Clean up your mail servers. Install something to filter out the virus and any varients. Even the least tech savvy people will understand "It dials 911" and "Unplug your webtv"
Actually, they don't. Half of them don't even understand it's not some sort of VCR. The other half don't know that it's not a cable box. Trust me, from a support standpoint, the people who buy and use msnTV are the most ignorant, least intelligent people on the face of the planet. Hell, we were getting calls from NYC on 9/11 with people asking "Why doesn't my Web work?"
As someone who supports the damn thing, we're aware of this...umm... "feature". I don't speak for MS, or MSNTV - but the email doesn't spread. It's a one time thing sent by a malicious malcontent to a webtv user.
WebTV users can forward the email to each other, but the origination is obviously non-webtv since such things are impossible to create on the pitiful excuse for an internet access device.
As far as I can tell, anyway. I'm the Operations Manager for a small CSP in Dallas, and probably 9/10ths of our customer base is high-speed traffic.
you may need this...
Acronym Guide:
ILEC - independent local exchange carrier (Bell, GTE, US West, etc.) - they own the local copper
and the switching equipment
CLEC - competitive local exchange carrier (Zyan, Covad, Rhythms, Northpoint) - they lease the copper from the ILECs
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
Currently our focus is SDSL, but we also include wireless technologies and standard highspeed connections (T's and ISDN). I can honestly say that a vast majority of my day is fighting with CLECs and ILECs about the status of our
customers. We use several redundant monitoring systems to keep an eye and make sure everyone is up, but I garauntee that not 2 days will go by before we have some major trouble with one of our line providers... including weekends. Most of the time it has to do with a squabble between the CLEC and the ILEC, but every now and then it's just a CLEC "oopsie, sorry, we should have your customer back up by... oh... tomorrow, I guess."
Now, with my anecdote out of the way, let me share what *I* see as the problem - from the point of view from someone who has to be in the know - it's my job. DSL is still a young technology. The way it's structured, along with the de-regulation of the telecom industry, has made it a tragic pitfall for customers to get lost in. Our basic order goes like this... either a sales person will put in an order, or a potential will call in. We qualify the line through our various line providers. Because of the way Dallas is, 99% of the time, the customer will qualify for some sort of service, so we put the order into the CLEC.
The CLEC then Calls the ILEC to request a pair (because it's SDSL, can't run over a current line), at the location we requested. The ILEC may then come back and say "We don't have a pair for you at that location right now." Then the CLEC calls us back and says "no-can-do."
If the pair IS available, the ILEC will set an allocation date when the CLEC may have a pair at the location (usually 2-3 weeks from when the request was made, provided that the ILEC reviews and responds to the request asap), then the CLEC will set the install for 2-3 weeks after they have the pair allocated to them, because they want to make sure that they actually have it.
Now, provided all of this goes as smoothly as possible, you're looking at probably a bare minimum of 4 weeks... and as much as 3 months, due to circumstances.
The CLECs usually dispatch the ILEC technicians to do the pair hookup, and then dispatch contractors to to a site install. The install can fail for any number of reasons. The first is incompetency. I shouldn't have to elaborate, but I will just for thoroughness: sometimes the ILECs haven't finished, or just haven't properly trained their techs to identify, mark, and set up the pairs for DSL. Sometimes the contractors doing the site install are stupid. You get the picture. Other reasons for failed installs are the ILEC yanking the pairs from the CLEC, the CLEC randomly failing the install (have seen this one multiple times, with no explanation), or the ILEC allocating the same pair to multiple people.
Now, providing that everything goes to plan, you get your one month turnaround, at the speed you want, with no installation problems, then there's other things that can happen. First is the DSL Router Syncing Down.... what this means is if the DSL line has noise or is improperly configured by the ILEC or CLEC (whoever), or the router itself isn't properly configured, it will downgrade the signal (which means a loss of bandwidth for you guys). There is no way for the routers to Sync Up aside from a re-sync - which means rebooting the router. Also, the ILEC may still yank the pair - I've had this happen to 5 different customers. When we finally get a response back it's always been "the circuit was incomplete" or "that order was marked as terminated". Usually the problem is the ILEC has mistakenly given out the last pair at that location.
