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This is Theseus2000, the high-powered networking suite for PC's!
Theseus2000 is a suite of powerful networking tools that will allow you to diagnose and troubleshoot a wide range of networking and internet related problems. These include the following.
Theseus2000 is extremely light-weight, requiring less than 100MB of RAM to run. It is also very easy to use with its terminal style interface and menu system. To activate an option within the program, just type the key associated with that option. What also makes Theseus2000 cool is its accessibility features for the blind/visually impaired. Sound effects for the user interface are enabled by default, and there is a special output mode that allows information displayed by the program to be passed directly to a screen reader, speech engine or braille display.
The following is a list of what you will need to get Theseus2000 up and running on your PC.
Theseus2000 requires that your PC be running Windows XP or higher in order to run. Windows 2000 with extended kernel is also possible. Theseus2000 is a 32-bit program, however, it will run just fine under 64-bit versions of Windows.
Currently, the highest version of Theseus2000 is Seaview, V 5.2 SP1. This release was compiled on Saturday, 16th September, 2023.
Theseus2000's main menu screen contains 9 options. These are detailed below.
This option, as its name suggests, launches the tools menu, where all the power of this program resides. The tools menu will be discussed in the next section.
The settings menu is where you can adjust various program settings, from disabling/enabling sound effects, to toggling between output modes, to changing the way certain tools function.
This option will open the developer's website in your default web browser, be it Chrome, Firefox, Edge etc.
This option opens a text version of this documentation, ya know, the thing you're reading right now, in your default text editor, be it Notepad, Notepad++, Vim etc.
This checks online for updates to Theseus2000. If no updates are found, you will be told that you're running the highest version of Theseus2000 and returned to the main menu.
Opens the error log file, if any, in your default text editor.
Searches for and removes all log files, either generated automatically by the program, such as error logs, or on your command, such as IP Geo logs, speed test results and WHOIS lookup data.
Shows the version of Theseus2000 you're currently running.
Shuts down the program. What else is there to say? :)
Theseus2000 includes 15 powerful networking and internet tools, all of which can be accessed from this menu. Again, to select an option in the menu, type the letter associated with that option.
This tool is simply your bog standard internet speed test. The tool will first try to find the best server to use for testing. Note, however, that the best server is determined based on speed rather than distance. This means that although there may be a server just a few miles away from where you are, it might not be the fastest, and therefore the best, server to run a test from.
Once a suitable server is found, 3 tests will be carried out: ping, download, and upload. You are notified of each test that is being completed as it starts.
Ping, measured in milliseconds (ms), refers to both the time it takes for your machine to send a request to the test server, and the time it takes for the test server to reply to that request. The lower the ping, the faster the communication between your machine and the test server. High pings might indicate a problem on either yours or the server's side, or that network congestion, too much data trying to pass through a network at once, might be slowing down the communication.
The download and upload tests are just what they sound like. How fast can data be downloaded to, and uploaded from, your machine? These speeds are either measured in kilobits, megabits or gigabits per second. We typically use byte measurements to measure file sizes, while bit measurements are used to measure data transfer speeds. There are 8 bits in 1 byte, 1000 kilobits in 1 megabit, and 1000 megabits in 1 gigabit.
Once all tests have finished, Theseus2000 will do a bit of conversion/calculation work, and your final results will be shown on screen. You'll then be given 5 options.
You'll then be asked if you'd like to run another test. Typing Y will start the testing process again, while typing N will take you back to the tools menu.
The Hostname to IP tool allows you to quickly and easily find the IP address of any device on your local area network (LAN) or the internet based on its hostname. IP addresses are what machines use to identify each-other on a network, while hostnames, which are mapped to IP addresses via the DNS (domain name system), are what us humans use to identify machines. If you think there might be DNS resolution issues going on in your environment, you can use this tool to diagnose and troubleshoot the problem. Leaving the hostname field blank will reveal the IP address of your own machine. This is the IP address that other devices inside your LAN will see. To avoid confusion with the localhost IP, 127.0.0.1, Theseus2000 will refer to your machine's IP as its private IP, rather than its local IP. Localhost refers to the machine on which Theseus2000 or another program is running, and that machine only. The private IP, however, can be seen by you and all other devices inside your local area network. Once you have the IP address of your desired host, a menu with 4 options will appear.
