I only just started having problems calling out in the last week. Yesterday I too noticed they are selling their own service.
I suspect you may be right.
As far legality goes, they've got the money to hire the lawyers to make whatever they want legal as far as the courts see. They just claim Vonage takes up too much bandwidth and therefore violates the Terms of Service agreement that says they alone determine who or what is using up too much bandwidth and causing problems on their network.
I've noticed this too. Some calls are OK out have been OK. But a fair number are having problems. Receiving has been ok.
To add to this, I've noticed Comcast is offering phone service of its own on their website. Perhaps this is what they are up to, scrrewing with Vonage and trying to tell us it doesn't work, but then saying: "Why don't you try our service instead?"
The thing that sucks is I just signed up for Vonage and a have a couple months to go to get my rebate check. I also redid all the drops in the house to be RJ45. I guess I can use RJ11 I'll have to check whcih (568a or b) std I used on the punch downs and if it will work with RJ11 phone cables (been a dang long time since I did any cabling)
I won't really miss the 6-8 megs down, I don't download Distros that often anymore, or any other 500+meg files.
Tell me about it. Here in LA I have been getting calls from recruiters for the past 3 months. And these calls are for my expired DICE resume or other resumes I havn't updated in 6-12 months. If only my CCNP had experience to go with it I'd have doubled my pay rate by now. Instead I'm still trudging along doing MCSE type work (plenty of experience there, just all too much of it in small enviornments, otherwise I'd have doubled my payrate again!)
I just talked to some recruiters yesterday in downtown LA, and they say they are starting to see employment oppurtunities come back to pre-2000 levels.
They look for two things now, 1. CURRENT certs 2. Experience to back it up.
In that order. Too many people out there with 10 years experience in outdated irrelevent systems.
I remember a friend of mine coming back from China talking about this company's routers. The IOS on it was identical to the Cisco IOS, bugs and all. So much so, there were stories of Huawei tech support reffering customers to Cisco Tech support until someone convinced Cisco to send someone out onsite and they found out it wasn't their equipment they were supporting.
I havn't followed it, but I imagine Cisco is trying to go through the Chinese legal system at the moment, and not having a great deal of success.
If all of this turns out to be true, and HuaWei isn't actually making any of their own software, they aren't going to get very far outside of China. Guess I'll have to poke around when my wife drags me back to visit the inlaws this summer.
Teaching is one of the most amazing ways to stay current on technology. The need to prep for class and lookup answers to students questions is only one aspect of it. Many students come with a lot of experience of their own in fields I know nothing about. I can ask them questions and get answers.
Teaching at a Junior College pays decently per hour if you are part time and have a 2 unit class that meets 8 or 9 hours a week.
If I amnot teaching, then I am studying. Next semester I only have one 2 unit class to teach. So I'll take a 3.5 unit Cisco Security class in the Cisco Academy series (We're a regional traing center). It won't get me a full CCSP like the other classes got me CCNA and CCNP, but it does cover Router Fiewalls, some VPN, PIX, and hardening routers. Plus it allows me to review all the CCNP stuff I've forgotten (I'm actually the MCSE instructor at this JC).
Oh and the TOYS! We have 2 7000 series router, 50 2500/2600/1700 routers, maybe 30+ various 2900 3550, 4006, and 6000 series Chasis switches to play with!
Maybe someday I'll have enough Cisco knowledge people will stop offering me nightmare Microsoft jobs and start offering me more interesting Cisco jobs. Until then my knowledge of the hardware infrastructure has kept offers coming in and my pay incrreasing 25% at a time from job to job for the last few years.
PS, you can learn more about a subject by teaching it than by studenting it:)
I'm a Windows Admin, and live by Group Policy and remote administration tools under Windows 2000/2003 (NT4 had some stuff, but boy did it suck in comparison). I do not know what equivalent things are available under OS X or even unix/Linux. I've only installed Linux on a hobby basis (shrug).
But if I could manage them at least as well as I can with Group Policy, sure I'd switch.
It would also have to be able to run all the shrink rapped stuff we support.
