy days, cancelling extra services like my cable television, not eating out so much, etc. These things really started to come to head after getting married. We were able to be quite comfortable month to month even while paying down our debts.

While my wife and I have been very blessed and have not had the hardships many people have put on “We are the 99 Percent”. I would like think that our planning and our hard work have played a significant role in where our lives are today.

So without further delay, my “I am the 1 percent” contribution.

I never finished the two year Associate in Applied Science degree at the local Community College I was working towards.
My wife had several thousand dollars in student loans when we married, I had some credit card debt.
I never owned a brand new car.
I am married to a wonderful woman.
I have a beautiful daughter and another child on the way.
I have a job where I enjoy the work with decent pay.
My wife and I share a car.
My wife and I both have a smart-phones.
My wife and I have one television.
My wife and I have no paid television service (cable/satellite) unless Netflix counts.
I have an Xbox 360 Slim.
My wife and I rent a home.
My wife and I have no credit cards.
My wife and I have a 3 months of living expenses in savings.
My wife and I now have no debt other then our upcoming home mortgage.
We are in our mid-twenties.

I am the 1 percent.

There are of course many other things that could be on this list, but to think of the all would just push this entry back.

My main project at the moment.

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Updates HE public IP records for your tunnel (for instance at the coffee shop), finds the first available interface that is connected and creates a v6v4tunnel using that IP.

See script for where you need to edit.

function fastpingtest {
    $ping = New-Object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping;
    $ping.Send("8.8.8.8", 1000).status -eq "success";
}
$endtime = [datetime]::Now.AddMinutes(1);
$mapipv6 = $false;
while([datetime]::Now -lt $endtime) {
    if(fastpingtest) { $mapipv6 = $true; break; }
}

if($mapipv6) {
    $wc = New-Object net.webclient;
    $url= "https://ipv4.tunnelbroker.net/ipv4_end.php?ip=AUTO&pass={1}&apikey={0}&tid={2}";

    $values = "USERID", "PASSWORDMD5HASH", TUNNELID;
    $wc.DownloadString(($url -f $values));

    #get connected interface
    $interface = netsh interface ipv4 show interface | findstr /c:" connected" | ?{!$_.contains("Loopback");} | %{[regex]::Split($_, "( )+") | ?{$_.trim().length -gt 0} | %{$_.trim()}; }
    $interface_ip = (netsh interface ipv4 show address $interface[0] | findstr /c:"IP Address" | select -First 1).split(":")[1].trim()
    netsh interface teredo set state disabled
    netsh interface ipv6 add v6v4tunnel IP6Tunnel $interface_ip HEIPv4ENDPOINT
    netsh interface ipv6 add address IP6Tunnel YOURIPv6ADDRESS
    netsh interface ipv6 add route ::/0 IP6Tunnel HEIPv6ADDRESS
}

From what I can tell, there aren’t many…if any, IPv6 address range calculators. While I read it is recommended that you use the entire /64 block, I don’t think it’s always necessary to do so. Besides, what happens when you want to route only a portion of the block to one place?

Example usage:

ipv6range.ps1 2001:470:1f10:60::10 64 | ft ipaddress*
ipv6range.ps1 2003:5:1f:fa0::10 104 | ft ipaddress* #ipv4 /8 equivalent
ipv6range.ps1 2003:5:1f:fa0::10 112 | ft ipaddress* #ipv4 /16 equivalent
ipv6range.ps1 2003:5:1f:fa0::10 120 | ft ipaddress* #ipv4 /24 equivalent
ipv6range.ps1 2003:5:1f:fa0::10 124 | ft ipaddress* #ipv4 /28 equivalent

….and the code….

param(
    [net.ipaddress]$Addr,
    [int]$netmask = 64,
    [switch]$ForceListing

)

if($Addr.AddressFamily -ne 'InterNetworkV6') { throw "`$Addr must be a valid IPv6 address."; }

<#
Create a subnet mask based on a CIDR input.
#>
function subnet {
    param(
        [int]$netmask
    )

    if($netmask -gt 128) { throw "`$netmask cannot be greater than 128"; }

    $mask = (@($true) * $netmask) + (@($false) * (128-$netmask));
    return New-Object Collections.BitArray @(,$mask);
}