Once you've chosen your option, a Y/N prompt will appear asking if you want to run the Hostname to IP tool again. Type Y to rerun the tool, or N to go back to the tools menu.
Ever wanted to know your public IP, or the IP that the wider internet sees? The golden IP retriever will tell you! Simply press G in the tools menu, choose whether you want to see your IPv4 or IPv6 address, and the golden IP retriever will automatically go out and find the desired IP address, no user input required! The tool will also perform a PTR lookup on the IP and display your public hostname, similar to how an IRC client would. After your public IP has been retrieved, a six-option menu will be shown.
WHOIS, pronounced "who is", is used to find information about a certain domain name. This information includes when the domain name was created, the registrar (provider) of the domain name, when it was last renewed, when it expires etc. Theseus2000 includes its very own WHOIS lookup tool called Who is this?
When you enter a domain name into the input prompt, such as live.com, the tool will go out and query a WHOIS server for details about that domain name. It will then display the data it has found on screen for you. Much like Net Speed, Who is this? allows you to copy the WHOIS data to the clipboard and write it to a text file for later reading.
That host is wanted, dead or alive! This tool allows you to check if a server machine in your LAN or on the internet is online and able to receive and reply to requests. The tool works by trying to establish a TCP connection to the server. If the machine is alive and replying to the requests, a success message will be displayed letting you know that the machine is alive. To use the tool, first enter the hostname or IPv4 address of the server you'd like to check. Then, enter a port number, such as 80, 443, or 25255. Theseus2000 will then try to make a TCP connection with the specified server, using the specified port. If the connection succeeds, a success message will appear saying that the server is alive and accepting connections on that port, as well as the time it took to complete the connection. If the connection fails, however, you will receive an SSD (server seems down) message. This could mean that the port is closed, connections are being blocked on that port, or the server simply can't respond to requests right now.
The IP Geo tool allows you to get geolocation data for any IP address that is assigned to a device on the internet using an external IP geotracking API. This can be useful for tracking down cyber criminals trying to attack your website or steal your money, displaying prices in a user's local currency, showing region-specific product deals, etc. IP Geo can be used as a standalone tool, accessible from within the tools menu, or as part of the afformentioned Hostname to IP and Golden IP Retriever tools. To use the tool as a standalone, simply type any IPv4 address, IPv6 address or hostname/domain name into the input prompt and press enter. Leaving the field empty will display data for your own public IP address. The following is a list of some of the details you'll get when you run IP Geo. Country and city are self-explanitory, so they won't be discussed here.
Once the information has been entered, the API will be called and the geolocation data will be retrieved and displayed on screen. Press Enter here, and a menu will show up with 3 options.
Finally, a Y/N prompt will appear. Type Y to run IP Geo again, or N to go back to the tools menu.
You will need to know your router's default IP, or the default gateway IP as it's sometimes called, if you plan to configure the settings of your router via its administration panel. Oftentimes, the default IP address of your router is 192.168.1.1. However, this is not always the case. Therefore, Theseus2000 includes a convenient default gateway finder tool which will allow you to find out your router's IP address if 192.168.1.1 doesn't work. When you run the tool, the IP address of your router will be displayed. Once you press Enter to dismiss the prompt, a three-option menu will appear.
This tool allows you to enter a web URL and have the response/status code returned by the web server shown to you, along with a brief explanation of what the code means. This is useful in cases where you're having problems accessing something on a website or you're just curious about HTTP response codes. When an HTTP client sends a request to a web server, the web server replies with a numerical, three-digit response code, along with the content requested by the client if available. A response code, or status code, is the server's way of letting the client know of any problems that came up while processing the client's request. The codes supported by Theseus2000's response code tool are as follows.
CertiFire, a play on the word 'certifier', is a tool that allows you to view the ssl/TLS certificate details for a website or other type of server, such as an email server or FTPS server. To use the tool, simply enter the hostname of the server you want to get certificate data for, and CertiFire will do the rest. When CertiFire retrieves certificate data for a server, it filters it down so that you only see the information you really care about. The following is what you'll see when you use CertiFire.
