I won't buy into a software subscription service for my software for a few reasons:
1.) I can use a given software packages for years at a time...for me, SecureCRT comes to mind, though my license won't support any of the downloadable versions.
2.) The overall cost of subscription is higher. My company's official office software suite is STILL Office 97. Not that there's anything wrong with 2k or XP, but 97 gets the job done...and it's already paid for.
3.) But the big thing is what happens when a product becomes unsupported? Does the program up and quit and force an upgrade, possibly bring a screeching halt to whatever business process you working on at the time? Does the program send off a little message so the marketing drones relentlessly pound on my phone line, reminding me to renew? Are all my data files locked out?
Even though the initial cost is higher, I much prefer to just buy my software. Unfortunately, subscription is pretty much here...it's in every program that requires an Internet connection to "activate" their products. It's not confined to Microsoft Office anymore...it's just a "lifetime" subscription thing to start getting us used to the idea.
...is the only reason I'm a Handspring user. The backup module kicks ass, and with my extra on-call pay this week, I'm seriously considering the OmniRemote module. The VisorPhone looks cool too, but GSM capabilities in the U.S. are virtually non-existant and I'm not impressed by VoiceStream. That slot is what sold me over. I'd have a Palm V otherwise.
Last I knew, WinCE devices don't have that kind of expandability...unless someone is planning to make PCMCIA versions of all those cool devices.:) Granted, they look pretty...but under a very heavy use load, I get a couple weeks out of my Visor Neo's batteries.
There's something about it being "non-Microsoft" that I enjoy...something that I don't feel particularly tied to...free.
...but I'd want 1.5mb up/down, with a static IP, and the rights to run servers as I see fit, including, but not limited to DNS, web, etc. That also includes my local phone service and cable TV...
Roxio's software sucks. The only reason I know of anyone using it is because it's bundled with nearly every CD-R drive sold. End-of-story. There are several other better applications...including my favorite, NERO burning ROM.
I've been at AT&T BB (formerly MediaOne) user for about 3 years now and it's no surprise to me that they're instituting a cap. Bandwidth isn't unlimited, as much as we'd like it to be. I've had a 1.5mb down / 300 kb up cap on my modem for some time now...and considering my distance from my CO, I have no interest in DSL, and T1 is just abit out of my price range.
The biggest problem now is that the new AT&T BB AUP forbids running all servers of any kind. Previous to December 5, all servers that were run on boxen on their network were okay as long as they didn't interfere with the overall performance of the network. This was cool since I'm not a super huge user of upstream bandwidth as it is.
I received a rather kind call from a fellow in their security department a couple days ago, reportedly becasue one of my whois records showed a DNS server running on their network and asked me to change the IP. I told him I'd investagate and make sure the machine was "server-free." Seems that they were concerned someone else was going to get my IP and get pounded with rogue traffic.
What the tech failed to grasp was that as long as my computer remains on, the IP doesn't change and my DHCP lease gets constantly renewed. Naturally, static IP addresses are not on AT&T's list of features.
After that call, I decided to do some investagation. Seem that a subscriber complained that they were getting killed with DNS and mail traffic. A further look revealed that one of my friends had kept his box off for a month or two, and someone else was assigned his IP. Regardless, someone did some packet captures, found some names, then found the DNS servers. Another one of my friends got shutdown because, like a complete idiot, he left his server wide open and wasn't properly running any kind of IDS.
That aside, I ran a check through my/var/log/security on my system and my fourth friend (who also got a nice call from the security folks) checked his/var/log/messages. Guess what? The logs revealed a super-heavy portscan coming from a machine at:
securityscan.ne.mediaone.net
Fortunately, I had portsentry set to trip on a few well-known services that i run, so just about all scans get sent to the shitter. As such, they didn't start accusing me of anything as a subscriber, but rather as an outside party that might be impacting their network.
That said, be careful what you run on AT&T...and set up some kind of IDS (e.g. portsentry) so that if they do start scanning your system that you can toss their packets before they nail you with an AUP violation.
Actually, 4.2.2.4 was set up as an intentional joke. All those servers are maintained by Genuity, and one of the guys in NetEng decided it'd be cute to toss in a funny reverse-resolve for the fourth address.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is your fault for mispacking. UPS is a fast-paced, production-oriented parcel delivery system. They are _NOT_ movers, and they should not be treated as such.
From the looks in the photos, the box was notably weak from the start. Based on the beding in the box, I would have to say that there was insufficient packing material surrounding the items involved.
