Slashdot Mirror

Let's start this off with jsewell's truly amazing story about the rocket car urban legend from the man who claims to have invented it. Did you do your homework last week? Remember that Slashdot was nominated for a Webby in Community so go do their little login dance and vote for us if you think that our First Posts, Oog, Trolls and 'God Slashdot Really Sucks These Days' messages are cool. Maybe we'll even fly CowboyNeal out to give an acceptance speech if we win ;) Glowing Spleen sent us an optical illusion that really bugs me. I had to check if it wasn't an animated GIF. A few for the do it yourselfers: Slash T.M.F.D.W. sent us a real mech and Ryan J. Evans sent in the worlds largest playable tetris. If you don't actually want to build something, but want to play anyway, try SodaPlay and you can mess with these crazy animated 2D springy models. Its surprisingly addictive. After all that building, you might need Jeremy's Microbatch Ice Cream (thanks alangmead) and its "Wired" flavor, a caffinated vanilla ice cream. Between that and the Triple Espresso flavor. Wonder what happens if you keep it in this Bio-Plastic Wrap that detects contaminated food (sent in by Accipiter) You can't use plastic wrap to preserve human heads, but ChunkyGoodness noted that Chet Fleming has US Patent number 4666425 for keeping them alive. Dugh Daren sent us a hilarious essay from Space.com on Star War's most annoying characters that I found extremely funny. brunning pointed us to perhaps the most pressing bug in all of Microsoft's software. kwsNI pointed us to an extremely disturbing article about Pandas on Viagra in China. Blake sent in a filter based on "Being John Malkovitch." Read Slashdot in Malkovitch Mode. And finally, we need a stupid lawsuit: east_bay_pete told us about a commercial that featured a cockroach scampering over the screen ... people are suing because they keep breaking TVs trying to kill the CGI Roach!

The Mayor asks: "I'm looking at starting a development project that will include an Open Source(tm) component. I'm looking for a Web-based defect/bug tracker. I can't use SourceForge, as I'd like to use the same system for both our Open Source(tm) products and our proprietary products. I'd prefer a free product (as in beer), as this is for a startup company. I'm leaning towards Bugzilla, but I'd like to get the opinions of our esteemed readers..."

"The software should have the following features.

1. Allows users to log and track bugs over the Internet (web-based).
2. Has hooks to CVS (or any other version control system). When a file is checked in to CVS that addresses a bug, it should automatically append the check-in comments to the bug tracker.
3. Has rich reporting facilities."

David Middleton writes "The European Commission is concerned that "Microsoft has designed parts of Windows 2000 in such a way which will permit it to leverage its dominance in PC operating systems into other markets." " The European market is one that's often forgotten in this whole anti-trust suit, but is still of critical importance to Microsoft. Now, this is not an anti-trust investigation, but considering the concerns of the EU commisioner, it's something definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Jonathan the Nerd writes "An article in Clemson University's student newspaper, The Tiger, says that Dialpad.com and several other free long-distance sites have been blocked by Clemson's Division of Computing and Information Technology (DCIT). Chris Duckenfield, the vice provost for computing and information technology, said that the reason for blocking the sites was to determine the 'impact on our Internet bandwidth,' as well as to protect the finances of Clemson Telecommunications, which provides long-distance service to students. However, he acknowledged that the bandwidth usage would probably be negligible, which is making students wonder if the University is simply trying to maintain a monopoly on long-distance service. "

Ristoril writes "There's an article on Yahoo! News about the United Nations World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, taking place in 2001. The goal is to get nations to start 'doing something' about racist propaganda on the Internet. While no specific policies are mentioned, I seriously doubt they're planning the sensible thing -- education." Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Metuchen asks: "I'm developing a program for Linux that will eventually be managing a medical practice. This program will be running on several terminals on the same computer, but they must all access the same database simultaneously (i.e. if one user were to update a record, the next time another user accesses that patient--on a different terminal--the correct information must be displayed). What would be the best way to implement such a program? I would prefer to stay away from writing everything to file after each update since the database will be updated frequently; for the same reasons, I would like to be able to keep everything in RAM without using a RAMdrive (since that may require up to one file per patient). Any suggestions?"

renaissance59 was the first to write to us with the news that Microsoft has decided to discontinue development of J++, and has signed a deal with Rational Software for them to develop J++. Interesting move, because Rational is not bound under the legal restrictions that Microsoft is when it comes to Java. I'll be keeping a close eye on what's to come.

Finally home long enough to compile some quickies. option8 sent us the MacCrate which probably isn't up to code. Course neither is this one (thanks pkr) Speaking of cases, Deega sent us a site where you can get air brushed cases. rafa noted that Propaganda Volume 12 is out. UM_Maverick has started YALS called Linuxtopia.com pq wrote in with a picture that proves that a spell checker is probably a good idea. RoLlEr_CoAsTeR found something on Brunching Shuttlecocks which lets you combine Advertising and Perl: its actually extremely clever. Speaking of perl, ThePixel noted Perl Toys, which I think we mentioned a year or so ago, but with Christmas coming up, it probably is worth checking out again. Especially if you want magnetic poetry. Speaking of stuff to buy, JbirdUAH noted that Copyleft has Slashdot frisbees! Just in time for Winter! jhopson sent us a retelling of beowulf starring people you know. Lexie (who should really ask CowboyNeal out) sent us Eunuch which I'm not gonna explain, but its definitely wierd. motardo noted that Dalnet is for sale on eBay. Ant noted that Google seems to have an interesting result if you search for 'More evil than satan himself'. Speaking of evil, jsfetzik sent us Sinux the Linux for sinners. And how about Captain Zion's link to FsckU-FsckMe(tm) which is not for children, but is pretty amusing. Maybe you'll find auto.pron.org a little more wholesome. Finally, jetpack pointed us to Forum2000, which I'd never seen before, but am glad I did. It was mentioned in a comment awhile ago, and then we were assimilated. Super wierd.