I'll wrap it up now - if you get a good, customer service oriented DSL provider, you're still going to have problems, but they'll fight for you. Alot. They do it every day, and it's trench warfare, but they'll do it because you are the customer. You just can't steer clear of problems with DSL yet - there's too many middlemen, there's too many crossover points, too many routing issues (both telco and net), too many variables in general. Find a provider that cares about you, what you want, what your needs are... go with them. They may not have the best price, or offer the highest speeds, but you won't regret it. In other words, if you make the right choice, getting the install done is like giving birth, but once you're up and working with your ISP, it should be a lot of fun!
Stephen Sadowski
Operations Manager
Inturnet, inc.
Slashdotters are for the most part, biased. We live in and around technology. Krugman may be correct - the revolution has not had as much impact as of yet. AS others have said, revolutions take time. Krugman is wrong, however. As an economist, he should know he's wrong. But then, I guess economist don't pay attention to the breakdown of the world trade markets, specifically NASDAQ and NYSE. Personaly, I think that the economy is proof enough that the digital revolution has had an impact.
Sure, it's important that a kid's interest is held when you're trying to teach them anything, but the same goes for programming as in anything else that gets taught or learned - make sure that whatever you have them use, it teaches them how to program *properly*. I would have to say steer clear of BASIC, imho, because of the bad habits it allowed me to pick up. While the same could be said for any language, my opinion is that I would be a stronger programmer today if I had started with something like C.
I rather thought that in the book, IMHO, the fight with Stilson after the monitor was removed was crucial to Ender's development. It gives us an early view of how Ender is, and how he reacts to situations. It disappoints me that they've cut that, and I think it will take longer for moviegoers who haven't read the book to identify with Ender's view of the world.
I don't know about the rest of you/.ers, but speaking for myself and most of my geekly friends, megalomania is our disorder of choice...
Hahaha.... Bow down before your new RULER! I wonder if Uncle Sam will help me... TAKE OVER THE WORLD
The same thing we do every night, Pinky - Try and take over the world!
Re:Hah, an internet drivers license?
on
License to Surf
·
· Score: 1
no, there's no risk of "harm to self," but there are such persons out there who actively waste the time of myself and other technicians because they "can't get to a website" or "can't connect to whatever." Having someone pass a test of basic knowledge and understanding would be beneficial to the industry as a whole. My job is not to coach these people in the ways of clicking on buttons and typing in website names - it's to fix a problem if one occurs. Having people being able to recognize when there actually IS a problem would be very helpful. It's alot better than having some user call up and say "The Internet is broken, can you send me a new one?"
Hah, an internet drivers license?
on
License to Surf
·
· Score: 1
I wonder, could we force novices to take courses, get a learner's permit, and pass a final examination of proficiency before they're allowed to access the web without supervision? It'd make my job easier! Not that I agree completely with the idea, mind you, but wouldn't it be better if people actually had to get a clue before diving right in? You don't see people doing 540s on a half pipe the first time they put on a pair of rollerblades, or driving cross country the first time they put the keys in the ignition of a car. So here's the lowdown on what I think: while you may trade anonymity for required proficiency, it might be worth it.
As strange as it may sound, I have several friends that wanted the same thing, and they did settle on a trade school, of a sort. DeVry, being the final choice offered a variety of degrees, EE, CS, Telecom. DeVry is an accredited school, and does offer a B.S. in all of their programs. The schoolyears are compressed into a Trimester period, so the workload is intense, but it shortens the length of your term at the school. DeVry also has an excellent record of work placement, as well, so if you are looking at being employed part (or full) time while attending school there, they will assist you in finding employment. It's quite an amazing place, and if I decide to seek a BS, I may end up there myself!