<#
Convert a BitArray into a byte array for easy conversion into an IPAddress.
#>
function bit2byte {
    param(
        [Collections.BitArray]$bitArray
    )

    for($i = 0; $i -lt $bitArray.length; $i+=8) {
        [convert]::ToByte([string]::Join("", ([string[]][byte[]]($bitArray[$i..($i+7)]))), 2)
    }
}

<#
convert an ip into a BitArray for easy bitwise operations.
#>
function ip2bit {
    param([net.ipaddress]$addr)

    $b = $addr.GetAddressBytes();
    $bits = @();
    foreach($a in $b) {
        $t = [convert]::ToString($a,2).padleft(8,"0") #[7..0];
        $bits += [string]::join("",$t);
    }
    $nbits = ($bits | %{[char[]]$_} | %{[bool]::Parse("$_".replace("1","true").replace("0","false"))});
    return New-Object collections.bitarray @(,$nbits)
}

<#
Increment an ipv6 address.
#>
function inc {
    param([net.ipaddress]$addr)

    $b = $addr.GetAddressBytes();

    for($i = $b.length-1; $i -ge 0; $i--) {
        if($b[$i] -gt 254) { continue; }
        $b[$i]++;
        break;
    }
    New-Object net.ipaddress @(,$b);
}

<#
Decrement an ipv6 address.
#>
function dec {
    param([net.ipaddress]$addr)

    $b = $addr.GetAddressBytes();

    for($i = $b.length-1; $i -ge 0; $i--) {
        if($b[$i] -eq 0) { continue; }
        $b[$i]--;
        break;
    }
    New-Object net.ipaddress @(,$b);
}

$ipArr = new-object collections.bitarray @(,(ip2bit $Addr.GetAddressBytes()))

$netBits = New-Object collections.bitarray @(,(subnet $netmask))
$hostBits = (New-Object collections.bitarray $netBits).Xor((New-Object collections.bitarray 128, $true)) #.xor((New-Object collections.bitarray 128, $true))

$netId = New-Object net.ipaddress @(, (bit2byte (New-Object collections.bitarray $ipArr).And($netBits)));
$netBcast = New-Object net.ipaddress @(, (bit2byte (New-Object collections.bitarray $ipArr).Or($hostBits)));

$numHosts = [math]::Pow(2, ($hostBits | ?{$_} | measure).count)

if($numHosts -gt 256 -and !$ForceListing.ispresent) {
    #well, if we have more than this, just output the (ipv4 equivalent) network id and broadcast address.
    $netId
    $netBcast
} else {
    Add-Member -PassThru -Force -InputObject $netId -MemberType NoteProperty -Name IsUsable -Value $false;
    try {
        $lastAddr = $netId;
        for($i = 0; $i -lt $numHosts-2; $i ++) {
            $lastAddr = inc $lastAddr
            Add-Member -PassThru -Force -InputObject $lastAddr -MemberType NoteProperty -Name IsUsable -Value $true;
        }
    } catch {}
    Add-Member -PassThru -Force -InputObject $netBcast -MemberType NoteProperty -Name IsUsable -Value $false;
    #$res
}

Notes:

  • Not commented well. RTCFA (read the code for answers)! >:(
  • Only increments despite there being a decrement function.
  • If the number of host addresses is less then 256, it will always display the complete listing.

Recently I made some configuration changes to Powershell so I could use the latest .Net version (4.0), but it caused errors with a project. The problem turned out to be that the library was trying to load an older version of mscorelib. This is pretty easily fixed thanks to Microsoft packaging a compiler with .NET.

#download your library source and extract if necessary
cd \path\to\source\code

#If your target is x64, use "Framework64" instead
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe .\project.csproj

 

Now you have a version of your library compiled as a .NET 4.0 DLL. You could of course use Visual Studio to do this, but who would want to deal with it when you’re only a couple commands away?

Nick asked, “This script looks good. Would you mind adding comments to it to describe its logic? Also, it doesn’t appear to like having colons in MAC addresses even though colons is pretty standard. Thanks for sharing your script!” (link).

