Exactly. My wife and I use refurbished HP laptops that I got from a local laptop dealer for about $225 each. We've both have 2GB RAM, 80MB drives and built in WiFi. Nice commercial tank laptops with real serial and printer ports (I geek and ham on those.) For storage we have a WDLive box ($99 Costco) with a 1TB USB drive ($98 Costco), makes a nice file server and services the old 90's TV and stereo system we have.
Slow, yeah, but it works for us. I run linux, she runs winders. Worth upgrading? Not really. I don't video game so it surfs just fine for me.
So as it is now, I have no real use for a "tower" box. Maybe if I was hacking some hardware thing that required a bus but then I'd likely use the old Pentium-Pro that I'm holding onto for sentimental reasons. (and I still have some old ISA wirewrap cards with 8255s addressed and ready to go.)
I had a nice new Thinkpad dual core with 4GB at my last contract job, and it was nice. But I don't need to have dozens of.xls files (ports and IP maps) open with 20 ssh sessions going on at home.
I'll use tech when it fits me, not when it's sold to me. Yeah, I've got only IP phones in the house but old stuff works fine 99.99% of the time.
And if you had me install your DirecTV back when I took a break from core networking to see the world again I would have taken the time to pull out my wirewrap tools and soldering iron and got your box working. Would have even snagged a 320GB SATA drive from a DVR and hacked it in.
SATA ain't nothin' new. We had serial drives on the C=64.
Just make sure you bring your home-made J-pole twinlead antenna and a sling shot. Get that baby up in a tree and you'll hit something (Lyman, Pilchuck, Gold Mountain, Tiger, Cougar, Mission Ridge.. something.)
Please, take a shot at our health-care, although we are finally seeing some positive movement there.
You often buy IP by the 95/5 rule, meter every 5 minutes and then throw out the top 5% of peaks and bill at the 95% point. That keeps quick flashes of very high traffic from killing you.
But buying a last mile circuit like an OC-3 or T3 you'll be paying for the whole thing all the time (renting a pipe.) Metro Ethernet networks (MAN) can be billed either way, depends on what the market will tolerate.
When building our local EmComm van I specked in a CB. The rest of the hams thought I was crazy. I said, "Who do you think will be delivering supplies, maybe a trucker?" They then thought it was a wonderful idea.
The goal isn't to insure that all communications are by ham radio, the goal is to communicate.
I agree, but you may not like the delivered price. You can get b/w cheap at a peering point, but getting that to your home at the guaranteed bit-rate is not cheap. I know that the cost of last mile circuits in Canada is horrendous and that is where the reform really needs to start: Bell.
I live in the Seattle area and know that we host a lot of BC firms just because of that.
I never said it was going to be easy. I remember sneaking a partial T1 into Canada to a cable provider back in '95 (they had one customer on the US side, north of Spokane, and they back hauled it via the cable system.) just to get around the horrid telco T1 rates.
Canada is going to have to have a Internet Revolution and overhaul Rogers/Bell. I'm surprised you've put up with them for this long.
...just like the gas and lights. Which are metered service. It still comes down to paying enough for what you use to keep the infrastructure operational. How the costs of that service are spread out to the users is the question. Quite often metering is the fairest way.
Oddly, where I live (Indian County) I pay a flat rate for water/sewer. The infrastructure is just getting installed to meter. I think I pay more than I should, and I may be. We'll find out when the meters and the billing software gets updated.
$50CDN/month for unlimited Internet at cable speeds? Sounds fair. Cheaper if you only check mail and do light surfing. Nice.
ISPs don't owe you anything you haven't paid for at the price they are willing to sell to you. Nor do they owe it to Netflix to deliver their content.
If you want IP service to be a utility where the public helps set the rates then get your local government to provide it under a public utility district or something. If there is already a franchise agreement the cable company operates under, then get your local government to regulate it better (although you may have to wait for the next contract round, where were you during the comment period the last round?)
Heh. I setup the network for Flying Crocodile. I had 2.5Gb/s available and 100 racks in the Westin circa 2000. We should have been peering. (For those that don't remember, Flyingcroc was known as Sextracker.com)
Nor could she state a Supreme Court case that she liked even though just weeks before the SCotUS ruled in favor of Alaska over Exxon on a Valdez oil spill case. You would have thought that as Governor, she would be all over that one.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Clearwire owns green. At least all the office walls were painted green when I contracted there.
Louis Theroux, a BBC documentary presenter, produced a very inside look at these "people."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOrz5k0jWdU
Worth a watch of the whole thing if you can find a torrent.
Exactly.
Exactly. My wife and I use refurbished HP laptops that I got from a local laptop dealer for about $225 each. We've both have 2GB RAM, 80MB drives and built in WiFi. Nice commercial tank laptops with real serial and printer ports (I geek and ham on those.) For storage we have a WDLive box ($99 Costco) with a 1TB USB drive ($98 Costco), makes a nice file server and services the old 90's TV and stereo system we have.
