Does anyone know if VOIP will allow ADT and other home security systems to still function properly, ie., calling out in an emergency and calling out for routine system checks?
Most VOIP will allow for 9600 or 14.4k calls (to support FAX), so it will probably work with modems. I know my DTV box works, and I've made 9600 bps data calls before.
But that's NOT how you want your alarm system connected. You really want GPRS or CDPD (being phased out) wireless data service where available. Most nicer alarm systems support something along those lines, and you can't just "cut" the wires at the demarc.
The Lexmark case is about how a laserprinter toner cartridge manufacturer (SCC) reverse-engineered the circuitry on the Lexmark toner carts and sold their own compatible toner carts.
Nice point. Too bad it's blatantly wrong. Static Control is a cartridge remanufacturer. They don't make their own....they replace drums, wipers, etc. and refill them.
Is strange about your comment is that now that I have obtained a TIVO I often have found myself standing in a shopping mall, etc. watching something interesting in life unfold before my eyes.
If that wasn't a troll, seek professional help immediately. You do have problems.
Even more efficient and portable are very cheak 2.4gHx cordless phones. There are several made by Panasonic that hog the ENTIRE 2.4 ISM band. Just charge it up and bring it with you to wherever you want to nuke WiFi access for a decent area. Take it near an AP for more fun.
Oh please. Get some decent people and software, and you don't NEED to get that specific. All standardization does is help the IT department - not the users
I'm very glad you are working for a company that can afford enough decent people to get that job done. You are in a minority.
And if by "help the IT department" you mean "allow the IT department to not blow it's salary budget while maintaining a reasonalbe level of service", I agree with you.
What, as the CEO, would you say when you heard one of your employees was so frustrated that he bought his own system, and the IT dept didn't do a thing to help?
I'd say that he handled the situation the wrong way, repramand him for breaking IT standards, and then get my CTO to pull a history on the guy's problems and IT requests. If none exist, he's done. If the do exist and were a failing for the IT department, the IT manager is (probably) done. If he's a stupid user breaking things/just whining because the IT standards don't suit his preference, he's done.
IT standards are rarely optimal for all users. But there are there because the days of a 1:15 IT to staff ratio are LONG gone. With the belt-tightneing that has been going on these days, most IT staffs are skeleton crews, barely able to maintain a single equipment standard. As the CTO I'd have to weight more IT staff=more choices for users over less IT staff=less IT staff cost and a narrow standard against company's fianacials .
Re:Keep putting it off. Please !
on
Longhorn in 2006
·
· Score: 1
Also, if your firewall is allowing internet traffic into your network thru port 135, what OS you are running is the least of your concerns. [...] MSBlaster- ditto above, excluding the email part (in this case), but adding that if you are allowing TFTP traffic (port 69) into your network from the internet, what OS you are running is the least of your concerns. [...]
See, the problem with most of the ignorant fools who post stuff like you did is that they have no real clue as to what is involved in corporate IT, they do not work doing networking security, and they dont understand risk management.
You've demontsrated just in your above quotes that you understand none of those. While leaving your firewall open/not having one is a much greater security reisk in general, very few organizatons have the luxury of enough IT staff to eliminate most possiblities of people bringing in laptops form home, picking up off-site email, etc, etc, etc, which can very realistically get any of these worms INISDE of your firewall. Then your unpatched machines are screwed.
You've demonstrated a cursory understanding of how these worms operate, a cursory understanding of what a firewall is and can be used for, and a complete lack of real-world experience in actual enterprise networking.
Any corporation following networking best practices will be safe, irregardless of what OS they are running.
Not only is that statement untrue, "irregardless" is not a word.
Re:Keep putting it off. Please !
on
Longhorn in 2006
·
· Score: 1
How would you feel if they came out with a new kind of gasoline tomorrow that requires you to buy a new car and stopped selling the current kind? It would be OK if there was a very good reason for it (e.g. leaded vs. unleaded), but, otherwise, it's just plain mean.