I used to be a big Mac user, back 12+ years ago. So yeah, I'd love to get back to that. It sure seemed like computers were fun back then. But maybe thats becuase it was just a hobby and not my work:)
Dude! Its called GROUP POLICY! If you are deploying SP2 by hand like that, your network is screwed anyways. You should be locking it down centrally through group policy. You should be deploying SP2 via group policy. You should be setting Automatic Update settings VIA GROUP POLICY!! Do we see a pattern here?
If you, as a system administrator, wish to have control of your desktops, YOU NEED TO *TAKE* THAT CONTROL!
Most of Window's problems are linked straight to lazy administrators, Techs and "consultants" who think all they have to do is plug the network cable into the back of the computer and make sure it has an IP address. You wouldn't stop there with Linux would you? Regardless of the system, you have to make the effort to do it right. Sometimes that means you have to (gasp!) read the documentation (even if it is convoluted mess- and I'm not just talking about Microsoft KB/Q articles)
Re:A good Docotor does not a good show make...
on
New Dr Who Actor Named
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes he was a fabulous Doctor. Wish he had been interested in staying.
I can remember being so stunned the movie even existed (I was in Taiwan at the time I saw it, which was the first I had heard of it) that I never noticed how awful story was. For me, the fabulous job by Paul McGann made up for it all.
Ahh well, least we got a Flash Movie with his voice that was pretty good.
And yes, I secretly hope they make the Special Effects especially cheesey to make it funnier to watch. I doubt they will though. it is cheap enough to grab some Computer Graphics animators and make it all look super modern...
I too liked him as the Doctor. I thought he was the best Doctor since Tom Baker. But he did some interviews where he basicly said he just wasn't into it anymore and didn't care. Kind of hard to (re)hire someone who doesn't feel like doing the job. Pitty though.
When I was reading about Cisco's Technical Assitance Center (TAC) it said that something like 2/3s of their CCIEs had degrees in Electrical Engineering.
Sounds to me like EE is the degree to get if you was a degree in "Network Engineering"
I have to comment on this. Experience will always be the most important, BUT I just had a stunning experience a few weeks back. An IT Profesional's user group had 5 recruiters come and talk at their meeting. And every last one of them (and the ones in the audience as well) said the same thing: In the last 4-5 months they had seen a total change in what companies were putting at the top of their list for canidates, they had all started listing CERTIFICATIONS as being more important than anything else!
The entire audience was STUNNED. But when we started asking how this could be they gave some interesting explanations. Companies had been having some bad experience with people who had 10+ years of experience but couldn't do anything they were hired to do! (sounds like certified people doesn't it?)
Well, it turns out that these well expereienced people had been sitting in static enviornments living by the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Meaning, they had not kept up with the change in technology, and companies had decided the only way to see on a Resume if they had was to see if they were certified. Formal training was even better, but the recruiters pointed out that when they search their Resume Database they search for easily found words like CCNP, MCSE (got both) etc.
The other thing they said were a lot of "Experienced" people were self taught and had no "methodology" to their work. That is, instead of starting at layer one and working their way up the OSI model they'd just use intuition and start turning knobs and flicking switches. Another way to put it, they didn't know any of the THEORY or what was happening underneath it all.
In the end, I think this trend will swing back to Experience, but for awhile (at least in L.A.) Certs are trumping Experience.
--- Now as far as what school to go to for a Netwrok Engineer degree. I think you should stop looking for "Network Engineering" as a degree and look at what degrees 2/3s of the CCIEs that work at Cisco have: Electrical Engineering.
When I was in Taiwan there was a German company selling heaters there and the add company they hired put Hitler on the sides of busses and billboards announcing this Heater from this company would Win the War on the Cold Front!
It didn't take long for the German company to find out and fire the add company, but that is an add you won't see in America (and sure as heck not in Germany).
Who's lawyers called up theirs to tell them user license agreements would be violated if Dell techs told people how to remove Spyware and therefore make Dell liable and sueable?!
Well, no matter, we wipe all the Dells we get in at my company (thank god for RIS).
Reading the article over on ZDNet indicates that this technology is targeted on Corporations. Corporate desktops would have a SW agent installed that talked to the Cisco devices (Switches more likely than routers). This SW agent would be designed to communicate with various AntiVirus software out there to ensure it is up to date. If it is not the Agent would tell the Switch not to talk to this PC (or, I imagine, put it on a special VLAN that had an update server for the AV software as well as a patch server for Windows).
