Another ping pack and my favorite new portable PC

Following last week's discussion of ping utilities, Gearhead would like to pass on the following trivia. According to Bob Quinn, one of our well-informed readers:

"Packet Internet Groper" is not actually the derivation of the "ping" acronym. According to the original author, Mike Muuss, it was named after the sound submarine sonar makes. It isn't an acronym at all.

Quinn suggested checking Mike Muuss' Web page at http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/ping.html, which is not only informative but also very amusing.

Be that as it may, Gearhead was contacted by one company, Ipswitch, Inc., with an offer to look at its utility called WS_Ping ProPack. Having previously used Ipswitch's fine File Transfer Protocol utility, WS_FTP, we could hardly resist.

WS_Ping ProPack is neither a graphical tool nor just a ping utility, which makes its name somewhat misleading. In the package you get something called the Info tool, which displays information about a network host or device, including the official hostname and IP address. The tool also checks the Internic Whois database for host contact information and pings the host to check if it is there.

But that's not all. ProPack is a sort of TCP/IP Swiss Army Knife. It can also check network time servers and synchronize your PC clock; retrieve raw Web content so you can examine header data; perform traceroute tests (which determine the IP address and ping time for all intermediate nodes to your destination); perform Domain Name System and finger lookups; and perform Lightweight Directory Access Protocol queries. ProPack also has the ability to check an IP address range for active ports (called a "port scan"); retrieve SNMP data; analyze Windows networks; measure end-to-end throughput; and retrieve a quote of the day from a quote server. Cool.

You can even format ProPack output in list or report view. The latter can be simply copied to the clipboard and built into a report or sent to someone to prove your connection is not performing as expected. If only WS_Ping ProPack could graph its findings and perform continuous traces (currently the maximum number of iterations for any function is 32,768).

Gearhead really likes WS_Ping ProPack, and for $37.50 we think it's a good value. It receives four gear teeth out of five.

As excited as we are about ProPack, what has us really cranked up is a new toy: Sony's Vaio C1 sub-laptop. Before we get into the details of this miracle, who was the genius who named the product with a word that can't be pronounced (vi-o? vow? vayo?)?

Griping aside, the C1 is fabulous. It has a perfectly workable, albeit small, keyboard; an odd screen size (1024 by 480 pixels, but what a great screen!); and a small size (9 by 1 by 5 inches and only 2.4 pounds). It sports a 266-MHz Pentium with MMX; 64M bytes of RAM; built-in V.90 modem; a gazillion ports (serial, video, USB, PC Card, IR, etc.); and, to top it off, a built-in camera (see the full specification).

The camera can take stills or shoot videos up to 1 minute long, and the C1 comes with image manipulation and cataloging software. The pictures and clips can also be e-mailed directly from the video-capture utility interface.

Gearhead was going to test Microsoft's NetMeeting on the C1, but the Microsoft Web site kept giving us VBScript run-time errors when we tried to go to the NetMeeting. This doesn't seem to be too unusual for the Microsoft site. We are inclined to think that the Microsoft Webmaster needs a clip around the ear.

The C1 ($2,300, estimated) is a tremendous product for mobile users, and its diminutive size ensures that when the guy in front of you reclines his airline seat your screen won't get crushed. Gearhead gives the Sony whatever-it's-called C1 five gear teeth out of five. Outstanding.

Toys and tools to gh@gibbs.com.