Especially considering that your primary sources are cited first according to the CBE documentation style (1). Now we know that this person is obviously no english major, but he's _citing_ _himself_. That's pretty lame, since neither of the works he uses as his primary reference is publicly available. He doesn't even say where we could find those and discredit them.
1. Fowler HR, Aaron JM. The Little, Brown Handbook. 7th ed. New York: Longman; 1998. 882 p.
Amazing. Antionline's legal facism strikes again. Criticism can not be had of this Amazingly Wonderful Security Site, and it's Amazingly Wonderful Contributors because as we all know, Antionline is always right, always will be, and... oops... damn, I must have crossed over from another universe again.
It's almost funny how antionline can claim to be what it is, when all it does is try to shut down competitors. I've never seen anything useful come out of antionline, and I doubt I ever will. Packet Storm actually had something to contribute, and while I didn't visit the site that often, this really ticks me off.
Of course, Harvard is trying to cover their ass, as opposed to supporting packet storm, because they're scared of the controversy. It's kind of sad when everyone around is scared to protect first amendment rights. But then hey, I'd be screamin my head off in pure terror if anything that had to do with Ms. Meinel even thought about me.
It occurs to me that if you're running a network on entirely NT and the NT admins have no unix experience at all, and none with linux specifically, you'd be in a world of hurt trying to do a migration. Either that, or you'd have to get a new admin staff. This is just common sense in my opinion, but many suits think one computer admin is the same as the next.
Apparently the RIAA has still got their head up their ass. It's well known that they're spearheading the Secure Music initiative, I think that they probably just convinced (or threatened) PlayMedia into suing NullSoft. Once again, RIAA bullies the little guys - indirectly though it may be. The RIAA needs to get over this fact that they're gonna loose, and stop trying to push around the little guys that are actually helping the progression of modern music.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the nature of the paper this story orignated in, I'd say the story should be taken with a grain of salt.
Clean up your mail servers. Install something to filter out the virus and any varients. Even the least tech savvy people will understand "It dials 911" and "Unplug your webtv"
Actually, they don't. Half of them don't even understand it's not some sort of VCR. The other half don't know that it's not a cable box. Trust me, from a support standpoint, the people who buy and use msnTV are the most ignorant, least intelligent people on the face of the planet. Hell, we were getting calls from NYC on 9/11 with people asking "Why doesn't my Web work?"
It's not a virus, it's a bug.
As someone who supports the damn thing, we're aware of this...umm... "feature". I don't speak for MS, or MSNTV - but the email doesn't spread. It's a one time thing sent by a malicious malcontent to a webtv user.
WebTV users can forward the email to each other, but the origination is obviously non-webtv since such things are impossible to create on the pitiful excuse for an internet access device.
As far as I can tell, anyway. I'm the Operations Manager for a small CSP in Dallas, and probably 9/10ths of our customer base is high-speed traffic.
you may need this...
Acronym Guide:
ILEC - independent local exchange carrier (Bell, GTE, US West, etc.) - they own the local copper
and the switching equipment
CLEC - competitive local exchange carrier (Zyan, Covad, Rhythms, Northpoint) - they lease the copper from the ILECs
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
Currently our focus is SDSL, but we also include wireless technologies and standard highspeed connections (T's and ISDN). I can honestly say that a vast majority of my day is fighting with CLECs and ILECs about the status of our
customers. We use several redundant monitoring systems to keep an eye and make sure everyone is up, but I garauntee that not 2 days will go by before we have some major trouble with one of our line providers... including weekends. Most of the time it has to do with a squabble between the CLEC and the ILEC, but every now and then it's just a CLEC "oopsie, sorry, we should have your customer back up by... oh... tomorrow, I guess."
Now, with my anecdote out of the way, let me share what *I* see as the problem - from the point of view from someone who has to be in the know - it's my job. DSL is still a young technology. The way it's structured, along with the de-regulation of the telecom industry, has made it a tragic pitfall for customers to get lost in. Our basic order goes like this... either a sales person will put in an order, or a potential will call in. We qualify the line through our various line providers. Because of the way Dallas is, 99% of the time, the customer will qualify for some sort of service, so we put the order into the CLEC.