I thought IPv6 was supposed to help with the large internet routing tables and help deal with some security issues. Its been awhile since I read up on this since I deal so much in IPv4 that it just hasn't been necassary for me to readup on v6 in awhile. Hmmm... Perhaps thats why we aren't going to upgrade, we're all too busy dealing with v4....
LA Times reported this this morning. Basicly, the pair have nothing in their name and are residing in Mexico. It is a Civil judgement so we can't extradite them:
Ack! We aren't going to see the Clone Wars on the big screen?! I have to say, Lucas did have a choice: He could have chosen NOT to make these awful movies. Back when they were left to our imagination they were so much better. I always thought that was the purpose of NOT making them! It gave the originals a depth that is now erased.
Sigh... Maybe Speilberg can convince him to let him make a Clone Wars movie...
Honestly, back when I was 7 yrs old and watched Obi Wan tell Luke about his father being the greatest Star Fighter Pilot in the Galaxy during the Clone wars, that was all I could think about wanting to see. CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS !! Gosh Darnit! I want my CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS !!!
Yes, I feel like throwing a hissy fit now that I have discovered Lucas is yet again going to soil his own series. Somehow I had been holding out hope that Episode III would save the series, now i have had that hope dashed... Which is why I try not to pay attention to any of this stuff.
I lived in Taiwan for 5 years. Hacker wars between the two countries occured several times over the course of those five years. They were mainly nationalistic college kids defacing opposing gov't web sites.
The difference here is one that many have been anticipating for some time. If you read any of the retoric coming out of the communist gov't in regards to Taiwan it is plain as day: They intend to make Taiwan a part of China by WHATEVER MEANS they can. Since they don't have the military means (look it up on FAS.ORG) they've okayed the project to cooridinate a "Cyber" attack on Taiwan.
As far as Taiwanese Government officials talking out their ass's- When have Gov't officials NOT talked out their butts?
Funny, my wife has no problems using Windows 2000 to read and type Chinese on her computer. Previous versions certainly sucked (I have first hand experience on this having lived in Taiwan for 5 years and had to set up both Linux and Windows computers. And until a few years ago getting it working under Linux was no walk in the park) but the support for the very large variety of input methods for Chinese is pretty impressive.
Hmm, what could we do to get them to put it ALL online? Donate bandwidth. Donate Servers. Donate money.
It costs money to digitize it all, and more to make it available. If everyone gave them more than enough money then they'd be able to afford to do something like this.
Is that MS will do a good bit of real research on where Linux is better than Windows, then they will write two papers: An internal paper to help their people write competitive software targeting Linux's strengths, and a BS paper they show everyone else that is simply the FUD rehashed.
The same was done with the HOtmail migration, why would this be any different?
Yes, You can lock devices and cards to certain speeds. HOWEVER, this will likely limit your effective coverage/range. The further away you are from the AP the more likely you have to communicate at a slower rate to maintain a high reliability delivery rate.
There are definetly better ways to perform DOS attacks on a wireless network.
"Wlan Jack" can send fake disassociation packets, which disconnects clients from an AP. As long as its running, nobody would be able to lock onto an access point.
I also imagine someone could do something that would just flood noise into the spectrum that would kill the connection better than somebody just hogging it at 1 Mbps.
If you have an 11b AP with a bunch of PCs with 11 meg cards and some kind of 2 meg hand held device then the 2 meg device is going to hog the connection until its done.
A solution would be to leave the 802.11b AP inplace and servicing the older 2 meg devices and put an 11a or 11g AP in next to it to service the faster devices. Alternitively you might be able to put the slower devices on channel 1 and put the faster one on 6 and 11 (they have to be 5 apart to avoid overlap, and in the US you only have a total of 11 unregulated channels)
Wireless is different than wired communication. People are just going to ahve to get used to it. More stuff to learn, more rules to follow, more work for people like me.
Slashdot Mirror
I only just started having problems calling out in the last week. Yesterday I too noticed they are selling their own service.
I suspect you may be right.