Issue and expiry dates are formatted in the following way:
M D HH:MM:SS YYYY timezone This means that a certificate with an expiry date of Dec 31 23:59:59 2024 GMT will expire on 31st December, 2024 at 11:59 PM and 59 seconds GMT.
Similar to IP addresses, media access control (MAC) addresses uniquely identify a device connected to a network. However, unlike an IP address, a MAC address is physically tied to the network interface card of a device, rather than being assigned to the device upon connection to a network. Also, MAC addresses are static, meaning they never change unless manually done so by the user. IP addresses, however, are dynamic, meaning they can change at any time unless manually specified as static. Theseus2000's MAC Retriever tool can find the MAC address of any device connected to your local area network. This is useful, for instance, if you believe a device in the network is acting suspiciously, or you see a device in the network and you have no idea how it got there. The tool can also detect the company who assigned the MAC address to the device. It does this using the free MACVendors.com API MAC address based filtering is much more effective than IP based filtering, since even if a machine's IP address was to change, the measures you applied to the machine, be it blocking it from accessing certain parts of the network or kicking it out of the network completely, would still be active. Finding a device's MAC address in Theseus2000 can be done in one of 2 ways.
Once you've selected your choice from the MAC Retriever menu, enter either an IP address or a hostname, depending on which option you selected, and the MAC address will be retrieved automatically. Leaving the input field blank will cause the MAC address of your own machine to be displayed. You can either have the MAC address copied to the clipboard by typing M, copy the vendor by typing V, or copy both with C. Or, simply leave the data alone by typing D. remember, you can only retrieve the MAC address of machines connected to your own network, so don't go trying to find out what Google or Microsoft's MAC addresses are, as it won't work and you won't be able to do anything with them anyway.
Powered by the APILayer DNS Lookup API, This tool allows you to enter a domain or hostname, and returns a list of all DNS record types found for that hostname. The following DNS record types are supported by the tool:
Once you've entered your desired domain/hostname, you can choose which type of DNS record you want to find. Your results will then be displayed for you to either save to a file or copy to the clipboard.
If you're having problems accessing some websites or using certain internet-based applications, it could be down to the DNS servers you're using. Theseus2000 includes a convenient DNS finder tool that will show you the DNS servers your system is configured to use when resolving queries. This tool gives you 2 pieces of information:
This tool follows the same pattern as other tools. You can either copy the information to your clipboard or simply leave it alone.
AbuseIPDB is a large, centralized repository of IP addresses where malicious internet activities, such as denial of service attacks, phishing, Fraud, server hacking, and/or other abusive online acts are known to come from. Theseus2000 includes its very own AbuseIPDB database checker, powered by the AbuseIPDB API, V2. You can either use this feature as a standalone, or as part of the Golden IP Retriever and Hostname to IP tools. This might be useful, for instance, if your ISP or internet security suite is blocking access to a website, or you're behind a VPN and seeing a lot more of those annoying CAPTCHA challenges than you usually see when accessing legitimate sites. When using the tool as a standalone, you will be asked to enter an IP address to check against the database. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are allowed. Then, you will be asked to enter the number of days within which to search for abuse reports. The minimum value is 1 day, and the maximum value is 365 days; no leap years, sadly. Once all the required info has been entered, the tool will return a list of report details for the requested IP address. Here's an explanation of some of the information you'll get when you use this tool.
This tool follows the same pattern as most of T2000's other tools. You can either copy the information to the clipboard, write it to a text file, or simply discard it.
SubCalc allows you to calculate a few details about a subnet. This is mainly useful for advanced network admins who want to effectively divide their network(s) into subnets for faster and more efficient traffic routing, or nerdy folks who love anything to do with IP addresses and networking. The SubCalc tool requires 2 pieces of information:
Once the required info has been entered, the following will be shown:
If you're curious to know what web server software a website is using, be it Apache, NGINX, or Microsoft IIS, this tool will tell you. Simply enter the URL of a website, and the tool will try to retrieve the name of the web server software the site is using. Once you have this information, you can choose to copy both the URL and web server name to your clipboard, or just copy the web server name on its own. Note: This tool won't work for all sites, as webmasters can choose to hide web server information for security and privacy reasons. Furthermore, proxies and CDNs, such as Cloudflare, can get in the way when making these types of queries, which means you might not get the result you were expecting.