Uart writes "Linus Torvalds, is the youngest recipient (at 29) ever of The University of Stockholm's honorary doctorate. Read about it here." (From Linux Today).

GUNTHER asks: "I've fallen in love with the NeXTSTEP style interface. I would love to have a NeXT machine but they are rather hard to come by these days, so I have been looking for programs and libraries to emulate its look and feel. I am familiar with GNUStep, Afterstep, TKStep, and GTKStep but what else is available to emulate the NeXTSTEP look and feel?"

Progman writes "The Apache Group today announced the creation of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), read their press release. " It seems as though Apache is formally incorporated now, and the ASF will be a legal umbrella for Apache and other projects. Congrats to Brian and all the others!

Like many of us, Justin Beech struggled with the age old quest for high bandwidth. He's submitted a quite interesting feature which discusses issues surrounding many of the options (Sat, Cable, DSL, Modems) and where he ended up. It is a little different than typical Slashdot fare, but I think you'll like it if you've thought about DSL, but wanted more data to get started. You'll just wish it had a happy ending. The following feature was written by Slashdot Reader Justin Beech

I wrote this is in an effort to purge myself of experience in getting DSL service, and in the hope that it helps make us DSL consumers a little more informed about the machinations behind those slick adverts that are popping up around the US. (Disclaimer.. this is only a local interpretation of my efforts in new york, maybe some of this doesnt apply in your area.. however, 2 years ago, I had an even more troublesome experience trying to get DSL in Singapore, so the trials and tribulations below dont seem confined to just NYC!).

PART I: THE BACKGROUND. Ok.. lets begin at the beginning. I had assumed, before trying to get DSL, that ordering it was straightforward. After all, DSL is a technology that has been discussed endlessly in the press and on the web, and there are adverts around the place saying you can get it.. Concentric DSL and Red-Connect are marketing to NY pretty well, and Flashcom is in the national newspapers... but now I realize that almost nobody has DSL. probably a fraction of 0.1% of all internet accounts are travelling on DSL. Getting DSL, from a customer point of view, I now now believe is equivalent in difficulty to, say, rebuilding your car engine over the summer, you will learn more about phones, telecommunications companies, and equipment than you ever wanted to know, pretty soon you will start to hang out in DSL techie mailing lists listening to opinions on the differences between redback and assured access equipment and chatting to Bell vans in the street hoping to get the inside scoop on upgrades to your local switching centre. If you dont believe me, check out some of the previous tales from the frontline, for instance this article about the guy who tried to get DSL from Bel for his power mac...

For some, however, maybe DSL is a simple experience, probably the same kind of people who order from a catalogue then forget about it and are pleasantly surprised when a parcel arrives 2 months later...

The big 56k lie.. in some areas, regular, quality, modems connected to regular, quality, ISPs, will not do more than 26400 (half their promoted speed). This is NOT because of bad wiring in the building etc, it is because your calls go through two digital/analog conversions, apparently this is not un-common in high density areas. Here is the scoop from a tech in the industry that I emailed to ask why my modem wont go faster than 26400, and the Bell guy told me I am on high quality "lightspan" fibre.

1. "..... Bell is bringing analog lines out of the digital switch like they would on a standard phone line, then they re-digitize it, send it down to the equipment in the neighborhood(the SLC), and the equipment converts it back to a standard analog phone line. The loss from the D>A>D>A conversions kill anything above 26,400.."

Ameritech apparently has the same problems with some of their configurations. Failure to get more than 26400 on what sounds and looks like a good line, is a classic symptom ... to fix this, you can request your line gets moved to "old" copper, which they keep in reserve for "internet whiners", although, calling up your local Bell service operator and mentioning any problem relating to data will not get you far.. they read you the riot act on how your phone service is guaranteed for voice, not for fast data transfer etc etc, but if you do get a friendly repairman to visit on some other pretext, he can be more flexible.

Cable modems, in many areas, are 1-way data. Ie, you have to use a phone line for up-channel. In addition, cable modems are a shared pipe, you share it not with strangers, but with other rabid netsurfers, warez vendors, porn freaks, and quake server operators in your building or street. Your download speed, therefore, varies vastly and CAN be as bad as a modem at peak times in certain areas. In addition, the feeling amongst the isp operators seems to be that this is likely to get worse, not better, as more cable users come on line. Your cable operator has a number of potential bottlenecks that all must be managed correctly to give clean constant speed. In contrast, DSL providers merely have to do the math on backend bandwidth versus incoming DSL lines. DSL providers are pleased that the bandwidth hogs are all jumping into cable.. but you as a cable customer may not be as happy.

