Slashdot Mirror

I am sad my ISP dropped their home page support...
http://homepages.dsl.ca

I agree, that's a point... (though Mozilla's finally gotten to the point where I can only think of one non-microsoft.com site which doesn't work with Mozilla, and that's because it doesn't like the fact that the term "MSIE" isn't in the user agent string)

However, if I were an ISP looking for a short but sweet way of coping with massive NAT usage, I'd be collecting that list anyway, and shortlisting those users for closer inspection.

Anyone know of any way of transparently replacing the user-agent strings at the NAT box?

Not that I personally care, my ISP kicks ass. They offer a 1.2Mbps DSL service with the option of a static IP address for cheap. And they don't care if you run servers, truly a geek's ISP. www.dsl.ca

Sure. I've already got a high-speed static IP for $34.95/mo, and the server running, so it's only a couple of lines in the /etc/files.

I know the feeling. :) I quickly got over it, though. My webserver and firewall do their own things independently of anything else. I don't touch 'em except to do patches. The electricity usage is still less than $xx/mo for hosting, and the benefit (in the winter, anyway) is that the electricity they consume still contributes to heating the house... even if heating electrically is more expensive than heating by oil. Typically, I have to heat for 8 months of the year, one way or another - mid-September through mid-May.

In my case, anyway, it makes perfect economic sense. And, another benefit is that I can use Samba to drag and drop large stuff to my webserver so that friends can download it conveniently. (Main machine still runs Windows, unfortunately.)

Yup. But $20/year seems a little steep for POP3 access, especially given the above.

Who? Fascist spam filtering sounds interesting...

This is how my DSL provider works. I get 5 Gigs free downloads per month, but if I use their proxy, that doesn't count towards my total. If I go over 5 gigs per month (which is about 170mb per day), I pay what my ISP pays for additional bandwidth: $10 per additional GB.

I have never gone over the 5 gigs.

I already have that, through DSL Communications. They also didn't blink when I said I was going to run it off a Linux server, they just suggested where to get the software. If you're somewhere they cover, consider them.

Emu48CE, an HP48 emulator.

RPN Calc. Very nice and supports RPN like all good calculators should. No graphing capability.

Maxima. Looks interesting, port of a GPL symbolic manipulation program. (This guy has emacs, gluplot, and other stuff running under CE as well.)

There's a lot more stuff out there if you search, but no real killer calculator yet that I can see.

Up here in Canada, we have it so much better. DSL is cheap -- really cheap. I paid $40/month (US$25) for ADSL. This is with PPPoE. If you pay a bit more, or go with dsl.ca instead of the local monopoly, you can get static IPs and stuff. As well, Bell has a deal with our university where students get 10% off DSL.

My install in September took four days. Four days! When I was with Telocity in San Francisco, it took 87 days. I am not exaggerating.

In fall 1999, when DSL first came to our area, Bell screwed up our order three times and it took us six weeks. (Most people got theirs in two.) I was very upset then, but service was great once it arrived.

Right now, I have Rogers@Home. They are as flaky as a two-dollar pastry. We were down two or three times over the weekend.

Paul

Quoted from article.

These were the mom and pop services of the Internet, and they provided excellent customer support. I even remember being able to talk to my ISP's administrators on IRC.

You just don't get that kind of service from the big providers.

I'll bet that BasinNet is also the sort of ISP that will give you a shell account.

Love to see that at AOL. Can you imagine the average AOL user accidentally hitting the (non-existent) "Shell Prompt" button on NEW! AOL 6.0! SO EASY TO USE, NO WONDER IT'S #1!. Meltdown.

We're losing all the ISPs that don't pander to the lowest common denominator.

There is light on the horizon, however: how about a Toronto-area DSL provider that charges $34.95/mo for residential 1.2Mbps DSL, and will give you as many static IPs as you want for $5/mo more each... :)

They allow you to run whatever servers you want at home. Mail, DNS, web, etc.

Their customer service sucks, yeah, it's PPPoE, and yeah, their reliability was very poor when I started with them in June. But it's been getting gradually better.

www.dsl.ca

I'm not really sure. I'm at UofT, living in Toronto. I know that around here, and around Waterloo, there are a number of options available. I did a Google search and came up with NorthPoint DSL and DSL Inc.. NorthPoint claims to have "national" service, but I don't know if that means the whole country or just "Toronto, and Scarborough also."

