If you have line of sight from roof to roof or from a TV antenna mast on either side: Buy 2 old linksys WAP11 v2.2 on ebay, 2 RP-TNC to N pigtail adapters, 2 flat panel or yagi 2.4GHz antennae and some 1" PVC pipe and elbows. Set WAPs to bridge mode. Disable unused antenna port on each device and connect antennae. Use some 1" white PCV piping to construct a basic antenna mount for each house unless you have a mast of some sort. If you use flat panel antennae, make sure you pay attention to the polarity markings and orient them the same on each side. You should be able to do all of this for about 150 bucks and have a reliable link for up to a few miles if you have clear line of sight. The high gain directional antennae are the key. Binoculars are handy when adjusting the antennae. All this does is "extend the wire", so as long as you hook the link into the 'router' on the broadband side, your Dad's PC will be directly connected his friend's network. The bridging mode makes it transparent and keeps it simple.
Barracuda's products do not make the problem worse. With this logic, every RCF compliant mail server in the world makes the problem worse by simply offering NDR, as Barracuda does. NDR functionality is standard. Incompetent admins (and SMTP itself) are the culprit, enabling NDR during configuration and never turning it off. Barracuda actually recomends all of its clients break RFC and leave NDR disabled . From RFC2821 section 3.7:
"If an SMTP server has accepted the task of relaying the mail and later finds that the destination is incorrect or that the mail cannot be delivered for some other reason, then it MUST construct an "undeliverable mail" notification message and send it to the originator of the undeliverable mail (as indicated by the reverse-path)."
I've used these exclusively for several years (the same batteries) and they work great in all applications.
You can find these everywhere: online, drug stores, supermarkets, department stores, etc.
Charge time on this charger model is 15 hours - but this extends the battery's functional lifespan. These batteries are cheap enough that I keep several more than I need in all my devices at any given time, so I never have to wait for a charge.
Have had a pair of these AAA in a TV remote since 2004- still going without a charge. Haven't bought batteries in 3 years.
The ORDB notice makes it sound like we should all abandon RBL lookups all together. I operate a small GroupWise domain ~about 300 users~ and checked my GWAVA stats when I read the article. 78,000 of the last 155,000 inbound messages were blocked as RBL hits. This first step in ridding most of our spam takes a load off of the more server intensive methods of filtering mail and still seems very relevant. I will be sad to see ORDB go.
For those of you relying on RBL lookups, the following are still available and seem to be very reliable, producing few to zero false positives: zen.spamhaus.org bl.spamcop.net list.dsbl.org
I am the technology director at a district in Indiana fortunate enough to have implemented Linux at our High School as a part of this initiative. I'd just like to touch on a couple of aspects that don't seem to have been fully understood-
Our students are not 'switching' to linux. They are simply adding it to their repertoire of learned operating systems and increasing their exposure to computing. These linux machines are not taking the place of general purpose and special purpose computer labs, teacher computers, or administrative computers in any Indiana schools that I know of. We are using linux to outfit english and social studies classrooms with a computer at every desk, specifically to: use the internet for research and other web based curriculum integration, compose-save-print documents and presentations, and access web based course management systems such as Moodle. SLED 10 allows us to achieve this goal, as would any other flavor of linux, at a fraction the cost of Windows. This early phase of the initiative is to build a framework for schools who want to implement computers at every desk, to report the successes and failures, and to collaborate with other districts on how to best expose students to technology and the Internet via curriculum integration. Over the coming years, we hope to become experts on using Linux in schools, finding solutions and driving development for the platform. We have to start somewhere! In the process, I can only imagine that we are exposing a whole generation and generations to come to MS alternatives and low-cost computing, which will no doubt impact the computing industry as these students move on to become college students, adult consumers, and likely some business leaders making decisions impacting IT at their workplace.
The realization of our vision of a computer at every desk starts here. To accomodate Indiana's 1,000,000 students in our vision, our schools simply cannot afford to purchase and license Windows machines. We are using inexpensive hardware (less than $300 per computer/monitor and inexpensive/free software.) Again, we still use higher end windows workstations for teachers, administrators, and special purpose labs (CAD/CG/Business Apps/Programming.) The goal with these "one-to-one" labs is to make available to the student a web portal and 'office' suite at each desk. The students don't care what OS they are using in these classroom labs. They know to get to the internet they click Firefox and to write a paper they click OpenOffice. Actually, most students are thrilled to be able to explore this mysterious new "SLED 10", breaking their computing monotony.