At least you can still run unleaded in cars designed for leaded gas with additinal driver support....or I mean...lead substitute.
Your so cute, you must work at a small company huh? While what you say sounds really GREAT, try implementing it at a company with over 100,000 nodes soon growing to 300000+.
If you really think it can't be done on that scale, just get out of the business now: you make the rest of us look bad.
Mike Dell. And he's done very well for himself as a result.
I know there's nothing wrong with that per se, from a business perspective. I just said that there's better consumer stuff. Here's what I wrote: [...]
I was simply postulating that business 'innovation' is not the same as furthering the state of the art in computing itself.
And I completely agree. Business rarely need cutting edge technology to solve real problems. What they need is reliable, servicable, repeatable, available (from a new equipment and parts standpoint), and compatible. So, yes, we agree.
My point is that it doesn't make Dell a bad company. I don't really think you were trying to say that, but I'm simply adding to your point. Would I buy a Dell? Maybe. But not because it's a Dell...I'd buy one because I was looking for a piece of commodity hardware and they had the best price and availibility on what I happen to need. They have made their business based on that. While, like with all large business, you can find plenty of customers who have had bad experiences and want to disagree, on the whole, they meet price and availibility. That's how they attained their position int he industry, coming up from a hack-ass mail order clone shop.
Looking purely at the business aspects of them, it's quite impressive. They didn't come up with the idea. Rather they waited for others to try first, let the pioneers figure out the problems and learn from them, and then they implement a better model. Now they see that everyone else is selling consumer goods along with PCs and peripherals.....PC margins are getting low. So they started out with the same program. Camcorders....probably some other things....and now portable audio players. This isn't surprising...they're following their pattern.
I think I'm done rambling now. I must be...I ran out of coffee.
I hear Michael Dell talk in interviews about the state of the industry and his predictions. What immediately strikes me is the fact that his comments are 100% economic. That is to say, all he talks about is where the money is going, essentially. He never talks about actually doing something good. You know, advancing the state of things? Never. Just money. [...] Dell doesn't do any meaningful work. They just box 'em up and ship 'em out.
Dell isn't in a position to be innovative. Their purpose it to push basically pre-made SKUs out the door after making sure they pass some basic manufacturing tests. They have made their success by being the finest spare parts distributors in the PC world.
When the last time NAPA was innovative? Pep Boys? Right. Never. Dell holds a similar position in the PC world. There is NOTHING wrong with that. It's actually quite impressive that they've kept their focus.
The IT world in general blows. We let microsoft ship buggy software, we pay oracle millions to fix stuff that never worked to begin with, we buy overly priced purple nurples from dell and we work day in and day out to fix sh*t that shouldn't need fixing all because alot of the time the right people are not in the right place doing the job correctly the first time.
My theory, which keeps getting proven true, is that the bulk of the people in IT (and other technical jobs for that matter) are employed one or two levels above their competency.
Take that moron network administrator who thinks powerfailing the 3660 is the best way to handle EVERY problem and put him on desktop support. He's instantly a better employee.
Take the server admin who can't get any of the backend stuff right and put him on desktops as well. Now take the seemingly moronic architects that you hired to design a scalable solution which turned out to be scalable by a factor of.01 when you actually tried to implement the plan. Put them on infrastructure and they aren't so incompetent.
And then resign yourself to the fact that you're going to have to pay real money for the architect. Becuase CHI, Cittone, etc doesn't produce experience. They just produce people with a minimal base technical education and a few pieces of paper.
Can Apple (or any other manufacturer, for that matter) tell if the laptop has been opened before; possibly by someone who wasn't supposed to do that? Unless there are any labels over the screws, that you would need to break, how could they?
I used to work in a shop where I was (maybe still am) warranty authorized on all IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, and Apple desktop/server/laptop/printer equipment. None of it, with the exception of some of the Compaq consumer desktop models, have any stickers or other physical intrusion detection. Even if it did, it's simply not part of these manufacturer's procedures to void your warranty if you've opened it. While it's not "recomended", if you know what you're doing, can re-assemble it correctly without goobering up the screws, get all of the rfi shielding back in place, etc., no-one should know the difference, and even if they do, they shouldn't care.