Slow, yeah, but it works for us. I run linux, she runs winders. Worth upgrading? Not really. I don't video game so it surfs just fine for me.
So as it is now, I have no real use for a "tower" box. Maybe if I was hacking some hardware thing that required a bus but then I'd likely use the old Pentium-Pro that I'm holding onto for sentimental reasons. (and I still have some old ISA wirewrap cards with 8255s addressed and ready to go.)
I had a nice new Thinkpad dual core with 4GB at my last contract job, and it was nice. But I don't need to have dozens of .xls files (ports and IP maps) open with 20 ssh sessions going on at home.
I'll use tech when it fits me, not when it's sold to me. Yeah, I've got only IP phones in the house but old stuff works fine 99.99% of the time.
Agree. Never had a problem with anything saying RTL on FreeBSD.
And if you had me install your DirecTV back when I took a break from core networking to see the world again I would have taken the time to pull out my wirewrap tools and soldering iron and got your box working. Would have even snagged a 320GB SATA drive from a DVR and hacked it in.
SATA ain't nothin' new. We had serial drives on the C=64.
http://aresracesofva.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=116
Knife Edge RF Diffraction
Except on 75m SSB.
Bruce must have mod points.
Icom V8 and a j-pole made out of twin lead.
http://www.qsl.net/wb3gck/jpole.htm
http://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/v8/
Bring fishing line and a slingshot, get the antenna up in a tree.
Under $200USD and easy to pack.
Just make sure you bring your home-made J-pole twinlead antenna and a sling shot. Get that baby up in a tree and you'll hit something (Lyman, Pilchuck, Gold Mountain, Tiger, Cougar, Mission Ridge.. something.)
Please, take a shot at our health-care, although we are finally seeing some positive movement there.
You often buy IP by the 95/5 rule, meter every 5 minutes and then throw out the top 5% of peaks and bill at the 95% point. That keeps quick flashes of very high traffic from killing you.
But buying a last mile circuit like an OC-3 or T3 you'll be paying for the whole thing all the time (renting a pipe.) Metro Ethernet networks (MAN) can be billed either way, depends on what the market will tolerate.
When building our local EmComm van I specked in a CB. The rest of the hams thought I was crazy. I said, "Who do you think will be delivering supplies, maybe a trucker?" They then thought it was a wonderful idea.
The goal isn't to insure that all communications are by ham radio, the goal is to communicate.
Shhh! How do you think I get the local emergency management to pay for my toys!
tribalhams.net
73 de w7com
I agree, but you may not like the delivered price. You can get b/w cheap at a peering point, but getting that to your home at the guaranteed bit-rate is not cheap. I know that the cost of last mile circuits in Canada is horrendous and that is where the reform really needs to start: Bell.
I live in the Seattle area and know that we host a lot of BC firms just because of that.
So now mistakes in reading TFS is trolling? My, my, someone didn't get laid last night.
You still have national elections there, right?
I never said it was going to be easy. I remember sneaking a partial T1 into Canada to a cable provider back in '95 (they had one customer on the US side, north of Spokane, and they back hauled it via the cable system.) just to get around the horrid telco T1 rates.
Canada is going to have to have a Internet Revolution and overhaul Rogers/Bell. I'm surprised you've put up with them for this long.
...just like the gas and lights. Which are metered service. It still comes down to paying enough for what you use to keep the infrastructure operational. How the costs of that service are spread out to the users is the question. Quite often metering is the fairest way.
Oddly, where I live (Indian County) I pay a flat rate for water/sewer. The infrastructure is just getting installed to meter. I think I pay more than I should, and I may be. We'll find out when the meters and the billing software gets updated.
$50CDN/month for unlimited Internet at cable speeds? Sounds fair. Cheaper if you only check mail and do light surfing. Nice.
ISPs don't owe you anything you haven't paid for at the price they are willing to sell to you. Nor do they owe it to Netflix to deliver their content.
If you want IP service to be a utility where the public helps set the rates then get your local government to provide it under a public utility district or something. If there is already a franchise agreement the cable company operates under, then get your local government to regulate it better (although you may have to wait for the next contract round, where were you during the comment period the last round?)
Heh. I setup the network for Flying Crocodile. I had 2.5Gb/s available and 100 racks in the Westin circa 2000. We should have been peering. (For those that don't remember, Flyingcroc was known as Sextracker.com)
Maybe AutoMechanicSchools.com would be a good place to start?
Most 2m repeaters in that area have a phone-patch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopatch
Often you need to join the repeater association for calls other than to 911.
http://ww7ra.org/ is an example near Seattle.
I had no service anywhere east of Spokane, Washington through the entire western half of Montana, for example.
That's a good reason to get a ham radio. Lots of repeaters out that way.
Nor could she state a Supreme Court case that she liked even though just weeks before the SCotUS ruled in favor of Alaska over Exxon on a Valdez oil spill case. You would have thought that as Governor, she would be all over that one.
That's going to be fun for the admins when the server falls over and they need to figure out why. /var/log is there for a reason.