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Google and Friends Release Net Neutrality Measuring Tools
angry tapir writes "Google and a group of partners have released a set of tools designed to help broadband customers and researchers measure performance of Internet connections. The set of tools, at MeasurementLab.net, includes a network diagnostic tool, a network path diagnostic tool and a tool to measure whether the user's broadband provider is slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. Coming soon to the M-Lab applications is a tool to determine whether a broadband provider is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic, and a tool to determine whether a provider is degrading certain users or applications. 'Transparency is our goal,' said Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist at Google and a co-developer of TCP/IP. 'Our intent is to make more [information] visible for all who are interested in the way the network is functioning at all layers.'"
6'1"
185 lbs.
7.5% tissue replaced with CAT6 cable
And this guy too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FIfu7B3sZY
While I don't really think this is talking about neutrality per se, I figured I should post this because it makes me ROFL.
well, we do have an aging file server at the office that needs to be re-purposed. it used to house two 120GB hard drives in firmware RAID 1, but one of the drives died recently and the other is about to kick the bucket (they're both about 7-years-old). and with external hard drives costing less and less these days, it seems more practical and cost-efficient to simply use a few pairs of external hard drives for back-ups. also, ever since we switched to wireless, working over the network (with 20~100MB hi-res images) has become a pain in the ass--though maybe Adobe Drive/Version Cue will help in that regard.
i only hesitate to set up a Linux server because i'm not familiar with the OS. i've only run SUSE and RedHat briefly on the desktop, and that was ages ago in high school (i also never got my sound card to work). i'd be more willing to go through the trouble if there was a possibility of using the linux box as a wireless router and somehow speed up our WLAN speeds. we have a Linksys Wireless G router, but using Windows XP file sharing is pitiful. it's almost impossible to get a 2GB transfer to complete without an error. it usually takes several tries and 6-7 hrs or more.
use a few pairs of external hard drives for back-ups.
Get an external enclosure that does RAID and use that. Preferably a NAS device so you can leverage it a little. Not very expensive and that way your backup will actually be more reliable than the source. "Backing up" data to unreliable external storage like USB hard drives and flash drives is a bad idea.
ever since we switched to wireless, working over the network (with 20~100MB hi-res images) has become a pain in the ass
Wait for n or switch back. I recommend the latter. The practical limitations on wireless are serious an they're not changing anytime soon.
Well wireless is perfect for normal traffic, but if your moving files around then keep a cable handy.
Thats what I do at work.
At home I have gigabit ethernet everywhere so the benefits of wireless disappear.
why would a USB external hard drive be any less reliable than an internal SATA drive?
we're a small indie label, so i'm not sure the cost of an external RAID enclosure is justified. we do have a lot of hi-res graphics to back up, such as album artwork, print layouts, poster/sticker/clothing designs, etc., as well as e-mails, invoices, and our retail & radio mailing/contact lists. but i think weekly backups onto one or two 750GB~1TB drives should be sufficient.
and as you said, consumer wireless technology is severely limited. so being able to just plug the USB hard drive into a workstation to perform backups is pretty handy. i'd prefer if they were FireWire, but it's still a heck of a lot better than trying to do backups over the network.
though perhaps we should wire up the workstations in the office, and just leave the wireless for the laptops and TiVos. in that case we may be able to work directly off of the file server again, which we'll keep an external USB or FireWire hard drive plugged into for nightly backups.