As far legality goes, they've got the money to hire the lawyers to make whatever they want legal as far as the courts see. They just claim Vonage takes up too much bandwidth and therefore violates the Terms of Service agreement that says they alone determine who or what is using up too much bandwidth and causing problems on their network.
Time to dump Comcast it seems.
I've noticed this too. Some calls are OK out have been OK. But a fair number are having problems. Receiving has been ok.
To add to this, I've noticed Comcast is offering phone service of its own on their website. Perhaps this is what they are up to, scrrewing with Vonage and trying to tell us it doesn't work, but then saying: "Why don't you try our service instead?"
The thing that sucks is I just signed up for Vonage and a have a couple months to go to get my rebate check. I also redid all the drops in the house to be RJ45. I guess I can use RJ11 I'll have to check whcih (568a or b) std I used on the punch downs and if it will work with RJ11 phone cables (been a dang long time since I did any cabling)
I won't really miss the 6-8 megs down, I don't download Distros that often anymore, or any other 500+meg files.
Tell me about it. Here in LA I have been getting calls from recruiters for the past 3 months. And these calls are for my expired DICE resume or other resumes I havn't updated in 6-12 months. If only my CCNP had experience to go with it I'd have doubled my pay rate by now. Instead I'm still trudging along doing MCSE type work (plenty of experience there, just all too much of it in small enviornments, otherwise I'd have doubled my payrate again!)
I just talked to some recruiters yesterday in downtown LA, and they say they are starting to see employment oppurtunities come back to pre-2000 levels.
They look for two things now,
1. CURRENT certs
2. Experience to back it up.
In that order. Too many people out there with 10 years experience in outdated irrelevent systems.
I remember a friend of mine coming back from China talking about this company's routers. The IOS on it was identical to the Cisco IOS, bugs and all. So much so, there were stories of Huawei tech support reffering customers to Cisco Tech support until someone convinced Cisco to send someone out onsite and they found out it wasn't their equipment they were supporting.
I havn't followed it, but I imagine Cisco is trying to go through the Chinese legal system at the moment, and not having a great deal of success.
If all of this turns out to be true, and HuaWei isn't actually making any of their own software, they aren't going to get very far outside of China. Guess I'll have to poke around when my wife drags me back to visit the inlaws this summer.
Teaching is one of the most amazing ways to stay current on technology. The need to prep for class and lookup answers to students questions is only one aspect of it. Many students come with a lot of experience of their own in fields I know nothing about. I can ask them questions and get answers.
:)
Teaching at a Junior College pays decently per hour if you are part time and have a 2 unit class that meets 8 or 9 hours a week.
If I amnot teaching, then I am studying. Next semester I only have one 2 unit class to teach. So I'll take a 3.5 unit Cisco Security class in the Cisco Academy series (We're a regional traing center). It won't get me a full CCSP like the other classes got me CCNA and CCNP, but it does cover Router Fiewalls, some VPN, PIX, and hardening routers. Plus it allows me to review all the CCNP stuff I've forgotten (I'm actually the MCSE instructor at this JC).
Oh and the TOYS! We have 2 7000 series router, 50 2500/2600/1700 routers, maybe 30+ various 2900 3550, 4006, and 6000 series Chasis switches to play with!
Maybe someday I'll have enough Cisco knowledge people will stop offering me nightmare Microsoft jobs and start offering me more interesting Cisco jobs. Until then my knowledge of the hardware infrastructure has kept offers coming in and my pay incrreasing 25% at a time from job to job for the last few years.
PS, you can learn more about a subject by teaching it than by studenting it
I'm a Windows Admin, and live by Group Policy and remote administration tools under Windows 2000/2003 (NT4 had some stuff, but boy did it suck in comparison). I do not know what equivalent things are available under OS X or even unix/Linux. I've only installed Linux on a hobby basis (shrug).
:)
But if I could manage them at least as well as I can with Group Policy, sure I'd switch.
It would also have to be able to run all the shrink rapped stuff we support.