Radio and other wireless IP is not anywhere yet, at least in NYC, although there is at least one high speed data net coming on stream, probably designed more for mobile phone use than home internet. There are special exceptions, for instance there is a company that beams down data from empire state building, if you are line-of-sight.

Satellite, for example internet via digital satellite-TV dish, is also an option, but the latency (long ping times) makes less attractive, especially for interactive internet applications (like games) and there is only down-link. Up-link is via your good old modem again... Nobody can fix long ping times due to geographic distance... there is no intel chip in the works to increase the speed of radio waves or electrical signals in conducting materials!

DSL. This is what was left in the bag for me, and with my 26400 data rate thanks to Bells "super duper" optical fibre system, RCNs one-way shared cable modem offering, and time warners non-existant option, and my non-view of the empire state building.

PART II: CONCENTRATING ON DSL

There are two basic types of DSL around now for consumers, ADSL and SDSL. The first is asymmetric, ie, assumes you do more reception than sending. Typically uplink rates are 128 or 384kbps (ie, 1-3 times dual ISDN or 3-9x an average modem speed). Downlink rates are up to 784kbps or even higher. Potentially. Ping times are fast (thats good), probably 40-100ms versus 150-300ms for modems. Basically, this rocks compared to ISDN or any regular modem.

For any DSL service, you are tied to THREE parties. One, the ISP, which typically is your only point of contact, and the people who bill you. Two, the CLEC, ie, Bell Atlantic, which owns the rights to access your house and the wires into it. Three, the DSL carrier, which will be one of several national DSL companies who dont like to field calls from customers, and like to deal with either CLECs or ISPs, but carry your data, and are where 40-80% of your monthly bill goes. In the case of Bell Atlantics own DSL service, they are all three.. the CLEC, the ISP and also the DSL provider!

For all DSL types, your home modem needs to be less than roughly 20,000 feet from the "DSLAM" (DSL Access Muptiplexor), which I think is installed next to the SLC (subscriber loop carrier) equipment, en-route to the phone company CO (central office), and you must be even closer, down to 10000 feet, for buying higher DSL rates. Some DSL vendors can tell you on the phone how many feet you are from their equipment if you give them your phone are code and first 3 digits, and zip code. @work was helpful to me for that (the business side of @home).

There are three reasons why DSL might not be an option for you: One is you are too far from any SLC, therefore you will never be able to get DSL, unless your CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier), builds a new node closer to you. Two is that no DSL provider has yet installed equipment in your CLECs facility. Three is because your physical copper phone line(s) prove to be too old to be handle DSL modem signals reliably. If you pass on these three items, you should be able to get DSL now.

In NYC, www.redconnect.com is building their own network that you get to via Bell (of course). They are offering ADSL. Unfortunately, in my book, their marketing is ahead of their deployment.. they are happy to accept your DSL request, but then put you on analog 56k until the zone around you "lights up"... which may be next week, or next month, or next....? finding out "when" is almost impossible, so signing up is a matter of blind faith.

They are also firmly residential oriented in terms of using DHCP, limiting the number of IP addresses, and having an upstream cap at 120kbps ... Why is this a problem? well DHCP means your IP address changes, typically, about once every few weeks, but if you ever fancy serving any digital data, (http, ftp, or whatever) you dont want a dynamically changing IP address!

Do any DSL search in dejanews, and you will hear about FLASHCOM. An agressive sales oriented company offering DSL nationally via at least Covad and Northpoint (two big DSL networkers that resale their networks to "ISPs" to on-sell to the customer). Flashcom has, on the face of it, the best prices for residential DSL access, and will sign you up over the phone with a fast talking no-worries type sales guy. Technically, however, they are non-existant. They seem to out-source all the services you will be depending on (DNS, DHCP, news servers, pop3 mailboxes) to subcontractors with little accountability to you the customer, and no incentive to provide good service, and the terms and conditions of the contract are a straitjacket.. read the fine print first! They also have an explicit NO SERVERS rule which means if you do decide to get technical and run any kind of mini web server, remote access server, game server or ftp server, you are jeopardizing your whole contract and could be up for termination and end up owing them penalties. I read the fine print and decided I didnt like the tone, and found that backing out was almost as hard as getting in was easy. Trying to raise them again to accept cancellation (which the T&C says clearly can be made within the really super generous cooling off period of 24 hours and zero minutes), was impossible. Of course they ignored my cancellation attempt and placed the order with Northpoint anyway, so I had to tell Northpoint themselves it was supposed to be a cancel, and go back to Flashcom accounting department to find someone to re-do the cancellation... (flashcom reappear, like a reanimated corpse, later in my story) for me, anyway, Flashcom was NOT a pleasant experience. One positive.. in the process of "almost" getting caught by flashcom, I found out that Northpoint was the SDSL provider that covered my area, and that Covad (the other biggie) had not reached it yet (I already knew that redconnect hadnt reached it yet either, although finding that out for sure was very difficult).

Finding an ISP that would give me SDSL from Northpoint was my new mission, and armed with that, it became a bit clearer.. the northpoint website www.northpointdsl.com, allows you to find the list of "partner" ISPs in your area, and the next job is just one of elimination... visiting each website in turn checking dsl info and options...