The problem with disassembling many laptops is that some are nearly impossible to do without breaking at least one or two snaps off of the case. Most warranty claims would included replacement plastics, which the manufacturers never question...they know the things break. Out of warranty, customers were often given the "pay for new plastics or receive our complimentatry super glue treatment" (the later of which most of them opted for, as you really can't tell the difference unless you don't know what you're doing and really mutiliate the case).
That being said, Apple generally made the most serviacable hardware with the best service documentation (Apple Service Source, if I recall correctly) of anyone. Well though out designs, well thught out and thorough documentation, and definitely made to be servicable way past warranty. Hopefully this hasn't changed since I've been away from operating a screwdriver for a living.
Please, please, read the statistics, you're more than twice as likely to die in a Dodge Ram 1500 as in a safe 4-door sedan. The safety record on pickups is simply atrocious.
Please, please, open your eyes. Those statistics are about what happened, not why. The average audience for a safe, boring, 4-door sedan is wildly differnt than a pickup. Pickups are much more often driven overloaded. They are much more often driven by younger drivers with less experience/less sense. They are much more likely to be driven by those who are the most likely to be aggrressive drivers. They are much more likely to be driven by manual laborers who are too tired to be driving in the first place. They are much more likely to be driven by an emergency response worker (responding with lights+sirens increases your risk of being in an accident something like 10x or more). They are much more likely to be involved in roadside-work activities, exposing them to a much higher rate of associated high-risk activities like pulling on and off of busy roadways in places most vechiles won't/are't permitted to.
That's your own damn fault for registering/hosting a political site on a domain registerd to you. Are you responsible for the content? Doubtful. So the candidate and their HQ details should be in whois.
Your lack of forethought and/or lack of understanding of how politics work are your own problem, not that of the registries.
Just because you can operate a computer does not make you, nor should it make you an expert on publishing and every vertical market you may touch. If you don't learn about what you are doing before you do it, it's no one's fault but your own when you get whacked by fallout.
While they have some valid points, often its taken way too far. So I'll add more fuel to this:
Go check out ARIN. If you have a static IP address+competent (read not RFC-ignorant) ISP, your SWIP record contain your personal information too. That's how it's supposed to work.
That's right, the whole Internet is out to identify you.
Do you wear clothes with labels on the outside?
No.
Drive a car with a dealer badge or license plate frame?
No. I rejected my last new vehicle because my instructions were not followed: it had a dealer licence plate frame on the rear and a vinyl dealer logo on the tailgate, as well as a dealer plate on the front. While the license plate frame and front tag could be easily removed, I did not intend to spend $36,000 on a vehicle which had something glued to it and scraped off by some lot monkey before I ever sat in the thing. Especially since I notified them adhead of time, in writing on the sales contract.
Why not get paid for those as well?
I completely agree. And anyone who does not, yet blindly accepts these things is a fool and a sheep. Open your eyes. Inconvenience yourself a bit for things you find wrong with the world. Staying silent and dealing with it is how companies get away with this shit to the point where it's so penetrating that most sheep don't even notice it. Since you obviously have, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. It doesn't have to be a life-consuming campaign. If everyone just took a stand every once in a while, it would no longer make sense for businesses to do these things.
I have reliably telephone service, even during power failures: my cellphone uses a battery. It also has 911 service, and it goes way beyond crappy POTS E-911: it has GPS and tells them where I'm located, whether I'm at home or in the middle of the desert.
Oh yeah, smart guy? What about when you aren't cloe enough to a cell tower to get a signal? Ever thing about that, moron?
Oh...wait...if you're not close enough to a cell phone tower chances are low that you're near your POTS line either. Nevermind.
Yes...just abusing you a bit for the sake of heading off another stupid post. You're right. And I just don't know how you argue with this. If you need emergency service and don't have a reliable phone line, buy a radio. You dno't even need to have a license to use it if it is truly and emergency situation.
