Graphical or automatic "keep-alive" program?

[Knapp]

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Edgars Šmits <ed.smits at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm running 2 laptops via a weak WiFi connection and have Intrepid on
> both laptops. The WiFi is weak as we don't want to drill holes in the
> walls to bring it closer to our office space, and the connection
> quality as indicated by Gnome's NetworkManager applet is between 55%
> and 70% at best. As a result (at least to my way of thinking) of the
> weak connection we keep loosing our network connections, up pops the
> security window asking for our network passwords etc, a big pain the
> ass - when the laptops are in the same room as the WiFi router and the
> connection quality is 90% + this doesn't happen.
>
> As a test for the last few days I have run a series of continuos
> pings, and the network connection seems to be stable over many hours.
> I then downloaded a command line app called spinner which also seems
> to keep the network connection alive. For me this is no problem, I can
> run spinner when I want a solid connection, however my wife doesn't
> understand computers at all and so I can't ask her to do the same, I
> need something that will either automatically function as a keep-alive
> program or else I need to change some network setting that will do the
> same for her (timeout limits maybe?)
>
> Any suggestions? She has been using Ubuntu now for over a year and has
> gotten to quite like it, but whenever these sort of things come up she
> always questions why she can't go back to XP - our printer (HP1018)
> and scanner (Canoscan something) are both problematic with Ubuntu but
> work perfectly under XP (of course)....
>
>
> Many thanks in advance
>
> ED

Would playing streaming music from the net keep it open?
-- 
Douglas E Knapp

http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page