Prices and DSL install fees vary incredibly for the same data rates! You can go from, literally, zero install cost and a low red-connect or flashcom type of price, to at the other end of the scale, $800 for install and four times higher per month price!

A lot of this may be because of out of date website info.. prices are changing fast. However getting someone on the phone to talk about DSL at the ISPs I tried is hard.. numbers dont answer, or there is voice mail that is never returned, email enquiries dont get answered either.. The better websites ask for your phone number, at least the first 3 digits and the area code, and produce a list of prices and/or even providers and speeds and availability dates. These automated facilities are very helpful in getting an idea of what is happening behind the scenes in your area!

Oh at this point, I should talk about the phone company... Bell Atlantic is trying to build its own retail DSL service, and they have some nice looking web pages on it, (it is called InfoSpeed DSL). However, the DSL number to call to ask them is as impenetrable as the smaller ISPs.. info I can glean on dejanews and mailing lists shows that they are lighting up areas, but the chances are they are not in YOUR area for another "few" months.. there is also the worry about your phone company (in the "we only understand voice" sense) operating an ISP type infrastructure reliably, and getting them to fix a problem if it occurs..

PART III: ORDERING DSL

So now, I found an ISP (i wont say which) to get me SDSL via northpoint, without caring about bandwidth used or servers, and at a price better than flashcom. So here is the process for northpoint and NYC and ISP XYZ.. You order it from the ISP, and fill in forms, pay money, and then wait. After a day to a week, depending on how lazy the ISP is, they contact Northpoint with the order. It then goes into Northpoints system and 48 hours or so after that, a "local loop" request goes to Bell Atlantic from Northpoint (ie, please link customer X to our equipment at your switching centre number Y). At this stage, there is a wait that seems to vary depending on the phase of the moon.. some people say weeks. This is a delay you cant check up on, for Bell need a work order number before they give out info on where you are in the queue, and your ISP is 3 steps removed from knowing that number. For me, I had an order for a 2nd phone line via RCN in the queue anyway, and the visiting bell guy saw the DSL request in the system also, and did both on the spot! The time for me between Northpoint getting the order from the ISP, and me getting a socket on the wall (looks identical to a phone socket by the way), was about 3 days! What is supposed to happen, though, is Northpoint gets some warning, and comes by to do the "inside wiring" and test the install. Inside wiring takes the line from where Bell left it, to the room you want it in. In my case, Bell Atlantic kindly did that also.

Equipment: for DSL, you need a "DSL MODEM", and a PC network interface card of some kind. The other option is a combined dsl-modem- router-hub, I think, which is better for small offices. DSL deals now usually allow you to rent the modem, or buy it outright.

For my case, I was presented (for my $20/mth), a 3COM DSL modem (they only make one, its on the 3com website). This is apparently supposed to magically appear at your doorstep, from Northpoint themselves, but in my case, I went to the ISP to pick it up, as this home modem delivery system from Northpoint hadnt really started yet. The modem is simple: plug it in and watch "das blinken lights". There are no local configuration options or diagnostics with this modem.. either green DSL light means go, or red means problem.. (I wonder if redconnect swap the leads on the LEDs ;)?

You also need a NIC, as I said, which you can buy for $29 to $100 from any decent PC store. Try to buy a popular one, because if you ever have any problems you are more likely to see other people on the net posting about it... you need a NIC because out the back of the DSL modem comes pure 10mbps ethernet, just like you have in your office.

Setup. Tthere are two important things here. One is the MAC address.. this is a unique number allocated to every IP card in the word... equipment makers get ranges, and then allocate them to equipment they produce. Amazingly, no equipment has the same MAC address.. but in reality, I believe, manufacturers re-use them, either by accident or plan, so conflicts on the same LAN do happen. The MAC address needs to be given to your ISP, so they can track you as you, and also, probably unblock your circuit... The IP address is the other important thing, or rather, whether or not your ISP is going to automatically configure your network options via DHCP, or statically allocate an IP to you. For my case, they gave me an IP, a subnet mask, and a default gateway, and a DNS server.. basically the same stuff as anyone who has configured networking for an ISP by using the windows control panel knows.

So now, you have a DSL socket on the wall, a green DSL light (hopefully!.. some people get this far to discover the line isnt good enough after all and have to unwind the whole order), and a NIC and a PC plugged in, and you can send packets to the modem by pinging your default gateway... if you are very lucky, you even get a ping reply and your machine is now active, live and on the web, and will probably get hacked by somebody because you know absolutely nothing about IP security... this DSL line will be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (hopefully), and you have loads of bandwidth available should you need it, and a fixed monthly bill. For my case, I pay $139/mth for 416k SDSL, plus $20 for the 3com modem.. and thats basically it. Its expensive compared to AOL or a 56k ISP, but I will be able to work from home.. how much is that worth to you?

Part IV FOLLOWUP

Although the green light is on, I cant ping anything. After poking around with my PC and doing everything else to prove it wasnt my problem, I have to query the ISP on what the problem could be. Here is where dealing with 3 companies really slows you down. The ISP says, basically, its NPs problem, and they, like me, leave a voice mail for NP. (-getting- northpoints number in NYC was very difficult anyway, I expect its classified information...).