Page to file provides a quick, simple, convenient way of retrieving the source code of any website or page. To use the tool, simply type the URL of the web page you want the source code for, enter the name of the file you want the code to be saved to, and the tool will retrieve the source code for the desired web page and save it to a text file for easy reading!
This tool allows you to generate files containing the source code of a website or page. These files are for private viewing only, and are not to be used for any malicious activities, such as adding malware to the files and/or uploading them to your own website in violation of the original author's copyright. This tool will not attempt to find or download any external resources, such as images, JavaScript, CSS or PHP files, referenced by the web page source code.
Pressing S in the main menu will launch the settings menu, where a variety of user options for Theseus2000 can be configured.
Determines whether or not Theseus2000 checks for program updates when launched. This setting is turned on by default.
Enables or disables the startup sound you hear before the main menu appears. By default, the startup sound is enabled.
Enables or disables the shutdown sound you hear before the program exits. The exit sound is enabled by default.
When this setting is on, data shown by the program is not printed to the screen like it is normally. Rather, it is passed to a screen reader, such as NVDA (Non-visual Desktop Access) or JAWS (Job Access With Speech), that can read the data aloud as it is presented. If no screen reader is running on the system, a system speech synthesizer, such as Microsoft SAPI4 or SAPI5, will be used instead. This also allows for sending data to a braille display! Note, however, that this requires a compatible screen reader/braille display combination. See the user guides of both your screen reader and braille display for compatibility details. This setting is turned off by default. However, users of screen readers are advised to turn it on, as screen readers tend to chop off parts of the standard output if a lot of information is in the command prompt buffer; NVDA is especially known for this.
This option turns on or off the sound effects you hear when you select a menu option or a process completes. Startup and shutdown sounds are not affected by this setting. UI (User Interface) sounds are turned on by default.
This option allows you to connect Theseus2000 to your account on Mastodon, a Twitterlike social networking platform.
Disconnects T2000 from the Mastodon service.
This is the nuclear option. This option resets all your settings back to how they were when you installed and ran Theseus2000 for the first time. Because of this, it is important that you make doubly sure this is what you want to do before selecting this option. Answering yes to the warning prompt will reset everything back to default.
This option returns you to the main menu.
Mastodon is a social media platform which is very similar to Twitter. Posts can be liked (favorited) by users, posts can be shared on another user's timeline for their followers to see, called boosting or reblogging, and Twitterlike reply threads can be started on posts. There are 5 key differences between Mastodon and Twitter.
If you want to find out more about Mastodon and the wider fediverse which it is part of, I highly recommend the Fedi Tips website.
When you choose to log into Mastodon from the settings menu, You will first be presented with a text box where you enter the URL of the Mastodon instance on which you have an account. For example, if you have an account on the aus.social instance, you'd enter the url
https://aus.social
. If you're a screen reader user and you don't see this text box right away, press Alt + Tab until you land on it. Your default web browser will open to an authorization page on the website of your Mastodon instance. If required, enter the username and password of your account and click log in or hit Enter. Next, click the authorize button to confirm you want to Authorize T2000 to access your Mastodon account. An authorization code will then be shown on screen. Click the copy button to copy the code to your clipboard, Alt Tab to the auth code text box, and press Control + V to paste the code. Finally, click OK or hit enter. Congratulations, you are now authorized to toot!
When you choose to post your speed test results to Mastodon, you will be asked for 2 things:
Once all data has been entered, T2000 will automatically send the toot off to Mastodon. Happy tooting!
This program was inspired by the works of Nathan Smith of Nathan Tech. Nathan is a blind software developer who has generated many different types of content under the Nathan Tech handle, from audio tutorials to PC games to Multi-user Dungeons (MUDs).
Nathan Tech's software programs include the Calliope media player, the Luna RSS reader and feed builder, the Sunrise Waterfall website builder and documentation writer, and a networking suite of his very own. Below is a link to the Nathan Tech website, where you can check out everything this awesome guy has to offer.
Visit the Nathan Tech website!
IP Geo is provided by https://ip-api.com.
This product is not meant as an attempt to supercede, compete with, devalue or undermine any other products of its kind, or the developers of such products. All copyright and credit goes to its respective owner(s)/proprietor(s).