This is/. Nobody understands what the hell you are talking about because it doesnt involve computers or beer, and it appears to reference some sort of thing that requires you be outside to operate.
Right then. So you won't be buying one. I'm sure every slashdot reader was on the edge of his seat awaiting that particular revelation.
"I would not buy this because it is not suitable for my clients' needs" != "This is worthless".
Try reading up the thread. The originator of this one seems to thinks it's an appropriate automated failover gateway, which is just absurd. Maybe when you're in college it's not, but once you actually see how things work you realize that added complexity often causes more problems that is solves. As I said before: if being online is enough of a priority to warrant an automated failover gateway, a proper solution should be used.
In the real world, where there *is* a market for Linksys routers because not everyone can afford a 1721 let alone a t1/e1 connection, let alone some bugger to set one up.
If being online is really enough of a priority to need an automated failover gateway, it's just a poor decision to try to "simulate" it with junk equipment. Those are the kind of customers that need to be "fired", because any project you do under that type of short-sighted budgetary constraint is doomed to failue.
HO users can use a modem in their PC and control the failover themselves.
SO users needs real equipment and a real solution, not hacked together crap, because these are most often the places that also can not afford to have IT support on site. It's much less expensive to get the capex up front for things that will actually work and are both reliable and serviceable, skipping the need for an emergency IT-related visit.
When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me.
This approach is more coarse-grained and inefficient than TCP/IP-level channel bonding.
WTF is TCP/IP-level supposed to be? Do you mean layer 3? Bonding is most often done at layer 2 to avoid asymmetric routing. This obviously requires remote-end support.
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Does anyone know if VOIP will allow ADT and other home security systems to still function properly, ie., calling out in an emergency and calling out for routine system checks?
Most VOIP will allow for 9600 or 14.4k calls (to support FAX), so it will probably work with modems. I know my DTV box works, and I've made 9600 bps data calls before.
But that's NOT how you want your alarm system connected. You really want GPRS or CDPD (being phased out) wireless data service where available. Most nicer alarm systems support something along those lines, and you can't just "cut" the wires at the demarc.
The Lexmark case is about how a laserprinter toner cartridge manufacturer (SCC) reverse-engineered the circuitry on the Lexmark toner carts and sold their own compatible toner carts.
Nice point. Too bad it's blatantly wrong. Static Control is a cartridge remanufacturer. They don't make their own....they replace drums, wipers, etc. and refill them.
Is strange about your comment is that now that I have obtained a TIVO I often have found myself standing in a shopping mall, etc. watching something interesting in life unfold before my eyes.
If that wasn't a troll, seek professional help immediately. You do have problems.
Even more efficient and portable are very cheak 2.4gHx cordless phones. There are several made by Panasonic that hog the ENTIRE 2.4 ISM band. Just charge it up and bring it with you to wherever you want to nuke WiFi access for a decent area. Take it near an AP for more fun.
Wow, that's pretty shitty. When I was in 'the big company', We were 1:50.
1:15 was sarcasm.
I ran the servers (Netware), desktops (Win9x), PBX (Fujitsu 9600), Telecomm issues, Internet.
Wow. You're a superstar. (also sarcasm....see how that works?)
Oh please. Get some decent people and software, and you don't NEED to get that specific. All standardization does is help the IT department - not the users
I'm very glad you are working for a company that can afford enough decent people to get that job done. You are in a minority.
And if by "help the IT department" you mean "allow the IT department to not blow it's salary budget while maintaining a reasonalbe level of service", I agree with you.
What, as the CEO, would you say when you heard one of your employees was so frustrated that he bought his own system, and the IT dept didn't do a thing to help?
I'd say that he handled the situation the wrong way, repramand him for breaking IT standards, and then get my CTO to pull a history on the guy's problems and IT requests. If none exist, he's done. If the do exist and were a failing for the IT department, the IT manager is (probably) done. If he's a stupid user breaking things/just whining because the IT standards don't suit his preference, he's done.