After a week of effort to get in touch with Northpoint local technical guys, they finally come through and tell me the reason I have a DSL line, and a green DSL light, so quickly after application, is that it is connected via Northpoint to flashcom!!! the buggers didnt cancel the workorder with Bell! Northpoint confirmed this was not my fault, and are now looking to switch me over to the local ISP that I chose, rather than cutting me off, and having me start again. I am hoping this can happen in relatively short order.

After deciding over a month ago that DSL might be nice, I have got this far. I estimate I have picked over about 20 websites, read about 30 dejanews articles, joined several DSL mailing lists, written about a dozen emails, made about two dozen 1800 calls, listened to the sentence "for quality assurance purposes, this call may be recorded" about four dozen times, visited the new ISP twice, bought and configured one piece of equipment, installed a modem, written a cheque for $220, and so far, I still cant ping anything.

But I am still hopeful!

Like many of us, Justin Beech struggled with the age old quest for high bandwidth. He's submitted a quite interesting feature which discusses issues surrounding many of the options (Sat, Cable, DSL, Modems) and where he ended up. It is a little different than typical Slashdot fare, but I think you'll like it if you've thought about DSL, but wanted more data to get started. You'll just wish it had a happy ending. The following feature was written by Slashdot Reader Justin Beech

I wrote this is in an effort to purge myself of experience in getting DSL service, and in the hope that it helps make us DSL consumers a little more informed about the machinations behind those slick adverts that are popping up around the US. (Disclaimer.. this is only a local interpretation of my efforts in new york, maybe some of this doesnt apply in your area.. however, 2 years ago, I had an even more troublesome experience trying to get DSL in Singapore, so the trials and tribulations below dont seem confined to just NYC!).

PART I: THE BACKGROUND. Ok.. lets begin at the beginning. I had assumed, before trying to get DSL, that ordering it was straightforward. After all, DSL is a technology that has been discussed endlessly in the press and on the web, and there are adverts around the place saying you can get it.. Concentric DSL and Red-Connect are marketing to NY pretty well, and Flashcom is in the national newspapers... but now I realize that almost nobody has DSL. probably a fraction of 0.1% of all internet accounts are travelling on DSL. Getting DSL, from a customer point of view, I now now believe is equivalent in difficulty to, say, rebuilding your car engine over the summer, you will learn more about phones, telecommunications companies, and equipment than you ever wanted to know, pretty soon you will start to hang out in DSL techie mailing lists listening to opinions on the differences between redback and assured access equipment and chatting to Bell vans in the street hoping to get the inside scoop on upgrades to your local switching centre. If you dont believe me, check out some of the previous tales from the frontline, for instance this article about the guy who tried to get DSL from Bel for his power mac...

For some, however, maybe DSL is a simple experience, probably the same kind of people who order from a catalogue then forget about it and are pleasantly surprised when a parcel arrives 2 months later...

The big 56k lie.. in some areas, regular, quality, modems connected to regular, quality, ISPs, will not do more than 26400 (half their promoted speed). This is NOT because of bad wiring in the building etc, it is because your calls go through two digital/analog conversions, apparently this is not un-common in high density areas. Here is the scoop from a tech in the industry that I emailed to ask why my modem wont go faster than 26400, and the Bell guy told me I am on high quality "lightspan" fibre.

1. "..... Bell is bringing analog lines out of the digital switch like they would on a standard phone line, then they re-digitize it, send it down to the equipment in the neighborhood(the SLC), and the equipment converts it back to a standard analog phone line. The loss from the D>A>D>A conversions kill anything above 26,400.."

Ameritech apparently has the same problems with some of their configurations. Failure to get more than 26400 on what sounds and looks like a good line, is a classic symptom ... to fix this, you can request your line gets moved to "old" copper, which they keep in reserve for "internet whiners", although, calling up your local Bell service operator and mentioning any problem relating to data will not get you far.. they read you the riot act on how your phone service is guaranteed for voice, not for fast data transfer etc etc, but if you do get a friendly repairman to visit on some other pretext, he can be more flexible.

Cable modems, in many areas, are 1-way data. Ie, you have to use a phone line for up-channel. In addition, cable modems are a shared pipe, you share it not with strangers, but with other rabid netsurfers, warez vendors, porn freaks, and quake server operators in your building or street. Your download speed, therefore, varies vastly and CAN be as bad as a modem at peak times in certain areas. In addition, the feeling amongst the isp operators seems to be that this is likely to get worse, not better, as more cable users come on line. Your cable operator has a number of potential bottlenecks that all must be managed correctly to give clean constant speed. In contrast, DSL providers merely have to do the math on backend bandwidth versus incoming DSL lines. DSL providers are pleased that the bandwidth hogs are all jumping into cable.. but you as a cable customer may not be as happy.

Radio and other wireless IP is not anywhere yet, at least in NYC, although there is at least one high speed data net coming on stream, probably designed more for mobile phone use than home internet. There are special exceptions, for instance there is a company that beams down data from empire state building, if you are line-of-sight.

Satellite, for example internet via digital satellite-TV dish, is also an option, but the latency (long ping times) makes less attractive, especially for interactive internet applications (like games) and there is only down-link. Up-link is via your good old modem again... Nobody can fix long ping times due to geographic distance... there is no intel chip in the works to increase the speed of radio waves or electrical signals in conducting materials!

