Should I use a made control or make my own?

[TheKing]

ok, I have hardware that takes a laptop out in a car somewhere and turns the radio wave into a lan connection.
You have to use tcp/ip to send across it but it is pretty simple. Ok I found a control (since I don't know anything about tcp/ip) called PowerTCP made by 'Dart'. It will cost me some money to get the control or I make my own control to sent data back and forth. What is an 'expert' opinion on this. How hard is it to learn enough to make my own control?

T^he_Kiⁿg

 

[TheKing]

so to add something I forgot to say, I got this responce back from the company (radiorouter) that I use their hardware to make my connection to a laptop in the field. I don't really know what he is telling me I need to use to make it work. his quote is: "to use Radiorouter an application needs only an IP interface. There is no propriatory interface or API for RadioRouter."

T^he_Kiⁿg

 

[pansophic]

From reading Flarion's web page, they are just telling you that their PCMCIA card looks like any other Network Interface Card (NIC) to your computer. If you install the drivers for the card, it will install an IP stack for you, so it will be your TCP/IP interface.

If you are developing an application to push over the Flarion NIC, you just need a standard Winsock control. This control is bundeled with Microsoft Visual Studio, so there is no need to buy an additional control unless you are having trouble understanding the control methods and properties.

You can develop and test using any wired ethernet network.

pansophic

 

[TheKing]

Yup, I got that far now, thanks for the info, I am using a serial connection to link the laptops and the server (as a test for now) and my Radio Router does make a connection, I guess what I need is someway to connect multiple laptops into my server and be able to sent out from my server to any laptop that I desire with information. For some reason it is easy to send from the laptop to the server but a pain to send from the server to the laptop, I don't understand it is prob. do to my limited knowledge of tcp/ip and controls like WinSock and the Dart control that I have here to work with.

T^he_Kiⁿg

 

[pansophic]

Are you trying to maintain a connection and then push data back and forth, or are you attempting to establish a connection each time that you want push data one way or the other?

If you are attempting to connect from the server to the laptop, you will need to have your application "listen" on a port on the laptop. Personally, I'd rather not open a port on a "client" machine. I'd prefer to have the client open a connection to the server that is periodically polled. If there is any data to be sent either direction, then that would be communicated through the polling.

You are using a "serial" connection? Are you running PPP over it? Or are you attaching the router to your server over a serial connection and then accessing the router over the air?

pansophic

 

[TheKing]

For testing pourposes I am using a null modem connection to simulate the remote access but pretty soon I am going to have the hardware here and it is a router that will be connected to the server here.
Yea, I agree with what you are suggesting, I am going to do a 'hearbeat' message from the client to 'check' if there is any new messages on the server for it.

Thanks for answering me. T^he_Kiⁿg