The CLEC then Calls the ILEC to request a pair (because it's SDSL, can't run over a current line), at the location we requested. The ILEC may then come back and say "We don't have a pair for you at that location right now." Then the CLEC calls us back and says "no-can-do."
If the pair IS available, the ILEC will set an allocation date when the CLEC may have a pair at the location (usually 2-3 weeks from when the request was made, provided that the ILEC reviews and responds to the request asap), then the CLEC will set the install for 2-3 weeks after they have the pair allocated to them, because they want to make sure that they actually have it.
Now, provided all of this goes as smoothly as possible, you're looking at probably a bare minimum of 4 weeks... and as much as 3 months, due to circumstances.
The CLECs usually dispatch the ILEC technicians to do the pair hookup, and then dispatch contractors to to a site install. The install can fail for any number of reasons. The first is incompetency. I shouldn't have to elaborate, but I will just for thoroughness: sometimes the ILECs haven't finished, or just haven't properly trained their techs to identify, mark, and set up the pairs for DSL. Sometimes the contractors doing the site install are stupid. You get the picture. Other reasons for failed installs are the ILEC yanking the pairs from the CLEC, the CLEC randomly failing the install (have seen this one multiple times, with no explanation), or the ILEC allocating the same pair to multiple people.
Now, providing that everything goes to plan, you get your one month turnaround, at the speed you want, with no installation problems, then there's other things that can happen. First is the DSL Router Syncing Down.... what this means is if the DSL line has noise or is improperly configured by the ILEC or CLEC (whoever), or the router itself isn't properly configured, it will downgrade the signal (which means a loss of bandwidth for you guys). There is no way for the routers to Sync Up aside from a re-sync - which means rebooting the router. Also, the ILEC may still yank the pair - I've had this happen to 5 different customers. When we finally get a response back it's always been "the circuit was incomplete" or "that order was marked as terminated". Usually the problem is the ILEC has mistakenly given out the last pair at that location.
I'll wrap it up now - if you get a good, customer service oriented DSL provider, you're still going to have problems, but they'll fight for you. Alot. They do it every day, and it's trench warfare, but they'll do it because you are the customer. You just can't steer clear of problems with DSL yet - there's too many middlemen, there's too many crossover points, too many routing issues (both telco and net), too many variables in general. Find a provider that cares about you, what you want, what your needs are... go with them. They may not have the best price, or offer the highest speeds, but you won't regret it. In other words, if you make the right choice, getting the install done is like giving birth, but once you're up and working with your ISP, it should be a lot of fun!
Stephen Sadowski
Operations Manager
Inturnet, inc.
Slashdotters are for the most part, biased. We live in and around technology. Krugman may be correct - the revolution has not had as much impact as of yet. AS others have said, revolutions take time.
Krugman is wrong, however. As an economist, he should know he's wrong. But then, I guess economist don't pay attention to the breakdown of the world trade markets, specifically NASDAQ and NYSE. Personaly, I think that the economy is proof enough that the digital revolution has had an impact.
Sure, it's important that a kid's interest is held when you're trying to teach them anything, but the same goes for programming as in anything else that gets taught or learned - make sure that whatever you have them use, it teaches them how to program *properly*. I would have to say steer clear of BASIC, imho, because of the bad habits it allowed me to pick up. While the same could be said for any language, my opinion is that I would be a stronger programmer today if I had started with something like C.
I rather thought that in the book, IMHO, the fight with Stilson after the monitor was removed was crucial to Ender's development. It gives us an early view of how Ender is, and how he reacts to situations. It disappoints me that they've cut that, and I think it will take longer for moviegoers who haven't read the book to identify with Ender's view of the world.