DSL. This is what was left in the bag for me, and with my 26400 data rate thanks to Bells "super duper" optical fibre system, RCNs one-way shared cable modem offering, and time warners non-existant option, and my non-view of the empire state building.

PART II: CONCENTRATING ON DSL

There are two basic types of DSL around now for consumers, ADSL and SDSL. The first is asymmetric, ie, assumes you do more reception than sending. Typically uplink rates are 128 or 384kbps (ie, 1-3 times dual ISDN or 3-9x an average modem speed). Downlink rates are up to 784kbps or even higher. Potentially. Ping times are fast (thats good), probably 40-100ms versus 150-300ms for modems. Basically, this rocks compared to ISDN or any regular modem.

For any DSL service, you are tied to THREE parties. One, the ISP, which typically is your only point of contact, and the people who bill you. Two, the CLEC, ie, Bell Atlantic, which owns the rights to access your house and the wires into it. Three, the DSL carrier, which will be one of several national DSL companies who dont like to field calls from customers, and like to deal with either CLECs or ISPs, but carry your data, and are where 40-80% of your monthly bill goes. In the case of Bell Atlantics own DSL service, they are all three.. the CLEC, the ISP and also the DSL provider!

For all DSL types, your home modem needs to be less than roughly 20,000 feet from the "DSLAM" (DSL Access Muptiplexor), which I think is installed next to the SLC (subscriber loop carrier) equipment, en-route to the phone company CO (central office), and you must be even closer, down to 10000 feet, for buying higher DSL rates. Some DSL vendors can tell you on the phone how many feet you are from their equipment if you give them your phone are code and first 3 digits, and zip code. @work was helpful to me for that (the business side of @home).

There are three reasons why DSL might not be an option for you: One is you are too far from any SLC, therefore you will never be able to get DSL, unless your CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier), builds a new node closer to you. Two is that no DSL provider has yet installed equipment in your CLECs facility. Three is because your physical copper phone line(s) prove to be too old to be handle DSL modem signals reliably. If you pass on these three items, you should be able to get DSL now.

In NYC, www.redconnect.com is building their own network that you get to via Bell (of course). They are offering ADSL. Unfortunately, in my book, their marketing is ahead of their deployment.. they are happy to accept your DSL request, but then put you on analog 56k until the zone around you "lights up"... which may be next week, or next month, or next....? finding out "when" is almost impossible, so signing up is a matter of blind faith.

They are also firmly residential oriented in terms of using DHCP, limiting the number of IP addresses, and having an upstream cap at 120kbps ... Why is this a problem? well DHCP means your IP address changes, typically, about once every few weeks, but if you ever fancy serving any digital data, (http, ftp, or whatever) you dont want a dynamically changing IP address!

Do any DSL search in dejanews, and you will hear about FLASHCOM. An agressive sales oriented company offering DSL nationally via at least Covad and Northpoint (two big DSL networkers that resale their networks to "ISPs" to on-sell to the customer). Flashcom has, on the face of it, the best prices for residential DSL access, and will sign you up over the phone with a fast talking no-worries type sales guy. Technically, however, they are non-existant. They seem to out-source all the services you will be depending on (DNS, DHCP, news servers, pop3 mailboxes) to subcontractors with little accountability to you the customer, and no incentive to provide good service, and the terms and conditions of the contract are a straitjacket.. read the fine print first! They also have an explicit NO SERVERS rule which means if you do decide to get technical and run any kind of mini web server, remote access server, game server or ftp server, you are jeopardizing your whole contract and could be up for termination and end up owing them penalties. I read the fine print and decided I didnt like the tone, and found that backing out was almost as hard as getting in was easy. Trying to raise them again to accept cancellation (which the T&C says clearly can be made within the really super generous cooling off period of 24 hours and zero minutes), was impossible. Of course they ignored my cancellation attempt and placed the order with Northpoint anyway, so I had to tell Northpoint themselves it was supposed to be a cancel, and go back to Flashcom accounting department to find someone to re-do the cancellation... (flashcom reappear, like a reanimated corpse, later in my story) for me, anyway, Flashcom was NOT a pleasant experience. One positive.. in the process of "almost" getting caught by flashcom, I found out that Northpoint was the SDSL provider that covered my area, and that Covad (the other biggie) had not reached it yet (I already knew that redconnect hadnt reached it yet either, although finding that out for sure was very difficult).

Finding an ISP that would give me SDSL from Northpoint was my new mission, and armed with that, it became a bit clearer.. the northpoint website www.northpointdsl.com, allows you to find the list of "partner" ISPs in your area, and the next job is just one of elimination... visiting each website in turn checking dsl info and options...

Prices and DSL install fees vary incredibly for the same data rates! You can go from, literally, zero install cost and a low red-connect or flashcom type of price, to at the other end of the scale, $800 for install and four times higher per month price!

A lot of this may be because of out of date website info.. prices are changing fast. However getting someone on the phone to talk about DSL at the ISPs I tried is hard.. numbers dont answer, or there is voice mail that is never returned, email enquiries dont get answered either.. The better websites ask for your phone number, at least the first 3 digits and the area code, and produce a list of prices and/or even providers and speeds and availability dates. These automated facilities are very helpful in getting an idea of what is happening behind the scenes in your area!