IT standards are rarely optimal for all users. But there are there because the days of a 1:15 IT to staff ratio are LONG gone. With the belt-tightneing that has been going on these days, most IT staffs are skeleton crews, barely able to maintain a single equipment standard. As the CTO I'd have to weight more IT staff=more choices for users over less IT staff=less IT staff cost and a narrow standard against company's fianacials .
Also, if your firewall is allowing internet traffic into your network thru port 135, what OS you are running is the least of your concerns.
[...]
MSBlaster- ditto above, excluding the email part (in this case), but adding that if you are allowing TFTP traffic (port 69) into your network from the internet, what OS you are running is the least of your concerns.
[...]
See, the problem with most of the ignorant fools who post stuff like you did is that they have no real clue as to what is involved in corporate IT, they do not work doing networking security, and they dont understand risk management.
You've demontsrated just in your above quotes that you understand none of those. While leaving your firewall open/not having one is a much greater security reisk in general, very few organizatons have the luxury of enough IT staff to eliminate most possiblities of people bringing in laptops form home, picking up off-site email, etc, etc, etc, which can very realistically get any of these worms INISDE of your firewall. Then your unpatched machines are screwed.
You've demonstrated a cursory understanding of how these worms operate, a cursory understanding of what a firewall is and can be used for, and a complete lack of real-world experience in actual enterprise networking.
Any corporation following networking best practices will be safe, irregardless of what OS they are running.
Not only is that statement untrue, "irregardless" is not a word.
How would you feel if they came out with a new kind of gasoline tomorrow that requires you to buy a new car and stopped selling the current kind? It would be OK if there was a very good reason for it (e.g. leaded vs. unleaded), but, otherwise, it's just plain mean.
At least you can still run unleaded in cars designed for leaded gas with additinal driver support....or I mean...lead substitute.
Profit! In Soviet Russia, all your candle truck are belong to beowulf cluster of speaker bracelets.
Yeah. I think that's gonna be my new sig.
Your so cute, you must work at a small company huh? While what you say sounds really GREAT, try implementing it at a company with over 100,000 nodes soon growing to 300000+.
If you really think it can't be done on that scale, just get out of the business now: you make the rest of us look bad.
Who put them in that position?
Mike Dell. And he's done very well for himself as a result.
I know there's nothing wrong with that per se, from a business perspective. I just said that there's better consumer stuff. Here's what I wrote:
[...]
I was simply postulating that business 'innovation' is not the same as furthering the state of the art in computing itself.
And I completely agree. Business rarely need cutting edge technology to solve real problems. What they need is reliable, servicable, repeatable, available (from a new equipment and parts standpoint), and compatible. So, yes, we agree.
My point is that it doesn't make Dell a bad company. I don't really think you were trying to say that, but I'm simply adding to your point. Would I buy a Dell? Maybe. But not because it's a Dell...I'd buy one because I was looking for a piece of commodity hardware and they had the best price and availibility on what I happen to need. They have made their business based on that. While, like with all large business, you can find plenty of customers who have had bad experiences and want to disagree, on the whole, they meet price and availibility. That's how they attained their position int he industry, coming up from a hack-ass mail order clone shop.
Looking purely at the business aspects of them, it's quite impressive. They didn't come up with the idea. Rather they waited for others to try first, let the pioneers figure out the problems and learn from them, and then they implement a better model. Now they see that everyone else is selling consumer goods along with PCs and peripherals.....PC margins are getting low. So they started out with the same program. Camcorders....probably some other things....and now portable audio players. This isn't surprising...they're following their pattern.
I think I'm done rambling now. I must be...I ran out of coffee.
I hear Michael Dell talk in interviews about the state of the industry and his predictions. What immediately strikes me is the fact that his comments are 100% economic. That is to say, all he talks about is where the money is going, essentially. He never talks about actually doing something good. You know, advancing the state of things? Never. Just money. [...]
Dell doesn't do any meaningful work. They just box 'em up and ship 'em out.