Implementing and supporting this new operating system has been a challenge, but not unlike any other challenge we encounter as part of our job in IT. Aren't the new challenges why we love technology? SLED 10 was amazingly easy to install, configure, and integrate with our network.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have line of sight from roof to roof or from a TV antenna mast on either side: Buy 2 old linksys WAP11 v2.2 on ebay, 2 RP-TNC to N pigtail adapters, 2 flat panel or yagi 2.4GHz antennae and some 1" PVC pipe and elbows. Set WAPs to bridge mode. Disable unused antenna port on each device and connect antennae. Use some 1" white PCV piping to construct a basic antenna mount for each house unless you have a mast of some sort. If you use flat panel antennae, make sure you pay attention to the polarity markings and orient them the same on each side. You should be able to do all of this for about 150 bucks and have a reliable link for up to a few miles if you have clear line of sight. The high gain directional antennae are the key. Binoculars are handy when adjusting the antennae. All this does is "extend the wire", so as long as you hook the link into the 'router' on the broadband side, your Dad's PC will be directly connected his friend's network. The bridging mode makes it transparent and keeps it simple.
I still don't see how a barracuda box causes backscatter if the admin has NDR disabled.
Barracuda's products do not make the problem worse. With this logic, every RCF compliant mail server in the world makes the problem worse by simply offering NDR, as Barracuda does. NDR functionality is standard. Incompetent admins (and SMTP itself) are the culprit, enabling NDR during configuration and never turning it off. Barracuda actually recomends all of its clients break RFC and leave NDR disabled . From RFC2821 section 3.7: "If an SMTP server has accepted the task of relaying the mail and later finds that the destination is incorrect or that the mail cannot be delivered for some other reason, then it MUST construct an "undeliverable mail" notification message and send it to the originator of the undeliverable mail (as indicated by the reverse-path)."
Touché... Industry "market share leader", rather. Based on my personal experience, these are the best available, like it or not.
Energizer charger model CHM24: http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/chm24.pdf
Energizer NiMH batteries (silver in color): http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/nh15.pdf
I've used these exclusively for several years (the same batteries) and they work great in all applications.
You can find these everywhere: online, drug stores, supermarkets, department stores, etc.
Charge time on this charger model is 15 hours - but this extends the battery's functional lifespan. These batteries are cheap enough that I keep several more than I need in all my devices at any given time, so I never have to wait for a charge.
Have had a pair of these AAA in a TV remote since 2004- still going without a charge. Haven't bought batteries in 3 years.
The ORDB notice makes it sound like we should all abandon RBL lookups all together. I operate a small GroupWise domain ~about 300 users~ and checked my GWAVA stats when I read the article. 78,000 of the last 155,000 inbound messages were blocked as RBL hits. This first step in ridding most of our spam takes a load off of the more server intensive methods of filtering mail and still seems very relevant. I will be sad to see ORDB go.
For those of you relying on RBL lookups, the following are still available and seem to be very reliable, producing few to zero false positives:
zen.spamhaus.org
bl.spamcop.net
list.dsbl.org
I am the technology director at a district in Indiana fortunate enough to have implemented Linux at our High School as a part of this initiative. I'd just like to touch on a couple of aspects that don't seem to have been fully understood-
Our students are not 'switching' to linux. They are simply adding it to their repertoire of learned operating systems and increasing their exposure to computing. These linux machines are not taking the place of general purpose and special purpose computer labs, teacher computers, or administrative computers in any Indiana schools that I know of. We are using linux to outfit english and social studies classrooms with a computer at every desk, specifically to: use the internet for research and other web based curriculum integration, compose-save-print documents and presentations, and access web based course management systems such as Moodle. SLED 10 allows us to achieve this goal, as would any other flavor of linux, at a fraction the cost of Windows. This early phase of the initiative is to build a framework for schools who want to implement computers at every desk, to report the successes and failures, and to collaborate with other districts on how to best expose students to technology and the Internet via curriculum integration. Over the coming years, we hope to become experts on using Linux in schools, finding solutions and driving development for the platform. We have to start somewhere! In the process, I can only imagine that we are exposing a whole generation and generations to come to MS alternatives and low-cost computing, which will no doubt impact the computing industry as these students move on to become college students, adult consumers, and likely some business leaders making decisions impacting IT at their workplace.
The realization of our vision of a computer at every desk starts here. To accomodate Indiana's 1,000,000 students in our vision, our schools simply cannot afford to purchase and license Windows machines. We are using inexpensive hardware (less than $300 per computer/monitor and inexpensive/free software.) Again, we still use higher end windows workstations for teachers, administrators, and special purpose labs (CAD/CG/Business Apps/Programming.) The goal with these "one-to-one" labs is to make available to the student a web portal and 'office' suite at each desk. The students don't care what OS they are using in these classroom labs. They know to get to the internet they click Firefox and to write a paper they click OpenOffice. Actually, most students are thrilled to be able to explore this mysterious new "SLED 10", breaking their computing monotony.
Implementing and supporting this new operating system has been a challenge, but not unlike any other challenge we encounter as part of our job in IT. Aren't the new challenges why we love technology? SLED 10 was amazingly easy to install, configure, and integrate with our network.