Oh at this point, I should talk about the phone company... Bell Atlantic is trying to build its own retail DSL service, and they have some nice looking web pages on it, (it is called InfoSpeed DSL). However, the DSL number to call to ask them is as impenetrable as the smaller ISPs.. info I can glean on dejanews and mailing lists shows that they are lighting up areas, but the chances are they are not in YOUR area for another "few" months.. there is also the worry about your phone company (in the "we only understand voice" sense) operating an ISP type infrastructure reliably, and getting them to fix a problem if it occurs..

PART III: ORDERING DSL

So now, I found an ISP (i wont say which) to get me SDSL via northpoint, without caring about bandwidth used or servers, and at a price better than flashcom. So here is the process for northpoint and NYC and ISP XYZ.. You order it from the ISP, and fill in forms, pay money, and then wait. After a day to a week, depending on how lazy the ISP is, they contact Northpoint with the order. It then goes into Northpoints system and 48 hours or so after that, a "local loop" request goes to Bell Atlantic from Northpoint (ie, please link customer X to our equipment at your switching centre number Y). At this stage, there is a wait that seems to vary depending on the phase of the moon.. some people say weeks. This is a delay you cant check up on, for Bell need a work order number before they give out info on where you are in the queue, and your ISP is 3 steps removed from knowing that number. For me, I had an order for a 2nd phone line via RCN in the queue anyway, and the visiting bell guy saw the DSL request in the system also, and did both on the spot! The time for me between Northpoint getting the order from the ISP, and me getting a socket on the wall (looks identical to a phone socket by the way), was about 3 days! What is supposed to happen, though, is Northpoint gets some warning, and comes by to do the "inside wiring" and test the install. Inside wiring takes the line from where Bell left it, to the room you want it in. In my case, Bell Atlantic kindly did that also.

Equipment: for DSL, you need a "DSL MODEM", and a PC network interface card of some kind. The other option is a combined dsl-modem- router-hub, I think, which is better for small offices. DSL deals now usually allow you to rent the modem, or buy it outright.

For my case, I was presented (for my $20/mth), a 3COM DSL modem (they only make one, its on the 3com website). This is apparently supposed to magically appear at your doorstep, from Northpoint themselves, but in my case, I went to the ISP to pick it up, as this home modem delivery system from Northpoint hadnt really started yet. The modem is simple: plug it in and watch "das blinken lights". There are no local configuration options or diagnostics with this modem.. either green DSL light means go, or red means problem.. (I wonder if redconnect swap the leads on the LEDs ;)?

You also need a NIC, as I said, which you can buy for $29 to $100 from any decent PC store. Try to buy a popular one, because if you ever have any problems you are more likely to see other people on the net posting about it... you need a NIC because out the back of the DSL modem comes pure 10mbps ethernet, just like you have in your office.

Setup. Tthere are two important things here. One is the MAC address.. this is a unique number allocated to every IP card in the word... equipment makers get ranges, and then allocate them to equipment they produce. Amazingly, no equipment has the same MAC address.. but in reality, I believe, manufacturers re-use them, either by accident or plan, so conflicts on the same LAN do happen. The MAC address needs to be given to your ISP, so they can track you as you, and also, probably unblock your circuit... The IP address is the other important thing, or rather, whether or not your ISP is going to automatically configure your network options via DHCP, or statically allocate an IP to you. For my case, they gave me an IP, a subnet mask, and a default gateway, and a DNS server.. basically the same stuff as anyone who has configured networking for an ISP by using the windows control panel knows.

So now, you have a DSL socket on the wall, a green DSL light (hopefully!.. some people get this far to discover the line isnt good enough after all and have to unwind the whole order), and a NIC and a PC plugged in, and you can send packets to the modem by pinging your default gateway... if you are very lucky, you even get a ping reply and your machine is now active, live and on the web, and will probably get hacked by somebody because you know absolutely nothing about IP security... this DSL line will be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (hopefully), and you have loads of bandwidth available should you need it, and a fixed monthly bill. For my case, I pay $139/mth for 416k SDSL, plus $20 for the 3com modem.. and thats basically it. Its expensive compared to AOL or a 56k ISP, but I will be able to work from home.. how much is that worth to you?

Part IV FOLLOWUP

Although the green light is on, I cant ping anything. After poking around with my PC and doing everything else to prove it wasnt my problem, I have to query the ISP on what the problem could be. Here is where dealing with 3 companies really slows you down. The ISP says, basically, its NPs problem, and they, like me, leave a voice mail for NP. (-getting- northpoints number in NYC was very difficult anyway, I expect its classified information...).

After a week of effort to get in touch with Northpoint local technical guys, they finally come through and tell me the reason I have a DSL line, and a green DSL light, so quickly after application, is that it is connected via Northpoint to flashcom!!! the buggers didnt cancel the workorder with Bell! Northpoint confirmed this was not my fault, and are now looking to switch me over to the local ISP that I chose, rather than cutting me off, and having me start again. I am hoping this can happen in relatively short order.

After deciding over a month ago that DSL might be nice, I have got this far. I estimate I have picked over about 20 websites, read about 30 dejanews articles, joined several DSL mailing lists, written about a dozen emails, made about two dozen 1800 calls, listened to the sentence "for quality assurance purposes, this call may be recorded" about four dozen times, visited the new ISP twice, bought and configured one piece of equipment, installed a modem, written a cheque for $220, and so far, I still cant ping anything.