You can't just put a bunch of stuff in a box, except maybe clothing, and expect to get it all in one piece. Each box that you intend to ship must have the items securly packed so that: a.) they don't bang into each other, b.) they don't come close to the edge of the box, c.) the packet contents in the box doesn't move so it can unshift, causing a and b to happen.
I worked for UPS as a night-shift and preload package sorter for 3 1/2 years and I can attest that each of your boxes does NOT get hand carried from truck to truck. A complex system of slides, conveyors, and people get boxes from one sorting facility to another. Make no mistake...FedEx and the USPS aren't really that much better when it comes down to it.
A good rule of thumb that I always use when shipping is if the contents of the box will survive a five foot fall. If that answer is yes, then I can ship it. Remember, your valuables are valuable only to you...as far as the insurance issue goes...you should have asked before you shipped the items...especially the more important ones.
Additionally, it is a very good idea to break up shipments into smaller boxes. Lighter boxes seem to do fairly well in the system. They're less likely to be involved in jams. While they may get tossed around a little more, a well-packed, lighter box, will stand up better since the exterior of the box will be less subject to the forces of intertia.
A good example of what not to do is carefully place your entire set of china in a box and ship it off or I guarantee you'll be getting sand at the other end. You're MUCH better off loading the boxes with bubble wrap, individually wrapping each plate, glass, saucer, and other delicate items. Then they need to be placed in several well-padded and densely packed boxes.
If you're short on bubble-wrap, newspaper is always a popular alternative handled by crumpling each individual sheet into a little ball and filling the box with these along with your precious contents. Packing peanuts are always good if you have enough of them laying around. I've heard that unbuttered popcorn works good too...but only if you have your own air popper.
This of course varies with the contents. For clothing, fold everything, then put it in a garbage bag before putting it into the box. This will save you from the occassional liquid damage that is known to happen. I already talked about dishes. For computers, it's best to disconnect and undo anything that isn't securely bolted down...remove those expansion cards and wrap them separately...and pack the inside of the case.
When it comes down to it...shipping your valuables should be done carefully, thoroughly, and effectively to guarantee their safe transport. This is not the time or place to take the "cheap route."
Initially, that was the case, but a number of companies other than Sony make MD player/recorders. I have seen them made by Sharp, JVC, Panasonic, and Kenwood to name a few.
I have an MD Player, and while it doesn't serve as a direct replacement for any of my music sources, it has totally replaced my microcasette recorder. Taping lectures and classes has never been easier with at least 2 1/2 hours of constant recording on one disc...versus flipping little hideous low-quality casettes.
Looks like something to replace the SSN, actually...and a _lot_ of damage can be done if that falls into the wrong person's hands. "Can I have your phone number?" Eeek.
Speaking of which, I don't think SSNs can be replaced if stolen...maybe if you're in the Witness Protection Program...
If you read the actual comment I replied to, it implied that if your primary connection goes down, you'd somehow be able to fall back on another one in your wireless network. That is not entirely correct. NAT will only work properly if everyone on the network is using only one connection to the Internet.
Assuming everything is up and operating, each local node is going to want to use its own egress point through their Cable/DSL provider.
Now, if one of the cable modems dies, it is entirely feasible for the NAT box (a *nix box most likely) to determine that the modem is dead, stop translating, and push the new connections out one of the other egress points, requiring a reasonable amount of intelligents to determine if a fault is present. Internally, you'd want to use some kind of IGP for advertising default routes so when one dies, another route takes over.
Unfortunately, all connections that were running to/from that public IP address are going to drop and will need to be re-established. Granted, this is better than a loss of service for several hours. When service is restored back to the new point, the translations will likely go to hell again as the preferred egress point is once again put back into use.
It gets more complex if there's a problem further than the immediate node or DSLAM, in which case, the NAT box may never fail over to another one of the links. For example, if I can get to my default gateway on my local node, but not beyond that...and my NAT box isn't set to detect that kind of failure or doesn't think there's a problem, then I still have a service outage. The same issue applies to DSLAMs.
Use of a CIDR block would give everyone in the wireless domain a unique public IP for each front-end and wireless address in the network. Backend and private LANs could still be NAT'd on a site-by-site basis. A CIDR block would probably be required with multiple providers, since exporting more-specific prefixes of a larger aggregate block could cause severe traffic shifting problems.
If each of the egress points were to run BGP with their respective gateways, or eBGP multihop to a more reliable headend or provider core router, the problem of network reachability would be much less.
Take, for instance, an outage between the cable node and the headend. If a BGP session were established with the headend, all routing between the headend and the node would cease in an outage and as such, and traffic would not traverse the cable link since there would be almost no routes coming in over the failed link. Even better, a BGP session with the headend would quit entirely and no routes would be received for that link at all.
