FOX Ping Toolbar Help

Fox Ping Toolbar is a browser helper object which is loaded in Internet Explorer. If you go to the "View" menu in Internet Explorer and select "Toolbars" you will see "Fox Ping Toolbar" near the bottom of the menu options. You can click this menu item to open or close Fox Ping Toolbar. Also right clicking on the IE toolbar will bring up this menu.  

Show and Hide Fox Ping Toolbar

Just right mouse click on a vacant part of Internet Explorers Toolbar and a pop up menu will display the browser helpers. Left mouse click Fox Ping Toolbar to show and hide it.

You can drag the toolbar to any position you like by holding down the left mouse button on the Fox Ping Toolbar label and dragging to another position. Make sure the "Lock the Toolbars" popup menu is not checked.

Menu button options
Clicking on the menu button will pop up the following menu options.

Ping
Clicking Ping will open a dialog that will attempt to ping the server you have loaded in your web page. If you have no web page loaded, just type in a URL or select from the drop down list, then click the ping button in this dialog. These results are stored in a log file if you have "Log ping times" checked in the options dialog. You can click "Show in Notepad" to show the results in notepad where you can save or print them.

Trace route
Clicking Trace route will open a dialog that will attempt a trace route to the server you have loaded in your web page. If you have no web page loaded, just type in a URL or select from the drop down list, then click the Trace button in this dialog. These results are stored in a log file if you have "Log trace route requests" checked in the options dialog. You can click notepad to show the results in notepad where you can save or print them.

Whois
Clicking Whois will open a dialog that will attempt a whois lookup of the domain name you have loaded in your current web page. If you have no web page loaded, just type in a domain name eg. "Microsoft.com" then click the Whois button in this dialog. If there are no results for this domain name it may be unregistered. You should also try changing the whois server at the bottom of the dialog to see if the domain name is registered under a different whois server. You can click notepad to show the results in notepad where you can save or print them.

Copy Current info to clipboard
This will copy the currently displayed server information to the windows clipboard. You can then paste it into the application of your choice.

Copy IP Address to clipboard
This will copy the currently displayed IP address to the windows clipboard. You can then paste it into the application of your choice.

View Log File
This will open your log file in windows notepad where you can view, save or print the log information. This log file stores details such as server header replies and client requests if you have "Keep advanced log with HTTP replies etc." selected in the options dialog.

View Ping Log File
This will open the ping log file in windows notepad where you can view, save or print the log information. This log file stores the pings and trace routes you perform.

Options dialog
Clicking on the Options dialog button will open a tabbed dialog with 4 different sections.

Log File Options
This will let you choose what will be saved to log files.

The first log file store more detailed information about the web sites you visit and their HTTP servers.

• "Log URL's requested" will just log the basic requests and time of request. 
• "Keep advanced log with HTTP replies etc." will store a lot more information in your log file. It will log the send and receive HTTP requests between your browser and the web server. You can see what cookies and other options are being used by the server in these logs.
• "Log HTTP POST's" will allow you to see what HTTP POST requests are being sent from your browser and the servers replies. This can cause some information to be sent twice from your browser to a server so you should uncheck this option before paying a bill online etc. 
• Below this is the current size of the log file in kilobytes. You can view or delete the log file by clicking the buttons to the right of this.

The next section allows you to save ping, trace results as well as page load times in a separate log file.

• "Log ping times" will save the results from a ping to a server.
• "Log page load times" will store the time a web page took to load in your web browser.
• "Log trace route requests" will save the results from a trace route to a server.
• Below this is the current size of the log file in kilobytes. You can view or delete the log file by clicking the buttons to the right of this.

"Log file directory" is the directory where you log files are saved. Click the "Browse" button to select a new directory location.

"Archive log files larger than" allows you to specify the maximum size of a log file in kilobytes. When a log file reached this size it is archived to a dated zip file and a new empty log file is created.

Ping/Trace Options

• Port Settings
  In this section you can alter the time to live, packet size and number of ping requests sent to a server. Time to live is the maximum number of server hops allowed before the request times out. Packet size if the number of bytes sent to the server. Number of ping allows you to specify how many pings are sent to the server.
• Trace Settings
  Max hops is the maximum number of hops allowed to reach the requested server before the trace request is canceled.
• Font settings
  This allows you to specify font style and size displayed in the ping and trace dialogs.

Display Options
Display in toolbar allows you to select the information you want displayed in the Fox Ping Toolbar. You can select various server information such as IP address, server type etc. If you have 800x600 screen you may not be able to fit all the information in the toolbar.

Font and Color Settings allows you to customize the appearance of the Fox Ping Toolbar.

Pop up error messages will display a popup error window if the browser gets a critical error message from the server. Like 500 server error, plus any details of that error.

Help
This will load this help web page.

Register
If you click the "Register" button you will be taken to a page to pay a $12.95 fee and you will receive a registration number. You can then click "Enter Registration Code" to enter this number along with your name and company.

Shortcuts and Uninstalling

In the Start menu Fox Ping Toolbar shortcuts will be installed. These link to online Help, registration and uninstalling. Before you uninstall, close all copies of Internet Explorer and windows explorer as they could lock up some of the installed files. Email steve@stevefoxover.com if you have further questions.