But I am still hopeful!

kwak writes "Looks like KDE is getting an Imlib equivalence in the just announced collaboration with the ImageMagick team. This brings improved graphical effects and conversions to the ever expanding KDE code base."

assimilated writes "In the April 26th issue of Computerworld, president and CEO of SCO made a few well-put comments about the Linux "religion". I think he was right on. A legitimate vendor speaks out... Read the article to get fussy. " Hehe-I had no idea I was working for the Catholic Church. Does that mean I can't get married after all?

Yumpee writes "DOOMWorld interviewed John Carmack recently. The site itself is a bit sluggish but Blue's News had this snippet on how Doom got its name: Carmack: There is a scene in "The Color of Money" where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. "What do you have in there?" asks someone. "Doom." replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry. "

was writes "Inpace limited has released a keyboard that is waterproof, and can "withstand most detergents, disinfectants and sterilisers" and can be rolled up for ultra portability!" I'll avoid assorted obvious dirty jokes about water proof keyboards and let you guys roll your own.

Jonathan Ocab wrote in to tell us that Red Hat has redone their site. You'll notice a summary of both Freshmeat and Slashdot stories on the page, linkage to User Friendly, as well as lots of javascript mouseovers to consume bandwidth.

Andrew Dvorak writes "This article on News.com states that five companies (both in the US and outside the US) will be designated to manage internet domains along with InterNIC. This will apparently end the InterNIC's oligopoly."

seymour asks "I have recently been having various minor troubles with my motherboard and I am considering an upgrade. I am looking for suggestions of motherboards that will accept the K6/233 CPU (and the K6-2 or higher I guess), has an AGP slot, and takes DIMMs for memory. Also wanted is a chipset that Linux supports well for UDMA hard drives. Future upgradability to a K6-2 and a 100 MHz bus speed would be a plus, but not necessary. "

gman has started a new site, linuxhardware.net in an effort to create help newbies learn and share information about Linux and Hardware. nickm an insane link designed to bring arts and culture to the Unix community. Apparently Dogman has created a hilarious page entitled "Installing a network PostScript printer on a Sun workstation running SunOS As illustrated through interpretive dance. Whoever said learning can't be fun never saw this. Or maybe they did and just created a mental block so they didn't have to think about that guy dancing. Jerome ALET sent us a link to the Linux Slogans Database Matthew Astley wrote in to where you can buy 25x25mm self-adhesive domed plastic badges featuring Tux to attach to your computer case in that little logo spot. The Phly sent in links to a new Bible for Linux page is up. jgalun wrote in to send us a link to a Washington Post that comapres Sys Admin Salaries average system admin salaries, in which they note that Mac sys admins seem to make very little. Hmm, wonder why...Also noted is that Linux sys admins had the greatest pay raises last year. More to come, hopefully! darius sent us a link to the new apple ad campaign which features the one, the only, HAL 9000. BigZaphod wriote in to announce a new games site:Legions. And rounding in to the more tasteless part of the quickies, kweiheri sent us an great parody of realdoll.com- except this one is (ahem) realhamster.com. What is this world coming to? GraZZ wrote in to send us an amusing parody of Star Wars and the Starr Thing.

James Kachel writes "Netscape 4.07 was released. Get it from the usual spots " This one fixes the notorious cache bug. Snag it if you're worried about that sort of thing.

David Rusting writes "Interesting tidbit from CNN Digital Jam on how Microsoft will argue they thought of the browser first (before Netscape). Does anyone really buy this? "

Jouni K Seppänen wrote in to tell everyone that Lars Wirzenius typed in his speech from LinuxExpo. It was pretty cool and I'm sure many of you will enjoy it. Mircea Ciocan wrote in to tell us that the indestructable distribution has risen from ages of silence. We now have Slackware 3.5b2 online for those daring slackers willing to join in. I started with Slackware years ago, and Dave still prefers it. And I know he and the other diehards will be happy that it's still alive. Finally, for a laugh, ewjc wrote in to give us a link to This Wired Article about a nudist who allows access to her site for anyone, unless you have Microsoft affiliations. On one hand, It's a blatant PR stunt designed to cash in on the current tidal wave of anti MS feelings, on the other hand, it's free nudity! (Laugh! I'm kidding! Sheesh. I better go back to the homework before I try to be funny again *grin*.

Roy Stogner asked me to tell everyone that The Linux Web Map has moved to a new location. TLWM is another site tracking urls related to Linux. The nice thing is Roy's descriptions of the sites in the database. Quite helpful information in many cases. Anyway, update those bookmarks (and if you've never visited, check it out)

ewjc sent us A Link to a Stage Play written by the one and only John Dvorak. It's a cheesy little parody of TMS jokingly adapted to stage. It's crappy outside, if you're looking for something to do, this is nice.

While I know that most of our readers prefer Mysql and Postregsql, it still is interesting to read what Dan Kirkpatrick sent in: " Just a rumor from Cringley. However, he says that an "IT manager at a large health-care organization" has tweaked an SCO version of Oracle 7 for Linux, and has it running on a 180 MHz box. Seems to me that Oracle is one of those mission critical apps that *has* to be ported to Linux before many corporations can consider Linux for their mission critical apps. " True enough.