I don't know about the rest of you /.ers, but speaking for myself and most of my geekly friends, megalomania is our disorder of choice...
Hahaha.... Bow down before your new RULER! I wonder if Uncle Sam will help me... TAKE OVER THE WORLD
The same thing we do every night, Pinky - Try and take over the world!
no, there's no risk of "harm to self," but there are such persons out there who actively waste the time of myself and other technicians because they "can't get to a website" or "can't connect to whatever." Having someone pass a test of basic knowledge and understanding would be beneficial to the industry as a whole. My job is not to coach these people in the ways of clicking on buttons and typing in website names - it's to fix a problem if one occurs. Having people being able to recognize when there actually IS a problem would be very helpful. It's alot better than having some user call up and say "The Internet is broken, can you send me a new one?"
I wonder, could we force novices to take courses, get a learner's permit, and pass a final examination of proficiency before they're allowed to access the web without supervision? It'd make my job easier! Not that I agree completely with the idea, mind you, but wouldn't it be better if people actually had to get a clue before diving right in? You don't see people doing 540s on a half pipe the first time they put on a pair of rollerblades, or driving cross country the first time they put the keys in the ignition of a car. So here's the lowdown on what I think: while you may trade anonymity for required proficiency, it might be worth it.
What made you guys decide to re-release the doom source under a different license?
As strange as it may sound, I have several friends that wanted the same thing, and they did settle on a trade school, of a sort. DeVry, being the final choice offered a variety of degrees, EE, CS, Telecom. DeVry is an accredited school, and does offer a B.S. in all of their programs. The schoolyears are compressed into a Trimester period, so the workload is intense, but it shortens the length of your term at the school. DeVry also has an excellent record of work placement, as well, so if you are looking at being employed part (or full) time while attending school there, they will assist you in finding employment. It's quite an amazing place, and if I decide to seek a BS, I may end up there myself!
Seen this before? Man! Deja Vu!
Especially considering that your primary sources are cited first according to the CBE documentation style (1). Now we know that this person is obviously no english major, but he's _citing_ _himself_. That's pretty lame, since neither of the works he uses as his primary reference is publicly available. He doesn't even say where we could find those and discredit them.
1. Fowler HR, Aaron JM. The Little, Brown Handbook. 7th ed. New York: Longman; 1998. 882 p.
(which, btw, is the correct CBE style)
I'm really kind of happy with my Corel WP Suite, it has the same L&F on both my linux boxes and my win98 machine.... so, does that not count, or what?
Amazing. Antionline's legal facism strikes again. Criticism can not be had of this Amazingly Wonderful Security Site, and it's Amazingly Wonderful Contributors because as we all know, Antionline is always right, always will be, and... oops... damn, I must have crossed over from another universe again.
It's almost funny how antionline can claim to be what it is, when all it does is try to shut down competitors. I've never seen anything useful come out of antionline, and I doubt I ever will. Packet Storm actually had something to contribute, and while I didn't visit the site that often, this really ticks me off.
Of course, Harvard is trying to cover their ass, as opposed to supporting packet storm, because they're scared of the controversy. It's kind of sad when everyone around is scared to protect first amendment rights. But then hey, I'd be screamin my head off in pure terror if anything that had to do with Ms. Meinel even thought about me.
So why would you disagree? If there's already a shop of underqualified admins, then that's going to make a migration all the more difficult.
It occurs to me that if you're running a network on entirely NT and the NT admins have no unix experience at all, and none with linux specifically, you'd be in a world of hurt trying to do a migration. Either that, or you'd have to get a new admin staff. This is just common sense in my opinion, but many suits think one computer admin is the same as the next.
Apparently the RIAA has still got their head up their ass. It's well known that they're spearheading the Secure Music initiative, I think that they probably just convinced (or threatened) PlayMedia into suing NullSoft. Once again, RIAA bullies the little guys - indirectly though it may be. The RIAA needs to get over this fact that they're gonna loose, and stop trying to push around the little guys that are actually helping the progression of modern music.