Create README.md

Author: lynkos

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+# Web Status Monitor
+> This project develops a web status monitor (simplified version of uptimerobot.com) to practice web programming and understand the web related protocols: HTTP and TLS/SSL.
+> - Implements HTTP client socket to interact with the web server
+> - Doesn't use any existing HTTP client library
+> - Uses an existing SSL library to help implement the HTTPS client (extra credit)
+
+## Requirements
+- [x] <a target="_blank" href="https://docs.continuum.io/free/anaconda/install">Anaconda</a> **OR** <a target="_blank" href="https://docs.conda.io/projects/miniconda/en/latest">Miniconda</a>
+
+> [!TIP]
+> If you have trouble deciding between Anaconda and Miniconda, please refer to the table below:
+> <table>
+>  <thead>
+>   <tr>
+>    <th><center>Anaconda</center></th>
+>    <th><center>Miniconda</center></th>
+>   </tr>
+>  </thead>
+>  <tbody>
+>   <tr>
+>    <td>New to conda and/or Python</td>
+>    <td>Familiar with conda and/or Python</td>
+>   </tr>
+>   <tr>
+>    <td>Not familiar with using terminal and prefer GUI</td>
+>    <td>Comfortable using terminal</td>
+>   </tr>
+>   <tr>
+>    <td>Like the convenience of having Python and 1,500+ scientific packages automatically installed at once</td>
+>    <td>Want fast access to Python and the conda commands and plan to sort out the other programs later</td>
+>   </tr>
+>   <tr>
+>    <td>Have the time and space (a few minutes and 3 GB)</td>
+>    <td>Don't have the time or space to install 1,500+ packages</td>
+>   </tr>
+>   <tr>
+>    <td>Don't want to individually install each package</td>
+>    <td>Don't mind individually installing each package</td>
+>   </tr>
+>  </tbody>
+> </table>
+>
+> Typing out entire Conda commands can sometimes be tedious, so I wrote a shell script ([`conda_shortcuts.sh` on GitHub Gist](https://gist.github.com/lynkos/7a4ce7f9e38bb56174360648461a3dc8)) to define shortcuts for commonly used Conda commands.
+> <details>
+>   <summary>Example: Delete/remove a conda environment named <code>test_env</code></summary>
+>
+> * Shortcut command
+>     ```
+>     rmenv test_env
+>     ```
+> * Manually typing out the entire command
+>     ```sh
+>     conda env remove -n test_env && rm -rf $(conda info --base)/envs/test_env
+>     ```
+>
+> The shortcut has 80.8% fewer characters!
+> </details>
+
+## Installation
+1. Verify that conda is installed
+   ```
+   conda --version
+   ```
+
+2. Ensure conda is up to date
+   ```
+   conda update conda
+   ```
+
+3. Enter the directory you want `web-status-monitor` to be cloned in
+   * POSIX
+      ```sh
+      cd ~/path/to/directory
+      ```
+   * Windows
+      ```sh
+      cd C:\Users\user\path\to\directory
+      ```
+
+4. Clone and enter `web-status-monitor`
+   ```sh
+   git clone https://github.com/lynkos/web-status-monitor.git && cd web-status-monitor
+   ```
+
+5. Create virtual environment from [`environment.yml`](environment.yml)
+   ```sh
+   conda env create -f environment.yml
+   ```
+
+## Usage
+<ol>
+   <li>Activate <code>monitor</code> (i.e., virtual environment)<pre>conda activate monitor</pre></li>
+   <li>Confirm <code>monitor</code> is active
+      <ul>
+        <li><code>monitor</code> should be in parentheses () or brackets [] before your command prompt, e.g.<pre>(monitor) $</pre></li>
+        <li>See which virtual environments are available and/or currently active (active environment denoted with asterisk (*))<pre>conda info --envs</pre> <b>OR</b> <pre>conda env list</pre></li>
+      </ul>
+   </li>
+   <li>Run <a href="monitor.py"><code>monitor.py</code></a> (<code>urls_file</code> is the path to a file containing a list of URLs)<pre>python monitor.py urls_file</pre></li>
+   <li>Deactivate <code>monitor</code> (i.e., virtual environment) when finished<pre>conda deactivate</pre></li>
+</ol>