Since all the BGP routers inside the wireless network would either need to be fully meshed or run as a series of router reflectors and route reflector clients, there would still be acceptable internal routing if there were indeed a failure at one or more egress points.
That's why an implementation using BGP and CIDR blocks would be the preferrable way to handle it.
It really sounds good, but connectivity isn't that easy to just up and "share". Unless you and your buddies intend to get a CIDR block, an ASN, and convince your cable and DSL provicers to let you BGP peer with them, I wouldn't count on this idea working at all.
Quake/UT/HL bots work fine all by themselves without markups...and some of them are reasonably intelligent (for game bots that is). How is some kind of markup language going to describe the complex interactions or persona that actually makes up an individual??
I'm all for future technology and endeavors, and the idea is cool...but we have enough morons driving on the ground. We don't need them careening around in the air!
But to stay on-topic, when I bought my A-Bit BP6 a couple years ago (jurassic computing, I know), I got it with two 366s, considering their value was good and the price was more or less middle-of-the road. It didn't take all that long of a period, maybe 6 months or so before I was able to get a couple of 550s to replace them...all without breaking the bank.
So getting the faster chip isn't worth it initially, but the motherboard that handles it is worth every cent. After all, prices will fall as the newer, better, faster hardware items come out.
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I won't buy into a software subscription service for my software for a few reasons:
1.) I can use a given software packages for years at a time...for me, SecureCRT comes to mind, though my license won't support any of the downloadable versions.
2.) The overall cost of subscription is higher. My company's official office software suite is STILL Office 97. Not that there's anything wrong with 2k or XP, but 97 gets the job done...and it's already paid for.
3.) But the big thing is what happens when a product becomes unsupported? Does the program up and quit and force an upgrade, possibly bring a screeching halt to whatever business process you working on at the time? Does the program send off a little message so the marketing drones relentlessly pound on my phone line, reminding me to renew? Are all my data files locked out?
Even though the initial cost is higher, I much prefer to just buy my software. Unfortunately, subscription is pretty much here...it's in every program that requires an Internet connection to "activate" their products. It's not confined to Microsoft Office anymore...it's just a "lifetime" subscription thing to start getting us used to the idea.
Imagine...64mb of hard storage on a space less than an eighth of the side of my RamWorks III 1mb board!
Now I wish I had a ZipChip and the entire GEOS line of software...
...is the only reason I'm a Handspring user. The backup module kicks ass, and with my extra on-call pay this week, I'm seriously considering the OmniRemote module. The VisorPhone looks cool too, but GSM capabilities in the U.S. are virtually non-existant and I'm not impressed by VoiceStream. That slot is what sold me over. I'd have a Palm V otherwise.
:) Granted, they look pretty...but under a very heavy use load, I get a couple weeks out of my Visor Neo's batteries.
Last I knew, WinCE devices don't have that kind of expandability...unless someone is planning to make PCMCIA versions of all those cool devices.
There's something about it being "non-Microsoft" that I enjoy...something that I don't feel particularly tied to...free.
...but I'd want 1.5mb up/down, with a static IP, and the rights to run servers as I see fit, including, but not limited to DNS, web, etc. That also includes my local phone service and cable TV...
I can't help but wonder if the mountains in Nevada will glow an eerie shade of green under the night sky...
Maybe...maybe not...not like there's anything else out there.
-A.G.-
Roxio's software sucks. The only reason I know of anyone using it is because it's bundled with nearly every CD-R drive sold. End-of-story. There are several other better applications...including my favorite, NERO burning ROM.
Give me freedb or give me death!
With the evil of corporate image being presented, I can't help but ask...what are we going to find out on Microsoft in 37 years? :)
Scary to think about eh?
I've been at AT&T BB (formerly MediaOne) user for about 3 years now and it's no surprise to me that they're instituting a cap. Bandwidth isn't unlimited, as much as we'd like it to be. I've had a 1.5mb down / 300 kb up cap on my modem for some time now...and considering my distance from my CO, I have no interest in DSL, and T1 is just abit out of my price range.
/var/log/security on my system and my fourth friend (who also got a nice call from the security folks) checked his /var/log/messages. Guess what? The logs revealed a super-heavy portscan coming from a machine at:
The biggest problem now is that the new AT&T BB AUP forbids running all servers of any kind. Previous to December 5, all servers that were run on boxen on their network were okay as long as they didn't interfere with the overall performance of the network. This was cool since I'm not a super huge user of upstream bandwidth as it is.