Well Nick, here you are! I hope it helps!

param (
    [parameter(Position=0,
        Mandatory = $true,
        ParameterSetName="bymac",
        HelpMessage="Wake up a machine by known mac address.")]
    [string]
    $targetMac,
    [parameter(Position=0,
        mandatory = $true,
        ParameterSetName="byip",
        HelpMessage="Wake up a machine by last known IP address.")]
    [Net.IPAddress]
    $targetIP,
    [parameter(Position=1)]
    $network = [net.ipaddress]::Broadcast,
    [parameter(Position=2)]
    $subnet = [net.ipaddress]::Broadcast
)

try {
    #Convert -network and -subnet to Net.IPAddress objects if necessary.
    if($network.gettype().equals([string])) {
        $network = [net.ipaddress]::Parse($network);
    }
    if($subnet.gettype().equals([string])) {
        $subnet = [net.ipaddress]::Parse($subnet);
    }

    #find the broadcast address for the -network
    #eg. the broadcast address for the ip 192.168.1.101/255.255.255.0 is 192.168.1.255.
    $broadcast = new-object net.ipaddress (([system.net.ipaddress]::parse("255.255.255.255").address -bxor $subnet.address -bor $network.address))

    #attempt to figure out if the first value is an ip or mac address.
    #if we do this: wol.ps1 192.168.1.255
    #instead of this: wol.ps1 -targetIP 192.168.1.255
    try {
        $targetIP = [net.ipaddress]::Parse($targetMac.toupper()).tostring() # | Out-Null;
    } catch {
        #$_;
        try {
            [Net.NetworkInformation.PhysicalAddress]::Parse($targetMac.toupper().replace(".","").replace(":","").replace("-","")) | Out-Null;
        } catch {
            #$_;
        }
    }

    #Find our target mac address.
    #$targetIP isn't set in the above try..catch if it's a mac address.
    if($targetIP) {
        try {
            $nmac = (arp -a $targetIP | ? {$_ -imatch $targetIP}).split(" ") | ? {$_.trim().length -gt 0;} | %{ $_.trim(); };
            $targetMac = $nmac[1];
        }catch{
            throw "IP address is unknown.";
        }
    }

    $mac = [Net.NetworkInformation.PhysicalAddress]::Parse($targetMac.toupper().replace(".","").replace(":","").replace("-",""))

    <#"targetmac: " + $targetMac;
    "targetip: " + $targetip;
    "mac: " + $mac;#>

    #Setup 3 different endpoints for the common WOL ports.
    $u = New-Object net.sockets.udpclient
    $ep = New-Object net.ipendpoint $broadcast, 0
    $ep2 = New-Object net.ipendpoint $broadcast, 7
    $ep3 = New-Object net.ipendpoint $broadcast, 9

    #setup the payload.
    #6 bytes of 255 followed by the target mac 16 times.
    $payload = [byte[]]@(255,255,255,255,255,255);
    $payload += ($mac.GetAddressBytes()*16)

    #send it out a few times.
    for($i = 0; $i -lt 10; $i++) {
        $u.Send($payload, $payload.Length, $ep) | Out-Null
        $u.Send($payload, $payload.Length, $ep2) | Out-Null
        $u.Send($payload, $payload.Length, $ep3) | Out-Null
        "$(date) - WOL payload $($i+1)/10 sent to $targetMac on $broadcast/$subnet" | Write-Debug;
        sleep -Milliseconds 10;
    }
} catch {
    $_ | Write-Error;
}
#Win32_NetworkAdapter
#Win32_OperatingSystem
#Win32_NetworkClient
#Win32_SystemNetworkConnections

After many an hour pouring over the code and running tests galore, I think I’ve resolved some of the major issues from version 0.1. Like how it would just randomly crash when the forward lookup hosts decided they had had enough. Now it’ll recover from it and chug along.

There is now some simple compression. So now instead of having 6 “google.com” entires, we now have 1 with references to that first occurrence. Down the road, I plan on adding better compression so that parts of domains can be compressed. For instance “someSubdomain.josherickson.org” becomes “someSubdomain.{reference to first josherickson.org}”.

Commit comments:

fixed: non-coded types returned empty from outside sources.
fixed: crash when socket was interupted.
added: m attribute to tags. <a m="somehost" ip="1.1.1.1" />
added: beginning dns compression...I think. at least it appears to work.
notes: improved xml lookups. now can easily add xpath based lookups.
notes+: might need to improve this further to allow other filter types.
notes: rm attributes will likely wait until xpath fn:matches function is available.

Issues:

I’ve noticed while using HE’s IPv6 Tunnel Broker service, that I can’t surf IPv6 sites while using snojns. Not sure why this is, but I wonder if there needs to be an IPv6 socket listener as well.

Download:

If you’re smart enough to run this, you’ll know which you’ll want to get.

snojns 0.2.0: Release, Debug, Source.