I used to be a big Mac user, back 12+ years ago. So yeah, I'd love to get back to that. It sure seemed like computers were fun back then. But maybe thats becuase it was just a hobby and not my work
Dude! Its called GROUP POLICY! If you are deploying SP2 by hand like that, your network is screwed anyways. You should be locking it down centrally through group policy. You should be deploying SP2 via group policy. You should be setting Automatic Update settings VIA GROUP POLICY!! Do we see a pattern here?
If you, as a system administrator, wish to have control of your desktops, YOU NEED TO *TAKE* THAT CONTROL!
Most of Window's problems are linked straight to lazy administrators, Techs and "consultants" who think all they have to do is plug the network cable into the back of the computer and make sure it has an IP address. You wouldn't stop there with Linux would you? Regardless of the system, you have to make the effort to do it right. Sometimes that means you have to (gasp!) read the documentation (even if it is convoluted mess- and I'm not just talking about Microsoft KB/Q articles)
Yes he was a fabulous Doctor. Wish he had been interested in staying.
I can remember being so stunned the movie even existed (I was in Taiwan at the time I saw it, which was the first I had heard of it) that I never noticed how awful story was. For me, the fabulous job by Paul McGann made up for it all.
Ahh well, least we got a Flash Movie with his voice that was pretty good.
And yes, I secretly hope they make the Special Effects especially cheesey to make it funnier to watch. I doubt they will though. it is cheap enough to grab some Computer Graphics animators and make it all look super modern...
I too liked him as the Doctor. I thought he was the best Doctor since Tom Baker. But he did some interviews where he basicly said he just wasn't into it anymore and didn't care. Kind of hard to (re)hire someone who doesn't feel like doing the job. Pitty though.
When I was reading about Cisco's Technical Assitance Center (TAC) it said that something like 2/3s of their CCIEs had degrees in Electrical Engineering.
Sounds to me like EE is the degree to get if you was a degree in "Network Engineering"
I have to comment on this.
Experience will always be the most important, BUT I just had a stunning experience a few weeks back. An IT Profesional's user group had 5 recruiters come and talk at their meeting. And every last one of them (and the ones in the audience as well) said the same thing: In the last 4-5 months they had seen a total change in what companies were putting at the top of their list for canidates, they had all started listing CERTIFICATIONS as being more important than anything else!
The entire audience was STUNNED. But when we started asking how this could be they gave some interesting explanations. Companies had been having some bad experience with people who had 10+ years of experience but couldn't do anything they were hired to do! (sounds like certified people doesn't it?)
Well, it turns out that these well expereienced people had been sitting in static enviornments living by the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Meaning, they had not kept up with the change in technology, and companies had decided the only way to see on a Resume if they had was to see if they were certified. Formal training was even better, but the recruiters pointed out that when they search their Resume Database they search for easily found words like CCNP, MCSE (got both) etc.
The other thing they said were a lot of "Experienced" people were self taught and had no "methodology" to their work. That is, instead of starting at layer one and working their way up the OSI model they'd just use intuition and start turning knobs and flicking switches. Another way to put it, they didn't know any of the THEORY or what was happening underneath it all.
In the end, I think this trend will swing back to Experience, but for awhile (at least in L.A.) Certs are trumping Experience.
---
Now as far as what school to go to for a Netwrok Engineer degree. I think you should stop looking for "Network Engineering" as a degree and look at what degrees 2/3s of the CCIEs that work at Cisco have: Electrical Engineering.
When I was in Taiwan there was a German company selling heaters there and the add company they hired put Hitler on the sides of busses and billboards announcing this Heater from this company would Win the War on the Cold Front!
It didn't take long for the German company to find out and fire the add company, but that is an add you won't see in America (and sure as heck not in Germany).
Who's lawyers called up theirs to tell them user license agreements would be violated if Dell techs told people how to remove Spyware and therefore make Dell liable and sueable?!
Well, no matter, we wipe all the Dells we get in at my company (thank god for RIS).
Jeesh...
Reading the article over on ZDNet indicates that this technology is targeted on Corporations. Corporate desktops would have a SW agent installed that talked to the Cisco devices (Switches more likely than routers). This SW agent would be designed to communicate with various AntiVirus software out there to ensure it is up to date. If it is not the Agent would tell the Switch not to talk to this PC (or, I imagine, put it on a special VLAN that had an update server for the AV software as well as a patch server for Windows).