Dell isn't in a position to be innovative. Their purpose it to push basically pre-made SKUs out the door after making sure they pass some basic manufacturing tests. They have made their success by being the finest spare parts distributors in the PC world.
When the last time NAPA was innovative? Pep Boys? Right. Never. Dell holds a similar position in the PC world. There is NOTHING wrong with that. It's actually quite impressive that they've kept their focus.
The IT world in general blows. We let microsoft ship buggy software, we pay oracle millions to fix stuff that never worked to begin with, we buy overly priced purple nurples from dell and we work day in and day out to fix sh*t that shouldn't need fixing all because alot of the time the right people are not in the right place doing the job correctly the first time.
.01 when you actually tried to implement the plan. Put them on infrastructure and they aren't so incompetent.
My theory, which keeps getting proven true, is that the bulk of the people in IT (and other technical jobs for that matter) are employed one or two levels above their competency.
Take that moron network administrator who thinks powerfailing the 3660 is the best way to handle EVERY problem and put him on desktop support. He's instantly a better employee.
Take the server admin who can't get any of the backend stuff right and put him on desktops as well.
Now take the seemingly moronic architects that you hired to design a scalable solution which turned out to be scalable by a factor of
And then resign yourself to the fact that you're going to have to pay real money for the architect. Becuase CHI, Cittone, etc doesn't produce experience. They just produce people with a minimal base technical education and a few pieces of paper.
Can Apple (or any other manufacturer, for that matter) tell if the laptop has been opened before; possibly by someone who wasn't supposed to do that? Unless there are any labels over the screws, that you would need to break, how could they?
I used to work in a shop where I was (maybe still am) warranty authorized on all IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, and Apple desktop/server/laptop/printer equipment. None of it, with the exception of some of the Compaq consumer desktop models, have any stickers or other physical intrusion detection. Even if it did, it's simply not part of these manufacturer's procedures to void your warranty if you've opened it. While it's not "recomended", if you know what you're doing, can re-assemble it correctly without goobering up the screws, get all of the rfi shielding back in place, etc., no-one should know the difference, and even if they do, they shouldn't care.
The problem with disassembling many laptops is that some are nearly impossible to do without breaking at least one or two snaps off of the case. Most warranty claims would included replacement plastics, which the manufacturers never question...they know the things break. Out of warranty, customers were often given the "pay for new plastics or receive our complimentatry super glue treatment" (the later of which most of them opted for, as you really can't tell the difference unless you don't know what you're doing and really mutiliate the case).
That being said, Apple generally made the most serviacable hardware with the best service documentation (Apple Service Source, if I recall correctly) of anyone. Well though out designs, well thught out and thorough documentation, and definitely made to be servicable way past warranty. Hopefully this hasn't changed since I've been away from operating a screwdriver for a living.
Do I need to keep going?
No, you've demonstrated quite well that you lack the reading comprehension skills to follow my posting. I'd say you're pretty well finished.
Please, please, read the statistics, you're more than twice as likely to die in a Dodge Ram 1500 as in a safe 4-door sedan. The safety record on pickups is simply atrocious.
Please, please, open your eyes. Those statistics are about what happened, not why. The average audience for a safe, boring, 4-door sedan is wildly differnt than a pickup. Pickups are much more often driven overloaded. They are much more often driven by younger drivers with less experience/less sense. They are much more likely to be driven by those who are the most likely to be aggrressive drivers. They are much more likely to be driven by manual laborers who are too tired to be driving in the first place. They are much more likely to be driven by an emergency response worker (responding with lights+sirens increases your risk of being in an accident something like 10x or more). They are much more likely to be involved in roadside-work activities, exposing them to a much higher rate of associated high-risk activities like pulling on and off of busy roadways in places most vechiles won't/are't permitted to.
Do I need to keep going?
That's your own damn fault for registering/hosting a political site on a domain registerd to you. Are you responsible for the content? Doubtful. So the candidate and their HQ details should be in whois.
