@thebaldgeek Yes it will keep your Spark connected to the web.
What you have to do is this:
1 - Your going to have to follow this video to a T. It will take some time but it will work. The only thing that tripped me up was the part about copying the “PATH” info, make sure there are no “-” in the path code you copy and past. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you get to the part in the video where they are talking about pasting the “Path =” info.
The Core-Firmware readme is also very useful to double check things that you are doing: https://github.com/spark/core-firmware/blob/master/README.md
- You will need to download the zip files from these 3 pages. Then unzip them to the 3 separate folders that the video above tells you to create. If you download the zip folders then you will not have to try to download the files via the command line interface like they do in the video above which makes things quicker and easier, your accomplishing the same thing which is putting the downloaded libraries into the 3 folders.
Unzip those files above into the folders below:
core-firmware
core-common
core-communication
After you do this follow the video until you get to the Netbeans part of the process. Then pay attention and when he shows you the program.cpp file that is where you will place your code that you are wanting to run. Once you compile your code sucessfuly in Netbeans then you will be able to flash the Spark with your code and @BDub 's Watchdog feature will be up and running keeping you online.
Give it a try when you have an hour or 2 to walk through it all and you should have no problems. Let us know how it goes.