Okay, they're far from perfect.

But it wasn't the same hassle as I've heard about from people using Bell Sympatico HSE - mail server brownouts, dropped connections and stuff.

It's cheaper than @Home - especially if you don't watch TV.

Installation happened when promised, and worked first shot.

And if you spend an extra $5/mo, they'll happily give you a static IP.

Only problem is that they seem to have a lot of downtime when one of their wholesale providers (www.reptiles.org) goes down. (Claimed to be smurf attacks.) Oh, and access to their mailserver is an option or a do-it-yourself thing. (Good thing static IPs are available.)

$34.95 CDN/mo, +$5/mo modem rental, +$5/mo static IP. 1.2 megabits down less PPPoE overhead, 120 kbits up less PPPoE overhead.

www.dsl.ca

They're not perfect, but I'm still very happy with them.

You can run a server on Bell's HSE. The only thing is they don't offer support for it.

43. If I have a domain name, is it possible to get the IP address associated with that name?
The Bell Sympatico High Speed Edition service does not allow for the hosting of domain names other than the sympatico.ca domain.

That was from their FAQ. I suspect their problem with users hosting their own domains is the following:

41. Can I have a static IP address with the Bell Sympatico High Speed Edition service?
The Bell Sympatico High Speed Edition service uses dynamic IP address allocation only. In the Internet environment where demand is growing at a fast pace, dynamic IP addressing allows for optimum usage of IP addresses.

Funny. dsl.ca lets me rent a static IP for an extra $5/mo.

Now, Bell's service agreement has softened up about servers, because when I did initially look into HSE as an alternative to @Home, they did specifically indicate that you were not allowed to use servers at all. Currently, this is the situation:

Without limiting the foregoing, you agree not to use the Service or any equipment provided in connection with the Service, for operation of an Internet Service Provider's business nor for any other non-residential purpose.

Their Agreement.

That's a lot better than it was when I looked, but one could argue that webserving at home is a non-residential use. (The same way that I like working on cars, but actually working on them at your residence is actually technically illegal in Toronto's zoning laws.) dsl.ca specifically covers "home office" options, perhaps allowing the use of their high speed connection for tasks associated with their small business or self-employment, without having to pay for expensive business-grade DSL.

Again, dsl.ca isn't perfect. But they're a lot more geek-friendly than the other two (three, if you count look.ca's unidirectional service) broadband options.

Yeah. Most of the people I know in Toronto and Ottawa who are on either Shaw@Home or Rogers@Home are very happy with their service. Friends in Niagara Falls NY on Adelphia's unidirectional cable system love that, too, even piped into their LAN. It's worth noting that one of those friends actually works as a sales rep for Bell Atlantic DSL.

Okay. Well, I've never had cable internet service.

My decision went as follows:

• Price. Cable is $50/mo if you don't subscribe to cable TV.
• Quality. Bell Canada's Sympatico HSE service is considered to be absolute junk, at $40/mo. (I use Bell long distance, so I don't have to pay the $10/mo grab.)
• Server-Friendly? I wanted the option of a static IP, with an ISP that didn't care if I wanted to run a webserver in my home. Neither @Home or Symatico HSE offered that. And then, I lucked into something...

• dsl.ca is a division of Velocet. They offer their DSL service only in Toronto at the moment. $34.95/mo + $5/mo modem rental (okay, no cheaper than Sympatico). But for an extra $5/mo, they'll rent a static IP. Installation went like a million bucks. PPPoE is the only downside, but even so, Roaring Penguin's PPPoE solution is great.

  Many people complain about the stability of DSL connections. I have no concerns:

  2:37pm up 20 days, 14:21, 1 user, load average: 0.13, 0.03, 0.01
  55 processes: 54 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
  CPU states: 0.7% user, 1.3% system, 0.0% nice, 97.8% idle
  

  My PPPoE-based DSL connection is started up when my computer starts up. Most of that CPU load is actually top, then there's a bit from the PPPoE client. Even with all 5 computers on my home LAN streaming Real Video from the Big Brother website, the PPPoE client never gets about 2.5% or so CPU useage. (Pentium 133 with 32 megs RAM.)

  If you're in Toronto, look into dsl.ca if you want a cable/Sympatico alternative. I love these guys.