Hughesnet...Will You Stop That!?

One of the features of SPOCS, at least on my system, is tracking my internet FAP limit.  That is the data download allowance we get every month.
I first taught SPOCS to read the web page from the Hughes modem some years ago.  About 5 years ago, Hughes updated the modem website, and poor SPOCS started having troubles.  Specifically, the Brain module, which reads the data, was getting very confused. 

Every 15 minutes, I have CRON (in SPARCL12), run a script that used WGET to read the web page from the modem.  The script saves the web page as a text file, which Brain checks every 15 minutes, and updates the FAP numbers from.

The last time Hughes changed the modem web page, I was thinking of dropping this feature.  Then I started thinking, "wait. How does THEIR application read FAP data?"  This was not hard to figure out.  Download a copy of Wireshark.  Start the Hughes application.  Use Wireshark to capture the packets going to and from the modem.  Aha!  The trick was to use WGET to retrieve a hidden page of data from the modem.  Problem solved.

Now we come to last week.  SPOCS is reporting all FAP numbers as zero.  I check the modem webpage.....whoa, what is this!?  Also, the old version of the Hughes app stopped working.  So...download the new Hughes app, fire up Wireshark...and...the page of data is still there, but you now have to use a different command to get the data.  So, I changed the script that grabs the data, tested it, and all is well, once again.  Hughes, will you please quit changing the modem interface?

For SPOCS speech, I am looking a Flite, the "lite" version of Festival.  In the meantime, I have attempted to contact Dr. Alan Black, to see what is happening with Festival.  Soon, I hope to have a solution for SPOCS speech.

Good night, Ma & Pa Wolfe, wherever you are.