Your lack of forethought and/or lack of understanding of how politics work are your own problem, not that of the registries.
Just because you can operate a computer does not make you, nor should it make you an expert on publishing and every vertical market you may touch. If you don't learn about what you are doing before you do it, it's no one's fault but your own when you get whacked by fallout.
While they have some valid points, often its taken way too far. So I'll add more fuel to this:
Go check out ARIN. If you have a static IP address+competent (read not RFC-ignorant) ISP, your SWIP record contain your personal information too. That's how it's supposed to work.
That's right, the whole Internet is out to identify you.
Do you wear clothes with labels on the outside?
No.
Drive a car with a dealer badge or license plate frame?
No. I rejected my last new vehicle because my instructions were not followed: it had a dealer licence plate frame on the rear and a vinyl dealer logo on the tailgate, as well as a dealer plate on the front. While the license plate frame and front tag could be easily removed, I did not intend to spend $36,000 on a vehicle which had something glued to it and scraped off by some lot monkey before I ever sat in the thing. Especially since I notified them adhead of time, in writing on the sales contract.
Why not get paid for those as well?
I completely agree. And anyone who does not, yet blindly accepts these things is a fool and a sheep. Open your eyes. Inconvenience yourself a bit for things you find wrong with the world. Staying silent and dealing with it is how companies get away with this shit to the point where it's so penetrating that most sheep don't even notice it. Since you obviously have, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. It doesn't have to be a life-consuming campaign. If everyone just took a stand every once in a while, it would no longer make sense for businesses to do these things.
I have reliably telephone service, even during power failures: my cellphone uses a battery. It also has 911 service, and it goes way beyond crappy POTS E-911: it has GPS and tells them where I'm located, whether I'm at home or in the middle of the desert.
Oh yeah, smart guy? What about when you aren't cloe enough to a cell tower to get a signal? Ever thing about that, moron?
Oh...wait...if you're not close enough to a cell phone tower chances are low that you're near your POTS line either. Nevermind.
Yes...just abusing you a bit for the sake of heading off another stupid post. You're right. And I just don't know how you argue with this. If you need emergency service and don't have a reliable phone line, buy a radio. You dno't even need to have a license to use it if it is truly and emergency situation.
This is /. Nobody understands what the hell you are talking about because it doesnt involve computers or beer, and it appears to reference some sort of thing that requires you be outside to operate.
Right then. So you won't be buying one. I'm sure every slashdot reader was on the edge of his seat awaiting that particular revelation. "I would not buy this because it is not suitable for my clients' needs" != "This is worthless".
Try reading up the thread. The originator of this one seems to thinks it's an appropriate automated failover gateway, which is just absurd. Maybe when you're in college it's not, but once you actually see how things work you realize that added complexity often causes more problems that is solves. As I said before: if being online is enough of a priority to warrant an automated failover gateway, a proper solution should be used.
In the real world, where there *is* a market for Linksys routers because not everyone can afford a 1721 let alone a t1/e1 connection, let alone some bugger to set one up.
If being online is really enough of a priority to need an automated failover gateway, it's just a poor decision to try to "simulate" it with junk equipment. Those are the kind of customers that need to be "fired", because any project you do under that type of short-sighted budgetary constraint is doomed to failue.
HO users can use a modem in their PC and control the failover themselves.
SO users needs real equipment and a real solution, not hacked together crap, because these are most often the places that also can not afford to have IT support on site. It's much less expensive to get the capex up front for things that will actually work and are both reliable and serviceable, skipping the need for an emergency IT-related visit.
When I say "real world", I'm talking about real businessess. Not someone who works from their house and likes to play with linux. You know...real businesses, like those that call real consultants or hire real IT staff for real solutions. The ones that pay the bills of people like me.
This approach is more coarse-grained and inefficient than TCP/IP-level channel bonding.
WTF is TCP/IP-level supposed to be? Do you mean layer 3? Bonding is most often done at layer 2 to avoid asymmetric routing. This obviously requires remote-end support.