I received a rather kind call from a fellow in their security department a couple days ago, reportedly becasue one of my whois records showed a DNS server running on their network and asked me to change the IP. I told him I'd investagate and make sure the machine was "server-free." Seems that they were concerned someone else was going to get my IP and get pounded with rogue traffic.
What the tech failed to grasp was that as long as my computer remains on, the IP doesn't change and my DHCP lease gets constantly renewed. Naturally, static IP addresses are not on AT&T's list of features.
After that call, I decided to do some investagation. Seem that a subscriber complained that they were getting killed with DNS and mail traffic. A further look revealed that one of my friends had kept his box off for a month or two, and someone else was assigned his IP. Regardless, someone did some packet captures, found some names, then found the DNS servers. Another one of my friends got shutdown because, like a complete idiot, he left his server wide open and wasn't properly running any kind of IDS.
That aside, I ran a check through my
securityscan.ne.mediaone.net
Fortunately, I had portsentry set to trip on a few well-known services that i run, so just about all scans get sent to the shitter. As such, they didn't start accusing me of anything as a subscriber, but rather as an outside party that might be impacting their network.
That said, be careful what you run on AT&T...and set up some kind of IDS (e.g. portsentry) so that if they do start scanning your system that you can toss their packets before they nail you with an AUP violation.
-A.G.-
...but unless we start making a strong move towards IP6 in the not-so-distant future, there won't be enough IPs for that many people.
:) Four more Class A's left in Class C space!
The highest block released now is 220/8, which is in the hands of APNIC.
-A.G.-
Actually, 4.2.2.4 was set up as an intentional joke. All those servers are maintained by Genuity, and one of the guys in NetEng decided it'd be cute to toss in a funny reverse-resolve for the fourth address.
:)
Bear in mind, that 4.2.2.4 doesn't work...
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is your fault for mispacking. UPS is a fast-paced, production-oriented parcel delivery system. They are _NOT_ movers, and they should not be treated as such.
From the looks in the photos, the box was notably weak from the start. Based on the beding in the box, I would have to say that there was insufficient packing material surrounding the items involved.
You can't just put a bunch of stuff in a box, except maybe clothing, and expect to get it all in one piece. Each box that you intend to ship must have the items securly packed so that: a.) they don't bang into each other, b.) they don't come close to the edge of the box, c.) the packet contents in the box doesn't move so it can unshift, causing a and b to happen.
I worked for UPS as a night-shift and preload package sorter for 3 1/2 years and I can attest that each of your boxes does NOT get hand carried from truck to truck. A complex system of slides, conveyors, and people get boxes from one sorting facility to another. Make no mistake...FedEx and the USPS aren't really that much better when it comes down to it.
A good rule of thumb that I always use when shipping is if the contents of the box will survive a five foot fall. If that answer is yes, then I can ship it. Remember, your valuables are valuable only to you...as far as the insurance issue goes...you should have asked before you shipped the items...especially the more important ones.
Additionally, it is a very good idea to break up shipments into smaller boxes. Lighter boxes seem to do fairly well in the system. They're less likely to be involved in jams. While they may get tossed around a little more, a well-packed, lighter box, will stand up better since the exterior of the box will be less subject to the forces of intertia.
A good example of what not to do is carefully place your entire set of china in a box and ship it off or I guarantee you'll be getting sand at the other end. You're MUCH better off loading the boxes with bubble wrap, individually wrapping each plate, glass, saucer, and other delicate items. Then they need to be placed in several well-padded and densely packed boxes.
If you're short on bubble-wrap, newspaper is always a popular alternative handled by crumpling each individual sheet into a little ball and filling the box with these along with your precious contents. Packing peanuts are always good if you have enough of them laying around. I've heard that unbuttered popcorn works good too...but only if you have your own air popper.
This of course varies with the contents. For clothing, fold everything, then put it in a garbage bag before putting it into the box. This will save you from the occassional liquid damage that is known to happen. I already talked about dishes. For computers, it's best to disconnect and undo anything that isn't securely bolted down...remove those expansion cards and wrap them separately...and pack the inside of the case.
When it comes down to it...shipping your valuables should be done carefully, thoroughly, and effectively to guarantee their safe transport. This is not the time or place to take the "cheap route."
Initially, that was the case, but a number of companies other than Sony make MD player/recorders. I have seen them made by Sharp, JVC, Panasonic, and Kenwood to name a few.