Here is the Zdnet link:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5108883.html
I thought IPv6 was supposed to help with the large internet routing tables and help deal with some security issues. Its been awhile since I read up on this since I deal so much in IPv4 that it just hasn't been necassary for me to readup on v6 in awhile. Hmmm... Perhaps thats why we aren't going to upgrade, we're all too busy dealing with v4....
LA Times reported this this morning. Basicly, the pair have nothing in their name and are residing in Mexico. It is a Civil judgement so we can't extradite them:
2 5, 1,582808.story
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spam25oct
Ack! We aren't going to see the Clone Wars on the big screen?! I have to say, Lucas did have a choice: He could have chosen NOT to make these awful movies. Back when they were left to our imagination they were so much better. I always thought that was the purpose of NOT making them! It gave the originals a depth that is now erased.
Sigh... Maybe Speilberg can convince him to let him make a Clone Wars movie...
Honestly, back when I was 7 yrs old and watched Obi Wan tell Luke about his father being the greatest Star Fighter Pilot in the Galaxy during the Clone wars, that was all I could think about wanting to see. CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS !! Gosh Darnit! I want my CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS CLONE WARS !!!
Yes, I feel like throwing a hissy fit now that I have discovered Lucas is yet again going to soil his own series. Somehow I had been holding out hope that Episode III would save the series, now i have had that hope dashed... Which is why I try not to pay attention to any of this stuff.
Oh well... back to real life...
I lived in Taiwan for 5 years. Hacker wars between the two countries occured several times over the course of those five years. They were mainly nationalistic college kids defacing opposing gov't web sites.
The difference here is one that many have been anticipating for some time. If you read any of the retoric coming out of the communist gov't in regards to Taiwan it is plain as day: They intend to make Taiwan a part of China by WHATEVER MEANS they can. Since they don't have the military means (look it up on FAS.ORG) they've okayed the project to cooridinate a "Cyber" attack on Taiwan.
As far as Taiwanese Government officials talking out their ass's- When have Gov't officials NOT talked out their butts?
Funny, my wife has no problems using Windows 2000 to read and type Chinese on her computer. Previous versions certainly sucked (I have first hand experience on this having lived in Taiwan for 5 years and had to set up both Linux and Windows computers. And until a few years ago getting it working under Linux was no walk in the park) but the support for the very large variety of input methods for Chinese is pretty impressive.
Hmm, what could we do to get them to put it ALL online? Donate bandwidth. Donate Servers. Donate money.
It costs money to digitize it all, and more to make it available. If everyone gave them more than enough money then they'd be able to afford to do something like this.
Is that MS will do a good bit of real research on where Linux is better than Windows, then they will write two papers: An internal paper to help their people write competitive software targeting Linux's strengths, and a BS paper they show everyone else that is simply the FUD rehashed.
The same was done with the HOtmail migration, why would this be any different?
Yes, You can lock devices and cards to certain speeds. HOWEVER, this will likely limit your effective coverage/range. The further away you are from the AP the more likely you have to communicate at a slower rate to maintain a high reliability delivery rate.
If you actually want to broadcast on the same channel(s) the 11b and 11g devices are on, you'd need 2.4 Ghz phones.
There are definetly better ways to perform DOS attacks on a wireless network.
"Wlan Jack" can send fake disassociation packets, which disconnects clients from an AP. As long as its running, nobody would be able to lock onto an access point.
I also imagine someone could do something that would just flood noise into the spectrum that would kill the connection better than somebody just hogging it at 1 Mbps.
If you have an 11b AP with a bunch of PCs with 11 meg cards and some kind of 2 meg hand held device then the 2 meg device is going to hog the connection until its done.
A solution would be to leave the 802.11b AP inplace and servicing the older 2 meg devices and put an 11a or 11g AP in next to it to service the faster devices. Alternitively you might be able to put the slower devices on channel 1 and put the faster one on 6 and 11 (they have to be 5 apart to avoid overlap, and in the US you only have a total of 11 unregulated channels)
Wireless is different than wired communication. People are just going to ahve to get used to it. More stuff to learn, more rules to follow, more work for people like me.
Its a good thing- especially in this economy.