I have an MD Player, and while it doesn't serve as a direct replacement for any of my music sources, it has totally replaced my microcasette recorder. Taping lectures and classes has never been easier with at least 2 1/2 hours of constant recording on one disc...versus flipping little hideous low-quality casettes.
Heavier has nothing to do with speed, so much as inertia. It'll take a lot to get going, but once going, it'll take a lot more to slow down.
:)
I don't think braking with a pair of shoes would necessarily be approrpiate at 80mph, though.
...the real world and the wired is not so clear.
:)
I'd like to know.
You really need to get a 19" equipment rack to go in the office...it makes for a nice touch.
My office is less than elegant, I must add...making total use of folding tables and such simply because it's cost effective. The place is a dump.
http://www.agentgreen.org/content/homeoffice.html
...then why should a large overseas megacorporation like Sony be able to walk away with a HUGE amount of research, essentially for free.
Intellectual property is important...and if MIT weren't allowed to file a patent on it, someone else who can, will.
Then everyone gets screwed.
Looks like something to replace the SSN, actually...and a _lot_ of damage can be done if that falls into the wrong person's hands. "Can I have your phone number?" Eeek.
Speaking of which, I don't think SSNs can be replaced if stolen...maybe if you're in the Witness Protection Program...
Might just be Europe's revenge since we called it Soccer and not Football. :)
If you read the actual comment I replied to, it implied that if your primary connection goes down, you'd somehow be able to fall back on another one in your wireless network. That is not entirely correct. NAT will only work properly if everyone on the network is using only one connection to the Internet.
Assuming everything is up and operating, each local node is going to want to use its own egress point through their Cable/DSL provider.
Now, if one of the cable modems dies, it is entirely feasible for the NAT box (a *nix box most likely) to determine that the modem is dead, stop translating, and push the new connections out one of the other egress points, requiring a reasonable amount of intelligents to determine if a fault is present. Internally, you'd want to use some kind of IGP for advertising default routes so when one dies, another route takes over.
Unfortunately, all connections that were running to/from that public IP address are going to drop and will need to be re-established. Granted, this is better than a loss of service for several hours. When service is restored back to the new point, the translations will likely go to hell again as the preferred egress point is once again put back into use.
It gets more complex if there's a problem further than the immediate node or DSLAM, in which case, the NAT box may never fail over to another one of the links. For example, if I can get to my default gateway on my local node, but not beyond that...and my NAT box isn't set to detect that kind of failure or doesn't think there's a problem, then I still have a service outage. The same issue applies to DSLAMs.
Use of a CIDR block would give everyone in the wireless domain a unique public IP for each front-end and wireless address in the network. Backend and private LANs could still be NAT'd on a site-by-site basis. A CIDR block would probably be required with multiple providers, since exporting more-specific prefixes of a larger aggregate block could cause severe traffic shifting problems.
If each of the egress points were to run BGP with their respective gateways, or eBGP multihop to a more reliable headend or provider core router, the problem of network reachability would be much less.
Take, for instance, an outage between the cable node and the headend. If a BGP session were established with the headend, all routing between the headend and the node would cease in an outage and as such, and traffic would not traverse the cable link since there would be almost no routes coming in over the failed link. Even better, a BGP session with the headend would quit entirely and no routes would be received for that link at all.
Since all the BGP routers inside the wireless network would either need to be fully meshed or run as a series of router reflectors and route reflector clients, there would still be acceptable internal routing if there were indeed a failure at one or more egress points.
That's why an implementation using BGP and CIDR blocks would be the preferrable way to handle it.
It really sounds good, but connectivity isn't that easy to just up and "share". Unless you and your buddies intend to get a CIDR block, an ASN, and convince your cable and DSL provicers to let you BGP peer with them, I wouldn't count on this idea working at all.
Quake/UT/HL bots work fine all by themselves without markups...and some of them are reasonably intelligent (for game bots that is). How is some kind of markup language going to describe the complex interactions or persona that actually makes up an individual??
How many Gkeys do you think this thing could go through in about an hour or so??
Are you nuts?? Floating cars??
I'm all for future technology and endeavors, and the idea is cool...but we have enough morons driving on the ground. We don't need them careening around in the air!
I have to agree with you on this one.
But to stay on-topic, when I bought my A-Bit BP6 a couple years ago (jurassic computing, I know), I got it with two 366s, considering their value was good and the price was more or less middle-of-the road. It didn't take all that long of a period, maybe 6 months or so before I was able to get a couple of 550s to replace them...all without breaking the bank.
So getting the faster chip isn't worth it initially, but the motherboard that handles it is worth every cent. After all, prices will fall as the newer, better, faster hardware items come out.